Dead water - Barbara Hambly [127]
“Make time,” advised January. “Trust and cooperation show. It was clear to me by the way the men's gang was acting that Weems had been murdered in their presence. The fact that they all denied seeing or hearing anything told me the culprit had to be someone they considered one of themselves. The fact that you and 'Rodus are clearly brothers pointed out a strong probability that you had something to do with it.”
The steward chuckled. “That's something whites just don't see, you know. Because 'Rodus is darker than me, not a single white man has ever asked if we're related. It's as if men of dark skin are all invisible to them—they don't look at our faces.”
“Which Bredon was counting on,” said January quietly, “when he took that big a gang across in the skiff to pick up Molloy's body after the duel. I take it 'Rodus swam across sometime during the night, and stationed himself on the high ground?”
Thu nodded. “He had one of the rifles from the purser's office wrapped in oilskin, and pushed it in front of him on a plank.”
“That's what the final clue was, you know. After Molloy was shot, I came across in the skiff with Bredon and the slave-gang, and I didn't think 'Rodus was among them. If I hadn't been so worried about Hannibal, I'd have thought more about it. When the group of them came back from the trees on the knoll, and there was 'Rodus with the others, I simply thought I'd been mistaken. I don't think a single soul on the boat gave the matter an instant's thought. ‘There goes Cain with a gang of slaves. . . . Here comes Cain with a gang of slaves.' As if that ‘gang of slaves' was one single entity, and not six—or seven—individuals, each with his own face, his own fears, his own heart.”
“If any whites thought like that,” said Rose, looking up from the bed where she had sat in silence, “they couldn't hold slaves, could they?”
“Don't you believe it, Madame.” Thu's mouth twisted as if he'd bitten into something spoiled. “Trust me, I've dealt with white men who went on for hours about what is best to be done with ‘poor Negroes' but who wouldn't share a tin cup with me, let alone a hotel room. I underestimated your friend,” he added, looking down at Hannibal. “I owe him an apology.”
“For many things, I think,” said Rose.
Thu glanced over at January with a lift of one eyebrow. “I wondered if anyone had noticed that 'Rodus was missing that morning until the detail came back from the shore. Bredon kept the men busy about the boat, so no one would comment that he was gone—they would assume he was simply somewhere else.”
“It worked well,” agreed January. “Except that it was one thing too many. Any single one of those circumstances: Bredon making sure that Gleet was with him on the night of the murder; Bredon keeping the slaves busy on the morning of the duel so no one would know quite where 'Rodus was; 'Rodus re-appearing with the gang . . . any of those might have been co-incidence by itself. Taken together, it was clear to me, at least, that Cain—Bredon—was using 'Rodus as his agent. And that, therefore, the relationship between them was not what it seemed. And given the social position of the average slave-dealer,” added January wryly, “just about the only thing worse that one could accuse him of being was . . . an Abolitionist.”
“Oddly enough,” said Rose, “I never quite accepted Cain as a slave-dealer. And I realize now what troubled me about him. On the first day he came on board at Donaldsonville, he came onto the promenade to look at the women, and he encountered me there. And he stepped back out of my way, to let me pass. The way any gentleman would, for any lady. Any white lady.” Her green eyes were wry behind her spectacles. “And he looked at me, for one instant, politely, as if I were indeed any common lady in the street, and not something to be raped or worked to death with indifference. Mr. Bredon was,” she concluded softly, “an exceptional man.”
Thu nodded, and briefly closed his eyes. “He was that,” he murmured “I only wish—” He stopped himself, and shook his head again.