A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [126]
A rabble of plane trees and the white spire of the Church of St. Antoine showed him where the square lay. He was, he guessed, within a mile of his mother’s house.
And that was exactly where the police would look for him, if they were looking.
Bouki the hyena, he’s out riding the tracks, whispered a rusty voice in his mind. When you break cover, you watch your back.
Painfully—feet aching, legs aching—he descended the wooden stairs to the yard.
“It’s two bits to sleep the night.” A man came out of the store that occupied half the downstairs of the building. His face was the color of well-worn saddle leather, and about as expressive. He stood with folded arms in the muddy way that led back from the yard to the street.
The voice wasn’t the same as the one Lacrîme had spoken to last night. At a guess, the owner of the store collected money from the men who slept in his attic, but asked no questions about who came and went. The man with the cigar had been one of the other slaves.
“I have no money,” said January. “I can get some. I’ll bring it, later in the day.”
“You’ll bring it and six white horses too, huh?”
“I’ll bring it.” January’s head ached, though not nearly as bad as his body or his hand. Fatigue and hunger made him feel scraped-out, as if the marrow had been sold out of his bones. He felt he should argue with this man, or produce some telling reason why he should be trusted, but he couldn’t think of any at the moment. He’d have to pay Desdunes for his horse, too.
Even anger had gone to ash. He could have struck him, he supposed—from a great distance—but that would mean someone would call the police.
“I hold on to your boots,” said the storekeeper. “When you come back with my two bits, you get your boots back.”
So it was that January was barefoot, ragged, his hand wrapped in dirty bandages, and his whole body sweating like a nervous horse with fear that someone would stop him, ask his business, or worse yet recognize him, when he slipped down the narrow walkway and into his sister Dominique’s yard. Becky, standing under the kitchen gallery ironing the intricate cut-lace puffs of a dress sleeve, looked up and called, “What is it? What do you want?” in a hard, cross voice, then looked again and set the iron down quickly.
“Michie Benjamin!” She ran toward him, stopped, staring, as he held up his hand. “What in the name of heaven?”
“Is my sister here?” And, as she started for the rear door of the house, “Don’t speak of me if there’s anyone here but her.”
Becky went inside. January waited under the gallery, hesitant even to go into the kitchen with his scratched feet and muddy clothes. All he could think was, Mama will never let me hear the end of this.
He wondered what his mother would do, if Xavier Peralta had already used his influence to send the police for his, January’s, arrest.
He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.
Minou appeared in the dark of the house, stepped outside, like a blossom of Queen Anne’s lace in lavender-striped muslin sprigged with violets. Another figure flashed in the darkness, emerged into the light. Olympe, her blue skirt and rusty persimmon-red blouse and tignon giving her the look of a market woman against the dull gray of the afternoon light.
“Dear God!” cried Minou, but for a moment there was only worried watchfulness, swift calculation in Olympe’s dark eyes. Then, “What happened? That policeman was here this morning, to talk to you, he said.”
A riverboat would have brought Peralta back to town in eight hours, maybe nine, thought January. Enough passed on the lower river that he could have signaled one within a few hours of the disappearance being discovered.
“I gave him your letter, Ben. Becky, heat some water now, immediately. You said if you hadn’t returned by Sunday, and he said he’d been to Mama’s house already. Ben, you didn’t—?”
He shook his head. “Can you