Gone to Texas (29 page)

"Three men are searching the Old Quarter for you, my love," she said.

"Three men? Morrell's?"

She shook her head. "Is there a bounty on your head?"

"Bounty men." Christopher glanced at O'Connor. "Good God. I never really believed it. I never thought Vickers would do it."

"Who is Vickers?" asked Noelle.

"It's a long and sordid story. But, how did you find out about these men?"

"I have many acquaintances in the Vieux Carré."

"Yes, but why would they tell you . . . "

"We have been seen together quite a lot these past weeks. Word gets around."

"They must have trailed you as far as Cully's Landing," surmised O'Connor. "And someone there told them where we were bound."

Christopher nodded, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "They will check all the hotels, of course. Shouldn't take them long to find me."

"Then we'll just have to fight them," said the Irishman. "With Klesko and your grandfather, the odds are on our side."

"Damn!" Christopher angrily paced the room. "This is utter madness! Emily Cooper committed suicide and it had nothing to do with me. Why can't they accept that? Why must more people be hurt?"

"It has very little to do with her suicide," said O'Connor. "Haven't you realized that yet? This is about your father and his affair with Emily Cooper, and the Vickers family honor."

"Can a person never put the past behind him?"

"You can't run away from it. But sometimes you can
bury it. We will deal with these bounty men and be on our way to Texas."

"No. I won't have the lives of my family and friends put at risk." Christopher turned to Noelle. "Can you arrange to have a message delivered to these bounty men?"

"I know people who will kill them for you."

"Absolutely not. I won't hire assassins. Can you arrange the message or not?"

"I can."

"Then I will meet them, an hour after sundown. But where? The Dueling Ground, behind the Salle d'Orleans. Yes, that's an appropriate place for the kind of business we will be conducting."

"Alone?" queried O'Connor.

"Yes."

"Are you insane? I can't let you go alone, Christopher."

"You will. And I will have your word that you won't breathe a word of this to my grandfather. Or, God forbid, my mother."

"I can't give it!" exclaimed O'Connor.

"You must."

"I cannot. I will not. At least let me go with you."

"And if I let you, you will swear not to tell the others?"

"Then I will swear it."

"All right. Noelle?"

"I will see that they get your message."

Christopher turned to his trunk. With sharp, angry motions he threw it open, dug beneath his neatly folded clothes, and extracted the Tripolitan cutlass which had once belonged to his father.

"It's only fitting, I suppose," he said bitterly, "that I carry this tonight."

It was not far from the riverfront hotel to the Salle d'Orleans, on the corner of Orleans and Royal streets.
Nonetheless, Christopher left early, half an hour after sundown.

"We mustn't be late," he told O'Connor. "A gentleman isn't late for his own funeral."

But the Irishman had lost his usually indomitable sense of humor, and the morbid joke failed to elicit even a weak smile from him.

With the cutlass and a pistol concealed under his long cloak of pilot cloth—O'Connor was armed with a dagger and a brace of pistols—Christopher walked with quick strides past the Plâce d'Armes, thence up Pirates' Alley, with the cathedral looming on his right hand. The night was humid; a mist had crept in from the river and seemed to cling to the buildings in the Old Quarter. The streets of the Vieux Carré were still bristling with vendors, carriages, and pedestrians. Christopher knew it would have been better to meet the bounty men at midnight, when there would be fewer witnesses. But, on the off chance that he survived, he was to be aboard the
Liberty
at that hour.

His thoughts flew back to that fateful night, months ago, at West Point, when he had met Adam Vickers at midnight in the riding hall, the senseless duel which had triggered a chain of events which brought him now to the gate of the little garden behind the cathedral, the Dueling Ground, where the soil had drunk the blood of so many men, including Trumbull. And maybe tonight it would drink his blood. One way or the other, this feud with the Vickers family had to be resolved, here and now, tonight, for good. It was unfinished business, and he was determined to write the final chapter before he embarked for Texas and a new beginning. He just didn't know how the chapter would end.

It was dark and quiet at the little iron gate near the end of Pirates' Alley. People and carriages passed to and fro on Royal Street a stone's throw away. Peering through the wrought iron into the garden, Christopher
could see precious little in the gloom of night—a stretch of cobbled walkway, luxuriant tropical growth which had once been tended with such loving care by Père Antoine, now somewhat overgrown. But they were there—Christopher could sense them. There was a funny, tingling sensation at the base of his spine. Yet his heart beat calmly in his chest, his palms were dry, his hand steady as he reached for the gate's latch.

A rustle of cloth, the whispered warning of O'Connor behind him, made him turn away from the gate, to see a cloaked figure separate from the shadows in a deeply recessed doorway across the alley. A pistol materialized in O'Connor's hand. Christopher struck it down, recognizing Noelle an instant before she was in his arms, embracing him and trying at the same time to pull him away from the gate.

"Don't go in there, my love!"

"I must."

"You are early," she said, distraught. "You mustn't pass through that gate."

"What are you talking about?" asked Christopher, exasperated.

The sound of a scuffle, followed by a sharp, abbreviated cry of pain came suddenly from the darkness of the garden. A pistol spoke, steel range against steel, a muttered curse. Christopher lunged for the gate. Noelle tried to stop him, but he broke free of her grasp, threw open the gate, and rushed into the darkness, brandishing the cutlass from beneath his cloak.

Coming to a turn in the walkway, Christopher almost collided with a man running the other way. In the darkness Christopher could discern very little about the man. But he did get a quick glimpse of the man's face—and saw terror etched there. The man stumbled backward, raised his pistol. Then O'Connor's pistol roared. The Irishman was right behind Christopher, and Christopher flinched at the muzzle flash, the barrel so close to his
face that he thought he felt the burn of several powder grains on his cheek. The man reeled and fell. His ears ringing from the pistol shot, Christopher hurtled the body and pushed on.

The walkway led to a circular patio in the center of the garden. Reaching the edge of this open space, Christopher stopped, frozen in his tracks by the sight that met his eyes.

Three black men were hacking someone to pieces with cane knives. Horrified, Christopher watched the blades rise and fall in geysers of blood. Another black rose from a second victim—this one had already been decapitated and dismembered.

"Look out!" yelled O'Connor.

A fifth black man appeared out of the verdant foliage to launch himself at Christopher, who blocked the stroke of the man's cane knife with his cutlass. Sparks flew as the blades met. Christopher yanked the pistol out of his belt with his free hand, jabbed the barrel into his assailant's midsection and pulled the trigger. The impact of the bullet shoved the man backward. He jackknifed and pitched forward to sprawl, dying, at Christopher's feet.

Christopher whirled as two more of the blacks advanced. O'Connor appeared at his shoulder, aiming his second pistol. The pistol did not seem to deter the blacks. They kept coming. But before the Irishman could shoot, Noelle appeared to throw herself into his line of fire.

Seeing her, the blacks lowered their cane knives, rose out of menacing crouches into a posture of harmless subservience, and as she snapped at them in Creole, they shrank away, as though her words stung like a master's lash, flaying their ebony skin. She spoke again, her tone imperious. Two of them picked up their dead accomplice, and then the whole lot vanished into the darkness like ghosts.

On the other side of the stone wall separating the
garden from Royal Street came the sound of people running, voices raised in alarm. The pistol shots were attracting a crowd. Any moment and they would invade the garden itself.

"Come," said Noelle urgently. "We must leave this place at once."

Christopher grabbed her roughly by the arm. "My God, Noelle. What have you done?"

She wrenched free of his grasp. "This is not the time or the place to discuss it," she said curtly, and walked away.

"What's wrong with you, Christopher?" asked O'Connor.

"This . . . " Christopher gestured at the grisly remains of the two men who had fallen beneath the cane knives of the blacks. He knew who they were. The bounty men. O'Connor had killed the third. "This is her doing."

"Of course it is. She probably saved our lives. And yet you're angry with her."

"You used to talk a lot about honor. Well, where is the honor in this?"

"Come on. If we're caught here we may never get to Texas."

Christopher followed him. With Noelle in the lead, they left the garden by a small wooden door located near the rear wall of the Cathedral, escaping undetected in the dark shadows of Pirates' Alley. In the Plâce d'Armes Christopher stopped Noelle. This time, as she tried to free herself, he held on to her arm.

"You're hurting me, Christopher."

"You ambushed those bounty men, didn't you?"

"They would have killed you."

"That's not the point."

"Yes. I arranged an ambush. You said you would be in the garden an hour after sundown. I told them a half hour after sundown. It would have been finished before
you arrived—except that you came early. And almost got yourself killed."

"Who were those men with the knives?"

"You don't need to know. Or want to know."

"I asked, so I
do
want to know, and you're going to tell me."

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Christopher," said O'Connor. "Why don't you just drop it?"

"Stay out of this. Tell me the truth, Noelle. Who were those men? Why were they so afraid of you?"

"They are just ordinary men."

"Who would do anything you asked of them. Isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

She held the talisman for him to see, the one that ordinarily lay between her breasts, dangling from a silver chain. He stared at the silver snake entwined about a human skull.

"This is why," she said, defiant.

"Voodoo."

"Are you satisfied now?"

"You shouldn't have done it, Noelle. It was my fight."

"But I did it for you, Christopher." She stepped closer, and the sweet fragrance and soft warmth of her filled his senses, and she put her hands lightly on his chest. Even under these circumstances she managed to excite him. Again Christopher wondered if she had somehow worked a spell on him.

"You don't understand," he said.

"I understand this: After what happened to those bounty men, no one will want to try to collect the reward that man Vickers has offered."

"She's got a point," said O'Connor.

"They would have killed you," she said. "I did what I had to do to save the life of the man I love. I am glad
I did it, even if you hate me for it. If you do hate me, say so, and you will never see me again."

Christopher didn't know what to say. Here was his chance. He could tell her now that he did not want her to accompany him to Texas. But was that what he really wanted? Did he really want to be rid of her? What about Greta? He stared at Noelle, at that beautiful dusky upturned face, drowned in those dark eyes, was tantalized by her lips, slightly parted, so close he could feel her warm, sweet breath on his face.

"No," he said hoarsely. "No, I don't hate you."

She turned away and left him standing there, and he watched her go, wondering if she would be on the
Liberty
when the brigantine sailed at dawn. Wrapped in the black hooded cloak, she was soon swallowed up by the night.

"An extraordinary woman," murmured O'Connor. "You have all the luck, Christopher."

Glancing at his friend, Christopher could see that O'Connor, too, was thoroughly bewitched.

Chapter 22

Christopher had spent a frivolous afternoon in a small boat on the Hudson River with Greta Inskilling—and that was the sum total of his naval experience prior to walking up the gangplank to board the brigantine
Liberty
, bound for Texas. He wasn't sure how he would like going to sea. The first day out was pleasant enough. The fresh air and salty spray were invigorating after two weeks breathing the stench of the city. The sun was bright yellow in a sky the delicate blue of a robin's egg. The sea was a translucent green except where it foamed white beneath the bow of the ship. The
Liberty
was skimming along nicely with her sails billowing full, and with none of that clumsy pitch and roll which Christopher had expected from a ship with its hold so full. Which only demonstrated, he mused, how ignorant he was of nautical matters.

He didn't become seasick at all, which was more than some of the others could say. O'Connor and his mother looked rather green around the gills, while Klesko, wretchedly ill, spent most of that first day bent over the bulwarks and heaving into the sea. Prissy remained in the captain's cabin, which she and Rebecca shared, and by all accounts was calling upon the Lord to go on ahead and bring her to His bosom, lest she suffer any longer. Nathaniel, on the other hand, seemed to take this new environment in stride.

"You must have inherited your father's sea legs," the frontiersman told Christopher.

And
, thought Christopher,
his knack for becoming involved with the wrong woman
.

Noelle was not aboard. The last he had seen of her was in the Plâce d'Armes, walking away from him without a word, disappearing into the night. That image, seared into his memory, nourished his guilt—and O'Connor didn't make him feel any better about it. The Irishman had wanted to mount a full-scale search for her, even if it meant delay in the departure of the
Liberty
. Christopher pointed out how ludicrous that idea was. What chance would they have of finding her in the Vieux Carré? Especially if she did not want to be found.