Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“That is, as Hamlet said, the question,” replied Hannibal. He was in shirtsleeves, like all the other men on deck, and didn't look like he'd slept. Rose, too, looked haggard and ashy. “I was on my way back to join you, when I saw that wench Sophie. . . .”

“Well, I'm sure this is all very touching,” chuckled Mr. Souter, emerging from the engine-room rubbing his hands. “And I'm sure your boy has some remarkable tales to tell of his odyssey—” He flung out his arms like a barker at a raree-show, “Amazing feats by land and sea! But let's save the tears of joy for after we get this god-damned boat off this god-damned bar. . . .”

So January followed Souter to the bow, and spent until nightfall in the tedious occupation of sparring the steamboat over the Horsehead Bar. This well-known local landmark below the small Horsehead Point had apparently proved too high and too gravelly to be simply rammed through, and the Silver Moon had hit its outer end too hard to be poled off backwards. Once the long poles were sunk upright behind the boat, every male on board, white as well as black, with the exception of the three planters standing guard and the deck-hands wooding the engine, was drafted to turn the capstan-wheels to which the upper ends of the poles were chained. The ends were levered down, and the whole weight of the boat inched gradually forward across the shallow, with the paddlewheel turning slowly to push and a leadsman crying out soundings at the bow.

Then the poles were pulled loose, re-positioned, and the whole laborious process repeated again. The manufacturer Dodd fumed and refused to join the others at the capstans, and Ned Gleet attempted to charge rent for the use of his slaves and was shrieked into submission by Mrs. Tredgold, but on the whole the process went smoothly under Mr. Souter's shouted orders from the pilot-house.

The white women—cabin and deck-passengers alike—crowded the starboard rail to watch, and Molloy came charging along the boiler-deck promenade cursing them and shouting “Trim the goddam boat! D'you want to sink us?”

Muscles aching, arms smarting, body numb with fatigue as he leaned on the capstan-bars between Jim the valet and Hannibal, January scanned the beardless faces in the twilight. He picked out Mrs. Fischer, with her thick brunette chignon and her dark eyes narrow and hard, and Theodora Skippen, turned, not toward the men around the hatch but toward the bank. Saw Sophie and Julie clinging together on the lower deck, arms around one another's waists, the sylph-like daintiness of the one emphasizing the strength of the other.

Saw Rose a little apart, the last of the daylight flashing in her spectacles, and knew that she was watching him.

Where was Queen Régine? he wondered, bending his back again to 'Rodus's rhythmical shout. How had she been able to slip out of the hold as they started unloading the luggage—if that was, indeed, her hideaway down there in the darkness? Could she be simply concealing herself by sitting among the women slaves on the portside promenade in the gathering shadows?

“If she did, I've seen no sign of her,” said Hannibal when January asked, under cover of the slaves' chant as they labored. “And they've kept the luggage under guard from the moment they started moving it out, drat them.”

'Rodus's voice rose in the work-chant, and the slaves took it up as they threw their weight on the capstan-bars:

Mama brought me coffee-uhn!

Mama brought me tea—uhn!

Mama brought me evvythin'

'Ceptin' the jail-house key—uhn!

On the capstan-bar before them January picked out the bent back of Jubal Cain, heavy shoulders standing out like pink-stained marble between the black and whip-scarred backs on either side. He took up the song; a moment later Mr. Byrne the gambler, heaving the bar between Quince and Weems, added his.

Turn me over easy——uhn!

Turn me over slow——uhn!

Turn me over easy, lord,

'Cause de bullets hurt me so——uhn!

Every man of Cain's coffle, January saw, was whip-scarred—most of the scars fairly fresh. 'Rodus's naked back told January everything he could have asked about a short life-time of defiance. Yet the dealer worked among them, sweating in silence, and neither the man to his left nor to his right offered challenge.

“As I said, I was halfway back to you with the news that the boat hadn't let steam down, when I recognized Sophie,” said Hannibal, panting as he leaned his weight on the bar to the timing of the chant. “I followed her back to the boat, and she went straight to their stateroom. I watched to see if I could get in—they clearly hadn't abandoned it—and just as it began to get light, who should appear but the guilty pair themselves, La Pécheresse with a false beard and enough padding to hide her Junoesque curves, and Weems in a very fetching French-blue gown and veils. I was looking around the boat to see if you'd followed them back when we put out. They must have bribed Molloy to keep steam up—Tredgold was furious when he woke up about an hour later.”

“The more fools they,” murmured January. “Since Molloy was one of the Bank's depositors. He must have laughed when they handed him the money—probably the remainder of what Weems got from Cain. Molloy's too good a pilot for this to have been an accident—with the luggage in a shambles you couldn't get to it, but he could. I saw Weems and Fischer leave the hotel but didn't recognize them.”

With solemn mischief, 'Rodus led the chant:

Massa, he an ugly man——uhn!

Missus, she a sinner——uhn!

Skin a flea for tallow an' hide

An' gimme the bones for dinner——uhn!

It was dark by the time the skiff was loaded up, and the two coffles of slaves were put to work helping the deck-hands replace the cargo in the holds under Thucydides's sharp eye. Iron cressets loaded with firewood burned on the deck and on the bank to light the work, and all the white men were given rifles and set to guarding the bank, with the exception of Mr. Quince, who declared that violence of any kind was repellent to his nature. “Milksop,” said Cain impersonally, pulling on his coat and taking up a rifle—his own, a .50-caliber Henry, not one of the Lemans from the ship's store.

A belated dinner was served in the Grand Saloon, and January retired to Hannibal's stateroom, where the fiddler tipped Thu to send in a copper tub and hot water for a bath. “It's one thing there's never a shortage of on a steamboat, thank God,” said Hannibal as January stripped off his mud-crusted clothing and settled in the round towel-draped tin vessel. “Rose was going to dump the boilers if you didn't show up by the time the cargo was re-loaded. With everyone on deck it wouldn't have been difficult.”

January smiled. “That's my Rose.”

“According to Tredgold, we should be under way by the time dinner is finished, and Mrs. Tredgold ventures to hope you and I will play after dinner, though I don't expect there will be much in the way of dancing.” Hannibal knelt on the bunk—there was almost no floor-room left with the bath—and dug through his portmanteau for clean shirts for them both. “I think we can safely venture to say that neither Weems nor Fischer will abandon the boat tonight. With the luggage jumbled as it is, they probably couldn't find their own trunks, even if they had some means of transporting them elsewhere, and there's a fog rising. I doubt Molloy could see the flag on the landing of any plantation we pass, and the next town is Mayersville, fifty miles up-river. It's small. I suspect we're safe until we get to Greenville, sixty miles beyond that.”

“We may not have to worry about them leaving the boat,” said January softly. “But I saw Mrs. Fischer as she looked down at us turning the capstan—I saw the look in her eyes. We're not safe.”