The River Devil

by Diane Whiteside

  Viola sniffed and shut the telescope with a loud snap. “The Indians are rightly wary of anyone who’d kill so many and display their heads as a reminder.”

  “Very perceptive of them,” Hal agreed and quickly gave his sister a one-armed hug. “I’m glad you’re here. I always wanted to show you the Missouri.”

  “And I’ll always treasure my memories of these days. It’s like standing in the Garden of Eden, a time before man cleared the trees and plowed furrows into the ground.”

  “Some would consider that progress.”

  She sniffed and pointed at a dozen small lumps of human waste floating down the river, past the Belle. “And I suppose those are a sign of civilization?”

  Hal wrinkled his nose at the all-too-familiar sight of human waste. Such sights had been rare before the war, when there were few white men living this far up the Missouri. “Sure sign of a big town just ahead. We’ll visit Omaha tomorrow—where civilization hasn’t yet proclaimed itself with a sewer.”

  Viola snorted. “Omaha, is it?”

  “Yup.”

  “No wonder railroad agents often help their clients to travel around Omaha, rather than through it.”

  Hal shrugged. “The town will soon be great, given its beautiful site and the railroad yards there.”

  Viola gave him a sideways look, which he ignored. “Railroads?”

  “Railroads,” Hal agreed flatly. He might not like those iron horses, but he had to respect their potential. “Enough of that. Is William coming up here?”

  She smiled, so happily that it sent a stab of envy through him. “Of course, my husband is joining us.”

  “Then let’s promenade until he arrives.” He extended his arm with a bow. She accepted it with a laughing curtsy, and they began to stroll along the hurricane deck’s port side.

  “Viola.”

  “Yes?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Go ahead and ask.”

  Hal hesitated.

  “Scaredy cat,” she teased. “I’m a married woman now. I can talk about anything. And if I don’t like your topic, my husband can teach you a lesson, if need be.”

  “He can try,” Hal retorted, falling back on the old joke. The one time he and William had fought had ended in a draw. But she was right: She didn’t have to answer any question if she didn’t want to. “You’ve never answered this question before but maybe you will now, since you’re married to William.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “Why did you marry Ross? Had he served the Union in some secret way and gained your admiration?”

  Viola didn’t speak for several minutes. Finally, “It’s not my secret to tell, Hal. I’m sorry.”

  “You weren’t in love with him?”

  “Great God, no! I could hardly abide him.”

  Hal swore, the single blasphemous phrase perfectly summing up his opinion of his late brother-in-law. “Damn him. Excuse my language but I wish you hadn’t felt that necessity, Viola. I could have helped you.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, I was the only one who could manage Ross back then. Not you, not Father. But it’s over now, thank God, and I have William.”

  “Did I hear my name called?” Her husband stepped out on deck beside them, his black hair edged in scarlet by the setting sun. Viola immediately blazed into life, smiling like a gambler holding all the cards.

  Crack! A rifle shot broke through the twilight’s peace and a bullet buried itself in the texas’s wall.

  Hal scooped Viola up with one arm and ran for the far side of the texas, with William barely a step behind.

  Crack! Crack! Crack! Bullets ricocheted off the hurricane deck’s tin roof, barely missing William. All three humans leaned against the texas’s wall and Cicero tucked himself against Hal’s leg.

  Hal instinctively checked the land within sight, off the Belle’s starboard. Only sandbanks lay there, and none of them had enough greenery to hide a rabbit, let alone a sniper. All of the shots so far had come from the oak grove on the bluffs, just north of that fat little stream.

  Cicero started to growl. Below them, the Belle’s men began to stir in angry response. “Who’s shooting at my boat?” roared Sampson. O’Brien’s and Norton’s shouts were equally loud and far more profane. None of them could do much though, since the sniper controlled the only stairs leading to this deck.

  “William, you’re hurt!”

  Hal’s head snapped around at Viola’s cry. A stream of blood was running down William’s cheek.

  He touched his face carefully. “Just a scratch. He must have clipped me with that last bullet.”

  Viola leaned up to look.

  Crack! The bullet cut through the texas’s edge less than an inch from William’s shoulder. Splinters flew.

  How could they escape safely? The only chance was to climb over the side and down to the boiler deck. It would be a tricky maneuver, with Viola in skirts, but worth it to save her and William.

  Another bullet carved the texas’s wall beside them.

  Hal opened his mouth to order…

  Then a second gun roared out the distinctive flat note of a Henry rifle from the south side of that little stream. Tree branches cracked and broke atop the bluff. Then still more shattered. A body splashed loudly into the river.

  Hal, William, and Viola stayed completely still, waiting for the successful shooter to announce himself.

  Then a man’s voice shouted, his Mississippi drawl very apparent, “All clear, Donovan! That bastard won’t be troubling you again.”

  Hal recognized the voice immediately and began to laugh. “Morgan Evans,” he muttered. “Of course, it would have to be one of Bedford Forrest’s hand-picked men who killed a sniper and rescued us. The man will be intolerable now that he’s saved the life of a Union officer.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “All clear,” Hal announced as he stepped inside Sampson’s cabin. Evans whirled to face him, his two Army Colts appearing in his hands faster than any draw Hal had ever seen. Hal raised an eyebrow and waited, his overcoat dripping on the Brussels carpet. A warm drizzle had started to fall a few minutes ago, and mist was rising from the river.

  Evans holstered the two big revolvers. “Sorry.”

  “No offense taken. I’d have done the same.” Hal closed the door, all too aware of Rosalind standing guard outside. Damn, but she’d been white when she rushed up on deck behind Bellecourt. He hoped he hadn’t been as pale during the attack, when he’d thought he might not see her again. A weakness for a woman could hog-tie a man within days, especially if they had a family together.

  “We’ve changed anchorage,” Hal added as he took off his coat and hung it up on a wall hook, followed by his hat. “We’re now tied up off a small island, in the middle of the river. It’s the safest spot we could find before full darkness.”

  Two hours after the sniper attack, the Cherokee Belle’s passengers and crew were still buzzing. Four armed men—every one a crack shot—now patrolled her, eager to shoot any evildoer, while others waited eagerly to take the remaining watches. Abraham Chang, William’s manservant and a deadly fighter, had the stern end of the hurricane deck, while Rosalind patrolled the bow end, near the captain’s cabin. It had seemed the easiest way to keep her close.

  Hal had asked Sampson for the loan of his cabin so that he and those most directly affected by the attack—Hal, Evans, William, and Viola—could talk privately. Sampson, who was no fool despite being an ordained minister, had given him a hard look, then nodded.

  Sampson’s cabin was the largest onboard, as befitted the captain of the Cherokee Belle. It lay directly underneath the pilothouse and stretched the full width of the texas. Windows took up three walls, now covered by heavy white brocade draperies, and permitted Sampson to easily monitor the Belle’s activities. The furnishings were expensive but highly functional, including a desk, two chairs, and a large bed. Like the passengers’ staterooms, a rich Brussels carpet covered the floor, a vivid contrast to the crisp white
walls with their Biblical engravings.

  The only jarring note was the small circles of raw wood in the walls, where the ship’s carpenter had plugged the fresh bullet holes. They’d be painted tomorrow.

  “Ready to talk now, Morgan?” William asked from his seat on Sampson’s bed, where he had his arm around Viola and a bandage around his head. Bloodstains on her lace cuffs showed how carefully she’d tended him. Hal would have called them almost inseparable before; now he saw them as two halves of one whole.

  Morgan Evans was still dressed in the same dusty flannel shirt and canvas trousers he’d worn to hunt the sniper, a marked contrast to his usual elegant tailoring and aristocratic Mississippi manners. His chestnut hair and cavalry mustache were neatly trimmed, although a day’s growth of beard darkened his chin. A few raw scratches on his cheek showed where he’d met branches while creeping up on the sniper. With two Colts at his waist and a Henry rifle against the wall behind him, he looked as lethal as a mountain lion on the prowl, and his drawl held the same deadly intent. “Are you sure your cub won’t talk? You can hear through these thin walls easier than through my grandmother’s velvet drapes.”

  “I’ll vouch for Carstairs,” Hal snapped.

  “And I,” William agreed. “Let’s get down to business. Start at the beginning, for Hal’s sake.”

  Evans’s gray eyes narrowed briefly. “Carstairs is that reliable? Hell of a recommendation, coming from you two. Take a seat, Lindsay, and make yourself comfortable; this may take a while.”

  Hal raised an eyebrow, poured himself a cup of coffee from Sampson’s omnipresent carafe, and leaned against the door. It was a useful prop, but he also needed the warmth. He was still chilled to the bone by how close Viola and William had come to dying.

  Evans took a few quick turns in the large cabin, then began to talk. “William placed me in charge of all of Donovan & Sons’ business when he and Mrs. Donovan went to Ireland and England last fall on their honeymoon. Gradually, I noticed that we weren’t winning as many Army contracts as we should have. Plus, the Army was canceling some existing contracts. But when these problems stopped in February, I figured it’d just been a temporary glitch, maybe caused by some quartermaster idiocy. Still, I should have investigated it at that time.”

  February? Wasn’t that when the charities filed suit to gain Rosalind’s inheritance and the courts froze all access to the Schuyler fortune?

  “We’ve spoken about this before, so stop kicking yourself. Go on,” William prodded.

  “I reported this to you, William, when you returned in late March. You went to Washington to investigate, using your longtime contacts, while I went on a buying trip for Donovan & Sons.”

  “But none of my sources knew anything,” William picked up the thread. “Or, if they knew, they weren’t talking. When Viola and I needed to leave, so we could join the Cherokee Belle in Kansas City, I asked Morgan to look into it, using any methods he thought useful.”

  Viola snorted. “Any methods useful? May I be blunt, Morgan?”

  He bowed. “Certainly, ma’am.”

  “Morgan served in Bedford Forrest’s escort during the war, Hal. In other words,” Viola continued, “Morgan learned how to spy from one of the best.”

  “Congratulations,” Hal said sincerely. “Remind me not to try to keep a secret from you.”

  Evans flushed slightly and resumed his report. “I spoke to the War Department clerk responsible for our contracts, as one Southerner to another. He would say little but did indicate that a look at certain bank records might prove enlightening.”

  “Fascinating.” William’s Irish accent briefly showed itself.

  “The deposits came from a New York bank and the clerk there was most informative, once I greased his palms. William Worth Belknap, the Secretary of War, has been bought by your enemy. His personal accounts show a substantial deposit immediately before every cancellation of a Donovan & Sons contract.”

  Viola snorted. “That’s no surprise. He’s being investigated by the Senate now, for selling arms to the French.”

  “And he’ll probably get off scot-free. The man can spin lies faster than a tornado,” Hal commented.

  “Do you know him?” Evans asked.

  Hal shrugged. “I’ve met him a half-dozen times. Handsome fellow, did well during the war. Just buried a beautiful wife with rich tastes and is expected to marry her sister, who has even more expensive tastes.”

  “That could be costly,” Viola observed. “Paris wardrobes are not cheap.”

  “No, and then there’s his entertaining, which is on a scale to impress even the French ambassador,” Hal agreed. “More to the point, during the three years when he was a tax collector in Iowa, he was famous for having paid off all his debts—and acquiring land and stocks worth more than four times his salary.”

  Evans whistled.

  “He’s doing the same in Washington, has been since the day he arrived. It’s open talk there that you’ve got to bribe him if you want to do business with the Army,” William growled. “Hell, John Hedrick’s making a fortune just selling introductions to Belknap, given all the men who want a piece of the fat army pie.”

  “Which you haven’t paid,” Viola added, stroking her husband’s hand affectionately.

  “I’m not a saint, sweetheart,” William answered ruefully. She chuckled and his mouth quirked. They shared an intimate look before he looked back at the two men. “I’ve paid him but not so much that I’d have to raise my rates.”

  Evans pounced on that tidbit. “Less than he wanted.”

  “Much less. But I figured Belknap couldn’t take everything away because Sherman’s an old friend of mine, going back to the California Gold Rush. And I’ll haul freight where no other company will go.”

  “So he didn’t stop the Army’s contracts with Donovan & Sons,” Hal said slowly, considering the implications.

  “Not at first, no. Just in the last four months.”

  “What changed?” Hal probed.

  “Nicholas Lennox,” Evans answered. “I followed the deposits back to the New York bank where they originated. That clerk was also very talkative after some golden incentives.”

  There was an appalled silence, then Hal slapped the door frame. “Goddamn son of a slimy bitch, I should have killed him back in New York. Two chances and he slipped through my fingers both times.” He caught his sister’s eye and flushed. “Sorry for the language, Viola.”

  She waved off his apology. “If we’re speaking of Paul Lennox’s younger brother, I’m sure you were speaking the truth.”

  “Oh, he’s Paul Lennox’s brother, all right. A banker and a snake with a vicious temper.” Who should be gelded for beating Rosalind. He rubbed the old scar on his jaw.

  “He’s been paying Belknap to run Donovan & Sons out of doing business with the Army. Apparently, he first tried to attack William directly. Then he spread lies about William, hoping to destroy his reputation. When that didn’t work, he found some money and headed for Belknap. What advantages does he have? A fortune perhaps?” Evans asked.

  Hal shook his head. “No. Just his salary and what he inherited from his brother. I don’t know what the Golconda Mine brought when he sold it but—”

  “Not enough to buy Belknap for four months. He charges top dollar to be corrupted,” William snapped. “Nicholas Lennox was scared by the Golconda’s flooding and sold cheap. The California buyers were able to restart full production within a month, with most of the same miners.”

  “Lennox is a banker, correct? Perhaps he was robbing one of his clients,” Evans suggested.

  Rosalind’s father had died almost four months ago, just after New Year’s. Could Lennox have been robbing Rosalind’s inheritance? Once again chilled to the bone, Hal wrapped both hands around his mug. If so, no wonder he was desperate to marry her and gain everything, especially after those charities talked the courts into freezing Cornelius Schuyler’s estate.

  “Could be,” William answered Eva
ns thoughtfully. “But can he find enough money that way?”

  “Probably not, not at five thousand to stop a contract.”

  An awed silence greeted Evans’s revelation. The tall Mississippian looked around his audience, a wry smile growing under his cavalry mustache.

  Hal recovered himself first and began to pace. “Nobody can keep paying out that kind of money for long. Even Commodore Vanderbilt would find it taxing.”

  “I can counter it,” William said slowly.

  His wife snorted. “When pigs fly! You’re too stubborn to pay blood money like that. You’re more likely to let Belknap try to find someone else to haul that freight—then enjoy watching him grovel as he begs you to come back.”

  “Your prediction contains a good deal of logic, Mrs. Donovan. But what if it’s not money but something else?” Evans asked. “Something that would terrify Belknap into obedience?”

  “Such as?” William demanded.

  “Jebediah Etheridge’s ledger book.”

  “Who?” Viola asked.

  “Jebediah Etheridge was Grant’s favorite sutler during the war. Even followed him east, just so the general could have his coffee exactly the way he liked,” Hal answered, watching Evans intently. “More recently, Etheridge was appointed sutler at Fort McGowan, selling food, tobacco, alcohol, and such to soldiers and Indians there.”

  The aristocratic Mississippian nodded encouragingly at Hal.

  “But didn’t Etheridge die a month ago, during that Indian raid?” Hal probed.

  “Certainly did,” Evans agreed.

  “Belknap’s been selling those positions ever since he came into office,” William observed slowly. “A fat sum at first to be appointed, then monthly or quarterly payments. If Etheridge’s ledger book contains details of those payments—”

  “Then President Grant could hardly overlook his friend’s testimony coming, as it were, from beyond the grave. And the man holding Etheridge’s ledger book could blackmail Belknap into doing anything,” Viola finished her husband’s thought.

  Evans beamed at her like a proud schoolmaster. “Precisely. According to the clerk, Lennox learned of the ledger book from his railroad acquaintances and immediately tried to acquire it.”