Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“None that play the fiddle as well as you, though.” Rose stepped through the stateroom door and shut it behind her, and, putting her arms around Hannibal's neck from behind, kissed the bare scalp in one of the long fjords of his hairline. “And if you were killed, with whom would I make jokes about the Dialogues of Plato? Run for it. Both of you. I can at least stay long enough to see what La Pécheresse does next. . . .”

“I'm not leaving you alone on the same boat with Gleet,” said January at the same moment Hannibal said, “And I will not condemn the pair of you to the sort of poverty I've been living in since I washed up on these shores.”

“All right,” agreed Rose readily. “But please review for me the part about how both of you being dead will help my situation?”

“Either we all run or we all stay,” said Hannibal firmly. “Who knows? I may actually shoot the man. Twenty paces isn't that far.”

“As you say.” Rose's voice was grim as she turned the implication around. The light of the single oil-lamp transformed her spectacle lenses into ovals of gold as she folded her arms. “Have you ever handled a pistol?”

“It's been many years,” admitted the fiddler. “And I was never very good at it. The one duel I fought when I was up at Oxford was with a dear friend, and we were both so drunk, it's astonishing we didn't kill our seconds while trying to delope.”

“Sounds promising,” said Rose. “Was the woman you fought over properly appreciative of the occasion?”

“How did you know it was a woman?” asked Hannibal, genuinely surprised, and Rose rolled her eyes.

“This is serious,” said January quietly. “Someone is trying to murder both of us using Molloy's temper—and his marksmanship—as the weapon. Without Hannibal's protection and testimony I stand a very good chance of being hanged once the boat reaches Mayersville. Even with it, it's going to be a closer call than I like.”

“They really have nothing on you except Molloy's testimony,” pointed out Rose reasonably. “And as Hannibal showed, that can easily be explained as a mistake. There's an even chance that the case against you will fall apart in the face of any kind of defense at all, particularly when all the facts come out.”

“Facts like me being a depositor in the bank that Weems robbed?”

“Absolutely,” said Rose. “For all you knew at the time, Weems was your only link with your money. We may even be able to convince the sheriff to hold the Silver Moon for a proper search . . . though I imagine Molloy will put up a fight about it.”

“And the demand by a single woman, and a woman of color to boot, would not carry much weight with the average county sheriff, would it?” asked Hannibal quietly. “Whereas even my death would convince Colonel Davis that I am a man of honor, and hence my cause is worthy of his taking up arms in its—and your—defense.”

“I am not,” said January grimly, “going to stand by and let you get killed in the cause of convincing Colonel Davis of our honor. It's all of us run or none of us—hanged or acquitted, our detention in Mayersville is going to lose us the money. I think it may be time for all of us to go over the side and swim for shore.”

He reached under the narrow bed as he spoke, and pulled out Hannibal's meager valise. Outside, footfalls hastened back and forth along the promenade, and confused voices proclaimed the general uproar on the boat as the tale of seduction, discovery, and challenge spread. January could only imagine the comments flying about the engine-room as Molloy announced that the Silver Moon would remain in place until dawn—that the fires had to be drawn again, the steam dumped off.

In the confusion, he supposed, it would be an easy matter to slip over the rail, though he didn't look forward to trying to navigate the woods in the darkness, with or without the added complication of Levi Christmas and Company. At least, he reflected, it would be some time before their disappearance was confirmed, and they could probably make it down to Vicksburg again and take a boat for New Orleans. . . .

Hannibal settled back in his chair and folded his arms, watching January with a stony dark gaze that eventually stilled January in his tracks.

The two friends regarded one another in silence. Then January said, “I won't have you die for the sake of my money.”

“He might not kill me,” said Hannibal.

“Pigs might fly,” added Rose in a tone of helpful sarcasm. “If you do not flee with us now, we shall be obliged to drag you into the river by force, you know.”

“I shall cling to the rail and scream,” replied Hannibal.

Rose started to speak, then closed her mouth with a whisper of released breath. January set the valise down on the bunk. Outside on the promenade, Dorothea Roberson's voice pleaded tearfully, “. . . Surely they cannot delay us further! We have nothing to do with this terrible muddle. . . .”

“You two have saved my life more than once,” said Hannibal into the cicada-ridden quiet that followed. “And I have been able to do nothing—literally nothing—except express my undying gratitude, entertaining as far as it goes but of as little use as anything else I've managed to produce in the course of my misspent life. Our flight—and the concomitant relinquishment of the chase—is almost certainly the intent of this little badger-game, whether it was La Pécheresse who forged those notes or Molloy himself. And I rather resent the automatic assumption,” he added, “that I will turn tail.”

“I'm not going to be like the lady in the ballad,” said January, “who throws her glove into the lion's den simply to see if her suitor loves her enough to fetch it out. No love, quoth he, but vanity / Sets love a task like that.”

“He may not kill me,” repeated Hannibal. “Depending on the sheriff's views on dueling, Molloy runs the risk of being taken off the Silver Moon himself if he does—Is dueling illegal in Mississippi? Or anywhere in the South? All he has to do is miss once—then even if I miss my shot, which I almost certainly will, it is up to me, not him, to demand a second round. But I won't let you lose all that you've worked for because I haven't the courage to stand still for one shot which may not even hit me.”

A brisk knock: to Hannibal's “Ine!” Davis appeared, followed by Gleet, both of whom stopped on the threshold in surprise to see not only January, but Rose in the stateroom. In the thin line of Davis's lips—and the twitch in his face—January read disapproval. A man's valet is one thing, but the presence of that valet's sweetheart as well bordered on willing fraternization with people of color that ill became the gentleman Hannibal was striving to personate.

“Mr. Byrne was able to provide us with a pair of pistols,” said Davis as Rose departed with a curtsy and a smile. “Do these meet with your approval?” He held out a rosewood case containing a pair of silver-mounted Mantons—from somewhere on the promenade little Neil Tredgold's voice whooped triumphantly, “Bang! You're dead!”

Hannibal's mouth flinched under his mustache, but he said steadily, “They do, thank you.”

“The encounter itself will take place on the bank of the river,” continued Davis. “There is a clearing there about thirty yards in length, just this side of Hitchins' Chute. The ground is level and the surrounding trees are thick enough to prevent the sun from giving especial advantage to one or the other. However, the encounter will take place as soon as it is light enough to see, so direct sunlight itself should be no issue. Ben, will you accompany the shore party as surgeon?”

January inclined his head. Gleet objected, “Mr. Molloy's not gonna want no nigger pokin' around, if Sefton should happen to wing him,” and Davis regarded him with cold blue eyes and demanded, “You have an alternative candidate?”

Gleet didn't, but retired nevertheless to consult his principal on the subject, and Hannibal spent most of the remainder of the night writing out a true account of Weems's theft, Granville's instructions, and the status of January and Rose, both legally and vis-à-vis the Bank of Louisiana, “in case worse comes to worst.” January, descending to the galley in quest of coffee, found, as he had suspected, the rest of the boat in a state of milling excitement, the deck-passengers already staking out positions along the rail of the upper-deck promenade to watch, and laying bets as to the outcome. Even the deck-hands were betting—one of them asked January what Hannibal's experience of dueling had been and he was hard-pressed not to throw the man overboard. As he passed the engine-room door he heard the crew cursing as they dumped steam and probed the glowing amber maws of the furnaces to draw out the fires once again.

“That Molloy, he come down to the engine-room for a couple planks to make hisself a target,” said Eli as he poured out coffee for January from the pot on the iron spider above the flames in the box of sand. “He say he gonna shoot at playin' cards, to put his eye in.” And even as he spoke, from overhead came the bellow of a pistol.

January felt in his coat for Hannibal's flask—not that the fiddler didn't almost certainly have a spare in his luggage somewhere. He only hoped Hannibal's nerves were sufficient to get him through the night without recourse to an anodyne that wouldn't help his aim any the following morning.

“According to Jim,” said Rose when January encountered her on the promenade outside, “a note saying, You are betrayed—Miss S has gone to Sefton's room was tucked under the coffee-cup that Thucydides carried up to Molloy in the pilot-house at ten. I haven't located Thu to check this, but I've certainly seen the note, which Jim retrieved from the pilot-house floor. The paper looks like that in the writing-desks of both the Saloon and the Ladies' Parlor, and the ink seems identical to that of the note purporting to be from Hannibal to Theodora. Cissy brought the blotting-paper from the Ladies' Parlor for me just now, and there's nothing on it that matches. . . .”

“Which means only that Mrs. Fischer—or Molloy, or whoever arranged this trap—worked in his or her room.” January set the small tray of coffee-cup and miniature pot down on top of one of the crates that had been left on the deck after the great Investigation that morning: it was labeled Triple-Refined Sugar and destined for Giron's Confectionery in Lexington, Kentucky. “I wonder if Sophie could be prevailed upon to check Mrs. Fischer's waste-basket? How often does Thu empty them? I wonder.”

“Daily, but it's been a most confused day.” She flinched at another pistol-shot from the Saloon. “The one in Hannibal's stateroom hadn't been emptied. I'll see if I can get Sophie to check. Mrs. Fischer has returned to the Parlor, with the other ladies, to discuss the fate of That Man. . . .”

“Are they laying bets?” asked January with savage irony, and Rose laid a hand on his arm.

He sighed, hearing the rage in his own voice, and shook his head.

“Evidence of a trap won't help Hannibal tomorrow . . . good Heavens, this morning, I should say. . . .” Rose glanced through the window of the galley beside her, at the big box-clock that hung on the wall in the corner. “But whatever we find will strengthen our case when we get to Mayersville.”

“If we get there.” January took her hand gratefully, then scrubbed a weary palm over his unshaven face. “It feels like we've been stalled on this particular bend of the river for days.” And it felt like weeks, he thought, since he'd swum out along the shallow waters over Horsehead Bar, to be hauled up onto the Silver Moon again, battered and exhausted by his cross-country jaunt from Vicksburg. Yet it had been only Sunday, the day before yesterday.

Strange, he thought, that so little time had passed since the most complicated matter in his life had been to simply stay with the boat and watch Oliver Weems. Since the solution to the problem had been merely one of finding which trunks the stolen gold and securities were in, and proving the crime on Weems.

And now even the retrieval of the money, if it could be accomplished, began to seem like a tawdry and trivial goal compared to all the greater things he could not do. Compared to the image of the woman Mary walking back to the isolated prison of her slavery, to the thought of Julie weeping on Rose's shoulder, terrified of a fate to which she'd been betrayed . . .

Compared to the voices of the chained men along the starboard promenade, singing to keep up their spirits in the night, and the ropy cross-hatch of scars on 'Rodus's back.

And those things filled him with a helpless aching, like those dreams of trying to rescue Rose from some terrible fate. But this was the world into which he woke from dreams.

There was nothing that he could do, he knew. Not even vote for men who might change what the Founding Fathers of the United States had decreed should be.

The thought of simply taking his money—if he could find it—and using it to make himself, and Rose, and their future children as safe as he could make them, now felt to him as dirty and mean as if he were leaping into a rowboat from a sinking ship, leaving 'Rodus and Jim, Julie and Sophie, and all the rest chained on board to die.

The sense of helplessness was worse than his earlier anger, his earlier fear.

Another shot cracked out, and he cursed, thinking of Hannibal back in his cabin, patiently writing out instructions to be opened in the event of his death. Rose slid her arms around him, comforting or seeking comfort; he pressed his cheek to the soft white folds of her tignon, the scent of her, as always, dissolving the pain inside.

He couldn't do a thing to save Mary back in Mississippi, or Julie hiding in the woods along the river, or the men and women chained along the sides of the 'tween-decks fifteen feet away from him. . . . He couldn't do a thing to save Hannibal, short of murdering Molloy himself, and even that might not work. . . .

He couldn't even accomplish what he'd set out to do on the Silver Moon, namely, find where the Bank of Louisiana funds were and pin the crime on Fischer and Weems. Somewhere out there in the deepening blackness of the Mississippi woods, he thought, Baron Cemetery and the Grand Zombi and Guédé-Five-Days-Unhappy were all laughing—and down in the hold, Queen Régine was laughing, too.

And waiting.

Had the Bank of Louisiana collapsed during the course of this past week? Would Hubert Granville even be in New Orleans still, to back up January's assertions when the sheriff at Mayersville would, inevitably, write for clarification?

And what would happen if Granville had absconded as well?

To distract his mind from this question, he followed Rose over to the lantern that hung in the galley passway, where Winslow, Andy, and most of the deck-hands were clustered around Jim, gaping at the Fatal Note. A comparison under his magnifying lens showed January that the two notes, though the handwriting was disguised, had been written with the same pen, or at least with two pens cut at precisely the same angle, almost certainly by the same hand, though whether that hand had been a man's or a woman's he couldn't tell. Thucydides still could not be located to tell how the Fatal Note had come to be under the Fatal Coffee-Cup, but Eli, when asked, said he put up the tray for the pilot on the counter near the door, for either Thu or one of the lesser stewards to carry up at ten. Anyone could have gotten to it.