Mignon

Chapter 19

She let me in in a red-checked gingham dress, the first time I’d ever seen her wearing anything but black. It was just a morning dress, but went with her color somehow, and she seemed pleased when I said how well it became her. Then she brought me into a flat that was the duplicate, in reverse, of the one I was living in, and yet was as different from it as day is from night. In place of the coconut matting, the halls had Axminster runners; in place of the mustard paint was decent wallpaper, with lords and ladies and dogs; in place of the Sunday-School smell was her smell, the smell of books, and the smell of ham frying; in place of the Prussian kings in the sitting room were books — hundreds of them, in shelves as high as your head almost covering the wall. On top, stuck around every which way, were all kinds of pictures and stuff, from photographs of her as a child to old dance programs, filled out. The furniture was old-fashioned, but nicely upholstered in tapestry. At one side was a Steinway grand, at the other a long table, with an iron stand on it, supporting a wash-boiler, with a muslin skirt on it and a spirit lamp underneath, taking the chill off. When I asked who played, she sat down and clattered the keys, saying: “That’s Mozart — Father loves Don Giovanni.”

But then: “I have to watch my meat,” and I followed her back to the kitchen. It was like mine, but looked used and had sacks and bins and canisters. She had a fire going, and in a skillet pieces of ham that she speared with a fork and turned over. She seemed proud of how she could cook, explaining: “I learned it in the convent at Grand Coteau. We were studying to be ladies, but when the war began to come on, the Reverend Mother insisted we study to be cooks.” She gave me breakfast in the dining room: stewed prunes, ham, eggs, and hominy; when I marveled at the menu, how good it was in a place overrun by the war, she said: “Don’t forget, Father keeps store. He knows where stuff is, and how to get it in.” But as I finished my coffee she held up her hand. “That’s Father,” she said. We went into the pantry; she drew the bolts of the trapdoor, I gripped it by the holes and raised it. Mr. Landry came up, dressed roughly, half a skinned deer on one shoulder. He needed a shave and was thinner, but for some reason he seemed younger than I remembered him — it could have been the way he handled the deer. Once again, I noted how strong he must be.

When he saw me, he shook hands, very quiet — not surprised, not upset, and not glad. I said I had business with him, and he said: “Very well, sir — I’ll be with you as soon as I take this carcass apart and get it down in the cistern, where it’ll be cool.” When I told him there wasn’t time for that, he looked at me sharply, dumped the meat on the kitchen table, sat in the chair beside it, and waited. I gave it to him quick, everything he needed to know, down to my killing of Pierre. I said: “They’ll identify him, sure. When they do they’ll go to Burke — they’ll question him, they’ll fine-tooth-comb his place. You’re in mortal danger, as Mignon is, for the reason—”

“I can see the reason, please.”

“Where does Burke live?”

He pointed beyond the back fence to a brick house facing Second Street, cater-cornered across from the market Burke had mentioned, now all shuttered up. I asked: “Can you go in the back way?”

“I have the key, as Frank has to my store.”

“Then, you have to move fast, or else—”

“I know I have to move fast!”

He shriveled me with his tone, then sat there, not looking young any more but horribly old. He passed a hand over his face, then said: “So.” And then, after some moments: “Here I am, at the end of the line.”

“That’s right,” I said, my old bitterness speaking once more. “After chasing that will-o’-the-wisp, that pot of gold you thought was under the rainbow, to hell-and-gone and back, up the river and down the lake, here you are, right where you started from, with every bale of that cotton lost — because once you burn that receipt, the rest of it’s nothing but paper. It’s what you get, my friend, for hooking up with that skunk, the one who turned on you for the sake of making some tin. There’re other things, occasionally, more important than tin.”

“Sir, by what right do you censure me?”

“The right of a man who wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for you. When you brought Mignon, I had to come too — I hated it, I tried to shuffle it off, to pretend there was no need. But here I am, and I’m telling you, if it wasn’t for what you did, we’d all three be in New Orleans, she and I would be married, and life would go on. Instead of which, you stand, and not only you but her, in the gallows’ shadow, and—”

“It may not be so simple as that.”

“It’s exactly as simple as that.”

“That cotton was made over to me by people in desperate need, people I’d helped in one way or another. They’re proud, and it was their way of paying. But they’re still in desperate need, and if there was any way I could cash in, so perhaps they could share—”

“Oh my, listen at Santa Claus!”

“I did share, as you yourself can tell.”

“And when was this noble deed?”

“I bought those boys shoes. You defended me for it.”

“... I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“What else could I do for these people?”

“Fight for their country, maybe — and yours.”

“I’m sorry, that’s impossible.”

“I hear different, Mr. Landry — very different.”

“Our country’s Louisiana. War’s over here.”

“Taylor’s fighting for Louisiana.”

“Taylor’s a fool. I look down on, I despise him, any man that asks boys to die for a cause already lost! I don’t call that patriotism, I just call it dumbness! But if, by using a trick, I don’t care how crooked, I can break out of this hell we’re in, this half-war they’ve inflicted upon us where they won’t let us fight and won’t give us peace, I can get some of their tin, to divide up with my long-suffering people, I’ll do it, I don’t care who I have to hook up with. So it’s Burke, and he turned on me, you tell me. So he did, and I’d kill him, give me the chance. But did he, any worse than the rest? Which of them didn’t turn — on me, on all of us here? I’d kill ’em all! I hate their bluebelly guts, and—”

“But not Willie, Father!”

She stood there in front of him, and he swallowed once, then said: “All right, not Willie.”

“He saved you, don’t forget.”

“... How’s Miss Tremaine?” he asked me.

“But when I opened my mouth to answer, she closed it with her hand. “Are you going?” she asked him.

“Of course I’m going. I have to.”

But he still sat there, apparently gathering his courage, and she said I should cut up the meat. She got a knife, steel, and cleaver from a drawer, and told me: “First you take off the haunch, then the loin, then the foreleg, then the neck, then the chuck, which leaves the rib in one piece — then it’ll all fit in the tub. But first, before anything else, take off the shanks — I can use them tonight for soup.” But while I was whetting the knife, he suddenly pointed outside, and that ended the meat for a while. On Second Street, up by the market, Burke was coming down, walking slow, peering around. “He’s looking for Pierre!” whispered Mr. Landry. “He must not have heard he’s dead!” As the three of us stood by the window, Burke reached the corner, which he had all to himself at this hour, looked in all four directions, and kept on. He disappeared beyond his house, but in a few seconds popped out from the back door into the yard. Then, after snooping into the outhouses, he ducked through the gates in the fences, headed for our back door. “He’ll come in with his key,” she said to her father. “You talk, and talk right — have him come up, and don’t give any sign.”

To me she whispered: “You cover him.”

By then she’d seen the gun, which I’d reloaded before coming over and strapped on under my coat. I drew it, and took position with her just by the kitchen door. Mr. Landry went to the pantry and called. It had its own partition, but was really a continuation of the hall, and the kitchen door was alongside. Burke answered, and we heard him come up the stairs, heard the trap close as Mr. Landry lowered it to cut off retreat. We looked at each other as Burke said: “Adolphe, I’m scared to death — Pierre’s not in the house, hasn’t been in all night. And — did you know? — Cresap’s in town! And I heard shots in the night! And with Pierre detesting’m so, it could mean, God forbid—”

“Real trouble, couldn’t it?”

I stepped out, chocking the gun in his ribs, slapping him up quick, and taking a Colt Navy gun that he had in one coat pocket. I handed it to her, motioned him into the kitchen, and sat him down by the table in the chair Mr. Landry had used. I told him put down his hands. “We have some talking to do. And just to start it off friendly, cast it out of your mind, all worry about Pierre Legrand. He’s dead.”

“... You lie.”

“No. I killed him. After he tried to kill me. Who told him to, I don’t know — but shooting a man asleep is a dirty Irish trick no Frenchman would ever think of.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Ask the Provost Guard.”

“And what do you want of me?”

“As to that, I’ll let Mr. Landry say.”

“Adolphe! Don’t tell me you’re in with this thug?”

“Frank, there’s things I have to ask you.”

“But your home, that you bade me come to, that you invited me into just now, no more than a moment ago, and that I entered all in good faith — where’s the sanctity of’t?”

“That bothers me, I own that up. But this is life and death. Frank, what about that receipt, the one the Navy gave you, for this cotton I made over to you?”

“Well what about’t? I have’t!”

“Mr. Cresap thinks you forged the signature.”

“I forged’t? Is the fellow daft on this subject?”

“What about that pass for Mignon?”

“Well! ’Twas to be a pleasant surprise, and...”

“Pleasant? A trip to her mother’s grave? And who gave you leave, Frank, to mess into it?” Burke’s gall in daring to use this sacred thing seemed to infuriate him more than all the rest put together, and I had to remind him it had nothing to do with the case. He hardly seemed to hear me, but he did get off the subject. “And you had Pierre kill Powell, didn’t you,” he went on in his merciless driving at Burke.

“But Adolphe, how could you think such a thing?”

“The Navy saw him, that’s how!”

“They saw — Pierre?”

Mr. Landry wheeled, said “Tell him, Mr. Cresap, what the boys said in your flat!” I repeated about the red pompon, but Burke, even when hit with the truth, would keep on screaming “Lie!” — and that’s what he did now. However, we’d got to the meat of the matter, and time was going on. I said: “Burke, put your keys on the table.”

“I have a key,” said Mr. Landry. “To his back door.”

“He may have a lockbox or something.”

And to Burke again: “Put ’em out!”

He obeyed, pretty quick, pitching a ring on the table, with quite a few keys on it, of assorted sizes. I reached out to pull it toward me, still holding the gun, hooking it with my little finger to pull it to me. By then, my stick was second nature, and I hardly thought about it as my other hand held it, supporting my weight. But the sneaky Irishman did. He twitched it with his feet, just a little, but that was enough. He shot it out from under me, and as I lost balance and fell, he smashed one hand at my gun, the other at her face, so she fell and his gun flew out of her hand. He grabbed it and leveled both guns. “Stay where you are,” he commanded, “and listen to me, the three of you!” Then he started in, as Landry stood where he was and she and I lay on the floor, pouring out what he felt. It quickly became clear that we weren’t the only ones with pent-up ugly feelings. It was shocking, the language he used, not only to her and her father, but most of all, to me. He swore he was going to kill me, and I had a horrible feeling he meant it. But pretty soon Mr. Landry broke in: “Quit it, Frank, quit it!”

“I repeat every word I’ve said!”

“You want to hang? Because that’s what you’ll do, that’s what we all will do, unless I get that receipt before the Navy gets it.”

He held up his hand at Burke, slipped his hands under Mignon’s arms, lifted her to her feet and kissed her. Then he started for me, to help me up. But, as though doing first things first, he turned to hand me the stick that still lay on the floor. The rest was all one motion. He picked it up by the small end and swung it — in an arc as a batter swings a bat, so hard it whined through the air. The crack was sharp, and Burke fell like a pole-axed steer, toppling from his chair. I grabbed the guns as they fell, shoving the Moore & Pond into the holster, handing the other to Mr. Landry. He took it but without paying attention, as he was staring down at Burke with a wild, venomous look. She was staring too, but at him, as though he was something holy. I guess I stared too, and maybe mumbled my thanks for the quick-witted thing he had done. Then at last he looked up, patted the Colt, and took the keys. He said: “I want him — left where he is, till I dispose of him later. While I’m searching that house — get this meat cut up — put it down, out of sight. If somebody comes — let them in — act natural — talk. If they’re looking for him — all you know is — he was due to leave — for Shreveport. Tell them nothing — above all, don’t bring them back here.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Right,” I agreed.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He went, down through the store, through the gates in the fences, and in through Burke’s back door.