Barbara Hambly - Dead water

But Sophie sobbed, “No!” and pulled back. As another bullet ripped the deck, Mrs. Fischer shoved the girl aside and kicked the table down into the river, gathering her black skirts above her knees to slither under the rails and down to its work-smoothed surface. The shouting in the promenades was getting louder as the deck-hands, armed with sticks of firewood, clustered among the slaves—somewhere Levi Christmas's booming bass voice yelled, “Don't shoot the goddam niggers, they're worth a thousand dollars apiece! Go over the stairs to the back!”

The thunder of boots on the upper-deck promenades seemed to decide Mrs. Fischer. She pushed off the side of the boat, crouched almost flat on the stained oak, and began to paddle with a broad-bladed fire-shovel toward the shore. Her black clothing stood out against the muddy yellow of the river, the blinding glare of the morning sun.

“Get up to the pilot-house,” January ordered Sophie, who seemed frozen by the sight of her mistress paddling away. When the girl only raised tear-soaked, terrified eyes to him, he shook her, and thrust her in the direction of the stair. “Hurry! They'll be back here in a minute . . . !”

She fled as if all the devils of Hell were snapping at her skirts, and January plunged into the starboard promenade, where the deck-hands and the chained slaves clustered tight.

January strode straight to 'Rodus and said, “Cain was shot, thrown overboard. You'll have to use your key.”

The slave looked at him steadily for a moment—“You crazy, man?” demanded a deck-hand near-by.

Someone on the deck above screamed and fell with a crash that shook the arcade overhead. Slowly 'Rodus reached into the filthy juju-bag tied around his waist under the band of his ragged trousers, and pulled out the manacle key.

“Keep them from getting in the engine-room or the pilot-house,” said January. “Guard the stairs and the passway. Will this key work for Gleet's women?”

'Rodus shook his head. “He got padlocks on 'em.” He'd already unlocked his own manacles and passed the key to the next man, all the deck-hands—and Gleet's male slaves, who'd been unchained to help with the wooding—staring in disbelief. “I'll get a pry-bar from the engine-room, if I can get in there. . . .”

At that moment the engine-room door flew open and Thu sprang out, pry-bar in hand. He skidded to a stop at the sight of January. Recovering quickly, he threw the bar to Guy, who was next beside 'Rodus in the line, and said, “You go get the women.” Fishing in his pocket, he produced another key; this he handed to Guy—when the man and three of Gleet's slaves had ducked into the passway to cross through to unchain the women on the other side, the steward turned back to January, unconsciously moving shoulder to shoulder with his brother.

“Cain is gone,” said 'Rodus to Thu. “An' Ben here seems to know all about him.”

“Only what I could guess,” said January. “That you and he were taking these runaways”—he nodded toward the others of Cain's gang—“to Ohio. You didn't need to poison Hannibal,” he added quietly. “We wouldn't have betrayed you.”

“A court trial would have held us up,” returned the steward calmly. “I didn't put enough snakeroot in that liquor of his to kill him. Just enough that they'd see he was too sick to try. They'd lock him up someplace to get better and let the boat go . . . damn!” He turned sharply as a small skiff emerged from the mouth of an overgrown bayou behind Brock's Point, the dozen men aboard hauling hard on the oars.

“Reinforcements,” said January grimly as the men on board began to shout and wave to the outlaws on the Silver Moon .

Caught between the steamboat and the smaller vessel on her makeshift raft, Mrs. Fischer half sat up, dark hair flying in the wind, and looked back toward the steamboat. Before she could make up her mind to turn back, one of the men on the skiff whooped and brought his rifle around. There was a puff of smoke. Mrs. Fischer sank slowly down, holding her side. A moment later she rolled from her fragile square of boards into the opaque flood.

There was a flash of black, a ribbon of red unreeling into the water, and she was gone.

TWENTY

“Get in the engine-room!” Thu waved to the newly-released slaves and the deck-hands clustered in the promenade. “Get the women in there. . . .”

“Hold the doors as long as you can,” panted January. “They'll try to take the pilot-house and run the boat to shore. . . .”

“There's guns in the purser's office,” said Thu. “I can break in the case—Tredgold's got the key. We've got only a few minutes before they figure it's worth it to shoot a nigger or two.”

'Rodus grinned, a slash of white in his dark face. “Never thought bein' worth a thousand dollars to some white man would come in handy.”

“You gonna see how handy it is when you end up bein' sold in Texas, brother,” snapped Thu, not unaffectionately, and loped off to unlock the office door.

January sprang up the steps and along the upper promenade, going first to the Ladies' Parlor—where he found every woman and child on the boat, with the exception of Rose, huddled together under the protection of Jim, Andy, and Winslow. He yelled, “Get to the pilot-house!” and raced down to Hannibal's stateroom. Rose, Hannibal, and Quince had already gone. Rose, like January, had guessed that the outlaws had to take either the engine-room or the pilot-house, and when January mounted to the hurricane deck, he found them already in the little cupola, Hannibal stretched out on the lazy-bench only barely conscious and Rose trying to get the other women—including one Irish and two German deck-passengers and their children—to be quiet and stay still. The room was tiny, and with twenty extra people jammed into it, there was barely room for Mr. Lundy to cling to the wheel.

“Blame you, what the hell you have to send 'em all up here for?” The pilot's buzzing voice sharpened with annoyance, though January guessed he actually knew perfectly well. He was barely to be heard over the screaming of the Irishwoman's baby and Melissa Tredgold.

“Too hard to defend three places,” January answered. “They killed Cain and three deck-hands and threw them overboard like dead dogs. Any captive's going to end up a hostage.”

Mrs. Tredgold slapped her daughter with a blow like a gunshot, and the girl screamed even louder.

“I'll give 'em a list of who they can have with my compliments. . . .”

Jim—clustered with the little group of men outside the door—shouted, “Here they come!”

January yelled, “Let's go!” Their ammunition was gone, so the little gang of men who'd gone up—January, the three valets, Byrne the gambler, Mr. Tredgold, blanched and shaky with shock, and even Mr. Quince—caught up logs and canes and threw themselves across the dozen feet or so to the top of the stair, to stop the attackers before they swarmed onto the hurricane deck itself. Those who followed unquestioningly—and January had one terrible moment of fear that nobody would—soon realized the strategy he didn't have time to explain: that bunched together on the narrow stair, it was almost impossible for the attackers to fire or, if they did, to aim, whereas if they were able to fan out over the hurricane deck, they'd be in a position to rip the pilot-house itself apart with cross-fire.

Swinging his makeshift club of firewood, January dodged to one side as Levi Christmas fired on him almost point-blank. The stinging heat of the ball whiffed his arm, then he fell on the outlaw before Christmas could unsling another pistol from around his neck. January grabbed the stringy outlaw by the throat, his hands tangling in a mess of filthy beard, and twisted his hip to protect his groin from a jabbing knee. With his other hand he caught the Reverend's wrist as the older man brought up a pistol—they clung to each other, rocking and swaying at the top of the stair with the other outlaws massed below, unable to fire, trying to shove past and being beaten back by the defenders on deck.