Natchez

by Paul Lederer

  “You know what it is, don’t you?” Kesey asked.

  “I think so. The only common denominator. That silver wagon Toures guided into this swamp during the war.”

  Ten years had passed, the man must have thought it safe to recover the silver now. Perhaps the deal with Blackschuster had spurred Toures on. With Bangston’s manpower, it was possible.

  The Telingas chanted on, their voices low, chilling. Many of them were tattooed and scarred intentionally; most were naked to the waist, their flesh glossed by the firelight.

  “What was that?” It was Bangston’s voice, they could hear him clearly from the sandy rise.

  “I didn’t hear nothing.”

  Blackschuster’s eyes flickered to the rise. He could not have seen anything either, or could he? He spoke in a low tone to Wango, and the butcher’s eyes lifted to the rise.

  Inkada and the Kid lay still, unmoving. Kesey flattened out against the earth, eyes alert, finger on the trigger of his rifle.

  “Must’ve been mistaken,” Bangston muttered after a time.

  “You thought you saw something?” Blackschuster asked.

  “Huh?” Bangston scowled at the stranger. “Thought I heard somethin’ in the pines up there. Guess I was wrong. A man’d have to be plain nuts to be out here in the middle of the night.”

  “Yes,” Blackschuster said, his voice low. “Yet as we all know there are plenty of crazy men on this forlorn planet of ours.”

  “Yeah,” Bangston grumped. He stalked away, not caring for this partner of Toures.

  He had taken two steps when a voice shouted: “It’s comin’ up!”

  Bangston’s head whipped around. Toures took three rapid steps forward. Blackschuster stood resspectfully, it seemed, hands clenched together, while Wango leered, his white teeth flashing.

  Slowly it came from the swamp. The torchlight played on the water. The Telingas swayed and chanted. Fog drifted through the trees. Slowly it came up. A wooden wagon, thick with ooze, partly decayed by time and the water.

  “Work them!” General Toures shouted. Now was no time to lose it, and Bangston nodded, urging the Telingas on. His men prodded them with clubs.

  It emerged a little farther, then slid back dangerously, sucking a man or two on the lines under the muddy water for a moment. “Work them!”

  The man called Ty Dewey rushed forward, a torch in his hand, a greedy smile on his lips. The wagon lurched backward once more then was towed slowly from the slime, water rushing from it, moss hanging from the box. On the wagon seat a grim trophy rested, the skull of a soldier, an ivory arm with fingers nearby, beside a rusted rifle. A portion of harness still remained.

  The wagon was towed forward, all four wheels finally finding firm ground on a narrow spit of land. Toures was to it in a second, and with the stroke of his hand the rotted canvas tarp fell away. He scrambled aboard and, taking a crowbar from Bangston pried the lid to the topmost crate open. It splintered and gave.

  A fascinated look took hold of Toures. With trembling hands he dug into the crate, unwrapping a brick-shaped object from an oilskin wrapper.

  It shimmered and it shone—still—as he held it aloft. The firelight caught it. All eyes were on his hands, even those of the Telingas who had sagged to the earth. There a silver bar glittered, a year’s wages for most men, and in the crates jammed into the wagon bed, thousands of other bars. The wealth of a nation, the treasury of a dead dream. The silver fuel for Confederate war-fare, long dead, lost among the other bitter, misplaced treasures of war.

  “Unload it,” Toures commanded them. They moved hesitantly forward; to many of them the war was too close still, to take the silver from the Confederate wagon was akin to stealing from the pocket of Jefferson Davis, yet they did it.

  Bangston’s greedy eyes watched his crew unloading the silver. Ty Dewey, who wore fancy silver garters on his white silk shirtsleeves, stood beside him, hands on hips.

  “It’s a lot of money,” Dewey said, spitting a stream of tobacco juice. His two revolvers sat low on his hips.

  “A lot, but forget it,” Bangston advised him. “I got near as much in human flesh sitting over there. Don’t buck the general.”

  Bangston was much too smart to go against Toures, even knowing that Toures must have been the one responsible for this wagon having become lost in the swamps. Why? Toures, with one word, could have his illegal slaving operation shut down, with Bangston locked up for years.

  Dewey thought of nothing but the silver, instant cash, with none of the problems related to transporting the Telingas.

  Sam Potter also eyed the treasure with greedy eyes; the Yankee banker had come South with the express idea of becoming wealthy quickly. Yet he and Bangston were tied together. Toures could break them both with a word. He watched the silver being loaded onto the black wagon.

  This stranger, the squat, incredibly thick man with his dark, scarred companion seemed in the driver’s seat. What, Potter wondered, did he have on Toures?

  Bangston’s mind worked the same way, as did that of Ty Dewey. Potter was not a man of violence, he was simply avaricious. Yet Bangston and Dewey were not at all adverse to killing a man—not when such a vast amount of wealth was involved. The man did not seem particularly dangerous, this Blackschuster. He had only one man with him. True, Wango might be the sort to slit your throat, he had the look—but there were only the two of them. If a man could follow them.…

  Every man was uneasy, even in the depths of the swamp. What they were about was dangerous. To be running slaves now was a crime which drew a heavy sentence. A war had been fought over that. As for the others, those who had no part in Bangston’s operation, their sentences might be even heavier, if they were caught with silver which had been stolen from a hard-pressed Confederacy. Any jury would be top-heavy with former Confederate soldiers.

  “Move it!” Bangston shouted. He was uneasy now, since he had heard—or thought he had—that sound. His men drove the Telinga crew toward the flatboat which was concealed in the oxbow where the vines were thick, the cypress draped to the ground.

  “Well?” Toures asked. Blackschuster stood before him, eyes glittering.

  “You’ve done your part,” Blackschuster said.

  “It’s earned, I guess,” Toures admitted. “If not for you, Melinda would be dead now. It was a cushion for my old age,” Toures said, running a hand across the crates of silver in the back of the decayed wagon. “Hell, any fool could see we had the war lost. There would be no more plantation life, I knew that. Well, take it! Get it away from here.”

  “I shall do just that, sir,” Blackschuster answered.

  “Bangston has to be paid,” Toures reminded him. Wango appeared with a new wagon and a team of horses. Some of Bangston’s men, eyes hungry for what they handled, loaded it.

  “Leave a crate,” Blackschuster told Wango. The scarred man nodded, dragging a crate aside.

  “One crate,” Ty Dewey muttered. “And look at what they’re stacking on that fat man’s wagon.”

  “It is a shame,” Sam Potter agreed.

  “There’s only two of them,” Dewey said thoughtfully.

  “Only two.”

  “That’s quite a fortune for two men, wouldn’t you agree, Potter?”

  Potter glanced nervously around. Bangston was coming back from the swamp boat, rolling down his sleeves.

  “I wouldn’t know how to…” Potter said in a whisper.

  “Leave it to me,” Ty Dewey said, throwing an arm around the little man’s shoulders. “You have your own skills, Potter. I guess that silver money could be exchanged quickly, quietly in your bank, couldn’t it?”

  “It could.” Sam Potter was silent, scratching his chin. He had several ideas already on how those silver bars could be quickly exchanged for untraceable cash. Yet, he wondered. Dewey was a cutthroat. Bangston, as well. Silently he watched the silver being transferred. A fortune. When he glanced up Dewey was still watching. The dark gunhand smiled and winked, slipping off i
nto the swamps.

  “What now?” Kesey hissed. Kid Soledad was still, watching the torches move off in several directions.

  “Now I’ll have the man I want,” Soledad said. “They can’t travel in the dark, and I can’t miss that torchlight.”

  “Kid.” Inkada stood strangely, his hand gripping the handle of his kris knife. “I’m asking you to let me out.”

  “What is it, Inkada?”

  “That swamp boat, that man. The girl I told you about is on board, Kid. I can’t let them take her away.” The last faint moonlight glossed the strong angles of the dark man’s face.

  “I’ll go with you,” Kid Soledad said after a pause. “We can catch Blackschuster anyway. He’ll never be able to get out of the swamps until daylight.”

  “No!”

  Inkada said it sharply, causing Kesey to twitch. Soledad just looked curiously at Inkada.

  “I won’t allow it, Kid,” Inkada explained. “Not this time. How long have you hunted? How far have we come? Not this time. There’s been too many times you’ve fallen just short of your goal because of me, Ray, Montak, a perfect stranger who needed you. If not for me you would have had Blackschuster at Guyamas.”

  “I don’t like this Telinga business a bit better than you do,” Kid Soledad insisted.

  “I know it,” Inkada nodded. “But let this be my business, this time, Kid. Come looking if you can—after you’ve found Kirstina.”

  “I can’t let you go it alone,” Kid Soledad said. “That’s a rough bunch.”

  “He won’t go alone,” Will Kesey said quietly. “I’ll go with Inkada.”

  “You? You have an interest in this?”

  “An interest?” Kesey shrugged. “No more than you, I guess. It just stinks, that’s all. I’m no hero, but maybe I’ve come to see it’s time I tried to make up for some of the bad I done in my time.”

  “Then luck to you,” Kid Soledad said. The tall man stuck out his hand and Kesey took it. “Don’t take chances you don’t have to, Inkada. Remember, Bangston is hiding enough to kill for.”

  The Kid watched them go, weaving through the brush to where the horses were tied. When he could no longer see Kesey and Inkada he turned back to watching Blackschuster’s torch. Except that now there was another torch in the swamp, following the magician.

  That was hardly surprising. Every man in that clearing had a taste for wealth. They had kept all agreements in front of the others, but it couldn’t have been far out of their minds to try and take that treasure from a fat man and his lone companion. They would not be the first to pay dearly for making the mistake of taking Blackschuster too lightly, Soledad thought grimly.

  Toures cursed as he fell. An unseen root had tripped him. Damn the fat man. He would have that silver back—he had waited ten years for it.

  Toures stopped, hesitated, watching the deep shadows weave together. He gripped the red glowing torch tightly. His other hand gripped his pistol still tighter. He had thought for a moment someone else. Yet he knew it was not impossible. It was likely that some of the others had also broken away, but General Toures was the only one who knew where the fat man was going; it was he who had pointed Blackschuster to the old Planter House.

  A twig cracked. Toures drew back, his heart pounding, sweat dripping down the front of his shirt. He pressed against a tree.

  “What’s the matter, General? Don’t tell me you’re scared, not a war hero like you!” A mocking laugh burned in Toures’ ears. He recognized the laugh instantly, then saw a man standing in the shadows.

  “Questler!”

  “It’s me, General.” John Questler stepped forward, his brother beside him. “What’s the matter? Did you think we were too stupid to know what was going on tonight?”

  “No. I just wanted Joseph and the other man watched.” Toures stepped forward, smiling, but Questler slapped him viciously, bringing blood to the general’s lips.

  “You think we’re nothin’!” Questler spat. “Dumb crackers who do your dirty work while you parade around on a pretty horse. I’ll have to show you.”

  Questler raised his hand to strike again. Toures shielded his face. A strange voice interrupted the blow.

  “Show him later. After he tells us where the silver is.”

  “What?” Questler’s head snapped around. Ty Dewey was standing there, grinning, the silver on his sleeve garters gleamed.

  “Show him later, Questler. Right now, let’s get on the trail of that silver before we lose it.”

  “Who the hell invited you?” John Questler exploded.

  “I invite myself wherever I go,” Dewey said, his thumbs hooked into the front of his gunbelt. “That silver’s out here, Questler. And I figure it belongs to whoever’s strong enough to take it and hold on.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was cold and utterly dark. The room smelled of rot and decayed vegetables. Joseph could see the giant testing the roof of the root cellar. When Montak pushed up a line of bluish light appeared where the planks joined.

  “That’s nailed down real good, Montak.” Joseph scrambled to his feet and went to where Montak stood, neck bent. The ceiling was only about six feet from the floor. Montak flexed his muscles again, getting his legs into it and the roof creaked, the thin line of blue promise flashing again.

  “What if they’re still out there?” Joseph hissed. “They’ll shoot our heads off like turkeys.”

  Montak shook his head. He was nearly sure the Questlers were gone. They had heard no sound for an hour. A man normally makes sounds just sitting quietly. He coughs, or scratches a match on a box, gets up just to stretch his legs and crunches gravel under his bootheels. Montak, sitting absolutely still, had heard none of these sounds for over an hour.

  Of course they might be farther off, out of earshot, or simply dozing. Yet Montak was willing to risk it. As it was they were locked up like slaughter hogs.

  Joseph stepped beside Montak, carefully placing his palms on the plank. Then the two giants pushed up together, a second time, and the plank groaned loose.

  They tore out a second plank, litter raining into their faces, and clambered up, Montak first, eyes searching the shadows around the great white plantation house. He saw nothing. Crouching for a moment on the roof, he heard nothing. He gave Big Joseph a hand and pulled him up. Together they sprinted for the pine woods beyond. They moved through the timber, keeping the house in sight as they circled slowly. They reached the place where Ray and Montak had split up, yet no one was there. They stood, breathing heavily, breath fogging from their lips. Joseph had crouched to the earth, finding Ray’s tracks.

  “Then it was Featherskill I saw!” Joseph said, dusting his hands as he rose. “I thought so. But I only got a glimpse as they threw me in that cellar. But what was he doing?”

  Montak was frankly puzzled. Joseph stepped nearer to the mute, eyes wide. “I saw him, Montak. With Miss Toures.”

  Montak’s eyes flashed to the bedroom window where he had seen Melinda Toures, emaciated, fragile, put into bed.

  “I know it!” Joseph breathed. “It couldn’t have been. But it was. She walked off, with Ray riding after her. Then them Questler boys took me down, and I saw no more. But I know where they’re going. It’s the only place down that way. The old Planter House. But why?”

  Montak could not guess. Nor could he understand the Melinda Toures mystery. Was the girl merely pretending to be ill? To what end?

  All the giant knew was that Ray Featherskill had gone into the swamps with her, and they must follow. A gray ribbon in the eastern skies promised coming dawn. Montak shook his head and began, tediously, following Ray’s tracks, Big Joseph trudging behind him.

  Dawn broke clear, sheets or orange and pink painting the skies. Long-necked herons flew low across the dark waters. Montak’s eyes burned with sleeplessness. He followed Joseph across a narrow spit of sand, barren but for a time-whitened log. Ahead cypresses grew in cluttered ranks, black below the brilliance of the coming sun. Perspiration rain
ed from Montak’s chest, already it was warm, and their pace was rapid.

  “Over that bar,” Joseph panted, pointing. “Then we should come to an old bridge, if I remember. Just beyond that is the house.”

  Montak nodded, clearing the sweat from his eyes. They plunged into the hip deep water, moving quickly. A cottonmouth lay in the water along the far bank.

  They scrambled up the far side and dipped into the shaded dell.

  “Right there!” a voice boomed. “Stop right there, big man. You too, Joseph.”

  The guns were trained on them. The two Questlers, Toures, and a man Montak had never seen before with tied-down guns and a narrow smile stood watching them, hammers drawn back on their weapons.

  “How many people are prowling this swamp?” Dewey demanded. The giant and the big black man stood, breathing heavy, eyes on the gunman.

  “These are the men the Questlers were supposed to be watching,” Toures said with disgust. He was playing up to Dewey now, knowing that Ty Dewey’s gun was his only hope of getting out of this alive. John Questler wanted the general’s blood, he had no doubt.

  “They’ll watch ’em now,” Dewey said.

  “The hell!” Questler exploded. He was livid, hands clenching his rifle barrel tightly. “I’m not letting the general out of my sight. We’ll tie ’em up…” he said, realizing instantly that they had nothing to tie with. “Or shut ’em up for good.”

  “That’s what we need—shooting to let the fat man know we’re on his tail!” Dewey said savagely. “Questler,” he muttered, stepping closer, jaw clenched, “you play this my way or you don’t play. You want to bring it to shooting, try it with me.”

  Questler locked eyes with Ty Dewey, his face beet-red. He wanted this gunfighter, wanted him bad, but not now. Ty was undoubtedly better face to face. Dewey’s time would come, but not just yet.

  “We’ll play it your way,” John Questler said grudgingly.

  Lou stood silently away. Inside he was scared stiff. There was too much chance of gunplay, arrest, disaster. He wished he was far away from this, far away from his brother, the clan.