Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“Now it's true the boilers on this boat are American-made, which are likelier to split than the English, owin' to poorer-quality iron,” Lundy told January. “But if a boiler's faulty, nine times out of ten you can't tell by lookin' at it, unless it's a seam starting to give. Mostly you can't tell even by the sound of the steam, or by the shake of the engine, or the feel of the boat when she makes speed. But Mrs. Tredgold won't hear of goin' on until they been checked.” He nodded at the stout garnet-red form that nearly filled the engine-room door. “And she's standin' there until they're all checked in front of her eyes. I reckon if a woman's got her children on board I can understand her fears, and the wife of an owner will have heard more than her share about boiler explosions.”

Tredgold turned from the tugging questions of a German woman to his wife's resolute profile—Mrs. Tredgold averted her face from him and called out in a voice like a parrot's “Cissy! Cissy, you keep those children where I can see them! Don't you let them go ashore!”

“We won't be goin' nowhere till nearly supper-time, given how long it'll take 'em to get up steam again,” added Lundy in his soft, humming voice. “Mr. Roberson and his family already went back to their visit with Colonel Quitman, and Colonel Davis has gone on to more visits, and God help Tredgold now when he tries to get his deck-hands out of the saloons . . . they'll be mostly too drunk to walk. Of course Gleet's taken his whole coffle up to the Imperial Hotel to try to drum up buyers. . . .”

Lundy glanced behind him at the men still chained to the starboard promenade, and Jubal Cain walking slowly along the rail before them, scanning the landing with his chilly amber gaze. “If it wasn't a woman's hand on the note, I'd suspect Gleet planned the whole thing, to give him time to peddle his wares in town.”

“As it turns out, it's just as well, sir,” said January diffidently. “My master's in trouble in town. Some gentleman”—It would be worse than useless, he knew, to set a hue and cry against Weems until he had evidence—“gave the sheriff the idea my master was a slave-stealer, and they put us both in jail. . . .”

Lundy's eyes narrowed sharply, and January went on. “A gentleman named Mr. Christmas got me out, and claimed he was with the Underground Railway. A churchman, he was. . . .”

“Churchman, my arse,” said the former pilot. “And you had the brains not to go with him? Let me shake your hand, my friend. Levi Christmas is one of the worst scoundrels on the river. For years he'd hold camp revival meetings, and preach so well, not a soul in the tent noticed when his friends went out and stole every horse outside. Lately—since there's been talk of the Underground Railway—he's gone into slave-stealing, promising the poor souls he's going to raise money for them by the old sale-and-escape game, then killing them to keep their mouths shut after he's collected four or five thousand dollars with their help. I'm surprised he let you get away.”

January was a bit surprised, too—and a bit disappointed. He'd have enjoyed beating the tar out of Levi Christmas. It was as he'd guessed, but the confirmation raised a wave of burning rage in him.

“I didn't know that, sir,” he said when he realized how long he'd been silent, and what his expression must look like. He wished he had dragged poor young Bobby out of the Stump instead of simply giving him a choice that the boy was clearly unfit to make. He took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “I told him I couldn't forsake my master. He must have figured he'd need me to consent to play his game, because he pressed me, but didn't try to use force. But my master's still in jail. . . .”

“I'll take care of that.” Lundy straightened up and groped for his cane. “You stay on board here, Ben. No sense taking chances on things getting any more complicated than they are. It's that weasel Rees, I bet . . . he makes a fair-enough living off bribes, he'll end up as sheriff himself one day, and God help the town then. You don't happen to know,” he added with a sharp sidelong look up at January, “who accused your master of slave-stealing, or why?”

And though Lundy tried to cover it with a casual tone, January thought there was a note of deeper and more intent concern in his voice than the query seemed to warrant.

“No, sir, I don't. I thank you for taking care of it—you're sure I can't go and help you in some way?”

“Just get me a cab if you'd be so kind.”

January was, in fact, glad to return to the safety of the Silver Moon after a brief excursion down to the landing to signal one of the hacks waiting in the shade of a warehouse. He had no desire to run into the Reverend Christmas on shore. Even if Bobby had kept his mouth shut about January's warning, he had a feeling that Christmas would be merciless at silencing critics. He made his way down the starboard promenade, past the chained line of Cain's slaves: they were talking quietly, gathered as well as they could around 'Rodus. He felt their silence as he walked past.

At the stern end he found Rose. She was talking with Julie, so he couldn't very well catch her up in his arms and kiss her, as he wished to do, or say, You, my nightingale, are a genius. . . .

“Mrs. Fischer returned about half an hour ago with Mr. Weems,” Rose said, turning to meet his smile. “So I suppose poor Sophie's going to be occupied for the rest of the evening. Mrs. Fischer seemed to be in a frightful mood when she called to Sophie, probably because she realized the boat wasn't going to be able to proceed until nearly dark.”

“I never figured why white folks always got their hair on fire to get somewhere quick,” sighed Julie, squinting in the sharp, hot sunlight as Molloy stormed out of the engine-room's rear door and up the stairs to the boiler-deck. “What's it matter if we stays here another few hours? What's so all-fired important in Vicksburg, or Memphis, that it can't wait? The boiler really gonna blow up if they runs the boat too fast?”

She looked scared, and trying to conceal it. She wasn't even, January guessed, as old as Bobby, and the recollection of Bobby stabbed him with guilt again, that he'd left the boy his own choice about escape.

Even if making your own choice was what freedom was about.

“Most accidents on steamboats are because the pilot gets careless,” Rose soothed. “I think whatever else can be said of him, Mr. Molloy is a good pilot, and not likely to take foolish risks.”

“Then how come they think they got to check all the boilers?” asked Julie. “They wouldn't be check 'em if there wasn't somethin' wrong.”

“I can't imagine,” said Rose with a sidelong glance at January. Eli, the cook, on his way back into the galley, overheard and paused long enough to shoot back.

“Hey, Julie, these is white folks we're talkin' about.”

And all three of them laughed.

“Shit,” sighed Julie. “Here she is.” Across the open mud-flat of the landing, Theodora Skippen appeared out of the mouth of a scummy alley. “God, I hope she ain't drunk again.” As Miss Skippen hurried toward the Silver Moon, her white bonnet-plumes nodding with her step, one of the stevedores said something to her that elicited an obscene gesture, quickly released as she realized there might be respectable ladies on the upper-deck promenades who might see her. She was not, January reflected, particularly bright—or else she'd had enough liquor at the Stump to blunt her animal cunning for survival.

Julie rubbed her ear, which, dark as she was, showed fresh bruising as well as the earlier nail-gash cuts, and went up the rear stair to be in Miss Skippen's stateroom when Miss Skippen returned there. Across the confusion of the wharf, January could see the Reverend Christmas leaning in the mouth of the same alleyway, watching the Silver Moon .