Quincannon said, “Yes, if I can rent a horse.”
“Prob’ly can. Livery’s right across the road, Mr. — What’d you say your name was?”
“I didn’t. But it’s Flint, James Flint.”
“Take the ferry across Dead Man’s Slough, Mr. Flint, and follow the levee road till you come to another ferry at Irishman’s Slough. That one’ll take you to Schyler Island.” Kennett paused and then advised, “I’d get a move on if I was you — we’re in for a blow tonight.”
The livery was a barnlike building diagonally up-road from the inn. One of the doors was open and a buttery lamp glow shone within. Entering, Quincannon discovered four horses in stalls and the hostler asleep in the harness room. He woke the man up and questioned him. No, he hadn’t rented either a wagon or a horse to a woman answering Pauline Dupree’s description — “Never seen anyone looked like that around here, more’s the pity” — or to anyone else in the past few days. He’d seen Noah Rideout a few days ago when one of his employees had delivered him to the steamboat landing in a carriage, hadn’t seen him since. Quincannon haggled with the hostler from a distance of two feet — he had a mouth half-full of as many black teeth as white and a rancid breath that would have gagged a goat — and emerged astride the best of the available horses, a ewe-necked bay, his valise tied to the saddle horn.
The last traveler or travelers to use the ferry had been headed west; the barge was moored on the opposite bank of the slough. Quincannon yanked the bell rope on the landing stage and the bell’s sharp notes brought the ferryman, a muscular gent of some fifty years, from his shack. He seemed none too happy to be summoned out once again into the chill afternoon; he answered Quincannon’s questions about the identity of recent travelers with nothing more than a series of grunts and monosyllables as he winched the scow across. It was held by grease-blackened cables made fast to pilings on a spit of north-side land a hundred yards upslough. The current would push the ferry across from shore to shore, guided by a centerboard attached to its bottom and by the ferryman’s windlass.
When the barge nudged the plank landing, the ferryman quickly put hitches in the mooring ropes, then lowered the approach apron so Quincannon could lead the horse aboard. As soon as the ferryman collected the toll, he set the cable to whining thinly on the windlass drum and the scow began moving again, back across. A taciturn cuss, he said not a word the entire time.
The levee road was well graded and fairly well maintained, in order to accommodate wagons, carriages, and stagecoaches, and the bay handled easily; Quincannon set a brisk pace. The wind had sharpened and the clouds were low hanging, so low that the tops of some of the taller trees in the flanking swampland were obscured by their drift. But the ozone smell was no stronger than it had been and there was no moisture in the air yet. The storm was still two or three hours off.
The road was flanked on both sides by streams of sluggish brown water, swamp oaks, and moss-infested sycamores all the way to the next ferry crossing at Irishman’s Slough. He met no one along the way. The ferry tender there was less taciturn than the one in Kennett’s Crossing; he informed Quincannon as he winched him and the bay across that the only others to request passage today were local farmers. The land on Schyler Island had been cleared and planted with crops; fields of onions and a variety of green vegetables stretched as far as the eye could see. Most of the farmhands tending them were Chinese, so many of which race worked as delta laborers that an entire community had been established at Locke.
A mile or so from the ferry landing, farm buildings appeared in the distance. The entrance to the road that led to them was spanned by a huge, arched wooden sign into which the name RIDEOUT had been carved and then gilded. Quincannon turned in there, rode another quarter of a mile through fenced fields to the farmstead.
There were several buildings, all whitewashed and well-kept. The main house was surprisingly large and elaborate for the delta country, two stories of wood and stone with a galleried porch in front. As soon as he reined up in a broad wagonyard, the front door opened and a burly fellow wearing a butternut coat over gray twill trousers came out and down the steps.
He looked Quincannon over appraisingly before asking, “Something I can help you with, mister?”
“I’d like to speak with Mr. Rideout, if he’s here.”
“He isn’t. He’s in Stockton on business.”
“When is he expected back?”
“Late tonight. If you have business with him, you can tell me what it is. Foster’s my name, Mr. Rideout’s aide-de-camp.”
“Business with him, yes, but of a private sort. Concerning a lady friend of his.”
“And who would that be?”
“Pauline Dupree. An actress at the Gaiety Theater in San Francisco.”
If Foster recognized the name, his face didn’t show it and he didn’t admit it. He said nothing.
“Handsome woman, dark gold hair. Mr. Rideout kept company with her in the city.”
“His business, if so.”
“She wouldn’t happen to be here, would she?”
“The only women here are servants.” Foster’s gaze narrowed. “Who are you? What’s your interest in Mr. Rideout and this Dupree woman?”
“I’d rather discuss that with him.”
“I’ll still have your name, unless you have some reason to withhold it.”
“John Quincannon. Which packet will he be on tonight?”
Instead of answering the question, Foster said, “It’ll be late when he arrives and he won’t want to be disturbed. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see him.”
Not if I have my druthers, Quincannon thought. “Will you be meeting him?”
Foster didn’t answer that question, either. “Tomorrow, Mr. Quincannon. Good day until then.”
He turned on his heel and reentered the house.
20
Sabina
Kamiko opened the door to Sabina’s ring, Elizabeth hovering close behind her. “Good morning, Mrs. Carpenter,” the girl said, bowing but unsmiling.
“Good morning.”
“You wish to speak with Amity-san?”
“Yes.”
Sabina closed her umbrella, shook the drops of rain from it before entering. Elizabeth said as she stepped inside, “Mrs. Wellman is upstairs changing. We’ve just come back from church.” She added, “Everything here is status quo.”
No, it isn’t, Sabina thought. “I’ll wait for her in the main parlor,” she said.
Kamiko took the umbrella from her, placed it inside a copper stand, then hurried across the entryway and up the winding staircase to the second floor.
“Will you want me to join you?” Elizabeth asked.
“No. I need to speak to Amity alone.”
“I’ll go up and pack my things, then. This is my last day here, with Mr. Wellman due home this evening?”
“Yes.”
Elizabeth paused. “You seem a bit... tense this morning, Sabina. Is something wrong?”
“I’ll explain later.”
She went across through the archway into the main parlor. The room was cold, logs having been laid on the hearth but not yet set ablaze. The heavy damask curtains were drawn over the windows to mask the dreary gray drizzle outside. One lamp glowed palely; Sabina lifted the glass and put fire to the wick of a second lamp near the display of antique weaponry.
Its glow gave her a clear look into the glass-topped case containing Burton’s collection of antique daggers and knives. The ivory-handled kaiken in its matching scabbard was in its customary place in the second case. She was just about to lift the lid when Amity entered from the hallway.