Lorenzo and the Turncoat Page 4

  The guard glanced at the paper, narrowed his eyes at Eugenie, and motioned them through.

  She looked back at New Orleans. Would she ever see it again?

  Chapter Seven

  “You’re hired,” the barrel-chested Irishman said, thrusting out a meaty hand to seal the bargain.

  “Thank you, sir,” Charles replied as his arm was pumped up and down until it ached.

  “Don’t be thanking me.” The Irishman’s voice boomed in the wharf-side warehouse. “Thank Lorenzo. He’s never steered me wrong yet. Except perhaps for that twig over there. ‘Twas on Lorenzo’s suggestion that I hired young Thomas, the devil take him.”

  A brown-haired boy counting bottles on a shelf glanced up at the mention of his name and smiled. “God save the Irish!”

  “Come here, young scamp. Show Mr. Peel how to take inventory.”

  “Yes, Mr. Pollock.” The boy took Charles through a warehouse filled to the rafters with barrels and boxes. “Thou art fortunate indeed to work for Mr. Pollock. He’s a fine gent and will treat thee square.”

  Based on the boy’s accent, Charles assumed he was Quaker. Most everyone Charles had met so far had been Catholic.

  “I would give thee a piece of advice,” Thomas said, his piercing blue eyes twinkling. “Mr. Pollock has no use for the British. From time to time, say something about ‘the bloody Brits’ or mention how the Irish saved civilization.”

  “The Irish never did that!” Charles protested.

  “Aye,” the boy said, raising an admonishing finger. “But they think they did! Mr. Pollock is the richest man in town and the governor’s best friend. If he says King George is the anti-Christ, don’t contradict him.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “Gentlemen!” the Irishman shouted.

  Thomas grimaced and rubbed his ear. “We aren’t deaf, Mr. Pollock.”

  “You aren’t working, either! Start counting my wares. I expect a complete and accurate account on my desk by tomorrow morning.” With that, Oliver Pollock grabbed his cane, swung a cape around his shoulders, and was off.

  Thomas handed Charles a notebook. “Manos a la obra.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Get to work.”

  For several hours, Charles and Thomas worked on the monthly inventory. They counted boxes of candlesticks and wrote the number on the paper next to “candlesticks.” They marked an X on the end of the box so they would know it had been counted. After the candlesticks, they moved to the next item on the list, imported wine. After that came pins, needles, ribbon, and cloth. Then there were waist-high jars filled with olive oil, boxes of pewter plates, blankets, pots and pans, sacks of sugar and rice, coffee, pepper, bottles of wine. There were even playing cards and dice.

  Charles blew out a long sigh. “Done!”

  Thomas shook his head. “Except for that.”

  Charles followed the boy’s pointing finger to the second floor. An open storage area stretched from one end of the building to the other.

  “You mean we have to do that too? It will take hours!”

  “Aye. That it will.” Thomas smiled at him slyly. “Manos a la obra.”

  All afternoon Lorenzo watched dark clouds roll across the sky. The possibility of a hurricane still worried him. Lorenzo brought his pharmacy log up to date and stepped out on the covered porch to study the weather. Rain pinged on the metal roof overhead.

  His last patient hadn’t shown up, probably driven away by the weather. He locked his office door and headed home. If he was lucky, he would get there before the rain completely drenched him.

  A sudden gale blew his hat off and pushed it down the street. Lorenzo scrambled after it, chasing it to the top of the levee.

  New Orleans was bowl-shaped and lay about six feet below sea level. On one side was the Mississippi River; on the other, Lake Pontchartrain. If the wind blew hard enough to push water over the levee walls, it would fill that bowl.

  Rain stung Lorenzo’s face like hundreds of bees. By the time he reached the cottage he shared with his ward, Thomas, he was soaked to the bone. Shaking off rain like a wet dog, he removed his shoes and drained the water from them. He stepped inside and headed upstairs to dry off and change clothes. He slipped into britches, put on a plain shirt, buttoned a waistcoat over it, then pulled on socks and a jacket. He went downstairs to the kitchen for a bite to eat. There, he found a note from his housekeeper. The party was cancelled because of the weather. Thomas would be working late. She had gone home early to avoid the rain, but had left supper for the two of them.

  Lorenzo decided to eat with Thomas, then head to Eugenie’s. He packed a basket of food and left.

  Chapter Eight

  What was next on the list? Charles looked down at his pad. Crate 66. He walked through the warehouse looking for it. “Have you seen Crate 66?” he called to Thomas.

  The boy pointed vaguely to the back of the warehouse.

  Sixty-six is a lucky number, Charles thought as he headed in the direction Thomas had pointed. Six plus six makes twelve. When you add the digits in twelve, you get three, a perfect number.

  The crate he was looking for turned out to be a hip-high wooden box that had never been opened. Charles pried the top loose with a crowbar. Inside were boxes marked “hair accessories.” He lifted the top of one and found hair pins, brushes, and combs.

  A lump formed in his throat. He reached inside and pulled out a silver comb, the kind women use to hold their hair in place. Tilting it to the lantern light, his mind took him back to the worst day in his life.

  He rested his arm on the door frame and watched Indians arriving in Fort Detroit to collect the bounty on scalps. Governor Henry Hamilton encouraged them to attack American settlements and paid them thirty colonial pounds for each head of hair they brought in.

  Charles thought about his fiancée, Anne, an American Dutch girl on a farm several leagues away. Her father wasn’t keen on his daughter marrying a soldier in the British army, but had relented after learning that Charles came from one of the best families in Philadelphia.

  Charles’s father hadn’t expressed an opinion on the impending marriage. That was the advantage to being the third child. No one cared overly much what you did, as long as it wasn’t too scandalous and you didn’t dishonor the family name.

  A warm feeling came to him to remember the silver comb he had given Anne the night before as a token of his affection. It was engraved with her name.

  “Oh, Charlie, it’s beautiful,” she had said. She was the only one who ever used his nickname.

  More Indians arrived at the fort. Charles didn’t recognize their tribe, but that was hardly surprising. There were scads and scads in the area, more than he could keep track of. Not so long ago, the Indians had fought for the French against the British. Now they were their allies.

  A lanky private pointed to Charles. People turned toward him. They stared.

  A feeling of discomfort crept over him. He reached into a jacket pocket. Where was his lucky rabbit’s foot? He must have left it in his room. No worries. His four-leaf clover would protect him.

  People shifted uncomfortably and muttered amongt themselves.

  The feeling of dread grew. He reached into the other pocket to touch the four-leaf clover. His pocket was empty! Where was his good-luck charm?

  An Indian, grinning horribly, held a shock of blond hair in one hand and a silver comb in the other.

  Charles clenched his jaw in rage. He strode toward him. He knew, even before he snatched the comb from the savage’s hand. He knew, even before he turned it over and read the engraved name. He knew.

  Anne was dead. The savage held her hair.

  Charles slugged the Indian square in the jaw, sending him sprawling. He fell on him. Only vaguely did Charles recall his fists pounding and pounding and pounding, but he remembered his determination to kill the man.

  Hands grabbed him from behind and hauled him off the Indian who lay bloodied and still.
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br />   “Thou art a thousand miles away.”

  “Huh? What?” Charles asked, suddenly back in the present. “Sorry. I was thinking about something else.” He tried to muster a smile, but couldn’t. He was on the run, wanted for murder. There wasn’t a lot to smile about.

  Lorenzo slogged through the streets of New Orleans on the way to the warehouse. He dodged around puddles and held the food basket tight beneath his cape to protect it from the drizzle. He slid back the main door to the warehouse and announced, “I have food! Come and get it.”

  “Be right there,” Thomas yelled. He clambered down a long ladder, leaving a man with a notebook upstairs in the open storage area.

  Lorenzo recognized him immediately. “Charles! What a pleasant surprise!”

  “Hey, Doctor Bannister,” the man said, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

  “Call me Lorenzo.” He was glad to see the man had taken his advice and was now gainfully employed. “Come join us. We have plenty.” Using a workbench as a table, Lorenzo laid out a plate of fried chicken, corn on the cob, biscuits, and gravy. The aroma of food wafting toward him reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since lunch. He was suddenly famished. He pulled three crates to the workbench to use as chairs.

  Charles sat down stiffly on one. He stared at the food the way a starving dog looked at a beefsteak.

  Lorenzo wondered when Charles had last had a good meal. “When do you think you’ll finish here?” Lorenzo asked Thomas.

  “I have no idea,” Thomas said. “Mr. Pollock said he would skin me alive if the inventory wasn’t done by tomorrow morning.”

  “What’s the big rush?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  Mr. Pollock was a hard taskmaster, but not to the point of making a fourteen-year-old boy stay up all night taking inventory. Lorenzo wondered if this was in preparation for the attack on the British. Was war that imminent?

  Thomas put his hands together and bowed his head over them.

  Lorenzo traced a slow cross over his chest and noticed that Charles did not. He merely clasped his hands together and lowered his head.

  Thomas said grace and ended with a firm “Amen!” He reached for a drumstick. “Help thyself, Charles. There is enough here to feed the Spanish army.”

  For several minutes, they ate in companionable silence.

  Charles licked chicken grease from his fingers. “This is the best meal I’ve had in a long time. Thank you.”

  “I’ll pass your compliments to our housekeeper,” Lorenzo said. “I hate to leave good company, but I have to go.”

  “Heading to Eugenie’s?” Thomas asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Eugenie is Lorenzo’s fiancée,” Thomas explained. “They’re getting married in two days.”

  Charles wrote the numbers 8, 19, 1779 on a piece of paper and added them together. His countenance darkened. “You shouldn’t get married on that day, Doc.”

  “Why not?”

  “Add 8, 1, 9, 1, 7, 7, 9 together and you get 42. Four plus two is six.” He put his pencil down in a way that suggested he had made his point.

  “So?”

  “Six is a very bad number, almost as unlucky as thirteen.”

  Lorenzo was about to challenge his superstitious beliefs when the warehouse doors swung open and Colonel Gálvez burst in, soaked from head to toe. A curtain of rain fell behind him.

  He scowled fiercely at Lorenzo. “Have you seen Eugenie?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “She didn’t come home this afternoon.”

  “I thought she was with you.”

  “She was. I was called away on business and left her at the church. By the time I went back to get her, she was gone. I was hoping you would know where she is.”

  “I haven’t seen her since lunch.”

  The colonel let out a long breath. “The priest said he was talking to Eugenie when a stranger asked to speak to her in private. They talked briefly, and she left with him.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know. The priest didn’t recognize him.”

  “What did this man look like?”

  “Well dressed. Tall. Brown hair. He spoke French.”

  “You have no idea where Eugenie is? And she left with a stranger?”

  The colonel nodded.

  Lorenzo leaped up, knocking over his crate, and dashed out the warehouse door to look for Eugenie.

  Chapter Nine

  Hawthorne drew rein at the first settlement he came to. The unimpressive cluster of buildings consisted of a trading post made of cypress logs and one-story brick houses built in the French style, with courtyards in the rear. He turned to his hostage. “Say anything untoward, and there will be hell to pay. I am an officer of the king’s court with papers for your arrest. These people will not interfere with an official in the performance of his duty.”

  “I understand my position perfectly,” she snapped.

  “Another thing. Never speak to me in that tone again. Keep a civil tongue in your head.” He bounded down. As he helped her from her horse, three barefoot, shirtless boys in homespun trousers gathered around gawking at his prisoner. Their eyes fixed on her hands tied in front of her.

  “What’d she do, m’sieur?” one of them asked.

  Hawthorne decided to have a little fun. “Sliced a man’s throat from ear to ear.” He ran his finger over his neck and punctuated the gesture with a slurping sound.

  Duly impressed, their eyes grew as large as shillings. No doubt, they had heard tales of notorious female pirates like Anne Bonney and Mary Read.

  Keeping Madame De Gálvez at his side, he swapped their horses for fresh ones. He had to get out of Spanish territory as fast as possible. Once they crossed into British territory, they would be under English law where her husband had no jurisdiction. He had to lead her horse by the reins because Madame De Gálvez’s hands were bound in front of her. That slowed them down.

  Had his original plan worked and he had captured Gálvez, he would have taken him directly to the Baton Rouge fort. The commander there would have welcomed the colonel as a valuable prisoner. The kidnapped wife of the Spanish governor, however, was another matter. Hawthorne didn’t like this unexpected development, but circumstances had forced him to strike while the iron was hot. Success or failure often depended on the ability to be flexible.

  No, he couldn’t take her to the fort. Kidnapping was a crime and the commander would want no part of it.

  That left only one place: his dead brother’s house. It wasn’t a perfect solution and he would have to watch Madame De Gálvez night and day until her husband agreed to switch places with her.

  With his hostage by his side, he went inside the trading post and bought supplies, including a French Charleville musket and powder. He felt more comfortable with a Brown Bess, but this would serve his purpose. He purchased a pistol as well.

  Hawthorne helped her onto a horse and they set out again.

  Lorenzo had never felt so scared. Not when he was spying in Philadelphia and was very nearly discovered. Not when he lay wounded, hoping someone would find him before he bled to death. Not when he found himself in the middle of stampeding cattle.

  Nothing had scared him half as much as this. Where was Eugenie?

  He and the colonel decided to check every place she could possibly have gone. They went in different directions. Lorenzo visited her girlfriends, one by one, while the colonel called on other acquaintances. Lorenzo checked out the cottage he and Eugenie would move into on their wedding night, hoping she had gone there on an errand of some sort.

  There was no trace of her. Lorenzo leaned his forehead against the wall. He had to find her, even if that meant knocking on every door in New Orleans. And then he recalled how pale she looked at lunch.

  The hospital. That was it. She had fallen ill and had been taken to the hospital. Lorenzo dashed away.

  The nun on duty at King’s Hospital took one look at Lorenzo and her eyes spre
ad wide open. “Dr. Bannister … What’s the problem?”

  “Have you seen Eugenie Dubreton? Is she here?”

  “No. Why?”

  This had been his final hope. Stunned, he walked away, not knowing what to do next.

  Chapter Ten

  Hawthorne opened his pocket watch and tilted it toward the fading light. It was seven o’clock. They had traveled up the river road for hours and were lucky to have found an inn, although he wished it were further from New Orleans and a bit more elegant. The weather had turned nasty and it was impossible to travel further that night.

  He helped Madame De Gálvez dismount. Holding her elbow, he led her inside.

  The bottom floor was a tavern filled with raucous men sitting at tables and drinking from pewter tankards. They spoke German. It was hardly surprising that everyone called this part of Louisiana “the German coast.”

  All talking ceased when Madame De Gálvez entered. The men gave her long, admiring glances.

  Hawthorne gave them a black look to discourage any interest in her.

  A barmaid in a mobcap stood behind a long counter that ran the entire length of one wall. She filled a beer mug and looked up. “Guten Tag, mein—” She froze. Her eyes lit in recognition. “Robbie! Robbie Hawthorne!”

  “I don’t believe it!” Hawthorne exclaimed. “Patsy?”

  She let out a squeal as she rushed forward and threw her arms around his neck.

  They hugged tight.

  Patsy was Scottish, the wife of a private soldier who had come to the colonies to fight the rebels. When he fell at Bunker Hill, she took up with a corporal who was later stabbed to death in a drunken brawl. Before Hawthorne left New York, she moved in with Sergeant Willoughby. By all appearances, Patsy was working her way up through the ranks.

  “What are you doing here?” Hawthorne asked.

  “Trying to keep body and soul together.”

  “Where’s Sergeant Willoughby?”

  “Died in the spring of the pox.”

  “I am so sorry.” He squeezed her hands in a gesture of deep sympathy. “He was a good man.”