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“Schematics from a footlocker at the Pontchartrain base. It’s got Hunley’s writing on it. I think it’s a sketch for the steering mechanism, and part of the propulsion system. Or that’s what Chester and Honeyfolk said, and I’m prepared to take their word for it. ”
“Neither one of them needs it?” She slipped the envelope down into her cleavage, past her underwear’s stays.
“They’ve already taken that section apart and put it all back together. It doesn’t hold any secrets for an e
ngineer, but a pilot who wants to know what he’s getting himself into … this might come in handy. Or it might not, if you have to trick someone into taking the job. ”
A loud cough of laughter came from upstairs, and the whump of heavy footsteps. The siblings looked up to the ceiling, as if it could tell them anything; but Josephine said, “Fenn again, heading to the water closet. Listen, we should go outside. Out back it’s quiet, and even if someone sees you, it’ll be too dark for anyone to recognize you. ”
“Fine, if that’s what you want. ” He pushed the back stairway door open and held it for her, letting her lead the way.
Down they went, her soft, quiet house slippers making no noise at all, and his dirty leather boots trailing a muffled drumbeat in her wake. At the bottom, she unlocked the back door and pushed it. It moaned on its hinges, scraping trash and mud with its bottom edge.
It opened, letting them both outside into the night.
The alley itself was dark and wet, smelling of vomit, urine, and horse manure. Overhead the moon hung low and very white, but they barely noticed it over the grumbling music, swearing sailors, drunken planters, and the late-night calls of newspaper boys trawling for pennies before closing up shop. The gas lamps on Rue des Ursulines gave the whole night a ghostly wash, leaving the shadows sharp and black between the lacy Old World buildings of the Vieux Carré, and leaving Josephine and Deaderick as close to alone as they could expect to find themselves.
Josephine swatted at her brother’s vest pocket, the place where he always kept tobacco and papers. He took the hint, retrieved his pouch, and began to roll two cigarettes between his fingers. “It’s a good thing that dumb bastard let himself be dragged away so easy. ”
“Like I said, you were lucky. Some of the younger men lounge around armed, and after a few drinks, they’re quick to draw. Fenn’s not dumb, but he’s harmless. Even if he’d seen you—even if he’d recognized you—we might’ve been able to buy him off. ”
“You’d trust some old Texian?”
“That one?” Josephine took the cigarette he offered and waited for him to light it. She gently sucked it to life, and the smell of tobacco wafted up her nose, down her throat. It took the edge off the mulchy odor of the alley. “Maybe. I don’t think he’d make any trouble for us. He’d die of sorrow if we told him he wasn’t welcome anymore. ”
Deaderick lit his own cigarette and stepped onto a higher corner of the curb, dodging a rivulet of running gutter water. “You making friends with Republicans now? Next thing I hear, you’ll be cozying up to the Rebs. ”
“You shut your mouth,” she whispered hard. “All I’m telling you is that Fenn spends more time at the Court than he does at his own home, assuming he has one. He’s sweet on Delphine and Ruthie in particular, and he won’t go talking if he thinks we’ll keep him from coming back. ”
“If you say so. ” He sighed and asked quietly, “Any chance you heard from that pilot friend of yours? The man from Georgia—could you talk him into it?”
“He can’t make it, so now I’ve got to find someone else. I’m working on it, all right? I’ve already talked to Marylin, and tomorrow she’ll take Ruthie over to the airyard to look around. ”
“There’s nothing but Republicans and Rebs down at the airyard. You’d have better luck in Barataria. Not that I’m suggesting it. ”
She snorted, and a puff of smoke coiled out her nostril. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it. But I want to check the straight docks first, all the same. Times are hard all over. We might find foreigners—or maybe Westerners—desperate enough to take the job. ”
“How much money you offering?”
“Not enough. But between me and the girls, we might be able to negotiate. There’s always wiggle room. I’ve talked it over with those who can be trusted, and they’re game as me to pool our resources. ”
“I don’t want to hear about that,” Deaderick said stiffly.
“I suppose you don’t, but that doesn’t change anything. If we can get this done between us, it’ll all be worth it. Every bit of it, even the unpleasant parts. We’re all making sacrifices, Rick. Don’t act like it’s a walk in the park for you and the boys, because I know it isn’t. ”
Life was hard outside the city, in the swamps where the guerrillas lurked, and poached, and picked off Confederates and Texians whenever they could. It was written all over her brother’s flesh, in the insect bites and scrapes of thorns. The story was told in the rips that had been patched and repatched on his homespun pants, and in the linen shirt with its round wood buttons—none of which matched.
But she was proud of him, desperately so. And she was made all the prouder just by looking at him and knowing that they were all struggling, certainly—but her little brother, fully ten years her junior, was in charge of a thirty-man company, and quietly paid by the Union besides. He drew a real salary in Federal silver, every three months like clockwork. Out of sight, at the edge of civilization, he was fighting for them all—for her, for the colored girls at the Garden Court, and for the Union, which would be whole again, one of these days.
And just like her, he was fighting for New Orleans, which deserved better than to have Texas squat upon it with its guns, soldiers, and Confederate allegiance.
Deaderick gazed at his sister over the tiny red coal of his smoldering cigarette. “It can’t go on like this much longer. These … these—” He gestured at the alley’s entrance, where a large Texian machine was gargling, grumbling, and rolling, its lone star insignia visible as it shuddered past, and was gone. “—vermin. I want them out of my city. ”
“Most of them want out just as bad. ”
“Well, then, that’s one thing we got in common. But I don’t know why you have to run around defending them. ”
“Who’s defending them? All I said in behalf of Fenn Calais is that he’s an old whoremonger with no place left to hang his hat. I have a business to run, that’s all—and I don’t get to pick my customers. Besides, the better the brown boys like us, the safer I stay,” she insisted, using the Quarter’s favorite ironic slang for the soldiers who, despite their dun-colored uniforms, were as white as sugar down to the last man. “I can’t have their officers sniffing around, looking too close. Not while I’m courting the admiral, and not while you’re running the bayou. As long as we keep them quiet and happy, they leave us alone. ”
