Dead water - Barbara Hambly [75]
At least she had a dry room to sit in, thought January. Most of his pity went to Rose, sheltering among the wood-piles, and to the chained slaves and to the immigrant women huddled with their children in the doubtful cover of the bow. It did not, of course, occur to Mrs. Tredgold or anyone else to extend an invitation to them to come up and stay dry.
Nick the barkeep lit the whale-oil lamps in the Saloon, and the men pretended to talk or play cards. But the planters Roberson and Lockhart, the two slave-dealers, and the New Englander Dodd all kept glancing up from their cards or their newspapers at the corner table where Davis established his headquarters.
At least, reflected January, they'd all be in one place to be questioned.
“Molloy cursed somethin' wonderful,” asserted the junior pilot in response to Davis's question. “Went on for five minutes about unprintable expletive-deleted branches from trees that'd grown out of the Devil's toenails—although toenails might not have been the word he used—snaggin' up his rudder, and how if he had his way he'd turn crews of niggers loose on the banks to shave 'em to the ground five miles on either side, and him pullin' and wrestlin' with the wheel all the time, with the smoke of his cigar rollin' around his head like Satan's own breath.”
The young man chuckled, fresh-faced, long-jawed, and rather plump, with big dark eyes under long lashes, a bit like a friendly cow. “Not much trash in the river when she's low like she was last night, but now and then you'll get branches and leaves caught up on a snag. When I took over the wheel I could see what he meant, and it was a struggle, keeping to the center of the channel and easing off 'round the bends where she gets strong. . . . Even in low water she can be strong around Magna Vista Point. And it was blind foggy. Couldn't see hardly down to the nose of the boat.”
“When did the rudder snag, do you know?” asked Davis. “How soon before Molloy went off at midnight?”
“Fairly soon. I came in maybe fifteen, twenty minutes of midnight, just as we come opposite Ulee's wood-yard, and it was maybe five-ten minutes after that.”
“If it was blind foggy,” asked Davis, curious, “how do you know you were opposite Mr. Ulee's wood-yard?”
“Oh, there's an eddy backs under the point just below the yard,” replied Souter. “Even in low water you can feel her.”
“Surely there are other eddies along the shore?”
“'Course there are! But they all feel a tad different—you can tell the voices of one of your niggers from another in the dark, can't you? Well, I can feel the difference in the way she pulls, between that little eddy under Ulee's yard and, for instance, that cantankersome bull-bitch you got under Dead Man's Bend, for God's sake. Besides, where else would I be, that time of night? I'd just heard old Fergusson's dogs barking when we passed his place, we'd made the crossing over Magna Vista, so where the hell else would I be gettin' a little eddy 'cept opposite Ulee's?”
Lightning flared, a white explosion in all the high clerestories of the Saloon; thunder cracked like the sky splitting. Souter listened, then nodded approvingly. “About time we got a rise. Be a hell of a lot of trash in the stream, but the rise'll be a help.”
“Did you hear anything?” asked Davis. “You say you heard dogs barking on the bank. . . .”
“'Bout a mile and a half the other side of the levee, actually,” corrected Souter. “Fergusson has this mastiff bitch, you see, name of Penelope. . . .”
“If you heard dogs barking a mile and a half away,” persisted Davis, “it must have been a very still night. Did you hear voices on the deck? Or the sound of argument?”
Souter frowned, then shook his head. “Oh, I heard those deck-passengers, laughin' and tellin' jokes as they played cards as I came up the stairs, and a nigger gal singin' to her pickaninny. . . . Say, it's been twenty years since I heard ‘House Carpenter.' My Grandma used to play it on her cheeks, slappin' her own face and making mouths to change the pitch. . . .”