Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“There will be an inquiry, of course, in Mayersville.” Davis unfolded his lean form as Cain and his gang returned from the woods and began to lash together a makeshift bier. Interestingly—to January at any rate—violence and death seemed to have calmed the young Colonel's tic rather than exacerbated it. “I think there is ample evidence that it was Molloy who provoked the quarrel; perhaps sufficient reason to believe that had your master not accepted the challenge, Molloy might have resorted to less formal violence. You will not lose many days on your journey, and I assure you, I will debark also to testify to all that I have seen.”

“Sir,” said January, glancing across the water at the Silver Moon, “I appreciate that, and I thank you for all the help you have been. But I am almost certain now that the quarrel was engineered by others—by someone who sent messages to both Hannibal—my master,” he corrected himself quickly, “—to Miss Skippen, and to Mr. Molloy, with the intention of forcing a duel in order to get us, and Molloy, off the boat.”

“Surely you're not still claiming that Weems's ill-gotten goods are hidden somewhere aboard? Every trunk and crate was searched. . . .”

“Every trunk and crate was on that boat for days—long enough for Molloy, I am almost certain, to transfer the bulk of the gold and stock certificates to another hiding-place on board,” said January. “I think that's what Weems was looking for when he was killed. If this boat continues on without us, we lose all chance of finding the loot—and incidentally any chance of identifying once and for all Weems's murderer.”

Davis was silent, one finger curling around the ends of his wispy beard, studying January's face with thoughtful eyes. Beside them, Guy and 'Rodus gently lifted Molloy's body onto the bier, and the other slaves clustered around to load it into the skiff. January glanced back toward the Silver Moon, and saw Mrs. Fischer on the bow end of the boiler-deck, engaged in what looked like a furious three-way argument with Theodora Skippen and Thucydides.

The Colonel said slowly, “Well, I admit that there is something very strange going on aboard the Silver Moon —something that has so far cost two men their lives. I believe that a great number of people are lying about what happened the night before last, and about why you and your master came aboard the vessel in the first place. But as for delaying the entire boat so that it can be taken apart piece by piece . . .”

“I suspect there's something in Mr. Molloy's stateroom that may help us,” said January desperately. “When we get back to the boat, with your permission, and in your presence, I'd like to have a look through the room. . . .”

“I think that's a good idea. I am most curious myself as to what we might find there.”

“And if I might be so bold as to make the suggestion, it might be a good idea to lock and seal the door until the room can be examined.”

Davis looked a little surprised. “Aren't you coming back to the boat with us now?”

“I'll return in a few minutes. Half an hour at the latest. There's something I want to look at here on shore—or look for . Could you speak to Mr. Tredgold about holding the boat until I come back, sir?”

The Colonel nodded, evidently perfectly comfortable with the thought of a trusted slave being permitted to poke about on shore unsupervised. With Hannibal huddled in the bow, and Quince clinging queasily to the stern gunwale and trying not to touch the corpse, the skiff set out over the water, leaving January alone on the bank under the watchful rifles of two deck-hands and Mr. Lockhart on the hurricane deck.

Even with such guardians, January had qualms about remaining on shore alone, though on balance he judged that Davis's authority—self-assumed though it might be—would be better used in making sure Mrs. Fischer didn't ransack Molloy's stateroom, than in witnessing whatever he himself might find here. He first paced off the dueling-ground, finding in the damp mud of the bank the marks of Hannibal's battered old boots, and, twenty paces away, the rucked-up, bloodied earth where Molloy had stood.

Putting his feet in the heel-gouges left by the pilot's first rocked-back shock, he sighted along his own outstretched arm to where Hannibal had stood . . . then turned his head just slightly to the left.

He was looking straight at the little rise of ground covered with oak trees, from which the raven had flown, shrieking, a moment before Davis had given the signal to fire.

But when he reached the grove itself, January gave a groan of frustration, for it was here that Cain's slaves had cut the saplings for Molloy's litter. Bare feet, ragged knees, had left their marks everywhere. Saplings had been pulled up, branches broken . . . any of those forked sticks lying snapped on the ground could have been used to rest the barrel of a rifle on. If the still, damp air here had ever held the smell of powder smoke, it was gone now, shaken away by the stir of activity.

January could only kneel in the soft earth behind a bank of hackberry brambles, where a break in the foliage gave a clear view of the dueling-ground, and of the place where a few minutes before he—and earlier Molloy—had stood. But whatever tracks might have been left there, by whoever it was who frightened the raven from its perch, had been obliterated.

He returned to the upstream edge of the dueling-ground, and for nearly half an hour searched the straggling willows and cottonwoods without finding a lodged pistol-ball that would have borne out his theory of what had actually taken place on the shore. By the time Thu called out to him that Mr. Souter wanted to get under way—that Simon in the engine-room had threatened to cut his own throat before he drew out the fires one more time—January had still found nothing.

One of the deck-hands rowed across in the skiff, and brought him back.

“What were you looking for?” asked Rose, waiting for him on the promenade.

“Hannibal's pistol-ball,” said January. “Did you see Molloy when they brought him aboard?”

She shook her head.

“He was shot through the left temple, just in back of the zygomatic bone—the outer rim of the eye socket.”

“How could Hannibal have shot him there?” asked Rose immediately. “If he was looking straight at Hannibal to fire . . .”

“Exactly. The hole is huge, and the path of the bullet—as far as I could see, and I'll probe it when I see the body again to make sure—seems to go diagonally through the head, cracking the right occipital bone in the back. When Davis dropped the handkerchief as a signal to fire, did you see anything strange? Anything out of the ordinary?”

“Other than two grown men shooting at one another because one of them didn't like the fact that the other had spoken to a woman he claimed was ‘his own'? I was watching Hannibal,” she added in a gentler voice. “Hoping against hope he'd be all right.”

“ Is he all right?”

Rose sighed. “He's probably unconscious with laudanum by this time, and who can blame him? He looked deathly sick when he came aboard, and went straight to his stateroom. That Skippen hussy came tearing down the stair and tried to throw herself into his arms and he thrust her aside, but he couldn't speak. She's knocked at the door of his stateroom three times since, and tried to open it—I was keeping watch at the end of the promenade—but it's locked from the inside. What did you see?”

“Two grown men shooting at one another,” replied January with a wry grin. Then he sobered. “I was watching Hannibal, too. But when I saw the wound in Molloy's head I remembered how that raven flew up, just before the signal to fire, and it came to me that the whole thing might have been set up. That the intended victim wasn't Hannibal and myself, but Molloy. I think Molloy was shot with a rifle from that little oak grove at the head of the chute.”