The Captain`s Vengeance

again… Charite.' In a gruffer, warning tone he added, 'Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, then look to your life.'

'I stand warned, cher Alain.' Charite throatily chuckled back, not daunted in the least. 'Let us get a private table in the back, a deck of cards, and a bottle of champagne. And I assure you, cher, I shall have no reason to fear for my life.'

Her false mustachio had sagged completely off one side of her mouth, and her eyes and voice were so sweetly, soberly candid that he could not help but assent and whistle up the publican for glasses and a bottle. She leaned close enough to gently touch her rather cutely formed nose on his near shoulder for a flirtatious second, as if sealing a bargain, before breaking away to waft towards a dark rear corner of the cabaret to claim a table for two.

Damme, this is daft! he chid himself as he flung coins on the counter; Is she a sham, I'll never live it down! If not, well… it might be the sort of tale ye dine out on for bloody years!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Law, Jim Hawk, ye won't b'lieve h'it!' Georgie insistently whispered, reeking of 'time-killing' whisky, fried chicken from a street vendor, and 'chaw-baccy.' 'H'it's th' oddest thang ever I did see, an' had I not, I'da never thunk hit real,' Georgie said as he and Ellison 'lurked' beneath the stranger's wrought-iron balcony.

'Simmer down an' tell it, Georgie,' Jim Hawk Ellison coaxed as he leaned away from the aromatic scents, 'an' kindly keep your skunk-skin cap downwind, how 'bout. It's still pert ripe.'

'We kep' an eye on 'at Willoughby feller, like ya asked us to,' Georgie began to explain, though all but wringing his hands confusedly. Confusion with Georgie was a given, though, Ellison had found. Bright help was hard to find lately. 'He left 'at tavern place, I follered him, like ye tol' me. But he come back hyar with another fella, Jim Hawk,' Georgie nigh moaned, waving a hand at the balcony, and the dim single candle still aglow in one of the windows. Ellison was sure he was blushing as red as ripe vine peppers. 'Come nigh t'chokin' on ma chaw… way they wuz a'pawin' an' a'gropin' at each other, an'…'

'With another man?' Jim Hawk gawped. 'Well, he is English, but… that's a surprise. A big'un.' Ellison scrubbed his chin thoughtfully, speculating on how Willoughby 's secret proclivity could be used, if he turned out to be a British spy; he hadn't bought the man's 'new-come American' pose for a second! He'd come off that Panton, Leslie ship, hadn't he? And that company and the British government might as well be tight as ticks together.

'Sure it wasn't a way t'sneak a fellow spy up there, so's they could have 'em a parley, on the sly? Just with their heads close…'

'Nossiree, Jim Hawk!' Georgie adamantly objected, wringing his skunk cap in his hands. ' 'Twuz a lantern burnin' o'er th' door when they got hyar, an' I seed wot they wuz a'doin', plain! They wuz all arm in arm, had their clothes un-sheveled an' their hands a'roamin' round inside. Kissin', a time'r two, too, right out in front o' God an' ever'body, hotter'n foxes in heat! An' 'at little feller with 'im a'cooin' an' a'titt'rin' like one o' them rum-hot whores we had on th' Natchez Trace!'

'Hmmph!' Ellison commented. 'What'd this other fella look like, then? Ye git a good look, so we can find out what he's up to?'

'Real short an' slimmish, Jim Hawk,' Georgie related, screwing up his face, 'an' deed all dandy-like, in rich clothes. Struttin' as proud as a banty-rooster! Had a right mystifyin' mustachio, too. One minute, h'it wuz thar, next h'it warn't, an' he'd git all giggly-shrieky. They git to th' door, thar, wot with all th' kissin', his hat come off an' he had s'much hair piled up on his haid, hit looked like a wasp's nest, an' I coulda swore I thought I saw a titty, but…'

Ellison lowered his chin to his chest and slowly counted to ten, as his mentor had told him to, back when he'd thought to read for the law in Salisbury, North Carolina, before blurting out foolishness when in court. He pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a heavy sigh.

'Mightn't it o' come to ye, Georgie,' Ellison asked in a slow drawl of seemingly infinite patience, 'that your little fella might've been a girl dressed up in men's clothin'?'

'Wull…' Georgie began, then subsided, abashed. 'Oh.'

Comes th' dawn! Jim Hawk Ellison sourly thought; Oh, indeed!

'Wull… 'at's unnat'ral, too, ain't h'it, Jim Hawk?' Georgie spluttered, giving his hat another wringing, freshly aggrieved.

'How long they been at it?' Ellison asked, glancing upwards.

' 'Bout near a hour, I reckon,' Georgie muttered. 'I thought to shinny up thar an' see wot-all they wuz a'doin'…'

'You didn't, did you, Georgie?' Ellison asked, alarmed.

'Naw.' Georgie chuckled. ' 'Em iron poles is slick, an' 'at balcony ain't as stout as you'd a'reckon, so…'

'Good!' Ellison nigh barked with relief, much louder than he'd meant to on the dark, silent street. 'I'll take over, Georgie. Here. Go git yerself somethin' t'drink, maybe have yerself a Creole gal. A real 'un,' he said, digging into a pocket for some silver Spanish dollars. 'Don't go blabbin', mind, do ya git a snoot-full. This business is nobody's but ours, right?'

'Damn' right, Jim Hawk, an' thankee right kindly,' Georgie said with a wide grin of delight. 'But… yew figger this out, ye'll tell me wot h'it means, won't ye, Jim Hawk?'

'Be th' first t'know, Georgie,' Ellison promised.

Ellison slunk into a dark shop doorway and wrapped his coat snug against the past-midnight river and swamp mists, thinking that if the sky started raining whisky, Georgie Prater would be the sort to hold a fork… and he'd most-like drop that!

The game was getting even more complicated than he'd imagined when he'd been appointed to scout New Orleans by Congress-and without General Wilkinson finding out about it! Ellison had been limited in his choice of skilled and smart backwoodsmen and volunteer soldiers to go along with him, men unknown to the Tennessee or Kentucky garrisons, who were likely already enmeshed in Wilkinson's schemes. So, beyond a few men of past acquaintance and a surveyor or two borrowed from civilian pursuits, he was pretty much stuck with dregs-well- muscled, well-armed dregs who'd be good in a fight, but…

Jim Hawk Ellison now strongly suspected that this Englishman, this 'Captain' Willoughby, was on a mission very much like his own to New Orleans, and Louisiana. A new American citizen as he claimed, or not- Willoughby couldn't disguise his educated accent for very long, no matter how 'aw shuckin's' he tried. He was a man used to command, his sobriquet of 'Captain' either naval or military, with a volunteer pack of muscle accompanying him who toed the line when he spoke. But who was he working for?

General Wilkinson was out of the question; he'd never trust the British, even someone formerly British, to be his eyes and ears before he put his own invasion scheme in play. There were secret, but widely known whispers of a British move against the hapless Spanish. Though Ellison doubted an expedition could make it all the way down the Mississippi quietly, past American settlements on the eastern bank.

It made more sense to launch it from Jamaica, overwhelm the few defenders in a few brisk, brutal days' combat, and take New Orleans as the main prize. Without the city, Louisiana was useless anyway, Jim Hawk had long before realised.

Or Willoughby could've been hired by Virginia, South Carolina, or Georgia, and was here as part of a sectional land-grab. There were already secret agents aplenty in the town from those governments, he had been warned. Yet he'd come on a Spanish-flagged, British-owned ship, in the guise of a bootless adventurer?

Ellison had spent half the night dashing from one oddity to the next, from watcher to watcher to hear their reports, and was, in the backcountry vernacular, ' 'bout plumb tuckered out.' Even more outre