Rebels of Babylon (44 page)

Twas that ancient Frenchman from the shop. Come to collect his payment for the stick. Like the Devil himself come round collecting souls.

My first impulse was childish. I wanted to hide the cane.

Of course, I did no such thing. I stepped back into my room and returned with a nickel for the bell-clerk. He did not seem as pleased as he should have been.

“Send a body to collect my night pot,” I told him. “And ask Mr. Beyle to allow me fifteen minutes. Then he may come up, see.”

The lad was just short of insolent. And no one appeared to take away my night pot, which I feared might leave the room seeming unpleasant. I barely had time to shave in cold water and pull on my shirt and trousers before the Frenchman rapped on my door.

I dreaded what was to come. For I did not want to give up the cane, but feared that he would ask an exhorbitant price. Through all the tumult of the past days, I had debated with myself how much I might pay without becoming a fool. For
though we may be blessed with money now, we will not have it long if we are wasteful.

The only good fortune I saw in the situation was that I had less than fifty dollars in hand, the remnant of my borrowing from the Navy. Any sum agreed would need to be fetched, giving me time to amend impulsive behavior.

I told myself I might go as high as one hundred dollars in bargaining. Then I added another fifty. Although the sum was mindlessly extravagant for even the finest blade in a shaft of wood.

I wondered if Mr. Beyle would ask for more.

They are a nasty, greedy lot, the French.

The fellow was exactly as I remembered him, crooked over like a human question mark, with a narrow face deployed between permanently raised brows and a mouth that never quite closed. His white hair was too long for a proper gentleman.

He had got himself up dapper, though, for his visit. My Mary has always been a gifted seamstress and I learned enough of such matters from her to recognize that his clothing had been cut for his crippled form by a master’s hand.

“Ah,
Monsieur le Major!
” he cried. “But have I come too early? It is ten.”

Good Lord, it was. I
had
slept like Rip Van Winkle.

“Come you in, then, Mr. Beyle,” I said, accepting his hand. It slid in and out of mine as if he feared a hurt. “Sit you down. I think that chair is the pleasantest.”

“
Merci, merci.
But your face is much improved, I think. You have not so much the toothache now, the damage?
Bon!
But then you will be in better spirits than you were upon our first
rencontre!
”

I wondered if that meant he would charge me more. Or try to. I put on a strict expression, almost dour.

“But you realize, of course, why I have come?”

“For payment.”

“Yes, that is true. How I wish I could report to you that I am making a social call! But men must attend to their business. Only then can friendship … but what would you say? Blossom.”

I wondered if the price would blossom, too.

“How much?” I asked.

“Ever so blunt! So much the Anglo-Saxon! But I think the Welsh are not Anglo-Saxon, yes? But you live side by side with them, of course, so you have become the same. I see that I have awakened you, you must pardon me. Perhaps you have not had your morning coffee? But I think the soldier always rises at dawn!”

Before dawn, if the soldier is a wise one.

“Well, I do not wish to detain you unnecessarily,” I told him. Having slept late, I felt the press of the day. “Tell me your price, sir.”

“I fear to tell it. It is very high, I think.” My heart sank. I really did want that cane.

“How much is ‘high,’ then?” My voice quivered as I spoke. And not only because I wanted coffee.

“It is high, but I think you can pay this price. Perhaps … as you are a man of honor … I think it is a price you will be glad to pay.”

When those who wish to sell you a thing call you a man of honor, it is generally prelude to an attempted theft.

“Look you, Mr. Beyle. I am resolved to pay no more than … a hundred seventy-five dollars.” I considered his face, then added, “That is, I meant to say one-hundred
eighty
-five dollars. I misspoke.”

He whisked my offer away. “But that is nothing,
monsieur!
I did not come to bargain.”

Then what the bloody blue blazes
had
he come for? I nearly asked him in those very words.

“But I see that you still do not understand,” he continued. “So I will explain. It is not the money of which I speak. I tell you already that the cane is yours. It has welcomed you into its history.
It has chosen you. I could not take it back. It would be impossible!”

I did not trust a single word he said. Though even in that moment, I could not quite dislike him. Twas only that I could not make him out.

“The cane is yours,” he repeated. “I do not ask a price, that is not the word. I ask a favor. That is better. A favor that I think will not bring harm to you.”

I did not like the sound of that. Perhaps he wanted some sort of letter to help him pass his contraband through customs. I was about to set him straight about my code of morals and the difference between myself and the local citizens, when he leaned forward. Narrow he was as a child’s cut-out toy.

“
Entre nous, Monsieur le Major,
our mutual friend,
Monsieur le
Barnaby, is in danger. He has alarmed … certain elements … not only by his relationship with you, you understand, but through the matter upon which you have been engaged. I do not pretend to know every
détail …
but I have heard whispers. He has stepped on the toes, as you say. Toes he has not even seen. I think there is more to affairs than you understand. More than is meant to be understood. Once you are gone, he will not last the month. He has not been sensible. Always, he has known the
noir.
For so many years, he has made friends with the negroes. But always before he is discreet. Above all, that is what New Orleans asks! The discretion. In public, you must take the proper side. He has chosen the wrong one this time.”

He gripped me with a gnarled, slow, tortured hand. “You must take him away! That is what I ask! You must make him believe that he must go. Please. This is the thing I ask of you. Not for the cane. For your friend—I think he is a friend to you, as well? As he has been to me?”

“But … this is his home.”

The Frenchman made a pouty mouth, as if addressing a child.
“Monsieur le Major!
But I think you are a man of the world,
non?
As is Mr. Barnaby. As I once was myself. No, no! This is not
his home. His home will be where he loves. Is it not so with you,
mon pauvre frère?
”

“My home is in Pottsville, Pennsylvania,” I informed him.

My tone verged on the disdainful, but he surprised me with his reply. Old he was, but not entirely foolish.

“But is that not because your wife is there? Is there not a part of you that lingers elsewhere, perhaps? The cane … it chooses the wanderers, I think.”

“Well, then, the cane is mistaken, sir. I intend to return to Pottsville and to stay there. I have had enough of the great, wide world.”

“But,
monsieur!
Perhaps the world has not had enough of you? We cannot always choose such things for ourselves. But we will not argue. This is not the important thing. The cane … it is not impatient. It can wait in a chest for a generation, even longer. As you have seen. But will you take
Monsieur le
Barnaby with you? To your Pottsville?”

“You are not jesting? You believe he will be killed?”

The old Frenchman looked at me. “He has enemies you cannot imagine. Enemies
he
cannot imagine. He has crossed lines wiser men do not approach.”

“But what if he won’t go?”

“Then you and I will have done our parts,
Monsieur le Major.
As his friends. But he will go. You will persuade him. I know this.”

He drew out his watch from his waistcoat, feigned shock at the hour, then said, in studied haste, “
D’accord?
We are agreed?”

“I will do what I can,” I said honestly. In truth, I had already begun to shape my arguments to present to Mr. Barnaby. Nor were they weak ones, for he himself had given me the advantage.

“But you must not tell him we have spoken of this,” Mr. Beyle added. “He is a proud man,
le
Barnaby. If told he is under threat of death, he would feel compelled to stay. As a matter of honor, of the courage.”

“I shall not need to tell him.”

He extended his frail hand again. “But this is very good of you! I think the cane has chosen wisely. You are a true
gentilhomme,
Monsieur le Major.
Although I think you wear many disguises? To confuse the world?”

He made to leave, not having asked for a dollar. I wondered if he was really French at all.

“I would have helped Mr. Barnaby, anyway,” I said belatedly. “I do not want payment for it.” Then I said a thing hard on a Welshman. “I’d like to pay you, see. For the cane.”

He turned again and smiled with amber teeth. “But,
monsieur,
I am old! What shall I buy with your money?”

“But you’re a merchant!”

“I would say rather … that I engage in trade. If I may double the meaning, as we do in French. I give one thing, I ask another. It is not always money, you see. Sometimes I wish a little change in the world. At other times … I do a thing for my amusement.”

“I tried to come round to your shop to pay you.” I felt vaguely dishonest, recalling my parsimonious thoughts. “But I couldn’t find it.”

He whisked the world away again. “Ah, but it’s a
very
hard shop to find …
très difficile.
I have a limited clientele these days, very exclusive,
monsieur. À bientôt!
”

“Wait!”

He turned from the door with a look more bemused than impatient. Although he made it clear he wished to leave.

“I must ask … surely, Mr. Beyle … that tale you told about the cane … about the canes, I mean … with the Italians and the old Arab and that young Frenchman … you don’t really believe any of it, do you?”

His smile was not unfriendly, but neither was it for me. I could not figure it.

“You must let an old man have his stories,” he said.

I WOULD HAVE liked to sit down to a proper breakfast, but the morning was already pressing noon and it seemed I would have to content myself with a later repast.

To my dismay, I did not enjoy that meal, either.

No sooner was I properly dressed—with the night pot still uncollected—than Mr. Barnaby come round, thumping on my door like a human battering ram.

He did not wait to step inside to share his news. Glancing up and down the hall to insure we were alone, he cried, “We got ’im, Major Jones! And he ain’t pleased.”

“Bolt, you mean?”

“None other, sir, none other!”

I drew him inside my room and shut the door.

“The negroes found ’im, they did, sir,” he said breathlessly. “Cornered ’im like a rat in a leaded pantry. I think we ought to fetch ’im before they kills ’im.”

WE HAD BARELY LOCKED AWAY JANUARY, BUT YOU would have thought the day had been stolen from April. New Orleans had cast off the cold. Unmarred by clouds, a manly sun shone down on drowsy nature, impatient with her languor. Even the ramshackle dwellings by the roadside looked hospitable. When we paused at guardposts, the soldiers were alert and almost gay.

That handsome day was but a flirt. We knew it. But we were tired of the haggard winter and did not mind a tease, if prettily done.

Twas almost warm enough to summon flies.

We rode in an old-fashioned coach, not a hired cab. With the window leathers rolled up, the air caressed us. An old colored fellow drove steadily, as if he knew the measure of all things, and I did not ask Mr. Barnaby how he had commandeered our conveyance. I already knew enough to more than sate me. I wanted to make an end, even of knowledge.

I had jotted a note to General Banks before we left the city. Promising I would bring back Captain Bolt, if practicable. I gave no further details, for I wished no troublesome help.

Perhaps I already sensed what I would do.