Dead water

Kelsey Lundy's yielded, among a few shirts and a spare pair of boots, two Bibles, several Abolitionist pamphlets, four copies of the Liberator, three bottles of laudanum, and a packet of sulfate of zinc, which January recognized as a powerful emetic.

No trunk, crate, or box examined held either banknotes, the packets of securities Granville had spoken of, or gold.

FIFTEEN

“La Pecheresse couldn't possibly have managed to spend four million dollars all in one afternoon before she left New Orleans, could she?”

Hannibal trailed January down the starboard promenade as Thucydides locked up the hold door and the hatch under Davis's watchful eye. The two coffles of slaves, having spent the forenoon poling the Silver Moon out of the chute and the mid-afternoon dragging luggage around, were now being ordered to assist in the task of helping the exhausted deck-hands lug wood to the furnaces to get steam up again, a process that would take until nearly dawn.

Climbing overboard in sightless night and fog and swimming for an unknown shore in the dark was beginning to make more and more sense.

“Even if she'd bought all those clothes and Weems had paid cash for three plantations and the slaves to run them,” January replied wearily, “it wouldn't have gone unnoticed. No, the money was on board and Molloy did something with it—or with some important portion of it. For that matter, Fischer and Weems had several days to remove the loot from their trunks themselves. We've been able to keep an eye on the stern doorway down into the hold, but they—or Molloy—could slip in at the bow end. . . .”

“And the deck-hands wouldn't have gossiped about it?”

January spread his hands helplessly. “It wouldn't take much for them to disguise themselves as German or Irish deck-passengers. Gold and securities could be brought up a little at a time and concealed under his stateroom floor between the joists. The same applies to the flooring of the hold.”

And, when Hannibal looked startled, he added, “We did that all the time at Bellefleur—the adult slaves did, I was too young. They'd steal things—food, mostly, or things that could be sold to the river-traders for food—and bury them under the cabin floors. That's why most planters build slave cabins up off the ground, no matter what they like to say about proper air circulation. It's to make it harder for the slaves to bury things under the floor.”

“The things I missed by not being born an American.” Hannibal eased himself down stiffly between the wood- piles. “Dear gods, I'm tired. I have the distressing suspicion I would not have made a particularly good slave.” And he unstoppered his flask for a quick drink.

Privately suppressing his certainty that as a slave his friend would have died of overwork and consumption long before the age of forty, January said bracingly, “Of course you would have. You'd have been promoted to butler and be running the plantation. The way you turned Molloy's attempt to push you into a duel into an opportunity to finally search the trunks—”

“Which got us exactly nothing.”

“Nonsense. It was a Socratic exercise in finding out what we do not know, clearing the way to look for Truth.”

Under his graying mustache, the fiddler's mouth twitched in a smile.

“Weems must have suspected some kind of jiggery-pokery with the luggage the moment it started being off- loaded to spar over Horsehead Bar,” went on January. “He ran to check it the moment he could get himself clear of the work-gang. If he found a substantial portion of the gold or securities gone, of course he'd begin searching staterooms the moment it grew dark—”

“At which activity Molloy surprised him and threw him overboard while miraculously making it appear that he was in the pilot-house with Mr. Souter,” finished Hannibal. “Unless Souter was lying, but I can't for the life of me see why he would be.”

He shut his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall of the 'tween-decks. The sun was nearly down, long shadows reaching out over the water and bringing a merciful degree of coolness. With the clanging of its bell softened by distance, the Wellington appeared around the bend, heading down-river in mid-channel. Voices shouted across the water—the wood-detail was forgotten as deck-hands hastened to lower the skiff and row out to exchange New Orleans newspapers for those of Memphis, St. Louis, and Louisville. January watched the small Wellington idly, blithe in its disregard even for low water, barreling southward with the rest of the torn-off branches and floating debris.

“That may be,” he told Hannibal, “only because we don't know much about Souter. Or Lundy. Or Byrne. Or Davis, for that matter—if Weems was blackmailing one man on this boat to get bribe-money to have pursuers shaken off his tail, there may have been others. If we can . . .”

A flash of blue and pink skirts appeared on the stair over their heads, and a moment later Rose came around the wood-piles. “La Pecheresse has gone to the Ladies' Parlor to slander Hannibal until dinner,” she reported cheerfully. “Having spent the entire morning doing so to Sophie, who now believes him to be the Devil incarnate.”

“Just what I needed to complete my happiness.” The fiddler opened his eyes. “I shall give her my mother's address so they can correspond on the subject.”

“I've promised I'll help her—Sophie, I mean. Mrs. Roberson's elder daughter, Emily, is still in mourning for her husband, and offered to lend her some blacks until the boat reaches Memphis. . . .”

“Emily, who's all of four feet tall and as big around as my arm?” asked Hannibal interestedly, getting painfully to his feet. “You dwarf, you minimus . . . you bead, you acorn . . .”

“Even the very same. Sophie has been cutting and fitting most of the afternoon, as Mrs. Fischer wants to be