Free Web NovelChapter 58: The Cabaret’s Last Round
One afternoon in Mobile taught James more about the deerskin trade than he had ever cared to learn. It also put more honest coin in his pocket than any lie was supposed to earn.
They lived the part completely, bargaining with an old trapper who insisted on talking them down, not because he needed the savings but because it was simply how he’d always done business.
That had been the point. A trading party that vanished after entering town became memorable for all the odd reasons. One that spent the afternoon buying barrels, fighting over prices, and complaining about ordinary business simply became another group of traders.
By evening, James decided the town owed them a drink before the night’s real work began.
The cabaret stood two streets back from the harbor, a squat timber building with a packed dirt floor and benches polished smooth by generations of boots. There wasn’t a sign above the door. The regulars knew where to find it.
The four of them claimed a table near the back while the steady murmur of soldiers, traders, and dockworkers washed through the room. By now they were just another group of faces among many. No one spared them more than a passing glance.
James rested his cup on the table.
"Right. Jim, you’re taking the warehouses east of here."
"Already know the area, Cap’n."
Jim stretched his legs beneath the table, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "Spent a winter here once. There’s a chandler behind the ropewalk that does more business with smugglers than the Crown would ever want to hear about. I’ll start there."
"Jim... there isn’t a ropewalk in Mobile."
"...There isn’t?"
"There’s no ropewalk, and as far as I can tell, there never was."
Jim scratched thoughtfully at his jaw.
"Huh." He shrugged. "Must’ve been a different Mobile."
James blinked.
"How many Mobiles do you think there are?"
"More than you’d expect, Cap’n. Popular sort of name."
Bert stayed silent, though the look on his face suggested he’d quietly filed that claim alongside the stories about the alligator and the shark.
James let it go. A man who believed his own nonsense that completely would probably still find the warehouses, ropewalk or not.
"Bert. Tomás. You’re covering the buildings near the fort."
"Understood, Captain."
Bert inclined his head. "I believe I can pass through a crowd without drawing notice, provided I carry myself properly. I intend to exercise suitable discretion."
James turned his cup once against the tabletop. "The harbor’s mine. I’ve got a better eye for ships than the lot of you put together, and I won’t hear anyone argue otherwise."
No one even tried.
The woman returned with the jug before they had finished their first round. Bert’s hand reached automatically toward his cup before the rest of him caught up. He stared at it for a moment, almost as though it belonged to someone else.
Without making a fuss, James reached over and gently turned the jug away.
"Afterward, Bert. You’ll need your head clear more than you’ll need some drink tonight."
Bert lowered the cup and folded both hands neatly on the table.
"You are correct, Captain. Thank you."
"No thanks needed. Just common sense."
Conversation drifted onto harmless things that none of them would remember later.
A woman stepped away from the bar and came straight for their table.
Dark hair had been pinned up, though loose strands escaped with every step. She had the sort of figure that turned heads without trying, her bodice leaving very little to the imagination and faint lines at the corners of her eyes that only made her smile more appealing. Tomás had already run out of respectable places to look before she’d spoken a single word.
She stopped beside him and rested one hand lightly on his shoulder, leaning close enough that the scent of her perfume reached the whole table.
"Mon petit." Her fingers drifted slowly down his sleeve. "Un si joli garçon ne devrait pas boire seul ce soir."
Tomás’s ears turned bright red almost instantly. The rest of him followed a heartbeat later. One arm locked against the table as though it were the only thing keeping him upright.
His eyes found James with the unmistakable look of a drowning man asking for rescue.
James watched the whole performance over the rim of his cup. He rolled his eyes, then leaned forward and placed two coins on the table before her hand wandered anywhere near Tomás’s purse.
He snickered, "Madame. The lad’s already occupied tonight. Family business, awful burden, but that’s how it is."
Her gaze dropped to the coins, then lifted to James. Whatever disappointment had begun crossing her face gave way to amusement.
"Dommage." One eyebrow rose as she looked at him instead.
James shrugged, "Aye, terrible tragedy for everyone involved. Off with you now before you break the poor boy’s heart along with his purse."
She laughed softly, entirely unoffended, and drifted away toward a table full of soldiers who looked even less prepared for her than Tomás had been.
Tomás finally let out a long breath.
"Captain... I had no idea what I was supposed to say."
"You weren’t supposed to say anything. That’s the trick."
"What did she say at the end. I was not able to pay attention?"
James grinned.
"Ask Jim. I only caught part of it."
Jim snorted. "’Fraid she took a liking to you, lad. Said it was a shame, then wondered if you might find yourself free again before we leave Mobile."
Tomás buried his face in his hands.
James laughed loudly enough that two soldiers at the neighboring table glanced over.
"There it is." He grinned. "Welcome to the trade, lad."
They paid their bill and headed for the door. Jim was still chuckling over Tomás’s embarrassment while Bert guided the younger man with a light hand on his shoulder before the teasing could last too long.
Outside, the evening air had cooled into something comfortable. The sky had turned that deep shade of blue that lingered just before full darkness settled over the town.
"Try not to invent any more ropewalks while you’re out there," James called after Jim.
Jim didn’t even slow down.
"No promises, Cap’n. Might stumble across one yet."
James shook his head.
Bert inclined his head to each of them. "I shall endeavor to remain unengaged, unnoticed, and unremarked upon. Preferably in that order."
James laughed.
"Ambitious. I like it."
They separated at the corner. Jim headed east toward his imaginary ropewalk. Bert and Tomás went west toward the buildings surrounding the fort. James turned alone toward the waterfront.
Within a dozen steps, the streets swallowed them into the darkness.
After sunset, Mobile became a different town from the one James had spent the afternoon studying. Most windows were dark behind their shutters, and the few that still glowed cast narrow bands of golden light across the dirt streets. The hammering from the docks had stopped and the wagons were gone. Nobody fought over deerskin prices anymore.
The quiet carried every sound farther. A dog barked somewhere three streets away, some door closed softly behind him. Somewhere ahead, a watchman made his slow rounds, more from habit than genuine vigilance.
James kept to the darker side of every street without thinking about it. The instinct came as naturally as breathing. He slipped from shadow to shadow.
At every corner he paused before crossing, timing each movement by impulse he could never have explained.
After two more turns down a narrow lane scented with woodsmoke and someone’s supper, packed earth gave way beneath his boots to sand, weathered rope, and the sharp smell of tar.
The masts appeared before the harbor itself, black lines rising against a sky that had finally surrendered to night. James eased toward the waterfront, the sand swallowing the sound of every step.
The harbor stretched before him, dark water cradling ships both at anchor and alongside the wharf. Rigging creaked softly in a breeze barely strong enough to deserve the name.
James counted the vessels automatically. The habit was far older than the body he now wore.
Three merchant ships lay tied up at the docks. Their cargo markings and rigging told him enough to guess what they carried and roughly where they had come from.
Two more floated farther out, sitting noticeably higher in the water. Their holds were probably empty already, waiting for a favorable tide before sailing again.
None of them interested him.
What he was searching for lay beyond those vessels, nearer the water-facing wall of the fort where the shadows grew deeper and the outlines became harder to read. Perhaps there was a proper artillery battery if Bienville had equipped the place well. Perhaps there was a warship waiting in the darkness, if the French had thought to send one south.
James narrowed his eyes and started moving carefully along the wharf, looking for a better view.
He had gone no more than twenty yards when a shout split the darkness behind him. Sharp enough, and close enough, that he felt urgency.
"Halte-là! Qui êtes-vous?"
James froze.
Every word reached his ears, and none of it meant anything to him.
He turned slowly, his hand finding the knife at his belt on pure instinct, and saw a French soldier standing less than ten feet away with a musket already rising toward his shoulder.
