Lake in the Clouds (49 page)

“I do have one question,” said the captain. “Will you be vaccinating your own people when you go home?”

Hannah pulled up short. “Yes. That is why I am here.”

“And you will keep records?”

“Of course.”

He looked thoughtful for a long moment. “It would be of some assistance to me—to the president—if you would agree to send us copies of your records.”

All of Hannah’s irritation left her suddenly, to be replaced by surprise. “Why would the president be interested in the vaccination records of a small village on the edge of the wilderness?”

“The president is interested in a great many things,” said Captain Lewis.

Some men were most easily taken to task with silence, and Captain Lewis was one of them. He might be able to put other women in their place with a mention of the president, but she would wait until he had answered her question truthfully.

After a long moment he said, “I need to learn about the actual practice because I may find myself in a place where I have to carry out large-scale vaccinations.”

“Ah,” said Hannah. “You are planning on traveling to the Missouri.”

Captain Lewis stilled suddenly. He opened his mouth and then shut it again.

Hannah said, “It is a very reasonable deduction, Captain. At dinner you asked Mr. Davis so many questions about provisions for his journey and the conditions on the way, and now you stand here asking about vaccinating a great number of people. Whatever other work you undertake for the president, I hope you are not a spy. I fear you wouldn’t last very long at all. Your expression gives away far too much.”

He let out a great rush of air and rubbed the flat of his hand along his jawline, as if a tooth had begun to ache. “I have been indiscreet.”

Hannah turned away to tidy things on the desk. Behind her he cleared his throat roughly.

“I must ask you not to speak of this to anyone. Not to Dr. Simon or to Mr. Spencer.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Then you do travel west, I see.”

He winced slightly. “That is the president’s hope, but Congress has not yet been approached about this expedition. It is all very … sensitive.”

“France and Spain would not approve,” said Hannah, almost to herself. And then: “You need not look so surprised, Captain Lewis. I can read a newspaper as well as any man. And even understand what I read.”

“I have offended you. I apologize. But if I could have your word that this discussion will go no further—”

“You have my word,” Hannah cut him off. “You may plan your journey without fear of interference from me.”

“By your expression I can see that you do not approve.”

Hannah was not quick to anger, but Captain Lewis seemed to know what to say to irritate her most. “And would it surprise you if I did not approve?”

He did not try to hide his surprise. “On what grounds?”

Hannah crossed her arms and rocked forward with her chin lowered, working very hard to stop herself from speaking the things that she most wanted to say. She must choose her words carefully, not so much because she was worried about offending the president’s secretary—she feared that could not be avoided—but because she wanted him to understand her.

“For many years my grandfathers predicted that sooner or
later the whites would need more land and begin to move west.” She paused, and saw by the captain’s expression that she was not far from the mark.

“And if that were so?”

“You see the color of my skin, Captain Lewis. I know very well what will happen to the Indians once the west is open. You will speak of treaties and land purchases but in the end you will take what you want. By force.”

There was a long silence, and Hannah saw that she had struck a nerve. He was very angry, but to his credit—she must grant that much—he did not offer false explanations or excuses. She was both relieved and disappointed in him, and she turned back to her work.

“If there is nothing else, Captain?”

He said, “Will you send me copies of your records?”

“Will you promise to vaccinate Indians as well as whites as you go west?”

He blinked at her. “For as long as I have active vaccination material, yes.”

“Very well, I will send copies of my records.”

The captain picked up his hat and hesitated at the door. “You are a most unusual young lady, Miss Bonner.”

“Yes,” said Hannah. “I am. And a very busy one too.”

When she got to the kitchen doors just before three Hannah found a boy waiting for her, no more than eight years old, barefoot and bareheaded, with a quick smile and nothing to say at all. Hannah had to trot to keep up with him as he dashed up one alleyway and down another, five minutes or more in which they never touched foot on a main street. They came finally to the back entrance of an old brick building in the Dutch style, with a gabled roof and windows shuttered even in the spring sunshine. The alleyway and the steps were covered with a fine dusting of flour, and the smell of baking bread was in the air.

Hannah followed the boy again, this time down five steps into a cellar. The first room was overheated and poorly lit by a single betty lamp hung from the ceiling. The corners were crowded with bags of grain, and in the middle of it all stood Manny.

Relief and anger surged so strongly in Hannah that she put
down her bag to take both his hands in hers. They were cool to the touch and his pulse was steady and strong; she could see no sign of illness in his face.

“Manny Freeman,” she said. “If you are not hurt it will be my duty and great pleasure to injure you myself. Why are you still in this city?”

He managed a smile, but the expression in his eyes remained untouched. “There’s nothing wrong with me that some sleep won’t cure.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“There’s no time for that,” he said. “Come.”

The next room was slightly larger, darker, and crowded with people. Some lay on pallets on the floor, and others sat. In the far corner was a slop bucket and a water barrel. Every one of the people in the room—all of them black—looked at Hannah with expressions that ranged from barely contained anger and agitation to exhaustion. She nodded to the woman whose broken teeth she had extracted, but saw no sign of the two men.

“Over there,” said Manny, pointing her toward a tick mattress that had been spread across some crates. The man who had been given the privilege of a bed elevated off the floor seemed to be sleeping. Hannah recognized him from Bowling Green, where she had seen him now and then driving Madame du Rocher’s carriage. He was of middle years, strongly built and wide through the shoulders.

Next to him an elderly woman Hannah didn’t know sat wrapped in shawls. In one hand she had a dipper while with the other she held down a corner of his mouth to let the water dribble in. The neckline of his shirt was wet, and Hannah wondered if he was swallowing anything at all.

Manny said, “He’s been like that since Friday night.”

Hannah went to the older woman and hunched down next to her. “What’s his name?”

“Thibault.” She had a whispery voice, as if it had once been broken and never quite recovered.

“And yours?”

“Folks call me Belle.” She put down the dipper and used a piece of rag to wipe the man’s chin.

“Have you been with him the whole time?”

She shook her head. “On and off since they fetched him
here late Friday. There ain’t much I could do for him, but I don’t like to be the last word.”

With both hands the old lady lifted Thibault’s head to turn it. There was a depression in his skull just behind the ear, as long as Hannah’s hand and three fingers wide.

“A club?”

“Hickory,” said a voice behind her, heavy with the accent of the French islands. “A hickory club as long as a man’s arm.”

Hannah put her ear to Thibault’s chest to listen to his heart, not that it would make any difference. Inside this man’s skull the brain was swollen and bleeding, pressing on bone until it exhausted itself. Beneath her ear she heard the evidence, a heart once strong whose beat was faltering, thready and irregular.

When she sat back on her heels Belle turned her face toward the darkest corner of the room where a young man stood, stone-faced and unblinking.

“Fetch that light down here, Dandre, will you please.”

“Let me.” Manny came forward to do as she asked.

“Hold it close, now. Let it shine on his face.”

It was a striking face, not so much for the strong features or the well-formed mouth but for the look of peacefulness. The old lady lifted one eyelid with a splayed thumb and there was the evidence that could not be denied: in the flickering of the lamplight the pupil stayed as dark and round as a tarnished copper penny.

“Gone?” The old woman had turned her face and Hannah realized now why they had fetched her from the hospital. Not because they didn’t trust Belle, but because the old woman did not trust her own eyes, which were covered with a pale film.

“Gone,” said Hannah. “No reaction to the light.”

Belle eased the man’s head back down as gently as an egg. “Eyes gone, the spirit gone too. The rest of him just don’t realize it yet. He was a good man, Thibault, but he as mulish in the other world as he was in this one.”

Hannah caught Manny’s gaze and nodded her agreement.

He drew in a shuddering breath. When he let it out again he said, “How long?”

“A day at the most, if you stop giving him water. Perhaps no more than an hour.”

The young man Belle had called Dandre came out of his
corner. In the dim light Hannah recognized him as another one of Madame du Rocher’s missing slaves, one she had met in the kitchen, deep in conversation with Mrs. Douglas. A good-looking young man with hair shaved close to the skull and large eyes the color of molasses cut with honey. Now his face was swollen and his lower lip mangled, but it was his expression that shocked, the burning fury of him. He took the dipper out of Belle’s hand and threw it against the wall with all his strength, and then he stood hunched forward, his whole body shaking with sobs.

Hannah felt Manny’s hand on her shoulder. She followed him back to the first room.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally. And when he could not find anything to say, Hannah put a hand on his sleeve.

“What will happen to them?”

He blinked at her as if he were waking out of a deep sleep. “They’ll be gone tonight.”

“And you with them?”

He nodded.

“Will you be taking them north?”

His head came up and he looked at her hard, his eyes bright and dry. “You know better than to ask questions like that.”

Hannah stepped back from him, surprise and hurt pushing aside those things she had wanted to say to him, the things she knew that Curiosity would say if she were here.

He said, “I need another favor from you.” From his jerkin he took a piece of folded paper. It appeared to be from a newspaper, but in the dusty dim light of the basement Hannah could not make out much about it.

“There’s a child I’m looking for. She may be in the poor-house someplace, or they may have placed her out. Or maybe she’s dead. One way or the other I want to know. This is all the information I have.” He took Hannah’s hand and closed her fingers over the paper, squeezed tight.

“I’m not sure that I can—”

He cut her off with a shake of his head. “If you can get a look at the record books you might be able to find some mention of her. You know where they keep the records?”

Hannah thought of Mrs. Sloo waddling her way past Mr. Eddy’s office.
An exacting man, our Mr. Eddy, tolerates no sloppiness.
Keeps track of the comings and goings. The orphans mostly. A powerful lot of work, and paper enough to bury a man standing.

And Mr. Eddy himself, the pale oval face and colorless eyes, the way he looked at her when she passed him in the halls. What would he do if he found her in his office among his papers? But Manny was waiting for her to say something, and Hannah could not deny him this, not out of hand.

“And if I find some record of the child?”

The question surprised him, she saw that in the way his shoulders stiffened. “I don’t think you will, to tell the truth. I been looking for her a long time now. The only way to make sure is to get into that office and I never have been able to get that far. I’m hoping you’ll have better luck.”

“Manny,” Hannah said, lowering her voice. “Who is this child? Is she … yours?”

“She’s Selah’s,” Manny said. “That makes her mine too. If you can get to the records I’d be thankful. If you can’t do it without putting yourself in danger, then let it be.”

“And if I do find her after all?”

“Then bring her to my ma and pa. Now you best get along, it’s almost four. If you see my folks before I do—”

Hannah made a protesting sound, but he ignored her.

“You tell them what you saw here today, and that I’m on my way home, as soon as these folks are safe.”

“Is there such a thing as safe for them? For you?”

Even as the words escaped her Hannah regretted them, but to her surprise it earned her a smile, one that took her back unexpectedly to her childhood and the boy Manny had been. It was Manny who first showed her how to bait her fishing hook and taught her how to whistle like a poor-will; in return he had called on her when he needed help to play a trick on his sisters. It was a gentle smile, without worry or anger.

“There is indeed,” he said softly. “In one kind of Paradise or the other. You best get going now, Jean is waiting to show you the way.”