The Assassins

by F. M. Parker

  Tim walked to the place where Julius rested during the noontime period. He wanted to talk with him. But the man was curled up asleep in the shade like a big black dog.

  Tim lay down beside Julius. His head felt light and woolly with his fatigue. He straightened out flat on his back. Ah! The pleasure of a moment of rest.

  Sometime later he awoke and glanced around. Julius was gone. The drays and stevedores were streaming back and forth from the ship to the dock or to the warehouse.

  “Julius, why didn’t you wake me?” Tim called out.

  “You worked hard enough for a man with those bad wounds. So I let you rest.”

  Tim looked down. His unbuttoned shirt had fallen apart and the red and purple of the healing flesh of the bullet wounds on his ribs and shoulder showed plainly. He pulled the garment together and rebuttoned it. He had not wanted anyone to find out he had been shot.

  “You should have wakened me,” Tim said.

  Julius pointed up at the sky. “Old sun is still high in the heavens. There’s plenty of daylight left for you.”

  Tim climbed erect. Every muscle in his body felt bruised and strained. He went back to work on the docks.

  * * *

  “Timothy Wollfolk, come and ride with me.”

  Lew had just left his office and turned toward Rampart Street. He looked in the direction of the call. An exceptionally pretty woman sat in a canary-yellow buggy. She was dressed in blue silk. She smiled brightly and waved at him.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Grivot,” Lew said, removing his hat.

  “My name is Annette. Come ride with me a little.”

  Lew hesitated. How did she know his name? The fact that she did meant that she most likely knew he had killed her husband. So why was she here?

  “All right.” Lew was deeply curious. He crossed the street, stepped up in the buggy, and sat down. As he turned to speak to Annette, she leaned quickly toward him and kissed him soundly on the lips. She pulled away from Lew and, laughing gaily, cracked the whip a foot above the horse’s ears. The buggy moved off smartly along the street.

  Lew studied the woman. He was much surprised by her greeting, almost like a woman greeting her lover. The gay smile remained on her lips. That was a complete reversal from the frightened expression she wore when he had seen her in front of the Saint Charles. Grivot’s death had surely not saddened her.

  “Are you well, Timothy?” Annette asked.

  “Very well. And you?”

  “I’ve never felt better, or freer, in my life.” She spoke to the horse and it speeded its pacing step, whisking the vehicle across Canal Street and into the Garden District or a street of white seashells.

  Annette fastened her attention on Lew. “I learned only today who you were. That the man who spoke so kindly to me at the hotel was Timothy Wollfolk.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Farr Rawlins. He was a friend of my husband, Enos. Farr told me a man named Timothy Wollfolk had fought and killed Enos. He described that man. I knew immediately that it was the same man I had seen.” Annette looked deeply into Lew’s eyes. “Farr thought I would be mad at you for killing Enos. But he would have soon killed me in one of his rages. You have saved my life.”

  Lew wondered about the accuracy of Annette’s statement. And Farr Rawlins, why had he lied about Lew forcing the fight?

  “Who is Rawlins?”

  “He’s a waterfront businessman.”

  “What else do you know about him?”

  “He’s rich and has rich friends. They call themselves the Ring. I heard him tell Enos that once when they were drinking.”

  “This Ring, is it a secret group?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. When I asked Enos about it, he laughed and said they were a mean bunch of bastards and that he would not want to be one of their competitors. He told me not to talk about them.”

  “How many members are there?”

  “Enos told me there were four members, and all are powerful men.”

  “Do you know any of their names?”

  “Only one. Stanton Shattuck.”

  Shattuck again. That was the second time the man’s name had cropped up in some connection to events that affected Lew. He would like to know the names of the other two men.

  The trotting horse suddenly shied to the side as a little white dog ran out barking from the manicured lawn of one of the big houses on the street. The dog dived in, nipping at the heels of the horse. Annette reached out swiftly with her whip and cut the little white animal sharply across the back. With a series of hurt yipes, the dog scurried away, its tail between its legs.

  “Damn little nuisance. It’s always there running out and scaring the horse.” Annette’s face was furious. Then she smiled warmly at Lew. She reined the horse into a lane leading up to a large three-story house.

  “I’m glad Farr told me about you. No man has ever killed for me before.”

  Lew was startled by the woman’s remark. “Kill for you? I tried not to fight with your husband. It was Rawlins who tricked him.”

  Annette continued to smile at Lew. “I know that you must say that. To kill a woman’s husband so that you could have her would be murder. But you can admit the truth to me.”

  “I told you the truth. I didn’t want trouble with Grivot. I was angry at him for hitting you, but I tried to talk him out of the fight.”

  Annette’s smile vanished. Her lips compressed to mere red lines and twisted strangely. Her eyes flattened. “Don’t joke with me,” she said in a high, tight voice.

  “I’m not joking,” Lew replied. “I didn’t want to fight your husband.”

  Annette laughed, a strained, contorted laugh. Her countenance changed, all the prettiness washing away and her features sharpening threateningly. She spoke in a furious voice. “You lie! Yesterday in front of the Saint Charles, I read your thoughts. You wanted me. Then you followed my husband into the hotel and killed him.”

  Lew grabbed the reins and jerked the horse to a quick stop. “I felt sorry for you when your husband hit you. That was all. I told you I did not want to fight him.”

  Annette clasped Lew’s hand tightly in both of hers. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You must, because I didn’t want your husband dead.” Lew sprang out of the buggy. He hurried back along the lane toward the street.

  “Damn you to hell,” Annette screamed at Lew’s back. “You can’t just walk away from me.”

  Lew ignored Annette’s shrill cry. He turned onto the street. He wanted to put a very great distance between him and the confused woman. He hastened his step down the white shell road.

  * * *

  Lew heard the crunch of iron-rimmed wheels on the hard surface of the road. He looked to the rear. A man in a surrey was overtaking him. So involved had Lew been in trying to make some sense out of the Grivot woman’s odd actions that he had not heard the vehicle until it was very close.

  “Fellow, it’s getting ready to shower again. Do you want a lift down town?” asked the driver of the surrey.

  Lew saw the sky was darkening under a lowering overcast. “Yes, I’d appreciate a ride,” he told the man. He swung aboard as the surrey stopped, and took a seat beside the driver.

  “I saw you come out of the Grivot lane. Are you a friend of the family?”

  “I knew Grivot slightly.”

  “Too bad he’s dead. He had a big plantation to operate and a lot of slaves to boss. It’ll be difficult to find a good overseer.”

  “Can’t Mrs. Grivot run the place? Didn’t she before she married Grivot?”

  “You must not know much about the Grivots. I grew up with Enos right here in New Orleans. He inherited land and slaves. He was a shrewd man and increased both several times over. Four or five years ago, he met Annette Hachard in Baton Rouge and married her.”

  “She told me that she had the property before she married Grivot.”

  “She’s one of the prettiest women you’d ever hope to find. But she’s a liar, a
nd about half-mad. She was insanely jealous of Enos. Once she took a knife to him, cut him twice before he could get it away from her. Most men would’ve divorced her. Not Enos. He was a hard and violent man. I think he enjoyed hitting the woman to control her. He would beat her half-unconscious when she became wild. Sometimes he locked her up to keep her from following him around town. Now that he’s dead, it’s hard to tell what crazy things she might do.”

  Lew did not respond to the man. He would stay far away from the woman. He watched the carriages and people on foot and horseback hurrying past.

  Overhead, lightning flared, sulkily trapped within the dark cloud masses and lighting them internally with a smoldering purplish glow. Thunder rumbled over the town. An ill-tempered wind forced the tall trees lining the road to buck and bow.

  “Drop me off here,” Lew said.

  The man halted the carriage. He looked at the street sign stating Rampart Street. “Have a pleasant evening,” said the man.

  “I plan to,” Lew replied.

  Cécile stood in the upstairs window and watched the windswept street. The pedestrians were thinning rapidly. The buggies and surreys all had their tops up in preparation to ward off the imminent rain.

  Tim came into sight and her heart lifted in several quick beats. She smiled to herself at the stir he caused in her.

  On the street a gust of wind whipped Lew’s hat from his head. He caught it in midair. She was amazed at the swiftness of his reflex. He passed under the window and entered the carriageway of the house.

  Cécile almost turned away from the window when a bright-yellow buggy stopped on the street in front of the cottage. A white woman stared down the carriageway after Tim. Then she seemed to sense Cécile watching, and her sight darted up to the window above.

  * * *

  Annette recognized the cottage of a placée. And the brown-skinned nigger wench stood there in the window gloating, humiliating her by stealing Timothy’s love. Black, brown, or white, damn any woman to hell that kept Timothy from her. He had killed for her. She knew it was true regardless of what he said. She had the corpse of hex husband to prove it. That made Timothy hers.

  She stood up in the buggy to be more on the level with the brown woman. She raised her fist and shook it angrily at the window. “You goddamned nigger whore!”

  * * *

  At the shout from the white woman, Cécile backed away from the window and into the shadowy room so that she could not be seen from the outside. The white woman continued to stare for a moment at the place where Cécile had been. Then she dropped into the seat of the buggy and slashed the horse savagely with the whip.

  Cécile watched until the yellow buggy turned a corner and was lost to view. She walked fearfully down the stairs to meet Tim. It was very bad for a placée to have a white woman as a foe.

  * * *

  “Do you know a woman who rides in a yellow buggy,” Cécile asked Lew as she dipped him a portion of crab soup from the tureen.

  Lew took the bowl from her and set it carefully on the table before he answered. “Enos Grivot’s widow has a yellow buggy. Why do you ask?”

  “Such a woman followed you here.”

  “Stay away from her, as I will, for she is unpredictable. She may be half-mad and could be dangerous. She thinks I killed her husband so that I might have her. That is not true.”

  “I’m glad,” Cécile said. “I shall be careful of her.”

  “The soup is very good,” Lew said, deliberately taking the conversation off on a different tack.

  Cécile followed Lew’s lead and they talked of many things as they ate.

  “May I go downtown and do some shopping tomorrow?” she asked. “It has been weeks since I have gone out.”

  Lew looked at her in surprise. “You never have to ask my permission. Go when you please.”

  He extracted several bills from his wallet. “Here is some money. Buy yourself something pretty.”

  Cécile smiled at Lew. “Not for me. I’m going to get you something.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll not tell you now.”

  Lew let his eyes feast on the woman’s beautiful face. He recalled the smoothness of the brown, burned-honey skin against his, but there was more to the woman than the soft female body. There was an internal strength in her, and a directness and clarity of thought that greatly pleased him. She was very precious to him.

  “Then, as a penalty for keeping secrets, you must play some music for me.”

  “And you might think of some other penalties later.” Cécile laughed.

  “I’m sure I will,” agreed Lew.

  18

  As the days passed, Lew often had his hired rivermen in their sleek, fast boat row him across the Mississippi to the dry-docks of Algiers. While the oarsmen lounged in the shade waiting for a ship to appear on the river, Lew worked with the skilled craftsmen under the guidance of the master builder, Sorensen, and watched the clipper ship take form. Sometimes he would accompany Sorensen and they would talk about shipbuilding as they inspected the timbers and joints before the decks and passageways were closed in.

  He learned much from the sailmaker about the shaping of the sails. He had thought that the canvas was simply cut into rectangles or triangles, depending upon where the sail was to be used. Instead, there was an art to the shaping of the thousands of square feet of sail. The sailmaker would unroll the bolts of material on his wide table. Then, as he cut the canvas, he told Lew what sail he was making, and his reasoning for the particular shape and size.

  The day arrived when Sorensen sent a special messenger to Lew and had him cross the river to the shipyard. When Lew arrived, he found Sorensen had mounted a tall tripod of stout timbers to bridge the ship. The main mast had been hoisted up on the tripod by a block and tackle hooked to a windlass. The butt of the mast hung directly over the strongly reinforced well that extended to the keel of the ship.

  Sorensen called down from the deck of the ship. “Tim, come aboard. The main mast is ready to be stepped.”

  “Thank you, Sorensen,” Lew called back. He climbed the gangway and crossed to the mast. He put his hands on the long, slender timber that had once been a living tree and now was about to become part of a clipper ship, the fastest vessel in the world. It would be even faster than the noisy, smoky steamships.

  “Stand ready to lower,” Sorensen directed the workers at the windlass. “Tim, give your orders to the men.”

  “Lower away slowly,” Lew called. He gripped the thick butt of the mast and clasped it firmly against his chest. He twisted so that the mast rotated a fraction of a turn and came into perfect alignment with the opening of the well.

  “Down! Keep it coming down,” Lew shouted to the men cranking the windlass.

  The mast entered the well, slid downward with a heavy rasp of wood on wood, and stopped abruptly with a thump on the keel of the ship.

  “Mast stepped,” Lew shouted. He continued to stand by the great wooden spar. It still had to be wedged tightly into place and shrouds, stays, and sails rigged to it. Yet the placement of the mast sent a chill through him. He felt as if he had helped put the heart into the clipper ship.

  He stared upward. From his angle of view, the tall mast appeared infinitely long, reaching to punch a hole in the sky, where the strong winds of the earth blew never-ending. Soon the wide white sails would be set and would fill with those robust winds. The sails would hum under the power of the wind. The ship would be truly alive then.

  Sorensen drew close and spoke to Lew. “The owner of a ship, or the captain, should always be the man to have his hands and shoulder on the main mast when it drops into its final resting place. That makes a bond between man and ship. It brings good luck.”

  “A man can always use good luck,” Lew said.

  “Do you want to help set the remaining two masts?”

  “No. I have several things that I must do in New Orleans before it gets dark.”

  “Then come again when you can.”


  “I’ll surely do that.”

  Lew rail his hands up the smooth wood of the mast. At that moment he decided that he would go to sea when the Honest Traveler made its maiden voyage. In the meantime, he would watch the construction of the beautiful clipper ship. He wondered if Albert Wollfolk had decided to build a sailing ship rather than a squat, ungainly steamship merely for the beauty of the ore over the other.

  * * *

  The rainwater lay in broad pools where it had fallen. The pools were warming as the clouds parted and the sun shone through to strike the ground. A green scum that looked like velvet and stank dreadfully covered the surface of the water. The slops and garbage of the past day added their fermenting ugliness, for the slave brigade of street cleaners had not yet come by this extreme end of Decatur Street.

  Mosquitoes rose up by the thousands from the foul liquid mixture on the ground. They swarmed about Lew and Baudoin as the two men traveled in the dueling master’s buggy east toward his private shooting range.

  “Someday I shall have a baire, a netting you would call It, sewed and fitted to my carriage to keep the pesky things away,” Baudoin said as he slapped at the mosquitoes.

  “Sounds like a great idea to me,” Lew said. He had been constantly battling the blood-sucking insects since leaving Exchange Alley. Everywhere around New Orleans, netting was coming out of storage and being hung. Spandling had enclosed all the desks at the company office. Cécile had covered the windows of the cottage and hung a large envelope of netting over their bed.

  “This is my training hall,” Baudoin said. He halted the horse beside a long building with open sides. It was the only structure on the rather large lot. Immediately adjacent to the rear of the plot of ground, the swamp began, with its tangle of brush and streets.

  “I have never enclosed the building. I want the students to practice by the natural light, whether it be bright sunlight or the dim grayness of a storm. A duel will in almost all cases be fought outside. But we need the roof because of the frequent rains. Come let us sharpen our skill with pistols.”