Benjamin January 6 - Wet Grave by Hambly Barbara

Author:Hambly, Barbara
Language: eng
Format: epub

“What do you think is really going on?” asked Rose the night after that second expedition to the Swamp. January had washed off the liquor, the mud of the Swamp, and the filth from his dirty slop-shop clothing, in a tub in her room, with much giggling and splashing; the book-lined room still smelled of wet straw-matting and soap. “How could anyone make money off a slave revolt? If he turned them in for a reward, wouldn't they just say he'd sold them the guns?”

“Not if they don't know it's Mulm who sold them,” said January. “He's using Ti-Jon as a go-between, maybe others as well. If Ti-Jon dies-and it may be weeks before his death is discovered, with his owner out of town-all the buyers know is they've got a cache of guns.”

“Do you think that's Mulm's plan?” She sat propped on the pillows, her long brown hair, kinked from the strings in which she'd braided it beneath her tignon, catch ing brass glints from the single candle's light. Outside the mosquito-bar, insects whined in protest; with the coming of evening she'd opened the shutters and the French doors onto the gallery, and the noise of the levee, and the near-by taverns, came faintly to them, even at this hour.

“I don't know,” said January. “I don't think so.” Her bed was narrow-he lay on his side, his back to the wall, the netting pressed itchy into his skin, and still there was barely room for them both.

“What's likelier is that Mulm's going to have a posse of his filibusters out picking up runaways who don't join the revolt, but who simply take advantage of the confusion and flee. That happens, you know. Slaves hear of a revolt and take to their heels. They figure the local patrols will be too taken up guarding against the rebels. Which they will be. I was seventeen when the last big revolt took place in Louisiana. To hear the rumors at the time you'd think Spartacus and his army were on the march. There's nothing that puts whites in a panic like a revolt.”

“'Thus does conscience make cowards of us all.'” Rose blinked past the candle-light to the open cobalt square of the door. “And of course that plan has the advantage that Ti-Jon-and whoever the actual rebels are-won't know about the intercepted runaways at all. It sounds like a great deal of expense for relatively little money.”

“Not if Mulm keeps his men west of the rebels. That's the way runaways will go. West, to cross the Sabine into the Texas territories of Mexico. Personally, I think there are eas ier ways of making a living than gun-running, but what do I know? I'm only a piano-teacher whose last student just quit `until times get better.”'

Rose slid down into his arms then, and the candle guttered in its holder and went out untended; they spoke no more. But afterward January lay awake, smelling the wax and the woodsmoke from the kitchen below, listening

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