Dead water - Barbara Hambly [28]
They put in at Donaldsonville as the sky was turning bright, and stayed at the landing there until mid-morning while Mr. Tredgold inquired about the town for a passenger who was supposed to be waiting and wasn't. Molloy cursed mightily at the delay, because it meant drawing the fires out of his engines so that the boilers wouldn't run dry—the water-pumps operated only when the wheel was turning—but Ned Gleet took advantage of the occasion to ensconce himself on the gallery of the biggest of the waterfront taverns, alert for anyone who possessed a slave and who might be talked into selling.
At five in the morning there wasn't much hope of this, and from the upper deck promenade—where he kept a discreet eye on passengers and luggage leaving the boat—January could see the dealer getting himself into a fouler and fouler mood. When Molloy went into the selfsame tavern (“Even I don't start drinking at five in the morning!” exclaimed Hannibal self-righteously when January told him about this several hours later) Gleet shouted something at him about staying longer: Molloy didn't even break stride, just turned and back-handed the slave-dealer off the porch, threw the chair after him, and was stopped from following him down into the street and continuing the fight only by Mr. Tredgold and the young junior pilot Mr. Souter.
“There's no man tells Kevin Molloy what he's to do and not to do!”
Gleet's discouragement and chagrin were completed by the arrival of another slave-dealer with a coffle of some fifteen men and women, and by the fact that this dealer, a man named Cain with the coldest yellow eyes January had ever seen, refused to sell any of his stock. “I can get a better price for 'em in Louisville,” Cain said in his quiet voice, and crossed the gangplank to see to chaining them along the lower promenade beside Gleet's.
All this January saw from the bow end of the boiler-deck, where he idled most of the morning, trying not to look like he was keeping watch. He didn't actually think Weems would try to desert the boat here—it was far too close to New Orleans—but it was just possible he would off-load one or more of his (or Mrs. Fischer's) trunks of money there, to be left in storage and picked up later. From this position January was able to observe the comings and goings of most of the passengers that morning: to witness the departure of the young planter Mr. Purlie with the slave-girl in tow he'd bought from Ned Gleet; to note how artfully Molloy's fair Miss Skippen, a vision in lavender ruffles, dropped her handkerchief just as Colonel Davis turned the corner of the upper promenade deck—and to hear the word she muttered to herself when Davis simply walked past and let it lie; to overhear a fragment of what appeared to be a vicious argument between Mrs. Fischer and Mr. Weems.
“—but what do you want me to do, Diana?”
“I want you to get yourself out of a situation you were too stupid to avoid, is what I want you to do.” As they passed, January pretended to be absorbed in the spectacle of Molloy, down on the bow-deck, striking a porter with the back of his hand and sending the poor man sprawling into the coils of rope; January slipped his eye sidelong to glimpse the pair as they passed him, and saw that they were still pretending to be strangers, walking well apart and speaking in tones of quiet conversation, until you heard the words.
“But I tell you one thing, you're not touching a dime of . . .”
They passed out of hearing, and Melissa and Neil Tredgold came racing around the corner of the 'tween-decks, shrieking like banshees, followed by their nursemaid Cissy's shouts: “You children get back here!” On the deck below, Mr. Purlie's trunks were unloaded, and a merchant came down to take consignment for several bales of the rough osnaberg “nigger-cloth” and a crated plow. Deck passengers milled about, mostly rough waterfront types or the crews of flatboats making their way north again,