Barbara Hambly - Dead water

Along the foot of the bluff, between the steep brown cliff of clay and the brown waters of the river, lay Natchez-Under-The-Hill.

“Whatever you do, stay on the boat.” From behind the corner of the 'tween-decks, January watched Mr. Weems fussing about the bow-deck, like an animate marigold in his mustard-colored frock-coat, as he supervised the raising of two trunks from the hold. “My guess is, they're off-loading part of the loot for storage here, to be picked up later when the search dies down. I think they'll be back.”

In the wide space of mud and gravel that lay between the water's edge and the first row of rickety warehouses and taverns at the foot of the bluff, a dozen drivers waited with carriages of various sorts, now and then hopping down from their boxes to bargain with passengers from the boats. Oliver Weems strode briskly across the landing-stage to the bank, signaled to one of the drivers. Just beyond him, a bearded white man dashed naked from one of the filthy alleyways, howling that he'd been robbed.

In the windows of a dozen ramshackle sheds, women of every shade from alabaster to ebony leaned out and shrieked with laughter; a man in a saloon doorway yelled, “Still got the family jewels, Bert?” The smell of the tangled criss-cross of streets under the summer heat was like the Swamp in New Orleans, and the feel of the place—of casual violence and uncaring vice—was, if anything, worse.

“Be in town awhile, Henry?” yelled a red-haired strumpet from a second-floor window, causing Mr. Tredgold to jump as if scalded; three other girls poked their heads through the same window and blew kisses.

Resplendent in his shabby coat and chimneypot hat, Hannibal paused on the landing-stage and stretched out a hand:

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the East, and Juliet is the sun. . . .”

“And if they don't return?” asked Rose softly as January stepped back into concealment at her side.

“We'll get you word.”

In the engine-room, the stokers were drawing the fires from the furnaces, or damping them with ashes, to keep a low level of steam seething in the boilers without running them dry. The engines were silent, the black monster of the paddlewheel still; in the relative quiet, the shrill screams of Miss Melissa and young Master Tredgold could be heard: “We want to get off the boat! Let us get off the boat! Mama said we could get off the boat, Cissy! We'll tell Papa to beat you unless you let us . . . !”

The denizens of Natchez-Under, January reflected, would chop those two children up for breakfast and serve them with grits.

Early as it was, the deck of the Silver Moon bustled with life. The planter Roberson handed his wife and daughters down the main stairway—as far as January had seen, the first time any of the Roberson females had descended to water-level since New Orleans—and conducted them across the landing-stage to where the brightly-polished black landaulet of family friends waited to take them visiting while the boat lay in port. The deck-passengers hastened ashore as well, the immigrant families to replenish their provisions from the town markets, the Sams and Kyles and their ilk to get drunk and laid and, January earnestly hoped, if possible, killed as well. Thucydides stood beside the hatch, tallying something in his notebook. Mrs. Tredgold screamed orders. Mr. Tredgold wrung his hands.

“Well, if you miss the boat,” said Rose, who always had a backup plan, “I'll leave you reports at General Delivery, left till called for, in Vicksburg, Mayersville, and Greenville, and I'll wait for you at the best free colored boardinghouse in Memphis. I'm not sure I'll be able to pursue our friends beyond Memphis alone. . . .”

“You're not going to have to pursue our friends anywhere,” insisted January, more to reassure himself than her. He pulled her into his arms, kissed her hard. The thought of Rose alone in a strange city—much less a hub of the slave trade like Memphis—made him shudder, even without the added complication of her trying to convince white American police that a respectable white banker was a thief. . . .

“I won't miss the boat.”

“Of course not,” agreed Rose far too promptly.

Why do I dream about rescuing this woman? If she ever dreamed about anything more disturbing than conjugating Latin verbs, she'd dream about rescuing ME .

“There,” said January softly. “Only one valise. They'll be back.”

Mrs. Fischer descended the stair, paused to gaze down her nose at Ned Gleet as he thrust and drove his slave-gang ashore, then swept to the landing-stage, where Weems waited by the cab. Sophie followed meekly, carrying a green-striped canvas valise. Across the landing, Hannibal wandered vaguely toward the insalubrious alleyways of Natchez-Under, gazing about him as if he'd never seen such a place before in his life. It was time to go.

“Take care,” Rose whispered.

Convinced that the boat would in fact leave, that Rose would in fact be carried off to Memphis alone with Ned Gleet, January fought not to hand her his half of Hubert Granville's traveling expenses. God knew which of them was actually going to need the money more, in the next few hours . . . or the next few days. . . .

And as he strode across the landing-stage, and through the trampled muck to Hannibal's side, he cursed the desperate necessity of money, that could make the difference between a life that was bearable and one that brought nothing but friction and grief. That could make the difference, for those of the wrong shade of skin, between freedom and a lifetime in bondage.

Especially in the American lands.

He glanced back, and saw Jubal Cain standing on the bow end of the boiler-deck, gazing after Weems and Mrs. Fischer as the pair of them climbed into their cab.

Though the river was low, the usual summer rain of the Mississippi Valley had briefly drenched Natchez the previous night, leaving the landing area, and the ascending mud-wallow of Silver Street, ankle-deep in red-gold ooze. January and Hannibal would have been hard-pressed to remain behind Weems's cab, and the dray with the trunks that followed it, as the horses leaned and slithered in the mud. Fortunately, Silver Street was the only road up the bluff, so they walked up with the air of innocent tourists, passing the vehicles with barely a glance. Above the level of the riverbank willows, the Mississippi unreeled northward, like a skein of silver yarn played with by a particularly mischievous kitten. It was cooler up here, too; the baking heat of the morning was mitigated by the winds breathing over the bluff.

The mosquitoes seemed to have been left behind in Natchez-Under as well.

“Fit penalty, a Protestant preacher would say, for those who linger in the dens of vice,” remarked January as they emerged onto the long green space of the Spanish plaza that rimmed the bluff.

“Hard lines on the poor insects, though.” Hannibal paused to lean against an oak that had probably been old when LaSalle and his explorers camped under it. “Unless they're fond of cocktails that consist of two parts clap and three parts whiskey. But I suppose that, being inventions of the Devil, the mosquitoes deserve it themselves.” He was gasping from the climb, years of consumption having left him, January knew, with lesions and scar-tissue of every kind in his lungs. He fished in his pocket for his opium-bottle and took a drink. “Care to take bets on how many of those poor immigrant deck-passengers make it back on board? I went down last night and tried to warn them—the Germans listened, but the Irish seemed to regard me in the same light that our friend Molloy does, as an Orangeman and a fiend.”

“How can they tell?” January kept an eye on the top of Silver Street, where a cluster of the immigrant women made their timid appearance, looking around for the town market at the far end of the plaza. “You sound Irish only when you're drunk.”