by David Luchuk
After the Golden Circle fell apart, I worried they might try something. You don’t have any idea what you’re in for this time. It isn’t the army. These aren’t soldiers. They are the people you call saboteurs and radicals. They are fanatics to you, but they are real people with homes and children. They are the beating heart of the south, its soul. Those folks regrouped after William Hunt’s wild ploy came to nothing. Schemes and trickery were set aside. They got back to basics and tapped into the only power they believe in.
You see, Robert, after living among millions of slaves for more than two hundred years, white southerners absorbed a little of their hoodoo. They soaked up more than just a little, as a matter of fact.
You claim that nothing ever gets invented down there. That may be true so far as gadgets go but the south has made plenty of advances. It is more than spells and spirits. They can stir up a poison that will make you claw your eyes out while whistling John Brown’s Body. They can put a powder in your water that turns into venom in your gut. They can make clothes on your back a toxic poultice on your skin. Anything can be made to pollute the body and mind.
What I saw once I got to Shreveport convinced me that your Union is not ready for what the south has in store. I also saw clear as day that only a maniac would go chasing after Kate Warne in Wilmington.
She is as good as lost. Dead, that is.
You had a chance to capture William Hunt, Robert. You botched it. Hunt nearly cut your head off then escaped. He took Ray with him. I came to Shreveport to bring him back. I promised Ray freedom after he saved me from the Golden Circle. I owe him that.
After petitioning every auction house I could find, with counterfeit papers stating Ray was my property, I learned he was registered at Heritage Estate Brokerage. I imagine William Hunt thought it would be a lark to sell him right back into the bondage he escaped. Ray was up for sale.
No auction house wants to sell a slave with disputed ownership, though. Heritage Estate agreed to delay the sale until a clear title could be established. That brought me to Shreveport.
The auction house, once I laid eyes on it, struck me as a slice of hell with a fresh coat of paint. From outside, it looked pleasant. It was modest in size, only two storeys. An open air quad at the center was framed by the walls of the main building. It might have passed for a decent hotel. Walls were a crisp white like pressed laundry. Flowers were freshly cut. The air was fragrant. It all masked the horror on the floors above.
Slaves were in pens waiting for the curse of the rest of their lives to begin. Some arrived days before. Others were the product of many generations of breeding. In time, each shuffled to the quad where a live auction took place every day.
The sunlit quad could be seen from the pens. It promised relief from the ghastly conditions inside. It also promised a life bent under a whip. The shrill sound of men haggling over the price of other men pricked my ears. I walked to a registrar’s desk and presented my counterfeit papers.
“You received my telegram,” I said.
The registrar took my documents. They did not match current templates but looked legitimate. He thumbed through a stack of papers. After finding Ray’s record, he flashed me a toothy smile.
By pure reflex, he moved a stack of papers into a space on his desk between him and me. He was on the defensive. His mouth froze in that twisted smile. The rest of his face was blank. These were markers. Everything he was about to tell me would be a lie.
“Your slave was auctioned by accident.”
“Where is he?” I pressed.
“I am not sure where he was taken after the sale.”
I weighed the options. The thought of throwing the man’s desk over and throttling him came to mind. He interrupted that happy image with the next part of his lie.
“To compensate, we are glad to offer you a slave of even greater value.”
A black man clomped down the stairs. He was not one of the new arrivals. This slave was resigned to his plight.
“What do you expect me to do with this one?” I said.
“Whatever you planned to do with the other. Set him free if you wish.”
That was a telling response. Somewhere, William Hunt was laughing at me.
The slave became agitated. In pens upstairs, they did not dream of leaving the quad as free men. The idea was too radical. It was like thinking that falling off a cliff might teach a person to fly.
I looked at the brute. In truth, he deserved to be free as much as anyone. This was the doubt that Hunt wanted me to face. This was his way of calling me a hypocrite. I would go to such lengths for one slave but not another. The point was made. I could live with what it said about me. This was a personal choice, not a principled one.
Ray was my partner. That was all.
I pulled the slave away. His eyes were wide with the possibility of a free life. I shattered that hope. No doubt, it was the lowest moment in his bleak life. Rather than leave the brokerage, I thrust him straight onto the auction block.
The buyers were a callous bunch. They jeered the slave’s dismay. A few bargain hunters opened the bidding. The more serious traders made sport of the man’s panic. Once this fun ran its course, the real auction began.
The slave was strong and young. Bargain hunters were forced out as the process advanced. Within a minute or two, he was sold.
The buyer, a runt with a soft leather cap hanging over his brow, paid me in cash.
Fresh bills in hand, I confronted the registrar again. I put the money on top of the papers on his desk. It was a generous bribe.
“Tell me where he is.”
The registrar shifted the pile to one side. He did not touch the money.
“They took him to the yards. They mean to ship him out with the rest.”
“Ship him where?”
“Up to Carolina. Wilmington, I think.” He picked up the money.
I reached into my pocket and found the bills you sent to me, Robert. It was more than the slave fetched at auction.
“Tell me the rest.”
“The rest of what?”
“The rest!”
His body relaxed. The toothy smile disappeared.
“This is the rest: they wanted me to tell you about the yard. They expect you to come after him.”
He took the money. I tossed his desk over for good measure.
You have no idea how much trouble Kate is in. Your father should not have sent her here.
The Shreveport boat yard is surrounded by dredging equipment. Those drills, explosives and cranes, help break up driftwood jams that clog waterways in these parts. Dredging is the only way to keep Shreveport connected to the canal networks spreading across America. Without the canals, Shreveport would be cut off from trade corridors on the Red River and Mississippi beyond. It would be cut off from the whole word.
Once the dredging project was complete, that original equipment depot fell into disrepair. Shreveport businessmen have never really benefited from the canals. They missed the boom and came on board just in time for the bust. They let most of the machines rust back into the mud.
The canal system stretches from Florida all the way up to New York. It even penetrates the western frontier in some spots. Those channels might have been a spine to hold America together. Instead, they have become a throughway for smugglers sending illicit goods all over the country. Towns that bet their future on the canals eventually went bankrupt. Shreveport is one such place.
I mounted the scaffold of a derelict crane. It was one of many abandoned skeletons from the dredging project. The scaffold gave me a clear view of the yard.
The first thing that caught my eye was a woma
n. She was in charge.
Crews winched long containers into canal barges. It was dirty work. Insects swarmed the yard. Workers wore heavy coveralls and masks. Each barge was packed with slaves.
The woman supervised this slow progress. No one sassed her. She had the kind of authority that makes people down here show respect.
I recognized one of the men from Heritage Estate. It was the one who bought my slave at auction. The same soft leather cap sat askew on his head. He dragged the slave I sold over to the woman in charge.
Without a word of warning, she pulled the slave’s head back and forced a wooden pole into his throat. She pushed the rod down until the slave’s gagging became mortally urgent. Just when it seemed she would plunge her forearm into his chest cavity, she twisted the staff and gave a yank.
From inside the man’s torso, she retrieved a vial on the end of the wooden rod. Whatever was inside that vial, it was intended for me. If I had taken the slave in trade, he would have coughed it up one night while I was sleeping.
I would be dead. Or worse.
The slave collapsed at her feet in agony. He was dragged to a barge. Ray was the one who pushed him inside. If not for the lashes on his face, I would not have recognized him. Ray was like a moving statue. He was hard and emotionless. When the other slaves were stored, Ray followed. He was the last to be locked inside.
That is what you sent Kate Warne to find in Wilmington. A caravan of slaves is passing through that port. They are being shipped by a hoodoo witch who knows the Pinkertons are on her trail.
Cripes!
Webster, you are a hideous sight. You smell even worse than I expected. A promise is a gruesome thing. You have been listening, Webster. The ears of a good detective are always open. So tell me; should I walk into an obvious trap at Wilmington?
Yes. I know that Ray is in the barges.
Am I afraid?
Be careful, Webster. It would be easier to put you back in the ground than it was to dig you up.
Maybe I am afraid. What of it? I have reason to be. Believe me. I have my own scars to prove it. When those people get their potions into your body and it makes you crazy. After they mark you, it’s better to stay out of the way.
Don’t give me that look.
Ray is my partner, damn you! If I thought I could save him, I would.
You cannot imagine what it is like to be at their mercy. They break your mind. You think crazy things. The acts you perform under their spell are not natural.
Dammit, Webster! You tell me what I am supposed to be if not afraid.
Ha. You have a dry wit, Webster. I suppose you’re right. Wilmington would be a nice place to be buried. I did promise you a proper burial.
Alright, if you come with me then I agree. We can collect the gauntlet I hid out here then make our way to the coast. It will be one last case before you find your rest.
You get your wish, Robert.
I hardly believe my own voice. Webster and I will find your Kate Warne, or whatever became of her, out in Wilmington.
* * *
Repository Note:
What am I supposed to do with this? A man arguing with a corpse he buried then dug back up hardly counts as scholarly. It’s just repulsive. The Library of Congress isn’t a pulp press. We don’t gain anything by being sensational. I ought to bury Stark’s entry. It’s only going to make things worse.
People are angry enough without seeing Timothy Webster’s name turn up in these records again. I am still convinced it is a coincidence. It must be. Pinkerton’s murdered detective could not actually be the same man who history remembers as the war’s most notorious turncoat. Just the same, journalists had a field day the last time his name appeared in these files. It is going to be the same this time.
I can’t suppress the Stark entry. All of the material I brought back from New Carthage is part of the public record now. Things are going to get ugly. Uglier, I should say. We’ve already received a bomb threat at the Library. It was addressed to me. Imagine. What a bunch on nonsense.
Police have assigned an officer to watch out for me. Hirsch. I don’t know his first name. He follows me everywhere. He sleeps in a car outside my home. Poor man. I feel bad. He is wasting his time. Who would go to the trouble of blowing me up?
- Diane Larimer, Chief Archivist, United States Library of Congress
* * *
Kate Warne, Detective
November, 1861
I am not often afraid. Bitter experience has taught me that I alone set the threshold. What length will I go to protect myself? I would kill and die. The next man who thinks he will drag me to a back room or leave me drugged on a bed that is not my own will learn fast enough. Both his life and my own are the prices I have set. Once a person accepts killing and dying, fear loosens its hold.
This case is teaching me something, though. I am beginning to understand how that level of control can be weakened. In tiny increments, with each painful minute of lost sleep and every strange occurrence that cannot be explained, the threshold creeps closer again. Fear approaches until it is right on top of you.
I am certain now that someone broke into my apartment. What does it mean? I haven’t the slightest idea. One more fact among so many that lead absolutely nowhere in this case. A voice was captured on the audio device.
Sango. Sango. Ogu Bodagris.
It is gibberish. Possibly, one of the sick ones who did not flee Wilmington with everyone else became deranged and desperate. They might have broken in, hoping to find some kind of respite. That could be.
The police report from the Gordon murder cites cases of Yellow Fever breaking out in the town before the exodus. That explains the sickness and rot I see everywhere, even on my client. No wonder people ran from this place.
Yellow Fever, however, tends to emerge in places where slaves are sold or goods arrive from Caribbean islands. It does not normally touch places such as Wilmington. There is no slave clearinghouse. Blockade runners come mostly from Europe.
If the intruder was one of the sick ones, how did they get in and out without my knowing and without leaving so much as a footprint? The afflicted ones stagger through the mud, covered in their own black blood, stinking and reeling in agony. They are not good at sneaking about.
Here again, an oddity of the case leads me to questions with no answers. I feel more and more confused. A deep frustration is setting in. I am losing control and the fear I have kept at bay for so long is getting closer.
It is harder than ever to think. I have no energy. Exhaustion plays tricks on the mind. My judgment is becoming less reliable with each sleepless night.
I crippled a man yesterday. I cannot say it was justified. It happened at the crime scene. I stopped at the Gordon Bank to survey the site before visiting the Drysdale home.
The site is a strange place. The thief, likely this man Nate Drysdale, set it on fire after murdering George Gordon. Melted candle wax is speckled everywhere for some reason. A thick pole stands in the wreckage like a tree trunk made of coal. Artifacts of the crime are still scattered about, as though police had returned them to their original positions after conducting a pathetic investigation.
George’s father, Herbert Gordon, along with his business partner, Louis Bannan, blame squatters for the disarray. That makes no sense. There are no squatters in Wilmington. There are almost no people at all.
I stood in the main entrance, looking in, and was so preoccupied with these details that I failed to notice a man approach from the street outside. I was startled.
He was one of the sick ones. His skin was cracked and yellow. Black vomit stained the front of his shirt. He smelled so bad that I
gagged. The man shuffled forward. He was a slave.
Two white men followed at a distance. They all came from the direction of the harbor. The slave and his masters likely emerged from the lumber mill. It might have been the foundry or perhaps the docks. Those facilities run day and night. I see smoke from smelters and furnaces at all hours.
The town is empty. Flies swarm the filthy streets. Still, Wilmington’s harbor is busy. The mills run. Boats land. No goods come to shore yet the boats continue to arrive. The contrast between the silent town and its active harbor is striking.
I stepped out of the bank, not sure what I hoped to achieve other than to see how the men would respond. The white ones froze. They stared and kept a distance while the slave continued to struggle forward.
My eyes were fixed on these men holding back when the slave pitched toward me, lunging for my shoulder. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but out of pure reflex I hit him with the clapper before he could utter a sound.
The slave launched like a cannon shot. He flew back and crashed halfway up a brick wall on the building across the street. No man should ever grab me by surprise. When I looked back, the white men were gone. The slave shook on the ground, dying from either his affliction or my assault, or both.
What was the point? Why did I do any of that?
I had no good answer. Shaken and exhausted, I simply left the scene and made my way to the Drysdale home.
On the advice of my clients, I have agreed to wear the murder victim’s clothes, acting as a kind of ghost inside the home of our only suspect. The more I turn this idea over in my mind, the more it seems both insane and perfectly logical.
The ruse itself was easy to arrange. My clients provided me with the dead boy’s clothes. I implicated myself in Nate Drysdale’s life by befriending his suffering wife, Collette. She is miserable. They are broke. Collette is trying to save the family by selling one of their properties. That bit of information, offered by Gordon and Bannan, was my foothold.
