Chapter 57: Mackerel Jim Works His Magic
The soldier’s musket sagged in his hands before he even seemed aware of it. His grip loosened, his arm forgetting its job along with the rest of him.
James leaned toward Tomás without taking his eyes off the man. "What’d he just say to him?"
Tomás’s ears had already turned the color of ripe plums. "He said, good evening, brave one. What superb eyes you have. This evening."
"Christ." James rubbed a hand down his jaw. "That’s his openin’ line?"
The soldier found his voice before Tomás could answer. It came out thin and stumbled over itself.
"Quoi? Non, non, enfin... vous ne pouvez pas dire cela à un soldat du Roi."
Tomás caught up a heartbeat later, still trying to untangle Jim’s first remark.
"He says, what. No, no. You cannot say this. To a soldier of the King."
Jim didn’t wait for either of them. He swept one hand toward the soldier’s coat as though he’d only just noticed it.
"Et quel bel habit vous portez, mon ami! Taillé comme pour un roi, ma parole. Nous venons de loin, voyez-vous, avec des peaux de daim, les plus fines qu’on trouve entre ici et la Géorgie."
Tomás hurried after the words, already half a sentence behind. "Now he says, what a fine coat, tailored like a king’s own, and we come from far away with deerskins, the finest between here and Georgia."
James blinked. "Which part’s he even answerin’?"
"Neither, Captain." Tomás let out a quiet breath. "I do not think either man is answering the other."
The soldier glanced down at his coat, clearly thrown by the compliment. Then duty caught up with him again.
"Mais... les papiers. Vos papiers, monsieur, avant tout."
"Papers." Tomás wiped his palms on his trousers. "He wants to see papers. Before anything else."
Jim rolled right past that without the slightest pause.
"Ah, les papiers, bien sûr, bien sûr, tout en temps voulu. Dites-moi, un homme si vaillant, posté si loin de tout... Mobile doit vous sembler bien silencieuse la nuit, non? Les moustiques sont-ils votre seule compagnie?"
Tomás pressed the heel of his hand against his temple. "The papers, of course, of course, all in good time, he says. Then he asks whether such a brave man, posted so far from everything, finds Mobile silent at night. He asks if the mosquitoes are his only company."
James laughed before he could stop himself.
"Holy fuck."
"I told you, Captain."
The soldier opened his mouth, searching for words that never came. He looked down at his musket as though he’d forgotten why he carried it, then back at Jim, somehow shrinking farther into his own coat.
"Jim." Tomás caught his sleeve, his voice low and urgent. "Espera. Please. Slow down. You speak of his coat, his papers, mosquitoes, deerskins, and before I can tell the Captain one thing, you’ve moved on to the next."
"It’s all connected, lad. Trust the flow."
"Your flow is going to drown me before this is finished."
The second soldier had lost his patience somewhere around the mosquitoes.
At last he pushed himself off his stool. His boots struck the packed earth hard enough to kick up a puff of dust, and he cut through whatever Jim had been about to say with a single sharp word.
"Ça suffit!"
"Enough." Relief was plain in Tomás’s voice. "He says enough."
The second soldier turned on his companion and spoke in a low, clipped voice. It was only a few words, but no translation was needed to recognize the rebuke. The first soldier’s face somehow darkened another shade.
Then the second soldier shifted his attention to the cart.
"Fouillez ce chariot."
"Search the cart." Tomás translated quickly. "He wants it searched."
While all of that had been happening, Bert had wandered to the edge of the cart without any sign of hurry. He stood close enough that his shadow covered half the wood.
The soldier reached the chests, looked up at Bert, and stopped. After a brief struggle with his own courage, he leaned in and started searching.
"Ye might want to step back a pace," James murmured quietly enough for Bert alone. "Before the poor lad forgets how to breathe."
"I have stood in precisely this spot since we arrived, Captain. Where he chooses to search is his own affair."
"Aye." James watched the soldier wrestle with the latch. "The lad doesn’t seem to see it that way."
The soldier yanked open the first chest with more force than necessary, threw back the lid, and dug through the folded hides with both hands. The smell of cured leather drifted into the air.
As James watched him work, the whole picture suddenly came together.
From the outside, this trading party looked ridiculous. A Scots pirate who couldn’t order a drink in French stood beside an Englishman built like part of a stone wall.
Then there was a Spanish mission boy who had been translating anything important, and a roguish man whose French came almost entirely from a girl in Martinique and had plainly never been meant for business.
Together they looked less like traders than the beginning of a joke nobody in this swamp had bothered to finish.
The soldier found nothing except hide after hide.
By the time he reached the bottom of the second chest, his irritation had drained away, leaving only some weary expression. He wanted his afternoon back more than he wanted to keep proving himself right.
He straightened, wiped his hands on his coat, and tossed a short remark to his companion.
"Allez, allez. Partez."
"Go." Tomás nodded. "He says go. Leave now."
The first soldier managed one last sentence. It came out quieter than anything he’d said before.
"Bonne soirée."
"Good evening."
James hardly needed the translation anymore.
Jim wasn’t about to leave it there. As they rolled past, he tipped his head toward the first soldier, his grin never wavering.
"Adieu, mon brave. Prenez soin de vous. Les moustiques seraient bien cruels de gâter un si joli visage."
"Farewell."
Tomás sounded more resigned than embarrassed now. "Take care of yourself. He says it would be a shame if the mosquitoes spoiled such a handsome face."
The soldier’s face somehow discovered an even deeper shade of red. Rather than watch them leave, he became intensely interested in a patch of ground at his feet.
They continued into the town, the mule keeping its steady pace as the cart rattled behind them.
For the first time, Mobile opened itself to view.
Timber buildings crowded both sides of the packed dirt street and smoke curled up from cookfires. The smells of tar, fish, and freshly turned earth mingled in the warm afternoon air. Somewhere toward the river, a bell rang without hurry, marking an hour that nobody in town seemed eager to meet.
Beyond a row of warehouses, James finally caught sight of Fort Louis. It sat squat and gray behind its own line of stakes, the fleur-de-lis hanging limp above a garrison that, even from here, looked no better fed or armed than the two fools they’d left guarding the gate.
James let the absurdity of the checkpoint fall behind him and turned his thoughts to the work ahead.
Depots first. Then a count of every hull waiting in the harbor. After that, the garrison itself, properly examined with his own eyes instead of guessed at from a distance.
Whatever Mobile believed it was hiding, he intended to know the truth before morning.
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