The Assassins

by F. M. Parker

  First Morissot must die. That would leave the direction toward the city open for escape after Kelty killed Wollfolk. Kelty also knew he wanted to slay Morissot for another reason. He had sensed the presence of a man in the woods near his home one night. He believed only Morissot would have done that and then could have escaped so easily before Kelty could catch him in the dark.

  The assassin moved into the gloom-filled recess beneath the long portico of the Cabildo and settled to wait. Morissot had made a mistake. As the hours had passed, his vigil had taken on a predictable path. Now Kelty lay in ambush along that path.

  * * *

  Morissot tried to ignore the cannon fire as he strained to spot movement or a form that could be Kelty. The street was a murky black canyon, for the streetlights hung unlit: the lamplighter either had abandoned his duty or was dead. The only light was the now-and-then flicker of flame from a burning tar barrel.

  Lezin sought the deepest shadows and hugged the walls as he prowled warily along. Smoke boiled up from the tar barrels to mingle with the night. The dark mixture seemed to have a palpable density that Morissot had to push aside as he moved down the street. His nostrils were clogged with the heavy sooty smoke, and his eyes burned with acrid fumes.

  Morissot knew it was dangerous, even foolhardy, to be stalking Kelty, for the man could be hiding in ambush in any one of a thousand places. But Morissot had no choice if he was to locate the assassin before the man found and killed Tim.

  He had first gone to Kelty’s home, hoping to catch the man there. But the house had been empty. There was only the clothes and other personal things of a single man living alone.

  Morissot stared hard all the way around. He had been prowling the waterfront for many hours watching for Kelty. It was far past midnight now, and the time stretched long and weary. Lew, guarding the approach from the river, must also be growing tired.

  Tim worked with the Irishmen carrying cargo aboard the two military chartered ships tied up at the docks. The captains had argued strongly that their vessels must be, loaded and ready to sail by daylight, before their crewmen caught the hated fever. Tim had decided to help O’Doyle and his men to meet that deadline. Morissot had thought the plan not a bad idea, for Tim would then become one of the dockworkers. Should Kelty slip past Lew or Morissot, he would find it very difficult to pick Tim out from the thirty other white men laboring in the frail lantern light on the docks. However, when the day arrived, a better method must be devised to keep Tim safe.

  Morissot crossed Jackson Square and turned to pass in front of the Cabildo, with its giant portico supported by the four thick stone arches. This most popular place in all the city was totally forsaken, the night-walking whores gone and even the saloons closed. He veered from the sidewalk and into the street to put space between himself and the black caves beneath the arches.

  As Morissot stepped into the street, the black shadowy form of a large man tore free of the other shadows beneath the nearest Cabildo arch. The man made one long bound and hurled himself upon Morissot.

  Morissot had time to only spin toward the attacker and partially thrust out his arm to fend him off before they crashed together with a bone-jarring force. He felt the jolt of a blow on the chest, a knife blade hitting a rib. The stout bone deflected the stabbing blade, sending it slicing with ice-cold heat along his side from front to back. A searing pain sprang to life.

  Kelty’s hard body slammed Morissot backward, rolling him on the ground. Kelty held his own footing. He gathered himself and sprang again to the attack.

  Lezin stopped his wild tumble and surged to his feet. Kelty was leaping toward him, his knife thrusting out.

  Morissot dodged to the side. His move was late. Kelty’s knife caught him, passing through his left arm, up high.

  Before Kelty could strike again, Morissot grabbed for the pistol in his belt. The weapon was gone, lost in his roll on the ground. He snatched the knife from its sheath. Held it ready to defend himself and kill when the opportunity came.

  The large figure of Kelty, knife poised to deal the death stroke, circled Morissot, closing upon him. “Tonight you die,” Kelty said.

  Morissot laughed out through the gloomy night. Perhaps he could make the man angry and therefore reckless. “Kelty, you bastard, you had both the first and second blows with your blade. Yet you failed to kill me or even to hurt me badly. For all these years people have overrated you, feared a man who can kill only weak men, and those poor fellows from ambush.”

  Kelty ceased his circling movement. He growled and advanced. Morissot moved warily to the left. A man can cut most quickly and strongly while moving left rather than to the right. Kelty pivoted to keep facing his foe.

  Morissot felt the blood pouring from his wounds. He was losing the precious life fluid at a fearsome rate. Already his pant leg was wet with blood from the waist to the bottom. Soon he would fall unconscious.

  The fight must be short. He lunged at his adversary.

  Kelty jumped clear. His knife swung in a quick, hard counterstroke, barely missing the mulatto. Then, with amazing swiftness, he sprang in on Morissot’s side.

  Fighting Kelty was like fighting a phantom, thought Morissot as he spun to meet the new attack. But this phantom must be killed to keep Marie’s man safe.

  Kelty made a roundhouse sweep with his knife and rushed upon his opponent. Morissot grabbed for the man’s knife arm, caught a firm hold on it. Instantly he stabbed out powerfully with his own knife. But his hand was caught, halted in midstroke.

  The momentum of Kelty’s charge rode the two men down to the cobblestone street. Each held his grip on his adversary’s knife arm. They rolled and cursed and fought on the hard pavement.

  Morissot struggled mightily, his heart beating with great pulses of blood. He dredged up the ultimate ounce of his strength to break free so he could cut with his knife.

  But Kelty matched the increased pressure, and then even more. Morissot’s arm began to tremble. The knife wounds were sapping his strength.

  Kelty lowered his head and rammed it forward with terrible power. Morissot felt his nose and teeth break against the man’s skull. He was half-stunned. Pinwheels of light whirled and exploded, flinging burning stars off to every corner of his brain.

  Again, viciously, Kelty slammed his head into Morissot’s face. For an instant Morissot’s grip on Kelty loosened. Kelty ripped his arm free. He drove his knife into Morissot’s stomach, and again instantly, higher up in the chest, the blade plunging in between two ribs.

  Kelty rolled away from Morissot. The knife, wedged solidly, was left behind protruding from Morissot’s chest.

  Kelty sat upright. He peered across the short distance separating him from Morissot. “That should send you to hell,” he said. He began to laugh, a harsh, brittle sound.

  Morissot caught hold of the knife and tried to pull it from his body. But the weapon was anchored firmly and his feeble strength could not budge it. He released the blade and lay trying to collect enough strength to sit up. He smelled the cloying odor of the hot blood draining from his body.

  He struggled to a sitting position. He was not going to lie there and die like a stuck hog. He reached out with his hands to brace himself on the pavement.

  Something was beneath his hand, something metal. He trembled. Unbelieving of the sudden turn of fortune. His fingers closed upon the butt of the pistol he had lost. He swung the weapon, cocking back the hammer. He fired at the center of Kelty.

  The shadow that was Kelty was flung to the pavement. Morissot shot again into the body.

  He collected his strength and crawled painfully to Kelty’s crumpled form. He reached out and caught the man by the throat. The big vein in his neck was pulsing feebly, barely detectable and erratic. Morissot said, “Kelty, can you hear me?”

  The figure quivered. A thin ghost whisper came. “Yes.”

  Morissot must verify the information he had about the Ring. All the enemies must be known. He had to accomplish that quickly, fo
r he held the dying man’s thought by only a little spider’s thread. “Who hired you to kill Wollfolk?”

  Kelty did not reply. A spasm shook him like a deep chill.

  “Tell me, Kelty. It doesn’t mean anything to you now.”

  “Shattuck,” gasped the man.

  “How many members in the Ring?”

  “Four ...” Kelty’s voice trailed off.

  “I’ll speed your trip to hell now,” said Morissot. He fired the pistol into Kelty’s head.

  Morissot staggered to his feet. He had to reach Jonathan with his healing hands. He stumbled to the corner of the Cabildo, turned along the street that paralleled the side of the building, and entered the park at the rear. He untied his horse and laboriously climbed up into the wagon. He reined the horse in the direction of his home. Black unconsciousness caught him like a thunderclap. He fell heavily into the bed wagon.

  * * *

  A tremendous pain ripped through Morissot. He opened his eyes to the light of a lantern and Jonathan pulling strongly on the knife embedded in his chest. The knife came free.

  The cold unconsciousness reached for Morissot again. He fought it back and lay still on the bed of the wagon.

  Morissot tried twice before he could speak, and then his voice was but a broken whisper. “So that old horse found its way home,” he said to the healer.

  “I’ve been waiting and watching for you to return. I heard your wagon come,” Jonathan said.

  “And Marie?”

  “She’s safe.”

  “Good, tell Tim that Kelty is dead. Shattuck hired him to murder his uncle. The members of the Ring are four, as we thought. Lew and Tim must find and kill them.”

  “I’ll tell him that.”

  “Do it soon.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what of me, Jonathan?” Morissot asked.

  “Old friend, your wounds are many and deep. I can’t help you to live. You’ll be dead before the morning comes.”

  “I know that you speak the truth.” Morissot fell quiet. He felt death rising like a black tide at the borders of his consciousness. He looked at the knife stained with his blood. “Jonathan, put the knife in my hand.”

  “Why do you want it?”

  “I see all my old enemies, all the men I’ve killed there in the shadows. I believe they mean to harm me. I must show them the steel of my blade to keep them off.”

  Jonathan pressed the knife into Morissot’s hand. The fingers closed upon the handle.

  “Jonathan I’ve slain so many men that I have lost count. Now I go into their world. From now to eternity, I must fight them.”

  Morissot’s hand that held the knife rose as if to ward off a blow from some invisible foe. His hand fell. Morissot died.

  26

  Lew walked the wooden planking near the river’s edge. He passed Cadwaller the night watchman. Shortly he moved through the lines of Irishmen carrying cargo to the two ships tied up at the wharves. The men labored silently as they trod heavy-footed and bent under large loads along the lane of light cast by burning lanterns.

  A slow wind came off the Mississippi, keeping the smoke of the burning tar over the city. Millions upon millions of mosquitoes had fled the smoke zone and congregated along the river. Invisible in the darkness, the black-winged pests droned around Lew. The grease he had smeared on his face gave him but scant protection from the stinging bites.

  He reached the downriver edge of the Wollfolk dock and turned to head along the border in the direction of the levee. He thought of Cécile. She had read the Courier’s description of the many deaths from yellow fever and had urged him to take her from New Orleans until the epidemic ended. He knew she had good reason to be afraid. But he had refused to leave and tried to get her to go alone. She would not go without him. Now both remained in the pestilential city. God! How he hoped the deadly disease did not strike her.

  He looked ahead in the direction of the city. For hours the cannon, hidden in the smoky night, had rumbled without stop. The flames of distant funeral pyres showed as dirty red splotches on the darkness. A dismal sight.

  The two pistol shots came close together, just beyond the levee and near Jackson Square. Lew barely heard them between the crashing booms of the cannon. He halted and stared hard through the formless vapors of the night. Had Morissot found Kelty? Were they fighting in the darkness? A third shot rang out.

  Lew watched for Morissot to appear in the light on the docks or at the warehouse. Morissot did not appear. That was a bad sign. Lew hastened forward.

  He stopped on top of the levee in the edge of the cloud of tar smoke. He would go no farther, for he must be near if an attack was made on Tim. Squatting on his haunches, Lew watched in the direction of the city for a long time.

  The weary minutes passed. Sleep began to pull at his eyelids. He climbed erect and shook himself awake. He looked upward at the pinprick holes the stars made in the black dome of the heavens. The day could not be far away. He moved off along the top of the levee toward the lighted warehouse.

  Iron wheels rattled on the stone pavement of Front Street. A few seconds later, a wagon pulled by a trotting horse bounded out of the night and whirled up to the warehouse. The Negro driver shouted and O’Doyle hurried to him.

  O’Doyle called down over the docks. Tim separated from the stevedores and hastened up the slope to the wagon driver. They spoke together.

  Tim saw Lew approaching. “Lezin is dead. Kelty killed him.”

  “I’m sorry about Morissot,” Lew said. “What of Kelty?”

  “He’s dead too. They fought and wounded each other. Before Lezin died, he told Jonathan that there were four members in the Ring and that we should hunt them down and kill them.”

  “I don’t have to be told to hunt them,” Lew roughly replied. “I’ve had enough of giving them the first blow.”

  “Lezin is dead and Marie is all alone,” Tim said sadly. “I must go and be with her.”

  “Wait,” Lew said. “Some men are coming. They may mean trouble.”

  Three men walking swiftly along the levee top came into the full light of the lanterns. “Hello, Wollfolk,” one of the men called.

  “Gustave Besançon, what brings you here?” Lew asked.

  “My friends and I have come to pay you back for the favor you did us. And to get in on the fight,” replied Gustave.

  “What fight?” Lew said.

  “The fight when Custus and his Live Oak Boys from the Swamp come to burn your warehouse and docks.”

  “Tell me more,” Lew said.

  “About fifty of them will be here in an hour or so. They’ll have coal oil and lucifers. Some uptown men have hired them to burn you out.”

  “We can guess who they are,” Lew said.

  “Who would that be?” Gustave said.

  “There are four of them, men named Shattuck, Rawlins, Loussat, and Tarboll.”

  “We know them. You pick strong enemies. But we’re not worried. I’d like to introduce you to Leandre and Maurice. All three of us would like to join you. A little fight would get our blood flowing.”

  “Join if you like. But there must be no killing if we can help it.” Lew’s mind raced as he surveyed the warehouse and the dimly lit dock. He spoke to Tim. “Send the old black man home,” Lew said. “He’s done his part.”

  “Jonathan, please go and take care of Marie,” Tim said.

  Jonathan nodded and reined the horse away from the warehouse. Man and wagon vanished into the night.

  “O’Doyle, call your men together,” Lew said. “They have a right to know we will soon be attacked.”

  “All right,” O’Doyle said. He faced about and whistled shrilly through his teeth.

  The Irishmen gathered at the end of the warehouse. They looked curiously from O’Doyle to Lew.

  “That’s all of them,” O’Doyle said.

  Lew nodded. He began to speak to the assemblage of men. “In an hour or so, a gang of head-knockers called the Live Oak Boys from th
e Swamp will come here to burn the warehouse and docks. They have been hired by our competitors to destroy the Wollfolk Company. I’m telling you this so that you may leave before the attack comes.”

  The men were silent, shifting their feet, looking from Lew to O’Doyle.

  The Irish leader stepped closer to Lew and faced his countrymen. “If the warehouse and docks are burned, then our jobs are gone,” he said.

  An angry growl rose from the men. “I wouldn’t like that,” a man shouted. There was an answering chorus of agreement.

  “The men who are coming are tough,” Lew said. “But those of you who stand with me will get a week’s pay. Anyone who gets hurt and unable to work will receive full pay until he is well again.”

  “Irishmen are tough too,” O’Doyle said. There was a roar of approval at the statement. As the noise subsided, O’Doyle said, “I for one am standing with Wollfolk. He helped us to get started in a foreign land. But those of you who think this fight is not yours can leave with no blame thought toward you. But leave now, for we got to know our strength.”

  O’Doyle waited, looking from face to face. Not a man moved. “Damn good fellows,” he said with a broad grin. “Wollfolk, tell us what you want done.”

  Lew made a quick count. Thirty-five men against fifty or so. Damn poor odds, and there was so much area to protect. Yet they had no choice but to fight. It would be impossible to prevent determined men from starting fires and doing damage. A hard smile stretched Lew’s lips. There might yet be a joker who he could deal the Live Oak Boys.

  * * *

  Tim watched Lew’s flinty face and slitted eyes as they sat at the battered desk in the warehouse. Lew the strategist had devised the defense. Tim could not find fault with the plan. Every door in the warehouse was opened to its full extent to allow a clear view in almost every direction. About two-thirds of the men were positioned in the warehouse. They appeared to be working; however, they were merely shuffling the mounds of military supplies from one location to another within the building. Barrels had been emptied of their contents and now were spaced about, full of riverwater and soaking burlap sacks to be used to swat out fires.