by Frank Yerby
The Poker and Twenty-one games, Stephen could have beat, matching his skill against that of the dealers. But at the Rest For Weary Boatmen he decided abruptly that he would not risk even that.
While he was watching, another stranger, a riverman by his dress, entered a poker game. He won steadily, until the stack of silver dollars which they were using for chips were gathered before him in irregular piles. Then, boldly, he risked his entire innings against a single hand. He sat very quietly at the gaming table, a big black cigar angling upward from his mouth. Three of the men quit outright, but the dealer stuck doggedly until at last with a slow smile the riverman turned over his last card. Like three of his others, it was a Queen.
“Four of a kind!” Stephen breathed.
“He cheated,” one of the other players declared. “He took that lady frum his sleeve!”
“You’re a ring-tail polecat and a dirty liar!” the stranger declared flatly.
Without a word, the dealer raised the pistol high in the air and brought the barrel crashing down upon the stranger’s head. The stranger buckled at the joints, loosening all over like a thing of India rubber, bending downward to the floor. Almost before he was down, the others were upon him, walking him down with their heavy boots. One of the ruffians set a heel upon the stranger’s face, and turned it, bearing down with all his weight. When it came away, the stranger’s face was a bloody mass, scarcely recognizable as human.
No one paid the slightest attention to Stephen. He left his bill unpaid and went out into the street. No, Stephen, he told himself, ye must not play in the Swamp. ‘Tis a beginning ye wish to make—not an end.
Then at last it was night. Stephen entered the cleanest-looking of the hostels in the Swamp.
“A room,” he said to the bedraggled harridan who sat behind the bar. “How much?”
“A room he sez!” she cackled. “This fine gentleman would have a room! A bed ye kin have—the best in the house for a bit. Aye, and a plump young thing to share it with ye. But a room—think ye this is the Hotel D’Orleans?”
“I want privacy,” Stephen said. “If I can’t get it, I’ll go elsewhere.”
“I kin give ye the grand bed with curtains,” the hag declared. King Louie of France hisself slept in it, so it should be good enough for ye.”
“All right,” Stephen said, feeling the weariness down in the marrow of his bones. “Let’s see it.”
“Not so fast, young gentleman. A bottle first—’tis a house rule.”
“All right,” Stephen said wearily. “How much?”
“What do ye care—so fine a gentleman as ye?”
“Fine clothes don’t fatten a purse,” Stephen said.
“A bit. None here is more.”
“Bring it on.”
The ancient harridan signaled a waiter. Stephen thought he had never seen so dirty a man, nor, when the man came closer, one with a viler odor.
“A bottle of the finest for the gentleman,” the old woman said. The waiter shuffled away. It seemed to Stephen that he had been gone an uncommonly long time when he finally reappeared with the bottle.
“Ye’ll join me, my lady?” he said to the hag.
“Why, no thank ye, lad. Wine I cannot drink. Me liver, ye unnerstand. But if you care to stand me a draught of ale . . .”
“Bring the lady some ale,” Stephen said.
He sipped the wine. Strange that it should be so bitter. Even the sourest wines of France bad not this bite. He stiffened suddenly.
“Waiter!” he called. The man came over. “Here,” Stephen said. “Have a glass.” Beneath the grime, Stephen saw his face pale.
“No—I mean, no, sir—I dasn’t!”
“Why dasn’t ye?” Stephen demanded.
“House rule!” the old harridan snapped.
“I didn’t ask ye,” Stephen told her. “Here, man, have a glass!”
The waiter started to edge away. Stephen’s hand went inside his coat and rested there. Just the smallest glint of the silver on the butt of the derringer caught the light.
“I insist,” Stephen said softly.
The waiter took the glass. His hands trembled so that the wine slopped over on the floor. A little glint came into his eyes; the trembling increased. The glass crashed to the floor. The waiter bent and began to pick up the pieces. Stephen watched him a moment, then kicked him with cold deliberation, so that he went down on his face and skidded across the floor.
He came up roaring, but Stephen’s hand was fixed firmly inside his coat. The waiter’s mouth hung open like a cavern. With his free hand Stephen extended the bottle.
“Drink it,” he said. “Every drop!”
The waiter clutched the bottle with both hands, looking side-wise at the woman. Slowly she nodded. He put the bottle to his lips and the hairy adam’s apple bobbed in his skinny neck.
“Thankee,” he said. “Thankee, sir! Now I got to go!”
“No,” Stephen said pleasantly. “I like you. Stay and have another.”
“No, sir! Please, sir, I—I—I—” His eyes glazed. He blinked them open and gaped his mouth to say something; but then with his jaw still open he slid silently to the floor.
“Strange,” Stephen said to the woman. “Is he always such a sleepy head?”
The old hag clapped her hands. Almost instantly two villainous brutes burst into the room.
“Any trouble, maw?” they growled.
“Naw,” she said. “Throw that stupid bastid out. If he’s got anything on him you kin keep it.” She turned to Stephen and smiled a wide, toothless smile.
“Now,” she said, “I’ll show ye your bed. And I’ll send ye a girl too—the best. My own daughter in fact!”
“No, thank ye,” Stephen said, gazing over his shoulder to where the waiter swung down between the two male animals. “I’m too weary to have need of a woman.”
He got up and walked behind the old woman through the doorway. Next to it was a large hall with twenty-five or thirty beds rowed off, so that every available inch of space was taken. About half of them were filled, the occupants snoring lustily. In the center was a huge, canopied bed of carved mahogany. Curtains hung down from the sides of it, drawn aside with cords. Stephen saw that when they were dropped his privacy would be complete.
“Wait,” the old hag said. “For ye, I will send fresh bedding!” Stephen gave her two bit pieces, the last coins in his pockets except a few coppers, and she scurried off. When she was gone he sat down on the bedside and drew off his boots and one of his stockings. His great toe was an angry red. He bent down and removed the big pearl from between it and his second toe.
“Ye’re my last hope,” he said gently.
But someone was coming, so he put it back and stretched out on the bed. When he looked up, he saw a young girl of perhaps seventeen, her arms full of fresh linen.
She was pretty. There was no denying that—for all that her hair hung like wisps of lank straw about her head. She giggled a little when she saw him, a high wild sound, completely senseless. Stephen looked at the watery blue eyes, set far apart in her broad face. They were as blank as the eyes of an animal.
“Mad, poor thing,” he decided.
“Please, me lord,” she said. “Kin I make your bed now?”
Stephen rose.
“Certainly,” he said.
The girl giggled again. When she raised her arm, Stephen saw the brownish-yellow stain of old sweat, and in the hollows of her neck were thin lines of dirt.
“Water’s free,” Stephen thought; “and soap’s not too dear still . . .”
In a moment or two the girl had finished making the bed, smoothing the covers with an expertness born of long practice. Then she stood back, simpering at Stephen.
“It’s ready now, me lord,” she said.
Stephen pulled off his boots but left his stockings on. Then he removed his coat and waistcoat. He unwound the dark silk stock from his throat and loosened his collar. Sighing, he stretched out full length on the bed.
“Ye may close the curtains, now—what is your name?”
“Jenny.”
“Jenny. Not a bad name, all things considered. Now, Jenny, be a good girl and be off with ye.”
There was the sound of her hands tugging at the cords and the rustle of the dropping fabric. Stephen closed his eyes blissfully. The tiniest ghost of a sound caused him to open them again. He turned his head. The girl had her arms swept up behind her head and bent at the elbows down her back. Her fingers were working away at her buttons. As he watched, the last button gave, and the girl’s hands swung downward to the hem of her skirt. Before Stephen could get out more than a startled gurgle, the skirt and petticoats swirled upward around her waist over slim flanks utterly innocent of undergarments.
“No!” Stephen maniged at last.
The girl stood there, staring at him, her skirts still clutched around her waist, the watery blue eyes widening.
“Why?” she said pitifully. “Don’tcha like me?” And the great tears started spilling over her lashes and down her cheeks. Where they went they left white channels of clean skin showing through the grime.
Stephen smiled.
“Of course I like ye, Jenny,” he said gently. “Ye’re a very pretty girl. But ‘tis a finished man I am this night, by all the saints. Tomorrow, when I am not so tired perhaps . . .”
“Thankee, sir! Tomorrow then . . .” Then she was gone, her bare feet scurrying over the rough boarded floor.
Stephen sighed and turned over. A moment later he was asleep.
Twice during the long night, Jenny tiptoed to the heavily canopied bed. Twice she stretched out her hand to draw aside the curtains, but always at the last instant she would drop her arm and hasten away, weaving soundlessly between the snoring occupants of the other beds.
Toward morning she came again. When she reached the bedside, she stopped and put out her hand. The curtains were stiff and heavy with dust. She could feel them stir under her fingers. Then suddenly she had swept them aside and was standing there looking down at him, trembling like a small woods creature.
She straightened a moment, listening. Then she leaned forward and drew the curtains shut quickly.
Her mother had come into the room and with her were four men, flatboatmen by their dress, and two women. The women were swaying on their feet, leaning their heads against the shoulders of the men, and giggling senselessly.
“Tis a bit from each of ye,” the old woman said, “an a picayune for the girls.”
“Lissen to her!” one of the rivermen bellowed. “Why, you old grandma of all the strolling wenches ‘twixt here and Natchez! You’ll take a bit for the whole likes of us and like it!”
“That I will not!” the old harridan snapped. “Pay up or git out!”
“Well I’ll be hauled ashore and broken up for timber!” the riverman said. “You splayed shanked daughter of a dogfox vixen birthed in a ditch at the dark of the moon! You . . .”
Stephen groaned and propped his head up on one elbow, looking through a slit in the curtains at the little group. As he watched, Jenny scurried away from the bedside and darted toward the door. Instantly the waving of arms and the shouting died—just long enough for a lank Kentuckian to stretch out one lean arm and catch the girl as she tried to steal past.
“So,” he said, yanking Jenny in against his chest, “you hide the best ones, you old witch!”
“Maw!” Jenny squealed. “Mama!”
“For her,” the old woman said flatly, “it’ll be two dollars extra—in advance!”
“I’ll be a ring-tailed doodlebug! I’ll wrastle down a grizzly and spit in a ‘gator’s eye ‘fore I’ll . . .”
“Take it easy, Hank,” one of the womanless flatboatmen said. “Heah’s yore money, maw.” He dug deep into his pockets and came out with a bill. “Heah’s a dixie,” he said, extending the New Orleans printed ten-dollar note which was lettered in French with the word dix inscribed in the corners instead of the figure ten. “You kin bring us our change in drinks.” Then he turned to the Kentuckian. “Now, Hank,” he said. “Just pass me over thet little gal.”
“I’ll be double damned and pickled in brine ‘fore I will,” Hank declared. “Try and git her, you egg-suckin’ blacksnake!”
“I’ll git her, all right,” the riverman said. “And no little polecat puppy like you is gonna stop me.” He started toward the Kentuckian, taking out a wicked clasp knife as he came roaring at him.
Stephen sat on the edge of the bed and drew on his boots. Then he stood up, putting the gray hat on his head, and hanging his coat, waistcoat and the dark silk stock over one arm. He walked across the room toward the place where the Kentuckian was hammering at his rival’s head with a post broken from one corner of a four-poster bed, while the other made blue lightning with his slashing blade. Then he was past them and out of the door, the crash of breaking furniture and the screams of the women echoing in his ears.
Outside, in the street, be moved off slowly until the sounds were left behind him in the darkness. He smiled wryly.
“A trifle strenuous, this town,” he said. Then he was walking rapidly in the direction of the cemetery.
After he was out of the Swamp, Stephen stopped and arranged his clothing. It was still hours until morning, and he stood on the street corner looking in all directions. Irresolutely, his fingers touched the handle of the derringer.
“By all the saints,” he thought, “just one thing more, just one and I’ll know I’m mad—I’ll know it!”
“Help!” a voice answered him like an echo, speaking rapidly in French. “Help me!”
Stephen opened his mouth and let the laughter rocket skyward.
“I asked for it,” he roared. “By God, I asked for it!”
“If you please,” the voice went on.
Stephen chuckled. “Where are ye?”
“Here, behind this wall. I’ve been robbed!”
Stephen put his hands on the wall and raised himself to the top. A young man was crouched on the other side, shivering in a shirt and silken underwear.
“By our Lady!” Stephen declared. “Now I’ve seen everything!”
“Do not speak such of the Virgin,” the other rebuked him. “It is bad luck! Besides, you speak French, do you not?”
“Not if I can help it,” Stephen said. “ ‘Tis a bastard tongue, not fit for the lips of a man!”
“Why, you! I demand—”
“Easy, lad, ye are hardly in shape to demand anything. And I mean no offense. French sits uncommonly hard on an Irishman’s tongue. Mais, si vous désirez . . .”
“But you sound like a Parisian!”
“That’s where I learned it,” Stephen said. “But I think we’d better do something about your trousers.”
“Yes, but what?”
Stephen’s slim fingers caressed his chin.
“Is there near here a place where gentlemen drink heartily?”
“But of a certainty! Still, I don’t see—”
“Listen, lad, ye aren’t supposed to see. Just lead me to it. There’ll hardly be any ladies around at this hour.”
“All right, but I still don’t see—”
“Listen, Mister whatever ye’re called—”
“Le Blanc—Andre Le Blanc.”
“Mister Le Blanc, I don’t have a sou. Neither, it appears, do ye. I intend, therefore, to bow to circumstances and—borrow a pair of trousers for ye.”
“Monsieur, you don’t mean . . .”
“The name is Fox—Stephen Fox. And it seems to me that turn about is fair play. Besides, we’re only borrowing the trousers. Come along with ye now!”
The mist was up from the river and rolling across the Swamp ‘toward the center of the city. Already the gray had got into it, and in the trees the brown sparrows were beginning a soft, sleepy twittering.
Stephen lifted up his head and sniffed the fog, the nostrils of his thin nose flaring briefly.
“We must be quick about it,” be said. �
��It will be light before long.”
Andre moved along behind him, crouching in an odd half-cringing position.
“Straighten up, man!” Stephen told him. “Who are ye hiding from? The lady birds?”
They turned a corner. Across the street, yellow light was rolling out of the low windows of a two-story frame building, richly ornamented with iron scroll work.
“La,” Andre said. “There!”
Even as they watched, several shadowy figures came out of the door. Stephen could see that they were walking unsteadily, swaying a bit on their feet.
Andre looked up at Stephen.
“Not yet. There are too many. One man alone, and much, much drunker.”
They waited. The slategray fog began to pale into morning. Andre shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other.
“Now!” Stephen said suddenly. “Now!”
The man was weaving all over the wooden banquette and singing to himself:
“Roxane, mon ange, ma douce,
Je t’aime ‘vec tout mon coeur!”
“Name of a name!” Andre said. “But he is too big!”
“Never for me could ye buy a horse,” Stephen declared. “Ye are no judge of lines or build. Can’t you see he is all belly? I’ll wager he has legs like a ballet dancer and such slim shanks that ye’ll find the going tight. Up with ye now. Ye take the inner track. When ye are close, a hand over his mouth—and don’t let go, even if he bites.”
The two of them moved through the rapidly lightening mist behind the fat man. When they were close, Andre’s hand shot out and the song about the fair, sweet Roxane gurgled downward into their victim’s throat. Stephen put his knee into the small of the singer’s back and swept both his hands backward, twisting them cruelly.
“Quick,” he said to Andre. “His stock!”
Andre whipped it over with his free hand, half-strangling their victim as he did so. He looked up at Stephen with a grin.
“Shall we hang him with it?” he asked.
Stephen laughed aloud.
“I thought ye had the makings of a man about ye—for all your girlish looks. No—just gag him. It might be more fun to slit his gullet slowly, don’t ye think?”