All of his clan answered back with a loud Amen. No one missed a beat. Two Negroes dressed in coyote skins picked the body up and with a couple of good swings, tossed it off the bluff. From somewhere below, there came a heart-wrenching splash.
Murrell turned back to me. At his belt, he carried Frenchy’s knife. He leaned in close and whispered, “Been nice knowin’ ya.”
I snatched the knife, stood up to look into his watery eyes, pressed the tip of the blade to his belly, and said, “My friend Frenchy gave this to me.” I pushed myself backward off the edge of the bluff. The last I saw of John Murrell was his toothless smile as he watched me fall.
The chair shattered when I hit the water thirty feet down. By the time I cut off the rope, the swift current had carried me on toward Natchez by a quarter mile. I dared not stop there, for I did not want to be captured again. Murrell would certainly not let me go a second time.
Past the landing, by an hour in the water, I came upon a timber barge the length of three steamboats, similar to the one John Brigham must have taken all the way from Minnesota to St. Louis. As I hollered to be fished out of the water, I thought, Maybe there’d be one more man needs killin’ when I get to New Orleans.
CHAPTER 19
New Orleans, October 1835
“You get caught up in them mountains. It’s a long time ’tween summers.”
Blue smoke curled up from an ember burning in the pipe. She breathed in, and then asked, “Why do you go there, Monsieur Zebadiah?”
I did not answer.
Her name was Sophie le Roux, a French woman with a bit of Indian and Negro in her. But for lines of age and opium-stained lips, she was still sumptuously beautiful. Her eyes shined black diamonds. I was fortunate to be in her favor, for she was the richest Madame in New Orleans.
She brushed back a wisp of graying black hair and closed her eyes. “So, my Mountain Man, what brings you back to New Orleans and to me?”
Wind and rain blew against a small, cracked window beside a plain four-post bed. Lit only by a single oil lamp, her room was Spartan compared to that of other women of her sort. Next to the door, a porcelain water bowl, pitcher, and matching chamber pot lay carelessly pushed against the wall. On a low square table sat a dusty bottle of cognac with two crystal glasses and a gold and copper water pipe. Between our chairs, burning embers glowed in a cast-iron kettle. Of course, this was her sleeping room, not her entertaining room.
“You are familiar with a certain Englishman I seek . . .”
She opened her eyes. “I am familiar with many Englishmen. A few I am fond of, most I am not. Why do you seek this man?”
I picked up my glass. “He owes me.”
Sophie took a long draw from her pipe. Smoke seeped from her nose as she spoke. “We do not leave this life owing no one. I suspect he owes you more than money and there is to be a fight?” She paused. Another draw sent her coughing. She recovered, but with a subtle look of embarrassment. Then, “A man will only fight over a woman, an insult, or revenge. Which is it for you, Monsieur Zebadiah?”
I stood, walked to the window, and stared down at a dark, muddy street and the black swamp beyond. For an instant, I thought I saw a flicker of light, perhaps a boat lantern rapidly hidden or extinguished, or perhaps only my imagination.
I turned back to her. “An insult, thievery, and spilt blood.”
“Your Englishman’s name is?”
“Benjamin Brody.”
“Ah, Monsieur Brody . . .” she whispered. Her black eyes shone through blue smoke.
“You have bathed and are now wearing a clean shirt, new britches, and boots. My women have taken good care of you, oui? You have eaten and drunk well with intimate conversation?” She paused and for the first time smiled. “And your wounds are healed?”
“My wounds?” Of the two women who helped me, I wondered who told her of my shoulder and faded bruises on my chest.
“Oh, cherie, my girls tell their Madame everything. They did question how the splinters ended up in your . . . your . . .”
“I fell backward in a wood chair an’ smashed it,” was all I said.
She stood and stretched. Reaching up, her long, thin fingers seemed to touch the ceiling. She closed her eyes again and began to dance, her ample hips swaying back and forth. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and but for the whoosh of her petticoat, the room was silent. I sat down on the bed and finished my drink. I could hear her breathing, almost humming. A waltz to go with her dance, a ghost melody she seemed to only half recollect. With her eyes still closed, she unhooked the top of her dress.
“You will stay the night with me, yes, Monsieur Zebadiah? Tomorrow we shall discuss how to accommodate you further with this Englishman Brody.” A second hook came loose by her fingers. “One more question, then no more.” A third hook popped loose. “I ask again, why you go to the mountain when everything is here in this room?”
She finished unhooking the dress, pulled it up over her head, and carelessly dropped it to the floor. She slipped out of her petticoat and undergarments. Glistening by oil lamp, she stood naked before me.
Under her spell, I could not think to answer properly.
CHAPTER 20
Fingers touch my bare back. I turn. She falls into my arms and we kiss, deep, a familiar kiss, yet new, with experience. We lay together on the hay-stuffed mattress, for the first time, making strong love, breathing life into each other. Exquisite quivers of pleasure send through us. Afterward, she cries softly. We stand, embrace, naked at the open window. A light breeze flutters the curtains; goose bumps rise up on our skin. With a smile, she closes her blue eyes, lays her head against my chest, and sighs. I gaze out the window, to the black swamp across the muddy, New Orleans street, and I stroke Anna’s curly blonde hair.
Sophie left me the next morning with a breakfast of Tourtiere pie, Johnnycake, scrambled eggs, ham and coffee. I did not leave a crumb. Standing by the open window, I felt morning sunshine for the first time since leaving St. Louis two weeks earlier.
Her house faced Liberty Street. Not a main thoroughfare by any means, but busy with fleet and cargo wagons carrying goods to the east market or on south to the Mississippi. It seemed white slave owners and freed men of color strolled side by side along the boardwalk beside the muddy street.
An inlet, more a finger of the great swamp, lay across from the house. A wharf ran along the shore where two boatmen unloaded several bundles wrapped in hemp off a small river barge then threw them into a wagon to be driven away. One of the men looked up to the house and I backed away from the window.
I lay down on the bed and waited on Sophie’s return.
Jonathan and I had been to New Orleans two years before, so I was no stranger to the city. The clamor and noise I did not find too intimidating, but the filth, smell, and confines were unsuited for one so used to clear air, few folks, and open land. I also knew I had to be more careful of my actions. New Orleans had the law and St. Louis did not.
I woke with a start to thunder and the stale smell of mold. It was early twilight and Sophie sat cutting slices of marbled cheese and an apple. An open bottle of red wine and two glasses were on the table. She noticed I was awake and smiled.
“Before entering the room I heard you snoring,” she sighed. “Your journey has been long and tiring, no?”
I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window. It was raining again. As I sat up, Sophie handed me a slice of the cheese on some bread and a piece of apple. I took one bite of the cheese and winced. She laughed then motioned to bite into the apple. The crisp sweetness of the fruit cut some of the foul taste.
“Ah, Zebadiah, you do not like my bleu cheese? We leave it in the cupboard in the kitchen until ripe. Here, a little wine to wash out the taste.” She poured me half a glass with another slice of apple. I leaned toward her. She did not bend to kiss me nor did she offer any other kind of intimacy.
“So, tell me of your brother’s death . . .” she said casually.
“And how
do you know of him?”
“As fast as a steamboat, word travels downstream, Monsieur Creed. Don’t you know? Besides, he is not here with you.” Her eyes narrowed. “Now, tell me a story of your brother, and St. Louis.”
I looked away again to the open window and the rain clouds beyond. I resented being in her charge but could not yet show my true feelings.
Turning back, I began to tell my story as I had with Frenchy, this time with some discretion.
I told her of the two men who bushwhacked us, with little detail of Dr. Keynes and his daughter, other than them bringing me back from death. St. Louis was still fresh in my mind and I hesitated when she asked more about Frenchy and his emporium. I did not tell of his daughter Sapphire and her extra senses nor did I go into detail about the pit and the way Rudy was killed. She did not react surprised through much of the story, including my telling of Jonathan’s murder. When I mentioned Billy Frieze, her eyes lit up.
“This man I know, how did you meet?”
“On the steamer between Boonville and St. Louis, he came to my cabin one evening and introduced himself, sayin’ he may know the whereabouts of the murderin’ thieves.”
“And how did he know you were searching for them?”
“A man named Fontenelle gave me up.”
I did not lie so much as not tell her of my own indiscretions with one of the new owners of the American Fur Company.
“He is downstairs now.”
“Fontenelle?”
“No, my cherie, Monsieur Frieze.”
My face burned. I had not seen him since Natchez five days before. “And how did he come to be in your establishment this evening?” I did not disguise my anger.
Sophie smiled and swiped away wisps of graying black hair from her eyes. “I invited him.”
“You know this scoundrel Billy Frieze well enough to have him here on my behalf?”
“Certainly you presume he’s here because of you. However, on my own accord do I have business with Monsieur Frieze.” She paused, taking a drink of her wine. “To be frank with you, Zebadiah, I am quite fond of him . . .” She reached over and stroked my cheek. “Almost as fond as I am of you.”
Before she could touch me again, I stood and turned my back on her to stare out the window. Evening carriages lined the street below as men in top hats and umbrellas took their turns entering the bordello. Laughter drifted up from the parlor.
The rain had not let up.
“Shouldn’t you be leaving now, to go downstairs?”
“Ah cherie, of all New Orleans I have a dozen of the finest young ladies, ages fourteen to twenty-three, lining up to greet my guests. They do not need an old woman to do their picking and choosing.”
From behind, I felt her arms wrap tight around my waist. Her fingers smelled of bleu cheese. With her head laid against my back, she whispered, “My Juliette will bring you dinner and suitable clothes. When you are ready, come down. There will be a man to speak with, to help you decide how to best approach Monsieur Brody and, how you say his name, Baumgartner?”
Sophie let go, crossed the room, and opened the door.
“Does it always rain here?” I asked, still staring out the window.
“Oui, Zebadiah, always.”
I turned to find her standing in the doorway.
“Last evening, as you lay asleep in my arms, you called out to another woman . . .” Her black eyes bore into me. “She must be lovely.”
Without waiting for my response, Sophie slowly closed the door behind her.
CHAPTER 21
Juliette brought me supper and more wine. She was a young woman of modest dress, maybe seventeen or eighteen, with sandy-colored hair. Her golden-brown eyes sparkled. She smiled and said nothing as she left the room. A moment later, she returned with a clean shirt, evening coat with vest, suspenders, and trousers, and laid them on the bed. As I dressed, she adjusted the suspenders and helped with my boots and coat, all the while in silence. She pointed at the food and made a gesture to eat, then nodded toward the door, as if to remind me that I was expected downstairs. Juliette left again, with not a word spoken between us.
I made my way down the back passage from Sophie’s room to the second floor. There I paused, as I had two years before, to take in a full view as the grandest staircase I had ever walked down opened to the crowded parlor below. The handrails and spiral columns were the cream color of mother’s milk, with black oak steps so shiny I thought I might slip and fall. Against the landing wall, purple velvet drapes hung from the ceiling along each side of a rectangular stained-glass window. The design depicted an open door with the moon shining beyond, a door within a window. I stood absently caressing the cool stone handrail. Though Sophie had said she would introduce me as a close friend from St. Louis, I was not sure if I was up for another charade such as the one attempted on the steamboat Diana. I slowly descended the stairs, thinking her establishment was nothing at all like Frenchy’s Emporium. After all, this was the city of New Orleans, not the frontier town of St. Louis. What all whorehouses had in common, however, were men with money and their insatiable appetites for painted ladies. With that thought in mind, I entered the fray.
Sophie met me at the bottom step. With her hair pulled up, she looked splendid wearing a dress the color of a yellow rose. Her bosom shone brilliantly by candlelight.
“Ah, my love, you are so young and handsome,” she gushed. “You must help me make the old men jealous. Come, and say hello to everyone.” I bristled at this but allowed her to take my arm. She sashayed her way through her guests and ladies, introducing me to anyone who had not already disappeared or was busy feigning privacy on a couch. Most of the men looked important, with their titles only alluded to, as if to speak aloud that one was a sheriff or a prominent council member might somehow shame their experience. Or take away some of the excitement of it.
Sophie knew them all well.
The only voice I recognized above the din was Billy’s and my face burned. Before I saw him, I heard his laugh and knew he was already drinking. I hesitated as Sophie pulled me through an open arch, under the stairs, and into a garden.
“Hello, mate!” Billy shouted. “Goddamn, where have you been, Zeb?”
I was not shocked at seeing him, nor the tall black-skinned man. It was the woman standing between them I had my eyes on, dressed in tight pink silk from head to toe. She smiled, then covered her mouth, as if ashamed. Slowly lowering her hand, her red lips quivered with a slight grin. She glanced away and then back to me, her slanted green eyes matching exquisitely with her almond face. I immediately thought Lakota, yet I had never seen a Lakota woman so beautiful.
Sophie poked me in the ribs. “Zebadiah, you drop your jaw.”
“Looks like you seen a ghost, mate,” Billy said.
Sophie looked to Billy, then to the Negro. “Monsieur, for my guest’s behavior, I am sorry. I presume he has not seen one so . . .” she paused for a quick glance to the other woman, “exotic.”
I ignored Billy and stuck my hand out. “I’m sorry, it’s just that . . .”
The gentleman shook my hand. “You have never seen Chinese?” He turned to the woman and smiled. “I will agree with your reaction, for it was mine also when first we met.” He held on to my hand. “Let me introduce myself, my name is Olgens Pierre.”
“Name’s Zebadiah Creed,” I said and let go. I could not remember ever shaking a Negro man’s hand before. It was not at all rough like I expected, and he wore rings on his fingers. I had never seen a man dressed so fanciful, his suit cut from the finest cloth and of the latest style. His top hat was made of prime beaver pelts with a colorful feather plume. Though he, Billy, and the Chinese woman stood at the entrance to the garden rather than with the white folk in the main parlor, he was certainly a man of wealth.
“Mr. Pierre might help us with our problem, mate.”
I glared at Billy. “What problem is that, mate?”
“Zeb, you know, with Baumgartner and . . .” He
took a drink then looked around, as if to make sure no one else was interested in hearing our conversation. “Brody?”
“Billy, it ain’t your goddamn problem.” Wanting to spit, I swallowed what I really wanted to say to him.
Sophie grabbed my hand and forced me to step toward Billy. “Ah cherie, into the garden you both go and set this disagreement right.”
She led us both up a short walk lit by torches, through roses and orchids, to a small empty bandstand. As soon as the three of us were sheltered, it began to rain again.
“The two of you have much in common, far more than me.” Sophie giggled, like one of her young girls might giggle. “I leave you to solve your differences.”
She stepped off into the rain and ran hard, trying not to get her lovely dress too wet, back to the archway where Pierre and his Chinese woman still stood.
Billy leaned against the rail, pulled a bottle from his belt, and took a swig. Even with the overwhelming scent of roses and wet dirt, I could smell that it was good whiskey. He offered me a drink. This reminded me of our first meeting, in my cabin on the Diana, when Billy told me he knew of Baumgartner and Brody. The difference being standing in a garden with rain pouring down around us, I held no knife as I had then, to run him through. I was angry at what he did in Natchez, but deep down, not enough to kill him.
“You left me,” I said calmly.
“I had to, mate, he woulda hurt me, hurt me bad.”
I nodded in agreement, for the man I was left with in the church sanctuary was a mad man. He might not have hurt Billy, no one would ever know. Hell, he shot his own man for no good reason other than to prove a point.
“After missin’ the steamer, I took a timber barge on down the river, was at the mercy of the crew. Then I met the Diana here in New Orleans as she was about to get goin’ back upriver to St. Louis. If I hadn’t been able to get to my buckskins,” I paused. “And my brother’s knife an’ tomahawk, I woulda found ya and hurt ya myself.”
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