Sandra Hill - [Creole] (30 page)

“Daughter?” Saralee squeaked.

“Oh, no! You ain’t bringin’ no snot-nosed guttersnipe with you. I don’t ’low no young’uns in my establishments.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry. I can’t go then.” Harriet sighed dramatically. “Hand me my feather collection, Saralee. I guess we’ll just have to head on down to New Orleans where they value the
special
talents of a hooker with creativity.”

“Feathers?” Madam Irene inquired, eyeing Lance’s basket. Then she made a quick decision. “Oh, come on then.”

Harriet had to restrain herself from doing a little victory dance.

When the guard at the gangplank protested the lack of an extra ticket for Saralee, Madam Irene slipped him a few bills, then shoved Harriet and Saralee ahead of her up the gangplank. Harriet realized, too late, that she probably should have tried the bribery routine herself. Muttering over the outlay of extra cash, Madam Irene glared at Harriet. “You better be worth it, honey, or you’re gonna pay me back double-time on your back.”

In your dreams, Irene
.

Midway up the gangplank, Harriet pivoted and saw Ellen
and Daniel dashing forward. In the rush, she’d forgotten them.

“You can’t leave without me,” Ellen shouted.

Harriet shrugged in an attitude of
What could I do?
Then she yelled back, “I’ll talk to Etienne about the school funds.”

Soon Harriet and Saralee were on the main deck with Madam Irene’s troupe, leaning over the rail along with all the other passengers as the
Southern Star
took off. The shoreline grew increasingly smaller as the big steamboat eased its way out of the harbor channel and glided out toward the Gulf.

Harriet was as excited as Saralee.
What an adventure!
She couldn’t wait to find Etienne. They could be excited together.

She hoped.

“Well, girls, let’s go find our rooms,” Madam Irene said, adding ominously—at least, it was ominous to Harriet, “We got work to do.”

Harriet smiled weakly.

Madam Irene smiled right back. It was a steely, teeth-baring smile of threat. “Don’t lose that feather collection, honey. I’m thinkin’ of a particular gambler on this riverboat who might pay handsomely for a good feather-ticklin’.”

By that evening, Harriet was gritting her teeth with frustration. Madam Irene, sensing a windfall in Harriet, wouldn’t let her out of her sight. Even the lunch meal was delivered to the two adjoining dorm-style rooms the woman had obtained, with bunks stacked three-high for the six girls and one maid who accompanied her, not including Harriet and Saralee. Ms. Hitler permitted none of them to stroll on the decks either. Apparently, Madam Irene planned a grand entrance.

The magic hour arrived at ten o’clock, when Madam Irene deemed the timing right for parading her new goods. With Saralee back in the compartment with the maid, Har
riet followed the line of hookers up to the main saloon. The brass band had started entertaining the crowd more than an hour ago, following dinner.

This was not the way Harriet had hoped to meet Etienne for the first time. Assuming he was actually on the boat.

Putting her hands under her breasts, Harriet tried to push up the fabric under the skin-hugging bodice of her flame-red gown edged with black lace. The small capped sleeves started at the top of her arms, leaving her shoulders and neck completely bare. Long black gloves completed the ensemble. Pure Frederick’s of Hollywood sleaze.

Harriet had tried to tell Madam Irene that red was not her color, and that there was something to be said for subtlety, but the profit-minded procuress resisted adamantly.

Madam Irene’s maid, Arletta, who sidelined as a hair-dresser and makeup artist, had piled Harriet’s black tresses atop her head, with a few curly strands dangling down to all that bare skin. “To entice the customers,” Madam Irene chuckled.

As an added touch, Madam Irene had slapped a black mole patch at the right corner of Harriet’s roughed lips, despite her protests that she’d probably swallow it before the evening was over. And she’d handed Harriet a black feather fan, declaring it good advertising for a new whore.

Etienne was going to have a fit.

Or die laughing.

“You’d better appreciate what I’m doing for you, Etienne,” Cain grumbled as he hunkered down in front of a mirror in their cramped quarters on the lower deck. He was applying the last of a little pot of burnt cork to his face. “Putting blackface on a black face is going above and beyond the call of friendship.”

“I told you to stay at Bayou Noir and take care of your patients. I don’t need you or Abel nursemaiding me every minute of my life,” Etienne snapped back. Already in blackface, Etienne slipped on a pair of white gloves, ad
justed his short buttoned jacket and opened the door to let a little fresh air into the stuffy chamber.

“You’re still upset over leaving Harriet behind,” Cain said, washing his hands in a bowl and drying them off before donning his own gloves.

“I am not upset over Harriet.”

“Hah!”

Cain grinned at him as they walked toward the staircase leading up to the main hall.

“Stop grinning.”

“I’m practicing my coon face, mastuh.”

“Do you remember the lines of your song?”

“Remember? You and I have been hearin’ Abel sing these lyrics all our lives. Too bad he’s not here. He might fancy doing a routine or two.”

Etienne nodded, then slowed. Putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder, he cautioned, “Be careful, Cain. We didn’t get to check the passengers who came on at Morgan City.”

“All right,” Cain agreed. “But next time let’s be riverboat gamblers. This persona is beneath even my dignity.”

Harriet and the other girls employed by Madam Irene sashayed along the soft carpet of the sumptuous grand saloon, practically the length of a football field. Their role was to flirt and let the men buy them drinks, the ultimate goal being assignations in the gentlemen’s cabins. Harriet kept an eye peeled for Etienne and Cain, but had not spotted them yet.

Passengers of all classes crowded the plush hall, from fashionable gentlemen to farmers. At one end, cigar-smoking gamblers held reign at the green baize tables. At the other end was the small stage where musicians played, trying to make more noise than the rumble of conversation. Harriet recognized brassy versions of old Stephen Foster tunes, such as “Camptown Races” and “Swanee River.”
In between were sitting areas with satin-covered furniture, brass cuspidors and prismed chandeliers.

Harriet didn’t shock easily, but Madam Irene’s recitation as they walked along of her rates for various services, from straight, to French, to graphic specialties, inflamed her cheeks. Even worse, Harriet noticed lots of men studying her with decided interest, and not just because of her low-cut gown. Evidently, Madam Irene had already spread word of Harriet’s feather tricks.

“Hey, darlin’, come over here,” cajoled one short, balding gentleman who resembled Elmer Fudd. She was about to turn away, but Madam Irene gave her a harsh shove with an admonition to start earning her keep. “And don’t forget, you owe me extra for bringing that damn dog along.”

Elmer smirked up at her from the table where he was playing poker with several other equally seedy characters. “Why don’tcha sit down here on my lap, sweetheart, and give me a little sample of yer feather trick?” The other men chortled, all of them leering at her cleavage.

Harriet leaned down close to Elmer’s ear, discreetly angling her bare bosom the other way. She whispered to him exactly where she would like to put one of her feathers…a long, pointed one.

Elmer blanched and shrank away from her.

Just then, Harriet heard the band stop playing and someone announce that the minstrel show was about to begin. Slipping away from Madam Irene, Harriet made her way toward the stage. She stood at the back of the gathering crowd.

The production began with a group of ten men in blackface and dress suits making a grand entrance, marching around the stage in imitation of old plantation cakewalks. The leader, called the Interlocutor, gave the order, “Gentlemen be seated.” They dropped into chairs arranged on the stage in a semicircle.

Harriet’s heart leaped with joy when she recognized Etienne and Cain at either end of the lineup. Then she gig
gled at their disguises. Etienne looked especially adorable…her very own Al Jolson.

The man in the center, the Interlocutor, acted as straight man and master of ceremonies. He introduced the players, including Etienne as Mr. Tambo, holding a tambourine, and Cain as Mr. Bones, playing the bones.

A lot of bantering and riddles followed, including, to Harriet’s delight, some of her own jokes. Except that they were adapted to be derogatory stereotypes of blacks as lazy, stupid, superstitious, cheating, lying, thieving dandies with a tendency toward drunkenness.

“Mr. Bones,” Etienne called out, “didja hear ’bout the coon who stopped a man from beatin’ a donkey?”

“Cain’t say that I have, Mr. Tambo,” Cain replied.

“It were a case of brotherly love,” Etienne replied to the whooping laughter of the audience.

After one of the other entertainers did a soft-shoe tap dance, Cain called out to Etienne, “Say, Brother Tambo, I ’spect you knows the hardest thing to teach a darkie.”

“Cain’t say I do,” Etienne responded with a straight face.

“How to use the privy.” Cain chuckled at his own joke. And the audience joined in.

It was the weirdest sort of self-deprecating humor Harriet had ever heard. Even the blacks in the audience seemed to enjoy the performance. Harriet suspected it was almost a reverse joke by the blacks, as if they were pulling a scam on the unknowing whites.

Next followed the “olio” portion of the program, in which each man got to display his particular talents. Everything from a farce, “The Three Coon Musketeers,” in which everyone joined in, to slapstick pie-throwing, then songs and dancing. Cain did a fair rendition of “Dixie” on the banjo, while Etienne sang a horrible, shrilly falsetto version of “My Old Kentucky Home.”

Finally came the grand finale, in which the performers formed a line, doing a “walk-around” skirting the clap
ping, singing audience, passing hats for donations. They were circling for a second time when Etienne caught sight of Harriet, then did a double take. He tripped, causing Cain to hit his back. Cain noticed her now, as well. He smiled a big, toothy welcome, prompting Etienne to elbow him in the gut.

Etienne’s eyes, exaggeratedly big with blackface makeup, went even wider as they homed in on her exposed cleavage. Stumbling along in the cakewalk, sort of a nineteen-hundreds’ version of the stroll, he continued to hold eye contact. When the performers arrived back at the stage and were bowing before the applauding audience, Etienne mouthed some indistinguishable silent words at her.

Harriet hoped whimsically that the message was something like, “I love you, stupid.”

What he’d probably said was, “I’m going to kill you, stupid.”

Etienne was so brain-boiling furious he felt as if his eyeballs were blistering.

“Well, shut my mouth!” Cain muttered to him for the third time since they’d noticed the outrageous woman who’d apparently decided to become his personal shadow.

“I’m gonna kill her. Slowly. And I’m gonna enjoy it.”

“Do you suppose it’s one of those mental connection things Harriet always yammers about—telepathy, I think she calls it? You know what I mean. Etienne? You were missing her so bad, and she received your heart message and came a-runnin’.”

Etienne told Cain to do something to himself that was physically impossible.

As he pushed his way through the milling people, Harriet obviously sensed his displeasure.
Displeasure? Hah! I probably have smoke coming out of my ears
. She was backing up, trying to blend into the crowd. As if she could hide from him with her rouged lips and ridiculous black face patch, and wearing that scarlet dress with a neckline cut
practically to her knocking knees.
Merde
, if she sneezed, every man in the room would get to view what he unreasonably considered his private property.

Private property? Oh, damn! I’m jealous
, Etienne realized with a sorry shake of his head.
When did the witch bore herself so deeply into my feelings? How could I have allowed that to happen? And what can I do about it now?

“What’re you gonna do with your
soul mate
now that she’s here?” Cain asked, tagging close to his heels. “Aside from the obvious, that is.”

Etienne snorted with disgust and resumed stomping toward Harriet. “You’ve been in Abel’s company too much of late; you’re beginning to think like him. Low-down and dirty.”

Cain blathered on, “That’s another thing you should do with her. Get low-down and dirty. I was reading that book of Harriet’s one day, and it says even ladies want to be treated like whores sometimes. Yep, you’ve been pussy-footing around with Harriet for too long, if you ask me. Time for some low-down-and-dirty tomcatting.”

“Who asked you?” Etienne retorted, spotting Harriet again in the crowd.

She was backed up against the far wall, beyond the gaming tables. A red-haired, face-painted woman the size of a locomotive in a garish purple dress was wagging a finger in Harriet’s face, to which Harriet was arguing vehemently. Meanwhile, a short, balding man with a bulbous nose and a leer in his eyes seemed to be making some kind of proposition.

It didn’t take a scholar to figure out what kind of proposition, especially since the little worm was about to lay a pudgy finger on the upper curve of Harriet’s right breast.

The temperature of Etienne’s blood rose a notch higher.

Without thinking, he grabbed the weasel by the back of the jacket collar and held him up off the floor. “If you touch one hair on her head, I’m gonna turn you into fish bait.”

The little man’s eyes bulged out and he sputtered helplessly. “Do you understand?” Etienne grated out.

His victim nodded, still tongue-tied and scared witless.

Etienne dropped the man abruptly, and he scurried off and out through the open door to the deck, never once looking back.

Now it was Harriet’s turn. He reached out a hand but found nothing to grab. Just all that skin. Her mouth still gaped open at the spectacle he’d put on. With each panting breath, her breasts heaved in. And out. And in. And out.

“Cover yourself,” he snarled.

“Oh!” she said weakly with a moue of embarrassment as she glanced downward. Then she flicked the black feather fan open, spreading it over her décolletage. Some poor ostrich went to the grave to supply all the plumes for that frippery, he’d warrant.

A sudden thought nagged at Etienne.
A black feather fan! Oh, good Lord!
His gaze moved reluctantly to the slattern whose face was flushed a shade closely approximating her purple garment. She stammered with barely controlled rage over her interrupted transaction.
It must be Madam Irene. That would mean that Harriet was the whore everyone was talking about today…the one with a remarkable repertoire of feather tricks
.

To make matters worse, Harriet was gawking at him and Cain. And she was giggling.

“You think this situation is humorous?” He moved closer—invading her personal space, as Harriet would say. He hoped his body language threatened her. He hoped she knew that if she giggled one more time he was going to kiss her speechless, then throw her overboard.

“It’s just that you and Cain look so ridiculous.” She twittered nervously, meanwhile sidling toward the doorway.

He stepped into her path, blocking her exit.

“Etienne,” Cain said softly at his side, “you’d best
move this show outside. You’re gathering attention we don’t need.”

Etienne inhaled and exhaled several times to calm himself. Cain was right. Dozens of people had turned their way. Without hesitation, he gripped Harriet by the upper arm, pulling her against his side. She smelled of gardenias and clean hair and pure Harriet. His traitorous heart constricted with suffocating, unwelcome emotion. “Let’s get out of here,” he murmured huskily.

“Oh. no, you don’t,” Madam Irene shrieked, finally having regained her voice. Her crafty eyes swept over him in appraisal and found him wanting. “Maxine has a whole night’s work ahead of her. She ain’t goin’ off with the likes of you.”

“Maxine?” Etienne arched a brow at Harriet, who still nestled against his side, scanning him in wonder. She was still giggling. He wasn’t sure if it was his appearance, his overreaction to her suitor or Madam Irene’s claim on her that sparked Harriet’s mirth.

“Take yer hands off Maxine. The only gentlemen what goes off with my girls have got to have the coins to pay,” Madam Irene asserted. “And I know how much you coon performers earn. Not enough fer one of my high-class whores, that’s fer certain.”

Etienne saw from the corner of his eye that the captain was approaching, no doubt upset over the unseemly confrontation taking place on his boat. Wasting no time, Etienne ignored Madam Irene’s squeal of objection and drew Harriet outside and down the deck. Cain followed quickly behind them.

“Etienne, you’re hurting me,” Harriet protested. “And my gown is falling off.”

He slowed down and loosened his grasp on her arm. Only God knew how he restrained himself from watching her while she adjusted her dress, They were at the far end of the deck where only an occasional passenger strolled by, getting the night air.

“Let’s go wash this burnt cork off,” Cain urged him, then winked at Harriet. “Nice to see you again so soon, my dear.

“Likewise,” she said sweetly.

I’ll give her “likewise.”
“You go ahead,” Etienne told Cain. “We’ll catch up with you. See if you can get a few extra buckets of water.”

Then, turning on Harriet, he pressed her into a small alcove dimly lit by a lantern. Looming over her, he braced both white-gloved hands against the wall on either side of her head. “What the hell are you doing here, Harriet?”

“I came to warn you.”

“Warn me? By disobeying orders to stay at Bayou Noir? By dressing as a prostitute selling her wares? By laughing at me?”

She waved a hand dismissively, explaining how Simone had come to Bayou Noir with a message that Pope’s men now knew Etienne was headed for Texas. “I couldn’t just let you walk into a trap. By the way, I didn’t appreciate your non-good-bye to me. One of these times you’re going to dump me, and I won’t come after you.”

“That’s the point, Harriet. Besides, I think I said good-bye rather well.”

She lowered her lashes with embarrassment, then immediately raised her chin, brazening out his scrutiny. “Oh, no! You don’t get off that easy. I told you not to touch me anymore.”

“I didn’t touch you,” he reminded her with a crooked smile.

“Oh, then that hard thing inside me was my imagination.”

He let out a hoot of amusement. “Harriet, your bluntness is refreshing. And I didn’t touch you until you begged me to.”

“That’s debatable…who begged whom, I mean.”

“Let’s get back to the subject at hand. Why are you with Madam Irene?”

“Well, you see, it’s a long story. Oh, if you must know, she paid my fare.”

Etienne crossed his eyes and ground his teeth. “Harriet, why did a sporting house madam pay your fare? Where’s the money I left you? That was more than enough for a ticket and a suite of cabins.”

She then related a rambling, bizarre, impossible-to-believe story about going to Morgan City with Ellen and Daniel. And somehow losing them there.

He frowned, trying to make sense of her confusing words. “Do you still have the money?”

“Of course. Right here,” she said, patting her waist. “It’s in my panty hose.”

He must have looked as puzzled as he felt because she began to lift the hem of her gown to show him her panty hose. He recognized the silk garment he’d used to tie her hands back on the train, but he’d never imagined its full appeal. The hem of her dress crept higher and higher, exposing more and more of the sheer stockings that went all the way to her waist, where a flat, leather pouch was tied over her hip with a length of ribbon.

He groaned inwardly at the sight of all that transparent silk. “It’s a good thing Madam Irene didn’t know about these stockings. She would have been drumming up trade for you with them, as well as your feather tricks.”

Harriet had the good sense to blush and dropped her gown back in place. “You’re not mad at me anymore, are you, Etienne? I mean, you can understand why I had to come?”

“Oh, I’m still mad.” He let out a loud whoosh of exasperation at the implications of Harriet’s interference. “I knew Pope’s men were setting up a trap. That was the goal of this entire escapade.”

“It was?” She tilted her head in bafflement.

He nodded, disconcerted by a strand of ebony hair that was blowing in the slight breeze, back and forth across her smooth shoulder. She was so damn beautiful.

“Etienne?” she prodded.

Concentrate, Etienne. Concentrate
. “Harriet, we think that Pope is an underling in this operation and that the real leader is operating out of Texas. For years, ever since Reconstruction began, corruption in government projects has been rampant. Half of the funds appropriated by Congress never make it to the local level. It’s routine business for officials, North and South, to take their cut of any allocation, from railroads to Freedman’s Bureau. But this is bigger than that, more systematic.”

“And President Grant is afraid to trust even those in his own staff?” she guessed.

“That’s right. It has to be an inside job, probably ex-agents like myself, disgruntled and out for themselves.”

“Sounds like a post—Civil War mafia.”

“Mafia?”

“Ummm…a crime syndicate.”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying that you’re deliberately courting danger? That you and Cain are decoys?”

“Exactly. Why do you think we didn’t just take the gold directly to Washington when we recovered it?”

“I guess I didn’t think.”

Now that’s an admission that oughtta be chipped in stone
. “We didn’t want just Pope and his lower-level men. By having them follow us, we hope he’ll lead us to the ringleader in Texas.”

Tears welled in her eyes.

“What now?” His voice was harsh, but inside Etienne felt like a melting bowl of butter. Dammit, how could the sight of her tears affect him so?

“You’re in danger, and you might get killed.”

He smiled grimly at her concern for his safety. “Maybe, but you won’t be here to witness my sad demise, darlin’. You’ll be long gone, back to your own time. You’re getting off at the next stop in the morning.”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, I’m not, Etienne. I’m in this for the long haul. I can’t leave till you’re safe and sound, back at Bayou Noir.”

“Harriet, don’t you ever give a care for your own safety? Do you always jump before thinking? And who the hell named you my protector? I’ve been taking care of myself for a good many years without your help.”

She winced at his cutting words. “Which one of those questions do you want me to answer?”

“None,” he said with a laugh, pushing himself away from the wall. “Where’s Madam Irene’s room? Let’s get your clothes.”

“We’re staying on the second level,” she said as they moved out onto the walkway again.

“We?” Little alarm bells went off in his head, in part due to the sudden defensive hunching of her shoulders. He was becoming an expert at interpreting her nonverbal communication.

“Well, yes, did I forget to mention…oh, my…didn’t you know that Saralee is with me?”

“I beg your pardon?” he choked out.

Sensing his renewed anger, she inched away from him, but he caught hold of her with a gloved palm latched onto the nape of her neck. Slowly, he drew her closer.

“Etienne, you really do look ridiculous in that makeup. And it’s so politically incorrect. Why, in my time—”

“Shut up, Harriet, and tell me why you brought my daughter on such a dangerous, foolhardy trip.” They were so close, he could feel her breath against his mouth.

“I had to. Blossom was worried, and rightly so. Pope’s men could have come to Bayou Noir and kidnapped Saralee. To get to you.”

“Why the hell didn’t you bring everyone else, too? Even the damn dog?”

“Well, actually,” she began, refusing to make eye contact.

She wouldn’t!
“You didn’t!”

“What was I supposed to do? Blossom said she’s too old to take care of a dog, and Saralee wouldn’t come without Lance.”

Lance?

“Besides, you’re the one who gave her the mangy mutt,” she reminded him, “which, incidentally, was the nicest thing you’ve ever done. Saralee adores him…. Why are you glowering again?”

“Harriet, ever since I’ve met you, I’ve been glowering. You have that effect on me.” His hand was still wrapped around the back of her neck, and she stood only inches away from him, looking wounded and vulnerable.

“Etienne,” she said softly, “I missed you.”

Those three words, coming so unexpectedly, were his undoing. They blindsided him with their simple sincerity. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut.