Barbara Hambly - Dead water

'Rodus shook his head. “He got padlocks on 'em.” He'd already unlocked his own manacles and passed the key to the next man, all the deck-hands—and Gleet's male slaves, who'd been unchained to help with the wooding—staring in disbelief. “I'll get a pry-bar from the engine-room, if I can get in there. . . .”

At that moment the engine-room door flew open and Thu sprang out, pry-bar in hand. He skidded to a stop at the sight of January. Recovering quickly, he threw the bar to Guy, who was next beside 'Rodus in the line, and said, “You go get the women.” Fishing in his pocket, he produced another key; this he handed to Guy—when the man and three of Gleet's slaves had ducked into the passway to cross through to unchain the women on the other side, the steward turned back to January, unconsciously moving shoulder to shoulder with his brother.

“Cain is gone,” said 'Rodus to Thu. “An' Ben here seems to know all about him.”

“Only what I could guess,” said January. “That you and he were taking these runaways”—he nodded toward the others of Cain's gang—“to Ohio. You didn't need to poison Hannibal,” he added quietly. “We wouldn't have betrayed you.”

“A court trial would have held us up,” returned the steward calmly. “I didn't put enough snakeroot in that liquor of his to kill him. Just enough that they'd see he was too sick to try. They'd lock him up someplace to get better and let the boat go . . . damn!” He turned sharply as a small skiff emerged from the mouth of an overgrown bayou behind Brock's Point, the dozen men aboard hauling hard on the oars.

“Reinforcements,” said January grimly as the men on board began to shout and wave to the outlaws on the Silver Moon .

Caught between the steamboat and the smaller vessel on her makeshift raft, Mrs. Fischer half sat up, dark hair flying in the wind, and looked back toward the steamboat. Before she could make up her mind to turn back, one of the men on the skiff whooped and brought his rifle around. There was a puff of smoke. Mrs. Fischer sank slowly down, holding her side. A moment later she rolled from her fragile square of boards into the opaque flood.

There was a flash of black, a ribbon of red unreeling into the water, and she was gone.

TWENTY

“Get in the engine-room!” Thu waved to the newly-released slaves and the deck-hands clustered in the promenade. “Get the women in there. . . .”

“Hold the doors as long as you can,” panted January. “They'll try to take the pilot-house and run the boat to shore. . . .”

“There's guns in the purser's office,” said Thu. “I can break in the case—Tredgold's got the key. We've got only a few minutes before they figure it's worth it to shoot a nigger or two.”

'Rodus grinned, a slash of white in his dark face. “Never thought bein' worth a thousand dollars to some white man would come in handy.”

“You gonna see how handy it is when you end up bein' sold in Texas, brother,” snapped Thu, not unaffectionately, and loped off to unlock the office door.

January sprang up the steps and along the upper promenade, going first to the Ladies' Parlor—where he found every woman and child on the boat, with the exception of Rose, huddled together under the protection of Jim, Andy, and Winslow. He yelled, “Get to the pilot-house!” and raced down to Hannibal's stateroom. Rose, Hannibal, and Quince had already gone. Rose, like January, had guessed that the outlaws had to take either the engine-room or the pilot-house, and when January mounted to the hurricane deck, he found them already in the little cupola, Hannibal stretched out on the lazy-bench only barely conscious and Rose trying to get the other women—including one Irish and two German deck-passengers and their children—to be quiet and stay still. The room was tiny, and with twenty extra people jammed into it, there was barely room for Mr. Lundy to cling to the wheel.

“Blame you, what the hell you have to send 'em all up here for?” The pilot's buzzing voice sharpened with annoyance, though January guessed he actually knew perfectly well. He was barely to be heard over the screaming of the Irishwoman's baby and Melissa Tredgold.

“Too hard to defend three places,” January answered. “They killed Cain and three deck-hands and threw them overboard like dead dogs. Any captive's going to end up a hostage.”

Mrs. Tredgold slapped her daughter with a blow like a gunshot, and the girl screamed even louder.

“I'll give 'em a list of who they can have with my compliments. . . .”

Jim—clustered with the little group of men outside the door—shouted, “Here they come!”

January yelled, “Let's go!” Their ammunition was gone, so the little gang of men who'd gone up—January, the three valets, Byrne the gambler, Mr. Tredgold, blanched and shaky with shock, and even Mr. Quince—caught up logs and canes and threw themselves across the dozen feet or so to the top of the stair, to stop the attackers before they swarmed onto the hurricane deck itself. Those who followed unquestioningly—and January had one terrible moment of fear that nobody would—soon realized the strategy he didn't have time to explain: that bunched together on the narrow stair, it was almost impossible for the attackers to fire or, if they did, to aim, whereas if they were able to fan out over the hurricane deck, they'd be in a position to rip the pilot-house itself apart with cross-fire.

Swinging his makeshift club of firewood, January dodged to one side as Levi Christmas fired on him almost point-blank. The stinging heat of the ball whiffed his arm, then he fell on the outlaw before Christmas could unsling another pistol from around his neck. January grabbed the stringy outlaw by the throat, his hands tangling in a mess of filthy beard, and twisted his hip to protect his groin from a jabbing knee. With his other hand he caught the Reverend's wrist as the older man brought up a pistol—they clung to each other, rocking and swaying at the top of the stair with the other outlaws massed below, unable to fire, trying to shove past and being beaten back by the defenders on deck.

Christmas pulled a knife from his belt with his free hand, and January had to twist aside to keep from being eviscerated. His grip on the Reverend's throat broke, and as the outlaw brought up his pistol, January kicked him backwards, down onto the men on the stair.

“Don't let them go!” he yelled, and plunged down after them, crowding them to keep them from shooting. But this time no one followed. Jim and the others were already falling back to the perceived safety of the pilot-house, not understanding how fatal it was to give ground, and January felt a knife rip into the muscles of his back. Then he was falling backwards, down off the stair, clutching and grabbing and then hitting the back of the deck hard.

A fury of shouting and pounding came dimly to him from below as he lay on the boards of the deck, stunned and trying to breathe. Every whisper of air brought stabbing pain in his side—a rib broken, he thought, the pain wasn't where he'd been stabbed and though he felt weak and lightheaded, it was the long burning pain of a slash. Opening his eyes, he saw the last of Christmas's men piling up the stair onto the hurricane deck, surrounding the pilot-house.

Head swimming, January rolled over, tried to get up. Two of the last men up the stairs halted, turned back, and climbed down to him. They had pistols, but spent smoke poured from the barrels—January let himself fall back onto the boards of the deck, and both men stuck their knives into their belts.

“Big bastard,” said one of them, bending to grab January's wrists. The other took his ankles to drag him to the rail, so the kick January delivered to his groin was unexpected, perfectly positioned, and murderous. The man at his wrists dropped them and fumbled for his knife—Mr. Ankles being doubled up on the deck screaming—and January didn't even bother going for a weapon, just pistoned his feet down to the deck and drove his elbow up under Mr. Wrists' chin with a force that smacked him hard against the arcade support.

January heaved first the one, then the other overboard, and was scrambling up the stair to the hurricane deck before either of them hit the water.

From above him he heard Levi Christmas yell. “You might as well give up in there, old man, 'fore we shoot the pilot-house to pieces!”

There were a dozen outlaws, ranged in a circle around the flimsy board structure. From inside, January could hear Theodora Skippen screaming, “Levi, no! Levi, it's me, Dora . . . !”

Oh, that will certainly get him to throw down his guns . . . .

January yelled, “Christmas, the money isn't on the boat!” and all the outlaws turned.

There was momentary stillness. Levi Christmas brought up his pistol to bear on January; then, when January remained unmoving, the Reverend walked toward him on the blood-splattered decking. When he got within two yards of January, he said in a calm voice, “We been followin' this boat since Natchez, and we had a look at every trunk that's been took off it. We ain't seen no gold yet.”

“That gold never left New Orleans,” January told him. “If you've been watching this boat, you'll have seen that every trunk and box in the hold was searched the day before yesterday, and all we found was a lot of underwear and shoes.”

“All that means is that Irish bastard hid it,” replied Christmas evenly. “Wasn't that why he tried to shoot your master? You and that master of yours wouldn't still be on board if the money wasn't here. It's a good try,” he added with a broken-toothed grin. “But that money's here, and I'm gonna find it, if I gotta heat up some irons and toast the titties of every woman on board to get somebody to break loose with a little—”

The whole deck lurched underfoot as the Silver Moon staggered like a drunkard on a spree. January covered the six feet between himself and Christmas with a single leap and wrenched the pistol from the Reverend's hand—when Christmas grabbed for another of the several around his neck, January brought the pistol-butt against his verminous temple with crushing force. A chorus of screams rose from the pilot-house and above them rode Jim's shout,

“We hit a snag! We goin' down !”

The boat was already beginning to list.

January was nearly trampled by Christmas's men as they pelted for the stairway down to the lower decks. Not one of them so much as paused to scoop their stunned and unconscious boss from the deck. Even as January reached the door of the pilot-house it flew open and the women streamed out, Mrs. Tredgold screaming at her husband, “This is all your fault!” and Melissa Tredgold simply screaming.

January tossed his pistol to Rose and dragged Hannibal onto his shoulder like a sack of flour; Rose put her shoulder under Mr. Lundy's to help him along, last of them all, down the steps to the deck. “What happened?” panted January. “Did you hit it deliberately?”

“Hell, no,” buzzed the pilot. “With all the windows but the visor-board shut, I couldn't see, and the river's stiff with towheads . . . it had to happen. You think I was gonna wreck the boat this far from the free states, with all those folks still on board?”

“So you were part of it?”

“'Course I was part of it!” snorted Lundy. He clutched at Rose's shoulder and the stair-rail as they carefully negotiated the steps first down to the boiler-deck, then to the main deck below. “Why the hell else would a spavined old wreck like me be still rasslin' around this river, if it wasn't to help get a flock of runaways north to Canada?”