Dead water - Barbara Hambly [54]
But he still felt safer on the upper deck, where he knew Queen Régine could not come.
After supper January again borrowed Eli's guitar, and played duets with Hannibal for dancing and gaiety in the Main Saloon. There was, he reflected, singularly little glee that night. Led by Mrs. Fischer, the women definitely and completely ostracized Theodora Skippen, who retreated a number of times out onto the promenade to comfort herself, and returned with head held high and a distinct whiff of brandy on her breath. Mr. Weems, still apparently under orders not to advertise his association with Mrs. Fischer, remained in a corner, playing cribbage with Quince and listening to the handsome young man's interminable encomia of Vegetarianism and the Thompsonian system of health through the consumption of honey and onions. Mrs. Fischer for her part kept a wary eye on January and Hannibal, and by the way Mrs. Tredgold avoided the fiddler and Mrs. Roberson drew her daughter away from him, January guessed Mrs. Fischer had been spreading a little gossip about him in the Ladies' Parlor by way of guaranteeing an upper hand.
Still, this left four ladies who consented to dance in a set with one another—Mrs. Roberson, Mrs. Tredgold, Mrs. Fischer, and sixteen-year-old Dorothea Roberson—so the gentlemen took it in turns to dance with them, though the gluttonous Dodd was beginning to demonstrate a disposition to disappear out onto the promenade every time Miss Skippen did. January only hoped the elderly Bostonian's wealth would distract the girl from her smoky glances at Hannibal, but by the way she returned from such encounters with red cheeks and angry eyes, he didn't hold out much hope.
Mr. Souter, not yet on duty, buttonholed Colonel Davis in a corner with a lengthy account of the pilot on the Louisville Belle, who used to navigate the bend above Poverty Point in pitch darkness by ringing the bell and listening for the barking of Rush Thompson's dog—that was Rush Thompson whose brother had run a wood-yard at Kentucky Bend, and had married a woman named Clanton who'd had an affair with Aaron Burr supposedly—the dog's name was Henry Clay. Henry Clay would always bark at the sound of a steamboat bell, and the day after Henry Clay died of being gored by Enoch Andrews's bull, Melchizadek, who had one bent horn and had been calved by this Spanish feller, Dorado's, cow Elizabeth, that was stole from him by river pirates and later he got her back—the day after Henry Clay died the pilot ran the Louisville Belle aground in the fog because he didn't hear the dog bark on the bank. They did manage to save the Belle's engines, though, and put them on a new boat, the Louisville Pride, whose pilot was . . .
Mr. Byrne engaged the two black-clothed Jews who'd come on at Natchez in a game of vingt-et-un. Mr. Cain simply settled back to listen to the music, his yellow eyes half shut like a sleepy cat's and his face transformed by an expression of profound and peaceful joy.
Hannibal's fiddle floated light over the notes of the Marlborough Cotillion, the silk of skirts swishing over the straw matting on the floors.
“Tell you what I'll do, Cain,” drawled Gleet's whining voice. “I'll give you seven hundred for that boy of yours, He-ro-do-tus, plus those two young 'uns I picked up in Natchez, Joe an' Jane.” The slave-dealer spat, not even bothering to aim for the cuspidor. “Now, you can't say you been offered a fairer deal than that. I got a customer in Memphis, a steady customer, always lookin' for smart boys like that 'Rodus, an' you can't tell me he ain't trouble to you.”
What Cain's reaction was to this, January didn't know, because movement in the doorway drew his eye; Thu pausing there to look back at the two slave-dealers, his thin face impassive but his eyes wary and listening. In the dim light of the overhead lanterns his face looked suddenly very African, despite its fair complexion, the narrow Fulani