January struck.
He was within a few feet of the Kaintuck, though the smell of the rain-wet earth drowned all the feral sweat-and-tobacco stench of him. It was easy to reach out and grab the man's legs, jerk them back, drop the man down with a cry into the soft earth. January was ready. The Kaintuck was not. The man flailed with his knife as January rammed his knee below the breastbone, grabbed verminous handfuls of hair and beard, and slammed the head around and sideways. There was a quick crack like an oak stick breaking underfoot, and the smell of voided waste.
"Lordy, Lordy," murmured January under his breath. "My massa gwine wear me out for sure."
He supposed he'd have to confess this next Friday- not, of course, in any church in the old town, nor would he mention the color of the man he had killed-but he had to admit that he felt not the smallest twinge of remorse.
He knew enough to stay low as he searched the body, appropriating knife, powder horn, and long rifle. He checked the load with the ramrod, felt the rod's end jar on patch and ball.
He'd expected it, but had to be sure.
More shots, echoing in the night. January turned back, saw figures moving among the trees, around the house. He thought, They'll have locked up the slaves somewhere, only to realize in the next instant they'd have chained them as well. Probably in the sugar mill, the only brick building large enough to hold even so small a contingent as Les Saules's. He wondered if Claud Trepagier and McGinty would sell them later or blame the whole business on a slave uprising.
Not if the bodies were shot, he thought. And then, But to cover that, all they'd have to do is... The smell of woodsmoke reached him, sluggish on the warm spring night.
All they'd have to do is fire the house. Flames were licking up over the gallery already, bright on the wooden railings and the heavy strapwork shutters. Wood from the kitchen and the smokehouse had been piled against all the shutters on the bayou side of the house, the flame leaping from it huge and orange and new, the smoke white and fresh, billowing into the black of the sky. Against the brightness of the fire January could see the shapes of men, outlined in red, coarse shirts of plaid or trade goods or rough linsey-woolsey, homespun pants slick with grease, the glitter of cold animal eyes. They stood in a rough semicircle, facing inward toward the house, their guns pointed at the door.
If he stepped from the shelter of the willows, January thought quite calmly, the firelight would show him up, but a Kentucky long rifle would take the distance easily. There were six men on this side. The rest would be around the front. They all had their backs to him, but nevertheless he recognized the Irishman McGinty's copper-colored hair. The beard had seemed darker in the shadows of the house, the day January had seen him. Recognized also the way he stood, legs apart, hands thrust in the pockets of his sage-green long-tailed coat. The man beside him, dark-haired and medium-size with a look of a panther to his big body, wore a long-tailed coat also, natty but threadbare, and the fire glistened off the pomade in his hair.
He was the same build as the Turk in green, and like the Turk wore a gold signet on one hand that caught the light of the fire.
It was to him one of the rivermen spoke. "C'n we have the woman 'fore we kills her?"
"No," said the dark-haired man, and held up his rifle to firing position, looking down the barrel at the door. His voice was the voice of the orange-and-green Turk. "I want to be sure this time."
By the glaring leap of the fire January recognized Nahum Shagrue.
"Damn better be sure this time," growled McGinty. "Damn uppity bitch, I damn near swallowed my tongue when I come out here next mornin' and saw her."
"I told you I hadn't seen her in years."
"What you bet the woman comes out first?" said someone else softly.
"Which woman? White dress or gold?"
"White."
"Nah. Gonna be the blond jasper with the scar. Twenty-five cents on it."
"You got it."
"There-the door moved."
Still completely unseen, January checked the site, made completely sure of his aim-for he knew he would only have the one shot-and with quiet deliberation, squeezed the trigger and blew off the back of Claud Trepagier's head.
Even as the Creole's body pitched forward January caught up his shotgun, ducked behind the nearest oak and yelled at the top of his voice, "Fire at will, men!"
At the same moment a shot cracked out from the house and Shagrue flung back his head with a gasp, clutching and grabbing a hole the size of a teacup at the base of his neck. Someone fired in January's direction but McGinty was already running for the trees.
The rivermen knew the folly of standing between an enemy and flame. Their chief gone, they fled, melting into the darkness on the heels of their employer without waiting to see who or how many their assailants were. Without a chance of getting paid it no longer mattered. Emerging from the smoke-filled lower story of the house, Madeleine and Augustus got off a couple of pistol shots, but-aside from Augustus's first target on Shagrue -hit nothing.
Four of the rivermen were picked up later by Lt. Shaw's guardsmen on the road. McGinty was arrested the following afternoon on the levee, trying to get steamboat passage to St. Louis. He was subsequently hanged.
Lt. Shaw came walking out of the darkness as January was checking old Albert's wound, the coachman laid out on the damp grass of the garden border on a quilt fetched from the kitchen. Madeleine, who went to the kitchen to bring whatever bandages she could find, found Claire the cook and Ursula the laundress tied to their bedsteads, bleeding and bruised. Claire returned with her, bearing medicines and a pitcher of tafia. She bound the ripped graze in Augustus's arm with perfunctory speed, and when Shaw appeared was dividing her solicitude between Dominique-who she assumed to be on the threshold of miscarriage in spite of Minou's assertions to the contrary-and Hannibal, stretched on another quilt and coughing bits of blood as well as smoke.
The house blazed like a massive torch, flames rising thirty feet from its roof. By that livid glare Madeleine, in her honey-colored gown, looked like a gold idol burning in sunset. She brought the rifle up at the muted squeak of the policeman's boots on the grass, and Augustus, scarred face smudged with soot and hair a spiky tangle, called. out, "Qui vive?" and slipped into the deeper shadows of the willows, just in case.
"Lieutenant Abishag Shaw," called out that high, nasal Kaintuck voice. "You folks all right?"
"We have two men wounded and one ill." January rose and went forward to meet him. From the kitchen quarters Madeleine had also brought him a shirt, rather short in the sleeves over his powerful arms. "Can your men help us carry them to the overseer's house? There's nothing that can be done for the house here," he added.
Shaw considered the conflagration thoughtfully, cracked his knuckles, and said, "I have to 'low you're right on that. And those fellas?"
He nodded toward the two bodies that still lay between the house and the trees, the blood smell almost' drowned by the gritty stink of smoke.
"One of them is my brother-in-law, Claud Trepagier," said Madeleine, with soft dignity. "The man who was behind this-ambuscade. The man who murdered Angelique Crozat in mistake for me." Her dark eyes were very calm, looking up at the tall policeman with a kind of defiance. "The other man is one of those he hired, first to ambush me, then to come here ahead of me in the hopes of catching me alone.
They locked my servants in the mill house. We..." She passed her hand quickly across her brow, and that steely strength wavered. "They're probably chained. The keys..."