Chapter 44
Chapter 44
Louis tried to count the meals at first. The light never changed, and sleep came in short, broken stretches. The steel door opened at irregular intervals. Guards wearing dark masks entered, set down three containers of food and three bottles of water, and left without speaking. Louis could not tell whether they were always the same men.
He remembered waking to find food already waiting once, but neither Angelique nor Gladice could agree whether the guards had come while he slept. After that, the count meant nothing. Sometimes he woke hungry. Sometimes he could not remember falling asleep. The engine continued without pause, and the cold light above them never changed. He knew they had been there longer than a few hours. Beyond that, he no longer trusted himself. Then the engine note dropped, and the vibration beneath the floor changed with it. Footsteps multiplied overhead. Men crossed the deck at a run. Metal scraped across metal, and a hatch opened and slammed shut. The ship was slowing.
Across from him, Angelique lifted her head. The gray blanket was still wrapped around her shoulders. Her face had thinned since he first woke on the ship.
Gladice opened her eyes and listened. She lay on one side with the blanket pulled around her.
“Docking?” Angelique asked.
“Or something like it.” Gladice pushed herself into a sitting position and winced. “Maybe a transfer.”
Louis’s stomach turned at the thought of another transfer. He swallowed until the nausea eased. It had not left him since he woke. The door opened again. Masked guards entered. One carried a stack of folded clothes.
“On your feet,” he said.
A guard passed a bundle to each of them. Louis caught his and opened it. It contained a coarse white shirt, dark trousers, a belt, socks, and plain work shoes. Everything looked freshly washed.
Gladice snorted.
“Well,” she said. “They’ve decided we should arrive decent.”
“Shut up.” One of the guards stepped closer. “Get dressed.”
Another guard freed them one at a time, cutting both the wrist and ankle restraints. The others kept their weapons trained on them while they dressed.
Louis pulled on the shirt and buttoned it with stiff fingers. The collar rubbed against the puncture in his neck. The trousers were too short at the ankle, and the belt smelled of machine oil. Beside him, Angelique and Gladice put on their blouses and long skirts. Their hands were bound again once they finished.
One of the men looked at her. “That will do.”
“How reassuring.”
He ignored her. The guards ordered them out and led them upward through narrow service passages.
They emerged into open air beneath a gray evening sky. Louis’s eyes watered at the sudden brightness. He blinked until he could make out the water, the quay, and the guards ahead of him. The guards took them down a side gangway. Stacks of cargo pallets screened it from the main berths, and two trucks waited beside the landing.
Three armed men waited at the bottom. One man wore dock clothes and another a dark summer suit. A third stood beside an open truck door with a clipboard.
The man with the clipboard checked each of them against the page clipped to it.
“All three together,” he said.
The man in dock clothes nodded. “Cargo intact.”
The suited man looked them over and frowned. “They stink like the ship.”
“They been locked up below,” the dock man said. “We ain’t had time to clean them.”
The suited man nodded. “Take them to wash stations first. Then we’ll go on.”
The man with the clipboard pointed toward a windowless building with a corrugated metal door. A guard pressed a hand against Louis’s shoulder and moved him forward. Other guards brought Angelique and Gladice behind him.
The guards took them through a side door into a concrete utility room. Two women waited inside in gray work dresses and canvas aprons. Their sleeves were rolled above the elbows, and both wore pistols at the hip. A man in a dark utility shirt stood beside them with black rubber gloves on and a pistol in a shoulder holster.
“Clothes off,” said one of the women.
Louis did not move. Neither did Angelique.
The older, broad-faced woman stepped forward. “Now, or we do it for you.”
Gladice laughed. “Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy it.”
The woman stepped forward and slapped her. Gladice turned her face back toward the woman. A red mark spread across her cheek.
“Don’t,” she said, “do that again.”
The woman raised her hand to strike her a second time. The man stepped between them.
“Enough. Let’s get it done.”
“Hospitality really is dying in this country.”
The man rested a gloved hand beside the pistol in his shoulder holster. “Off.”
One of the women cut through Louis’s shirt from collar to hem, then sliced open the trousers and pulled both garments away from him. The man held him by the shoulder while she worked. Across the room, the older woman did the same to Angelique.
Gladice began fighting before they touched her. She twisted away from the scissors and kicked at the women until the man caught her from behind. One woman pinned her legs while the other forced her bound hands against her chest. It took all three of them to hold her still long enough to cut through her clothes. Even then, she kept twisting and cursing as they pulled the clothes from under her and threw them into the bin.
“Against the wall,” said the older woman.
The three guards forced them side by side against the concrete wall beneath the spray hoses. The man gripped Louis by the upper arm. One woman held Angelique in place while the older woman took hold of Gladice.
The older woman opened the main valve.
The first jet struck Louis across the shoulders and chest. His whole body jerked, and his feet slipped on the wet floor. The man caught him by the upper arm and shoved him back against the wall. Louis began to shiver as the water ran over him. He clenched his teeth and tried to hold still. He hated the man, but he was afraid of what would happen if he resisted. If he cooperated, perhaps they would finish washing him and leave it at that. Perhaps they would not hurt him again.
The man looked bored. His eyelids hung low, and his mouth was set in a tired line while he drove the stream over Louis’s hair and face, then down across his chest, armpits, groin, and legs.
Beside him, Angelique turned her face away when the spray crossed her throat and breasts. Water flattened her hair against her neck and shoulders. The woman gripped Angelique’s chin and forced her face forward. She aimed the spray across her mouth and jaw, then along her ears and collarbones.
“Hold still,” she said. “You’ll make it worse.”
The first blast struck Gladice in the stomach. She bent at the waist, then forced herself upright. The older woman dragged the stream over her breasts and belly, then aimed it between her thighs. Gladice sucked in a breath through her teeth and said, “You vile—”
The woman answered by turning the stream on her face. Gladice turned her head and gasped. Water poured from her chin, and she kept her eyes shut against the spray.
Gray water ran into the trench. It cleared as the spraying continued. Water struck skin and concrete while all three struggled to stay upright.
The older woman shoved a rough brown bar of soap into Angelique’s bound hands. She dropped another at Louis’s feet and threw the third against Gladice’s chest.
“Wash,” she said.
They washed with their wrists still bound while the guards kept their pistols on them. The soap smelled of lye. Louis rubbed it over his body with both hands together. He kept his eyes on the wall. The guards rinsed them until the water entering the trench ran clear. The older woman threw them three coarse white towels.
“Dry off,” she said. “Quickly.”
Angelique caught hers between her bound hands and said nothing. Gladice wrapped hers around herself and muttered, “Bitches.”
Louis dragged the towel over his chest and legs with his bound hands. He could not stop shivering. His skin burned where the water had struck hardest.
The younger woman brought in another stack of plain clothes. She cut the restraint from Louis’s wrists. The man and the older woman drew their pistols and kept them aimed at all three while she freed Angelique and Gladice.
She gave Louis another white shirt and a pair of dark trousers. She set out long skirts, high-necked blouses, stockings, and dark cardigans for Angelique and Gladice, with two fresh headscarves beside them.
Louis dressed with stiff fingers. Angelique tried to tie the scarf, but her hands would not manage the knot. The younger woman took it from her and tied it herself, then pulled the knot tight beneath Angelique’s hair.
“There. Better.”
Angelique looked directly at her. “Thank you.”
The woman held her gaze, then stepped back. “You’re welcome.”
Gladice was still buttoning her blouse with damp hands. “Oh, you’re all so kind.”
When they were dressed, the younger woman took three new restraints from her apron. Her accomplices kept their pistols raised while she bound Louis’s wrists in front of him, then Angelique’s and Gladice’s. She pulled each strap tight and checked it before moving to the next. By then all three of them smelled of harsh soap and wet cloth.
The older woman opened the door.
“Move.”
The guards led them back outside into the evening light. The suited man looked them over and nodded.
“Clean,” he said. “Good. Now we go.”
The guards pushed them into the back of the truck and shut the doors. The compartment went dark.
“Where are we?” Louis asked.
“Dixie,” Gladice said. “It smells like it.”
Angelique shifted beside him. “How do you know?”
“Because I’ve spent too much time near the border. This is what the air feels like on the wrong side of the line.” She closed her eyes. “We’re in Mobile. Or Biloxi. Or Gulfport. One of their port cities.”
Louis said nothing. He only knew Dixie from textbook passages and news footage that had taught him it was a place to be avoided at all costs. He had never stood on its soil. Now he would live or die on it. The ride took less than ten minutes. When the truck opened again they were at an old railway.
The guards marched them across the gravel between two lines of armed men. Two guards opened a side door in the warehouse while another closed the gate behind them.
A man waited at a table inside. He wore a black frock coat that pulled across his chest and a white shirt buttoned to the throat. He looked to be in his late forties. His face was soft around the mouth, and his dark hair had gone gray at the temples and was combed straight back. His eyes were bright and wet. He looked up from the papers and studied the three of them.
“There you are. The Collins boy.”
Louis said nothing. Gladice turned toward the man.
The man looked at Angelique next.
“And the Bourbon girl.” He looked at her longer. “Smaller than the reports made you.”
He barely glanced at Gladice. “And the Simington daughter. A bonus.”
He turned a page and looked at the man with the clipboard. “They board now. No delays. This transfer has been arranged too long already.”
“Yes, sir.”
He kept one hand on the open folder. “The Lord has preserved more than one enemy heir for us this week. Let’s not be sloppy with the gift.”
The train stood on a private siding behind the warehouse. The guards put all three aboard through a side door and led them along a narrow corridor to a compartment in the passenger carriage. The room had once been first class. A built-in bench remained on each side, and a steel water jug was bolted to the wall. Wire mesh covered the window from inside.
The guard at the door pulled each restraint to test it, then stepped back.
“Bathroom is at the end of the corridor. Don’t cause trouble. Y’all will regret it.”
“We’re always at our best on trains,” Gladice said.
He shut the door. A bolt slid into place outside, followed by the heavier external latch.
Rain began tapping against the glass. It strengthened while they waited. The carriage jolted, and the train began moving out of the rail yard. Through the mesh-covered window, Louis saw a white church wall and low port roofs pass beyond the outer fence.
Angelique looked outside. “We should rest while we can.”
Gladice leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “Agreed.”
Louis looked through the window at the rain-soaked fields beyond the tracks. The warehouses gave way to marsh and low ground. Somewhere ahead, someone had arranged for them before the ship ever touched land.