Now and then the small vermin of the riverside – foxes or rats – made the black vapors stir, but as long as it wasn’t alligators, such as one might encounter in the low ground at the back of New Orleans, January wasn’t much concerned. He’d worked too many cholera wards in the murky New Orleans summers to be disconcerted by fog and a few headstones. Despite a rigorous European education he didn’t precisely disbelieve in ghosts, but he would have been happy to encounter any number of dead Congressman in preference to the men who’d been waiting for Davy Quent to steer his victim to them last night.
He passed a tomb of whitewashed brick, just tall enough to enclose a coffin. A Lilliputian turret surmounted it, containing a bell, though the rope which had at one time extended, through discreet holes in tomb-top and coffin, to the corpse’s hand had fallen away. Fearful as people were about being clandestinely exhumed after they were dead, there seemed to be almost as much morbid terror of interment before they were quite ready for it. January had seen three or four of these tombs in the cemetery, equipped with bell turrets or other escape features. The medical students at the Hôtel Dieu had taken ghoulish delight in trading tales of corpses exhumed with screams frozen on their faces, or fingers lacerated by attempts to claw their way out of the coffin when they’d waked from a coma in the enclosed darkness, but January had personally never encountered such a case. It was always and inevitably something that someone had heard from someone else.
In New Orleans, where tombs lay above ground and the fissures frequently opened between the cracked bricks, everyone could see the crawfish that crept in and out, and the monstrous black roaches. Nobody in that city was under much illusion about how quickly a corpse would be reduced to its bones.
Don’t bother about the bell; Grandma’s definitely dead.
The moon moved above the fog. January held his chilled fingers against the hot iron of the closed lantern. The Christ’s Church clock sounded three.
A yellow blink in the darkness. Not the watchman: that light would be steady. Wylie Pease – or whatever body-snatcher it was, making his way from the wall through this moist, lightless world – was doing precisely what January had done, slipping the door on his dark-lantern just long enough to orient himself on the next landmark.
January shifted his cramped knees.
The rustle of clothing, and the woody knock as shovel handles scraped within burlap. Light again, close enough to outline two shapes, one leading with the lantern and the shovels, the other following with a rolled-up stretcher borne like a rifle over his shoulder.
Good. Only two.
Let’s hope there isn’t a third concealed somewhere in the dark …
They put the lantern against a headstone nearby, shielding the light from the direction of the distant church. The feeble gleam showed January the face of the slouchy little bald man at the funeral, the long ferret-like nose, the close-set eyes and pouting, girlish rosebud mouth. They laid a blanket over the grass nearby, heaped on it the flowers that had been left on the grave. Beside these they made a neat stack of the turves: You don’t want the vestry confronted with a mess. Out of sheer self-defense they’d have to hire more watchmen, or lose the two dollars they get for each plot here.
January slipped his knife from his boot.
The soil was loose and easily shoveled. Yet sixty-six cubic feet of earth is a great deal to move, and the need to work in silence, and the narrow confines of the dug grave and easy excavation, made the men work in shifts. The other man – so far as January could make out in the misty gleam of the lantern – was a large youth, whose dark hair and snub nose made it unlikely he was a relative. He protested when Pease – if it was Pease – signed him to start the digging, and got a sharp, ‘Hsh! You want old Malvers over here?’
Malvers being the watchman, presumably, huddled with his flask in the shelter of the church porch.
The youth looked surly, and with a kind of defiance he pulled a bottle from his pocket and took a protracted gulp. Pease spat a long string of tobacco and said nothing. The youth glared at him and drank again, as if daring him to speak, then capped the bottle and with a kind of lagging deliberation got to work. Pease turned away, unrolled the stretcher, took out a bottle of his own. Had a drink – and then another – and, after a watchful glare at his assistant, pocketed the bottle and moved off into the darkness unbuttoning his flies.
As he had last night, January stepped around a headstone, put a hand over the man’s mouth and the blade of his knife against the man’s throat, and yanked him away into the fog.
‘Make a sound and you’re dead.’ Even as he said the words January knew he wouldn’t do it. Not even the thought of Mr Kelsey’s bewildered eyes, the vision of the body that poor man had loved being carved open – the uterus that had borne those sons dumped out on to a dirty tabletop, the heart whose kindness had brought all those mourners to see her on her way – was enough to rob a man of life.
Compared to Davy Quent, he was nothing.
Still, Pease didn’t know this, and he shuddered with terror like a plump little woman in January’s grip.
‘Six months ago you got spectacles, a watch, and a silver reservoir pen out of a grave,’ January whispered. ‘Where was it?’
He slipped his hand from the man’s mouth, and the grave robber stammered, ‘I don’t know nuthin’ about it – I never saw them things in my life …’
At the same instant January heard the fleet swish-swish of striding feet in wet grass and shoved his captive around as a shield, as a blow connected with the back of his shoulder with force that felt like a bullet’s impact. Damn it, there WAS a third man …
He staggered, ducked sideways and heard something whiff past his ear. A sap or a club— Pease grabbed his wrist, twisted in his grip. He’ll have a knife …
He kneed the smaller man in the belly, wrenched loose as the man behind him blundered into him, his right arm numb and useless. At the top of his lungs he bellowed: ‘CHEAT ME WILL YOU, YOU FUCKING BASTARD?!?!’ and prayed that the watchman hadn’t been bribed or drugged …
He evidently hadn’t, because Pease – if it was Pease – and the formless black shape of his late-arriving rescuer fled with the promptness of startled cockroaches. A crash and clatter from the direction of the grave told January that Sullen-Boy had dropped everything and taken to his heels as well – something which he himself proceeded to do, pausing only long enough to scoop up his knife from the ground.
Clearly, they expected the watchman to come running at the slightest sound.
January didn’t remain anywhere near the grave, so didn’t know whether the watchman did in fact come running or not. He only knew what three such men would do if they found themselves in possession, not of a corpse worth fifty dollars, but of a black man – albeit with a slightly cracked skull – worth three hundred to such individuals as Kyle and Elsie Fowler. He spent the remainder of the night crouched in the laurel bushes along the cemetery wall, which he found after considerable blundering, gingerly flexing and straightening his right arm as the feeling slowly came back into it. When the Christ Church clock struck six, he followed the wall around to the gate, the black fog graying around him and the wet trees looming like home-going ghosts.
As soon as the watchman opened the gate and walked back to his little booth by the church, January slipped through. He walked the three and a half miles back to Trigg’s boarding house, chilled to the bone, his shoulder aching as if it had been broken, and arrived in time for breakfast, to find Ritchie Trigg just carrying a very small bundle of clothes and shoes upstairs – ‘It’s the new boarder’s, sir …’ – and Ganymede Tyler, looking a little overwhelmed, sitting at the long breakfast table at Dominique’s side.
FOURTEEN
January slept most of the day. Waking, he found letters from Rose and from Hannibal Sefton – forwarded via Dominique through Henri, to whom they’d been sent at the Indian Queen – and passed the evening writing back to them, though he knew, and they knew, that by
the time a reply to his letter reached Washington, he would almost certainly be on his way home.
Still, it was wonderful beyond measure to read that Rose had gotten a few small commissions to translate Thucydides for a bookseller in Mobile; that the first of the strawberry-sellers had begun to promenade along Rue Esplanade singing long, wailing songs about their wares; that Hannibal had yet another new girlfriend, a tavern-keeper on Girod Street named Russian Nancy.
At supper Mede Tyler announced, rather shyly, that he’d been taken on as a waiter at Blodgett’s Hotel.
On Saturday morning, January took the steam cars north to Philadelphia and sought out the Catholic church in one of the small alleyways near Chestnut Street that Frank Preston had told him of. There he confessed to killing a man in defense of the life of a friend – ‘A black man, Father, not a white one’ – and bowed his head under the German priest’s troubled recommendation that he turn himself over to the police at once.
‘If your cause was just, my son, you should have nothing to fear.’
‘De man I kilt wuz frien’s wid de po-lice,’ said January, in the coarsest field-hand English he could produce. ‘He workin’ wid de slave stealers, that kidnap free men, an’ take ’em to livin’ hell.’ From Preston also, January knew that at least one such ring operated on the docks of Philadelphia, not far from this church. ‘You know there ain’t no justice, fo’ such as we.’
The priest was silent for a long time after that, and when he spoke at last it was in the tone of a man forcing himself to repeat what he has been told is right. ‘It is not for us to judge these things, or to pick which parts of the law we will follow. I will give you absolution, my son, but remember that only God truly knows whether you are in fact forgiven or not for your sin. He will tell you what is right.’
The penance was heavy – daily prayer and fasting for a year – but January left the church and walked back to the train station feeling cleansed.
He returned to Washington in time to walk out to the fields of what had once been the Jenkins farm, to watch the ball game between the Stalwarts and the Judiciary Square Centurions … and to observe that Ganymede Tyler’s inclusion in the team would indeed make the difference, in the contest next week, between victory and defeat.
Mede Tyler was everything Luke Bray had claimed for him, and more. He had a strong sidearm pitch – which engendered a good deal of argument along the sidelines about whether this method of throwing was admissible or not—
(‘That ain’t how it’s done in Massachusetts …’
‘Well, since we AIN’T in Massachusetts, you can’t help but be right about that …’)
—and a graceful way of lobbing slow underhand tosses that looked like they were coming straight at your bat … until they weren’t. The Centurions had a couple of devastating strikers, and had hitherto had things pretty much their own way, so it was gratifying to see them retired to the field after missing those deceptive throws.
‘You need a couple extra men, for the game with the French?’ Luther Jones, captain of the Centurions, came over to Trigg and the little group of Stalwarts supporters, gathered to one side of the field. ‘Fip Franklin can knock anything that comes at him – ’cept that new boy’s throws,’ he added ruefully with a nod toward Mede. ‘And Red Vassall can run like the devil. That’d bring you up to fourteen—’
‘Do it,’ urged January, when Trigg hesitated. He knew what was in his landlord’s mind, recalling his own pitiful performance in last Sunday’s practice game. ‘We’ve got the honor of America to uphold.’
‘I’m not takin’ any of my boys out of the line.’ Trigg looked at Jones rather than January, though it was pretty clear that nothing personal had been meant by the offer.
‘Oh, hell, no …’ Jones hastened to disclaim.
‘Hey, I know the point of the game is to hit the ball, not fan around it,’ January joked, and they all laughed. ‘You can’t tell me the French aren’t recruiting strikers from the Redcoats.’
‘You don’t worry about it.’ Trigg jabbed a finger at him. ‘You get some more practice in, and by next Saturday, you’ll be knockin’ ’em clean into the woods. We’ll take ’em,’ he added, turning back to Jones. ‘We’ll show those—’
Movement from among the spectators drew January’s eye. Police? Despite the word that most members of the constabulary had bet heavily on the game, it wasn’t impossible …
A high-wheeled phaeton yanked to a halt at the edge of the crowd: a man in a blue coat sprang down. January didn’t know whether it was the way he moved, or the golden hair beneath the stylish high-crowned hat he wore, that let him recognize, even at a distance, Luke Bray.
Ganymede, sitting on a packing box talking with Frank Preston, turned his head.
You didn’t expect him to leave your roof when you signed his freedom papers, did you? January motioned to Trigg, and both men moved inconspicuously in Mede’s direction. The young valet got to his feet, waited while his former master strode up to him.
A slave doesn’t speak until spoken to.
Face distorted with rage, Bray boxed him hard on the ear, yelled, ‘What the hell you mean, boy, creepin’ out of the house yesterday mornin’ and settin’ up your own place? Who the hell’d you think was gonna get my things together this morning? Or run Mrs Bray’s errands for her? You even think of that? Just ’cause you’re a free man now don’t mean you ain’t got duties – what the hell was you thinking? You sneak your things out of my house like a thief, you don’t say a word to anyone about where you’re going or that somebody else gonna have to do your work for you … Here I am comin’ in late at the Navy Yard, with everybody grinnin’ behind my back ’cause that suck-arse Stockard been sayin’ I’d gone and throwed away the best nigger in the District …’
Mede stood, eyes downcast, as the words poured over his head like a poisoned mill-race. For a moment January remembered the stink of the yard behind the Turkey Buzzard, and the fighter Gun lying on the bench with a face like ashes.
‘If I’d meant you to quit valetin’ for me and go sneak out of my house AND get yourself a room someplace like you thought you was a white man, don’t you think I’d have made that clear? Just ’cause you’re free don’t mean you quit bein’ my valet, and don’t NOBODY quit me without a word, like a thief creepin’ off in the night—’
Bray paused, out of breath, and struck Mede again. ‘Don’t you got anythin’ to say for yourself, boy?’
Mede said, very quietly, ‘No, sir.’ Their faces, so close now, were mirrors of each other, weathered marble and bronze, made of the same mold.
Bray took him by the arm. ‘Then you get the hell on that carriage box and come home.’
‘No, sir.’ Mede braced his feet and settled his weight against the peremptory jerk of Bray’s hand.
The Kentuckian’s expression would have been comical, had it not been for the grief in Mede’s face. ‘What?’
‘No, sir,’ the young man repeated. ‘Wednesday when I came home to your house you said I was a free man. You signed papers that I was no longer a slave. Not bein’ a slave means I can live where I choose.’
Bray stared at him for nearly a full minute, disbelieving, shocked as if the earth had opened beneath his feet. Then he shouted, ‘You ungrateful cur-dog! You mealy-mouth bastard sneak!’ January could smell the liquor on him, from where he stood. ‘I didn’t free you so’s you could go off livin’ how you choose! All those years of: “Whatever you think best, sir,” and: “However makes you comfortable, sir,” and now you turn around and run off on me? You get in that goddam carriage ’fore I take the hide off your worthless back—’
‘I won’t, sir. I’m sorry. I did lay your things out for your Thursday morning before I left, and polished your boots last night—’
‘What the hell does that have to do with anything? By God you’re the stupidest, orneriest nigger I ever— Get in that carriage!’
‘No, sir.’
Bray slapped him a third time, then stro
de off in the direction of his phaeton. January caught Mede by the elbow and steered him into the nearest group of spectators – does he think Mede’s going to stand and wait for him to come back with the whip? – which congregated around them as if they’d been rehearsed. Someone pulled Mede’s jacket off him; someone else handed him another one of a different color and cut. His cap was snatched from his head and replaced with a slouched and tatty beaver. Dominique – who’d come along with Clarice Perkins – put her arm through Mede’s and smiled up into his face in a wifely fashion, and the Perkinses, Preston, and January fell in around them, to make up a family group as they walked off down Seventeenth Street.
Bray passed them in his phaeton, glaring furiously right and left with his whip in his hand, and didn’t give them so much as a glance.
When they reached the boarding house Mede was still trembling.
‘You have your papers?’ January guided the young man into a chair in the parlor. Mrs Perkins herded the children from the room; Dominique looked as if she might speak, but Preston gently put a hand on her back, steered her out into the hall.
When Mede nodded, January continued, ‘It might be you’ll want to go North. Preston can recommend you to the manager of the Baltimore and Washington, and you can certainly get work on the trains.’
‘I can’t—’ Mede took a breath, trying to steady himself. ‘I don’t want to do that right now, sir. Thank you,’ he added.
‘He know you live here?’
Good Man Friday Page 13