“You’d need seven barges to hold them, sir,” I mumbled, fighting the urge to fall blubbering at his feet. “And seven idiots to run them.”
By way of an answer he held up his fingers for me to look at, cracked them again, then bunched them together into dumplings. He regarded me a moment, brought the dumplings to his mouth, and blew across them once, twice, thrice in quick succession—: then his right hand opened. A ring of worked silver glinted in his palm. A tired trick, of course, but he had need of nothing better. I was already long since brought to heel.
He laid the ring before me on the table. “As it is, though, Kansas, I need only one.”
AND SO THE PUNCH-LINE arrived at last. The Redeemer meant for me to take fifty-seven grown men into a fever town and sell them. I sat up straight, arranged my collar and cravat, then slumped face-down onto the table. I wept in a series of dry-eyed little gasps. It was tantamount to a death-sentence, after all.
“Will I be running them alone?” I said. I saw nothing but the thick green felt covering the table. For some reason its blurry coarseness soothed me.
“I’ve sent across the river for Parson. I don’t expect you’ll require more camaraderie than that.”
“Parson,” I said, grinding my chin into the felt. I’d have preferred to make the run in a butter-churn.
“I’ve explained my scheme to him, of course. He’s given it his blessing.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Parson had invented yellow fever.”
The Redeemer smiled at this, indulging me. “A once-in-a-decade’s chance, Kansas. Once in a lifetime, possibly.”
“Once in mine, you mean,” I said. But I said it meekly. The more I learned about the Redeemer’s tricks, the better they seemed to work on me. He was capable of appearing entirely at your mercy, meek and vulnerable as a school-girl—: you pitied him, especially if his plan was flawed, while still trembling at the least thought of his displeasure.
A silence fell—: the silence of the tomb. I stared morosely at the matches the Redeemer had been fiddling with, then all at once noticed that they’d fallen, quite by chance — one straight, one broken — to form an arrow pointing out the door.
For some reason this jarred me from my bedazzlement like a blast of snuff. Memories of yellowjack victims I’d seen, the image of Memphis filling with bloated, black-tongued corpses, and the thought of myself in the thick of it all brought me suddenly to my feet.
“I won’t do it, sir.”
He shook his head at me. “Of course you will, Kansas! You’ve already told me so!”
“I’ve told you? I don’t follow—”
He covered his right eye, winked at me with the other, and my boldness disappeared like spit into a puddle. I knew what his pantomime meant, of course. My blighted eye had told him.
“What was it?” I said dully, sitting back down. “The star? The yellow cloud?”
The ghost of a grin played about his mouth-corners. “You could say it was the star, I suppose. Better yet, it was all the signs in sequence. Better still,” he said, his eyes narrowing to two coal-colored slits, “it was everything you’ve done since you stepped off the Vesuvius. And perhaps a bit before.”
My thoughts flew about in a panic, darting from one imaginary betrayal to another, and settled at last on the little Pinkerton I’d met. Quietly, gingerly, I slipped a hand into my coat-pocket, looking for the card Barker had given me.
It was gone.
“Everything I’ve done? What the devil does that mean?” I said at last. But my voice was as guilty as an adulterer’s.
The Redeemer picked up the ledger-book, by way of an answer, and laid it triumphantly in my lap. “It means you leave in half an hour, Mr. Ball.”
“YOU’LL HAVE ANOTHER WHITE MAN WITH YOU, en passant,” the Redeemer said as he walked me to the Panama House landing. It was dusk, and we made our way by the weak light that fell from the windows of the bar.
“Is that so?” I murmured, sunk in my misery like a carcass in a bog.
“More of an observer, really, than an active participant. Un spectateur objectif.” He coughed into his hand. “Young Asa Trist.”
I laughed aloud at this. Let them all come to Memphis, I thought— madmen, naturals, epileptics, amnesiacs — what possible difference could it make? “You mean to put me to death, sir, I take it?”
He quickened his pace. “I needn’t explain the importance of the Trist family to the Trade, I hope. That boy’s been badgering me since the day he arrived. He’s harmless, really—; practically a child—”
“Kennedy’s told me what a cracked egg he is,” I said.
For once the Redeemer looked genuinely pained. “Asa wants to follow this delivery, that’s all. To get acquainted with the business. Does that seem so very cracked?”
“Everything to do with this run seems cracked,” I said. “Why is Trist so interested in the business, suddenly? He’s never cared a crumb before.”
“He fancies himself a scientist, Virgil. A rationalist, like yourself. Un homme de recherche.”
He was leading me about by the nose now, and I knew it. “So Trist’s not coming along to learn the business, then,” I said. “It’s something else entirely.”
He shot me a plaintive look. “Don’t ask me to explain the ways of the gentry, dear K.”
“I swear to you, sir, if that loony mucks in my affairs—”
“Touché!” the Redeemer cried, as though I’d reasoned him to his knees. His manner had become steadily more theatrical as we walked, as if he were performing for a hidden audience. He passed his arm through mine almost bashfully, and proceeded to recite at the top of his lungs, as one might at the edge of a cataract—:
“It’s the same run as always, really—; just a bit more freight. Aim to pull in at sun-up, so you’ll have light to get them coffled by. Lafitte & Dobbins have left for St. Louis—; you can tie up at their berth. You know Stacey’s clearing-house, of course—”
“That is my privilege, yes.”
“Of course it is. But they’ve moved two streets westward.” He stopped again, watched me closely for a moment, then handed me a peach-colored envelope, embossed with letters of strident blue—:
STACEY & TALON
DEALERS IN NEGROES & BONDSMEN
21 COURT STREET, MEMPHIS
I was to take one of three new boats the Colonel had commissioned for us, sleek twenty-yarders that ran on steam against the current and floated back down-river like a barge. They showed less profile than a decent-sized pirogue, and drew less than half a yard of water when full—: perfect craft for smuggling. The Colonel liked to joke that if the Abolitionists had thought to invest in half a dozen, Canada would be an African protectorate by now.
When the Redeemer and I reached the landing, I could see straight-away from the lay of the boat — low in the water, canting subtly aftwards — that the slaves were already in the hold. This discovery caused me pain, though it took me a moment’s reflection to understand why.
“You knew before looking in my eye that I’d make this run,” I said.
“Parson’ll be along soon,” the Redeemer said airily, leading me up to the pilot-house. (He took a childish pride in these new skiffs of his, though he himself had never run one.) “You’ve piloted her before, if I remember rightly. Do I remember rightly?”