Dead water - Barbara Hambly [126]
The young man glanced back at Hannibal, who had sunk back on the bed and closed his eyes again, then returned his gaze to January. “I know you care a great deal about your master, and I know you trust him . . . but I never met a slave-holder who could be completely trusted. Not even the ones who claim they ‘understand.' If they ‘understood' so well, why do they still own other men?”
January grinned wryly, and produced his much-battered freedom papers from the inner pocket of his jacket. “It's a question that's always bothered me,” he said. “As much as the question of why a slave can come and go on the upper deck—in service to his ‘master'—but a free man can't. But I've given up trying to figure out how les blankittes think. My friend could still have been killed in the duel, and that would have been no kindness, completely aside from landing me in a lot of trouble.”
Thucydides shook his head. “Believe me, my brother is too good a shot to have let your master—your friend,” he amended, handing the freedom papers back with his slight smile, “—be killed. Our father had a rifle that he hid in the rafters of our cabin. He taught us to hunt whenever our master was away from the farm. Later, after we escaped, we lived in the Wisconsin Territory, where it was only a short walk from our mother's house to the woods. We would shoot game to eat, and for Mama to sell to the loggers. It was how we survived. 'Rodus can take the head off a finch at a hundred yards, before it lifts off a branch. I promise you, your friend was never in any danger.”
“But you were,” said January, and after a moment, Thu nodded. “And two people falling over the side would have been a little . . . obvious.”
“Specially with you twitterin' around the boat askin' questions,” put in Lundy, and Thu smiled again, and began to help the old man off with his coat and cravat.
To January, the steward said, “Weems had the issue of the Liberator that contained, not only one of Bredon's speeches, but a description of him. That was before he began running cargoes for the Underground Railway. The article spoke of his eyes, which are—were,” he corrected himself, “—were an uncommon color, and of the pockmarks on his skin.”
He was silent a moment, the muscles of his jaw standing out in hard relief under the fine-grained skin. Then he shook his head and went on. “Weems used that article to get money out of Bredon, after your friend and Byrne cleaned him out at whist . . . and don't think some of us didn't see what was going on in that game. I searched Weems's stateroom as soon as 'Rodus and I pitched his body overboard, but Molloy had been there that afternoon, when all the men were on deck setting the spars. The paper was gone. I don't know how Molloy even knew it was there. . . .”
“He didn't,” said January. “He was looking for something else. Weems probably kept them in the same place.”
“How did you know?” Thu helped Lundy to sit on the bed, then went to the small china veilleuse on the dresser, where Rose had put on a small amount of tisane to keep warm. “'Rodus tells me you said to him, ‘Give me the key,' as if you knew Cain wasn't a dealer, and 'Rodus wasn't a slave. How did you figure it out? If you don't mind telling me,” he added, suddenly a little shy. “We do need to know where we went wrong, so it won't happen again.”
“I don't think it will happen again.” January pulled off Lundy's boots, settled the old man back on the pillows. “You were both very good. I don't think a white man would have suspected. But I was a slave once myself. Since Hannibal and I were doing the same thing—and had to watch out for the same things—it was clear to me that 'Rodus and Bredon were acting like partners, not like slave and master . . . and certainly not like slave and slave-dealer.”
Thu nodded. “They worked together well,” he agreed. “'Rodus had helped Bredon with five cargoes. They tried to keep up the act of hate and mistrust, but sometimes there simply wasn't time to go