Rebels of Babylon (30 page)

But I had my pride and did not mean to give in easily.

After leaving Mr. Barnaby to the clairvoyant’s tutelage, I had wasted the rest of the afternoon with fruitless travels across the city and back again. That peeved me, too. I had returned to the pay office, hoping to find at least one dutiful clerk. The door remained locked. Next, I attempted to call upon Mrs. Aubrey, with whose assertions I had grown dissatisfied. A maid claimed that her lady was not at home. I could not intrude to challenge the poor girl’s claim, since Mrs. Aubrey lived on a proper street and was respectable. Mr. Champlain was still abed, for he never rose until evening. Thus I could not profit from any knowledge he might have owned of Queen Manuela.

By the time I returned to the St. Charles Hotel, I had got myself into a state. Only to find Mr. Barnaby waiting, with a harried look on his face. He knew I would not like what he had to say.

“If that woman wishes to be helpful, she should deuced well tell me what she knows and be done with it,” I said after hearing him out.

“She can’t tell you anything, Madame La Blanch can’t. Not just like that. Not ’ow you means it, sir.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“All’s one, sir, all’s one.” The poor fellow looked as forlorn as a child apt to be denied his dearest wish. “It ain’t that she don’t
want
to ’elp you, it ain’t that. All’s to the contrary, Major Jones. She does and she do! She wants to ’elp, and she’s trying.” He rolled his stomach forward in great earnestness. “It’s a terrible privilege what’s offered you. Stunned me daft to ’ear it from ’er lips. The colored folk what knows anything won’t trust nobody. Not until ’e’s been given a proper look-over. And the person whose name we ain’t to speak not only knows more than all of ’em combined, she ain’t one to reveal ’erself to a white man.” Surveying the ways of the world, he shook his jowls. “It’s a proper shock ’ow she’d even consider putting you to the test, sir. Whatever she ’as to say must be important. As important as the news the Iron Duke scribbled from Waterloo.”

“Then let her come forth and say what she has to say.” I cleared my throat, as if that might clear my thoughts. Which were, I admit, disordered. “Mr. Barnaby … we live in the nineteenth century, in modern times. Look you. All this spooking nonsense will not do. Let the woman speak, if speak she will. I’m weeping sick of all this city’s nonsense.” I shook my head. “I am a man of open mind, ever ready to weigh the views of another. I do not think any person could dispute that. But I have no time for negro games and blasphemy. Listen I will, but I will not be led.”

“It ain’t that simple, sir, although I doesn’t know ’ow to make you see it. They’re all afraid, every one of them, in ways I never seen ’em. Something’s ’appened what won’t be told straight out, not even by the boldest nor the worst. And there’s more to it than the
Zombi
and such like.” He looked down past his high-set girth to a spot where the Brussels carpet met the planking. “The truth is that they ain’t sure they can trust you. For reasons Madame La Blanch won’t even say. They ’as to be double sure of you, or they’ll just stay pat and mum.”

“Well,” I said sourly, “she must not be terribly skilled as a clairvoyant. If she cannot even see into my intentions.”

I had near bankrupted his hopes, for I can be stern to a fault. But Mr. Barnaby was determined to persuade me. “I can’t say what she sees and what she don’t, sir. But stone the crows, ’er offer is unusual. It’s a right and proper honor, what with you a white man and not even pleasant.” He sighed like a young swain watching his sweetheart flee. “You ’as to undergo it, sir. You ’as to give it a go. It might be our last chance, what won’t come after.”

He meant, not least, that it might be the final hope for Magdalena.

Well, selfishness shapes every human action. Unless we are in the company of saints, which did not seem to apply to New Orleans.

I scoured my throat again. My jaw was much improved, but still unkind. “How on
earth
is this … this pagan ceremony … supposed to prove a pack of darkies can trust me? It’s preposterous! I am a proper Christian and—”

“They knows that, sir. And they doesn’t mind it a bit. But they ’as to ask their own spirits if you’re square.”

“And if their ‘spirits’ tell them I am not ‘square?’”

He buried his chin in generous layers of neck. “We wouldn’t want to think like that, sir.” His eyes popped up to meet mine own, though his hands continued to worry in his lap. “If all you’ve told to me is true, respecting your official purposes, sir, their spirits shouldn’t tell ’em anything contrary. The spirits plays little pranks, they does, but they seldom tells a lie.”

“Mr. Barnaby, I have been straightforward as to my purposes. As straight as Pall Mall. To suggest otherwise would—”

“I weren’t suggesting nothing of the kind!” he said hastily. “Nothing of the kind, sir, nothing of the kind!”

“Then could you not assure them that I may be trusted?”

His eyes sank down again and his hands resettled on the thrust of his waistcoat. “It ain’t the way things works, begging your pardon. The truth of it is that I don’t quite understand it
all myself, but they ’as acquired a dreadful fear of blue coats. They doesn’t trust a single Union soldier.”

“That’s absolute folly!” I snapped. “We have come to free these people from the yoke of slavery. At not a little cost, I might add.” I rearranged my bothered leg, a remembrance of Bull Run. “They should be trusting of our every word. And thanking us on bended knee each morning.”

I fear my tone grew imperious. It is a queer thing, see, the way we are made. I possessed a measure of power over poor Mr. Barnaby and abused my position with relish, although I liked the fellow. I shudder to think how men would behave without the fear of God.

He made a face that did not wish to argue, but could not quite agree. “There’s good folks and bad most everywhere, I believes, sir. And begging your pardon, I ain’t convinced that every man what wears a Union coat is a heaven-sent angel.”

“Why should I trust
them?
With all their voodoo foolishness and blasphemies? After one of their number tried to poison me? After those mongrel pirates or whoever they were hauled me up in a net, then buried me in a crypt? After they’ve skinned one of their fellows alive and threatened me with the same? Now they want me to go and join their rituals?”

“Oh, you ain’t expected to join in, sir! They knows you’re a Christian man. I warned ’em you ain’t well-disposed towards the beliefs of others. Not even Catholics, I told ’em. They know your mind’s locked up like Mohammed’s daughters. But it ain’t your mind what worries ’em. They wants to look in your ’eart. That’s all. If you doesn’t do anything foolish, but listens to what I tells you, you’ll be fine, sir. For they takes their worshipping serious, as serious as you does yourself, begging your pardon. You can even take your revolver along. And your sword-cane. Although I can’t say they’d be much ’elp, once you riled ’em.”

I had run out of words that were worth the saying. I knew I had no choice but to acquiesce. But how it galled me!

My proper place was at home with my family in Pottsville. Not in this tawdry competitor to Sodom.

Mr. Barnaby leaned toward me with enthusiasm reborn. Likely, he sensed my wavering and called up his last reserves, as a general will upon the field of battle.

He pressed me as mightily as he pressed the mattress on which he sat. “Madame La Blanch ain’t on the other side, sir. That’s certain. As certain as mice in the bake-shop! And I don’t believe that the person whose name we ain’t to say out loud is on the other side, either. I swears it on my honor, sir. And … and on the mortal life of Lieutenant Raines …”

I grunted and folded my arms across my chest.

“I wish I knew who
is
on the other side,” I said.

Before we left, I put on my clean uniform. It seemed to give me strength, like a suit of armor.

TWAS A DAY of one annoyance after another. Although Captain Bolt made himself scarce, and good riddance, the desk clerk took it upon himself to pester me as Mr. Barnaby and I tried to set off. The fellow come running after me, waving a dispatch. I hoped it might be a missive from home, celebrating the birth of a child and my darling’s continued health, but saw in an instant that it was but another communication from that naval officer. I suspected some foolish point of protocol had been neglected, or that my favor was wanted after my return to Washington. An issue of promotion, perhaps, or the gain of a better ship. All braids and blather navies are. I had no time to waste.

“Hold it until my return,” I told the clerk, without bothering to break the letter’s seal. “I will see to it later, thank you.”

“But the feller ’ut brought it said give it to you quick.”

“Don’t you understand the Queen’s English?”

Mr. Barnaby and I went about finding a cab willing to brave back roads and miles in the darkness. None of the Frenchies would take us up and not a few seemed alarmed at our destination. Finally an Irishman agreed to transport us. Although I thought the fee he demanded was thievery. Nor were his manners especially accommodating.

“Ye can take yer arse along on your own two hoofs,” he said in response to my protest, “if ye have to be so buggering miserly ye can’t pay a man fair wages.”

Mr. Barnaby played the peacemaker. And soon we were on our way.

We briefly stopped at an oyster bar before we left the city. Mr. Barnaby fetched stuffed buns for himself and a cup of glue for me.

“Gumbo,” he said, as our vehicle rocked into motion again. “I thought as you might be able to suck on the broth and the other bits, sir. A man needs fortification, when ’e’s going to stay awake until the morning.”

Had I not grown desperate … had I not been worn to a nub and cranky with the bother to my jaw … I do not think I would have agreed to any of it. I had seen enough of deviltry in India, with bloody idols and men who were bloodier still. I am a great believer in the daylight.

I trusted Mr. Barnaby, but carried my loaded Colt and the Frenchman’s cane. And a traveler’s New Testament, shut in the pocket closest to my heart.

WE DROVE NIGH on two hours. Thrice we had to stop for pickets and outposts, manned by glum privates and sergeants as suspicious as a grocer asked for credit by a tinker. My papers passed us on our way each time. We traveled a lane of good quality for the first miles below the city. Mr. Barnaby called it the “Gentilly Road.” But soon enough we turned into a byway, the ruggedness of which delayed our progress. Then we pursued a trail that was twice the worse.

Accustomed as we are to modern times, to gas lamps and the brightness of civilization, our spirits are ill prepared for the primitive dark. Despite my years of soldiering in India, whose darkness is of all too many kinds, I felt a bit unnerved by the inky air and the thickness of the foliage, which seemed avid to reclaim the earth from men. The cab’s lamps sputtered on the verge of suffocation, as if the night were a smothering cloak
pressed round us. The driver had to slow the horses, first to a walk, then a laze. The beasts, too fond of the city, shied and complained.

With a curse as harsh as the Dublin streets, the cab man dismounted, unhooked a lantern, and led his team forward on foot.

Winter though it was, the place was a jungle. Moss hung in mammoth shrouds and ragged tangles. Beyond the creak of the wagon’s springs and axles, living creatures protested our intrusion. The black air smelled of rot.

The only habitation stood abandoned, gripped by vines. Although it pressed against the side of the trail, I might have failed to note the sagging wall but for the lamp’s reflection on broken glass. Unless they are given fastidious care, properties mould swiftly in such climes, yet I could not suppress a sense that the dwelling had stood there longer than history allowed.

Birds called. Their cries were short and sharp, devoid of sweetness.

At last, the cab man halted his rig and poked his face in through the door.

“That’s it, that’s as far as we’re going. At least, it’s as far as you’re going with Flinty O’Dair. For the ground’s no more than a filthy mire, and treacherous as a promise from the Castle. If I can turn me wagon about, I’ll be the luckiest man this side of Limerick. So get out with ye and I’ll have me money, thanks, and wish ye good evening and go.”

“Nothing of the sort, nothing of the sort!” Mr. Barnaby told him. “You’ll wait right here, then. You’ll wait right here. Or you shall not see a farthing! You’ll wait right here until I return to go with you!”

I looked at my companion in the lamplight. “He can wait for me, as well,” I said, not a little miffed.

“Oh, no!” Mr. Barnaby told me. “You’ll be ’ere ’til dawn, Major Jones. And they wouldn’t let me stay with you. I’m not to see what you’re about to witness.”

“Cajun colleens!” the driver cried. “So that’s what the runty one’s after! No bleeding wonder the bugger has to drive a good ten mile to find them what will have him, with the manners upon him and that low, Welsh look.”

Outspokenness is a great fault in a cab man.

To my consternation, Mr. Barnaby did not contradict the driver’s mistaken notion, but borrowed a lamp and tugged me along the track.

“Careful,” he warned. “Just follow close after, sir. For not all the creatures is respectful of the season and they doesn’t always keep to themselves like they ought.”

Now, I have passed hard years in India’s deserts and in the mountains of the Afghanee. I have made my peace with those cruel landscapes, I know their whys and wherefores. But I do not like the texture of a jungle, if the hinterlands of New Orleans may be called such. You cannot see what hunts you and the noises will mask an assassin at your back. You smell the world richly, but all scents displease. You feel as alone as a child locked in a cellar.

The moss brushed my face like the fingertips of spirits. Bravery is so fragile it is laughable.

After perhaps the quarter of an hour, I spotted a light ahead of us. Then one light became two.

“‘Ere we is,” Mr. Barnaby said. “Go gentle now, sir. And mind each thing you does.”

After a few more stumbles amid thickets and briars, the path opened into a clearing lit by two torches fixed to trees. Veils of moss scorned the flames.