actually going to need the money more, in the next few hours . . . or the next few days. . . .
And as he strode across the landing-stage, and through the trampled muck to Hannibal's side, he cursed the desperate necessity of money, that could make the difference between a life that was bearable and one that brought nothing but friction and grief. That could make the difference, for those of the wrong shade of skin, between freedom and a lifetime in bondage.
Especially in the American lands.
He glanced back, and saw Jubal Cain standing on the bow end of the boiler-deck, gazing after Weems and Mrs. Fischer as the pair of them climbed into their cab.
Though the river was low, the usual summer rain of the Mississippi Valley had briefly drenched Natchez the previous night, leaving the landing area, and the ascending mud-wallow of Silver Street, ankle-deep in red-gold ooze. January and Hannibal would have been hard-pressed to remain behind Weems's cab, and the dray with the trunks that followed it, as the horses leaned and slithered in the mud. Fortunately, Silver Street was the only road up the bluff, so they walked up with the air of innocent tourists, passing the vehicles with barely a glance. Above the level of the riverbank willows, the Mississippi unreeled northward, like a skein of silver yarn played with by a particularly mischievous kitten. It was cooler up here, too; the baking heat of the morning was mitigated by the winds breathing over the bluff.
The mosquitoes seemed to have been left behind in Natchez-Under as well.
“Fit penalty, a Protestant preacher would say, for those who linger in the dens of vice,” remarked January as they emerged onto the long green space of the Spanish plaza that rimmed the bluff.
“Hard lines on the poor insects, though.” Hannibal paused to lean against an oak that had probably been old when LaSalle and his explorers camped under it. “Unless they're fond of cocktails that consist of two parts clap and three parts whiskey. But I suppose that, being inventions of the Devil, the mosquitoes deserve it themselves.” He was gasping from the climb, years of consumption having left him, January knew, with lesions and scar-tissue of every kind in his lungs. He fished in his pocket for his opium-bottle and took a drink. “Care to take bets on how many of those poor immigrant deck-passengers make it back on board? I went down last night and tried to warn them—the Germans listened, but the Irish seemed to regard me in the same light that our friend Molloy does, as an Orangeman and a fiend.”
“How can they tell?” January kept an eye on the top of Silver Street, where a cluster of the immigrant women made their timid appearance, looking around for the town market at the far end of the plaza. “You sound Irish only when you're drunk.”
“Good God, the average Paddy can smell an Orangeman even when he's addressing them—as I was—in purest poacher's Gaelic. It's an instinct. Like you being able to look at Jim Pemberton and say,
“And for me it's like telling an Italian from a Swede.” January shrugged. “The dealers do that, too, you know. Gleet could probably tell you how much European blood each of his slaves has, and what tribe the African ancestors came from.”
“Remind me never to ask him.” Hannibal shivered. “There are men who strike one as throwbacks straight to Sodom and Gomorrah; they make one understand God's use of fire and brimstone. There they go,” he added, touching January's sleeve. Horses blowing and sweating, the cab and the dray emerged from the top of Silver Street and swung around the edge of the plaza toward Main Street. January and Hannibal loafed purposefully behind.
Unlike New Orleans, Natchez was a town where a wealthy man could live quite comfortably all year round. The Spanish had done so, as had the English Tories who had fled there rather than remain with the rebellious Atlantic seaboard colonies forty-five years before. Across the river, the rich black delta soil grew the finest cotton in the New World, with the cotton-lands in back of the bluffs on the Mississippi side almost as fertile. The houses here were big, lush, and surrounded by gardens and orchards; the hotels gracious, welcoming the merchants who came to partake of the wealth. The handsome white edifice into whose driveway the cab turned would not have been out of place in London, except for its wider yard and more opulent greenery. The dray entered a side-street, January and Hannibal crossing to follow.
“You think they saw us?” Hannibal glanced back at the mustard-colored figure helping the tall, brown-clothed lady down from the cab.
“They might have. But everyone from the boat, almost, is ashore. We're hardly the only ones.”
“Yes, but we're probably the only ones who followed them to this hotel.”
“Since I never set eyes on Weems in New Orleans before Monday morning—and since you have no connection with the Bank of Louisiana at all—there's no reason he should take any notice of us.”
Through the yard gates January could see the draymen unloading the two trunks, handling them as if they were, indeed, heavy with gold. By the kitchen door—which was in the rear of the hotel building itself, American fashion, and not in separate quarters at the far end of the yard, a practice that always struck January as both unsanitary and dangerous—a laundress and a cook sat in the shade, smoking pipes and talking in a leisurely manner that made him want to send the manager out to thrash them both back to work.
“They look settled for the day,” whispered Hannibal as he and January ducked back out of sight around the fence.
“Let's give them fifteen minutes,” replied January—a remark he later heartily regretted. For fifteen minutes by January's silver French watch they listened to the account of the family argument that had surrounded the deathbed of the cook's grandmother, which rivaled any stage melodrama January had ever witnessed in violence, greed, and sheer bad taste. When at the end of that time the tale hadn't even reached Grandma's death (
Mr. Oliver Weems
Brinton House——New Orleans
Hannibal had a fine collection of other people's cards, and never wasted the opportunity to add to it.
“They're probably gone by this time,” he said. He briefly jingled the pick-locks in his coat pocket, then led the way around to the front of the Imperial Hotel again, January falling respectfully into step behind. The cab that had brought Weems and Mrs. Fischer certainly no longer stood in the drive; January ventured to hope that they could simply cross through the lobby and into the yard, where the porters, seeing the card, would allow Hannibal to open the trunks on pretext of needing something inside.
