Dead water

Though it would have been pleasant to linger in the bath, he was mindful of his responsibilities to friendship. He got out promptly, while the water was still hot, so that Hannibal could bathe as well. The fiddler looked haggard, as if he, too, had not slept after their shared vigil outside the Majestic Hotel the previous night; January could only be thankful that when the boat snagged up on Horsehead Bar, Hannibal hadn't attempted to look for him on shore.

Still, the fiddler took his violin with him when he went to supper, and a few minutes later a porter appeared, to lug away the bath. January supposed he should go down and scrounge his usual supper from Eli, to share with Rose. But weariness overwhelmed him. He rolled up in his blanket with one of the spare bed-pillows under his head, and slept, hearing through the black-velvet weight of exhaustion the soft clang of the Silver Moon's bell, and the voices of the slaves, singing on the promenade below.

Follow the Drinkin' Gourd, follow the Drinkin' Gourd,

There's an old man 'cross the river gonna carry you to freedom,

Follow the Drinkin' Gourd.

In his dreams he saw Mary, with her child on her hip, a lonely figure walking back across that weedy field to the dogtrot cabin under the grilling sun. Saw Julie, weeping in Rose's arms—What'm I gonna do?—and the backs of the two slaves who'd shoved on the capstan-bar ahead of him, knotted with whip-scars as if sections of fishing-nets were embedded under the skin. In his dream he tried to explain to them, I'm traveling on this boat to get my money back, so that I can be free.

And in his dream a man chained to the wall of the promenade deck, a man who had his father's face with its tribal scars, said gently, You already free, Ben.

No, thought January, waking to gaze into the darkness of that tiny stateroom, I am not free.

What time it was he couldn't guess. Not very late, since Hannibal had not returned—even in pitchy dark he would have been able to hear the fiddler's breathing. The floor beneath him vibrated with the shaking of the engine; the night smelled of the wet straw matting where the bath-water had dripped on it, and of fog.

Flickers of yellow light, tiny and dim but vivid as stars in the complete dark of the stateroom, outlined the louvers of the door. The cautious rattle of metal, a minute scratching, nothing like the sound of a key. A gash of light opened vertically, the pierced glow of a shuttered dark-lantern, wreaths of fog trailing around it and everything behind it lost in blackness.

January sat up, raised a hand against the light. “Rose?”

The door slammed shut. Footfalls retreated down the promenade. January scrambled to his feet, fumbled the blanket around his waist, tripped over the portmanteau that Hannibal had left sticking out from under the bunk, and by the time he pulled open the stateroom door, there was nothing outside but utter blackness, and the smell of the river and of fog. From the bow end of the boat a voice called out, “Quarter twain! Quarter twain!” monotonous as the creak of a branch in wind.

January thought, Not another damn bar, and returned to the stateroom floor to sleep.

He thought again, I am not free. Nor is Rose, nor will our children be.

Then it was misty daylight.

And still.

ANOTHER bar? Or the same one?

Hannibal's bunk was empty, but his fiddle lay in its case on the chair, and the blankets had been rumpled. January dressed, and strode aft to look for Rose.

Half the passengers on the boat seemed to be gathered at the stern ends of both the lower and upper promenades, leaning over the rails. They seemed to be craning to look at the paddle, which hung still and glistening in the warm gray vapors that seemed to hold the boat locked. We hit a snag, thought January, and damaged the paddle. . . .

Now we'll be stuck here until Christmas and his boys arrive. . . .

Why hadn't the jolt of it waked him?

He picked Rose's white tignon from the crowd, close to the rails on the port side, talking to the Roberson ladies'-maid—who slept on her mistress's stateroom floor and almost never came downstairs—and Colonel Davis's valet, Jim Pemberton. January hurried down the stairway and made toward her—she caught sight of him and turned, reaching out. She looked shaken and sick.

At the same moment January saw behind her that what he'd originally thought was a scrap of moss snagged in the paddle was in fact a piece of green and yellow cloth, soaked with water and river mud.

A man's cravat.

“What is it?”

“Weems.”

“What's he done?” So much for Hannibal's theory about what the pair of thieves were likely to do.

“He hasn't done anything,” said Rose. “His body was found this morning, snagged up in the paddle.”

TWELVE

“Murderer!” Diana Fischer swung around from the stern rail where she stood and stabbed a finger at January. Her rich contralto voice cut through the eager chatter of the deck-hands, deck-passengers, and servants all crowded around.

“Ask him where he was last night, and what orders his master gave him! Ask him why he followed this boat with such determination! Why he returned to re-board it, if not to accomplish his master's fell design!”