Dead water

All in chains. All being taken to someplace they did not know, to be separated forever. All trapped on the wet planks of the steamboat, churning up-river through the night.

Then he woke with the pale light trickling through the shut curtains of the stateroom, to the sounds of horns blowing, of cannon firing in the distance. And coming out on deck minutes later, he saw the town of Natchez-On- The-Hill lying before them in the hot light of morning.

SEVEN

Natchez-On-The-Hill was a handsome town of some four thousand souls, its tree-bordered square looking down on the river from the top of a high bluff and its shady streets lined with the Spanish galleries and graceful brick English houses of its original builders. It was the center of the richest cotton land in the South: even in the hush of summer, the landing at the bottom of the bluff was busy with keelboats, flatboats, and the small stern-wheelers that were the only steamboats that could navigate the low river. Merchants and planters bustled about the levee, seeing to the receipt of goods ordered from Paris and New York; draymen shouted at the deck-hands who loaded up their wagons, river-traders dickered for bargains with one eye open for pickpockets and thieves.

Along the foot of the bluff, between the steep brown cliff of clay and the brown waters of the river, lay Natchez-Under-The-Hill.

“Whatever you do, stay on the boat.” From behind the corner of the 'tween-decks, January watched Mr. Weems fussing about the bow-deck, like an animate marigold in his mustard-colored frock-coat, as he supervised the raising of two trunks from the hold. “My guess is, they're off-loading part of the loot for storage here, to be picked up later when the search dies down. I think they'll be back.”

In the wide space of mud and gravel that lay between the water's edge and the first row of rickety warehouses and taverns at the foot of the bluff, a dozen drivers waited with carriages of various sorts, now and then hopping down from their boxes to bargain with passengers from the boats. Oliver Weems strode briskly across the landing- stage to the bank, signaled to one of the drivers. Just beyond him, a bearded white man dashed naked from one of the filthy alleyways, howling that he'd been robbed.

In the windows of a dozen ramshackle sheds, women of every shade from alabaster to ebony leaned out and shrieked with laughter; a man in a saloon doorway yelled, “Still got the family jewels, Bert?” The smell of the tangled criss-cross of streets under the summer heat was like the Swamp in New Orleans, and the feel of the place—of casual violence and uncaring vice—was, if anything, worse.

“Be in town awhile, Henry?” yelled a red-haired strumpet from a second-floor window, causing Mr. Tredgold to jump as if scalded; three other girls poked their heads through the same window and blew kisses.

Resplendent in his shabby coat and chimneypot hat, Hannibal paused on the landing-stage and stretched out a hand:

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the East, and Juliet is the sun. . . .”

“And if they don't return?” asked Rose softly as January stepped back into concealment at her side.

“We'll get you word.”

In the engine-room, the stokers were drawing the fires from the furnaces, or damping them with ashes, to keep a low level of steam seething in the boilers without running them dry. The engines were silent, the black monster of the paddlewheel still; in the relative quiet, the shrill screams of Miss Melissa and young Master Tredgold could be heard: “We want to get off the boat! Let us get off the boat! Mama said we could get off the boat, Cissy! We'll tell Papa to beat you unless you let us . . . !”

The denizens of Natchez-Under, January reflected, would chop those two children up for breakfast and serve them with grits.

Early as it was, the deck of the Silver Moon bustled with life. The planter Roberson handed his wife and daughters down the main stairway—as far as January had seen, the first time any of the Roberson females had descended to water-level since New Orleans—and conducted them across the landing-stage to where the brightly-polished black landaulet of family friends waited to take them visiting while the boat lay in port. The deck-passengers hastened ashore as well, the immigrant families to replenish their provisions from the town markets, the Sams and Kyles and their ilk to get drunk and laid and, January earnestly hoped, if possible, killed as well. Thucydides stood beside the hatch, tallying something in his notebook. Mrs. Tredgold screamed orders. Mr. Tredgold wrung his hands.

“Well, if you miss the boat,” said Rose, who always had a backup plan, “I'll leave you reports at General Delivery, left till called for, in Vicksburg, Mayersville, and Greenville, and I'll wait for you at the best free colored boardinghouse in Memphis. I'm not sure I'll be able to pursue our friends beyond Memphis alone. . . .”

“You're not going to have to pursue our friends anywhere,” insisted January, more to reassure himself than her. He pulled her into his arms, kissed her hard. The thought of Rose alone in a strange city—much less a hub of the slave trade like Memphis—made him shudder, even without the added complication of her trying to convince white American police that a respectable white banker was a thief. . . .

“I won't miss the boat.”

“Of course not,” agreed Rose far too promptly.

Why do I dream about rescuing this woman? If she ever dreamed about anything more disturbing than conjugating Latin verbs, she'd dream about rescuing ME.

“There,” said January softly. “Only one valise. They'll be back.”

Mrs. Fischer descended the stair, paused to gaze down her nose at Ned Gleet as he thrust and drove his slave-gang ashore, then swept to the landing-stage, where Weems waited by the cab. Sophie followed meekly, carrying a green-striped canvas valise. Across the landing, Hannibal wandered vaguely toward the insalubrious alleyways of Natchez-Under, gazing about him as if he'd never seen such a place before in his life. It was time to go.

“Take care,” Rose whispered.

Convinced that the boat would in fact leave, that Rose would in fact be carried off to Memphis alone with Ned Gleet, January fought not to hand her his half of Hubert Granville's traveling expenses. God knew which of them was