Winds of the Storm

  ”Kneel up, papillon, I want to fill you….”

  Zahra’s eyes were lidded, and the fog of desire made it difficult for her to see, but she raised up onto her knees. He reached behind him and pulled a thick towel from the chair. Folding the towel, he placed it on the floor of the big tub for her to kneel upon. Once her knees were cushioned, he fit himself behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist. They melted into each other, kissing and caressing, then he turned her back and possessively arrowed his way into paradise.

  The feel of her heated cove grasping him so sweetly took Archer’s breath away. Savoring the sensations, he held for a moment, his hands on her hips, and never wanted to move; ever. She was too enticing, though; the skin of her back, smooth and damp, and the soft skin of her neck perfect to place kisses against. Soon his hands were moving over her and he was moving inside her; coaxing, inviting her to take up the rhythm of lovers.

  Zahra needed no coaxing; she was already enthralled. His splendid length filled her with such glorious delight that she groaned and arched back to reward him with tender kisses. With him she could take her passion without shame. With him there were no boundaries or borders. Any man in her future would be measured against this skilled and seductive gens de coleur, and she instinctively knew they would be found wanting; no man would make love to her with as much fervor or adoration as Archer Le Veq.

  And he proved it, beautifully, solidly, and wonderfully. An orgasm swept over her with such power that she knew she had died and gone to heaven. Her body splintered into a hundred glowing pieces, yet he didn’t stop until he too was shaken apart and they went limp against the edge of the tub.

  Later, in the bed, Archer held her close while she slept. He realized he never wanted to let her go. In his perfect world, she would be at his side every night, just like this until the end of time, but she wanted to leave. He knew she was worried about her parents and that her concerns for them came first, but then what? Would she come back to him or stay in the swamps where she was free to eschew corsets, shoes, and flower arranging? After all they’d been through together and all they’d shared, he couldn’t imagine her not being in his life. He’d never felt this way about any of his former mistresses. When he’d grown tired of them or they of him, he’d simply moved on; no regrets, no guilt, no tears. But the razor-carrying woman sleeping beside him would not be so easily dismissed. Her keen mind, sense of humor, and the way she had of deflating his ego were unparalleled and therefore unique. Also unique was the fact that for the first time in his life, Archer wanted to keep a woman who didn’t want to be kept.

  At the next meeting, Beau took out paper and charcoal. With Zahra and Archer as his guides, he began drawing a likeness of Brandon Crete. It took them all a while to get the eyes right, the cut of his chin and the slope of his nose, but Beau eventually came up with a portrait everyone agreed was very close to the real thing. “I have a printer friend who can put this on a plate and make us some doubles. How many do you want?”

  Zahra shrugged. “Fifteen, twenty? I don’t want to circulate too many and chance Crete or his cronies seeing them and begin raising questions about their origin. What do you all think?”

  Everyone agreed that erring on the side of caution would be the best approach.

  Archer asked Beau, “How long do you think the printing might take?”

  “Since he has to make the plate, I’d say no more than a few days. He has his own operation.”

  Raimond asked pointedly, “Is he discreet?”

  “Yes.”

  Zahra was glad to hear that.

  So it was decided that Beau would handle the tasks surrounding the portrait. He would get the duplicates back to Zahra as soon as he could.

  Suzette and Clare were so far unsuccessful in their searches for the Death Books in the homes of Spain and Thomas. Suzette said, “I found his Kluxers robe in a locked trunk in his cellar, but there was no book with them.”

  Clare added, “I’ve been cleaning the Thomas house top to bottom for the past two days, and so far, nothing. I’ve run out of places to look.”

  “Okay,” Zahra said. “If you haven’t found anything in two more days, pull out. That goes for you too, Suzette. There’s no sense in beating a dead horse.”

  She turned to Archer. “Any word from the friends you wired?”

  “Yes. None of the three can come for various reasons.”

  Zahra hid her disappointment.

  André said, “Maybe we can get along without them.”

  Archer countered, “We’re going to have to.”

  Zahra asked Wilma, “Has Isenbaum paid you any more visits?”

  “No, but a soldier came by today and asked me about him. I guess the wife of the Union captain kept her word about speaking to her husband.”

  Zahra thought that good news. “What did he want to know?”

  “What Isenbaum said to me. Did I know him socially, that sort of thing. He then said he would give the report to the captain, and should I have any more encounters with Isenbaum I was to let the army know.”

  Zahra thought that even better news. She then asked Alfred about his cousin Roland. He and his men were working at the express company warehouse owned by Sam Banks.

  “So far, nothing. Banks has hired a gang boss who’s paid to keep an eye on the fifteen sweepers who work at night, and his presence has been keeping Roland and the others from doing anything but sweeping. He’s not sure if they’re going to have an opportunity to look around or not.”

  That was not good news. “That leaves Isenbaum’s home and the home and cigar shop of our last target, Hathaway Dawes, to still search,” Zahra said.

  Archer added, “Mardi Gras starts tomorrow. Probably be a perfect night to slip inside Dawes’s shop and take a look around.”

  “André, Beau, Drake, and I are patrolling with the veterans tomorrow night,” Raimond informed them.

  Alfred spoke up, “And I’ll be driving Mrs. Vincent to a ball. She and Miss Sable are due back on the morning train.”

  Zahra looked to Archer. “Guess that leaves you and me.”

  “Guess so.”

  “All right then. You all know what to do. We’ll meet again in two nights’ time. Wish Archer and me luck tomorrow evening.”

  With that, the meeting was adjourned.

  The words Mardi Gras translate to “Fat Tuesday” in English. In New Orleans, Mardi Gras filled the city streets with floats, masked revelers, and the festive sounds of its signature hybrid music as the predominantly Catholic population embraced excess before having to put on the mantle of solemnity and reflection for Lent.

  Masked and disguised as pirates, Zahra and Archer walked through the raucous crowds choking the streets. Holding hands so they’d not get separated in the sea, Zahra had to admit she’d never seen anything like it in her life. Everywhere she looked, people were drinking, laughing, and kicking up their heels. The buildings were decorated, and all the lights bathing the area made it seem like day instead of night. She skirted by people dressed in elaborate, expensive costumes and others wearing their everyday clothes and a simple domino covering their eyes. The air was filled with high-pitched laughter and shouts of glee. Off in the distance, the faint but strong beat of a drum echoed like the heartbeat of a city drunk on gaiety.

  “It’s up here,” Archer called back to say. They turned off the street and down one far quieter and less lit. Zahra saw a masked Indian hurrying as if he was late for the throng and a few masked couples in formal wear slowly sauntering arm in arm, their eyes on each other. None of them paid the costumed Archer and Zahra any attention.

  Zahra was glad of that, because she and Archer were on their way to search the cigar shop of Hathaway Dawes. Because the shop was not housed in a building on a main street, they were hoping their entrance would go unnoticed.

  Archer had scouted the back of the place earlier in the day and had found it to have one small door secured with a standard padlock. Because Zahra had lost her lock
picks in the fire, along with everything else she’d brought to New Orleans, they were relying on a set Archer had owned since the war.

  They entered easily enough and quickly closed the door behind them. Due to the darkness of the interior it took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to their surroundings, but once they could see, they began slowly moving around. The sweet smell of tobacco permeated the place.

  The shop was small and tidy. A wooden counter stood between the customers and the cigars, and that’s where Zahra and Archer began.

  Since it was impossible to do a thorough search in the dark, she fished out of her trousers pocket one of the stubby candles she’d brought along and some matches. She lit it and prayed the faint light wouldn’t attract the attention of anyone who might be passing by.

  After placing the candle on the floor to keep it from being seen on the street, they used its light to look through the many humidors stacked behind the counter. Nothing.

  “Let’s try his office,” Archer said.

  Zahra agreed. Picking up the candle, she quickly followed him into a tiny inner office. The desk was locked, but Archer and his picks conquered it quickly, and soon she was going through the papers in the desk and in the drawers. In the bottom drawer, Zahra reached her hand all the way into the back behind a stack of ledgers and felt a small tablet. From its position, it was hard to determine whether it had simply fallen behind the ledgers accidentally, or whether it had been put there deliberately. “I think I found something,” she said quietly to her accomplice, who was concentrating on the contents of a small cupboard on the wall. She slid out the tablet, then sat on the floor to examine it.

  He came over and hunkered down beside her. Both of them kept their ears open for trouble.

  Zahra opened the first page. When she saw the words Deth List, her hands began to shake. The next page had a listing of names that began with Frederick Douglass and ended…there were so many names that it made her heart ache. “This is it.”

  “Then let’s leave. We can study it later.”

  “Let’s make sure we put everything back the way we found it. Maybe he won’t notice it’s missing for awhile.”

  As quietly and as quickly as they could, they tidied up the desk’s interior and relocked it. Although they’d searched the place thoroughly, they were both trained not to leave notice of their presence behind; they replaced all the humidors in their original order and positioning. Giving the place one last sweep with their candle to make certain they hadn’t forgotten anything, Zahra and Archer slipped out as easily as they’d slipped in. While she kept watch, he quickly replaced and locked the padlock. Then they walked back to the main street and let themselves be swallowed by the celebrating crowds.

  Once they were safely back in Archer’s suite, they sat and leafed through the pages. The names listed astounded them, not only because of how many there were but also because of whose there were. Frederick Douglass was at the top of the list, followed by others known for their outspoken commitment to justice for the race. Men such as James D. Lynch, a presiding elder of the Methodist Church and the secretary of state for the state of Mississippi; Henry M. Turner, who’d been born free in South Carolina and served as a member of Georgia’s constitutional convention and the state’s first Reconstruction legislature; Reverend Jonathan C. Gibbs, born in Philadelphia, educated at Dartmouth, who studied theology at Princeton and was Florida’s secretary of state.

  The next name on the list chilled her. “Your friend Dunn’s name is here, and a line has been drawn through it.”

  Archer looked where she pointed and read Oscar’s name. His jaw tightened. “Was the line drawn through his name because of his untimely death or because Dawes and the others played a part in it?”

  Neither of them knew.

  Zahra said gravely, “According to my source, these books are all over the South. Who knows how many men of the race are in the supremacists’ sights?”

  “Or how many plots are already underway.”

  It was a grim situation made even more grim by the knowledge that if there were plots afoot, there was no way to stop them even if she left for Washington in the morning. An investigation into the matter would, without a doubt, take months to be officially commissioned, considering the volatile nature of the present political scene, and even though there were congressmen taking testimony related to the ongoing violence in many areas of the South, counting on the Congress to actually do something was another matter altogether.

  Archer could see her thinking. “So what are you going to do?”

  “Because we’ve found one of the books, I can now pull all of our people off the search and have them concentrate on Crete. If we don’t turn up anything on him in the next seven days, then I go on to Washington.” She met his eyes. “Does that sound reasonable?”

  “It does.” Although parts of him wondered if he’d ever see her again after she left New Orleans. With that in mind, he wanted to spend every waking and sleeping moment with her until her departure. The desire surprised him, because he’d never been obsessive with any other woman—but then he reminded himself that from the first time they’d met Zahra had never been just any woman. “Is there anything else we need to discuss?” he asked.

  “Not that I can think of. Why?”

  “Because I want to hold you.”

  The seriousness of his tone was reflected in his gaze. His mood drew Zahra to her feet, and she let herself be enfolded in his strong arms.

  He whispered above her, “I’m hoping, if I hold onto you long enough, I’ll awaken and find the Death Books nothing more than a bad dream.”

  She tightened her hold. “And if we do wake up and the Death Books are still what they are, it won’t stop the race from going forward.”

  He kissed the top of her hair. “No, it won’t.”

  Chapter 14

  Drake’s printer friend had the duplicates ready the following evening. At dawn the next day Zahra put the initial part of her plan for Crete into motion. With Juliana and Sable’s help, Zahra transformed herself into an old woman with graying hair and a pronounced but dignified limp. The changes in her hair and face were brought about by the skillful application of a talcum-powdered wig and some theater paint Sable had left over from a skit put on by her orphans. The limp was achieved by cobbling another heel onto one of Zahra’s brogans. With one shoe higher than the other, the effect was as real as she needed it to be. She’d also wound lengths of cotton batting she’d gotten from Wilma around her arms, legs, and thighs to give her body more girth.

  Juliana looked at this newest persona and shook her head at the amazing difference. “Are you still in there?”

  Zahra’s smile showed bright and clear through the new face.

  Sable said, “You look like an old woman.”

  “Good. Now, let’s hope everyone on the street thinks that as well.”

  Zahra had shared the contents of the Death Books with everyone last evening, and all had been as concerned and as stricken as Zahra and Archer. Juliana would be seeing Henry Adams this morning to bring him up to date.

  Now, as Juliana handed Zahra an old handbag to go with her disguise, she asked, “You are going to be careful?”

  “Of course. We’ve come too far for me not to be.”

  Sable would be accompanying Zahra. Because Sable was well known on the streets of New Orleans for her work with the area’s orphans, she’d be able to give Zahra some legitimacy with the people Zahra planned to ask for help.

  Juliana wished them both luck, then Sable and Zahra began their drive into town.

  They found the early morning streets awash in litter from last night’s Mardi Gras celebration but devoid of the revelers, who were now home sleeping off the aftereffects of too much celebrating. However, the vendors, cooks, laundresses, and other little people who didn’t have that luxury were setting up their carts, opening their storefronts, or heading into work.

  Sable pulled back on the reins. “There’s some
one we can trust.” After setting the brake, she got down from the wagon and hurried around to assist her elderly passenger.

  Zahra climbed down as gingerly as a true old woman would, then walked over with Sable to a young woman setting up a cart that would display the pralines she’d have for sale.

  Sable said brightly, “Morning, Delia.”

  “Mornin’ Mrs. Le Veq. How are you? If you’re looking for orphans I haven’t seen any in the past few days.”

  “Thanks, if you do see any, you know where to contact me.”

  Delia nodded.

  “Well, I’m here for something else this morning. This is Miss Minnie. Her granddaughter was taken from her a few days ago.”

  Delia said, “Sorry to hear that, ma’am. Did they take her and put her to work on one of the plantations?”

  “I think so,” Miss Minnie said in a wavering voice. “And I’m so worried I can’t sleep.”

  Sable showed Delia the likeness of Crete. “This is the man we think may have taken her. Does he look familiar?”

  Delia studied the face. “No, but do you want me to keep an eye out for him?”

  “Would you please and let me know if you see him?”

  “I will. Folks stealing our children like they were apples on trees. It has to stop.”

  Zahra reached into her handbag and took out a coin. She handed it to Delia and said, “For your trouble.”

  “Thanks.”

  With a wave of parting, Sable helped Zahra back onto the wagon seat, and they drove on.

  The women spent the next hour talking to people Sable knew and leaving drawings of Crete behind. They spoke to draymen, sweepers, newsboys, shoeblacks, and barbers. Many expressed their sympathy for Minnie’s plight and offered up stories of their own of youngsters they knew of who’d been kidnapped and made to sign work contracts that kept them indentured until they reached adulthood. All of Sable’s contacts were advised to be discreet; if Crete learned he was being followed, he would move on. They heartily reassured both women that they would be.