Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“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.

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.

Christmas pulled a knife from his belt with his free hand, and January had to twist aside to keep from being eviscerated. His grip on the Reverend's throat broke, and as the outlaw brought up his pistol, January kicked him backwards, down onto the men on the stair.