No Good Like It Is Read online

  ***

  As they worked their way back down the creek, Dobey spoke. “You gonna tell me what all that was about with that coal oil?”

  “What you mean, Cap’n?” Jimmy asked innocently, grinning back at Bear.

  “You know damn well what I mean. Y’all grinning like you’d just found a dollar.”

  “Oh—that. Well, Bear, here, he reckons that if those men don’t burn good, it might be noticed that they was three men. ‘Stead of two women and a boy. Whips out that filet knife, cuts the privates off the private and the sergeant, neat as you please. Put ‘em in that half empty can of oil, and screwed the cap back on it. Won’t nobody find ‘em now, for sure.”

  Bear slapped his leg. “’Cut the privates off the private’—that’s a good one, Boss.” He had a deep belly laugh.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Bear’s plan for getting everyone across worked fine. Before he boarded with his new horse and old mule, he loosened both heavy ropes, which were snugged to trees on the near bank. A smaller rope ran through two high pulleys on the ferry to trees on either side, to help guide it. Once across he chopped that one loose, too, and pushed the ferry away.

  Marie-Louise did not want to leave the two heavy hawsers. “Those, I can sell to the landing or to the boat peoples. Good money there, I guarantee.”

  They were simply too heavy, wet, and muddy, even to load on the mule. Jimmy finally convinced her to sell them at a discount if necessary, sight unseen, to anyone willing to come get them; they were then dragged into a canebrake.

  Finally, they rode west. Slowly.

  ***

  Jimmy dropped back, beside the wagon.

  “Looks like bad weather behind us.”

  Marie-Louise looked back, then smiled. “Oui. Yes. Maybe that rain will help cover our tracks, eh?”

  Melton shrugged. “Maybe. Just hope it don’t put out that fire.” He wiped his forehead. “People at this landing—you know ‘em?”

  “Oui—yes, for sure. And Bear, he does too.”

  “Can we trust ‘em?”

  “At the landing, yes. We trade with them. The boat people? One never knows. Better we have more guns than them.” She smiled brightly, patting her holstered Colt and nodding toward Jimmy’s arsenal. “For now, they will be very trustworthy, I guarantee.”

  After some thought, she continued. “But I think today, we stop maybe four or three miles from them. Dark by then, for sure. We camp, maybe you and Bear, you, how you say, ‘reconnoiter’?”

  “Yeah. Recon. I’ll see does the cap’n agree.”

  ***

  He did. Other than that earth-shattering decision, and the constant if subconscious alert for sounds and movement, there was little to occupy Dobey’s mind. Except, of course, those twisting, flashing, almost white buttocks. Jesus, he thought, Am I sweating? Round, firm, almost muscular. Glad Jimmy didn’t see that, the selfish thought came to him; might have been better off if I hadn’t. God, she looked good, as he stopped to scan all around, and of course, briefly stare at her. Still does look good. Those clothes wouldn’t fool me. What am I doing? She’s ten, maybe twelve years younger’n me. “Oh, God,” he groaned.

  “Say what, Cap’n?”

  Dobey looked up sharply from his woolgathering. “Didn’t say anything.”

  “Beg pardon. Thought sure you was praying.”

  “Oh. Didn’t mean to speak out. Just thinking that I’m saddle sore, and hungry.”

  Jimmy smiled, and looked back at Marie-Louise. “Me, too.”

  ***

  There were no surprises at the landing. The scurrilous family of smugglers that ran it were at first apprehensive at the sight of the hard men. Even Bear, whom they’d traded with for years, watched him grow up, had changed somehow. Older, overnight. Dangerous, like those gray-clad men. Never seen him with no repeater before, neither, let alone two revolvers.

  “We’ll get you folks out o’ here, no time ay-tall,” the filthy old patriarch assured them. “Send my boys out in canoes, flag you down the next good boat. Yessir.” And none too soon, he thought.

  ***

  The old pirate paid Marie-Louise four gold dollars for the ten dollars worth of hawsers they’d hidden back at the crossing, earning a spate of French language from Marie-Louise that Dobey was fairly sure was profane beyond belief.

  “I picked up ‘pig,’ ‘whore,’ ‘mother,’ and ‘shit-eater,’ I think,” he whispered to Jimmy. “The rest evaded me.”

  “Yep,” responded Jimmy. “She’s one hell of a merchant. You reckon they’d go with us to Texas?”

  “Ain’t no way.”

  At that point, her use of the word ‘pig’ reminded Marie-Louise of those she had left. “I also have five or four pigs there. You give me one dollar each?” She explained that they had left four, but that one was expecting, that they had left too quickly to butcher them, and that there might be a problem getting the pigs to cross that little river.

  “Hell of a merchant,” whispered Jimmy.

  ***

  The second boat going north was empty, a small sternwheeler heading back to Memphis. The old smuggler sold the captain some bootleg and cotton bales to resell in New Orleans, and Marie-Louise negotiated their passage south. “You pay him, cher,” she addressed Jimmy. He paid. She knew that he would, though she still knew nothing of his wealth.

  The animals were led on and hobbled, and the wagon was manhandled and winched aboard, but only after it had been half-unloaded. By mid-afternoon, they were steaming south on the Big Muddy.

  ***

  There were two cabins for them. Honey and her mother took one, of course, and Bear insisted that Jimmy and Dobey take the other. “Me, I sleep on that wagon. Don’t trust these boat people too much, my ownself.”

  After thinking about that, Dobey decided that the men would take turns: one in the cabin, door locked from the inside, two in the wagon, with one always awake. He and Bear took the first night in the wagon. Dobey was on from seven til ten p.m., and from one until four a.m., and Bear was awake the other six hours, using Dobey’s pocketwatch. The second night, it would be Dobey and Jimmy. Then Bear and Jimmy. And so on.

  Occasionally crew members would wander by, snooping and trying to engage in conversation, but since one of the Rangers’ group was always resting, the visitors were always invited to be quiet and move on. And the team members were too well armed and too touchy to argue with.

  In theory, each man would get a good night’s sleep at least every third night. And the first night, it was Jimmy’s turn.

  Unused to the boat’s motion, sweating, and full of thoughts of the strong-willed handsome Marie-Louise, he went on deck about 10 p.m. Shirtless, barefoot, but armed. Hearing his door open and close, Marie-Louise soon joined him.

  “Is too hot in my room for to sleep.” She stared at his muscles and scars.

  “Yes’m. You want to try something else?”

  She flared. “What are you suggest? Me, did I not just lose my husband two day ago? Are you some Texas goat?”

  “No ma’am. Jesus, no. I meant, maybe if we was to go forward, up under the wheelhouse, maybe we’d catch a breeze and get out’a this soot. Maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t mean nothing bad. Hell, I’m sorry I asked.”

  Mollified, she said, “Well if that’s all you mean, maybe that’s all right. Just don’t you think I am one who goes crazy over a man in uniform. No sir.”

  Melton looked down at his bare chest and feet and said, “No ma’am. I wouldn’t think that. Uhm, lemme just lock my door.”

  ***

  About 2 a.m., Honey awoke, missed her mama, and putting her pistol in her pocket, went down to the wagon to look for her.

  There, she found Dobey on guard, who shushed her, and with whom she whispered and giggled for the next three hours, well into Bear’s shift. And, after waking Bear an hour late, Dobey slept not at all.

  It started when they moved away from the wagon, so as not to waken Bear. Dobey had stretched, and rubbed
an aching shoulder. She whispered that her mama had taught her the fine old French art of massage; if he would just sit on that coiled rope, she would show him. He found it to be an incredible experience. He knew that Jimmy would not believe it. How could he explain the punching, the rubbing, the kneading with her elbows, the touch of her firm breasts against his arm? Jimmy’s on his own, on this, he decided.

  All that, and those visions again, soon had Dobey suffering from an entirely different ache. At that point, Honey experienced a chill. He got his blanket from the wagon, wrapped her and held her close as they whispered to each other.

  When they finally kissed, electricity shattered through them like lightning, ensuring that neither would ever recover from that first warm embrace.

  She knew about mating; she had grown up on a farm, with an older brother happy to show off his superior knowledge. So she knew. She hadn’t tried it. Two local boys had approached her on it once at the store, but Bear had come in and asked them if they’d ever seen what buckshot would do to pigs. The boys quit coming around. Still, she knew enough to realize that now she was on shaky ground, and so she bid Dobey a firm goodnight.

  As she climbed back up the deck stairs, she was sure she heard someone groaning. He must be waking up Bear, she thought. Silly Bear, he sounds like a dog in heat.

  As she gained the cabin deck, a nearly full moon erupted from the clouds, and she saw some movement forward. Her mother? With a man? She eased closer until she could hear a little above the engine noises. Mon Dieu—it is Mama, and with that man Boss. And she’s laughing, like a girl.

  Honey turned and crept back into the cabin. Her thoughts swirled. She knew that her Papa’s death had built a fence around her heart. She started to cry again thinking of him. But tonight Dobey had removed the top couple of rails. And then she smiled and thought, Mama, too?

  ***

  Melton stretched and strolled down to the wagon deck, where he found Dobey

  leaning against the gunwale.

  “Talked to that woman awhile. Still got kind of a wall around her. Seems nice, though. She did allow that the old man had been more of a pappy than a husband to her since the girl was borned.”

  Dobey smiled. “Yeah, the girl sort of said the same thing. You plan to help with that?”

  Melton shrugged. “If she’ll let me. I think I like her.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  On the morning of the second day, a Negro from the engine room named Big William warned Bear that the ship’s captain, Figg, would try to extort more money from them before disembarkation. Perhaps for “special handling” of the coffin or wagon, or for mucking up after the animals.

  Jimmy Melton had taken a shine to Bear, and continued his education on firearms whenever Marie-Louise was resting. One hour after Bear heard the whispered warning about the ship’s captain, Jimmy found the young black man leaning on the deck rail.

  “You know why you have to have your own bullet mold for them Remingtons?”

  Bear thought a minute, and answered, “They ain’t as good as Colts?” He looked suspicious. “That why y’all give ‘em to me?”

  “Naw, Bear, it ain’t like that. They’s fine revolvers. Some folks think they’s more accurate than Colts. It’s just this: a Army Colt uses a ball that’s about .45 caliber. Point four-five-one inches across. Remington Army model uses one that’s almost .46 caliber. So if I put a Colt ball in your pistols, it’ll likely be loose. An your’n are a tad too big for my Colt. Nothing wrong with your Remingtons, though. Fine pistols. Do you have extra cylinders, they’s a lot faster to reload than a Colt, too.”

  “So why they both called ‘forty-fours’? Ain’t neither one point forty-four across.”

  Jimmy smiled. “You figger that one out, you come explain it to me. Just how it is, I guess. Now, when y’all get to New Orleans, get rid of these Yankee holsters an’ get some easier for you to use.” Because Yankee cavalry regulations called for pistols to be worn butt forward on the right hip, Bear wore one that way, and the other butt-backward on his left hip.

  Bear smiled. “I ain’t no gunfighter. These work just fine. I’m wrong-handed anyhows, and I can get to both of ‘em with my left hand this away. How come the cap’n has all Navy Colts?”

  “His hands are smaller’n our’n. And I tell you what—the cap’n is fast with that small one.”

  “Yeah. You got one of those cut down guns, too. Like the one you gave Honey. You fast with it?”

  “Well, I’m faster with it than with the long ‘uns. Cap’n says they’s called ‘Storekeepers,’ up East.”

  “Yassuh. For under the counter, or inside a frock coat, I guess. S’pose I’ll has to look for one of them, too, less’n Honey gives me hers. By the way, Boss, that darky there, Big William, he tole me to tell you sump’n.”

  ***

  There are not many secrets on boats of any size. On one as small as the Memphis Belle, there were almost none.

  When Bear approached Big William on the third morning to thank him for the warning and offer him a dollar from Jimmy, the big man said, “Din’t do it for money, though I’ll take it and be glad. Nossir. That woman, the quadroon, she been kind to all the niggers on this boat. Don’t treat us like no field hands.”

  “Woman?” Bear thought his mama’s disguise was pretty good.

  “Hell, boy, you din’t think that woman was gonna fool Big William, did you? All the niggers know, what with her carrying on with that big Rebel. Don’ you worry, though, ain’t nobody gone tell the mates or the cap’n. An’ they ain’t guessed a thing. They thinks the two Rebels is poofs, both of ‘em carryin’ on with the breed and the boy. ‘Course, the mates and the cap’n, they poofs them own selves.”

  “Poofs?”

  “Girly-mens. Mean bastids, though. I believe I might earn this here coin. They plan’s to try sump’n tonight. I’m s’posed to git you drunk, and they figger the Rebs is ‘bout worn out. You jes’ ack dumb, but be ready ‘bout midnight.”

  “Damn. For sure, we will be. I’m beholding to you. That’s my mama and baby sister. I got to watch for them, since some Yankees kilt my mama’s man.”

  Big William blurted, “For sure?” He had almost blurted, “Your sister?”

  “Yassuh. White man. He be the one that freed us. We got papers. An’ the Yankees, three of ‘em, tried to force ‘emselves on my sister too, and these Rebels, they kilt ‘em.”

  “Kilt three of ‘em?”

  “Shot ‘em all to pieces, jus ‘fore me an’ Mama got there. Where you think these pistols come from? Re-peater carbine, too. Say I could keep ‘em, too.”

  “Sweet as he is on your mama, he likely to say most anything. Wait til y’all gets to N’Orleans.”

  “You listen to me, old man. I don’t think my mama is doing nothing, but he ain’t grinding no coffee with Mama, less’n she sweet on him too. We maybe ain’t going to no New Orleans. Anyway, I think he’s true. Both of em. Boss Jimmy, and Cap’n Dobey, too. And I knows my sister ain’t grinding no coffee.”

  He turned to fix Big William with a cold stare. “I owes you. I owes them more. I will do my dog-assed best to kill anyone tries to come at ‘em. I knows that you din’t know that was my mama and sister, so I don’t hold nuthin’ you said aginst you. But you know now. Be careful what you say, from now on.”

  “Easy, boy. Din’t mean no disrespeck. I’m on your side. And I’ll tell the other niggers too. Oh, law—we gone to have a laugh. They all thought the little Reb was a poof, with that good-looking white boy. Lawdy, Mercy.” He laughed, and some of the tension left Bear.

  Satterwhite, one of the two scruffy white mates, came on deck and looked toward them. Big William tipped his hat, suitably obsequious, and whispered, “Just you ack drunk, so’s they don’t suspeck me for nothin’. And they has keys for your rooms.”

  ***

  There were only four white crew members. In addition to the captain, there were the two mates and the quartermaster. In the war council, Bear wasn’t sure i
f the fat quartermaster and the captain were part of the planned shenanigans.

  Dobey decided. “The captain will probably stay in the wheelhouse. Him or the quartermaster. Problem is, we don’t know whether they’ll move against the wagon first, or the cabins, or both at the same time. About 11:30 tonight, Marie-Louise, you and Honey move into our cabin with Jimmy. Don’t leave anything important in your room. Jimmy, they’ll probably come with knives. Douse the lantern ‘fore the women come in, then lock the door. If they come through a locked door, you can kill ‘em. Bear and I will act drunk by the wagon, and put down our pistol belts. Honey, give Bear that little .32, to go under his jacket. If y’all start shooting, one of us will come, and the other will watch the wagon. If we start it, y’all stay here, til we call you or comes daylight. Jimmy, you keep that Henry in the cabin.”

  Marie-Louise asked, “And if these men, they come with guns, they come fast? To your room, I mean?”

  “You got that Navy Colt. Take the other one out of your valise and give it to Honey. Mostly, though, you got Sergeant Melton. Just do what he says. Me and Bear will put ourselves where they can’t get close ‘fore we see ‘em.”

  “Cap’n, you find you forgot somethin’ tonight, it wouldn’t be no good if you came slipping into the room.”

  “I ain’t even gonna take a key, Jimmy. Bear doesn’t have one. Anybody unlocks that door, you can kill ‘em. Better if you could take ‘em down, but don’t take any chances.”

  ***

  In the darkened room, Jimmy told the women to stay behind him, pistols drawn but uncocked, to the left of the door. He sat them in wooden chairs.

  “One comes alone, I’m a try to knock him out with this wooden stob. If they’s two of ‘em, I’m a just shoot ‘em. If I go down, y’all stand up and open up and keep shooting til they quit moving. Clear?”