Dead water - Barbara Hambly [52]
“It would be likelier to induce a duel with Molloy,” replied January grimly. “He regards the girl as his property. . . .”
“Well, everything she owns apparently is,” remarked Rose uncharitably.
“And I have no desire to spend the next three months in a slave-jail awaiting the arrival of your putative next of kin. Or to see you killed.” January spoke roughly, his anger at the Reverend Christmas, and Ned Gleet, and Miss Skippen breaking through his voice like the black limbs of trees breaking through the river's surface; Hannibal's eyes met his, for a moment reading the affection that underlay the rage.
It was the affection that Hannibal answered a moment later: “Well, I have no desire to see me killed either,” he said, and rose to head for the steps back to the white purlieux of the boat. “And the thing that troubles me now is that, having seen who we are, and failed to have us detained in Natchez: what is La Pécheresse's next attempt going to consist of?”
January's mood was not improved when, later in the day, he saw Ned Gleet return with two slaves gone from his coffle, and two more added, a boy of fifteen or so and a girl so young that January suspected there'd been chicanery about her birth-date. Or maybe the law in Mississippi had never heard of the Louisiana provision that a child not be sold from her parents under the age of ten.
Of course, the law only said “where possible.”
Gleet looked so pleased with himself as he chained them to the wall, rubbing his hands and chuckling, that January had to remind himself who he was and where he was, lest he stride down the promenade and drive the man's teeth through the back of his head with his fist. Even Jubal Cain, walking past, remarked sourly, “You like 'em a little short, don't you, Gleet?”
“You say what you please,” chortled the other dealer, wagging his finger. “I'll get five hundred apiece for 'em in Memphis. . . . What's your name, boy?”
“Ephriam,” whispered the boy.
“It's Joe now,” retorted Gleet. “Damn silly name, Ephriam—you ought to re-name the lot of yours, Cain. That Fulani boy—Herodotus, what kind of name's that for a field-hand?”
“Not my damn business what a nigger's name is,” returned Cain. “'Rodus does just fine. Sometimes you make me damn sick, Gleet.”
He stalked away, stopping at the end of the promenade and standing aside to let Miss Skippen pass in a flurry of pink muslin and blond lace. She hurried up to Gleet; they stood together talking for some time.
The Silver Moon achieved full steam and was poled off the Natchez landing just before sundown, steaming north again into the hot evening light. About an hour later, a rumor went around the galley passway that Miss Skippen had sold her slave Julie to Ned Gleet.
NINE
“He gonna sell me for a field-hand.” Julie pressed her trembling hands over her lips, as if by doing so she could still the fear and grief cracking in her voice. Spray splashed from the paddle, flecking the deck-hands with wet as they moved about stowing ropes and push-poles, the women as they gathered around their friend among the wood-piles. Behind them, Natchez glowed on its high bluff in the evening light, before the gray-green wall of Marengo Bend hid it from view.
“He gonna sell me for a field-hand, an' whoever buys me'll put me with whoever they got needs a wife, to make babies whether I wants 'em or not, or whether I likes him or not.” A sob shook her, and she hugged her arms around her big, firm breasts, but January saw rage as well as fear in her dark eyes.
Rose put an arm around the girl's shoulders but said nothing. January, sitting beside the four women on a crate of dishes labeled THE MYRTLES—VICKSBURG, understood that there was no room for comforting