which the throb of the engines beat like a heart. To press his lips over hers, as the touch of her, the scent of her— even after a week unwashed in the heat on a steamboat's deck—aroused in him the desire to pull her behind the wood-piles and crates and have her on the bare deck like a savage, a Kaintuck, a rapist.
He realized how often this was his fear when something separated them, when something went wrong.
“We wouldn't have left you, you know,” Rose said after that long, wordless time of silent rocking in one another's arms. Of silent thanks to God and the Virgin that in spite of Queen Regine's curse and every effort by the world in general to the contrary, the ultimate thing was still all right. She was still with him.
“I don't think I've ever felt so relieved in my life as when I saw you coming down the bank,” she went on. “Hannibal and I were watching for you, of course—Mr. Lundy told us Steele's Bayou was the likeliest place you'd make for.”
His lips brushed the feather-soft curls that emerged from beneath the edge of her tignon. “Don't tell me you were the one who actually got poor Souter to run the boat up on the bar.”
“Nonsense.” Her smile was a quick sunflash, quickly tucked away. “If we hadn't run aground on that bar, Hannibal was going to light a small fire in the cordwood near the engine-door just as we came within sight of Steele's Bayou so that I could slip in and dump the boilers in the confusion.”
January sighed. “It's good to know I have ingenious friends. Where was Lundy last night, by the way? I'll have to ask Hannibal what time he left the Saloon after dinner.”
“You don't suspect poor Mr. Lundy of heaving Weems overboard, do you? Why would he? I'd say it would be Mr. Molloy, if anybody. Or that cold savage, Cain.”
“Except that Molloy was in the pilot-house when it happened,” said January. “And Cain appears to have been continuously in the company of others—either the other card-players or Gleet—between nine-thirty and one. And I suppose,” he added thoughtfully, “if I were being suspicious, I'd find that in itself suspicious . . . because as far as I've seen, Cain can't stand Gleet. But it doesn't alter the fact that he couldn't have hit Weems over the head and dumped his body overboard at eleven-thirty—which is what seems to have happened.”
And he recounted to her, briefly, the results of his makeshift autopsy, and Hannibal's account of events in the Saloon the previous night. “Which makes nonsense of Mrs. Fischer's accusation, of Hannibal at least,” he concluded. “In fact with both Molloy and Cain accounted for, the murder could have been committed by anyone on board, including Mrs. Fischer herself. She's certainly tall enough and strong enough to have killed a man with a sharp blow over the head, especially one who had no reason to be wary of her. And in fact, we know almost nothing about anyone on board, including such ostensible innocents as Lundy and Quince.”
While he spoke, the
Meantime the rain was lightening, till by the time the
Overhanging boughs swept the arcades of the boiler-deck above, and slapped at the stanchions only feet from where January and Rose stood by the passway. The male slaves pointed and commented about the suddenly-close scenery—the boys Lam and Jeremiah moved out to the end of their chains to lean over, to catch at the dripping leaves that whipped in under the arcades, and overhead January heard Melissa Tredgold scream, “I want to see!
No doubt while she tried to drag the unwilling Cissy over to the edge to let her do the same.
“No, you're right.” Rose leaned against January's side, rested her head on his shoulder. With his palm on her back he felt the tension in her slender body ease. “We don't know a thing about anyone on board except what they've told us. My guess is that Lundy was in bed. Sufferers from his ailment don't have much stamina. He told me once he has to lie down every few hours. He was the
“Did he say what his name is?” January felt a twinge of chagrin, like a twist in the muscle beneath his breastbone, at the reflection that it had been months since he'd had time to read the issues of
“Burnham? Barham?” Rose shook her head. “I can't recall exactly.”
“The name isn't familiar. I'll have to ask. But one thing I do know. Whoever did the murder, I'd be willing to bet—if I had any money of my own to bet with—that it took place either on the starboard promenade of the boiler- deck, or more probably on the starboard promenade of the main deck. And that dark as it was, at least some of the slaves saw it.”
FOURTEEN
“Herodotus.” Colonel Davis's sharp voice sounded calm and firm, and as January and Rose looked around the corner of the 'tween-decks, the young Fulani rose to meet the tall, black-clothed planter.
“Yes, sir.”
Behind Davis, Cain watched with folded arms and Gleet spat tobacco onto the deck. In the presence of the dealers the men chained along the wall moved together as much as they could.