“She said that? To you, Mr. Lavadeau?”
“I swear she did, Mr. Cresap!”
“Did she say how she spit on me?”
“Oh, that — she knows now she did wrong, knows everything about why you did what you did; she made a mistake, she sees, and would be willing to start over, if only you’d come in to say you’d be willing too. If only she could be sure this other woman doesn’t mean anything to you. If—”
“Why couldn’t she come to me?”
“Sir, she did.”
“I’m sorry. She didn’t.”
But he smiled, and told how he’d brought her to me that very same afternoon, upstairs to my St. Charles suite: “She had her hand raised to knock, and then wouldn’t.”
“Why not, for instance?”
“For fear of who might be there.”
Up until then he’d been bitter, but now, having blown off steam, calmed down and stood there mumbling in French to himself. Then, to me, very friendly: “Well, it’s too late now.”
He left me, and kept on down Gravier to St. Charles and the shop. I kept on up Gravier to Carondelet, but not to resume my walk. I turned the corner, and stumped along as fast as I could, to headquarters.
“Dan, can I come in?”
“All right, but don’t abuse my welcome.”
“What welcome?”
I stood in front of his table, took off my hat, held it in my hand, and tried to think how to begin. He burst out: “Goddam it, quit bowing and scraping.”
“Just trying to show my respect.”
“I hate cringing. Sit down!”
He jumped up and grabbed a chair, shoving me down into it as though I were the ram in a bilge pump. I thanked him, then asked: “Dan, how have you been?”
“Rotten.”
“Why don’t you ask me how I’ve been?”
“I know how you’ve been. You’ve been fine.”
“Well — that would seem to cover that.”
“What do you want, Bill?”
“... Dan, has your headquarters boat left?”
“Left? For where?”
“The invasion. You said there’d be one.”
“It’s not even chartered yet.”
“Oh. I heard the movement had started, and—”
“It has started — but we haven’t, not this headquarters, yet. We’ve been electing a governor. And holding an inauguration. And a ball. Couple of balls. All kinds of various things, more important than taking the field. Why?”
“I want to be taken on board.”
“In what capacity?”
“As — trader. In cotton.”
“You? Are going to buy cotton, Bill?”
“That’s the idea, Dan. I haven’t told you all about what brought me to town.” I then sketched it out quick, the plan I’d made with Sandy and my need for twenty-five thousand dollars. I went on: “From all that I hear around, the quickest way to get money is to join this Red River thing — seems to be like picking the stuff off trees. If you can get on this boat.”
“And if you tell me no lies.”
“But — what lies have I been telling?”
“That you’re taking this trip to make money.”
“Well, what other reason could I have?”
“That girl. She left for Red River last week.”
“But listen: I need twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“I know you do, Bill — I know all about it.”
“Then where does the lie come in?”
“Bill, ever hear of a man named Dumont?”
“... The banker? I know him, yes.”
“He was in, asking about you — said Miss Tremaine, the lady you brought to the ball, was fixing to marry you, then sell her business out and back you in another with the money you needed. He was for it, if you were an honest man — but if you already have the twenty-five thousand promised it proves you’re lying, doesn’t it?”
“What did you say about me?”
“Nice stuff — he went away quite happy.”
“Could be I’d rather make that tin myself.”
“And could be you’d rather have Mrs. Fournet.”
But I clung to my story, and when he interrupted to know how I could make any tin, knowing nothing about cotton at all, I said: “What’s to know, Dan? I go on your boat as a trader, I pile off at Alexandria along with the other traders, I buy stock off a Reb, which I still have money to do, I write up my receipt, listing bales by mark, number, and weight, I present it to the Q.M. officer making the seizure for him to sign. The rest is up to the lawyers. Is any of that beyond my comprehension?”
“Bill, I’ve told you that cotton is hooded.”
“Hoodooed? This is not Hallowe’en.”
“I’m not talking about Hallowe’en, or anything superstitious. All right, call it attaindered. But I’m telling you, it’ll ruin whoever touches it, including you, including Burke, including Landry, including Mrs. Fournet — who’s a damned pretty girl mixed up in a damned ugly business. Bill, we’re trying — the Union is trying, this Army is trying — to buy a piece of this war to pay for our invasion by taking traders along, by letting them put out tin for the cotton the Rebs have in storage. I’m telling you, it can’t be done! There’s one piece of land that’s never yet been up for sale, and that’s the half-acre you need to plant a flagpole on. That you have to take! It’s a people’s maidenhead — it won’t give in by itself, and its price is blood. It’s what we’re forgetting, but we’ll pay the price, that price, or I’m badly mistaken. Oh, our motives are good — why the hell wouldn’t they be, what motive’s not better than war? The idea, Washington thinks, is to kill three birds with one stone: Block the Reb government from shipping the cotton abroad and buying guns with it, give some individual Rebs a lick at the sugar pot and win them back to their allegiance, get the Northern mills some stock to make shirts with for our soldiers. All right, but the only time I ever let go at three birds on a limb, I broke the dining-room window, cut my grandfather’s head, and landed a rock in my mother’s soup. But this will be worse: it’s treason. Why? It takes two to make a sale, and in a war that means dealing with the enemy. The Reb army, if they let that cotton lay, if they fail to burn it when they evacuate Alexandria, have already heard the word as it’s been passed up the line. And we, if we pass the wink to the owners, those Rebs licking up sugar as we make the confiscation — we’re dealing with the enemy too. But, you say, not much — just a little bit. But I say, remember that maidenhead: there’s no such thing as one that’s been slightly took. And there’s going to be trouble, I promise you... Do you understand now why I say that cotton is hooded? Do I have to say more?”
“I thought you were my friend, Dan.”
“I’m talking as your friend.”
“You don’t sound much like it.”
“I’ll prove it. My orders are to pass you.”
“Pass me? You mean to go on that boat?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“Bill, do you know what impressed Mr. Dumont? Not your Annapolis life — which I didn’t know too much about, if I have to tell you the truth. But what you did right here, that brought him out of his chair.”
“For Landry, are you talking about?”
“That’s right — and it impressed us, too.”
“Who is us?”