her ample and unfettered bosom and began cracking heads. "You bide a spell, Maestro, if you would. If they kill me don't tell nobody how it happened. It ain't somethin' I want on my tombstone."
Shaw waded into the maelstrom of bare legs, thrashing breasts, yellowed petticoats and blue uniforms, dodging a swat with the slung-shot that cracked audibly on the point of his shoulder, and assisted Boechter-who was about half Williams's weight-and the others in dragging the Girod Street Harpies away from their manacled partner and thrusting them, screeching and cursing, out the door. January remained against the wall until the fighting was over, then came forward without a word and helped bandage up LaBranche, who'd taken a bad cut on the forearm from somebody's knife. "Don't let anyone arrest me if he dies," he remarked sourly, when Shaw came over to hand the hurt man a tin cup of whisky.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Lieutenant, I'll sooner fight one of their men anytime!" The man gulped it down. "She's a she-steamboat and no mistake." Shaw helped him to his feet and supported him into the little infirmary cupboard where, four months previously, January had examined the Grille brothers after the fight on Bayou St. John.
"Now, that warrant was the silliest damn thing I ever heard of," said the Kentuckian when he returned, still rubbing his shoulder. "I thought Canonge ought to hear about it. He's a sensible fella."
"Thank you." January sighed, knowing that, even with the long day in the cells taken into account, things could have been far worse. "Thank you very much. I take it none of my family came to make my bail?"
As he'd been led out of the yard past his mother's house she hadn't even so much as opened the shutters.
Nothing to do with her. January didn't know whether to be bitter or amused.
"Your sister came by." Shaw pulled a kerchief from his pocket and wiped the last stray drops and smears of blood from the bench where January had made the injured LaBranche sit. "Mrs. Corbier, that is. Said Mamzelle Marie mentioned to her as how you was here. She asked if there was anything she could do, but seein' as the charge was murder, silly or not, there wasn't no bail." He fished January's papers from his desk and handed them over, official recognition that he was a free man.
January checked them and slid them into his jacket pocket. They were actually a copy of the original papers, the signatures carefully forged. He had six or seven such copies cached in his room and at the houses of both his sisters, just in case of mishap. It cost him an effort to say, "Thank you." Not to think about the fact that he had not needed such things in France. "And please thank Judge Canonge again for coming in and saving me two nights in the cells. I am very grateful for his trouble."
When Shaw returned to his desk January followed, hands behind his back. "What became of Mrs.
Redfern's pearls?"
The Kentuckian didn't look up from trimming the candles. "Mrs. Redfern's pearls that allegedly ain't really her pearls?"
"Those very pearls," January said. "Because if you've still got them, I'd like to take them out to Milneburgh tomorrow, as bait to get me in to speak to Reverend Dunk." And he told Shaw about Laurence Jumon's carriage team of white horses.
"Now that is most interestin'." The gray cold eyes narrowed as Shaw settled into his battered chair.
"Because I been a little curious about this particular Prophet of the Lord. Seems instead of buildin' this Church out to Milneburgh with the money he made out of resellin' Mrs. R's slaves, Reverend Hellfire turned around and bought slaves, to the tune of about eighty-five hundred dollars... which if you calculate the amount of Church money he used to buy them slaves from her, exactly half the profit he made, plus five thousand dollars, it all works out to just about that very figure."
There was a time when January would have been surprised that a Kaintuck could accomplish such mathematics. Now he only said, "Dunk's fronting for her."
"Either that, or he's doin' a damn good job of makin' it look that way." Shaw opened one of the desk's lower drawers, withdrew a tied packet of papers, then, rising, put a hand on January's shoulder as if to murmur a confidence, and drew him to the Cabildo's outer doors. With their backs to the lamplit room he tilted the