Dead water

“Us?” The boy Lam looked scared, and put a protective arm around the younger brother chained at his side. “Why us?”

“What would a dressed-up buckra like Weems be doin' down here that time of night?” asked 'Rodus in a tone of such complete calm naturalness that January would have bet money they'd seen something, knew something.

And with an almost audible click, like the sound of a key in a lock, he heard Souter's voice again: a nigger gal singin' to her pickaninny . . .

Every night, the voices of the male slaves had risen in song. Desultory, sometimes, or joyful; sometimes the familiar call and response of work songs. He'd heard them himself as he slid into sleep last night. . . .

So why not at midnight, when Souter had gone up to the pilot-house?

Why had the men on the starboard side fallen silent, while the women continued to sing?

But he only shook his head. “They know he was dead when he went in the water,” he replied, and saw the glance go back and forth among the men. “Somebody smashed him over the head.”

The men around were silent. In the to-and-fro of their eyes he could almost hear the words: How'd they know? How much do they know? What's it gonna mean for us?

“He tell 'em?” asked 'Rodus mildly, but before January could answer, Mr. Lundy appeared at the bow end of the promenade and flourished his cane at the cluster of servants and deck-hands watching Molloy in the skiff.

“God damn the lot of you, trim the boat! What do you think you're looking at? Trim the damn boat before we get in more trouble—how do you expect a body to steer with all the weight on one side? Haven't you anything better to do than gape?”

“Oh, 'scuse me, sir,” murmured 'Rodus too low for the former pilot to hear. “I'll just move on upstairs into the Saloon for a few hands of ecarte.” And the men on either side of him, including January, snickered. The servants moved obediently on their way, some of them as usual pointedly ignoring the slaves chained along the wall—as if they themselves couldn't just as easily end up in the same situation next week—and others exchanging nods with them. January wondered how much the valets might have heard, or guessed, of what had happened on the other side of the piled cordwood, and whether he could ask questions without engendering suspicion.

“Man's an idiot.” Lundy tottered over to January's side. “Claims we can cut half a day off our time by going through Hitchins' Chute—high water be damned, you couldn't drown a cat in that chute!” The former pilot looked exhausted, hollow-eyed with strain as he glared out across the threshing water with its floating masses of downed trees, broken lumber, and torn-off branches.

Across the narrow stretch January could see Molloy standing in the skiff, dropping the lead-line overboard, then pulling it back. What he found must have satisfied him, for he rowed on a ways, almost invisible now between the rain and the intervening boughs.

“Looks deep enough to me, sir,” commented January, folding his arms. The thunder had ceased, save for ever more distant rumblings over the Mississippi bluffs. “Why's he in such a hurry all of a sudden?”

“Well, we lost most of a day yesterday.” Lundy's mouth twisted sourly. “More hurry, less speed, I say. River's gonna fall the minute the rain lets up and we'll be stuck in the chute waiting for Levi Christmas and his boys to show up. Molloy threatened to cane me when I told him what that girl of his had been up to in Natchez—like I couldn't have taken on that Gaelic drunkard with one hand behind me, before the palsy caught up with me! But the first thing he did when we got ourselves stuck good was to get every man-jack armed and on the deck, watching the shore. He knows.” Lundy shook his head, and unslung his spyglass from his side.

After a moment of silent scanning he offered it to January, who took it and followed the far-off figure in the skiff until it disappeared behind the trees. Down at the stern the paddle was turning slowly, more to keep water in the boilers than anything else. With the strength of the storm-fed current the Silver Moon was almost literally standing where she was in the water.

“How did the boat get hung up on Horsehead Bar to begin with, sir?” January folded up and returned the glass. “Souter seems to know his business better than that.”

“Souter?” Lundy sniffed. “If Molloy told Souter to stand on his head bare-naked in the Saloon, he'd do it. Mind you, anyone can run on a bar—in high water they build up fast. But it wasn't high water. The boy knew damn well there was a bar below Steele's Bayou, but Molloy told him to shave the bank close and shave it he did, and everyone on board got to rassle spars until nightfall because of it.”

“Is that what happened?”

“It's what Souter says. He was near in tears about it when I talked to him on the bow that afternoon and asked him what the hell he meant by shaving the bank that close. Molloy came down the stairs and slapped him on the shoulder and says, ‘You shouldn't go believin' everythin' you're told, boy. . . .'” Despite the crippled soft monotone of his voice, Lundy captured the Irishman's speech with blistering scorn. “It's my opinion Molloy did it just to break the boy's spirit a little and keep him under his thumb.”

The white triangular sail of the skiff winked from among the trees, tacking before the brisk gusts back toward the Silver Moon. Molloy's oilskin coat and wide-brimmed hat were running with rain, but he looked cheerful and stood up in the skiff to shout, “Plenty of water in the chute, laddies!”

“Oh, the hell there is!” Lundy limped over to the pilot as the deck-hands crowded forward to draw the skiff close to the bow and help Molloy spring aboard. January saw the older man gesture furiously, pointing toward the gap in the trees as the Silver Moon came slowly around and pointed her nose to the chute.

Because of the palsy, Lundy's buzzing, timbreless voice was inaudible over the rain and the paddle's splashing, but Molloy's reply boomed out arrogantly.

“What's the matter, man? You can't run a boat in ten feet of water? I thought you were the one with the hard- on to get to Lexington—in a manner of speaking,” he added, and strode on up the stair with a jeering laugh.

Lundy clung for a moment to the stanchion as if all strength had deserted him. But as January came forward to help him, the former pilot pushed himself away and moved, with surprising agility, up the stair as well.

“What causes it?” asked Rose's voice softly behind him. January turned to see her looking after the old pilot with compassionate eyes. “Palsy, I mean.”

“They don't know.” January went to take her in his arms, to press her to the thin boards of the wall through