Mignon (15 page)

“Meaning, Bill?”

“It’s what I’m on my way to find out.”

“In other words, whether she’s sleeping with Burke?”

I recoiled as though I’d been hit, and knew that was how he intended it. He watched my face, drilling me with his eyes, and then went on: “Bill, don’t you go shooting that Irishman, for her. I’m telling you, don’t you do it! Right now,
he
’
s
a case of smallpox, with everyone afraid to give him a kind word for fear of being mixed up in some of his schemes. But dead, so nothing more can be proved, he’ll have a thousand friends—and that town’s under martial law. We’ll try the case, and we have jurisdiction over murder. I’m trying to tell you you’ll hang.”

“I must play the hand as it’s dealt.”

“It’s what I’m asking of you.”

“
Suppose she
is
sleeping with Burke?
”

“She’s still a nice girl, damn it—she wouldn’t be the first to do just exactly that! But isn’t it enough for you to give her the big hee-haw, for getting the little end of the stick? And Burke the big hee-haw? And Landry the big hee-haw—specially him, because if he’d renounced the tin, she wouldn’t be up there now. Isn’t laughing cheaper than lead?”

“Is it better than lead is the question.”

“It’s better than rope, goddam it.”

When I argued no more about it, he studied me and then left, perhaps detecting I’d weakened, because the truth was that once the full meaning of what the Navy had done had soaked in I’d begun to have twitches of hope along the lines he’d spoken of—I would picture myself laughing, and then picture her turning to me, now the scheme had blown up, and asking my forgiveness, and pictured myself taking her in my arms and telling her our love was all that mattered. And so the long afternoon wore on. We spoke the station ship, a walking-beam boat of the kind we have back home. We ran past her, came about, then ran down into Lower Old River. After six or eight miles of that, racing with the current, we nosed into the Red. Night began settling down, and in the morning it started to rain. After miles of desolate country blighted by the war, suddenly here came the cotton, thousands of bales on a barge, under the arm of a Navy steamer. It passed so close we could almost touch it, and the traders watched it and cursed. Ahead was Alexandria, all brick, green, iron lace, and drizzle. Then we were swinging into Alexandria’s upper wharf and crashing into the Navy’s flag boat, a big three-decker called the
Black Hawk
. No, I didn’t make a mistake. Their flag was on the
Black Hawk
and our headquarters on the
Black Hawk
—two boats with the same name, lying side by side, spreading nothing but mux. It was that kind of invasion.

“Y
ES, GENTLEMEN, IT IS
a big hotel, and one of the best, we hope. Nevertheless, appearance can be deceiving, and we don’t have any room. The first floor, as you see, has lobby, bar, lounge, dining room, and drugstore—but no place to sleep. The third floor’s a theater—no place to sleep up there. The second floor, it’s true, has twenty-four rooms, but unfortunately, when you inflicted your war on us, we had just finished building and our inventory never came. They’re big, beautiful rooms, but except for a few, already taken, they’re empty—no beds, no rugs, no basins, no anything. Just goes to show you should have thought twice before starting to shoot. However, we’re kindly disposed, and will do what we can for you. For meals, you may come and we’ll see that you’re fed. For lodging, we have houses for rent belonging to people who went upriver when they heard your invasion was coming—and
I
don’t blame them, do you? They’ve left their keys with me, and if you’ll kindly pay attention, I’ll call out who they are, the kind of house they have, and how many it will accommodate—terms cash. Cash in advance to the first of the month, and cash in advance for each month thereafter! May I repeat, in advance? No refunds!”

He began picking up keys and reading stuff off tickets they had tied to them, and voices would call out, from the bunch of traders, correspondents, and hangers-on standing around the lobby, which was big, with leather chairs and settees, as well as desks that had signs on them like
RED RIVER DEMOCRAT AND GREAT EASTERN AND WESTERN STAGE LINES
. Mostly, they bespoke by twos, threes, and fours, depending on how many wanted to share the accommodation, but pretty soon he hit a snag, offering a place with no takers: “Over-the-store flat on Front Street, clean fine place with bang-up space for four.” As he repeated his spiel I came alert when I happened to catch the name, Schmidt. I sang out: “
Yo!
” and he slapped the key down in front of me, saying: “That’ll be fifty dollars to the first of April.” I paid, and then was clumping down the street, my bedroll over one shoulder, my bag in my hand, past a town I knew like a book from the talk I’d heard about it that night at the Landry flat and the pictures I’d been shown of it. Sure enough, below the corner, its windows looking out at the stern of the flag boat, I came to the store, its windows lettered
A
.
Landry & Cie
., and a few steps further on to a place with vats inside, its windows lettered
Friedrich Schmidt
,
Sugar Mill Supplies
. Beside each place was a little green gate, and back of that a small alley. I went up the exterior stairway to a little platform, used my key, and went in. I stepped into a hallway, crosswise the flat, which led to another hallway at right angles to the crosshall. This was apparently the common wall between the two flats, and would have been dark except for the skylight, the one she’d talked about.

To the right, at the end of that hall, was a front sitting room, which I went into after dropping my stuff, and raised the shades to look at. It was as dreary a place as I’d ever seen. On the floor was coconut matting, which the whole place smelled of, like some unventilated Sunday School room. The construction was tongue-and-groove board, the paint mustard-color, the furniture carved oak with cushions tied on, and the pictures were steel engravings of what looked like German kings. The decorations were china dogs, china steins, china jars with gilded cattails in them, china heads that grinned at you, and meerschaum pipes in racks. The heads, which were life-size, were tobacco jars and had tops with sponges in them.

Back through the hall again, past the skylight, I peeped into doors, finding bedrooms, a bath with tub hung to the wall but no water connection, a dining room, kitchen, and pantry. The pantry had shelves with cooking things on them, a trap door in the floor, and a short stepladder, apparently for the skylight. The kitchen had a range, wood-bin, sink, and pump. Out the window, when I opened it, was the bath cistern she had spoken of, on its trestle. From the roof, spouting led down, now tinkling with water running through, and on it I spotted the valve, an arrangement attached by a screw sleeve and worked with a wooden handle. I put in about all these things so it won’t be all mixed up when I tell what happened that night, but the truth is I only half-noticed them now. My mind was completely on her, not on what I saw. I left the window up for air, took my stuff into a bedroom, and sat down for a moment to get ready for what I’d do next. But the beat of my heart told me, without my having to think. After what Lavadeau had said and what the Navy had done, I had every reason to play it friendly, without giving way to the thoughts I’d struggled with after seeing John Wilkes Booth. So, when I had myself under control, I straightened up my oilskin, went down the stairs to the alley, around in front of the stores, and up the other stairs which led from the banquette of the street to another second-floor platform. I knocked and she opened, still in her little black dress that by now was downright shabby. “Oh,” she said, with a small icy smile, though not in the least surprised, “I heard someone stumping around in the other flat, and I thought it might be you. You’re the only cripple I knew of that it might be.”

“Yes,” I said, “I rented the Schmidt place.”

Then, stepping out to the platform rail and staring down at the street: “Did Marie come with you?”

“No, she’s still in New Orleans.”

“Well, I was going to say, little as she has on whenever I see her, she must be cold down there in the rain and might want to come in.”

“I doubt if she would, but thanks.”

“I hear she’s backing your firm?”

“There’s been talk about it, that’s true.”

“She’s awful rich. Or
filthy rich
, I’ve heard said.”

“But sixteen hundred dollars poorer than she was.”

That crack about the notes Marie had torn up hit the mark. She stepped back out of the wet, her face getting red and her eyes shining, and snapped: “What did you come for? What do you want?”

“Nothing,” I said, my friendliness slightly evaporated by now, “except to commiserate—for your selling your backside off and getting nothing for it.”

“
What are you talking about?
”

“The cotton—that you did it all for, and then saw snatched away. Oh, I heard; the Navy gave no receipts. Is your father in? I’d like to condole with
him
too, for making a pimp of himself, renting his daughter out to the same rotten harp as stabbed him in the back, and then having nothing to show.”

But instead of slamming the door, as I fully expected her to, she stared and changed her expression to the same icy smile as she’d had when she opened it. “Father’s out,” she said very sweetly. “We eat a lot of venison these days, and he stepped down the road to see the Indian who brings it in. But there’s no reason at all to condole—
our
receipt is already signed. Of course,” she went on, in a quiet, reasonable way, “I don’t say they’d have signed for every pipsqueak here in town, like some poor hippity-hop, working women to back his company—but when a
man
showed up with his paper, someone big, like we’ll say Mr. Burke, they get out their pen, pretty quick. We don’t need any sympathy, but of course thanks just the same.”

“Well then, congratulations.”

“Will there be anything else?”

“Not that I think of at this time.”

“Then, as we’ll be taking the first boat out when the Army gets to Shreveport, can we say goodbye now?”

“Certainly. Goodbye.”

“Give my love to Marie.”

So I came, I saw, and I certainly did not conquer. I didn’t do anything, even remember John Wilkes Booth, and it didn’t help any, when I got back to my horrible sitting room, that I was all atremble just from seeing her, hearing her and, worst of all, smelling her. But then, little by little, it began to dig at me there was something funny about it—that receipt, I mean. Because, although Burke might once have been big with the Army, I knew of no heft he had with the Navy, and it was the Navy that had grabbed the cotton. And the legal aspect of it, from what Dan had said, was so peculiar it seemed incredible they would have waived it in any way. It also seemed incredible, considering that icy smile, that if Burke had thought of some shyster trick, or her father had, or she had, she wouldn’t have walloped me with it, just for fun. And yet I was mortally certain, from the bragging way she had acted, that the receipt
had
been signed, and so the question was: How could it have been, and at the same time not have been? I didn’t have the answer, but did have someone to go to for background information that might throw light on the subject. That was Sandy Gregg, whose ship, the
Eastport
, had made the cotton “capture,” according to Dan.

By then the rain had stopped, so I piled out on the street again, asked my way of a bluejacket, and off the lower end of the town spotted an ironclad lying out in midstream. Her texas and staterooms had all been stripped away, and she was dented, scarred, and scaly, but did answer my hail. Then there was Sandy, at one of the gunports, staring in disbelief. He’s a trim, dark, medium-sized lad, fairly good-looking, but right now in his old blues almost as rusty as his ship. However, he called to the cutter lying at the wharf I was talking from and had them bring me out. He welcomed me aboard cordially, and introduced me to three or four friends, but the whole time he was shaking hands kept asking over and over: “Bill, what are you doing here? What the
hell
are you doing here?”

Well, what
was
I doing there?

The truth, supposing I even knew it, was the last thing I wanted to own, so I fell back on my original story, the one I’d told to Dan before he smoked me out. “Well,” I said, pretty testy, “
you
ought to know what I’m doing here.
We
need twenty-five thousand dollars, and this looked like the quickest place to get it.” And then, not giving him time to speak: “And I can get it, I think, if the parties I’ve been referred to as having cotton to sell me show up as they’re supposed to. But what worries me is this: If I do buy their titles, can I get a receipt?”

“You’re here as a trader then?”

“I came up on the
Black Hawk
today.”

“And the cotton you’re after was stored?”

“In Rachal’s Warehouse, I believe it’s called.”

“Bill, we captured that cotton last week.”

“Oh I know about that—I saw it; we passed the barge coming up. But condemnation rests with a court, and fact of the matter, the battle hasn’t started till a court calls the case in New Orleans.” “Springfield.”

“... Springfield?”

“Illinois. That cotton’s headed for Cairo.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Bill, if you buy titles, you’re sunk.”

“You mean, on-the-bottom sunk?”

“I mean, in-the-mud sunk. We’re
both
sunk.”

“But tell me: Have any receipts been signed?”

“No, Bill, none.”

“If any had been, would you know it?”

“Detail from this ship made the capture—I wasn’t in command, but was there, and if receipts had been signed, I’d know it.”

But one of the boys he’d introduced me to, who was in earshot as we talked on the bow, said something, and Sandy corrected himself: “Oh that’s right, I forgot. One of our officers, Lieutenant Powell, could have signed something; of that we can’t be sure. He did shore duty evenings, up at the Ice House Hotel, hearing civilian complaints—and got plugged by a skulker one night as he stepped out of the hotel to come back to the ship.”