“Next time, then.”
“With any luck there won’t ever be a next time.” He stowed his medical bag in a knapsack and asked, not for the first time, “Aren’t you going to say good-bye to the wench before we go?”
“Mon Dieu, no!”
Cain laughed. “Afraid, are you?”
“For a certainty. The witch has worn me down to a nub as it is. I don’t trust her strange allure.”
“Nubs have a way of coming back. Trust me on that. We doctors know these things,” Cain teased. “Perhaps you fear yourself, my friend.”
“Perhaps,” Etienne agreed with a grimace.
Then Cain exclaimed, “Would you look at that? Here comes my wife.”
“Well, heavens above, why are you-all dawdlin’ heah? Tain’t nothin’ like an uppity nigger!” a high-pitched feminine voice addressed them from the hall. Abel sashayed into the room with a flourish, wearing a long calico gown of faded gold that no doubt belonged to Joleen. A bucket-style bonnet adorned with silk buttercups crowned a head of shoulder-length, black curls. He carried a yellow parasol, and matching gloves covered his rough hands. Two melon-sized mounds stuck out from his chest.
“Merde! You look like a sunflower,” Etienne observed.
“Nice bosoms,” Cain remarked.
“Touch my tits and you’re gator bait, you randy buck, you,” Abel hissed, narrowing his eyes at his brother.
Chortling, they all walked toward the front door.
“Stop right there! All of you!”
They spun around to see Simone standing at the top of the stairs, hands on hips. She wore only a dressing gown, and her mussed hair bespoke her recent activity with Abel. The flush on her face was from anger, not lovemaking, though.
“What’d you do? Refuse to marry her again?” Cain asked Abel.
For years, Abel had been besotted with Simone, and vice versa. It didn’t matter to him that she’d once been a harlot, that she ran a house of ill-repute. Or that she was white. It didn’t matter to her that he was a musician with less than spectacular financial promise. Or that he was a Negro.
But Abel knew that, despite the war and the Emancipation Proclamation, a mixed marriage would never be accepted. As it was, Simone had received more than one threat from the Knights of the White Camellia just for allowing blacks into her establishment.
“She always asks. I always say no. Maybe it would be best if I went travelin’ with Billy Bolden’s Brass Band. At least then our inevitable separation wouldn’t hurt so bad,” Abel replied in a subdued voice. Then he straightened. “But it’s not me she’s starin’ at with fire in her eyes now.”
Cain and Abel both glanced at Etienne.
“Me? What did I do?”
“Not you,” Simone said, storming up to them. “It’s that…that woman you brought here. She’s gone.”
“Gone?” they all said.
“What? Have you turned into a chorus of parrots? Oui, the woman is gone and she has put a voodoo curse on two of my girls.”
“Voodoo? Are you sure, chérie?” Abel asked. “She’s not even from the South.”
“Well, actually, she has lived here,” Cain corrected. “Remember, Etienne, she said her stepfather was from Louisiana?”
“Aaarrgh!” Simone stamped her foot. “Would you all listen to me? The witch has put two of my girls into a trance. Joleen is upstairs squawking like a chicken, and Charity keeps chanting the same refrain, over and over, ’Etienne is a jerky, Etienne is a jerky.”
“What’s a jerky?” Abel asked. “I mean, I know what hardtack is, but what does it mean when a woman calls a man a jerky? Oh, I see, I s’pose it has something to do with his hardtack.” He made a gesture at Etienne’s groin.
“Aaarrgh!” Simone shrieked again.
“Good Lord!” Etienne put a hand to his forehead in disbelief. What next?
“Not le bon Dieu. Damballa,” Simone told Etienne.
He shook his head, convinced that Harriet wasn’t involved in the black arts. “She did tell me that she uses something called hypnotherapy with her customers,” he recalled. “In fact, she wanted to cure my headache by putting me in a trance.”
Simone leveled an angry glare at Etienne, as if he were already in a trance. “So, M’sieur Baptiste, what are you going to do about this situation?”
He tossed his satchel to the floor with disgust and headed back up the stairs.
Behind him, Etienne heard Simone comment to Abel, “You look pitiful.”
And Abel asked her, “Do you want to touch my bosoms?”
It took two hours before they were able to break the trance. That was when Cain berated him, “None of this would have happened if you’d kept your damn rooster in its coop.”
“Rooster,” Joleen and Charity murmured then, coming instantly alert. They didn’t remember a thing, except that Harriet had admired their beautiful eyes. Then they proceeded to lambast Etienne for abandoning the poor, helpless woman.
Helpless? She’s no more helpless than a wildcat in a henhouse.
After that, they gave him a tongue-lashing over his unusual sex habits. “No wonder the sweet lady left you, you slimy swamp rat,” Joleen declared. “Can’t ya get it up for any live women no more?”
Cain and Abel dragged him away before he attacked the blathering Amazon, and probably got himself walloped in the process.
“Are we going to search for her now?” Cain asked as they left Simone’s house, hours later than originally planned.
“No.”
“No?”
“I don’t ever want to see that woman again,” he said, seething. “I fear what I’d do to her.” Despite himself, though, an image flitted through Etienne’s mind of just what he’d already done to her. And a small part of him—the part not blistering with blood-boiling anger—had to admire the woman’s ingenuity. She’d outwitted him, good and proper.
In some ways, he wished they would meet again someday. She wouldn’t find him such an easy target a second time.
Etienne leaned against a levee piling, smoking a thin cheroot. He’d just purchased a steamboat ticket and was waiting for the passenger boarding to commence. A discreet glance across the wide street confirmed that Cain and Abel still stood in front of the Lousiana National Bank on Decatur Street.
He had booked a short passage on the Dixie Belle. Mademoiselle Abel, in Sunday finery, had done likewise. “She” pretended to be going to visit her sister Sula Mae down in Terrebonne Parish and would board after him, as was the custom for black travelers. Abel had already warned Cain that if he tried to kiss “her” good-bye, there would be hell to pay.
Cain planned to maneuver a large pirogue he’d purchased up to Bayou Barataria, where they would all meet later that day to continue their journey to Bayou Noir. In all, the trip should take four days.
It wouldn’t be the most comfortable mode of travel. Steamboat packets navigated many of the interlocking bayou waterways, but none could penetrate as far as the remote Bayou Noir, especially during this low season. Flatboats did make the rough trek, but Etienne was exercising extreme caution. He didn’t want the three of them to travel together among strangers who might later identify them to Pope’s men and bring a premature ending to the staged chase.
So now Etienne put his finger to the side of his nose. It was the signal to break ranks and commence their plan.
Unfortunately, Cain put his thumb to his nose and wagged his remaining fingers. It was not the agreed-upon return signal.
Really, for a serious physician, Cain went too far with his foolery. Especially of late.
Abel didn’t appreciate his brother’s games, either. He poked Cain in the ribs with an elbow. Then he made eye contact with Etienne and pointed his parasol toward the bank entrance.
Etienne’s jaw dropped.
Strolling out, large as life, was Harriet, the bane of his life.
With the skirt of her gauzy lavender gown swishing from side to side, she walked right by Cain and Abel without reco
gnizing them. She was too busy counting a wad of paper money, which she tucked into a side flap of her travel case. Then, smiling with a feline I-got-the-cream satisfaction, she flicked open a parasol and proceeded down Canal Street toward the railway station.
His first reaction was to let her go. Even though he was madder than hell at her, he couldn’t risk accosting her on an open street.
But how had she gotten so much currency? He’d examined the contents of her satchel. She had nothing of value to barter in a bank.
Suddenly, the hair stood up on the back of his neck in warning. Well-honed instincts advised him to investigate further.
Using silent signals, Etienne directed Cain and Abel to follow him. Then he tossed his cheroot to the ground and strode after Harriet.
“Salut, mademoiselle,” a man greeted her, edging in close to her side.
She gave the tall fellow in the dandified attire of a riverboat gambler a haughty scowl at his familiarity. He wasn’t the first man to accost her today. A few had even tried to cop a feel. Thank goodness, she’d had the foresight to grab a parasol from the umbrella stand at Simone’s. She’d soon discovered that a parasol was better than Mace. Apparently single women on the streets were considered fair game.
But she wasn’t a frail little Southern belle. She would get rid of this creep, just as she had the others. A cursory glance revealed a version of Kevin Costner with blond hair and mustache and a rakishly tilted hat.
Oh, my! She did have a thing about Kevin Costner.
But, no, no, no…a handsome man was the last thing she needed in her life right now.
“Slow down, s’il vous plaît. I just want to talk with you, chérie.”
Uh-oh! She would recognize that voice anywhere.
Her only outward reaction was a slight stumble in her stride, which she immediately corrected. “You are pitiful,” she murmured and kept walking.
“Now, darlin’—”
“Go away.”
“Why did you run away, chérie?” he asked in a low tone, meanwhile nodding to passersby to maintain the impression of normalcy. A grimace passed over his face at the warning whistle of a nearby steamboat, which would be departing soon.
Harriet stared straight ahead as she accelerated her pace, hoping he would give up his pursuit.
Instead, he kept in step with her.
Coming to an abrupt halt, she confronted him. “You want to know why I left? Well, I want to know why you locked me up.”
“Safety.”
“Safety?” she scoffed. “Whose? Mine or yours?”
“Both.”
“Liar. You know, you can always tell when a man is lying. He moves his lips.” Neither of them smiled at the joke. Her voice carried a wealth of venom. “I detest you.”
“I’m not so fond of you right now, either, Harriet.”
“Just like a man! Sweeps a woman off her feet when he’s horny, then sweeps her out the door afterward.”
Etienne rolled his eyes with exasperation. “Come into this restaurant with me where we can talk in private,” he suggested.
“I may have suffered a brain blip, but I’m not totally stupid. You had your chance to talk last night, buster.”
“I was busy communicating in other ways.”
Her face flushed. “I’m not going anywhere with you, ever again. And stop touching me, you…you lech.” She shrugged off the hand that he’d put to her elbow to assist her into the cafe.
“I have no time for this nonsense,” he muttered to himself. Then he sliced her with a glare. “How did you get the money?” he hissed out, ditching subtlety.
“What money?” She averted her eyes.
“The money you put in your travel case.”
She exhaled with resignation, realizing that there was no sense denying an obvious fact. “From the bank.”
“Aaarrgh! I already know that. What I want to know is what you gave the banker to get the money?” He spaced his words evenly as if addressing a thickheaded child.
Harried snapped her parasol shut, and braced both hands on her hips belligerently. “A gold bar.”
Her answer obviously stunned him.
“Wh-what? You stole one of my gold bars?”
She waved a hand airily with disregard.
“Now you’ve really done it, Harriet. I’m going to have to kill you.”
“That’s right, violence is the answer to everything in your dictionary. First forceful seduction, now physical threats. Don’t try to paint me guilty. You stole the gold in the first place. So you’re the real thief in this picture.”
His eyes widened with astonishment at the accusation. “I recovered the gold shipment from men who stole it from the U.S. government. I work for President Grant.”
“You do?” She blinked in surprise. Actually, he’d alluded to this mission before, but was he telling the truth? Probably. But it didn’t make any difference to her. “Well, that’s beside the point. Since I didn’t steal it from the government, the crime isn’t mine,” she deduced.
“That’s the damndest feminine illogic I’ve ever heard.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“You’re boring me. Go away,” she said, and resumed walking. “I’ve got a train to catch to Chicago.”
“Chicago? Not bloody likely.”
She stopped again, and tried a more even-tempered approach. “Listen, Etienne, you locked me up. I escaped. No harm, no foul. We’re even. So, hit the road, Jack. I’m not your problem anymore.”
“Oh, you most definitely are my problem. Showing that gold bar in public is comparable to waving a red flag. Pope’s men are going to be swarming all over this city within hours. And you, my dear, will be considered my accomplice.”
A brief spark of fear almost made her gasp, but she bit her bottom lip to halt any outcry. Unfortunately, that simple action caused Etienne’s eyes to linger on her lips. And she knew by the parting of his lips and the dilating of his pupils that he was remembering way too much about her mouth and its wicked talents, talents even she hadn’t known she possessed.
“I can handle myself,” she said weakly, her fist instinctively clenching the handle on her briefcase.
He understood immediately. “Joleen’s pistols? Do you have any idea how to use a gun?”
“No, but I’m thinking about practicing on you. Guess which body part I’m going to aim at?”
“Guess which body part of yours I’m going to wallop once we get out of this city?”
“Another one of your perversions?” she cooed sweetly.
“God, I’d like to twist your sharp tongue into a knot.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
Stroking his fake mustache, Etienne seemed to come to a decision. “You’ll have to come with us now, of course. Not that I relish the prospect of another moment in your company.”
“Thank you for the heartfelt invitation, but no thanks. You had your one-nighter. Go carve a notch in your bedpost and ride off into your MCP sunset.” She stopped walking and scowled at him. “I gave you your walking papers, mister. Scram.”
“So that’s what this is about. A woman scorned and all that?” He grinned.
The grin was the last straw. Harriet raised her closed parasol.
Etienne reacted just in time, deflecting her aim so that she hit him on the shoulder, not the top of his head. Passersby were watching, but she didn’t care.
“Calm down, Harriet. Men have been sowing wild oats from the beginning of time.”
She growled. “I refuse to be your wild oats.”
Etienne laughed. He dared to laugh at her.
She raised her parasol again. In the haze of her anger, though, a large black woman in a tacky yellow dress accidentally walked into her, and then, not so accidentally, grabbed her briefcase. She and her companion, a black man in a Yankee uniform, rushed away.
With parasol still raised, Harriet shrieked her outrage and began to pursue
the thieves. Her money was in that briefcase.
“Harriet, stop!” Etienne called after her. “It’s not what you think.”
Just before he tackled her from behind and hefted her into his arms, Harriet got a glimpse of her attackers up ahead. They’d slowed down at the corner and glanced back at her.
She started to laugh hysterically. It was Cain in the army uniform. And, oh, good Lord, Abel was dressed as a woman. While Cain looked debonair and dashing in the Union blue, Abel looked like a six-foot-plus Chiquita banana.
Her attention was diverted by the brute whose arms were locked around her flailing legs and shoulders, pressing her face into his chest so her words came out muffled and indistinguishable. He was explaining to a police officer who’d just walked up, “There is no problem, capitaine. My wife swooned. Her monthlies, you know.” He confided that last with a manly cough.
Then he whispered in her ear, “Hush, sweetheart. You have been checkmated.” Pinching a spot on the back of her neck, he added, “I’m not a hypnotherapist, darlin’, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve, too.” He pinched harder, and she felt really strange. If she didn’t know better, she would think that she was experiencing her first true-blue Southern-belle swoon. Either that, or Etienne knew about the carotid artery.
The last thing she heard Etienne say was, “I sure hope you can row, honey.”
Harriet was curled up almost in a fetal position, her face resting on some fabric that smelled vaguely familiar. Etienne. The cloth carried the scent of Etienne’s skin.
With her eyes closed, she smiled and burrowed her face deeper. She must still be in the brothel with Etienne. He hadn’t abandoned her, after all. She drifted in and out of sleep then, incongruously comforted by his presence.
Awareness tugged at her consciousness. Harriet couldn’t be sure if minutes or hours had passed. An excessive heat bore down on her, and her body began to ache from its cramped position.
She yawned and tried to stretch. But couldn’t.
Geez, did the lout have to take up the whole bed? Typical of the male species exerting its subliminal force.
But she liked his maleness, she decided. Running her fingers caressingly over the rough surface of the cloth that pillowed her head, she encountered several buttons and realized that it must be his jacket.
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