“Ain’t no business of mine. Maybe this great-aunty of yours can fill in the missin’ parts. Said her name’s Judith? Come to think of it, there’s an old widow over to Beaufort name of Judith Wilcox. Her husband was Lucien Wilcox, what owned the biggest bank in Beaufort. Had some dealin’s with him. Now, if that Judith is yours, y’all might be in luck. Banker’s widow bound to have money to lend.” Putting his hat back on, and giving it a smart crease, as if it were a beaver Stetson, Kincaid stood to leave. “But just in case she don’t have it, or in case she ain’t the right Judith, I’m goin’ to do the job for y’all for the five in my pocket. Hell, I’ll do it for that, no matter what.”

Nathaniel thought of protesting for form’s sake, decided against it, and thanked him.

“It ain’t charity. It’s because you’re close kin to Cap’n Lightbourne. Makes up some for y’all bein’ Yankees.” He gave Drew’s head a rub with his knuckles. “Just remember, it’s the War Between the States.”

15

ALL ALONG Bay Street and the Beaufort riverfront, the talk among merchants and fishermen was of the weather—hot enough to make the natives uncomfortable and the Braithwaites feel that they had landed in some Amazon port. Sweltering in their shore clothes, they proceeded through the business district, to which the adjective bustling could be applied only if your standard of comparison was a backwater like Snead’s Landing. Half a dozen Negroes, speaking a sluggish dialect that sounded like English but wasn’t quite, were stacking bales by a cotton warehouse with the movements of men afflicted by some minor paralysis. Two women came out of a shop and languidly strolled up Bay under parasols, while a team of panting horses slowly drew a freight wagon laden with furniture. Beaufort moved at a leisurely pace, and away from downtown, it wasn’t moving at all on this broiling afternoon. Turning up Carteret, which wended between stationary parades of live oak past the frame or tabby mansions of town gentry, the boys didn’t see a soul or a carriage. The same scene presented itself on Port Republic. All in all, the town had the look of one abandoned by plague or threat of invasion, and the deserted atmosphere heightened their feelings of uneasiness. At the corner, Nathaniel stopped and looked up the street with the bewildered air of a tourist in need of directions.

“Well, either we go through with this or we don’t,” said Eliot.