Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“I was,” agreed Thu. “But I don't think Weems told her what hold he had over Bredon. He didn't entirely trust her.”

“No sane man would.” January recalled the hardness of those dark, intelligent eyes. “Would you have killed her? If you'd learned she knew?”

Thu hesitated, his face troubled. Then he let out his breath in a sigh. “I'd like to say something comfortable and respectable like ‘I don't know' or ‘I'd have found a way not to. . . .' But in fact, yes, if she'd showed signs of knowing—or telling—I'd have killed her. They lynch conductors of the Railway, Mr. January. In Virginia they were trying to put through a law allowing black conductors to be burned alive, as fomenters of rebellion and discontent. We can afford to trust no one. We can afford no mistakes.”

The young man glanced back at Hannibal, who had sunk back on the bed and closed his eyes again, then returned his gaze to January. “I know you care a great deal about your master, and I know you trust him . . . but I never met a slave-holder who could be completely trusted. Not even the ones who claim they ‘understand.' If they ‘understood' so well, why do they still own other men?”

January grinned wryly, and produced his much-battered freedom papers from the inner pocket of his jacket. “It's a question that's always bothered me,” he said. “As much as the question of why a slave can come and go on the upper deck—in service to his ‘master'—but a free man can't. But I've given up trying to figure out how les blankittes think. My friend could still have been killed in the duel, and that would have been no kindness, completely aside from landing me in a lot of trouble.”

Thucydides shook his head. “Believe me, my brother is too good a shot to have let your master—your friend,” he amended, handing the freedom papers back with his slight smile, “—be killed. Our father had a rifle that he hid in the rafters of our cabin. He taught us to hunt whenever our master was away from the farm. Later, after we escaped, we lived in the Wisconsin Territory, where it was only a short walk from our mother's house to the woods. We would shoot game to eat, and for Mama to sell to the loggers. It was how we survived. 'Rodus can take the head off a finch at a hundred yards, before it lifts off a branch. I promise you, your friend was never in any danger.”

“But you were,” said January, and after a moment, Thu nodded. “And two people falling over the side would have been a little . . . obvious.”

“Specially with you twitterin' around the boat askin' questions,” put in Lundy, and Thu smiled again, and began to help the old man off with his coat and cravat.

To January, the steward said, “Weems had the issue of the Liberator that contained, not only one of Bredon's speeches, but a description of him. That was before he began running cargoes for the Underground Railway. The article spoke of his eyes, which are—were,” he corrected himself, “—were an uncommon color, and of the pockmarks on his skin.”

He was silent a moment, the muscles of his jaw standing out in hard relief under the fine-grained skin. Then he shook his head and went on. “Weems used that article to get money out of Bredon, after your friend and Byrne cleaned him out at whist . . . and don't think some of us didn't see what was going on in that game. I searched Weems's stateroom as soon as 'Rodus and I pitched his body overboard, but Molloy had been there that afternoon, when all the men were on deck setting the spars. The paper was gone. I don't know how Molloy even knew it was there. . . .”

“He didn't,” said January. “He was looking for something else. Weems probably kept them in the same place.”

“How did you know?” Thu helped Lundy to sit on the bed, then went to the small china veilleuse on the dresser, where Rose had put on a small amount of tisane to keep warm. “'Rodus tells me you said to him, ‘Give me the key,' as if you knew Cain wasn't a dealer, and 'Rodus wasn't a slave. How did you figure it out? If you don't mind telling me,” he added, suddenly a little shy. “We do need to know where we went wrong, so it won't happen again.”

“I don't think it will happen again.” January pulled off Lundy's boots, settled the old man back on the pillows. “You were both very good. I don't think a white man would have suspected. But I was a slave once myself. Since Hannibal and I were doing the same thing—and had to watch out for the same things—it was clear to me that 'Rodus and Bredon were acting like partners, not like slave and master . . . and certainly not like slave and slave-dealer.”

Thu nodded. “They worked together well,” he agreed. “'Rodus had helped Bredon with five cargoes. They tried to keep up the act of hate and mistrust, but sometimes there simply wasn't time to go through the . . . the dialogue.”

“Make time,” advised January. “Trust and cooperation show. It was clear to me by the way the men's gang was acting that Weems had been murdered in their presence. The fact that they all denied seeing or hearing anything told me the culprit had to be someone they considered one of themselves. The fact that you and 'Rodus are clearly brothers pointed out a strong probability that you had something to do with it.”

The steward chuckled. “That's something whites just don't see, you know. Because 'Rodus is darker than me, not a single white man has ever asked if we're related. It's as if men of dark skin are all invisible to them—they don't look at our faces.”

“Which Bredon was counting on,” said January quietly, “when he took that big a gang across in the skiff to pick up Molloy's body after the duel. I take it 'Rodus swam across sometime during the night, and stationed himself on the high ground?”

Thu nodded. “He had one of the rifles from the purser's office wrapped in oilskin, and pushed it in front of him on a plank.”

“That's what the final clue was, you know. After Molloy was shot, I came across in the skiff with Bredon and the slave-gang, and I didn't think 'Rodus was among them. If I hadn't been so worried about Hannibal, I'd have thought more about it. When the group of them came back from the trees on the knoll, and there was 'Rodus with the others, I simply thought I'd been mistaken. I don't think a single soul on the boat gave the matter an instant's thought. ‘There goes Cain with a gang of slaves. . . . Here comes Cain with a gang of slaves.' As if that ‘gang of slaves' was one single entity, and not six—or seven—individuals, each with his own face, his own fears, his own heart.”

“If any whites thought like that,” said Rose, looking up from the bed where she had sat in silence, “they couldn't hold slaves, could they?”

“Don't you believe it, Madame.” Thu's mouth twisted as if he'd bitten into something spoiled. “Trust me, I've dealt with white men who went on for hours about what is best to be done with ‘poor Negroes' but who wouldn't share a tin cup with me, let alone a hotel room. I underestimated your friend,” he added, looking down at Hannibal. “I owe him an apology.”

“For many things, I think,” said Rose.

Thu glanced over at January with a lift of one eyebrow. “I wondered if anyone had noticed that 'Rodus was missing that morning until the detail came back from the shore. Bredon kept the men busy about the boat, so no one would comment that he was gone—they would assume he was simply somewhere else.”

“It worked well,” agreed January. “Except that it was one thing too many. Any single one of those circumstances: Bredon making sure that Gleet was with him on the night of the murder; Bredon keeping the slaves busy on the morning of the duel so no one would know quite where 'Rodus was; 'Rodus re-appearing with the gang . . . any of those might have been co-incidence by itself. Taken together, it was clear to me, at least, that Cain—Bredon—was using 'Rodus as his agent. And that, therefore, the relationship between them was not what it seemed. And given the social position of the average slave-dealer,” added January wryly, “just about the only thing worse that one could accuse him of being was . . . an Abolitionist.”