“Two thousand dollars? Damned if I do!”
“Oh, darlin’, I know – but it ain’t worth it! We’d lose by it in the end! Please – I know it’s my fault, an’ I should ’ave listened to you an’ not trusted the long red snake that ’e is! But I’m soft an’ silly – please, let it alone for my sake?”
She was so insistent that in the end I shrugged it away – it wasn’t my pelf, anyway. But I kept my thoughts to myself, and she calmed down presently and promised that we would make it back a hundredfold in no time at all.
Which I could well believe, seeing how business was in the second week. Our clients were more numerous than ever, and their enthusiasm showed itself in an entirely unexpected way – to me, at any rate, although Susie said it had been common enough in New Orleans, and was regarded as a great compliment to the establishment. For now we began to receive repeated offers from the wealthier patrons who wanted to buy one or other of the girls outright; I recall one enormously fat greaser with an oiled moustache and rings sparkling on his pudgy hands, sweating all over his lecherous moon face as he made Susie a bid for Marie – she was the delicate little mulatto with soulful eyes whose prime trick, I gathered, was to burst into tears beforehand.
“She ees so frail and sweet, like a fresh flower!” cries this disgusting bag of lard. “She must be mine – the price, I do not care! Name eet, and I pay. Only I must have her for my own, to protect and cherish; she consumes me, the little helado negro!”
Susie smiled and shook her head. “But I couldn’t do that, Señor Cascara de los Pantalunas, even for you! Why, I’d soon ’ave no gels left, an’ then where’d I be? They’re not for sale—”
“But I must have her! I weel care for her like … like my most precious brood mare! She shall have an apartment in my hacienda, with perfumed crystals for her bath, and bon-bons, and a silk coverlet, and a pet dog from Chihuahua—”
“I’m shore she would,” says Susie firmly, “’cos you’re a real gentleman, I know – but there’s the law, too, isn’t there? This ain’t slave territory, an’ I’d be in a real fix if word got out.”
“Ah, the Americano law! Who cares? Would eet be known – who should hear of it?” He grimaced like a sow in labour, and wheedled horrid. “Are there not t’ousands of slaves? What are the peons, but chattels? Do not los Indios own many slaves, stolen and bought, and what does the law know about them? Pleez, Mees’ Comber, I beg of you … free, four t’ousan’ dollar, even – what you will, por Dios! so I may possess my pure, my delicious angelic Marie!”
But she wouldn’t have it for all his groans and entreaties, and he went off lamenting to console himself on rented terms with his little black ice-cream, as he’d called her. Susie sent all other would-be buyers the same road, including one I’d not have credited if I hadn’t been present as translator. Believe it or not, he was a priest! Aye, from the mission just up the Santa Fe Trail, a spruce little runt of impeccable address who came in secrecy after dark, and hastened to explain that he wasn’t a customer, personally, but acting on behalf of an important client.
“He has heard, as who has not, of the beauty and refinement of the young ladies who are … ah, under the señora’s care,” says he, and from his very smoothness I scented a wrong ’un from the start. “I must make it clear immediately that my patron’s intentions are of the most honourable, otherwise it is unthinkable that I should act as his intermediary. But he is of consequence, and wishes to take the young lady to wife. He understands the señora’s position, and is prepared to pay substantial ah … compensation.”
When I’d recovered, and translated for Susie, she was so took aback that she didn’t offer her usual polite refusal, but asked who the patron was, and which gal did he want, for Gawd’s sake? I passed it back, and the Pimping Padre shook his head.
“I should not divulge his name. As to his choice … he knows of your ladies only by report, and is indifferent. He would prefer, however, that she is not too black.”
Susie, hearing this, said she was prepared to wager it was his bloody bishop; staunch Church of England, was Susie. “Tell ’im we regret our gals ain’t for sale, wotever name ’e gives it,” says she. “Compensation, indeed. An’ marriage! A likely tale!”
He was a persistent little terrier, though, and urged the importance of his patron, the unspecified amount he would cough up, and as a last resort, the desirability of giving a poor whore the chance to go straight in wedlock – he didn’t put it like that, quite. Susie shook her head grimly, and repeated her line about the law being the law, and the girls not being in the market anyway. He took himself off poker-faced, and Susie was remarking that it was all this celibacy that made ’em randy as stoats, when I voiced a doubt that had occurred to me before.
“Hold on,” says I. “If it’s true what you’ve been telling them … is this free territory? Because, if it is, what’s to hinder one of the girls from marrying a suitor – or little Marie going off with old Pantalunas or whatever he’s called? I mean, maybe they’d rather jolly a single party, with all home comforts as wives or mistresses, than be thumped by four different randies every night. And if slave law don’t run here – why, the whole pack of ’em could walk out and leave you flat!”
“You think I’m simple, don’t you?” says she. “Why, I knew all o’ that afore I left Orleans. Leave me flat? Why should they do that – and where’d they go, silly little sluts that don’t know nothink except ’ow to prop a man up? Trust ’emselves to some oily villain like ole Cascara-chops, who’d turn ’em out as soon as ’e’d tired of ’em? That much they do know, now. An’ they ’aven’t the wit to work their own lay, unprotected – they wouldn’t last a week. Wi’ me, they’re well-off, well-fed, an’ I treat ’em fair; they’re never driven or ill-used, an’ they know that when they’re past their prime I’ll see ’em set up proper – yes, or married, to some steady feller that I approve of. ’Ow many ’ores d’you know, in England, wi’ prospects as good as my gels? That’s another thing; they are my gels, an’ they’d not leave me – no, not for twenty Pantalunasses. You see, law or no law, they’re still slaves, in ’ere,” and she tapped her forehead. “An’ I’m Miz Susie, an’ always will be.”31
Well, she was the best judge, but I had doubts. I could think of one at least of her houris who was not a silly little slut, and who could see horizons wider than those visible in the ceiling mirrors of Susie’s private salons. One Cleonie, to wit, who’d been more passionately attentive to me than ever since our arrival in Santa Fe. There was a little summer-house hidden deep in the pines near the back gate, and when occasion offered she and I would repair to it for field exercises; since I was preparing to bid Susie adieu I didn’t heed the risk, but Cleonie’s eagerness astonished me. I’d have thought she’d have enough of men to sicken her, but apparently not. I discovered why one afternoon when everyone else was at siesta, and I was sitting meditating in the dim, stuffy little summer-house with Cleonie astride my lap going like a drunk jockey and humming “Il était une bergère”; when she’d panted her soul out, and I’d got a cheroot going, she suddenly says:
“How much do you love me, chéri?”
I told her, oceans, and hadn’t I just proved it, but she kept asking me, teasing at me with her lips, her eyes alight in the shadows, so I reassured her that she was the only girl for me, no error. She considered a moment, with a little smile.
“You do not love Miz Susie. And soon you will be leaving her, will you not?”
I started so hard I nearly unseated her, and she gave a little laugh and kissed me again. “There is no need to be alarmed. Only I know it – and that because I had a Haitian mother, and we can see. I see it in the way you look at her – just as I see what is in your eyes when you look at me – aahh!” And she shivered against me. “Why should you love her – she is fat and old, and I am young and beautiful, n’est-ce pas?”
If when you’re fifty you can light my fire half as well as Susie can, thinks I, you’ll be doing damned we
ll, my conceited little fancy – but of course I told her different; she’d given me a turn with her prophecy, and I guessed what was coming next.
“When you go,” she whispers, “why do you not take me with you? Where will you go – Mexico? We could be very happy in Mexico – for a while. I could make money for us there, and on the way, with you to protect me. If you love me as you say you do – why do we not go together?”
“Who says I’m going, though? I haven’t – and if Miz Susie heard one word of this, and what you’ve said about her – well, I’d think caning was the least you could expect; she’d sell you down the river, my girl.”
“Pouf! She cannot sell me – this is free soil! You think we don’t know – and that she has said as much, to those who came to buy us? Oh, yes, we know that, too – already black Aphrodite is listening to that fat man – what is his name, Pantaloon? He who wished to buy Marie, only Marie is silly and timid. Aphrodite is not timid – she is of a force, as I am, even if she is black and rank and lacks education. I think she will go.”
So much for loyalty to the dear old brothel, thinks I. “What about the others?”
She shrugged. “Stupid little ’ores, what do they know? They would be lost without the fat Miz Susie to waddle after them like a foolish old hen.” She giggled and arched that superb body. “I shall go, whether she like or not. With you – because even if you do not love me as you say, you enjoy me … and I enjoy you as I have never enjoyed any man before. So I think we will march well together … to Mexico, hein? And there, if you please, I shall make an establishment, even as Fat Susie has done – or, if I wish, I may find a wealthy man and marry him. When will you go?”
It wasn’t such a bad notion, when I thought of it – not unlike my flight with Cassy along the Mississippi. But this one, while she might lack Cassy’s iron will and resource – and I wouldn’t have bet on that – had advantages Cassy had lacked. She was educated, highly intelligent, a linguist, a lady when she chose, and was ready to work her passage – that would see me right for cash, which had been vexing me. And she could keep me warm at nights, too, even better than Cassy, who’d been a cool fish when all was said. And when we decamped, dear Susie could do nothing about it; Cleonie was free as air. We could travel by easy stages down the Del Norte valley, which was safe enough, to El Paso, and once in Mexico I could let her make sufficient to buy me a passage to England. I couldn’t see a hole in it, and I was chafing to be away.
The long and short of it was that we discussed it until the end of the siesta, and I couldn’t for the life of me see why it shouldn’t be put in train at once. She was a smart wench, and had it well figured out; I must procure a couple of mounts for the journey, which could be done in the morning, and assemble what packages we needed; I had enough ready money for that, and she had almost a hundred dollars of her own – tippique from satisfied customers in Orleans and here in Sante Fe – so we should be all right to begin with. I must conceal our packages in the summer-house, and tomorrow night, when the frenzy was at its customary height, we’d foregather at midnight by the back gate and be off. There was no reason, really, why we shouldn’t have bowled off publicly, but the less bother the better. I’m always ready, as a rule, to turn the knife in anyone’s wound, but I had a soft spot for Susie – and recollections of the brisk way she’d corrected John Charity Spring’s exercises for him. I’d no wish to have the porters setting about me on behalf of a woman scorned.
Next day I bought a very pretty Arab gelding for myself, and a mule for Cleonie, left them in a livery stable south of the Plaza, and busied myself for the rest of the day with the final arrangements; by late afternoon I had our packages stowed in the summer-house, along with my rifle and six-shooter. Then, for old times’ sake, I surprised Susie at her toilet, and let her work her evil will of me as we’d used to in Orleans; she blubbered, even, afterwards, and my last memory is of her sitting there in her corset, sighing heavily and exclaiming at her reflection, with her glass of port beside her. I’ll have a drink in the Cider Cellars for you, thinks I, and closed the door.
It was a slow night in the gaming-room, but all hands to the pumps in the bedrooms by the sound of it; at a few minutes to twelve I got up and sauntered through the grounds to the summer-house, and for some reason my heart was beating fifty to the dozen. I got my hat, and slipped my revolver into its holster; there was a rustle through the pines and the patter of feet, and Cleonie was beside me, a cloak over her head, held at her throat, her eyes shining in that lovely face pale in the darkness. She threw her arms round me, fairly sobbing with excitement, and I kissed her with some ardour and gave them a loving squeeze – goodness, it was all there, though, and as I’d done at every assignation with her, I shivered in anticipation.
From the distant house came the strains of music, and the faint sound of laughter; I cautioned her to wait and slipped out through the back gate to see that all was clear. It was an alley leading at one end to a street which ran to the Plaza; up there were lights and folk and traffic passing by, but down here all was in dark shadow. Something rustled under the wall behind me, and I whirled and froze in my tracks, my hand fumbling for the butt of my pistol but checked by sheer terror as a figure moved out from the wall, lean and lithe as a cat – and I gasped as the light fell on the tight-stretched skin of a painted face, with eyes like coals, and above, the double feathers of a Navajo Indian.
Before I could move there were two others, twin spectres on either side of me, naked to the waist, but I hadn’t had time even to think of screaming when a voice whispered behind me, and I turned with a sob of relief to see the little priest. He held out a leather satchel to me.
“Two thousand dollars, as agreed. Where is she?”
I was so stricken I could only nod at the gate, and then I found my voice: “Indians, for Christ’s sake!”
“Did you not say this afternoon that men would be needed to carry her off in silence?” He gestured to the Navajos, and they slipped silently through the gate; there was a muffled gasp, and a small clatter as though a chair had been disturbed, and then they were in the alley again, one of them carrying Cleonie’s squirming figure over his shoulder while a second brave held her ankles and the leader kept a heavy blanket close-wrapped round her head. He grunted at the priest, and the three melted noiselessly into the dark while I held the wall and babbled at the priest.
“My God, those brutes gave me a turn! I thought you’d bring your own people …”
“I told you today, since you insisted, that my patron was Jose Cuchillo Blanco – Jose White Knife. What more natural than that he should send his own bravos to take her? Why – does the sight of them alarm you, on her behalf? Let me point out that you have had several hours to reflect on it, and on her fate as the wife of a Navajo chief.”
“I wasn’t expecting those painted horrors to be lurking in the dark, that’s all!” says I, pretty warm. “Look here, though – will he really marry her, d’you think?”
“After their fashion. Does it matter? For two thousand dollars; perhaps you should count them. Oh, and the receipt, if you please.” So help me the little bastard had a document, and a pencil. “In case the sale should ever be questioned. It is improbable; the wife of White Knife is not likely to be seen in Santa Fe again – or indeed, anywhere.”
I scribbled a signature: B. M. Comber, R. N., retired. “Well, now, padre, I hope he takes decent care of her, that’s all. I mean, it’s only because you’re a man of the cloth … Tell me,” says I, for I was agog with curiosity, “I didn’t care to ask earlier … but ain’t it a trifle out of the way for a priest to be procuring women for savages?”
He folded the receipt. “We have many missions in the Del Norte valley; many villages whose people look to us for help. Cuchillo Blanco knows this – how should he not, he whose bands have left red bloody ruin in the settlements these years past? He comes to Santa Fe; he hears of the beautiful white women whose bodies are for sale; he desires white women—”
“Now, I told you – she ain’t white, strictly speaking. Part Frog, part nigger—”
“She will be white to him. However … he fears that there will be reluctance to sell to an Indian, so he sends word to us: buy me such a woman, and the missions and settlements will be spared … for a season. Shall I hesitate to buy him a woman who gives herself to anyone for hire, when by doing so I can save the lives – perhaps the souls – of scores of men, women, and children? If it is a sin, I shall answer to God for it.” I saw his eyes glitter in the dark. “And you, señor, with your two thousand dollars. How will you answer to God for this – what souls will you tell Him that you have saved?”
“You never know, padre,” says I. “Maybe she’ll convert your Navajo chief to Christianity.”
I picked up my gear from the summer-house when he’d gone, and went quickly down through the crowded Plaza to the livery stable, where I slung my few traps over the mule, stowed the heavy purse of eagles in my money-belt, and rode out on the Albuquerque trail. I won’t say I didn’t regret Cleonie’s absence – clever lass, fine mount, charming conversationalist, but too saucy by half, and she’d never have earned us two thousand dollars between Santa Fe and El Paso, not in a month of Sundays.
From Santa Fe to Algodones on the river the trail was dotted that night with emigrant camp-fires, and I passed their clusters of wagons as I rode, first through cultivated land and then through scrubby mesa. The Del Norte was smaller than I expected – you think of the Rio Grande as something huge, to compare with the Mississippi, which it may be farther down for all I know; this wasn’t much larger than the Thames, muddy brown and flowing between banks of cottonwood, with ugly black crags looming up away on the southern horizon. I pushed on through the next night to Albuquerque, a big village swollen by the caravans and by the huts of the Mexican and American miners who worked the nearby gold-field.
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 186