American Hippo

by Sarah Gailey

  Almost the entirety of one Bellerman High-Quality No-Lock Ultrafine Safe’s worth, to be precise.

  “It’s my finest work, for my favorite patient,” Bantou said, smiling at Ruby. When he smiled at her, he was almost handsome, Houndstooth thought. The thought evaporated when Bantou turned to glare at him. “While I was working on her, I noticed something else,” Bantou said. “You’ve been neglecting her flossing.”

  Houndstooth let his fingers play across the hilt of one of his knives as the dentist lectured him about tartar buildup. But then he looked back at Ruby, who was happier than he’d seen her in months, and he sighed. He settled in to listen to the dentist prattle on about Ruby’s gums. For Ruby’s tusks, I’ll let you live, he thought. For now.

  In the water, Ruby let her mouth hang open, the sun glinting off her new tusks. A tiny marsh bird landed between her fighting incisors, inspecting her mouth for morsels it might enjoy. It pecked once at her tongue, and Houndstooth caught a familiar glint in his old friend’s eye.

  Before the bird could notice its own reflection in the polished gold of her tusks, Ruby’s teeth snapped shut. Bantou startled—his foot slipped on the muddy edge of the paddock, and he only just caught himself in time to keep from falling into the cloudy water. As he yanked his leg up out of the muck, cursing his ruined boot, a single white feather floated down to land on the brim of his hat.

  Houndstooth smiled. She’d been worth every ingot.

  NINE AND A HALF

  “Eight.”

  “Non, il est neuf.” Archie muttered more to herself than to Houndstooth as she brushed the fawn linen jacket of her suit with long, slow strokes. Houndstooth, in contrast, was attacking the black wool of his jacket as though it had offended him—which, judging by his scowl, it had.

  “Eight,” he snapped again. “And can you please enlighten me as to why I have to look like a bloody undertaker on this job?”

  “Because, cherie, you are too recognizable and we must at least pretend that we are trying to blend in.” She cast an eye to Houndstooth, who had discarded his shirt and was standing before his wardrobe with his suspenders hanging over his bare shoulders. He was examining a collection of brightly colored shirts and jackets in a range of fine cuts: his traveling clothes. His back was a constellation of assorted scars. “Must you?” Archie sighed.

  “Yes, I must, Archie,” Houndstooth snapped. “I must because you insist on dressing me like my grandfather’s pallbearers. I have pride. I will not be seen in…” He gestured to the plain white shirtfront he’d slung over the back of a chair. “Whatever you call that.”

  “Nine,” she said, ignoring him. “’Ere.” She crossed the room and prodded him in the back harder than was strictly necessary. “One.” She jabbed the long, thin scar that wrapped around the ribs on his right side. “That is from when you fell off Ruby.”

  “I didn’t fall off Ruby,” Houndstooth sputtered. “I dismounted—”

  “You fell and you almost impaled yourself and if I ’adn’t caught you in time, you would ’ave been a kebab.” She flicked another scar, this one nestled under his left shoulder blade. It looked like a puckered star. “Two. The sheriff.”

  “Yes, alright, but—”

  “I pulled fabric out of that wound with a pair of sewing scissors,” Archie said, almost wistfully. “And you squealed like a ’ungry ’op. But not nearly so loudly as you did when I pulled out the bullet.” She prodded his right shoulder blade, where a strange pair of parenthetical red welts marred the skin. “Three.”

  “You can stop now,” he snapped, drawing a deep red shirt from the wardrobe and slipping it on. Archie nudged him out of the way of the mirror and began combing grease through her hair as she continued.

  “The sheriff’s son,” she said with delight. “On the night before ’is wedding, was it not? I ’ave never seen so much pus in a bite wound, cher. You should ’ave made ’im brush ’is teeth before you took ’im to bed.”

  “His teeth were fine,” Houndstooth replied with a wolfish grin. “I think it’s my back that was dirty.”

  Archie cackled and finished parting her hair. She began applying a layer of gum paste to her top lip, and as she applied her mustache, their shared room at the unimaginatively named Riverside Inn was peaceful, if not quiet. The peace was half of why they’d chosen the Riverside, which was not known for its amenities, service, or comfort. Shouts from the riverboats that drifted past their window filtered in like birdsong.

  The riverboats were the other reason they’d chosen the Riverside.

  Houndstooth settled a flat-topped black boater onto his head, frowning at his reflection over Archie’s shoulder.

  “Four,” Archie muttered, trying not to move her mouth. “When you choked on the olive pit and I pounded your back until it was free.”

  “That doesn’t count. You broke my rib,” Houndstooth said, exchanging the boater for a grey bowler with a pheasant feather tucked into the grosgrain ribbon around the brim. Archie snatched the bowler from his head and replaced the boater.

  “Better a broken rib than a blue-faced corpse, non?” Archie put the grey bowler onto her own head and admired herself. “C’est parfait.”

  Houndstooth crossed his arms and did not look at himself in the mirror. His black wool suit was long in the arms and loose through the thighs, and the hat was detestably plain. He looked entirely unremarkable. Archie wondered how long it would be until he stopped pouting about it.

  “Let’s go,” he muttered, checking his pocket watch. He snapped the cover shut with a peevish click.

  Archie slung an arm around him, pitching her voice half an octave lower than usual. “You look every inch the rogue,” she lied.

  “Flatterer,” he replied with a sour smile. They locked the door behind them and Archie dropped the key into her waistcoat pocket.

  * * *

  The front door of the Riverside Inn opened onto a dock.

  “Riverside” was both an exaggeration and an understatement. The inn was a glorified riverboat itself, huge and out of commission. The broken wheel had been left attached to the side of the inn as a sort of pirate flag, identifying the place as a Harriet veteran that had come upon the stubborn side of a crush of hungry ferals. The hull was sound, but the wheel was a lost cause, and so—like so many others before her—the riverboat had put down anchor and converted into a hotel. The back of the inn abutted the riverbank, and the veranda ended just one foot from the water.

  Archie and Houndstooth emerged into the stifling noon heat and crossed the narrow wood of the dock to flag down a ferryman. Archie pointed to the approaching riverboat, which was arriving precisely on time.

  “Are you sure?” the ferryman asked. She looked put out.

  “Oui,” Archie rumbled. “We are sure. Why?”

  “Oh, it’s just—trips from the shore to the bank boat are free,” the ferryman said, pushing off from the dock with a long, slim pole. “I only get paid for casino runs and brothel tours. Unless you’re hoppers? Hoppers gotta pay to get to the bank.” A thin note of hope returned to her voice, but her long look at their decidedly non-hopper wardrobes was doleful.

  “Afraid not,” Archie replied breezily.

  “Not us, no,” Houndstooth cracked his jaw with the heel of one hand, then grinned at the ferryman. “We’re tobacconists.”

  The ferryman’s brow furrowed as she poled them toward the bank boat. “Tobacconists?” she repeated uncertainly.

  “Yep,” Houndstooth said. He tugged at his long cuffs. “Tobbaconists.”

  * * *

  “Tobbaconists?” Archie hissed at Houndstooth, once they were safely aboard the bank boat.

  “It was the dullest thing I could think of,” Houndstooth said with a shrug.

  Archie shook her head at him. “You are ridiculous.”

  “I’m not the one pairing a lilac coat lining with a pea-shoot cravat,” he sniffed in reply. “So perhaps we shouldn’t go throwing around words like ‘ridiculous’ without assess
ing ourselves first, eh?” He leaned against the railing of the boat and gave Archie a purse-lipped once-over.

  “Envy does not suit you,” she retorted. She leaned forward and tapped him on the forehead with her index finger. “Five, six, and seven. Three separate times I ’ave kept you from getting your ’ead caved in by angry women with candelabras. You are making me regret the rescues.”

  “Are you still on about that? It’s eight, Archie,” Houndstooth said wearily. “I think I remember the number of times I’ve almost died.”

  “I’m surprised you remember anything, after that fourth candelabra landed. Which is eight, by the way,” she added brightly. “When I sewed your ’ead shut before you bled to death.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Houndstooth grumbled. “Before I sweat through every inch of this damnable jacket.”

  “Oh, le pauvre,” Archie cooed. “’Ow you suffer.”

  She lifted her pea-shoot cravat and fitted the top of it over her nose. It fluttered in a long triangle from her face to her collar, covering the lower half of her face, including her moustache. It was a shame to hide such a handsomely waxed moustache, but Archie was a professional.

  Houndstooth pulled his own kerchief out of his pocket. Archie raised an eyebrow at him. “Really?” she asked.

  “It’s the plainest one I had,” Houndstooth said, tying the kerchief around the back of his head. It was peacock-blue silk with pale pink pinstripes.

  “Ridiculous,” Archie muttered. She reached under her fawn linen jacket and withdrew a long-barreled pistol. Houndstooth reached under his sweat-heavy wool and withdrew a matching one. They nodded to each other, and Archie kicked at the door to the bank boat, and they burst inside. Archie pointed her pistol at the tall, broad-shouldered black man standing behind the counter. Houndstooth waved his at the bank boat’s patrons—gamblers and madams all, none strangers to the sight of a pistol but none stupid enough to risk their lives for money they’d lose to a bad hand of cards the next day anyway.

  “Hands in the air,” Houndstooth drawled in a terribly thin Tennessee accent. “This here’s a stickup!”

  * * *

  Houndstooth tugged at his waistcoat. He suspected that, between the humidity and the ungodly amount of sweat he was producing, it was shrinking.

  “You hot?” the banker asked him in a low, rumbling voice. His chest and shoulders strained at his white shirt, and the suspenders that held up the sleeves looked close to bursting. The man was sprawled in a chair behind the counter, but even sitting, he had an easy view of the bank. His customers were scattered across the floor, their hands resting over their heads. They weren’t going anywhere, though—these were folks who had been banking on the river for a while, and they were used to the occasional robbery. They knew that if they kept their noses pressed to the worn wood slats until the excitement was over, they’d be allowed to return to their business soon enough.

  “Me? No,” Houndstooth answered, keeping his pistol leveled at the banker’s face. “Hush. I’m fine.”

  “I’m hot,” the banker said easily. “Hot indeed. It’s muggy today, isn’t it? Muggy and close and hot as hell. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you in that wool, and with a kerchief to boot?” He shook his head and slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand. “I’d think a body would feel near enough to death.”

  “’E ’asn’t been this ’ot since the ninth time I saved his life,” Archie called over her shoulder.

  Houndstooth made a hsst noise at her. “Now isn’t the time—”

  “’E was dehydrated, you see?” Archie continued, shoving bundles of cash into a large brown saddlebag. “Delirious, almost. Tried to—”

  “Please don’t tell this story,” Houndstooth groaned.

  “—kiss me,” Archie finished. “And that’s when I realized that the fool ’ad been eating salt jerky all day and ignoring the fact that ’is piss was brown. I made ’im drink a saddlebag full of water! ’E slept for a day and woke up asking after ‘Almondine.’ ‘There is no Almondine,’ I told ’im, ‘you were making eyes at Archie the whole time.’”

  The silence in the bank was sudden and stifling. Archie paused for the space of a breath, then continued loading cash into the saddlebag as though she were hoping that the moment would pass unremarked.

  “Archie,” the banker said, rolling the name around in his mouth like a horehound candy. Houndstooth closed his eyes and waited, silently praying to a God he didn’t believe in that the name wouldn’t mean anything to the huge man. “That wouldn’t be short for anything, would it?”

  “No,” Houndstooth said quickly. Too quickly. “It’s just a joke we have. Archie, because Archie used to be my arch-nemesis.”

  Archie grimaced into the safe. “Oui,” she said. “That’s why.”

  “Really?” The banker looked between the two of them, his face credulous. “That is such a strange coincidence. See, just the other day I heard tell of a gentleman by the name of Archie who was knockin’ over bank boats up and down this stretch of the river.”

  “You must have some competition,” Houndstooth called to Archie, who was shoving cash into the saddlebag with increased speed now.

  “But I do believe that name was short for ‘Archambault,’” the banker drawled. “That wouldn’t make you Winslow Remington Houndstooth, would it?” he continued. “No, no, couldn’t be. That fella’s dapper as all hell, and you … well.”

  Houndstooth stared at him. “Well, what?”

  “Not meaning any offense, now, but you do look like something a hop might drag up off the bottom of the river.”

  Houndstooth shot Archie a murderous glare.

  When he looked back, the banker had drawn a matched pair of pistols. Both were leveled at Houndstooth.

  “Now, friend,” he murmured, softly enough that Archie couldn’t hear. “Why don’t you put your weapon on the floor there? We both know it ain’t loaded, but I’d still prefer it on the ground.”

  “What makes you think it isn’t loaded?” Houndstooth asked, dropping any attempt to cover his Blackpool accent.

  “Because you’re a hopper, Winslow Remington Houndstooth,” the banker said. “And hoppers don’t waste money on bullets what can’t get wet.”

  “Alright, I ’ave all we can carry—” Archie stood, and as she did, the banker rotated one arm so that the pistol gripped in that hand pointed behind him. He wasn’t looking at her, but the barrel was aimed unerringly at Archie’s face. “What’s this?” Archie said, yanking down her cravat to reveal a deep scowl. As she did, the fabric snagged on one side of her moustache, pulling it half-loose. She pressed her fingers to it, wide-eyed, and gestured to Houndstooth to keep the banker’s attention.

  “Who are you?” Houndstooth asked the banker, lowering his unloaded pistol slowly to the floor. “How do you know who we are?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” the banker said, flashing a broad, dimpled smile. He waited until Houndstooth’s pistol was on the floor, then kicked it away with one boot before turning his smile to Archie. She kept her hand pressed to the moustache. The banker’s dimples deepened. “I’m Gran Carter, but you can call me Marshal.”

  He stood, his pistols still pointed at Houndstooth and Archie. As he rose to his full height, his jacket fell open, and the light streaming through the windows of the bank boat caught the silver star that hung from his belt.

  Archie swore and dropped her pistol with a heavy thud. She did not, however, drop the saddlebag full of cash.

  “I’d be right grateful if you gentlemen would turn around so I can get your hands secured,” Gran Carter said. “And don’t try running away, now. It’ll only make things harder on you. Besides, it wouldn’t be worth the effort.” He chuckled. “I’ve been a marshal for a long time, and I can tell you truthfully that there’s not a man in America who can escape me.”

  “Oh,” Archie said, her eye glinting wickedly. “Good.”

  She gripped the saddlebag full of cash in both hands a
nd swung her hips in a wide arc, using the momentum from the movement to loft the heavy bag into an underhand pitch. It landed hard in the marshal’s gut, and he let out a pained huff as he doubled over, his knees hitting the floor with a crack.

  “’Oundstooth, throw me your jacket and run!” she shouted, her moustache pulling loose and dropping to the floor at her feet. Houndstooth peeled off the sweat-soaked wool and threw it to her, then turned and leapt over the bank counter.

  “I’ll be outside in three minutes!” he said as he darted toward the door.

  “Make it two!” Archie called over the marshal’s airless groaning. “Wait, ’Oundstooth!”

  He turned in the doorway. “What?”

  “This makes ten!”

  “Nine and a half at best!” Houndstooth roared—and then he was gone, out the door and over the deck rail, barely making a splash as he landed in the water of the river.

  Archie chuckled to herself. She planted a foot on the winded marshal’s shoulder and shoved him onto his belly, then tied the sleeves of Houndstooth’s wool coat around his wrists. “These will shrink fast, Monsieur Marshal,” she murmured. “I would not recommend a struggle—that would only make it worse for you. Wait for someone to cut you loose.”

  “Don’t try to escape,” Gran Carter growled into the floor. “You know I’ll catch up with you sooner or later, Archambault. No man—”

  “—can escape you, oui,” Archie said. Then she leaned down and let her bare lips brush against the marshal’s ear. “But Regina Archambault is no man.”

  Carter went still beneath her. “What did you say?” he asked.

  Archie pressed her lips to his cheek. At the same time, she grabbed her moustache from the floor and dropped it next to his face. Then she stood up, grabbed the saddlebag, and stood on her toes to peer out the window. Houndstooth was just a hundred meters upriver—one foot planted on Ruby’s saddle, the other planted on Rosa’s. The two hippos were moving in perfect unison, bearing him toward the bank boat with uncanny speed. “My carriage awaits, Gran Carter. À bientôt.”