Dead Water (26 page)

“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.

“Don't let them go!” he yelled, and plunged down after them, crowding them to keep them from shooting. But this time no one followed. Jim and the others were already falling back to the perceived safety of the pilot-house, not understanding how fatal it was to give ground, and January felt a knife rip into the muscles of his back. Then he was falling backwards, down off the stair, clutching and grabbing and then hitting the back of the deck hard.

A fury of shouting and pounding came dimly to him from below as he lay on the boards of the deck, stunned and trying to breathe. Every whisper of air brought stabbing pain in his side—a rib broken, he thought, the pain wasn't where he'd been stabbed and though he felt weak and lightheaded, it was the long burning pain of a slash. Opening his eyes, he saw the last of Christmas's men piling up the stair onto the hurricane deck, surrounding the pilot-house.

Head swimming, January rolled over, tried to get up. Two of the last men up the stairs halted, turned back, and climbed down to him. They had pistols, but spent smoke poured from the barrels—January let himself fall back onto the boards of the deck, and both men stuck their knives into their belts.

“Big bastard,” said one of them, bending to grab January's wrists. The other took his ankles to drag him to the rail, so the kick January delivered to his groin was unexpected, perfectly positioned, and murderous. The man at his wrists dropped them and fumbled for his knife—Mr. Ankles being doubled up on the deck screaming—and January didn't even bother going for a weapon, just pistoned his feet down to the deck and drove his elbow up under Mr. Wrists' chin with a force that smacked him hard against the arcade support.

January heaved first the one, then the other overboard, and was scrambling up the stair to the hurricane deck before either of them hit the water.

From above him he heard Levi Christmas yell. “You might as well give up in there, old man, 'fore we shoot the pilot-house to pieces!”

There were a dozen outlaws, ranged in a circle around the flimsy board structure. From inside, January could hear Theodora Skippen screaming, “Levi, no! Levi, it's me, Dora . . . !”

Oh, that will certainly get him to throw down his guns
. . . .

January yelled, “Christmas, the money isn't on the boat!” and all the outlaws turned.

There was momentary stillness. Levi Christmas brought up his pistol to bear on January; then, when January remained unmoving, the Reverend walked toward him on the blood-splattered decking. When he got within two yards of January, he said in a calm voice, “We been followin' this boat since Natchez, and we had a look at every trunk that's been took off it. We ain't seen no gold yet.”

“That gold never left New Orleans,” January told him. “If you've been watching this boat, you'll have seen that every trunk and box in the hold was searched the day before yesterday, and all we found was a lot of underwear and shoes.”

“All that means is that Irish bastard hid it,” replied Christmas evenly. “Wasn't that why he tried to shoot your master? You and that master of yours wouldn't still be on board if the money wasn't here. It's a good try,” he added with a broken-toothed grin. “But that money's here, and I'm gonna find it, if I gotta heat up some irons and toast the titties of every woman on board to get somebody to break loose with a little—”

The whole deck lurched underfoot as the
Silver Moon
staggered like a drunkard on a spree. January covered the six feet between himself and Christmas with a single leap and wrenched the pistol from the Reverend's hand—when Christmas grabbed for another of the several around his neck, January brought the pistol-butt against his verminous temple with crushing force. A chorus of screams rose from the pilot-house and above them rode Jim's shout,

“We hit a snag! We goin'
down
!”

The boat was already beginning to list.

January was nearly trampled by Christmas's men as they pelted for the stairway down to the lower decks. Not one of them so much as paused to scoop their stunned and unconscious boss from the deck. Even as January reached the door of the pilot-house it flew open and the women streamed out, Mrs. Tredgold screaming at her husband, “This is all your fault!” and Melissa Tredgold simply screaming.

January tossed his pistol to Rose and dragged Hannibal onto his shoulder like a sack of flour; Rose put her shoulder under Mr. Lundy's to help him along, last of them all, down the steps to the deck. “What happened?” panted January. “Did you hit it deliberately?”

“Hell, no,” buzzed the pilot. “With all the windows but the visor-board shut, I couldn't see, and the river's stiff with towheads . . . it had to happen. You think I was gonna wreck the boat this far from the free states, with all those folks still on board?”

“So you were part of it?”

“'Course I was part of it!” snorted Lundy. He clutched at Rose's shoulder and the stair-rail as they carefully negotiated the steps first down to the boiler-deck, then to the main deck below. “Why the hell else would a spavined old wreck like me be still rasslin' around this river, if it wasn't to help get a flock of runaways north to Canada?”

By the time they reached the main deck, Christmas's men had already taken both the
Silver Moon
's skiff and their own and cast off. At the bow the decks were almost awash—Thu and Davis were coolly directing the deck-hands in the ripping-out of doors and bull-rails to provide spars to swim to shore. Water slopped over into the hatchway as they pulled the cover clear for a raft, and January froze.

He said, “Shit.”

“What?” Rose tucked the pistol into her waistband, was preparing to ease Hannibal onto a hatch-cover to paddle to shore.

“Get him ashore,” said January. “I'll be back.”

And he sprang down the ladder-like stair to the door of the hold.

It was still padlocked, but since there was no longer need for secrecy of any kind, January knocked it in with two kicks. Away from the wan light of the hatch the hold was pitch black, waist-deep in water at the bow end already, bobbing with crates and boxes floating about in the darkness like ambulatory islands. More crates were slithering down as the deck slowly tilted. Rats clung to them, climbed on January's back and arms—he thrashed them off and they went scrabbling for the steps.

“Régine!” he bellowed into the darkness. “Régine, here! This way!”

A woman's voice called back out of the abyss, frantic with terror. “Here! Oh, God, I'm caught! Help me!”

January plunged in the direction of the stern. Water heaved and sloshed around his hips, then his thighs, but he could hear it rushing behind him where the tear in the hull was. Ahead of him in the blackness the woman's voice sobbed, “Here, I'm here, oh God please don't leave me . . . !”

The boat lurched as the weight of water in the head dragged it farther down. The deck-boards slithered under January's feet, and something big and square-edged slipped down and struck his shoulder a glancing blow in the darkness, the sudden jab of his broken rib and the wound on his back bringing on a wave of nauseated faintness.

“I'm caught, oh God, somethin' fell on me, I can't move it, I
can't push it. . . .”

The shadows showed him nothing, only outlined the edges of the shifting crates. Darkness suffocating, like a wet nightmare of slanting deck-boards and huge things like pyramid-blocks slithering and bumping as they slid, further adding to the weight at the boat's nose. “I'm here,” he called out, “I'll get you. . . .”

Her voice had been quite close to him. Hands groped for his.

Big hands, not Queen Régine's tiny, childlike fists.

He didn't ask, only felt along the folds of a dress, found where crates and trunks had fallen on her with the boat's first reeling lurch. “Hold still.” He dug in his pocket for matches. In the sudden flare of yellow light he saw, not the bitter little voodooienne he'd expected to find, but the slave-girl Julie. “Hold these. You know how to light a match? Scratch it in the paper, like this. . . . Is there someone else down here? Another woman?”

“No.” Her eyes were huge in the tiny flare of light, following his movements as he hauled and threw the trunks from the top of the pile that pinned her legs. The pain of his rib went through his vitals like a sword. “Thu said I could stay here,” Julie gabbled as if the words themselves fought back panic. “I was gonna swim for the shore when we caught on the bar, but 'Rodus stopped me, came up, and caught my hand. He wasn't chained—you know Thu's part of the Underground Railway? Him and 'Rodus? They're brothers—'Rodus had a key to the chains—they was takin' folks north, disguised as a slave-gang. He said Thu had blankets hid down here, and food, in case somethin' went wrong an' somebody had to hide out. They had poisons here, too—I know they's poisons, 'cause my granny knows about them things . . . oh, God . . .” she gasped as the boat lurched again and water slopped up around January's ankles. “Oh, God, we're gonna drown. . . .”

Moving the crate on top of the trunk that actually pinned her legs was like trying to move a house. January grunted, feeling his muscles crack and strain, panic icy in his heart. “'Rodus brought you down here?”