Benjamin January 6 - Wet Grave (32 page)

Certainly Tyrone Burke had arrived at Avocet-according to Lury, who knew his name as Burkitt-the afternoon following the overseer Raffin's disappearance, leading the horse that had disappeared with Raffin.

Found him wanderin' in the woods and remembered as how I'd seen Mr. Avocet on him at Jesuit's Bend t'other day, somebody said he was from here. ... Me? Just passin' through, lookin' for work...

With Raffin gone, Guifford murdered, and Bertrand in jail, the two women had needed another overseer, and quickly. Without a doubt, Raffin's body would be found in one of the near-by bayous, chewed beyond recognition by crawfish.

Moonlight outlined the shape of Soldorne's landing, a weedy wharf standing high above the sunken river, a flight of crude plank steps leading up the levee. Cypresses shaded a bench where passengers could wait once a steamboat hooted its approach, and a flagstaff to signal for a ride.

St. Roche would have been a perfect place twenty years ago, thought January as he left Soldorne behind, for a small-time pirate captain to bury loot pilfered from-or in spite of-Jean Lafitte's unilateral command of all corsairs in the area. It might not even have been Gambi who did the stealing. Hesione herself could have stolen the money-and presumably the fictitious, accursed necklace of the accursed Mad Juana of Spain-from Gambi, and come up Bayou St. Roche to keep it safe from her fellow women in the camp. There would have been no St. Roche Plantation in those days, only a landing at the head of the bayou and another on the river's edge, an easy portage of a mile or less.

And there it had lain. January thrust his stick into the blackness beneath a deadfall, heard something swish and scramble as it fled unseen. Mosquitoes hummed sullenly; he slapped at them with arms that had grown tired of slapping.

There the stolen fortune had lain, while Hesione went from a corsair's jeweled mistress to a tired, blowsy slattern, turning tricks in the sheds behind the Nantucket to get her the price of a bottle. He recalled hearing that Gambi had been murdered by his own men not tot) long after Lafitte had been chased out of his colony by the U.S. Navy. Had Hesione been part of the little settlement of Campec.he? Or had Gambi-or whoever had succeeded him in her affections-already put her aside?

Had she tried to get the treasure herself as her money ran out? Crept out of the cipriere some night, only to be met by the eccentric Uncle Joffrey's African overseer with a shotgun in his hands? We don't have strangers here on St. Roche. How many times had she tried, before returning, penniless and angry, to town and to her bottle, and to her memories of past glories on the hot beaches of Grand Terre?

Men accused the pla~ees of being greedy, especially as the women grew older. Of saving and scraping and making demands on their protectors, of feathering their nests in whatever way they could.

And why not?
thought January. One had only to look at his mother, with her investments in cotton presses and town lots and steamboat companies, with her comfortable house and the sturdy health that lingers into old age only with adequate care, and compare her to Hesione, who gave away and spent every sou in her hellfire youth. The free women of color understood, as perhaps no one else did or could, how precarious life was for those who had only their beauty and their bodies to sell.

And Dominique?

She'd come south to warn the lover who might very well have already promised his new wife he would give her up. Come to save, not only Henri, but that chill, pale little child-bride who read Thucydides until two in the morning and wore spectacles when she didn't think anyone could see her. Who was notorious for selling her nurse who'd had “her own ways of punishing me... not that Father would ever hear a word against her...” and made up tales about why her eccentric uncle had become a recluse....

Smoke stung his nostrils.

His first thought was A steamboat at a landing.

But into the deadly hush of the night a clamor rose. Confused voices shouting, snatched by the wind and flung away.

The crack of a shot.

January scrambled up the levee and saw the wildfire glare of crimson through the trees.

A house burning.
Two buildings, maybe three ... A woman screamed.

He began to run.

Men pelted back and forth among the oak-trees by the light of the burning Avocet house; January could see them from the levee where he stood. The rising winds that lashed his clothing against his flesh fanned the flames into yellow banners among the thrashing oaks. A salvo of gunflashes spouted out of the windows of the garçonniere wing; a moment later two figures burst through the French doors, sprang and scrambled over the gallery rail, fleeing for the brick sugar-mill.

Men closed on them, men clothed in the rags of slaves, or naked, sweat shining with the firelight, long cane-knives swinging in their hands. The howl of the wind drowned their cries. The shirtsleeved figures fired, a rifle and then a pistol. Then they were cut off from the mill and could not re-load, and January glimpsed an old-fashioned white pigtail: the family lawyer, Diacre. Was the other man Bertrand's dandyish attorney Rabot? At the same time four white-nightgowned forms, long hair whipping in the storm, dropped from the gallery in the company of a single white man and bolted for the levee, while out of their sight the slaves hacked the two decoys to death.

Even at this distance, and by the chancy glare of the wind-whirled fire, January recognized the tall, lanky form of Abishag Shaw.

January had the sense to duck down behind the crest of the levee and run along its riverward slope. Shaw would never recognize him at this distance in the fire's wild glare-all he would see was yet another ragged, blackskinned man racing toward him, and January had enormous respect for the policeman's aim, even in this wind-lashed darkness. There was a pirogue tied at the landing, and the fugitives would have to come over the levee near there. He strained to hear what was happening, but there was too much noise from the rush and surge of the wind in the snags of the batture, in the trees beyond the levee, in the hammering air itself. The clamor blanketed everything in the bizarre illusion of silence, and he had the impression-when he saw a dozen men in the garments of slaves emerge from the tangled growth of the batture below him-that they did so without a sound.

They were armed, as the slaves of Avocet were armed, with cane-knives and clubs. Coming from some plantation upriver, alerted by rumor, and ready to fight.

The nightgowned women came over the top of the levee, veered when they saw this second group of slaves swarming up toward them. Shaw appeared a moment later, head bare and long hair snatched and torn by the wind. He fired a shot into the batture group with the Kentucky longrifle in his hands, trying to open a gap to the landing. January barely heard the report. Shaw tossed the spent weapon to one of the women and unslung another rifle from his back and fired again. He was pulling the third long gun clear when the Avocet slaves mounted the levee behind him and fired. Shaw dropped to his knees, hand pressed briefly to his side, then brought up the rifle again to fire into the mob that was now only yards away.

January broke cover and reached Shaw in two strides, wrenched the rifle from his hand and at the same time fetched Shaw a kick in the ribs that hurled him down the river side of the levee, into the dark where the light of the burning house did not penetrate. Only his appearance stopped a volley from the slaves' rifles which would have shredded the Kentuckian-as it was, one shot whipped past January's ear. Praying his aim would be true, he pointed Shaw's rifle down a foot or so to the right of Shaw's head and fired.

It was too dark to see if the ball hit dirt or skull. Shaw, who even then had been trying to rise, twisted and fell limp into the inky shadow of the levee. The Avocet slaves, clothes and bodies bloodied from the killing of the men, reached the crown of the levee as January knelt beside Shaw, ran a rough hand through his hair in the darkness, then pressed a finger to the pulse in his neck. It was hammering, though Shaw didn't breathe; January stood, spit on him, and turned to the Avocet slaves and the other rebel group who'd come from the batture.

“He dead.”
He had to shout the words.

He was afraid they'd check on Shaw themselves, but at that moment the four women were dragged back from the landing by the arms, the necks, the hair. The homely blond one January knew by Shaw's description to be Annette Avocet, the darkly pretty one had to be Vivienne. Her daughter-Laurene?-was like her, petite and fairylike, terrified but silent, which was more than could be said of her mother. There was a young woman of color, nurse or maid or companion, as well. The rebel leader Jacinthe strode up the levee, pistol in hand, and grabbed Vivienne Avocet by the arm. His loincloth, arms, and belly were slick with blood. He put the pistol to her head and she screamed, her knees collapsing beneath her, spoiling the shot. January reached him before he could drag her to her feet again.

“The hell you think you doin', fool?” he demanded as he swatted the gun barrel aside.

Jacinthe stared at him. “Who the hell are you?” he yelled over the bellowing of the wind.

“My name's Sam and I heard folks here was gettin' boats an' gettin' guns.” If the slaves at Boscage had heard it, it was a safe bet others had as well. “Who the hell are you? Fucked if I wouldn't have broke out on my own if I knowed they was fools here who'd throw away hostages, for the U.S. Navy to let you past the Belize fort.” And he jerked his hand at the woman whose arm Jacinthe gripped. The other women clung together, trembling in their nightgowns; the daughter and the nurse shedding silent tears, the squarefaced blond Annette impassive as an Indian warrior from the Texas plains. Jacinthe's gaze rested thoughtfully on January's face for a moment, studying it, then slipped sidelong to the women.

“We're traveling under the storm,” he said. Caneleaves and the broken branches of the oaks blew past them as he spoke, striking with stinging force. “By the time we get down the river, neither army nor navy will even have heard of us. We movin' fast.”

“Well, excuse me all to hell,” retorted January. “You know why I got sold this last time?” He turned to the men, raising his voice above the rattling of the cane. “'Cause the sorry bastard who owned me said just that: I got two good horses an' there ain't no reason for me to take extra money with me when I ride up to Natchez-I ain't gonna need it. So when one of them horses throwed a splint an' the other got stole from the stable, guess who ended up goin' home with the first man who came along with five hundred dollars in his pocket? Sure is nice to have to do with folks who know the future.”

While he'd been speaking, another man came up the levee, small and thin and walking with the halt stride of the old, though January guessed this newcomer wasn't too much more than his own forty-two years. He carried a torch; its wild light showed the tracks of illness and hardship on his face, and a body so emaciated that January could have named each of his bones. “What you think, Doctor?” asked Jacinthe.

Vivienne Avocet, still kneeling on the ground, screamed again and rocked on her heels, crossing herself repeatedly-the man called Doctor paid her no heed at all, and only regarded January for a time, as if gauging who he was and what he might bring to the rebel group. Then his sunken eyes went past, to the non-Avocet slaves. Beyond the burning house January could see horses being led out of the barns and loaded with stores. “I think a damn sight too many people knows too much about us breakin' out.” The Doctor's voice was the voice a vulture would have, could vultures speak.

More slaves crept out of the threshing dark tangle of the river's edge, women leading children, or with babies at breast. The flames showed gold in their eyes.

Jacinthe pointed toward the confusion around the barns. “Get down there, get whatever food loaded up you can,” he ordered the newcomers. He included January in his gesture. “We move and we move fast. Somebody tie Mesdames”-scorn flicked from his voice as his eyes ran over the adult women-“and their pretty little girl behind a horse......”

“Put them on that horse.” The Doctor raised a hand against the ripsaw wind. “Tie them good. They slow us down else. Storm, she be bad, killin' bad. We gotta get to where the boats is, be ready to put out the moment the sky clear, if we gonna make it past the fort 'fore they hear we commin'.”

“Best you pray.” Jacinthe jerked the widow to her feet and shook her, her head lolling-“that all go well, M'am Vivienne.” And he thrust her back at the others so hard that she fell again.

“Virgin Mary, save me, a sinner!”
Vivienne screamed, but the fair-haired Annette Avocet merely watched her, heavy jaw set and eyes dry and wary.

“Because I'm tellin' you,” Jacinthe went on, “whoever slows us down, whoever tries to run, whoever causes trouble, we get rid of. I don't need the four of you. Haran what'd you find in the house?”

He strode down the levee to speak to a new-come messenger, followed by the Doctor, and the men dragging M'am Vivienne, her sister-in-law, her daughter, and the nurse, all the newcomers and the rebelling Avocet slaves trailing behind. January followed but fell back through the straggle, dropping at last behind one of the oak-trees and letting himself be swallowed by the whirlpool of the night. He watched Jacinthe shout orders to men loading up the horses with provisions, watched the slave-women run from the quarters with their few small possessions, holding their children by the hand. In his mind was Plutarch's account of Spartacus and his rebels, and what had befallen them in their quest to be free.

He turned back and climbed the levee again. Shaw was gone.

Behind the levee, away from the flame-light of the house, the darkness was abyssal. The river surged and churned in its bed, but January could see nothing of it; cold rain spattered him as he groped his way back to where he thought Shaw had fallen.

Damn him, thought January savagely. He's got to be Leatherstocking and try to go back to save those women from death or, presumably, worse fates.... As if Jacinthe is going to let his men indulge themselves in even the most speedy of rapes, when they have only the duration of the storm to get the whole mob down to St. Roche and onto whatever boats they think will be there.