Passage to Natchez

by Cameron Judd

  But he didn’t die at once. He lay in darkness and heard the sounds of battle. The men on the shore must have heard the shots, and were trying to regain the ship. McCoy tried to move and couldn’t. His last thought was a bitter condemnation of whoever among his crewmen had succumbed to bribery and secretly freed the prisoners of their chains. No other explanation of how they had gotten free could suffice.

  McCoy was dead by the time the freed prisoners managed to dump out the guard Setton had injured, drive back the crewmen who attempted to reboard and stop them, and push the boat back out into the river. When pursuers found his corpse later in the day, Mason and his companions were gone, having vanished into the forests on the American side of the river.

  CHAPTER 33

  Natchez, Mississippi Territory

  She had given her daughter the first name of Beulahland, in memory of her mother, and the middle name Queen, in memory of her departed friend and protector. Now she nestled the sandy-haired infant to her breast, enjoying the unique pleasure of nursing and nurturing, her mind filled with a whelming happiness that had been hers almost continually since this marvelous new life had come to her.

  Celinda Ames Deerfield, alone in the house with her baby, sang in a quiet, plain voice, soothing both herself and her child. The tune was of her own making, the words taken from the song of Mary, whose feelings had become her own. “‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden … He that is might hath done to me great things.…’”

  Great things. More apt words could not be found to describe the way Celinda perceived what had come her way. From the moment she had fled Jim Horton on the Mississippi shore and found refuge with Japheth Deerfield and all the others on the big, horse-powered boat, she felt safe and happy during her waking hours. At night, though, she still dreamed sometimes about her ordeal, and woke up frightened. But that was happening less often, and even when it did, there were the arms of her husband to hold her and the familiarity of her room to reassure her that all was well. And now there was little Beulahland as well, adding the happiness that only a child could bring.

  Since leaving her Kentucky home with her father under the delusion that her aunt Ida was still alive, Celinda had been ready to see Natchez merely as a refuge. Her feelings for the town were much stronger now that it was her home. She loved Natchez. It was an old, well-established city, the capital of the Mississippi Territory up until the prior year, when the governmental seat had shifted to the town of Washington. The houses here ranged from fine and sometimes ornate dwellings in the upper portion—Celinda and Japheth lived in that section, though in a relatively small and modest home—down to the hovels and cabins of Natchez-under-the-Hill, the waterfront district. Celinda shunned that area, filled with saloons, brothels, gambling halls, dance establishments, and a population that reminded her of the foul rabble of Cave-in-Rock.

  She had visited Natchez-under-the-Hill only once since coming to Natchez, and that reluctantly, out of duty rather than desire. She remembered Queen Fine’s talk of a sister in this town, Beatrice Fine Sullivan, a “woman of substance.” Oddly, Celinda’s inquiries for such a person in the respectable upper portion of Natchez had yielded no results. No one seemed to have heard of her … until one man, scuffing his feet and looking embarrassed, mentioned that just perhaps he had heard of a “fallen woman” by that name in the lower part of the town.

  Celinda went to Natchez-under-the-Hill after that, fighting away her fear, and inquired among the ragged populace after Beatrice Sullivan. At last she found someone who pointed out Beatrice to her—a slump-shouldered, sad-faced woman who looked like an emaciated, shrunken imitation of Queen herself. She was sitting at a table in the corner of a dive, drinking liquor from a square green bottle and eating some kind of thick gruel from a bowl. Celinda approached her, hesitated, then turned away, overwhelmed with a reluctance to face her. Clearly, Beatrice Sullivan’s life was sad and empty enough as it was. What could be gained by telling her that her sister, whom she had so obviously deceived with stories of success and substance, had been murdered on a flatboat?

  Celinda had slipped away, sorrowful and guilty because of her unwillingness to face Beatrice Sullivan. Despite good intentions, she found she couldn’t bring herself to entwine her life again with coarse, crude strangers living in foul situations. She had experienced enough of that already, and now desired only to put the kind of world and people exemplified by Natchez-under-the-Hill behind her forever. So she easily persuaded herself that Beatrice Sullivan was not her concern.

  Celinda’s visit to Natchez-under-the-Hill had occurred within the first six months of her arrival and shortly before she married Japheth Deerfield. Japheth knew about Queen, but Celinda never told him of the existence of Queen’s local sister. She had known he would never allow her to become involved with any of the potentially dangerous Under-the-Hill horde, and thus she had held the secret to avoid such a prohibition. After her trip to find Beatrice Fine, and her failure of nerve when she did so, she was even less prone to tell her husband of the matter. In fact she had tried to forget about Beatrice Fine herself—but she refused to forget Queen, whose memory she treasured like a gem. She would never let Queen slip from mind … even if she could not bring herself to meet the sister Queen had been coming to Natchez to see at the time she was murdered.

  A strand of Celinda’s hair fell across her shoulder and tickled the face of her baby, who was almost asleep at her breast. Quickly she brushed the hair away. Long hair, uncut in the approximately four years she had lived in Natchez. She intended to never cut it again, no matter how inconveniently long it grew. Jim Horton had forced her to cut her hair. No one would ever make her do that again, especially no man. Her hair, like her life, was her own. Even though she was married now, and devoted to and loving of her husband, she did not consider herself to be his possession, as so many wives seemed to do. She was devoted to him without question—but only by her own choice. No one would ever own her, nor force her to do anything that she did not freely choose to do.

  Beulahland was asleep now, her mouth still attached to Celinda’s breast. With her forefinger, Celinda gently broke the suction and shifted the baby’s position, cradling her up onto her shoulder, where she softly massaged and patted the little back to bring forth the air Beulahland had swallowed. Then she rose, laid the baby in her crib, and slipped out into the main room. She went to the heavily laden bookshelves—Japheth owned a good library filled with legal volumes he himself had bought and classic books mostly inherited from his late father and brought with him down the Mississippi—and selected a volume of English history. The intellectual hunger that Trenton Ames had stirred in his daughter had grown all the more intense now that she had easy access to literature. History was her latest infatuation, particularly the history of England and the British Isles.

  A sudden rapping on the front door startled her so badly she almost dropped the volume. She stepped back, eyes wide and hand moving toward her throat. For a couple of moments she felt a strong, choking panic. A tendency to sudden, quick-passing panics when startled was a heritage of her cave-and-river ordeal. As quickly as it was past, she laid the book down, reached over to the nearby mantel and took down a small, loaded, flintrock pistol, which she held behind her back as she advanced to the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Ma’am? I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking for Mr. Deerfield.”

  “If it’s a business matter, sir, he keeps office during the hours of—”

  “Please, ma’am, I’m sorry, but this here is a kind of unusual situation. I just arrived in Natchez today, you see, and my partner has been arrested and incarcerated in the jail.”

  Probably a boatman, Celinda thought; probably just another typical brawl and arrest down in Under-the-Hill, and this man wanted Japheth to take time out of his evening to try to get his friend out of jail. This was a pet grievance of hers; it seemed that many t
imes Japheth could hardly get home before some troublemaker from below the bluff was in need of his help—and every case was “right special,” or “an emergency” to those involved.

  “Sir, I’m afraid there’s no help to be given just now,” Celinda said, unwilling to let the caller know that her husband wasn’t home. It was late in the evening, a Tuesday, the day on which lately Japheth had a regular supper meeting with Moses Mulhaney, the same man who had written the letter to the Reverend John Deerfield that had been purloined by Jim Horton. Mulhaney had recently purchased some commercial property with Japheth, and the pair were embroiled in decisions about what use to put it to. “If you’ll call at his office tomorrow morning, I’m sure he’ll—”

  “Well, I’ll be!” the man on the other side of the door declared abruptly. “Here he comes now, I believe!”

  Celinda frowned, unhappy that Japheth had picked this moment to come home and thus had unwittingly walked right into the middle of the situation. She went to the window and peered out through the curtain, making sure that it indeed was her husband approaching. It was, and already the caller, a tall, gray-haired, one-eyed fellow with the earthy look of a planter, had collared him and was filling his ear with news of his plight.

  Celinda sighed, opened the door, and leaned against it with her arms crossed and a wry look on her face. Japheth cast her a quick glance across the shoulder of the rapidly talking, gesturing stranger, and smiled wanly as she gave him a wave and shrug. He returned his attention to the man, and Celinda watched his face. She felt dismayed to see a growing spark of interest altering her husband’s previously weary-looking expression. Soon he looked outright eager. Celinda sighed. Sometimes she wished her husband weren’t so prone to grow interested in every potential case that came his way. He took on any case that piqued his interest, sometimes forgetting even to find out if the client had any means of paying.

  Celinda watched as Japheth put out a hand and laid it on the other man’s shoulder in a gesture that said: Calm down. He spoke briefly to the man—Celinda heard the words. “… in just a moment,” and, “… will be glad to see your friend,” and, “Let me speak to my wife.” Then Japheth walked past the man and up to her. The man, fidgeting with hat in hand, kept his back turned. He seemed very nervous.

  Japheth kissed her cheek. “How’s Beulahland?”

  “Sleeping. Japheth, are you—”.

  “Yes, it appears I am. This man is distraught. Seems he just came in on a flatboat today and—”

  “I know. His friend was arrested and locked up. Japheth, things like that happen every week around here. Must you go tonight, at this hour?”

  “This situation has an interesting twist,” Japheth answered, predictably. “It seems that this man is a friend of McCracken, my boatman friend from Nashville—you remember him, don’t you? Quite the character. But beyond that, I’m intrigued by the reason this man’s partner was arrested. It seems he had hardly set foot in town before somebody was wagging a finger at him and declaring he was James Hiram.”

  Celinda drew up straight and grew very serious. James Hiram! It was not a name she liked to hear. Japheth himself had been robbed by James Hiram on a road between Natchez and Washington. Hiram, though possessing no reputation approaching that of the devilish, famous Samuel Mason, was nevertheless a bane to travelers, particularly Kaintucks with full pockets. At least he hadn’t killed Japheth, as Mason or his partner John Setton probably would have.

  “Japheth, you’re surely not thinking of taking the case of the very man who might have killed you!”

  “No, Celinda. I said this man’s friend was declared to be James Hiram, not that he was. Merely an accusation. In fact, Mr. Ford there says that his friend is in fact named Clardy Tyler, that he’s never been in the Natchez region before now, and that he has come for the main reason of seeing if James Hiram might in true fact be a missing brother, operating under an alias that, quite intriguingly, happens to match the Christian names of Tyler’s grandfather. It appears this Tyler has been mistaken for James Hiram once before, up in Nashville, with nearly fatal results. Having had my own encounter with the authentic Hiram, you can see why my curiosity is raised.”

  Celinda saw an empty, husbandless evening looming ahead, and knew there was nothing she could do to avoid it. Sighing, she said, “Very well, go on with you. I’ll read until you’re home. You did eat with Mr. Mulhaney, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. I’ll tell you all about the things we talked about—and about this new case here—as soon as I’m home. And that will be as quickly as possible, I assure you.”

  Clardy Tyler felt like some sort of freak animal on display in a showman’s cage as the lawyer named Deerfield examined him, with rather a wide-eyed expression, through the crossed, flat iron bars of the jail cell. He hardly knew what to make of his situation. He had expected that his evident similarity to the outlaw James Hiram might cause him some problems in Natchez, but he hadn’t expected them to arise so quickly and to actually land him in jail. He was grateful that he had remembered the name of the lawyer in that remarkable story McCracken told back up the river a ways. McCracken himself had been absent, down guarding the flatboat at the riverfront, at the time Clardy was arrested, but rather than send Ford back to fetch the boatman, it seemed more prudent to have him look up McCracken’s often-referenced “lawyer Deerfield.” And after the jailer happened to mention that Deerfield himself had been robbed by the mysterious James Hiram, Clardy was all the more eager to bring him here. Deerfield, having seen the real James Hiram face-to-face, should be able to verify that he himself was not that man. And Clardy thought he might be able to find some answers about Hiram from Deerfield.

  Now Deerfield stood gaping at him, making Clardy feel self-conscious and not at all certain Deerfield wasn’t going to misidentify him as Hiram himself. But a moment later the lawyer shook his head and said, “A remarkable similarity. Remarkable! If it wasn’t for the absence of the facial scar, sir, I’d be nigh to swearing you really are James Hiram.”

  “I’m his brother … or I think I might be. Except his name isn’t really James Hiram, but Thias Tyler … but maybe I shouldn’t be saying all that, ’cause I don’t know yet if it’s true, and if it is, I don’t want to get Thias in any kind of trouble, if it really is Thias … hang it all! The more I talk, the more confused it sounds!”

  “I understand the situation already, Mr. Tyler. Your friend Mr. Ford explained it well enough.” He stopped and looked Clardy over one more time. “Remarkable! You very well may be his brother, Mr. Tyler. Either that, or by some miracle there’s a man who’s nearly your twin roaming this country, robbing people.”

  Clardy’s heart pumped more rapidly; certainly grew. It had to be Thias whom this man, and others, had encountered! It was thrilling … also disheartening. It meant Thias was alive—it also meant that he was a very changed man.

  “Mr. Deerfield, can you get me out of this jail?” Clardy asked. “You can see there’s no scar on my face, and I’ve heard that there is one on the face of James Hiram.”

  The lawyer scanned Clardy’s features and nodded. “So there is … and so there isn’t, on you. Indeed, sir, I believe I can have you out of here promptly. Have any charges actually been filed against you?”

  “I was told I was being held on suspicion.”

  “One moment, then. I’ll deal with this promptly.” Deerfield turned and strode away, to speak to the jailer.

  Within ten minutes Clardy knew that he had made a wise decision in sending for Japheth Deerfield. The lawyer came back to the cell with the jailer at his side. The jailer, looking apologetic, thrust a big key into the lock and turned it. “I’m mighty sorry, Mr. Tyler. But the fact is, I’ve seen James Hiram with my own eyes, and you look a sight like him. So close that even without the scar, I was obliged to hold you, just in case. But with the good lawyer here swearing you ain’t Hiram, I’m going to turn you loose and tell you I’m sorry we was a trouble to you.”

  Clardy sl
ipped out of the cell as quickly as it was opened, feeling the kind of relief that comes with finally opening a overly tight collar that one has had to endure for hours. “Think nothing of it,” he said. “All’s well now, and having this happen has only made me more sure of what I’ve been suspecting about this James Hiram all along.”

  “Come with me to my home,” Deerfield said. “Meet my wife, and tell us more of your story. Most remarkable, this is.”

  “It happens I’ve heard your wife’s story,” Clardy said. “Now, that’s what I think of as remarkable.”

  “Oh, old McCracken’s been at his storytelling, has he? I should have guessed it. But indeed you’re right. Celinda’s story is remarkable, as is she. A most remarkable woman. A fine lady, as you will see.” Deerfield wrinkled his nose. “This jail … I’ve smelled the stench of it a thousand times, but it always galls. Come, Mr. Tyler. Mr. Ford is waiting outside. Let’s get away from here, so I can hear more about this mysterious missing brother of yours who just might have robbed me.”

  CHAPTER 34

  She doesn’t like having us here. I can tell it by looking at her.

  And it was difficult for Clardy not to look at Celinda Deerfield, not because she possessed any great physical beauty, but because her story had made such an impression on him. Seeing her in person made McCracken’s tale all the more real to him, and now his eyes tended to drift toward her as he tried to imagine her with hair hacked short, face smudged with grime, and her fine dress replaced with ragged men’s clothing.

  He was seated in the front room of the Deerfield house in upper Natchez, Isaac Ford at his side, a cup of coffee steaming in his hand. He had just finished recounting his own story, and Thias’s as well, as far as he knew it, and the reaction he received from Japheth Deerfield showed enthusiastic interest. Deerfield was an open fellow with an active and inquisitive mind. He clearly thought Clardy to be a fascinating man, particularly now that he realized he was one of the well-known “Harpe hunters” who had pursued the murderous brothers through Kentucky. Deerfield insisted upon a detailed recounting of the death of Micajah Harpe, and it was during that telling that Clardy had most strongly sensed that Celinda Deerfield wasn’t happy to be playing hostess to him. He wondered why. Maybe all the talk of criminals and violence brought her own ordeal too vividly to mind.