If he thought it was, he also evidently didn’t consider the fiddler, upon perusal, much of a threat. He stood, gestured to his brother and their companion to stay where they were, and guided Hannibal to a quieter portion of the saloon: farther from the bar, closer to the door.
‘How can I help you, Mr Sefton?’ That was the first thing one noticed about him: the resonant beauty of his voice.
January had shifted over from the hitching-rack to the side of the door, and could hear, if not well, at least well enough to follow the conversation. Mudsill drifted over to join him, as a bodyguard should. Just in case …
‘I’ve been asked to represent a man named Roux Bellinger, of Shreveport, Louisiana.’ Hannibal produced a letter of introduction. He had written it himself, expertly copying the handwriting from the planter’s letters found in his daughter’s trunk, but nobody had to know that. ‘I have reason to believe that the girl you purchased from Andreas Neumann in Galveston last week was his daughter, who had been seduced and kidnapped from her school in New Orleans.’
Pollack folded his arms. His sun-darkened features were craggily handsome, his velvet-brown eyes the eyes of a man who could smile like the sun and keep every thought concealed. He stood like a man who is used to being obeyed in all things. ‘I bought no girl.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Hannibal dipped a slight bow. ‘Mr Neumann seems to think that you did.’
In the dimness of the lantern-lit room his eyes glinted, like broken bits of bottle-glass. The beautiful voice grew soft. ‘You calling me a liar, Mr Sefton?’
‘No, indeed, Mr Pollack. It’s very easy to be mistaken in cases like this. Mr Bellinger is of course deeply anxious to recover his daughter, and has empowered me to offer to reimburse whatever may have been spent on the transaction.’
‘He is, is he?’ Pollack held out his hand, and January saw his eyes shift again, thinking. Calculating how much he could ask? January wondered. Or just trying to decide whether he wanted to turn loose a pretty, fair-skinned, sixteen-year-old girl who was in his power?
The rancher glanced over the letter, which included – January knew, because he’d seen Hannibal write it – instructions for hiring a lawyer to pursue the matter, if necessary. Whether a suit for the recovery of a victim of kidnap in a case like this would even be admitted to a Texas court was anybody’s guess, and January was inclined to believe that even should an American lawyer come to Austin to recover Selina, a Texas judge would probably find in Pollack’s favor.
Would the threat of a lawsuit be enough to keep another buyer from purchasing her, if Pollack tried to sell her on?
Looking at that calmly untroubled face, he didn’t think so.
Pollack handed the letter back. ‘It is easy to be mistaken in a case like this, Mr Sefton,’ he agreed. ‘And I’m afraid you’re the one who’s mistaken. I bought no wench.’
Hannibal bowed. ‘I’m very sorry to have troubled you, Mr Pollack.’
As he started to withdraw Pollack caught him by the shoulder of his coat, a quick motion, like an expert fighter gutting his opponent with a flick of his knife. His tone even, almost friendly, he said, ‘Make sure you don’t trouble me again.’
There was movement, very slight, along the wall near the bar, and for the first time January saw Abishag Shaw, sitting on a bench in the shadows with a glass of whiskey on the rough table before him. Whether it was he who had moved – he looked like any unshaven yokel adrift in his own thoughts – January wasn’t sure.
This was because at almost the same instant, January felt Mudsill – standing at his elbow – step hastily back and aside, to get out of the way of three men who strode out of the darkness of Congress Avenue. The man in the lead – in a townsman’s cutaway coat and silk vest – held a newspaper in one hand, and stepping through the door into the saloon, took Gideon Pollack by the arm and slapped him full-force across the face with it.
‘You are a lyin’ hypocrite pi-dog and a thief,’ he said, in a voice that could be heard all over the enormous room, stopping all other conversation dead in its tracks.
Hannibal, no fool, slipped immediately from Pollack’s loosened grip and was out the door and at January’s side even as Rance Pollack, crimson with fury, surged to his feet and plunged to the rescue. The challenger’s two friends intercepted him, and January noticed that the silver-maned man who’d been sharing the table with the brothers lost no time in vanishing through the inner door of the room. Probably leads to the storeroom and out the back …
Pollack’s hand went to his side – he wore a knife the size of a young cutlass – and the newcomer reached for the pistol he wore, slung pirate-fashion on a ribbon around his neck and stuck into his belt. Five men started up from the tables and benches – one of them lunging at another and knocking him to the floor with a blow of his fist – and Pollack snapped his big hand into the air, commanding quiet.
Other friends pulled the new combatants apart, and there was momentary stillness in the room.
‘And you, Burrell Stanway,’ Pollack addressed his opponent in a voice like summer thunder, ‘are a traitor. You’re a traitor to this land of Texas and to our greater homeland of the United States. You name your friends, if you’ve got any.’
With cold calm he reached down to the floor and picked up the newspaper, and glanced at it. January had witnessed, or heard about, too many New Orleans duels which had come about through letters to various of the city’s newspapers to be in the least surprised.
Pollack added, still calm and cold as marble, ‘I’m surprised you could even read my letter, Stanway, much less figure out what all them big words mean.’
And he slashed Stanway across the face with the offending journal, signaled to his brother, and together they left the saloon, brushing past January and Hannibal, unseeing, in the doorway.
Being the state capital, Austin boasted two hotels, not counting two barracks-like establishments where lesser government clerks, day-laborers, and drovers put up and got their meals. January sat up late, in the yard behind Eberly’s Tavern, a rambling hostelry on Congress Avenue, deeply grateful that the town was built on a bluff above the river and was less afflicted with mosquitoes than was low-lying Houston. But when Shaw slipped quietly out of the darkness at close to midnight he had nothing to report.
‘I followed Pollack back to the Capital City – that’s the fanciest hotel in town, meanin’ it’s been painted in the last six months.’ Shaw spat into the weeds that grew along the back wall of the tavern. As usual his scrubby sand-colored whiskers were flecked with tobacco. ‘I thought he’d take an’ put the girl, if he’s got her, in the regular jail over to Cedar Street for safe-keepin’, but no. He stayed drinkin’ in the barroom at the Capital City talkin’ to one man an’ another, then went upstairs. I kept a eye on the place til most of the lights was out.’
The following day – while Hannibal played poker and flirted with the handsome proprietress (‘She’s a nationalist in sentiment but refuses Texas redback money …’) – January scraped acquaintance with the stablemen and kitchen staff at the Capital City.
They of course knew all about the ‘bright wench’ Pollack was keeping locked up in Room 3-H (‘That’s her winder, right up there, see? The little one by the chimney …’). Pharaoh, the stableman he talked to, shook his head at January’s tale of being Selina’s cousin and said, ‘No, he ain’t gonna have her put in the jail, no matter who he thinks is lookin’ for her. He an’ Sheriff Quigley come near to knifin’ one another four months ago, ’bout Austin bein’ made the capital – an’ mostly ’cause Quigley’s one of the few men in this town that don’t buy his sweet talk. If he let Quigley lock up any wench of his, he’s afraid Quigley’d let her go, just to spite him.’
‘Any chance I could see her? Talk to her?’ The narrow window was on the third floor and didn’t look wide enough to admit even a girl as slender as Selina, in the extremely unlikely event that January was able to acquire a three-story ladder and put it up to the sill undetecte
d.
‘See her? No.’ Pharaoh – a blocky man with an R branded on his cheek, marking some long-ago attempt at escape – shook his head again. ‘Be as much as my skin is worth, to try to even get the key to that room. I can get you up there to talk to her through the door, tomorrow, when everybody’ll be out of the hotel, pretty much, to see if Pollack an’ Bue Stanway are gonna put holes in each other over that letter Pollack wrote to the Texas Register about Lamar’s slippery land-deals.’
‘I’ll be here.’
The duel, according to Hannibal, would take place down by the river, at nine in the morning, Texans basically not caring who shot who on the Sabbath. It was Palm Sunday, and January was deeply conscious of this as he woke in the pre-dawn dark of the tavern’s attic, where the housemen who cut wood and swept floors spread their pallets among the piled luggage of the guests.
His wife Rose – beautiful in her best pink frock and white headwrap – would be leading little Professor John, her pupils, and his nephew and niece who lived at the school, along the narrow brick banquettes of the French Town to the cathedral. A logical deist herself, she was conscientious in her duty to the parents of the girls in her school, and after Mass she would take January’s usual place in instructing them in the significance of Holy Week, the reading of the heart of the Gospels.
No bell broke the silence for early Mass. He guessed there wasn’t a Catholic church within sixty miles. But he whispered a prayer: for her, for his sons. For Selina.
For his own safe return …
At eight thirty, Pharaoh – suitably recompensed – guided January up the Capital City’s narrow, stuffy backstairs, and along a dismal passageway on the floor allotted to the slaves of the guests, uncarpeted and smelling of chamber pots not frequently cleaned. The doorway of 3-H, at the far end, was locked, and Pharaoh stood near the head of the stairs, watching as January scratched softly at the panels. All the other rooms on the floor were empty, their open doors admitting a grimy light. The hotel below was silent.
Far off, now, a church bell rang.
In the stillness he heard a sharp creak, like the squeak of a very old bedstead. As if someone within were holding herself motionless in terror.
‘Selina? It’s Mr January.’
‘Oh, my God!’ The soft pat of feet, and, close against the door now and constricted with tears, ‘Oh, Mr J, get me out of here! Please, please, oh God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—’
‘Hush,’ said January, ‘and listen. We haven’t got a lot of time.’ He glanced over his shoulder, gauging how much, if anything, Pharaoh could hear.
He didn’t blame the man. Helping a slave escape, in Texas, would get even a white man hanged.
‘I can’t get you out right now—’
‘Please!’ He could hear she was crying. ‘Please, Mr J, they … they hurt me. That man who bought me, he’s … he’s awful he—’
‘Selina,’ said January, ‘listen to me. Listen.’ From his pocket he brought out a cotton tobacco-pouch, containing all the coin Hannibal judged they could spare. He went to one knee, and pushed it carefully under the door. ‘You can’t cry. You have to listen. You have to be strong. Can you be strong?’
Her voice shaking, she whispered, ‘I’ll be strong.’
‘I’m in town with Mr Sefton and another man, and if you see us on the street, if you cry out, or say our names, or show that you recognize us at all, in any way, the three of us will be hanged. Do you believe that? Do you believe me?’
Barely a whisper, choked with tears. ‘I know that’s true.’
‘This money is in case you do get away somehow when we’re not close by. Don’t let anyone see it, don’t let anyone know you have it. But we’ll do what we can, as soon as we can. Are you physically all right?’
A thread of voice: ‘He hurt me.’
‘Can you walk? Can you run?’
‘I can run.’
‘Are you kept tied? Bound in any way?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Not when they take you out into the open?’
‘No, sir. I … I tried to run away once and they caught me. And anyway there wasn’t anyplace to run.’
The thought passed, very briefly, through January’s mind: Like Valentina …
‘All right.’ He glanced over his shoulder towards Pharaoh again. ‘I don’t know what will be possible, but we’re here. You’re not alone. You have to be ready to run, the minute you have a chance. Don’t get yourself hurt.’ At one point last night he had considered slipping her something else – a razor, or something to put Pollack to sleep – but had decided against it. Both could too easily be used for other purposes.
‘Did Daddy send you?’ Her voice faltered again. ‘Does Daddy know? Will Daddy …?’
‘We’ve sent word to your father,’ said January. ‘We couldn’t wait to hear from him, before coming after you. I’m not going to lie to you, Selina – I don’t know what your father will do or say about this. But Mrs January and I will stand by you. You’re not alone here. And you won’t be alone when we get back. But you have to be ready. And you have to be strong.’
‘Thank you.’ The words were barely a breath. ‘I’ll be strong, I swear it. I’m so sorry, Mr J. Seth – I was so stupid, and Seth—’
‘I know all about Seth,’ said January softly. ‘You won’t be seeing him again. Ever.’
She whispered again, ‘Thank you.’
‘Do you know—?’
Clamor downstairs. Someone yelling for hot water, and sheets. Other voices bellowing about skunk-faced cheaters and lying traitors and coward suck-arse whores who’d sell out their mothers for a league of Spanish land. The shouting worsened at that, and January pressed his face to the door, said, ‘Something going on. I have to go. You’re not alone.’
Just as he and Pharaoh reached the top of the backstairs, someone two floors below hollered a question, and a voice rose above the general din with the reply.
‘Pollack’s been shot.’
SIX
And does that mean things just got harder, or easier?
January rattled down the stairs in the stableman’s wake.
If he’s dead, does that mean Rance Pollack will get the girl? If he hasn’t bulled her already when his brother’s back was turned?
Valentina had said, He pays the very whores in Texas redbacks … which didn’t hold out much promise for coming to an understanding for the five hundred dollars January had left at his disposal …
The uproar in the lobby of the Capital City Hotel reminded January of the Place du Carousel in front of the Tuileries in Paris, when the second revolution had broken out, ten years before. Men shoving, shouting, waving their fists – a fight was already in progress in the street outside and several men in the lobby were pushing their way against the incoming crowd to join it. A wide-shouldered man with a broken nose and a rancher’s sunburnt complexion stood beside the couch onto which others had laid Pollack, but turned toward the door and bellowed, ‘Rance, you fucken imbecile, get in here!’
Another man, in the black frock coat of a professional over which blood was liberally splattered, crouched at Pollack’s head, yelling, ‘We gotta get that ball outta him! Somebody fetch me some whiskey! Can’t do nuthin’ til we pull the ball—’
‘You goddam idiot he’s bleedin’ like a pig already—’
‘You, nigger,’ said – unexpectedly – Shaw’s scratchy voice, suddenly hard with authority, and from out of the crowd the tall Kentuckian jabbed a crooked finger at January. ‘Wasn’t you the doctor’s boy at Chalmette?’
January had been nothing of the kind – he’d been behind the cotton-bales with a rifle in his hands, like the rest of the Free Colored Militia – but he replied promptly, ‘I was, sir.’
‘Thought so.’ Shaw wriggled out of the press, grabbed the doctor – if he was a doctor – at Pollack’s head and pitched him aside like a man breaking up a dogfight. ‘What you need? I saw your master at the fight—’
January dropped
at once to his knees beside the couch where Pollack lay. Behind him, the manager of the hotel was wailing and wringing his hands about upholstery and blood. Somebody had already torn away the wounded man’s coat, waistcoat, and shirt, and it was clear the subclavian artery had been grazed. ‘Kerchiefs, cloth, anything – a lot of it—’
‘You gotta take the damn ball out first, you blockheaded nig—’ began the former would-be healer, and Shaw thrust him toward the door. January smelled liquor on the man’s clothing as well as blood and weeks’ worth of stale sweat.
‘Somebody get him outta here,’ said the Kentuckian, and with the authority of a white man behind the request, two or three of those present obliged. Had January said the identical words, he guessed he’d have been lynched while Pollack bled to death on the couch.
‘Cravat,’ said January, packing more and more cloth against the spouting wound, pressing it closed, pressing it tight. Pollack gasped, and cursed, though his eyes were rolling back in his head and January could tell the man was barely aware of his surroundings. The hotel manager whipped off his neckcloth and put it in January’s free hand.
‘Can somebody support him – gentle – like that, yes, thank you, sir …’
A Tejano rancher with a face like lumps of broken granite eased Pollack forward a little, and kept him steady while January slipped the cravat around his back, and tied the thick pad in place. ‘Another,’ January said. ‘Please …?’
Three other cravats were proffered, and two glasses of whiskey.
When he’d tied the pad more firmly into place January took one of the whiskey glasses, and carefully dribbled the liquid between Pollack’s lips. The rancher swallowed, and some of the rigidity went out of his back.
‘He needs to be kept warm,’ said January. ‘Right away, feel how cold his hands are.’ A touch on Pollack’s wrist was enough to tell him his pulse was sinking away, going fast and thready. ‘Put something under his feet. My master always said, when a man goes cold like this, you got to put his feet higher than his head. Could someone watch him, in case he starts to vomit – has he eaten?’
Lady of Perdition Page 6
