Free Alexander C. Irvine by A Scattering of Jades

was fertile as a flowerbed, his children learned French from tutors, his house had stained glass in its parlor windows. And through all of his success, Udo had not forgotten his friendship with Archie. He still took his own stein when he met Archie for beer and conversation.
    “I saw an abolitionist rally today,” Archie said as they rolled paper through the Heralds, loading door. “The Dead Rabbits broke it up.”
    Udo shook his head and paused to mop his scalp with a handkerchief. “Troublemakers, all of them,” he said. “Abolitionists and Rabbits.”
    Archie knew Udo hated to discuss politics with friends, but he couldn’t forget his mental image of the bereft Negro father discovering the bucket of water and knowing. He must have known what had happened. “Blackbirders are stealing children off the streets,” he said. “Children. How must that feel?”
    Udo looked Archie in the eye. “You have sorrow enough, Archie. Don’t go looking for more.”
    That wasn’t good enough. “Children, Udo.”
    “Archie, I hire blacks. I pay them like I pay whites. This is what I can do.” Udo looked as if he might say something more, but instead he pocketed his handkerchief and walked toward the door. “Let’s finish up.”
     
     
    S ometime after midnight , Archie rounded the corner onto Orange Street, his fingers sore and purpled with ink that never quite washed away. Music played from a basement grocery somewhere, accompanied by yells in a language Archie didn’t understand. He looked up and down the street. An oyster vendor hitched up his horse and left for more comfortable parts of the city, or maybe just went home. Sailors swaggered, whores beckoned, the destitute watched it all from windows or shadowed corners. Archie was exhausted.
    On the steps of his rooming house sat a child-sized figure wearing a hat and heavy coat. Archie stopped in his tracks.
    No, he thought. I can’t face her tonight. Not with that damned weeping Negro chasing after his daughter in my head. Tonight I need to be able to remember my daughter as she was. That maniacal, horrible shambles of a girl has no right to stalk me the way she does, no right to claim my daughter’s name.
    Better to have lost one’s daughter, Archie thought for the second time that day. He backtracked around the corner and found his way into a grog shop on Leonard Street. Better to mourn and go on.

 

Quechalli, 11-Deer—Septemb er 29, 1842
     
    Stein watched t he lithe figure of John Diamond blend quickly into the crowds in front of Independence Hall, then vanish behind a passing cab. Aaron Burr had spent more than a little time conniving in that building; Steen wondered what sort of backstage machinations had been going on during the Constitutional Convention. Because Burr had died disgraced, history had not recorded his true influence. Steen intended to leave a more distinctive mark. He would capture history in his hands and make it speak.
    The clock on the Independence Hall tower read eleven twenty-eight as Steen flicked the reins over the horses. They started slowly, tired from the long journey through the Cumberland Gap and north from Baltimore. New horses were definitely in order upon arriving in New York, but Steen’s mind was on other things. He hadn’t much time before his surprise appointment with Phineas.
    How had Diamond found him? Steen had been worried when informed of the dancer’s presence, but not overmuch; if Diamond had intended any sort of revenge, he would hardly have advertised his arrival. And he hadn’t acted at all hostile on the long trip to Philadelphia; rather, he had supplied Steen with an extremely valuable bit of information.
    Why, Steen wasn’t sure. There were many things about Diamond that Steen wasn’t sure of. The dancer might have been walking and talking, but he was obviously far from normal. He smelled of the swamp he’d drowned in, dark rings encircled his bulging eyes, and he muttered to himself—not always in