The Secret City

3. The Black Widow

Sure enough, the Wild Dayrell moored at the Customs House wharf, early the next morning. Despite the hour, a small crowd gathered to stare at the ship. I shouldered my way through the gongoozlers, and boarded the ship.

“She seems more than ship enough for a fast run into Panama, Captain Berry.”

“She is. Steam’s up. We are ready, as soon as your party and effects are aboard.”

Later that morning, we began loading the Wild Dayrell. I watched from the deck as Dane’s equipment and effects, and my own, were loaded aboard by the crew. Every man of them was black, and all of them working without evident orders from Berry, or the first mate. Various tradesmen delivered victuals for the crew and passengers. The last item was a delivery from a local apothecary, who provided medicines for Dane, including Laudanum. I signed the receipt for the cases, and was given a lading list by the young black man, whose mule cart had delivered the supplies. A cryptic sentence was written on the back of the list: “Corner of Tradd and Bay Streets, midnight, alone.”

I pocketed the note, as a carriage drew up on the dockside below me. It was followed by a large covered wagon. Two armed men sat on the wagon and a third stepped down from beside the driver of the carriage, and opened the door. A man stepped down. He was tall and swarthy, dressed in a dark frock coat, a garish red silk waistcoat sporting a gold fob watch, and a rather badly matching, loosely tied cravat. He placed a stovepipe hat on his head, turned, and extended a gloved hand to someone inside the carriage.

A lace-gloved hand reached out from the shadows within the carriage. A large black hat emerged, followed by the frame of a woman equally as tall as the man. She was remarkable in appearance. Her face was heavily veiled, and she wore a voluminous black dress and many strings of finely carved, black jet beads. The dress was similarly trimmed with these mourning beads, adopted by the local grand-dames in remembrance of the men lost in the war. She opened a black parasol against the glare of the low afternoon sun, and stood beside the carriage, an intriguing spectre amidst the otherwise colourful scene on the wharf.

I watched, as Berry walked down the gangway to meet the pair and escort them aboard. The woman walked up the gangway with an easy, yet delicate gait. She paused, momentarily, to glance my way. I could see little of her expression on the pale face beneath the shadow of the parasol. I walked to the gunwale, bowed, and extended a hand to assist her onto the deck.

“Why thank you, Mister McCoy.” The face was somewhat clearer through the veil; pale, delicately boned with dark eyes and full mouth that seemed momentarily to flicker with a sardonic smile.

The tall man hurried up the gangway behind her. “Ah, yes, McCoy, Dane’s man, so Captain Berry tells me. Permit me to introduce Miss Heather Pinckney. She will be accompanying me as my secretary and personal assistant. I …am Augustus Swinburne.” The pause was for the announcement to take effect. For my part, at least, there was none. Swinburne clearly thought much of himself.

My face doubtless showed as much. Swinburne’s expression soured slightly. Pinckney’s hand squeezed mine, a strong firm handshake, like a man’s. The smile broadened and eyes glinted mockingly.

As an afterthought, Swinburne removed his glove and extended his own hand, an unpleasantly soft, moist and decidedly foppish contrast to the woman’s.

“Swinburne,” he said again. “Your employer.” He looked at me with small, hooded eyes that were far too close together. His hair was close cropped, curly and black. The skin seemed dark, giving him an Arabic appearance. I took an instant dislike to the man.

I made my excuses and went back to my task of checking the oncoming equipment and supplies. I wondered if Dane was aware that he was supposed to trek into the Andes with a delicate southern belle as part of his entourage. As the loading was well underway, I left to bring Dane aboard. I found him giving instructions to his domestic staff. They were supposed to be unaware that he would not be returning to them. It seemed to me they knew very well. All were faithful servants who were treated as family members.

I spoke to Dane over luncheon about my reservations concerning the Pinckney woman, “the Black Widow” as he called her. He knew something of her, and simply advised me to let future events decide the duration of her sojourn with us. Final farewells were said to the staff. Dane was sombre, but resolute. They were all to be well taken care of after my return to Charleston. Several of the crew arrived after lunch to cart Dane’s personal effects aboard. Once he was resting in his cabin, I told him I had an evening business matter to conclude for my uncle. I would see him next shortly, before first daylight, when the Wild Dayrell was due to depart on the outgoing tide .

***

Bay Street ran down the East side of the peninsula, on which the city of Charleston had been built. Tradd cut across the peninsula, now a warren of alleyways, tall brick walls, and merchant houses, crowded one upon the other. On the harbor side of Bay Street was a single street lantern, illuminated with a dimly flickering kerosene wick within a Fresnel lens. The water lapped against the dockside and crumbling wooden sheds, in and around which were stored bales of cotton and huge barrels of powdered phosphate fertilizer. I hung back in the shadows at the end of Tradd Street. I did not really know what to expect. As the night air cooled, a mist began to rise from the warmer water in the harbour. I checked my Benson half-moon. It was close to midnight. All was still on the waterfront. From a distant tavern, the noise of drunken revellers echoed across the stone cobbles. A movement caught my attention; a shape ahead of me, down a narrow passage toward the harbour. The moon above illuminated the rising sea mist. There, silhouetted against the shimmering lambent light was the shape of a man. He stood still, as if somehow sensing his surroundings, then an arm rose, and a hand caught the moonlight as it beckoned to me. I imagined I was quite invisible in the shadows on the opposite side of the street. Evidently, I was about to be taken to meet the mysterious Miss Belle Boyd. I crossed the street, looking down it one way, and then the other, and stepped into the alleyway. The shape in the mist advanced towards me. We met in the darkness between the two buildings and rows of barrels stacked in the alleyway.

“I am looking for a looped blade clasp knife from Beale’s. Would you happen to have one for me?” she asked.

I was momentarily taken aback. The voice was a woman’s. She was dressed in a heavy, woollen pea coat, cloth cap and sailor’s bell-bottoms. I answered her with the code phrase Prestwicke had given me. “I have been sent by the gnomes of Shaftsbury.”

“Mister McCoy, we are both being watched. You must be extremely careful. The information you must carry to the British is in this map case. Hide it with the others you are carrying to South America, until another courier contacts you.”

She handed me a heavy leather tube. Without another word, she turned and began to walk away from me. I watched, curious to know more about her. However, this was hardly the time and place to begin a conversation.

I began to turn away, when a larger shape blocked the entrance to the alley in front of the Boyd woman. It was a man on horseback. The horse moved awkwardly, on cloth bound hooves. Boyd stopped and turned back to me. My way back to Bay Street was blocked as well. The stocky shape of Justus Begby was emerging from behind one of the huge phosphate barrels. Boyd and I looked at each other.

The voice of a man spoke from somewhere above us. “Bad tactical move, meeting in an alleyway.”

A door opened, and we were both bathed in the light of a kerosene lantern being held by a man in Federal Army blues. He was standing on a stairway. His other hand held a Colt revolver aimed rather steadily at my head. He adjusted the lantern to shine upon Boyd. We all looked at her. There was not much to see between the collar of the pea coat and the cap, but enough to tell me I was indeed in the company of Mrs. Heather Pinckney.

“My name is Major Denning, McCoy. I would be obliged if you would hand that map case over to my man, Begby.”

Preferring to have both hands free, I handed the case back to Belle Boyd.

“Perhaps Miss Boyd will hand it over instead. “

As I had hoped, the pistol barrel followed the map case. The move was rather ungallant of me, but I gambled that Denning would find it harder to fire at a defenceless woman. My stomach was knotted hard as a Turk’s Head. My heart began to pound like a drum in my ears. I assumed Boyd would be the best judge of whether or not turning over the case would be enough to save our lives. Boyd tossed it into the air to Denning. He holstered the Colt in a swift motion and caught the case. Denning untied the thong holding the cap, turned it toward the light and peered inside. He smiled.

“Thank you Miss Boyd, it seems your last mission for the Rebels will end in failure.”

He motioned to Begby and the man on horseback. “Quietly.”

He stepped back into the doorway, and darkness blanketed the alleyway. The four of us stood there for a second or so. The man on the horse drew a cavalry sabre, its blade flashing in the misty light. As in past moments of peril, I felt a wave of coldness flood over my body, wakening every muscle and nerve ending to the greatest alertness. Time seemed to slow down, as if to give me control over every split second, as I reacted to the danger. The intention of the man on the horse was to drive us both towards Begby. I knew from the brief introduction in the Cotton Row office that Begby was left-handed. I guessed earlier that the one-handed opening of something like a large clasp knife caused the callous on his left thumb. He was doubtless an expert at using it.

I foiled the manoeuvre by backing up against Boyd, and forcing her into a narrow space between two stacks of barrels. The man on the horse cursed, Begby laughed. “Hold back, Mackey, the young Massuh can’t fight me with his little cane.”

Begby shouldered his way in between the barrels towards me, the huge blade of a knife held ready to thrust upwards into my stomach and chest. Yes, he knew how to use a knife. I drew him in, a few paces more, to restrict his movements, then, when I felt Boyd’s body hit the wall of the alleyway behind me, I sprung the catch on my sword cane and dropped to my knees. It was almost too easy then. From the darkness in front of and below Begby, I could lean forward and thrust upwards. The length of my blade kept me well away from Bebgy’s knife. Begby stood with his legs apart and knife hand forward, momentarily puzzled by my movements. For one brief second, he had lost me in the darkness. He took another step. I thrust forward and upward, stabbing him cleanly in the groin. He screamed. I stabbed again, this time hoping to wound his knife hand, which I guessed would be reaching for his groin. He screamed a second time, and the clasp knife clattered on the ground.

As Begby collapsed, I climbed up the barrels on one side of me. They were stacked three high, and I had a height advantage over Mackey on the horse. I raced toward him over the barrel tops. I was performing something between a ballestra and a fle`che, though I was not particularly concerned with my fencing style under the circumstances.

Mackey’s reach with the sabre was longer than mine, his blade too heavy for me to be able to bind it. We parried and thrust for a few seconds, the sheath of the sword cane in my left hand blocking one blow to my left ankle. I then felt a hand grab the collar of my topcoat and pull me backward away from the engagement.

“Noise be damned, McCoy.”

As I heard the words, I saw Belle Boyd’s arm reach past my face. In the flash that followed, I saw a Colt Navy revolver in her hand. Beyond its barrel was the stunned expression on Mackey’s face as the bullet hit him squarely in the chest.

The impact lifted him cleanly out of the saddle. The horse reared up, but by then Boyd had already grabbed the reins with her free hand. She stepped off the barrel tops and mounted the horse. I jumped on behind her, and grabbed around her slim waist for the pommel.

Boyd backed the horse up by Mackey’s body on the ground, quickly aimed at his head, and fired again. She hesitated, looking for some sign of Begby between the barrels. The shadows had buried him. The tavern down the street was emptying in response to the shot. Boyd holstered her weapon in the folds of the pea coat, and urged the horse out of the alleyway, down the wharf, and into the mist.

We dismounted a few hundred yards down the wharf and let the horse canter off on its own. Boyd slipped into an open boat shed, and we both sat there in the darkness, as the noise and commotion of the attack subsided. I whispered loudly. “I could have taken him, given a few moments more.”

“No, he would have reached for his revolver by then. The silence only served the Yankees.”

“You gave up the map case rather too easily I thought.” Her eyes flashed in the darkness.

“I hoped that move would save our lives, McCoy. We suspected the Federals would ambush us after your less than stellar performance in the factor’s office. The drawings in the case were forged for their benefit. I just did not plan on being killed into the bargain.”

“You made sure that Mackey was dead. You would have killed Begby if you could have seen him, why?”

“McCoy, I give no quarter to my enemies.”

I said nothing. My concerns about the problems involved in taking a genteel southern lady into Peru were beginning to evaporate. I looked at her in the gloom of the shed. I had yet to fully see her face. The dark shape turned towards me, perhaps sensing my thoughts.

“There’ll be time for questions later. Right now, we have to get back to Berry’s ship. The Yankees certainly know who you are now. They do not seem to have discovered my identity. I can change back in to my ‘lady’s finery’ and board the ship. You cannot be seen. I will arrange with Berry to pick you up in the harbour at dawn.”

“Dane knows nothing of this business, and will be wondering where I am. He’ll certainly want to delay the departure until I can get aboard.”

“Jebediah knows a great deal more than you or I about this matter, McCoy. Whatever it is that the Confederacy wishes to keep out of Yankee hands, it is important enough that many people are risking their lives to accomplish this mission.”

“I don’t understand. Why was I sent to collect fake drawings?” She laughed, eyes flashing again, this time a gleaming smile as well. “This is a complicated game we play, McCoy. Everything will be crystal clear to you in good time. For now, we must get you safely out of Charleston. You are the only link we have with Prestwicke.”

I fumed quietly in the darkness. No scenario I could invent seemed to explain the events of the past few weeks.

***

Boyd tapped me on the shoulder. I must have slept. The sea mist was thicker, yet lighter to the east.

“The tide has changed, and I need to get aboard. Follow me down to the pilot house and I’ll leave you in good hands there.” I followed her as she stepped out of the boathouse and ran into the mist. A few hundred yards down the waterfront, to the south, was a wharf, sheltering small sloops and a larger cutter. A tall wooden building with a large widow’s walk on the roof loomed ahead of us. I recognized the now distinct smell of fried ham and collard greens with fatback, a meal discovered on the ocean journey from Philadelphia. I was suddenly very hungry.

Boyd motioned to a small rowboat with a mound of netting in the stern. I tumbled into it and waited, as she disappeared. Several minutes passed, and two men left the wooden building and approached the boat. Both were black, one short and stocky and the other tall and hugely built. They were dressed warmly against the morning chill, except for bare feet. They both grinned broadly at me, the first of the two touching a forefinger to his lips, as he nodded his head at me.

In turn, I nodded, and fell back against the netting. One of the men sat in the bow of the boat, the other took up the oars, and the boat was soon scudding off into the mist. It was only then that I realized the man in the bow was the African, Luther, from Whaley’s office.

The smaller man in the bow spoke in a gravel-voiced whisper. “I’m Cap’n Bob. Luther an’ I’ll tek you to where Mistress Boyd sez you gotta go.”

Luther took off his cloth cap and beat Bob’s head with it. “No man. I’m the cap’n. You’re the rower. The Cap’n doan row the boat. That makes me the Cap’n.”

“No it doesn’t.”

The argument continued, on and off, over the rest of the journey. They both seemed to know exactly where they were going. Once in a while, the man in the bow would tap his mate on the shoulder and the boat would slow to await the passage of something in the mist that I could not hear. After some time, I noticed that the sea around us was choppier and rolling to a heavier swell. The light was getting much stronger. The sun was rising. As soon as the mist burned off, we would be exposed for all to see.

As these thoughts occurred to me, a tall shape emerged from the brightening mist. It was a huge channel buoy, rather like three massive wooden barrels joined end to end. A small wooden framework was attached to the top. It held a large brass bell, which rang dolefully when the occasional large swell tilted the buoy far enough.

Cap’n Bob stood in the bow and steadied the dinghy against the buoy. He looked at me and grinne.

“Mistress Boyd says you have to sit here till she comes to get you, young Master. I guess you must have done sumpin’ awful bad to get this punishment.”

Cap’n Luther laughed and slapped his thigh. “She couldn’t be mad at you, or you’d be dead by now. But then, maybe she plans to leave you out here to starve, or else let you swim to shore if’n you can.”

They both laughed at that.

“Either way, do you think you’ll be needin’ that nice coat any longer, young Master?” Luther was right. Despite the chill, my greatcoat would be a hazard in the water. I took the coat off and handed it to him. I pulled off my boots and handed them over too. I kept the cane in one hand, and held Cap’n Bob’s shoulder, as I gingerly found a foothold and pulled myself up onto the buoy. There was a small square of lead-covered wood atop the bell. It was smeared in bird droppings. I sat down and locked my knees around the wooden frame. I looked down and saluted to two men.

"Thank you Captains both. Enjoy the coat and the boots.”

Both nodded and Cap’n Bob shoved off and, in a moment, the dinghy faded to nothingness in the mist. Their voices echoed eerily across the water.

"Damn it. I should’ve gotten the coat.”

“You didn’t ask. Take the boots.”

“Boots Hell. No white man’s boots gonna fit my plantation boy feet. Besides, I’m the Cap’n, I should get the coat.”

“Din’t you hear the white boy, we both Cap’ns, take the boots.”

The argument faded away, and soon I was left alone with only the occasional dirge from the buoy bell for company. It seemed that I sat there for a long time, the light around me getting ever stronger. The rolling swells were beginning to bring back memories of collard greens and fatback, the scent of which I had hungrily detected on the dock. Now, the remembered smell assaulted my stomach. I became sicker with every passing swell.

A huge shape suddenly materialized from the mist above me. It was a pelican intent on landing on the very spot I occupied. He was as startled as I, screeching at me, as he deflected his path inches from my face, to vanish just as instantly in the damp air. Moments later, the mist rapidly cleared around me, and I was bathed in the low sunlight of early dawn. It was hard to see where land, sky and mist met; the colors of each were so evenly balanced. I was, apparently, some distance out to sea in the harbor entrance, for there was nothing about me but a great green surge of seawater pouring from the west, as the ebb tide raced into the Atlantic. The banks of mist closed around me again. I wondered how long it would be before the air cleared and I could get my bearings. Surely, the Wild Dayrell must be leaving the port by now. Were Boyd and Dane searching for me? Or, perhaps, the remarkable Miss Boyd had indeed decided to dispose of me.

I pondered that thought, as I watched the water foaming against the inshore side of the buoy, yellow weeds, scraps of wood, and small purple jellyfish smashing against it in the mounting current.

I was bathed once again in sunlight. I blinked, unsure of my eyes. There, no more than a few hundred yards away, loomed the immense hull of the Wild Dayrell! The grey paintwork of the ship made it seem as if it were hanging in mid- air, sliding with near silent grace upon a bed of mist towards me.

It was a stunningly beautiful sight. A sleek grey machine, its side wheels making the slightest of washes as they dragged against the current to slow the vessel down as it slid by the buoy. I could not hear the machinery within the hull. The only sign of the power forcing her through the water was the twin streams of shimmering air spewing from her stacks, with just a hint of light blue smoke.

Figures were running from the stern cabin to the wheel well closest to me. There was to be no hesitation. I leapt into the water, surfaced, and swam for the approaching wheel. As it raced by me, a pair of huge arms reached down and unceremoniously plucked me from the water and set me down on the narrow walkway, on the outside edge of the wheel housing. I first saw the amulet of dark wood with red and black beads hanging around a powerful neck. I looked next in the face of my rescuer. It was Luther.

I clambered up onto the deck, to be greeted by Miss Heather Pinckney, resplendent in a dark green hoop dress, a heavy shawl, and a straw bonnet tied securely to her head. Berry stood beside her, a look of amusement on his face “I’ve been forced by necessity to ship a lot of scum as crew and passengers aboard this ship, but I swear you look a worse character than any of them. Perhaps, we should throw you back, McCoy?”

“I would really prefer to stay aboard Captain. Thanks to the good graces of a certain infamous Miss Boyd, I have had a close enough communion with the ocean to last me for some time, thank you.”

I turned to thank my rescuer, Luther. He picked up my boots from the deck and handed them to me.

“Sorry about that fine coat, young Mister McCoy. That rascal Bob was gonna have it or fight me for it.”

He grinned broadly at me and extended a hand. I shook his hand and I felt that I had made a friend. I looked again at the leather cord around his neck and the small carved wooden face with black and red beads hanging from it. It was unusual for Africans in this society to display signs of their ‘pagan’ heritage. He noticed my glance and tapped the little fetish.

“My Yoruba grandfather wore this. One day, it will hang around the neck of the woman I marry.” His voice was different from before, on the rowboat, now with more authority and culture. Clearly he was no ordinary, freed slave. I thanked him for saving me from the ocean, took the boots, nodded at Miss Pinckney, and wearily walked to the stern cabin. Moments later, I had bathed and collapsed into one of the crew bunks, lulled to sleep by the beat of the side wheels, as they propelled the Wild Dayrell out into the Atlantic, and toward the distant shores of the Isthmus of Panama.

4. Bound for Panama