Dead water - Barbara Hambly [11]
“We'll be traveling through cotton territory,” January illuminated for him grimly. “We'll be in country where nobody's even heard that there are free colored people or that there can be black people who aren't somebody's property. Where nobody's going to look too closely at a black man's ownership papers if he turns up on some auction-block for cheap, and where no local sheriff is going to go against one of his constituents if that constituent has a newly-bought slave who claims he's a kidnapped freeman.
“If we get in trouble,” January concluded, “I'm trusting you to buy us free. Just as you're trusting me not to breathe a word about your bank having eight million banknotes in circulation backed up by the change in your pockets. Sir.”
He didn't even mention the problems he would face, in the event of “trouble,” in getting word back to Granville that he or Rose needed help. In the low water of summer, it could take nearly a week for a letter to get to New Orleans from Vicksburg, two weeks from Memphis—longer, if the boat got tangled up on a bar or tore out its paddle on a snag. A week in the hands of slave-dealers or professional kidnappers could be an eternity, and once in the deep heartland of Missouri or Tennessee, it was almost unbelievably difficult for a black who didn't know the area to travel.
But he said nothing about that. Only watched Granville's eyes, counting the seconds of silence before the banker replied. An immediate Of course, that goes without saying! would have been his signal to renege at once and to get Hubert Granville the hell out of his parlor as quickly as he could. A reply that unthinking meant that Granville had no intention of laying out so much as ten cents to purchase his freedom, much less the fourteen hundred dollars a prime cotton-hand, six feet three inches tall and massively built, would fetch on the open market.
But Granville thought about it, asking himself—January could see the infinitesimal movement of his kid-gloved fingers as he toted up estimates—if it was something he could actually afford. “How much danger is there of that?” he asked finally.
“Some,” said January. “We'll be safer on the boat than ashore. But if Weems off-loads those trunks somewhere along the way, we'll have to follow. I won't know how much danger there'll be until we see what we're faced with on board. Some of it depends on how desperate Weems is, or will become if he realizes he's being dogged. We need to know that you'll stand by us.”
Granville rose, massive and only inches shorter than January himself, and held out his hand. “I'll stand by you,” he pledged. “And in addition to the thanks of the bank officers—most of whom don't know and won't know that there's a problem—you have my personal thanks. I won't let you down.”
“And if you believe that,” remarked Rose, standing on the front gallery minutes later as they watched the banker disappear down the darkness of Rue Esplanade, “as your sister Olympe would say, you and I both deserve to spend the rest of our lives picking cotton in Tennessee.”
Her voice was light, but he could tell she was still furiously angry, and he knew he could not say to her, I won't let you come.
Behind those words, if only in their hearts, lurked the reply: It's your fault we're in this mess.
Besides, he knew he'd need all the help he could get.
Far off, thunder rumbled in the tar-black darkness and flashes of heat-lightning flickered over the lake. Here beyond the range of the French town's iron street-lanterns, the blackness was absolute. Across Rue Esplanade, where the small houses of Faubourg Marigny lay hidden among the trees, the roar of cicadas beat like a metallic sea.
January took a deep breath. “Rose, I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry that you disregarded me when I pointed