I seen 'em do this a thousand times." He spoke rough English, like an American; January guessed him a freedman from one of the American enterprises in the town. "Rushing around like somebody took and lit they tails on fire, and then we end up waitin' all the same." He wiped his hands on a rag.
"Think we'll make Twelve-Mile Point by dark?" "Oh, sure. Once the old Philly get goin', she goes, and Mr. Graham, he can work her up the banks close enough you can pick daisies off the levee. We'll make Red Church by dark, easy, never mind Twelve-Mile Point."
January personally didn't think so-Red Church landing was a good twenty-five miles upriver-but nodded and looked impressed. He lowered his voice, and leaned down a little to the engineer. "Look, sir, this's my first time out of New Orleans. I got all my papers just fine, and notarized at the Cabildo, but I been hearing rumors and talk. How safe is it, going up to Twelve-Mile Point? I'm going to see my sister, that still works for Mr. Bailey up there, and I'm... well, I'm a little worried. About river pirates and slave stealers and such."
All humor vanished from the engineer's eyes. "Where you staying, brother?"
January hefted his grip. "I thought I'd sleep out in the woods."
"You should be safe. But watch your back, you know? You don't have to sleep in the woods, neither.
The big house up at Spanish Bayou, 'bout two miles down from the Point, is empty now, they're sellin' it up. You can probably sleep on the gallery or in one of the cabins. There'll be water in the well and everything. Just be a little careful who you talk to, and don't get yourself anywhere where you can't run.
How you gettin' home?"
"I thought if nobody's around the plantation I'd put out a flag on the landing when the Lancaster comes by tomorrow."
"Just what I was going to tell you. Bailey's a good man-county magistrate in St. Charles Parish, as you probably know. Go to him if you can, if you get in any kind of trouble. His place is about three miles above the point. Skylark Hill, he calls it, but most people still call it the Old Marmillon Place."
"I know I sound like a timid old maid," said January deprecatingly. "I hear most people can travel pretty safe-I hear even Marie Laveau went upriver for a bit, last month."
The engineer chuckled. "That she did. Took a cabin on the Lancaster, bold as paint, is what Guidry on the Lancaster told me, and put a gris-gris on his engine room into the bargain, for them lettin' her off at the old Black Oak landing like she asked, and tellin' off the Jefferson to pick her up there again on their way down. I'd sure like to see some slave stealer try to mess with that lady." He threw back his head and laughed richly, relishing the picture of the slave stealers' discomfiture. "Now that I truly would."
It was five thirty, and close to sunset, when the Philadelphia finally backed out of the wharf. From among a group of black freedmen and free colored laborers on the bottom deck, January nervously watched the banks slide by, wondering how from the height of the texas deck Mr. Graham could possibly navigate among the slanting shadows, the hot, hard glare of brazen sun on the water and then the fast-falling twilight that changed every snag, every bar, every line of ripples from moment to moment as he watched.
The engineer hadn't lied about the pilot's skill. Once clear of what had been the Hurst plantation, now divided up into house lots, the river's banks deteriorated. Hugging them close, out of the heavy strength of the main channel that swept the downstream-bound boats so quickly by, was a matter of avoiding fallen trees; submerged mud spits; hidden obstacles; and, January reflected uneasily, 'the corpses of other boats that had come to grief on similar debris.
How the pilots did it January didn't know, but in a very short time he saw the lights of the Carrollton wharf twinkling primrose through just-gathering dusk. They stopped there and went through what seemed to him to be an endless, fiddling rigmarole of off-loading cargo, taking on passengers, holding the boat while the passengers went hunting for the youngest member of their family who had wandered away; no, wait, Mr. Slow-Toad and his worthless wife and family want to get off here after all.