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own vile deeds. But a moment's thought proved that could not be. Some, perhaps, but in other cases the dates were wrong; Joshua had been with him in St. Louis or New Albany or aboard the Fevre Dream when these people met their ghastly ends. He could not be responsible.

Still, Marsh saw, there was a pattern to the stops York had ordered, to his secretive trips ashore. He was visiting the sites of these stories, one by one. What was York looking for? What... or who? An enemy? An enemy who had done all this, somehow, moving up and down the river? If so, then Joshua was on the side of right. But why the silence, if his purpose was just?

It had to be more than one enemy, Marsh realized. No single person could be responsible for all the killing in those ledgers, and Joshua had said "enemies," after all. Besides, he had come back from New Madrid with blood on his hands, but that did not end his quest.

He could not make sense of it.

Marsh began to go through the drawers and storage nooks in York's desk. Paper, fancy stationery impressed with a picture of the Fevre Dream and the name of the line, envelopes, ink, a half-dozen pens, a blotter, a map of the river system with marks on it, boot polish, sealing wax: in short, nothing useful. In one drawer he found letters, and turned to them hopefully. But they told him nothing. Two were letters of credit, the rest simple business correspondence with agents in London, New York, St. Louis, and other cities. Marsh did come on one letter from a banker in St. Louis bringing Fevre River Packets to York's attention. "I think it best suited to your purposes as you describe them," the man had written. "Its owner is an experienced riverman with a reputation for honesty, said to be exceedingly ugly but fair, and he has recently had reverses which should make him receptive to your offer." The letter went on, but told Marsh nothing he had not already known.

Replacing the letters as he had found them, Abner Marsh rose and moved about the cabin, looking for something else, something to enlighten him. He found nothing; clothing in the drawers, York's vile-tasting drink in the wine rack, suits hung in the closet, books everywhere. Marsh checked the titles of the volumes by York's bedside; one was a book of poetry by Shelley, the other some sort of medical book he could scarcely understand a line of. The tall bookcase offered more of the same; much fiction and poetry, a fair amount of history, books on medicine and philosophy and natural science, a dusty old tome on alchemy, an entire shelf of books in foreign languages. A few untitled books, hand-bound in finely tooled leather with gold-leaf pages, presented themselves, and Marsh pulled one out, hoping this might be the diary or log to answer his questions. But if it was, he could not read it; the words were in some grotesque, spindly code, and the hand was clearly not Joshua's airy script but rather crabbed and tiny.

Marsh went through the cabin one final time, to make sure he had overlooked nothing, and finally determined to leave, not much wiser than he had come. He inserted the key in the lock, turned it carefully, snuffed the lamp, stepped outside, and relocked the door behind him. It had gotten a trifle cooler outside. Marsh realized that he was drenched in sweat. He slipped the key back into his coat pocket and turned to go.

And stopped.

A few yards away, the ghastly old woman Katherine was standing and staring at him, cold malevolence in her eyes. Marsh decided to brazen it out. He tipped his cap. "Good evening, ma'am," he said to her.

Katherine smiled slowly, a creeping rictus of a smile that twisted her vulpine face into a mask of terrible glee. "Good evening, Captain," she said. Her teeth, Marsh noted, were yellow, and very long.

Chapter Nine

New Orleans, August 1857

AFTER Adrienne and Alain had departed on the steamer Cotton Queen, bound for Baton Rouge and Bayou Sara, Damon Julian decided to take a stroll along the levee to a French coffee stall he knew. Sour Billy Tipton walked uneasily beside him, casting suspicious glances at everyone they passed. The rest of Julian's party followed; Kurt and Cynthia walked together, while Armand brought up the rear, furtive and ill-at-ease, already touched by the thirst. Michelle was back