Free Sandra Hill - [Creole] by Sweeter Savage Love Page A

Great! Now Steve was robbing banks, too.
    “That’s the story Pope gave the railroad people in order to conduct a search,” Cain explained hurriedly.
    Just then, Harriet heard a door opening up ahead, followed immediately by the crack of a sharp slap close by.
    “That’ll teach you, boy. Where you been hidin’?” Etienne barked to Cain, easing smoothly into one of his dialect changes. “I told you to come back and help me carry this body.”
    “What’s the problem here, folks?” another voice inquired.
    It didn’t sound like the same conductor as before. Thank goodness! He might have recognized Etienne, despite his disguise. Though why I should care is beyond me .
    “No problem now, sir. But there ain’t nothin’ worse than a lazy nigger,” Etienne remarked. “What he needs is a good whuppin’.”
    Cain whimpered dolefully.
    “Ain’t it the truth?” the conductor concurred. “Whatcha got in that sheet?”
    “A corpse,” Etienne apprised him matter-of-factly as he hefted her off one shoulder and onto another while he reached inside his jacket. She had to bite her bottom lip to keep from crying out at the rough handling. “And the damn body’s growin’ heavier by the minute. Deadweight, you know?”
    I’ll give him deadweight .
    The arm wrapped around her thighs squeezed tighter in warning as if sensing her imminent protest. “Here’s my business card. Hiram M. Frogash, mortician, at your service. And this no-good blackie here is my assistant, Hippocrates Jones.”
    “I’s sorry, master. Don’t you be needin’ to whup my no-good hide again,” Cain whined. “I be good from now on.”
    “Hiram M. Frogash, mortician. Richmond, Virginia,” the conductor read aloud. “You’re a long way from home, ain’tcha?”
    “Yes, sir. I got me a commission to dig up the remains of four Reb soldiers what died at Gettysburg. We’re bringin’ ’em back to their families in Louisiana. The corpses are in coffins in the freight cars.”
    “Oh. Then what’s in the sheet?” The conductor sounded rather suspicious. And they were wasting a lot of time, especially if bad guys really were searching the train. Or were they good guys? Harriet was confused, probably from all the blood pooling in her head.
    Etienne laughed conspiratorially. “I picked up a little extra business in Memphis. Got off the train for a nature call—hell, a man gets mighty sick of pissing in a chamber pot—when I saw these men arguin’ over who was goin’ to take the dead body of Sally Mae Benson back to Baton Rouge. ’Pears the gal ran away from home before her sad demise.” Etienne’s voice softened to an appropriately doleful undertaker tone. “They gave me ten dollars to take her off their hands.”
    “Ten dollars!” the conductor exclaimed.
    “Well, we’d best be gettin’ Sally Mae on her way,” Etienne said, patting her rump as he shoved something soft and small, like an item of clothing, up under the folds of her sheet, between her knees, Perhaps her panties or stockings, which would cause undue questions if Etienne got searched. “Don’t want to be spreadin’ no fever.”
    “Fever!” the conductor cried out, and seemed to step away.
    “Sally Mae died a week ago. Can’t you smell her?”
    Smell?
    “No. Oh, Lordy, yes, I do. I smell her now.”
    Immediately, Harriet heard running feet and a door slamming as the conductor made a hasty exit. She sniffed. There was, indeed, a strong odor, like moldy cheese.
    Following a brief silence, Etienne and Cain burst out with relieved laughter.
    “Could we get a move on it here, guys?” she interjected, raising her head slightly off Etienne’s back but unable to see through her sheet. “Unlike you two hyenas, I am not having fun.”
    Cain guffawed. “What is that smell?”
    “One of your dirty socks.”
    Cain made a choking sound of protest.
    It took only a second for the words to sink in. “Why, you rat!” If her arms weren’t restricted at her sides, Harriet