Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“By whom?” asked Rose, startled. “Mrs. Fischer was on the promenade with Mrs. Tredgold and Mrs. Roberson—I saw her. And Mr. Cain was on the deck below.”

“Levi Christmas, maybe? Or one of his men?”

“But that would imply communication between him and someone on board—either Theodora or one of those awful deck-passengers. Since we've been stopped, there hasn't been a moment when there wasn't a guard of some kind on the hurricane deck. I don't think they could even have signaled without being seen.”

“I know,” said January. “I didn't say this was something I could prove, or even explain. But one thing I can and will do is have a look at the bullet lodged in Molloy's skull. And if it's a ball from a Manton dueling pistol, I'll eat it.”

While they'd been speaking, the great stern paddle had begun to turn, slowly driving the Silver Moon out into the channel of the river from the dead water behind the point. The river had fallen to its former low level, and the boat was surrounded by a veritable forest of snags that scraped at the hull and caught in the paddle, forcing the vessel to stop repeatedly while the deck-hands clambered here and there with poles to thrust off. January could hear Mr. Souter's voice yelling down from the hurricane deck, and unbidden to his mind rose the thought of what it must be like to be hidden in the damp, smelly darkness of the hold, listening to the grate of dead wood on the thin walls and knowing how much water lay immediately outside.

The thought made him shudder. He might fear Queen Régine, waiting like a spider down there in the darkness—holding whatever secret it was that she held about Weems's death—but he pitied her, too. She was a woman half-crazy and without fear, but there were limits even to craziness and courage.

January wasn't certain he could have stayed down there and listened to that horrible scraping sound.

When he and Rose reached the upper deck, almost the first thing they encountered was a knot of people grouped at the corner of the 'tween-decks near the door of Molloy's stateroom. Colonel Davis stood by the door, looking as if he wished he could simply call a sergeant and order everyone back to their quarters. Mrs. Fischer, her handsome face flushed behind the black veils she'd assumed, was shouting at him, “The man was a thief and a scoundrel, and I know that it was he who stole poor Mr. Weems's money! Mr. Weems told me himself, that on Saturday, when the boat ran aground on the bar above Vicksburg, and all the men were pressed into service in that disgraceful manner, he came back to find his stateroom door open and his money gone. . . .”

“And you just know it was poor Kevin, do you?” Miss Skippen lashed at her shrilly. “You just saw in his face that he was evil, because he didn't play up to you and tell you you were beautiful, is that it?” She turned to Davis, clutching at his sleeve. “Oh, what am I to do? Mr. Davis, I must get into that cabin! I left some things—my money—with Kevin—with Mr. Molloy—for safekeeping, and I must get them back! Oh, to be left this way without my fiancé's protection . . .”

“Fiancé?” Mrs. Tredgold sniffed. “A fine way to treat your fiancé, to make up to other men and send him to his grave, not that I believe for a moment that he offered to marry such a piece of work as yourself. . . .”

“Ladies,” pleaded Mr. Tredgold faintly.

“You see here.” Mrs. Tredgold stabbed a thick finger at Davis. “I've heard the rumor that you plan to tell the sheriff at Mayersville to hold the entire boat for investigation of these absurd stories about Weems having a fortune in stolen gold aboard. . . . What I have to say is, I'd like to see that fortune! You order us about, ransack every piece of luggage on board, delay us needlessly, run up a fortune in wood-charges that we'll have to pay and soon, if we're to make it to Mayersville at all. . . .”

“And where do you think you're going?” Mrs. Fischer rounded on January as he tried to speak quietly to Davis. Without waiting for a reply she went on. “You forbid me to enter the stateroom of a man who robbed my fiancé, yet you're going to let a thieving black Negro in—”

“As a surgeon, Madame,” interposed January, “I need to make an examination of the body—”

“For what purpose? We all know he's dead.”

Theodora cried, “Oh!” and sagged against the rail of the stair up to the hurricane deck. Nobody paid any attention.

“All you want to do is search the room for anything you can get that you think will help your master prove my poor Oliver was a thief! Well, if he can enter, then so can I !”

“Madame, you will do nothing of the sort,” retorted Davis, blotches of color staining his pale cheekbones. “I will accompany this boy and no one else—”

“Who are you to treat us like you were a policeman and we were all criminals?” interrupted Mrs. Fischer, shoving her face inches from the planter's. “You paid your passage on this boat like everyone else!”

“Tredgold,” said Mrs. Tredgold sharply, “it's for you to take charge here. Now, you go into that stateroom and look for Mr. Weems's money for poor Mrs. Fischer!”

Davis stared at her, speechless with indignation, and from above Souter shouted, “Mr. Lundy says, if you're all gonna argue, argue someplace else! He can't hear the leadsman and he can't hardly hear himself think, he says!”

“You be quiet!” yelled Mrs. Tredgold back. “This is my husband's boat and we'll say what we want, where we want to!”

“Dearest . . .”

Mr. Souter came hesitantly halfway down the steps from the deck above. The Silver Moon had begun to move, the breeze flowing down the river as they rounded Hitchins' Point riffling his thinning black hair. “Er—then Mr. Lundy says your husband can pilot the boat wherever he wants it to go.”

Geranium-red with fury, Mrs. Tredgold stormed up the steps, nearly shoving Mr. Souter over the rail. Davis and January darted at once to the stateroom door, to which Davis bent with a key, probably obtained from Thu. Mrs Fischer strode in their wake like a black-sailed ship fully rigged for a race and Theodora Skippen brought up the rear, not a tear on her face and the only redness visible being her rouge. From the hurricane deck voices drifted down, mostly Mrs. Tredgold's.

“That's just what we need,” muttered January as Davis unlocked Molloy's cabin door. “Lundy quitting on us . . . because there isn't a pilot under the sun who'll put up with being told what to do. . . . Ladies,” he added, turning in the doorway as the two bereaved caught up with them. “It is my intention simply to make a medical examination of Mr. Molloy's body—”

“And cut him up,” demanded Theodora shrilly, “as you did poor Mr. Weems? How dare you? How can you permit . . . ?”

To Mrs. Fischer—ignoring the younger woman's tirade—he continued. “Mr. Davis here will vouch for it that I do nothing else while in the room. Perhaps, Madame, if you could give Mr. Davis a description of what you are looking for, he could locate it without the unseemliness of ransacking the room, as Mr. Weems's was ransacked?”

The woman stood for a moment, staring up into January's face. Her dark eyes were like an animal's, that calculates its opponent's strength, a crimson flush of anger rising under the sallow skin of her cheeks. Though no black man was supposed to meet a white woman's eyes January did so, quietly challenging her, and he was interested to see that she didn't react like a woman born to command slaves. She met his eyes as an equal, an opponent.

Then she turned to Davis and snapped, “I never thought I would live to see the day when a Southern gentleman would stand by and let a lady be insulted by an impertinent Negro!”