Darkness
Chapter 23

Natchez

May 13, 1812

Gregor

It is long past midnight. Rosalind has fallen asleep, and I lay next to her in bed, listening to her quiet breathing, feeling the warmth emanating from her side of the bed. Normally I would slip downstairs and spend the night in my study, but the Bakers are in our guestroom. I don’t want to be caught creeping around the house in the night and to have them start to feel unsettled by me as well. It is nice to have some friendships that don’t seem sullied by the incident in March. Two months later, and I have started to lose hope that things will return to normal. I guess being the awkward town pariah is just my fate now.

So I lay in bed, resigned to my night of inactivity. I might read for a while. The dark doesn’t impede my ability to do that. But first, I silently ask Wolk, “How is Ayola?”

“Very well, my dear, and actually, I have news that Misty shared with me.”

“Oh?”

“Moses has proposed to Dalila, and she has accepted.”

I have a sharp intake of breath, delighted for my friends, but then I think, “I wonder if Stephen will allow it?”

“Actually, yes. Moses spoke to Stephen after they arrived home to Homochitto, explained his plans, and Stephen has agreed.”

“Really? He agreed so easily? I admit I am a bit surprised. I thought he’d have a little too much slave-owning planter in him to allow such an unusual arrangement.”

“Moses had given it a great deal of thought, and was able to assuage Stephen’s concerns. He explained his understanding that Stephen will still be Dalila’s master, which will limit their freedom. And Moses also proposed building a small cabin, at his own expense, for the new family to live in. He wishes to have it apart from the slave cabin area, but assured Stephen that the cabin would belong to the plantation.”

“Well, goodness, Moses has thought of everything, hasn’t he?” I am so pleased, and very proud of him for replaceing a way to achieve this. It has only been a few months since Moses moved out there, and he has already managed to make arrangements to secure his future with Dalila. Or at least as secure as it can be, considering her status.

I mull it all around in my mind for a few minutes, and then I have a brilliant idea for a wedding gift. I start making plans, using Wolk to remember everything I am thinking. He is better than taking notes, especially in the middle of the night while I am trying not to wake up Rosalind. This is going to keep me busy for the rest of the night, I realize happily.

Baker

“Hey Captain,” Ralph grins at me as I come back on board. He thinks it’s hilarious to call me Captain now, after we had been on the engine crew together all the way down from Pittsburgh. So whenever he uses the word Captain, he always puts some funny inflection in his voice, and it makes me chuckle every time. He’s a good man, and while I’m away from the boat I leave him in charge.

“How’re things around here?” I ask.

“Quiet,” he responds. “A couple of the fellows aren’t feeling so well, though.”

I snicker, knowing what they always do the first night in town after the cargo is cleared off the boat. The steamboat has been a real boon to the business of the brothels and taverns in town. “Out too late carousing Under-the-Hill?” I ask.

“Um, no, actually, they didn’t even go out last night. They’re in their bunks.”

Oh. I guess they must have some illness. “All right, I’ll go check in with them. They can take the day off if they need to.”

“So what’s the plan today?” he asks.

“I want us to pump out the bilge,” I say, and he groans. I agree, it’s a filthy, unpleasant job, to clear the water out of the very bottom of the boat that accumulates over time. It seeps in, the muddy river water gathering and sloshing around, a few inches deep. The bilge is smelly and dank and dark, and to pump out the water we must stay in there swatting away the little flying insects that breed in the moist environment, trying not to inhale the noxious fumes too deeply.

“I’ll go break it to the crew,” he says morosely, and I pat him on the back, then go below to check on the ill crew members. I head to the cramped crew quarters behind the captain’s cabin, where we have bunks stacked in like sardines to try to fit everyone. We try to keep the passenger cabin bunks available to folks who are paying fares.

One of the men is asleep when I enter, but the other one, Caleb, is staring with shining eyes as I come in. He’s also one of the fellows who stayed with the ship after our maiden voyage. It smells worse than bilge water in here, and I have the unpleasant suspicion that the chamber pot has been used to upchuck someone’s dinner.

I go and sit down on the edge of his bunk. “Hey Caleb,” I say softly so as not to wake up the man a few feet away. “What’s happening?”

He lifts his hand to his head and winces. “I have a splitting headache. Don’t feel too good.”

I reach my hand out and touch his forehead. “Sheesh. You’re burning up! How long has this been going on?”

“Started yesterday,” he says, not seeming like he is in the mood for much conversation.

I nod over at the other bunk, not able to tell who is there under the blankets. “Who is that?”

“Albert.”

“Ah. Is he the same?”

“Yeah,” he tells me.

Huh. “All right, you get some rest, I’ll send someone in to help clean things up a little. I’ll be back later to check on you.”

He closes his eyes, grimacing.

I go into the galley and tell a couple of the maids that I’d like them to bring some wet cloths to the crew quarters for the ill men to lay on their foreheads, and I warn them that the chamber pots need emptying and cleaning. Then I leave the ship to go replace Gregor in his office.

He is leaving the terminal building, Tiger padding along beside him, as I approach. “I was just coming to see you,” he says, “ask if your crew needs anything.”

“Actually, yes. A couple of the fellows are sick, I was wondering if there might be a doctor free to come and check on them.”

He nods. “I can go see if Doctor Duncan is available. What should I tell him is wrong?”

I don’t want to say the words. I have a superstition that naming yellow fever out loud makes it more likely to appear. It’s a problem every summer on the river, and I fear that it might be getting an early start. I just describe the symptoms that I observed. “They have fever, and headache, and upset stomach.”

I can tell that he knows exactly what this might mean as well. But he doesn’t say it either. “All right,” he says, “I’ll go up the hill and ask if Samuel can come to examine them.”