Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1955

by Flag on the Levee (v1. 1)

  “Then nobody is angry?”

  “Nobody is angry, and everybody is happy. You will see when we are out there—you will be pelted with whole gardens of flowers by the girls at upper windows or on galleries.”

  “I’m slowly beginning to understand,” said Ben. “Look out there, across the street. Every minute sees more people, and fewer of them in everyday clothes. I never saw such mad costumes.”

  “And you will never see such again, until next Mardi Gras,” rejoined Casimir. “Now, my Barbary corsair, what say you? Shall we prepare to join them?”

  Casimir had no trouble with the gear of the Choctaw, but Ben took longer with the Oriental garments. For one thing, the tight tunic was almost too small for his robust arms, chest, and shoulders, and, for another, he did not know how to wind the green turban. The skillful Archimede accomplished this last for him, after Ben had put on the big-bearded mask. Thus accoutered, Ben slung the cape gracefully around him and shoved the little dagger deep into the folds of the sash above his right hip.

  Casimir waited in the lower hall, arranging feathers in a fillet around the brows of his own mask. He flourished a gaily painted tomahawk.

  “Wagh!” he greeted Ben, Choctaw fashion. “I am ready for the warpath.”

  “Salaam aleikumreplied Ben, in his own Moslem character. “The peace of Allah upon you. Let us go.”

  Casimir led the way into the rear courtyard, through a small doorway into an alley, and so to a cross street, where they slipped easily into the torrent of afternoon fun makers.

  It was already a far larger throng, and a noisier one, than they had seen from the gallery. Many of the maskers had secured long tin horns, like those used by the fish peddlers of New Orleans, and blew on these with much energy and no melody whatever. There were several impromptu bands, made up of flutes, violins, cymbal dashers, and pounders on kettles. As for the costumes themselves, they ranged from the simplest of masks to the utterly ridiculous extreme of originality, and they presented all colors of the rainbow. There were soldiers, armed gladiators, robed prophets with beards and staffs, dancing bears, motley-clad jesters, cavaliers with plumed hats, and a hundred other fancies and fantasies.

  Above them, like a legion of Juliets, the Creole ladies of New Orleans smiled and waved. Flowers rained down, and maskers leaped high or scrambled and scuffled on the bricks to snatch these prizes. Some of the merrymakers were forming big bouquets of the flowers dropped from various galleries. Up ahead of the Choctaw and Moslem, a nimble figure in a checkerboard harlequin costume tapped with a ribboned mace on the brick wall beneath a gallery on which three brighteyed sisters lounged, smiling down.

  “Cap! Cap! Cap!” cried the harlequin, in time to his thumpings.

  “Look, I know him,” Casimir told Ben quickly. “It is Auguste Duralde, at his favorite song. All New Orleans has heard it, like the song of De Marigny. The ladies will respond in a moment.”

  “Cap! Cap! Cap!” chanted Duralde, knocking again as though for admittance.

  “Ou est qa qui est la?” melodiously sang back the trio of sisters overhead.

  “Uangoustel” shouted back Duralde, and pretty laughter saluted him, as blossoms of half a dozen kinds fluttered down around him.

  “Auguste—Vangouste, a lobster,” mused Ben as they walked past. “Not too bad a pun, and not too good a pun, either.”

  They strolled through the growing crowd. A carriage rolled past along the street, driven by a masked man with a glittering gilt crown and a robe of imitation ermine. The seats of the carriage were occupied by a whole bevy of girls, who laughed and pelted the walkers on the banquette with what seemed to be bright-painted Easter eggs. One of these burst against Ben’s turban, showering him with confetti.

  Rounding a corner, they came upon their own square. Up on her gallery stood Felise, in the act of sprinkling flowers from her baskets upon a knot of capering gallants. She glanced beyond these admirers, and saw the approach of the Choctaw and the corsair. At once her hands flew to her cloud of red hair, detached from it the white camellia blossoms, and then unwound the blue ribbon that confined her curls. Quickly tying this in a bow to the stem of the camellia, she held it high above the lacelike ironwork of the railing.

  Yells, shouts, and applause greeted her gesture. A whole forest of arms, in all sorts of costume sleeves, lifted high to beg for this special token of favor. But Felise kept it in her hand until Ben and Casimir had shouldered into the press and paused immediately below her. Then she waved the camellia as though to call attention to it, and tossed it down.

  Ben hurled himself upward in a catapultic leap, and his right thumb and forefinger nipped the falling blossom safely, an inch above three other clutching hands. A moment later he had backed clear of the others, holding his prize over his head for Felise to see. Then he tucked it into the folds of his green turban, laughing inside his mask.

  “She was saving that camellia for you,” remarked Casimir as they moved toward the center of town.

  “For me?” repeated Ben. “How could she know me? I never told her, or anyone else, about this Barbary costume Pm wearing. And neither did you—wait, Casimir, did you tell?”

  “Ben, I pray your pardon,” said Casimir, with an air of guilt. “I said I would keep silent, but Felise is my cousin, my near kinswoman, and she can plead one to weariness. I could deny her nothing. She found out first that I would be a Choctaw, and then she asked me, tout court, what you would be. Could I be churlish? It was only Felise to whom I told that secret, that much I swear.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing for me to scold about,” said Ben.

  “To scold about?” Casimir echoed him. “Alors> the only ones who should scold are those maskers who hoped, each man of them, that Felise O’Rourke exerted herself for him. Ben, your heart is a hard one to please! ”

  They continued their tour of the streets, with diversions at every corner and at every mid-square. Once they stopped, with many others, to buy Here douce from a vendor with a barrow. This merchant had provided wheat straws so that customers could drink his wares through their masks. Again, Ben and Casimir were stopped for minutes, along with all other traffic in street and banquette, while a full score of holiday folk danced a round dance from house front to house front, to the music of Bernard de Marigny’s Daldide, Ma P’tite Reine, with De Marigny singing in turn to the rows of smiling girls on the galleries of opposite dwellings.

  Thus entertaining themselves, the two friends wandered and stared until almost sundown. It was then that Casimir suddenly remarked, “Look yonder, my Barbary barbarian. It is one of the Voltigeurs.”

  Among the many-hued costumes along the street, Ben saw a man in the jaunty blue cutaway and the stripe-sided gray trousers of Colonel O’Rourke’s battalion. The man was masked, and wore a flowing golden wig beneath his uniform cap, and he walked between a wiry-looking little horned demon in red tights and an impressively striding monk, tall and dignified in gown and cowl. In the monk’s big hand was what no monk might be expected to carry—an expensively decorated walking stick that somehow looked familiar to Ben.

  “Why should a Voltigeur spend no more thought on his costume than that one?” Casimir was demanding of the whole world. “Simply to put on his uniform—it is unimaginative, that. Who is he, Ben? It seems that I recognize his figure.” “And so do I,” replied Ben, peering through the eyeholes of his own mask as the trio strolled past. He gazed after them.

  “I feel he’s someone I’ve seen, Casimir, but look at him again. I doubt if he’s a Voltigeur, uniform or no uniform.”

  “And I doubt it, too,” breathed Casimir excitedly. “Wait— Ben, do you not see? You should know him well, you stood facing him above pistols a few weeks gone. It’s—”

  “It’s Jethro Wicks,” interrupted Ben, quickening his pace. “I’d know that broad back among a thousand, even though it doesn’t wear a buckskin shirt. So he’s dared to come back to New Orleans without a mask to hide his black whiskers, has he?”

  �
��No, no, you mistake him!” protested Casimir. “It’s not your Jethro Wicks; it is Kirwin, Roy Kirwin! I should know him well, I talked with him for an hour to arrange your duel! ”

  “You’re being fantastic, even for Mardi Gras,” growled Ben. “It’s Wicks, and I’m going to follow him and see that he’s arrested. Come on.”

  He went tramping quickly ahead, his tasseled cloak flapping behind him. Casimir kept pace at his side as they shoved and elbowed their way through the crowd after the trio. The big monk lifted his stick to point a way for his companions around the corner into Saint Philip Street. Pressing hard to keep them in sight, Ben rounded the corner in turn. Then he stopped dead, catching Casimir by the elbow.

  “You stay at their heels,” said Ben quickly. “I want to go in here for a moment. Pll catch you up directly.”

  He pushed Casimir back into the pursuit, and himself opened the door to the cafe of the brothers Laffite.

  It was crammed with holidaymakers in a bewildering array of costumes, and just inside he found himself face to face with the courteously bowing Jean Laffite. Laffite’s habitually modish coat, pantaloons and frilled shirt seemed almost drab in comparison with the garish rigs of the customers. Ben unceremoniously ran his arm through Laffite’s and approached his masked face close to that of the smuggler chief.

  “Ben Parker,” he identified himself in an undertone. “You’re the only one at hand I can confide in. I’ve just seen Jethro Wicks in town.”

  “Have you so?” was Laffite’s soft reply, with only a swift flicker of his eyes to betray any astonishment. “What then?”

  “Pm going to follow him. I want to arrest him—with my own hands, if I must. But you’re the one person I can turn to now. Word must be sent to the Governor’s palace. If you mean what you said about friendship for America—”

  “You honor me with the appeal. I will get the news to Governor Claiborne.”

  As Ben hurried out again, he heard Laffite calling loudly for Dominique You.

  He struggled through another jumble of dancing celebrants, who were plaguing a town lamplighter at his task of hanging up a corner lantern in the deepening twilight. Half a square along, Ben caught up with Casimir.

  “The three of them have gained on me j I hung back to keep myself in your sight,” said Casimir. “Swiftly, my friend; they are now walking along Chartres Street, as I think—probably toward the Place d’Armes.”

  The two threaded their way through new and denser mobs and lines of caperers, and around another corner came once more in sight of their quarry. Up ahead walked the three they sought, arm in arm as though in comradely enjoyment of the festival. The monk was in the center now, towering over both the Voltigeur and the devil.

  “Do you know that big monk?” Casimir asked Ben. “He is of a size I seem to remember, but his robes disguise him. The little red fiend I cannot place, but the thief of our uniform is Kirwin.”

  “Wicks,” insisted Ben.

  Both pursuers and pursued moved toward the water front, and by the time they reached Levee Street, Ben and Casimir were close behind. They saw the monk lead the way into a small, squat-roofed tavern.

  “They are out for no good, those gentlemen,” panted Casimir. “The reputation of that place is not of the best. Take care before you enter, Ben.”

  Ben approached one of the leaded windows of the tavern and peered in. Many customers, both with and without masks, sat at tables or leaned against the bar, while waiters and barmen served their wants. But there was no sign of a monk, a devil, or a Voltigeur. Ben turned back toward Casimir.

  “They didn’t stop in the taproom. They must have gone into the rear of the place.”

  “Swiftly, then, along this alleyway.”

  It was a narrow passage, between two blank walls of plastered brick. Casimir slipped along easily, but Ben’s heavy shoulders had difficulty in passing, and he was forced to throw off his cloak. At the end of the alley, Casimir scrambled over a barrel half full of refuse, and Ben, following him, found that they had entered a courtyard. It was fenced with high upright boards, and in the corners stood piles of trash from the tavern. The light of early evening made everything dull gray.

  A voice came from somewhere, harsh and complaining: “No, sir, I don’t mean to be unreasonable, nothing of the sort. But, after all, when I laid in that dirty jailhouse all these months, and them botherin’ me every day to tell ’em about—”

  “Moderate your tone,” interrupted another voice, cold and stealthily muttering. “We want nobody to overhear.” Casimir pointed to where the words were spoken. A door was set in the plastered wall, and it was made in two halves, Dutch fashion. The upper half was swung slightly outward, and light came from within. Toward this Casimir moved on his noiseless Choctaw moccasins. Ben tiptoed after him.

  “Moderate your language, too,” went on the stealthy voice. “You are addressing a superior.”

  “Who’s to overhear us?” demanded the complainer. “They’re making such a noise and commotion out yonder in the front, they can’t even overhear theirselves. And I want to know what happens to me now.”

  “We chose today for your escape, and paid the jailer his bribe, because that made things easier,” said his companion, still muttering. “But there’s food on the table before you. Why don’t you eat? I’d expect your appetite to be good, if your temper isn’t.”

  “All right, no olfense, sir. But this here new hiding place, it ain’t no such a much bigger than my cell in the Cabildo. And it ain’t any great sight prettier. How long do I have to stay here?”

  “No more than an hour,” assured the other. “With the whole city masked, you won’t be noticed when we disguise you. Then off to the ship, before the officers at the Cabildo know you’re gone. And we’ll all set sail for Mobile.”

  Casimir had reached the doorway. He peered through the narrow opening made by the upper half pushed ajar. He beckoned Ben, who came to look over his shoulder.

  Inside sat four men around a rough table, on which were dishes, two wine bottles, and a candle stuck in its own grease. Directly opposite the door Jethro Wicks lounged in a chair, his mask and wig olf and his black beard seemingly trimmed to stubble above the high collar of the Voltigeur uniform coat. At Wicks’s left sat the little demon, also maskless and now recognizable as the horse-holder Ben and Casimir had tied to the gum tree at Tchoupitoulas. Across the table, with his back to the door, sat the monk, and to Wicks’s right lounged the tall man Ben had wounded. It was he who was talking.

  “That’s another thing,” he said, in sudden fiery protest. “No sooner you get me out of jail, then you want to shove me into more danger aboard that powder ship. You want to blow us all sky high—”

  “Silence! ” snapped the monk, his own voice rising, and the fellow stopped talking, his slack mouth half open.

  “All they know in the taproom out yonder is that you’re to hide here,” said the monk, in a cold, cultured voice. “When I greased the taverner’s palm, I said nothing of plots against Claiborne, nor yet of designs on the ships of war off Mobile. If those bribetakers knew, one of them might run, all fearful, to carry the news. And in any case, you talk a deal too much.”

  Ben’s reason strove to deny the evidence of his ears. That voice of authority, speaking clearly at last, could belong to but one man in New Orleans. In his excitement, Ben leaned forward, and jostled Casimir off balance. Casimir swayed against the half-open top part of the door, and it moved with a great rasping squeak of its hinges.

  At once the monk’s chair overturned as he sprang to his feet, tall and vigorous. He swung around. His cowl fell back from his face and head.

  It was Horner Banton.

  XIII. The Ship

  Horner banton stood glaring at the two masks that thrust into the room at him, leaning above the closed bottom of the door as above a window sill. Banton’s big, well-kept hand held his walking stick, inlaid with gold and tortoise shell.

  “Gentlemen,” he said coldly, “we’re p
rivate here. Please honor us with your presence some other time. Go back to your holiday pleasures.”

  “Mr. Banton,” said Ben. He gulped to steady his voice, and then took hold of the lower half of the door and pulled it wide open. “Mr. Horner Banton, you’re under arrest.” “Eh?” Framed in the back-flung monk’s hood, Banton’s fine, strong-featured face looked blank. “What are you driveling about? You know me, do you?”

  Up jumped Jethro Wicks and ran around the table toward the door. “Who are those fools?” he cried in a voice like a sentry’s challenge. “What are they doing, spying on us?” The two others had also risen, and from somewhere in his tight red costume the demon had pulled a small black pistol. Banton glanced sidelong, saw it, and struck up its muzzle with the head of his stick.

  “No shooting,” he warned sharply, and then strode out into the courtyard after Ben and Casimir. The skirts of his robe swirled. “You, my man,” he addressed Ben fiercely. “You say you’re trying to arrest me. If you—”

  “Prenez garde, Ben!” cried Casimir in warning as Banton lifted the walking stick.

  Ben snatched at the stick, caught it by the shank, and strove to wrench it away. But Banton gave a quick twist and pull, and then Ben staggered back, halfway off balance, part of the stick coming loosely away in his hand. Banton had cleared a blade from inside the hollow shank, a lean, cruel- looking bodkin of steel that gleamed in the last light of dying day.

  “A sword cane!” shouted Casimir.

  “You’re Casimir Beaumont,” sniffed Jethro Wicks, as though it were an accusation, and both he and the tall man lunged out of the room at Casimir.

  Ben could spare no other glance for what happened to his friend. Banton was thrusting murderously at him with the blade that had been hidden inside the cane, and Ben parried it with the hollow shank sheath. Here in the March evening there was almost as much light as there had been in the January dawn when he had shot two pistols from the hands of Roy Kirwin. As Banton’s point glided past his shoulder, Ben struck with his own makeshift weapon, and Banton had to leap back to avoid the blow. Another thrust darted at Ben, who warded it off. Joseph Gamier had taught him well. He retreated a step in turn, and fell on guard.