Natchez Read online

  “Get ’em on board, get ’em movin’,” Bangston urged them.

  Inkada watched the six black men pushed up the plank and taken below into the shallow belly of the swamp boat. Slavers. He had heard that in the south there was still traffic in slaves, although the war had been over for a decade. Even in the heart of the South there was changing sentiment about slavery, as the young grew to adulthood. Yet here it was, before his very eyes.

  The muscles in Inkada’s thighs cramped up, but he dared not move. His eyes burned from staring through the blackness. Something, perhaps an alligator, splashed in the swamp.

  Inkada knew he was not far from Natchez, yet he didn’t know the area well enough to guess the distance. Too far to locate help certainly. He had been following the trail of Blackschuster northward, and from every indication the man was returning to the Colorado silver mines, although Ray had been dispatched to Natchez on a slender hope.

  The trail Inkada followed had twisted, snarled on false information, and suddenly broken off. He went to Kansas City on a false lead, then rode a southbound freight. At Forth Worth, the trail hopelessly lost, Inkada wired New Orleans with the bad news only to find the doctor had departed for Natchez.

  The mule Inkada purchased from a man in Natchitoches had broken a leg stepping over a log, leaving Inkada afoot. Now he had stumbled upon these men, these slavers. He dared not move as the plank was shoved aboard. What did they do with these men? Certainly they could not be sold in Mississippi. A lantern was extinguished. Bangston slowly searched the swamp with his eyes before snatching up a set of manacles and turning toward the swamp boat.

  There was a quick, scuttling sound in the brush behind Inkada and he turned, still crouched, ready to fight. They were human feet, and careless ones.

  A dark shadow darted forward, the sound of panting breath filling the night. Inkada pressed into the shadows, then sprang forward as the figure rushed past.

  He lunged and flesh met flesh. Instantly he saw that the person was smaller, weaker, and as his hand fought for a grip, he felt the contours of a woman’s body.

  They had fallen to the ground. Moonlight caught her teeth, her eyes flashed, and she struggled violently. Inkada held her fast.

  She opened her mouth as if to scream and he pressed his hand against her mouth. Still a muffled sound came out, and Inkada watched, eyes flashing as Bangston, now on the deck of the swamp boat, stood with cautious eyes, the hammer of his rifle beneath his thumb.

  “What is it?” someone called.

  “Thought I heard somethin’,” Bangston answered.

  “Probably a ’coon.”

  “Maybe.” Bangston stood silently watching the swamp.

  The girl struggled furiously. A dark woman, perhaps a Moor, she bit at Inkada’s hand. Her teeth found the meat at the base of his little finger and he winced, fighting back the pain.

  “Woman, be still,” he told her, speaking in the Moorish tongue. Amazed, the woman’s eyes opened and she relaxed, her heart beating wildly.

  “You are a Moor?” she whispered as Inkada cautiously removed his hand.

  “No, but I have been to Morocco, to Tangier. But you must lie still. They are slavers. They would take you in chains.”

  “You do not understand!” she hissed. Her black eyes sparked, her breast rose and fell fitfully. “Let me up! I must go.”

  “Are you mad, woman?” Inkada’s eyes flickered to the boat, Bangston had turned to clamber on board. “Just a moment. Sh! They will be gone.”

  “And so you must let me go.” She was pleading, her hands on Inkada’s shirt. “I want to be with them—they have my baby!”

  “They have your child…?”

  Inkada released his grip and the woman sat up quickly. He sagged back, eyes going to the dark woman, to the boat which was weighing anchor.

  “Yes…” she said, tears melting in her eyes. “Now let me go, stranger. I long for their chains! I long for slavery with my child. To live without him can only be more cruel.”

  Inkada felt the fabric of her skirt slip out of his hand. Still on his knees, he watched her dash through the shallow swamp water toward the boat.

  “Hold up!” Bangston’s raspy voice called out triumphantly. The woman was dragged on board by her wrists. The boat was already slipping away, swallowed up by the dark cypress swamp shadows. Inkada rose shakily.

  It was not in him to see injustice done. Yet what was there to do? The boat glided into the enveloping blackness. There was nothing to be done but to remember the woman’s courage and to remember the name of the man who was responsible for human misery: Bangston. Inkada etched it in his memory. The man would pay.

  That night he slept fitfully, recalling the dark, pleading eyes, the touch of her woman’s body, her full lips. On the river at Natchez another man, a fair-haired man with a Colt in his sleeping hand, dreamed of a mysterious woman who tempted then struck out with a violent hand.

  Still farther to the south an old man dozed in the confines of his high wagon, watching the flickering greenish fire in his copper stove briefly as he awakened. His heavy eyes studied the intertwining of the gracefully moving flames, the brief spurt of golden sparks, watched the arabesques and curlicues cut by the flames. In them he saw Kirstina. As he had seen her face in his shallow, troubled sleep, as he had seen her dark-eyed beautiful face these long years.

  He sighed and shifted slightly, crossing his legs. Spectros let his eyes linger for a moment more on the fire, then he glanced at the oiled, cleaned twin Colts which hung in the silver-embellished holsters on the wall. Montak had not forgotten his task. Spectros smiled fondly, thinking of the mute giant’s devotion—when had he ever forgotten to care for those weapons?

  Kirstina…

  Spectros let his eyes close once again, his head nodding forward as he remembered in his half-sleep, tormenting himself with the dream which could not be forgotten.

  “My daughter,” the Yahif said softly, his hands rigid on the golden arms of his throne, “insists that it is you, man from across the sea, that she would marry.”

  “Yes, sir,” the cowboy replied. “I’ve asked her, and she told me she would have me, despite…”

  “Despite what?” the Yahif coaxed.

  “Despite the fact she’s royalty, and I’m nothing but muscle looking for a place to build, to do for my own. My wife, that is. My children.”

  “I would not deny her,” the Yahif said slowly. “She is well aware of what such a marriage will cost her. Kirstina,” he went on, “is no child, as you know. A thoughtful young woman, not dazzled by vacant promises, empty words. We have spoken of you. She trusts in your strength, she speaks fondly of your land, a land she has never seen, where men of ambition and strength may carve a home from raw land.”

  “And you, sir?” the cowboy asked.

  The Yahif studied the tall cowboy, his rough hands, his cool eyes. “I believe you are a man. And a brave one. We have not forgotten what you did to the pirate Tear Degas. A devil, that one.”

  “Then you agree to our marriage?” The young man’s face split into a wide grin, he felt like dancing, like letting out a Texas whoop.

  “I agree,” the Yahif smiled.

  It was sundown when the Yahif, from his balcony high on the golden-crowned spire, watched the young couple in the garden. They had stopped near the pond, arms around each other’s waists, eyes locked together in the fascination of love. He smiled, a faint memory of his own youth flickering briefly in his heart.

  Popo had come in, and the Yahif turned to face his minister. “They are happy, Popo. My Kirstina is happy—what else could I wish for her? I am happy as well.”

  The little man nodded to his king. Concern crept into his smile, however. “He is back.”

  “Denjisha?”

  “Yes,” Popo nodded. That crooked-nosed, oily man with a lust for Kirstina and wealth. Denjisha was dangerous, unpredictable, deadly. It was well that Kirstina would soon be traveling across the seas with her tall stranger.


  “At least this one is a man,” the Yahif said strongly. He watched the couple once again as they sat beside the lily pond, the golden fish gulping at the tidbits they tossed them. The tall man smiled and laughed at some remark, his hat tilted back on his head. The sun parted the last blue clouds of dusk.

  “This Blackschuster… Denjisha’s crony… he has been seen in the city,” Popo said dourly. “He has been recruiting men, an army, they say. Something is afoot,” the minister said, “I do not like it.”

  “The magician has also returned?” The Yahif stroked his gray, double chin-whiskers, drawing them into sharper points. “Then we are indeed threatened. Filth—they are both filthy men.” He turned back one final time to the garden where violet shadows streaked the ground, a nightingale sang in the jacaranda among the lavender flowers. The two young people sat close together, Kirstina’s head resting on the cowboy’s shoulder.

  “What do men like that know of devotion, of giving up one’s own self for the sake of another, of quiet strength, of the simple desires to build, to raise upright sons and daughters? That is the way of this man from over the sea, his simple dreams.”

  The Yahif walked into the room of the minaret, sagging into the chair upholstered with rhinoceros hide. Sadly he looked up at Popo who stood uneasily, wringing his hands. “Say nothing to my wife, nothing to Kirstina. I will encourage an early date for the wedding, Popo. This Black-Schuster…” the Yahif shuddered with revulsion.

  The magician from the north had a soul of iron. He killed without compunction, without reason. Power was his deity, blood his passion, yet he was indestructible, perhaps second to none in his powers. Yet he could not rest. Some demon dragged him onward, tracing a trail of destruction, exercising power for the sheer joy of it.

  And this man—this devil—also wanted Kirstina.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Morning dawned clear, golden highlights playing in the oaks lining the broad river. A great stern-wheeler paddled upstream, smoke spewing from the twin black stacks.

  Ray Featherskill stood on the flatboat deck, feeling the wake of the great white steamboat sway the smaller ship. A whistle blew, puffs of white steam rising into the clear morning air. Natchez slept in the shadows of the bluffs.

  “Mornin’,” Bennett said sleepily, scratching his unshaven face. “Guess we better tie up inside; one of them big boats is liable to dump us.”

  “Where can a man get some information?” Ray asked as Bennett hauled up the drag anchor.

  “Information?” The dumpy river man watched Ray with curiosity. “You mean like when the magnolia festival is, or where the library is… or you mean the other kind of information?”

  “I mean the other kind,” Ray said.

  Bennett wagged his head, coiling the line. Reluctantly he looked up at Ray Featherskill. “Natchez Under Hill. But you don’t want to go down there, young fellah. Hell, boy, I’ve gotten to like you.”

  “It’s a rough place?”

  “Rough?” Bennett nearly choked on a laugh of amazement. “Boy, there’s no place in all these states rougher. It’s Natchez Under Hill that every outlaw and Klanner, pirate, slaver, and bully hides out in. No lawman can touch the place, the federals are afraid to step in. They got more powder and guns at Natchez Under Hill then our regiment under Jackson had.

  “There’s cutthroats, opium smugglers, whores, cardsharps and convicts. Information, yes! If you want it that bad, there’s nothin’ much goes on that them folks don’t hear of.”

  “There’s nothing for it,” Ray decided. “I’ll wander on down there.”

  “Wander on down!” Bennett exclaimed with frustration. “You can wander on down to Natchez Under Hill, but you don’t wander out again so easily. These folks—they’re almighty shy about strangers. Hell, the way things are in Mississippi right now they don’t trust each other, even the honest folks. Who’s a scalawag? Who’s helping the federals steal a neighbor’s land? Who ran from who at Vicksburg? It’ll be a time before these folks trust anyone from outside, now that their land’s been stolen, burned and turned over to scalawags and them damned carpetbaggers.

  “They’re plain vicious down there. Any outsider is considered a lawman or a Union sympathizer, until he’s proved otherwise. Often, there’s no chance to prove otherwise. Poke in the wrong places and they find you driftin’ toward the Gulf.”

  They eased against the wharf, Featherskill springing from the deck to take the line and tie up. Bennett handed up a bowline and Ray hitched that as well. Then, with Bennett watching, scratching his head, the tall man with the silver conchoes on his hat and the easy stride, walked up the wharf.

  Ray kept his eyes open. Somewhere the Questler brothers waited, if they were as Bennett described them—men who couldn’t forget an affront.

  Natchez was busy. Cotton hung from the long necks of mechanical cranes, being swung to the decks of riverboats. A wagon clopped past, women in their finery glancing disdainfully at the Texas cowboy. From across town the sound of a railroad whistle shrieked. A man with a pinched face and a Connecticut accent snapped a command at a Cajun teamster backing to a warehouse dock. Two black boys raced past, barefoot, chasing a curly terrier.

  Ray followed Silver Street through the wide squares, sensitive to the pathos of Natchez, of all the South, a place where history had struck with the tools of calamity, leaving a patchwork quilt of ideals and dead conceits, romantic chivalry and heartless pragmatism.

  Natchez Under Hill was a collection of yellowed buildings, huts, shacks and fire-red saloons where anything at all could be had for a price. Featherskill walked down the narrowing road, his eyes catching a lifeless form in an alley, a flash of silk in an upstairs window, a Frenchman with a thin cigar and a narrow smile leaning in a doorway.

  He began where you always begin in such towns—the saloon door swung open and Ray stepped across the sawdust floor to the bar where the keep swiped idly at the scarred dark wood. A man in sailor’s togs slept across a round table in the corner, chips scattered across the floor the night before still lay there.

  “Mornin’,” Ray said. “Got coffee?”

  “If you wait a minute or so. Some’s boiling in back,” the bartender said. He smiled, but his eyes searched Ray’s face. He was a big man with sleeves rolled up over his forearms, and a waxed black mustache.

  Ray turned his back to the bar and let his eyes sweep the dark saloon. There were two men, both apparently French, quietly drinking absinthe. There was a loft above, where a black man with a scarlet cap drank solemnly, toasting an invisible companion. The only other man was asleep and tilted against the far wall, a Western hat over his eyes, his arms folded.

  “Coffee?”

  Ray sipped the scalding, chicory-flavored coffee. The bartender had not moved. Forearms draped over the counter, he watched Ray still.

  “Not from around here?”

  “Not close.”

  “Got friends here?”

  “Not many,” Ray replied.

  “Then watch yourself,” the bartender said with a wink.

  “I been kind of looking for a man,” Ray said tentatively, warming his hands on the cup. The bartender shook his head, his eyes glancing toward the door.

  “I never seen him.”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever you’re looking for.”

  Ray glanced around as well. No one was watching, there was no one near enough to hear their conversation. “This man,” he went on quietly, “he’s a stranger too. Kind of a fat man, travels with a scarred-up, dark-faced man. Keeps to himself, but he might have been asking about some chemicals. Hard to come by chemicals. Like nitrous oxide…”

  “Never knew such a man, never heard of him,” the bartender said sharply.

  “No?”

  “Look, Mr.—whoever you are. In Natchez Under Hill you don’t ask questions, you don’t see anything. You don’t hear anything. You understand? If I knew this man you’re talking about, I’d deny it.”

  “Would
a few dollars help?”

  “Would they keep me alive?” He shook his head. “No. A few dollars wouldn’t help.”

  Ray shrugged and went back to his coffee as the bartender swept the floor. A patch of light cut a wedge on the dark floor as the door swung open and three men came in. One was a huge man in a dirty white shirt, the others both tall, neatly outfitted. The man who seemed to be in charge wore a dark suit, a thin mustache and he had a suspicious bulge under his coat. The big man wore a scowl. He glowered at Featherskill, muttering something to the others who glanced at him coolly. Ray turned back to the bar, wanting none of their brand of trouble. Early hour or not the three ordered whiskey and went to it with a free hand.

  From time to time he caught a few of their words. The man with the mustache was named Potter, Sam Potter, and he spoke with a Yankee accent. The big man they called Bangston.

  “Down the damn river and out of the country…” Potter said.

  “… not for a few days. Dewey’s combing the…” Their words floated in and out, Ray paying hardly any attention to them. He considered moving on, trying to find the thread of Blackschuster’s trail someplace else. Suddenly the voice of the big man broke off.

  “I don’t know who he is!” Bangston said loudly. Ray turned to see the big man pushing back from the table, eyes riveted on him. “You. Get the hell out of here!”

  Ray glanced around. “Me?”

  “Yes, you! Who you think I’m talking to?”

  Ray felt the blood rushing to his face. He had never liked being pushed, not by bullies like these. He fought down the impulse to lay it on the line. Instead he answered mildly.

  “Soon as I finish my coffee, mister, I’m leaving.”

  “I told you to get the hell out of here.”

  Ray had turned back to his coffee. Now he stiffened. The big man kicked a chair out of the way and he stalked across the room, his friends watching with faint amusement, sipping their liquor.

  Confidently the big man strode to where Ray stood. He walked right into him, a big hand reaching for Ray’s throat.

  Featherskill ducked slightly, rolled and shot a vicious, short uppercut into Bangston’s ribcage, staggering the bigger man, driving the wind from him. Bangston lurched back, bellowed and came in again, head lowered. He swung wildly from the floor glancing Ray’s cheek, but Ray had drawn his Colt and he slammed the pistol barrel against Bangston’s temple and the man slumped to the floor, rolling slowly over, blood seeping from his nostrils.