Barbara Hambly - Dead water

Needless to say, neither the immigrant families who were dossing down on the bow-deck nor the wild Kentucky rivermen who shared the space with them were invited to join in the revels. Mrs. Tredgold insisted on singing and required her two children, eight-year-old Melissa and six-year-old Neil, also to sing duets (“Now, aren't they the most adorable children you've ever seen?”) Mrs. Roberson and her younger daughter, sixteen-year-old Dorothea, read a scene from Much Ado About Nothing, which the extremely elegant Mrs. Fischer declared compared favorably to the version she had seen at Covent Garden in London.

“And if you'll believe that,” murmured Hannibal, eyeing the majestic brunette, “might I interest you in some stock I have in a diamond-mine in the Nebraska Territory?”

It was Mrs. Fischer, January noticed, who took it on herself to draw pretty Dorothea Roberson away from Molloy's fair-haired inamorata Miss Skippen, and to whisper something to Mrs. Roberson and Mrs. Tredgold that apparently sealed that sprightly young lady's fate. By the time the ladies retreated to their own parlor again at ten—accompanied by Mr. Quince, who proceeded to lecture them on the Grecian System of Round Dancing and the evils of alcohol—there was a decided space between Miss Skippen and all the rest.

After their departure, the men settled down to cards again. Davis, Molloy, Gleet, and a bachelor planter named Lockhart made up one table of whist and—January never quite saw how this was maneuvered—Hannibal and Byrne formed up a set against the Massachusetts mill-owner Dodd and Weems.

They were still at it two hours later when January put up his borrowed guitar, finished the coffee Thu had quietly brought him, and nodded good-night to the impassive steward. Weems was winning, and played his cards with an air of cocky excitement and new-found delight. January saw the glance of almost sleepy amusement that passed between Hannibal and the gambler Byrne, and could have pitied Weems if the man hadn't effectively ruined him and Rose. It was fascinating to see them set him up, playing as much on his greed and vanity as on his inexperience: “Lord, you're hot tonight,” murmured Hannibal approvingly, and Byrne shook his head, adding, “Look like it's not going to be my evening.”

January was reminded of those farm-wives who made pets of their rabbits so the little creatures wouldn't run away when it came time to knock their heads off for the pot.

Dodd, of course, simply chomped and slurped his way through the “little after-dinner snack” he'd ordered of pickled eggs and crullers, seeming barely to notice how much he lost.

The night was close and hot when January emerged onto the upper deck promenade. The hard silvery light of the quarter-moon sparked on the paddle where it threshed at the water, and from above him he heard Molloy's voice calling jovial insults at his assistant pilot, a gangling and talkative young man named Souter. From the other side of the boat as he descended the steps to the lower promenade, he heard the slave men singing: “I'm goin' away to New Orleans. . . .”

And like the sweet breath of evening wind, the voices of the chained women rose in the response, “Good-by, my love, good-by. . . .”

Closer, below him in the well of darkness, a woman's voice gasped, “Let go!”

“S'matter, honey, you too fond of them Frenchies to want a real man?” The voice was drunken, the accent from up-river somewhere, Kentucky or Tennessee.

Another voice giggled, “Can't tell us a pretty yeller gal like you, you ruther have one a' them black bucks over there, 'stead of Kyle an' me.”

“No—”

“You hear somethin', Kyle?”

“Not me. 'Fraid she must be speakin' Frenchy. . . .”

January had already started down the stair—wondering what the hell he could say to an unknown number of intoxicated white boatmen that wouldn't get him beaten up—when he heard Rose's voice: “Allow me to translate for you gentlemen.”

She spoke in the carrying steely tone of a schoolmistress, and as he sprang down from the stairs he saw the little group by the thin reflected glow of the engine-room door. There were three of them, shaggy-haired, dirty, and bearded, in faded shirts and Conestoga boots, hemming in the fairy-like little maidservant he'd seen following Mrs. Fischer on board. One of the boatmen had pulled off her headscarf, her thick hair hanging in a dark coil to her waist. She was pressed against the piled wood, arms folded tight over her breasts while the men tried to pull her hands away.

Rose stood in front of them, spectacles flashing.

“Git on outa here, bitch.”

Rose didn't move. Only looked at the men with calm disdain.

“Git on outa here,” said another. “'Fore we take a switch to you, too—or some other rod you won't like so well.”

Rose stood her ground. From the darkness behind her emerged Miss Skippen's tall, lush-breasted young maid, and the stout nursemaid who'd chased the Tredgold children around the deck, and a little white-haired woman whom January recognized as the mother of Eli the cook . . . all standing with their arms folded, simply watching the men with jeering eyes. Behind them in the dark the deck-hands began to emerge from the engine-room door, not offering any word or deed that could be termed as insolence, or punished as rebellion. Just simply staring.

That ring of watching eyes, January reflected, would be enough to make any man's drink-induced interest in rape stand down.

Mrs. Fischer's maid twisted free of the men's grips and ran to join the little group of women.

“Goddam bitches!” yelled the taller of the boatmen. “I got me a mind to buy the goddam lot of you, fuck the lot of you till you begs me for mercy!”

But the women merely turned away from them and faded into the darkness.

“Bitches!” yelled the tall man. “Hoors!” And his shorter companion, who had a yellow beard like a louse-ranch, took his arm and tugged him toward the piled wood that separated them from the chained slave women. “C'mon, Sam, somebody gonna be down here in a minute. . . .”

As the three men vanished through the gap between wood and rails, January heard one of them snarl, “What you lookin' at, bitch?” The words were followed by the meaty thud of a kick, a woman's stifled gasp, and the jingle of chains.

“Are you all right, honey?” Rose asked the maid in French as January came to join the women near the stern rail. They were little more than shapes in the dense shadows of the 'tween-decks, save for the flash of Rose's spectacles. Beyond them, moonlight flickered terrifyingly on the shapes of snags and towheads, bobbing in the water nearer shore.

“Thank you, yes, I'm fine. Thank you so much, Madame. . . .”

“Vitrac.” Rose used the name under which she'd bought her ticket. “Rose Vitrac.”

“I am Sophie Vannure.” The girl's voice shook with sobs she couldn't control. January wondered whether the little maid had been so well-treated all her life that this was her first experience with molestation, or whether some earlier wound had been opened. In either case, he saw Rose put her arm around the girl, supporting her lest she fall.

“These yours, honey?” The stout Tredgold nursemaid Cissy came over from the wood-piles, carrying a couple of big shawls that had been dropped there. Sophie held out her arms.

“Thank you, yes. My mistress . . .”

“She turn you out to sleep down here?”

“I know why my missus turn me out,” sniffed Miss Skippen's maid in the rough cane-patch French of one who'd probably cost a good deal less than the refined little Sophie. “With no more than ‘Julie, I'll want coffee in the morning.' Don't tell me m'am high-and-mighty Fischer got a gentleman friend comin' to visit her, like my Miss Theodora does?”