Dead water

NINETEEN

January dabbed some of the liquor from the flask onto his finger and tasted it, but the bitterness of the opium and the heavy sweet of Malaga sherry drowned any hint of whatever had been added to the brew. Still, he had no doubt that the poison, whatever it was, had been put into the flask. Taking a drink from it would have been the first thing Hannibal did upon entering the room.

And the second thing would have been to lock the door against Theodora Skippen, who was apparently determined—not to say desperate—to find a new protector for herself. No wonder Rose had had to get Thucydides to open it.

Since Hannibal seemed to have vomited everything in him, there seemed little point in a further purge. “See if you can get some water and a little salt beef from the galley,” January said, and dug in his medical kit for a paper twist of dried foxglove. Hannibal's hands and face were icy, but sweat stood out on his forehead and cheeks. When January lifted back his eyelids, he found the pupils dilated rather than constricted, as opium would have left them. His breathing was sunken to a thread—January watched closely the rise and fall of his chest, but though he seemed deep in a stupor he was having no obvious trouble or spasms.

“Why on earth would anyone have wanted to poison Hannibal?” demanded Rose, returning with a pitcher.

January mixed the tiniest pinch of foxglove with the water, and gently raised his friend and spooned some of it into his mouth. Hannibal swallowed, but didn't open his eyes.

“For exactly the reason we thought he—or she—had provoked the duel,” replied January grimly. “To get us off the boat. To get me off the boat . . . since, if I'm supposed to be Hannibal's slave, I must remain in Mayersville with him even if I didn't do so out of sheer humanity. If he died—”

Rose's eyes widened and filled with tears, and January shook his head reassuringly.

“His heartbeat seems to be steadying. And his breathing isn't weakening, so I suspect our poisoner miscalculated the dose. But if he had died, I'd be held by the local authorities pending arrival of next of kin. . . .”

“Or Gleet would produce a bill of sale and a story about how Hannibal signed you over to him to pay a gambling debt.” Rose's voice had an edge like chipped flint.

January raised his eyebrows in agreement, but said nothing for a time. For a long while the only sounds in the room were the droning of the flies—which infested this side of the boat—and the dull throb of the engine and the splashing of the paddle as the Silver Moon picked up speed, and the slow, sobbing whisper of Hannibal's breath.

“Yet it was Molloy they killed.” Rose picked up the rifle-bullet January had laid on the dresser and turned it over in her fingers. “They could have shot Hannibal at the same time. It is ‘they,' isn't it? Not ‘he or she'?”

“I think so. And the more I look at it, the less I'm inclined to believe that Molloy's death has anything to do with Weems's theft of money from the Bank of Louisiana.”

“You mean if Weems was blackmailing Cain—and had a letter or whatever it was in his stateroom that Molloy later took—he could have had something that implicated someone else on board? Mr. Lundy, for instance? Except we know where Lundy was when Molloy was shot as well.” Rose edged around January and began to pull off Hannibal's boots.

“I'll get that,” January offered, making to put down the medicine, but Rose shook her head,

“I'm no good with nursing, and I've had plenty of practice at yanking off Hannibal's boots.”

January grimaced agreement and ran an affectionate hand along his unconscious friend's arm. “I'm afraid most of his friends have,” he said. Rose looked exhausted, and no wonder, thought January. The night of stress and fear for her friend had been followed by the terrible shock of finding him still in peril . . . and there was still the decision looming of what they'd do when they reached Mayersville and the sheriff took January and Hannibal into custody.

A decision, thought January, glancing at the brightening daylight through the louver-slits of the door, that he—and she—would have to make probably within the hour.

“You don't think it was Queen Régine who poisoned him, do you?” she asked. “You said there were poisons in the bundle we found. If he'd seen her accidentally, for instance . . .”

“If Queen Régine wanted to poison anyone,” said January, “it would be me. . . . And I've been very careful not to eat or drink anything that's stood unwatched in this stateroom. And Queen Régine knows perfectly well that I know—and therefore, that you and Hannibal know—that she's on this boat, and nobody's been able to see her yet, except one glimpse of a skirt. If that was her. If she'd wanted to poison Hannibal, for whatever reason, he'd be dead now.”

“I suppose so.” Rose sank down onto the bed, rubbing her forehead. “But even if someone got off the boat under cover of darkness, to hide in the trees—which could have been done fairly easily—I still don't see how they could have gotten back on after the duel, when it was daylight. We watched everyone go over and come back: Gleet came back, Cain and his slaves went over, and Cain was with the slaves the whole time. They came back with Molloy's body, then later a deck-hand rowed over and got you.”

“Yes.” January came around behind her and laid his big hands on her shoulders—the muscles of her neck felt like wood under his fingers. “Cain and his slaves. There are unanswered questions concerning Cain and his slaves on the night of Weems's death, too, aren't there?”

Rose opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. Then she said, “Cain . . . is using his slaves as agents? That's terribly risky, isn't it? He's a slave-dealer. . . .”

“He says he's a slave-dealer,” said January softly. “But we've been on this boat for over a week and I have yet to see him even try to sell a single slave.”

Outside, the pilot-house bell clanged as the Silver Moon approached the landing of Brock's Wood-Yard. Souter's voice trumpeted orders to the deck-hands to cast lines and bring her in. A shadow darkened the doorway of the stateroom, and Quince said, “Much as I abhor intemperance of any variety, might I offer your master a sovereign remedy for the inevitable fruits of such behavior? In this particular instance I am inclined to hold him guiltless—it is clear to me that the quarrel was forced upon him by that . . . that abominable hussy, and Mr. Molloy got no more than he asked for.”

“That's very kind of you,” said January as Rose moved aside to let the young man into the already crowded stateroom. “As it happens, I suspect my master is ill rather than drunk. There was no liquor in the stateroom, and, as you can see, no smell of it.” He took the bottle proffered and sniffed the cork. “What's in it?”

“A distilled vegetable elixir known to the ancient sages of Persia and India,” replied Quince helpfully.

“Known to the Old Man of the Mountains, anyway,” remarked Rose, taking a sniff of the cork, but she spoke in Latin and January—who had also detected the unmistakable pong, not of the Old Man of the Mountains' legendary hashish but of more modern laudanum—carefully schooled his face not to laugh.

The vibration in the deck was easing as the engine stopped. Gleet yelled, “You bucks get that wood on deck fast as you can, hear?” and footfalls thudded dimly down below.

“As if one can smell anything,” added Quince, his handsome face set in a grimace, “over the stench of poor Weems. It is absolutely disgraceful that we were so long delayed in taking his body to Mayersville. I cannot think what state it will be in, to be returned to Philadelphia for burial. I have asked to be moved—it will serve Mr. Tredgold right if no one is able to occupy that chamber ever again. All Molloy's fault, and Tredgold's, for letting a pilot ride roughshod over him in that fashion. I have taken it on myself to write to Weems's family. . . .”

“Did you know Weems?” asked January. “Before last Monday, that is?”

Rose raised her eyebrows at the question, but Quince replied without hesitation, “Not well. I saw him, of course, at the meetings at Brotherhood Hall—the Philosophical Antislavery League. But I suspect he was only a dabbler. He ceased to come, oh, four or five years ago. I was not surprised,” he added primly, “to learn that he had submerged his principles in his quest for pecuniary advancement in the slaveholding states.”

“But he did go to Abolitionist meetings in Philadelphia?”

“Oh, yes. It's funny—well, not really funny—but queer, in connection with those meetings . . .” Jack Quince laughed self-consciously, and ran a hand through his smooth black hair, rendering his face suddenly boyish. “I could have sworn there was another old acquaintance from them here on this boat, and I was much chagrined to discover how wrong I was. What curious tricks the Deity plays upon humankind to be sure!”

“What was that?” asked January, leaning his elbow on the side of the bunk and looking absorbed in fascination.

“Well, when I first saw that dreadful Mr. Cain, I could have sworn that he was one of the speakers at those Brotherhood Hall meetings. In fact, I mentioned the matter to Weems, and asked him if Cain didn't look exactly like Judas Bredon, except for the beard. Imagine my embarrassment when I discovered that not only was Cain not an Abolitionist, but that he was actually a slave-dealer, a trafficker in—”

From somewhere close—down on the bow-deck, January thought—came the unmistakable crack of a pistol, followed by a woman's scream.

An instant later Souter's voice rose in panic. “Pirates! In the wood-yard—” and was cut off mid-sentence by the bark of another gun. Then all hell broke loose.

A fusillade of gunfire crackled from the bow-deck. A man howled in agony, a woman screamed something in German, and the whole vessel shuddered and heaved.

January said, “Stay here,” grabbed Hannibal's pistol from the floor beside the bunk, and darted from the stateroom, whose door was promptly slammed behind him—he heard Quince's wailing protest, “But he told us to stay here!” as he raced along the promenade. Other men jostled him, running toward the bow, too, Roberson and Lockhart pelting from their cabins coatless and in stocking feet. A bearded ruffian with a pistol in either hand came around the front corner and started to yell something to them—Lockhart whipped a pistol from his pocket and fired.

January dropped to the deck—the ruffian fired both weapons at once and missed with both, then turned and fled as the two planters, both completely unscathed, tore after him, whipping from their belts the bowie-knives that Southern manhood rarely went without.

Underfoot the Silver Moon lurched and heaved, the paddle driving forward and someone in the pilot-house—almost certainly Lundy—veering the flat-bottomed craft over the shallow mud of the shelving shore by the wood-yard and back to deeper water. Reaching the bow, January got a glimpse of one-eyed Levi Christmas down on the main deck below, crouching behind a crate with half a dozen ruffians while two or three more—including several of the rougher deck passengers—struggled with the deck-hands.

They were waiting at the wood-lot, thought January. A wave of self-disgust rolled over him that it hadn't occurred to him, after all the delays around Hitchins' Chute, that the wood-yard was the single place where the outlaws knew the boat would have to put in.

January wondered if Hannibal's pistol was even loaded. A moment later a bearded scoundrel in a faded shirt swung himself up over the promenade rail with a knife in his teeth and ran straight for the bow stair to the main deck, to take its defenders Davis, Gleet, and Cain from behind. The scoundrel had three pistols slung around his neck on ribbons, the way pirates of old used to carry them—he was reaching for one to shoot Davis in the back, when January shot him from a distance of less than eight feet.

Hannibal's gun was indeed loaded.

Davis whirled as the bandit fell, his own pistol at the ready. January ripped free both the bandit's unfired pistols and the powder-horn. He tossed one gun down to the young planter, and the next second Christmas and his ruffians emerged from cover and made a run for the stair, firing as they came.

Davis flattened behind a stanchion as a bullet tore a hunk of wood inches from his face. Cain fell back against the rail, clutching the spreading crimson stain on his chest, then pitched forward off the stairway to the deck. He was still trying to get up, when two of the attackers seized his arms and threw him overboard, one of them following him immediately, shot through the head by Davis. Gleet turned tail and charged up the stair, nearly colliding with January as half a dozen deck-hands rallied around Davis, armed with logs of firewood, push-poles, and an assortment of artillery that was illegal for any black man to possess.

“They'll try to take the engine-room and the pilot-house,” January yelled down the steps. “Anyone at the back of the boat?”

“Eli in the galley!” a deck-hand yelled back, so January dashed to the steps that ran down to the stern by the galley passway. No one was guarding either stern flight, nor the rear door of the engine-room in the passway. At the moment the only occupants of the deck were Sophie and Mrs. Fischer, in the midst of hauling the work-table out of the galley and dragging it to the rail as an improvised raft.

“Hold it steady, you imbecile girl!” Fischer screamed at her weeping maid.

“Don't do it!” January yelled, and both women whirled. Sophie was ashy with shock, but Mrs. Fischer raised the pistol she held to fix unwaveringly at January's heart. January halted, let his own pistol fall, and held up both hands. “You'll be safer on board,” he told her.

“Under the protection of this parcel of dolts?” Mrs. Fischer stepped close enough to scoop up the weapon.

“Madame, he's right, I told you! Please . . .”

Fischer didn't even glance at her servant, her eyes on January. “Get on the raft, you stupid wench, and don't argue with me!”

“Madame,” said January, “all you'll do by jumping ship is make yourself a target. . . .” As if to prove his words, a bullet tore the deck near his feet.

“And I suppose if I remain, Mr. Christmas is going to content himself with inquiring politely about the gold?” Her hat and veils gone, her black hair tumbled thick about her shoulders, Mrs. Fischer had an air of grim gypsy wildness, as if she had finally thrown aside her disguises and revealed the woman beneath. “No, thank you . . . I'm sure that bitch Theodora will be as quick to point you out, and your drunken master, as the ones who know something about it, as she will to point her dirty little finger at me. Now, get that table under the rail!” She reached back to grab Sophie's arm and thrust the girl at the flimsy craft balanced on the edge of the deck.

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.