Free The Crescent Spy by Michael Wallace

rich!” Josephine said. “That’s what Miss Francesca told Mama.”
    The Colonel tousled her hair. “That I am, Josie. But even a rich man may find his pockets empty.”
    “Forty dollars is a lot of money,” Josephine said. While she was listening, she’d forgotten to suck the candies and now realized she was crunching the last of them up. She looked hopefully at the Colonel, wanting another, but he was staring at her mother.
    “You’re right, Josie,” Mother said, pulling her from the man’s knee. “A lot of money for someone who says he is rich and throws around fistfuls of gold like it was birdseed.”
    “I had a couple of bad hands at St. Louis. Bet wrong. But I swear to God I am not flat broke, only temporarily short of funds. I’ve got to get in on this game.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out several banknotes. “See, I’ve already got fifteen. But we got some stakes here, and it’s thirty just to get in. Then I need a few bucks extra in case I suffer some reversals before I bring my pony around the turn for the homestretch.”
    Claire let out a big sigh. “All right. Get out, you two. I’ll find the money.”
    The Colonel grinned and grabbed Josephine’s mother, with the girl squeezed between them. He kissed the woman long and hard, then hoisted Josephine up. “There’s my best girls.”
    Claire pulled away after a few seconds and pointed to the door. “Out!”
    The Colonel took Josephine down to the saloon, where the men were already arriving for the show. There, he bought her a sarsaparilla and she amused both him and O’Reilly by imitating the short Irishman’s accent. The Colonel challenged O’Reilly to some sort of dice game, winning eighteen cents, which paid for both the sarsaparilla and some gin for himself.
    They let Josephine watch the Bouvier Sisters sing the opening act while she ate a lamb pastry at the bar, but by the time Claire de Layerre and Francesca Díaz began to dance, she’d already been sent upstairs to bed.
    That night, when her mother came to check on her after the show, Josephine was still awake from all the music and shouting. Mother kissed her on the forehead before slipping back out again, locking the door from the outside. She didn’t come home until morning.

    C rescent Queen eased up to the docks at Frenchville the next morning after breakfast, and passengers and other traffic came up and down the gangplanks in both directions. Stevedores rolled up hogsheads of tobacco or carried crates of chickens and sacks of flour for the biscuits that were served at every meal aboard. An ugly, cussing man with a scar across his cheek led two barefoot slaves up another gangplank, where they disappeared into the lower deck.
    Josephine wondered briefly why slaves always loaded upriver and unloaded downriver in Mississippi or Louisiana, but her attention was drawn by her mother coming out of the stateroom, dressed in her sequined dress as if it were night and she was getting ready to perform. She stood at the rail, while a man set up a big wooden box camera on a tripod on shore. Josephine vaguely remembered something they’d been saying in the bar about a picture for the papers.
    The Colonel was standing next to the cameraman during the photograph, and when the man pulled off the black cloth after taking the picture, the Colonel whispered something in his ear. A silver coin glinted in the Colonel’s hand as he passed it off, and then the two men were waving in Josephine, who had been gawking to one side. They told her to stand next to her mother. The cameraman changed out the plates for a second photo.
    Fortunately, Josephine had been cleaned up to go into town with her mother and the Colonel, but she still felt as glamorous as a plucked chicken standing next to her mother in her dancing gown.
    Once Claire had changed from the gown into her crinoline dress and her feathered hat with parasol, mother and daughter joined the Colonel to visit Frenchville, which was