"Yes, I am," she replied.
"He made his choice. He got what he deserved. Look out yonder. We got a lot more serious t'ings to deal wit'," he said.
They had just made a bend in the river and should have been churning past the Confederate encampment, unchallenged, on their way to New Orleans, with nothing to fear until they approached the Union ironclads anchored in the river north of the city. Instead, a ship-of-war with twin stacks was anchored close to the shore, and soldiers with rifles moved in silhouette across the lighted windows. A pair of wheeled cannons had been moved into a firing position on a bluff above the river and all the undergrowth and willows chopped down in front of the barrels. Abigail heard an anchor chain on the Confederate boat clanking upward through an iron scupper. Jean-Jacques wiped his mouth with his hand. "Maybe I can run it. But we gonna take some balls t'rew the starboard side," he said.
"Turn in to shore," she said.
"That don't sound like a good idea."
"Get everyone down below," she said.
"There ain't room," she said.
"You have to make some."
She pulled up her dress and lifted the bottom of her petticoat in both hands and began to tear at it. The petticoat was pale yellow in color and sewn with lace on the edges. Jean-Jacques stared at her, his face contorted.
"I ain't having no parts in this," he said.
"Get Flower to help you. Please do what I say."
He frowned and rubbed the stubble on his jaw.
"Leave me your knife," she said.
"My knife?"
This time she didn't speak. She fixed her eyes on his and let her anger well into her face.
He called one of his boat mates to take the wheel and went out on the deck and opened a hatch in front of the pilothouse. One by one the black people who were hidden under the canvas crawled on their hands and knees to the ladder and dropped down into the heat of the boiler room.
Abigail ripped a large piece out of her petticoat, and knelt on the floor with Jean-Jacques' knife and cut the cloth in a square the size of a ship's flag. Then she tied two strips from the trimmings onto the corners and went to the stern. She pulled down the Confederate flag from its staff and replaced it with the piece from her petticoat.
Jean-Jacques came back into the pilothouse and steered his boat out of the channel, into dead water, cutting the engines just as the Confederates came alongside.
"What we doing, Miss Abigail?" he asked. He watched two soldiers latch a boat hook onto his gunnel and throw a boarding plank across it.
She patted her hand on top of his. He waited for her to answer his question.
"Miss Abigail?" he said.
But she only touched her finger to her lips.
Then he glanced at the tops of his shoes and his heart sank.
A major, a sergeant and three enlisted men dropped down onto the deck. Jean-Jacques went outside to meet them, his smile as natural as glazed ceramic.
"Had a bad storm up there. It's cleared up all right, though," he said.
The faces of the soldiers held no expression. Their eyes swept the decks, the pilothouse, the canvas stretched across the front of the boat. But one of them was not acting like the others, Jean-Jacques noted. The sergeant, who was unshaved and wore his kepi low on his brow, was looking directly into Jean-Jacques' face.
"You see any Yanks north of here?" the major asked.
"No, suh," Jean-Jacques said.
The major lit a lantern and held it up at eye level. He was a stout, be-whiskered man, his jowls flecked with tiny red and blue veins. A gray cord, with two acorns on it, was tied around the crown of his hat.
"You'll find them for sure if you keep going south," he said.