I pointed to my glass and Billy filled it to the brim. Raising it up, I indicated a toast. “To the new owners of the largest god-damn fur company in America and to their sinister circumstances therein, the bastards!” We both drained our glasses and slammed them on the bar. I was feeling the whiskey in my head and the beer in my gut.
“Why’re you going to New Orleans, drummin’ up business for yer brother in Bloody-Ole England? Ain’t that what you said you’re doin’ on the river?” I stared at Billy, almost daring him to tell me another lie. I called the barkeep over, ordered another bottle of whiskey, and poured us both a drink.
“Mate, I’m going to help get your furs back and find Baumgartner.”
“I don’t need no help.” I spat on the floor.
“Oh, no? You didn’t need nor use my help finding Rudy, did you?” He raised an eyebrow then looked away toward the card tables under the stairs.
There was silence between us. As far as I was concerned, our time for conversation was over. All there was for me to do was to keep drinking and be on that steamboat the next morning, bound for New Orleans.
A woman’s moan became a wail, then a shriek. At the end of the bar stood Christine, her black eyes and bruised face shining by the light of the oil lamps.
“You, you fucking, murdering cock!”
I could not tell who she was screaming at, until her small fist slugged me in the side of the head, knocking me into Billy. With my back against the bar, she began pummeling me on the chest. To defend myself, I dropped the bottle I held, shattering it across the floor in front of us. I deflected her kick to my groin with a side step, grabbed both her wrists, and held them at her waist.
“Why are you hittin’ me?” I shouted.
“She thinks you killed Rudy, mate,” Billy calmly answered.
“How would you know? An’ why in hell would she think that, mate?”
She tried twisting away but I held her tight. Most folks in the tavern were up on their feet and began to crowd around us, as they had the night before when she lay bleeding on the floor next to John Brigham.
Christine screamed, “Frenchy say you come after Rudy, and he be dead now. He did nothing but cut you a little on your cheek and you kill him! You chop off his head!” With the broken nose and black eyes, her face contorted into some unnatural shadow.
She began wailing again and continued to kick. I struggled to hold her up and away from me. I did not want to hurt her.
“I didn’t kill no one, least not here,” I declared and then paused, still holding her away, her wild eyes staring up at me. I looked past her, to the crowd a few feet away, and saw a familiar face.
“I killed Rudy,” Frenchy announced as folks edged away to let him through. It seemed the entire tavern inhaled a collective gasp, then silence. Broken glass crunched under Frenchy’s boots as he stepped in front of me. Christine went limp, then shook her wrists free from my grasp and swung around to face him.
“You lie to me?” she whispered.
“Lie to you I don’t, my sweet Fille de Joie, I merely don’t tell the whole story.”
“And what is the story? You murder Rudy Dupree, the only man who love me, Christine, your Fille de Joie, the whore!”
Frenchy caught her by the wrist as she tried to hit him and spun her back around, into his arms, tight, then leaned into her ear and whispered loud enough for all to hear. “Lied to me, your Rudy did. Lied to the only man who love him like his own son.” He choked off the sentence and acted as if he wiped away a tear.
With both of them facing me, Christine glared down at the floor between us. Frenchy glanced up and gave me a quick wink. I tried stepping back but could go no further and stumbled on the bar’s foot rail.
“Rudy Dupree, a man of certain talents, gifts if you may, will surely be missed.” Frenchy drew Christine in closer and kissed her neck. “Always remember his love for you and my love for you both, oui?”
He slowly let go of her. She took a step toward me, snatched the knife from my belt, and spun back around, thrusting it at Frenchy. I grabbed her arm but she jerked away and stabbed at him again. He stepped backward, the crowd moving with him. Christine followed, blindly slashing. I pushed myself away from the bar, reached around, and grabbed her wrist as she thrust again, stopping the knife an inch from Frenchy’s gut. He clamped his left hand around the blade and with his right hand peeled her thin fingers away from the handle. He handed me the knife, blood trickling from his palm. Christine cried out as he bent her wrist back, fingers cracking as he forced her to the floor. She lay curled in the spilt whiskey, blood, and broken bottle glass, softly moaning.
Gerard came through and broke the crowd up, sending the women back to their tables with their drinking customers and the gamblers back to their card games.
Frenchy disappeared.
Billy and I moved to the end of the bar and kept on drinking, not saying anything more to each other or to anyone else. I glanced over to Christine a couple of times. She lay on the floor for a long while sobbing, not moving but to nurse her hurt fingers and wipe tears from her eyes. I wished to say something, to lean down and somehow comfort her, but I knew I could do nothing. Eventually, one of the other women helped her off, I suppose, to a room somewhere upstairs.
The next morning, I sat with Billy out on the forward veranda, upper deck of the steamboat Diana, watching our departure. From the pilothouse one deck above us, a bell rang and rumbling began from deep within the bowels of the steamer. Another bell tolled. With a whoosh of steam and two loud whistles, we began moving backward and away from the landing of St. Louis, through the riffraff of riverboats and barges moored in the narrow, shallow channel.
I smelled cigar smoke and turned to Billy. He was looking up at a man standing behind us.
“Ah, what a thrill to be departing St. Louis on such a glorious fall morning. Don’t you agree, Mr. Creed?”
I stood and moved my chair aside to face Fontenelle. Rather than the short coat and tie of summer and fall, he wore a winter coat and ascot, and of course, his beaver top hat. Before I could respond to his question, he handed me a folded piece of paper. With a look of contempt, he turned and strolled aft toward the slowly spinning paddlewheel. I sat back down and opened the paper.
Monsieur Zebadiah,
You owe me nothing. I owe you my life.
Frenchy
When Diana rounded the southern end of Blood Island, a man stood on shore, dressed much like a pirate. A young girl stood beside him holding his hand. The man gave a quick wave. The girl did not. Deep in my gut, I knew I would see them again.
We headed out to catch the main currents of the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. Two men were there I meant to kill.
CHAPTER 16
Natchez, Late September 1835
It was to be one game, Billy said. “Only one game and back to the boat, mate.”
We were stopping in Natchez for wood and nothing more, is what I heard from one of the deckhands as I inquired why the Diana was slowing down. We would be off again by daybreak the next morning. The sun was setting beyond the flat, western shore of the Mississippi, the last of its light touching the tops of the Arkansas trees and golden smokestacks of the steamboat. On the eastern shore, beyond the half-dozen or so warehouses that stood a ways from the shore, lamps were being lit along the road leading up to the town of Natchez proper, which sat perched on a cream-colored bluff overlooking the wide river.
There was no wharf and I could not help but notice how vacant the shoreline seemed, not anything as busy as the landings in St. Louis or Memphis. When I mentioned this to Billy, he nodded and said, “If left here unguarded, your cargo will likely be gone by midnight.” He laughed, “Even then, you best be well armed.”
I told him I thought it was not a good idea to go ashore, especially for only one game, that if he somehow missed the boat, he would be swimming his way on down to New Orleans.
“Then go with me,” he said, “. . . an’ keep me comp’ny. Tog
ether mate, we can surely make it back in time.”
That was exactly what he said three days before, in Memphis, and I had chosen not to join him. He was late catching the boat the next morning by four hours. During that time, Fontenelle stopped me twice on the veranda to inquire about Billy’s arrival. Once, he casually asked, “How will you find the men you look for in New Orleans without the help of your friend, Mr. Frieze?”
I had no answer for him, for I was shocked by his mention of my plan. Everyone it seemed knew my business. After St. Louis, I had not considered going to New Orleans alone, that Billy would accompany me to find Baumgartner and Brody. He seemed so well invested in his series of lies and half-truths not to follow me through to the end. It was then I realized that without him, I might not finish what was started with the murder of my brother. I dared not tell anyone of my insecurities, certainly not Fontenelle. Hell, I could hardly admit them to myself.
That morning in Memphis, Billy was brought back to the boat by some local constable or sheriff, drunk and mumbling something about not deserving such fine treatment from the local Madame. He had lost all the money he carried and wore a knock on his head.
He complained all the way to Natchez about how badly his head hurt and there he was, again asking me to leave the boat with him. Though my answer left a bad feeling, I thought that going with Billy was better than him stepping off the boat alone and never returning.
Yet, I was hesitant to leave the relative safety and comfort of the Diana, especially after the dramatic events I experienced the week and half before in St. Louis. I would not say I had been driven to mental trauma, yet, once alone during the evenings, in my cabin, I found it hard to sleep. The sway of the boat did not help for I would have much rather had firm ground to lie on. I would wake several times during the night in a fit of sweat, feeling one wolverine tear at my leg, John Brigham, Frenchy, and Rudy standing above me laughing, and another purring wolverine circling from behind. My brother it seemed had left me alone to my nightmares.
The real comfort of the steamer came in the late afternoons, sitting on the veranda with Billy, drinking whiskey, watching the lush, hanging elms and willows sway in the breeze, their branches brushing the water. Tiny, silent hamlets floated by and nary a soul to greet us with a hello and a wave. Then from around some great bend, a bustling town would appear with ten or twelve steamboats and barges pulled along the shore. Our captain would always slow and blow his horn to greet his fellow captains. Everyone would respond in kind by blowing their horns mixed with a cacophony of whistles, whoops, and hollers. Day and night, the ever-widening Mississippi lay around us. Folks would say the river was more than a mile wide in some places, with its deep shoals, long, treacherous sandbars, and forest-covered islands; a water maze for our captain to navigate through. All the while, Diana’s paddles churned still, muddy water into a dirty whitewash left to disappear in her wake, leaving no trace of our journey.
I was not yet ready to depart this floating sanctuary, especially for an evening of card games with Billy Frieze, in a town known for the reckless behavior of its citizens.
The first mate checked his watch as we walked past. Fontenelle stood beside him. He glanced to Billy then looked right at me. “Bring him back safe,” he said, smirking. “We would not want to leave either one of you behind, especially in a place such as this.” We both stopped and acknowledged him with our nods and grins, as if we were schoolboys about to get into some mischief.
I followed Billy down the gangplank and onto the sand. There seemed only two businesses open and bustling, a cargo shed full of bales of cotton being readied for shipment and a locked pen with a dozen or so Negroes inside. A late-afternoon slave auction was going on in front, with a young man standing naked on a wood block. The dull, red scars across his back showed the world his plight. The auctioneer made bids, calling out the expected amount of money it took to buy the slave. The men who crowded around hollered numbers until the auctioneer yelled out sold to the highest bidder. We witnessed the young Negro man gathered in chains and hauled off to meet his new master. Billy stood glaring at the slaves in the pen. I nudged him forward and we kept walking.
“Goddamn savages,” he whispered.
It was the first time I heard Billy say those words.
With a cool breeze floating off the river, we headed north on the sandy shoreline. Behind us lay the road up to the bluffs and to Natchez.
“Ain’t goin’ into town?” I asked.
“No, mate,” Billy said, his demeanor changed. “Going up the coast a ways. Always a game or two where we’re going. But we must hurry, running out of light to see the trail by, a mile or so and in.” He stopped walking and stood still for a second, as if he were listening for something close, something on shore and not on the river. “I warn you, Zeb, there might be a wee bit of trouble ahead. Nothing too dangerous, mate.”
I started spinning around in a slow circle with my coat slightly open. We were still on the sand below the bluffs and not too far away from the steamer. I had one knife and one pistol under my coat; I wished I had two of each and my brother’s tomahawk.
“What’s a wee bit a trouble, Billy?”
He shrugged and walked on. I followed, with one hand on the pistol and the other on the knife. I wanted to believe he knew what he was doing and where to go.
We entered a dense forest washed with the sounds of crickets, frogs, and other strange noises, of southern birds and animals I was not familiar with nestling for the night. The full moon would not be up for another hour or so to see us through the trees. The dim twilight on the trail carried us forward. The air became sultrier the darker it became and I found myself sweating. Again, I wanted to be in my buckskins rather than the doctor’s tight-fitting clothes and coat.
Within minutes, I heard many voices singing. I could not make out the words but the tune was familiar, as if I had heard it my whole life. Billy started humming to the song so I knew what I heard was real. I felt a chill when I realized it was the same tune Rudy whistled the day he pushed our keelboat off the sandbar.
From the trees, a black figure stepped in front of us. As I pulled my pistol, I heard the click of a flintlock from behind. “You boys lower whatever weapons ya have and carry on up the path. Harold will show yous which way to go.” I felt a sharp nudge from the barrel of a rifle, pushing me forward into Billy.
“Expect ya come ta see the pastor?” Harold suggested. Neither of us answered. The man with the rifle pushed me again, harder. I swirled around with my pistol cocked and aimed it at his silhouetted head.
“I don’t like to kill a man if I can’t see his eyes, but if I’m to die out here in these woods, so will you,” I stated casually.
“Now, now, gents!” Billy said. “We didn’t come all the way from Ole St. Louie to find ourselves trouble in the dark forest. Why, we hear there is a card game that’s waiting to be beat. Ain’t that right, Zeb?”
“Yep.” I held my pistol true.
“And I wager it’s through those trees where all the singing’s going on, right, Harold?”
“Right,” Harold said.
“Well, then, I say lower them guns and, Harold, will you kindly guide us to the light?”
“I will not, else I get shot in the back,” I stated.
Harold cleared his throat. “William, lower yer rifle now, we ain’t out to kill nobody tonight, lest we have to. An’ I reckon these fellers ain’t too dangerous fer a walk in the woods.”
As William lowered his rifle, I slowly lowered my pistol. Billy and I followed Harold on down the path. I was not nudged again.
The singing grew louder, and then fainter, then louder again as we crossed several paths, going left at the first one, left again, and then to the right. I lost count of the turns. Soon, through the trees, I saw the glow of fires lighting up the early-evening sky.
Harold passed between two camp tents and the singing stopped. The whole forest was quiet. He cleared his throat and announced, “Two lost soul
s a wanderin’ through the woods at night ain’t safe, I tell you. We brought ’em in for comfort, and a drink.” He stepped aside; Billy and I walked into a large clearing. William stood next to Harold with his rifle by his side. Before us were three or four fire rings with several men seated around each one. At once, I noticed what a ragged bunch they were, with grease faces. Different kinds of hair, from sheared to long to nappy showed their true race. All of them were armed with at least three weapons each. Goats roasted on spits over a couple of the fires with hot coals sizzling from the dripping fat. Along the circular edge of the forest were scattered ten or twelve camp tents. At the far end of the clearing stood a brightly lit house, or church. Billy seemed to take in the scene with some sense of true excitement. I eased my pistol back into my belt. I was as anxious as I had been the first I stepped into Frenchy’s Emporium. My experiences there warned me to be ready for anything to happen.
“Is the pastor in?” Billy hollered.
Murmurs wafted back to us from the fire rings. A man stepped out of the building’s double doorway and onto the porch. “Who are ya?” he asked.
“I be Billy Frieze, and this be my mate Zebadiah Creed.”
“And what er ya seeking, then?” The man slowly walked toward us.
“Why, sir, we want nothing more than a stout drink, a good whore, and a righteous game to fill the night out,” Billy exclaimed.
The man stood in front of me, wearing very short black hair and a wire mustache. The smock he wore was white, except for a dark stain swashed across his chest, as if he had just wiped blood off the back of his hand. His breath smelled of river water. “What weapons do ya carry?” he asked.
“I carry none. My friend here, he’s not as trusting and must be armed with something,” Billy offered.
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