Jacob's Ladder (22 page)

THE HIGH LIFE

M
EMPHIS
, T
ENNESSEE
J
ULY
10, 1862

IT HAD BEEN
Captain Sutterfield's mansion, the ornament of the S&S Riverboat Line until the Federals cut the Mississippi at Corinth and stopped its mouth at New Orleans and Memphis's riverboats rotted at the Memphis docks and Captain Sutterfield was killed when the Confederate rams were defeated by Federal gunboats. Mrs. Sutterfield, who had watched her husband's fatal action from the bluffs above the river, still lived in the back of the captain's house in what had been the nursery and Captain Sutterfield's library, but the doorway between front and back was bricked up and only Mrs. Sutterfield's oldest friends came to call, from the rear, through the garden.

The Federals who occupied Memphis wanted cotton, the Confederates in the hinterlands wanted medicines and other supplies, so an uncomfortable, thriving trade commenced. Some men grew rich.

Mrs. Davis (no relation to the President) let the front of the mansion. Respectable citizens crossed to the other side of River Street when they passed, their servants likewise. An unusual number of carriages at night for such a respectable neighborhood, a ship's lantern in a front window, its bull's-eye painted red: these were the only signs.

Small boys were amazed at how late the house arose. They were surprised at how many wine bottles found their way into the household trash, how many torn ribbons and solitary silk shoes.

At noon, the colored man with the scarred face opened the front door and toured the property. He carried two buckets, an empty one for the bottles he'd find tucked under the bushes and flowerbeds, and a bucket with sand to cover the vomit and, twice, blood.

Inconsequential visitors dropped by during the long afternoon, and sometimes a piano could be heard playing Chopin half badly. In the evening the carriages came, parking along the street once the drive was filled.

Fashionable Memphis ate late in those days, and only after the Gayaso Hotel dining room closed, near midnight, did the tip-top clientele arrive at the Captain's House, as it had come to be called. “Let's go up to the Captain's House,” some wag would cry, pulling the cord of an imaginary steamboat's whistle. “Choo, choo.”

A particularly fine carriage paused long enough for its two occupants to descend, before proceeding down the street, where the flare of sulfur matches and glowing cigars marked other coachmen.

As was her policy, Mrs. Davis met the two at the door. “Why, Mr. Turnbull, do come in. And Mr. Omohundru, we've not had the pleasure lately. . . .” Mrs. Davis was unknown in Memphis before the war.

Wordlessly, the scarfaced negro took their wraps. Off the hallway, the piano tinkled “Camptown Races.” Turnbull—who owned the Gayaso and never tired of company—started toward the parlor, but Omohundru hesitated. “It has been a demanding day, Mrs. Davis. Perhaps you could bring me a brandy—in the private room?” Ahead laughter burst, intertwined with a girl's shriek of amusement. To Turnbull: “There will be Federals in there. I began my day dealing with Federaldom, and I'll be damned if I'll end it in the same manner. I am to have a new pass, you know. Apparently the old pass no longer serves. I report to their provost marshal tomorrow at eleven. Damn them. God damn them.”

“Those Federals are paying a dollar a pound for cotton. In gold, Silas.”

“They will extract their pound of flesh, rest assured. My new pass, I am given to understand, will cost fifty dollars. And the provost accepts only gold. What sort of sovereign power, John, does not accept its own currency?”

Turnbull winked. “I am told Mrs. Davis has offered a place to a Cajun girl, young, accomplished in the French arts. I hope to impose my sovereign power upon her.”

Returning with Omohundru's brandy, Mrs. Davis caught the last of this. “You speak of Minette. What a spirited creature! When the Yankees occupied New Orleans, she fled north—for all the good it did her. Yankees here, Yankees there—all the same after they have their trousers off.”

It was one ribaldry too many, and with a vague smile, Omohundru retired to the private room, where a wall sconce gleamed dimly. “Let me turn up the gas,” Mrs. Davis offered.

“No,” Omohundru said. “This well suits me. My eyes . . .” He rubbed his forehead, and closed the door—himself in and Mrs. Davis out. Omohundru set his brandy on the table, sprawled upon a settee, and closed his eyes. The room was damp, its drapes pulled shut, and cool. The furniture was dark mahogany. In the hall outside, footsteps passed and wisps of conversations.

“George McClellan retreated down that peninsula a damn sight faster than he went up it. . . .” (Federal officer, likely.)

“If we don't sell our cotton to them, we cannot buy the provisions our beleaguered armies require.” (Confederate.)

“Grant ain't nothin' but a damn drunk.” (Hard to know which party.)

Silas shouldn't have come out tonight, he should have gone directly to his hotel room. He'd not slept in two days. But Turnbull was so useful; without Turnbull, Silas couldn't get his goods onto the Memphis & Jackson, the only railroad in the South which passed goods through the lines. When Silas became aware of breathing he sat bolt upright.

“No need to turn up the light,” a soft voice said. “I intend no harm.”

“What the hell!” A jab shot through his forehead.

She whispered, “I came here for the quiet. Maybe you don't want people finding you either?”

Silas's body lost tension and sank back into the cushions. “I sometimes think . . .” he murmured tiredly.

A smile in her voice. “Sometimes I think that way too.”

She was well-spoken, a lady, but no lady ever crossed the lintel of the Captain's House, only girls. “It is the war, this . . .” Silas swallowed his curse. “This unfortunate war. Why did they invade us? Why did we go out? We cannot hope to win. Already they are too strong for us in the west and soon they will be too strong in the east. I am an ordinary man of business . . .”

“Silas Omohundru, ‘ordinary'? You're reputed the most successful cotton broker in Memphis.”

“I am as good as my word.”

“Oh, I meant no offense. I never heard criticism of you. Not like some other traders. I do believe the Federals aren't overly fond of you.”

The girl was partly concealed in a wingback chair. Silas could see she was slight, but nothing more. He closed his eyes. “We make our market of necessity, not affection. The Federals treat us with contempt and we cut them socially. No doubt Federal officers with whom I do business are in Mrs. Davis's parlor, but should I go in, we would not speak. Confederates and Federals find opposite corners, and excepting those inevitable occasions when they dispute a girl's affections, we ignore one another. Gold for cotton: that is our entire relationship.”

“How did you come to the cotton business?”

Silas shrugged. “Only blockade running offers a better return. Although it does not always gratify me, I am a trader. I find it easy to assess a man's fears and greed, his concupiscence and conscience. Today I shipped chloroform, horseshoes, and shoe leather for our armies. And how do you come here?”

“My son will sleep the night through, thank God. There is a linen room, no more than a closet, where I set his bed. My Jacob may wake during the night—from time to time he must—but he never cries out.”

“I don't understand children. I am quite confirmed in the bachelor's ways.”

“Many of the men who come to this house are married, I think.”

“Won't you be missed . . . in there?”

“Mrs. Davis despairs of me. She says if I don't try harder, I'll have to go. She threatens one of those riverfront places. I try to act gay and carefree, but I've been a married woman and I've been a mother and I've seen some things. Did you ever meet Lieutenant Malone, that Irishman? A little fellow, no bigger than I, stabbed Lieutenant Malone with a knife, and our carpet was ruined and Paulie—he's the houseman—scrubbed and scrubbed to get the stain out of the flooring. The murderer escaped through the window, and I don't know what they did with Lieutenant Malone's body, but Paulie said his family was told he was killed in action.”

Mrs. Davis stuck her head in. “Here you are, dear. Some gentlemen were asking after you.”

“Yes, ma'am.” The girl got to her feet, a lithe shadow.

Silas squinted. “She will remain with me, Mrs. Davis, if you please.”

The woman's irritation was poorly concealed. “Of course, Mr. Silas. Should I have Paulie fetch champagne?”

Silas winced. The light framing Mrs. Davis in the doorway was painfully bright. “Some cool water. A pitcher of cool water, please.”

He didn't open his eyes when Paulie brought his water, nor did he overhear what the houseman said to the girl. She laid a cool damp cloth over his forehead and eyes. It was delicious.

He licked his lips. “I didn't have these headaches before the war. The cannonade at Fort Sumter brought them on.” He smiled thinly. “I understand that President Davis suffers too.”

“You take a drink of this water. They've good water here: well water. I hate that smelly cistern water.”

“What did he say to you?”

“Paulie? He wanted to know if you were drunk.”

“And?”

“Patience has her time of the month, Minette's sulky. Baby Bear's favorite, Captain Olsen, wants her to himself. Paulie says I should finish you quick.”

He smiled. “I believe this cool cloth has finished me. How long have you been in this house?”

“When I came to Memphis, I stayed with James Shelby, the banker. He wanted me to keep to my little room downtown. I said I've got to go out sometime, but he was jealous, thought I was seeing a younger man. One afternoon I wasn't home when he came by—I was promenading Baby Jacob along the riverside—and when I got home he hit me as hard as he could, which wasn't as hard as he'd intended, but I pretended great distress, so he fled. That night a big blond-headed fellow came and threw me down on the coverlet, in front of Baby. Then he brought me here.”

“Have you nowhere else to go?”

Her fingertips rubbed his forehead. Delicious.

“You don't know who I am, do you?”

Silas's head throbbed. Had she been last week's girl? The girl from the week before? Most times he came to the Captain's House, he didn't feel quite so low. “Did I . . . ?”

“No, Master Silas Omohundru, you've never been with me that way.”

He plucked the cloth from his eyes. She had skin the color of almonds, a long aquiline nose, long slanted Mediterranean eyes. Her smile was calm and kind. “Yes, you seem familiar,” he said. “Where . . . ?

She replaced the cloth. “Never you mind,” she said. “I don't want to get you too stirred up.”

“I didn't mean . . .”

“I know you didn't, honey. When you came in, what was bothering you?”

Thumps on the door. Turnbull's voice. “Silas, you got more stayin' power than I gave you credit for. You comin' out of her anytime soon?” Laughter.

“Well,” Silas drawled falsely, “I believe I'm set for the night. You tell Mrs. Davis her girl . . . has as much as she can handle. Tell her I'll settle in the morning.”

“I thought you were feeling poorly.”

“I was!” Silas's guffaw shamed him as he uttered it. In a whisper he began an apology to the girl, “Please don't think . . .”

“Hush now. I am greatly pleased to have you spend the night.” She stroked his temples gently and drew an afghan over his chest.

Silas's voice tiptoed through the dimness. “Confederates think me a traitor for profiting from the enemy—though they must have the medicines and weapons I buy here in Memphis. I swear there are times I wish I'd been born a Yankee. They do not despise traders!

“Southerners of the better sort snub me. Yes, I speculated in slaves, but when I gave up that business nothing changed. Nathan Bedford Forrest was the greatest damn slave dealer in Memphis, and there is no bigger market in the west. Today Forrest is the great cavalry commander, his name on every man's tongue!”

She patted his hand, stroked his wrist.

“Forrest is legitimate. His parents may have been backwoods bumpkins, but he is legitimate.”

She said, “I hear you're awfully rich.”

“I suppose so.”

“I always wondered if there was anything a rich man couldn't buy.”

There was an edge in her voice that hadn't been there before, but he was too weary to ask about it. “I'm a bastard and you're a nigger wench,” he said. “Money seems like everything, until you've got it.”

He didn't know when she fetched him a coverlet, but when he woke, he was warm and early summer's dawn light slashed a vertical gap in the heavy drapes and on the opposite wall framed a lithograph of a bird, one of Mr. Audubon's birds. The wallpaper was in the French mode, pale green stripes with regular white borders. The woman had slept sitting on the floor, her head resting against his thigh. His hand happened on her head, stroked her hair.