“You damn fool!” Marsh bellowed. “Stop her! Back her, dammit, turn her! Ain’t you got eyes? They’re comin’ after us!”
The pilot gave him an uncertain glance, and moved to stop the paddle wheel and commence to turn, but even as he did Abner Marsh saw that it was too damn late. They’d never come around in time, and even if they did, the Fevre Dream would be on them in minutes anyway. Her power would be much more telling when both boats were struggling against the current. Marsh grabbed the pilot’s arm. “No!” he said, “keep on! Faster! Go wide around them. Get some more lard in there quick, dammit, we got to shoot past ’em before they’re on us, you hear?”
The Fevre Dream was creeping toward them now, her decks acrawl with the night folks. Smoke poured from her chimneys, and Marsh could almost count the waiting figures. The pilot reached for the steam whistle, but Marsh grabbed him again and said, “No!”
“We’ll collide!” the pilot said. “Cap’n, we gotta let ’em know which side we’re takin’.”
“Keep ’em guessin’,” Marsh said. “Damn you, it’s our only chance! And get that lard in there!”
Across the dark moonlit waters, the Fevre Dream shrieked in triumph. It sounded like some demon wolf, thought Abner Marsh, howling after prey.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Aboard the Steamer Ozymandias,
Mississippi River,
October 1857
“Well, well,” said Sour Billy Tipton, “he’s comin’ right to us. Ain’t that nice of him?”
“You are certain it is Marsh, Billy?” asked Damon Julian.
“Take a look-see for yourself,” Sour Billy said, handing Julian the telescope. “Right up there in the pilot house of that rattletrap. Ain’t no one else so fat or so warty. Good thing I got to wonderin’ why they was stayin’ behind us like that.”
Julian lowered the glass. “Yes,” he said. He smiled. “What ever would we do without you, Billy?” Then the smile faded. “But Billy, you assured me that the captain was dead. When he fell into the river. I’m sure you recall. Don’t you, Billy?”
Sour Billy looked at him warily. “We’ll make sure this time, Mister Julian.”
“Ah,” said Julian. “Yes. Pilot, when we pass I want us within feet of their side. Do you understand, pilot?”
Joshua York looked away from the river briefly, without releasing his sure grip on the big black and silver wheel. His cold gray eyes met Julian’s across the darkness of the pilot house, then dropped abruptly. “We will pass close to them,” York said in a hollow voice.
On the couch behind the stove, Karl Framm stirred weakly, sat up, and came over to stand behind York, staring out over the river with filmy, half-dead eyes. He moved slowly, unsteady as a drunk or a weak old man. Looking at him, it was hard to recall how troublesome the pilot had been at first, Billy thought. Damon Julian had tended to Framm proper enough, though; that day he’d come lollygagging back to the boat, not realizing how things had changed, the lanky pilot had made some damn fool brag about his three wives within Julian’s hearing. Damon Julian had been amused. “Since you won’t be seeing the others anymore,” Julian had said to Framm later, “you’ll have three new wives aboard our steamer. A pilot has his privileges, after all.” And now Cynthia, Valerie, and Cara took turns with him, careful not to drink too much all at once, but drinking regular enough. As the only licensed pilot, Framm couldn’t be permitted to die, even though York did most of the steering now. Framm wasn’t high and mighty anymore, nor troublesome. He hardly talked at all, and he sort of shuffled when he walked, and he had tooth marks and wounds and such all up and down his skinny arms, and a feverish look in his eyes.
Blinking at the approach of Marsh’s squatty stern-wheeler, Framm almost seemed to perk up a mite. He even smiled. “Close,” he muttered, “you bet she’ll come close.”
Julian looked at him. “What do you mean, Mister Framm?”
“Nothing a-tall,” said Framm, “exceptin’ that she’s goin’ to ram right into you.” He grinned. “I bet ol’ Cap’n Marsh has that dern boat stacked up to the boiler deck with explosives. It’s an old river trick.”
Julian flicked his gaze back to the river. The stern-wheeler was bearing straight down on the Fevre Dream, belching fire and smoke like nobody’s business.
“He’s lyin’,” said Sour Billy, “he always lies.”
“Look how fast she’s coming,” Framm said, and it was true. With the current behind her and her paddle churning furiously, the stern-wheeler was coming on like the very devil.
“Mister Framm is right,” said Joshua York, and he was turning the huge wheel as he spoke, hand over hand, with smooth swift grace. The Fevre Dream swung her head sharply to the larboard. An instant later, the oncoming stern-wheeler sheered in the other direction, racing away from them. They could read the faded square lettering on her side: ELI REYNOLDS.
“It’s a damn trick!” Sour Billy shouted. “He’s lettin’ them get past us!”
Julian said coldly, “There are no explosives. Put us close to them,” and York began turning the wheel back at once, but it was too late; Marsh’s boat had seen her chance and lurched forward with surprising speed, steam hissing from her ’scape-pipes in tall white plumes. The Fevre Dream responded quickly, her head moving back in line, but already the Eli Reynolds was thirty yards to the starboard and surging past them, away safely, heading downriver. A shot rang out from her as she receded, the report clear even above the thunderous stroke of the Fevre Dream’s engines and the noise of her paddles, but no damage was sustained.
Damon Julian turned to Joshua York, ignoring Framm’s grin. “You will catch them for me, Joshua. Or I shall have Billy cast your bottles into the river, and you will thirst with the rest of us. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” said York. He called down for a full stop on both wheels, then set the larboard paddle slow forward, the starboard in reverse. The Fevre Dream began to come about again, assisted by the current. The Eli Reynolds was rushing away from her, stern-mounted paddle kicking wildly while sparks and flame poured from her stacks.
“Good,” said Damon Julian. He turned to Sour Billy. “Billy, I am going to my cabin.” Julian spent a lot of time in his cabin, sitting all alone in the dark without so much as a candle, sipping brandy and staring off at nothing. More and more he was leaving the running of the boat to Billy, just like he had let Billy run the plantation while he sat in his dark dusty library. “Stay here,” Julian continued, “and see that our pilot does as I’ve told him. When we catch that steamer, bring Captain Marsh to me.”
“What about the others?” Billy asked uncertainly.
Julian smiled. “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” he said.
When Julian had gone, Sour Billy turned to watch the river. The Eli Reynolds had sped downriver a good stretch while the Fevre Dream made her turn, and was several hundred yards ahead, but it was plain to see that it wouldn’t last long. The Fevre Dream was surging forward like she hadn’t done in months, both wheels turning full speed, the furnaces roaring, the decks pounding to the long massive stroke of the engines below. Even as Billy watched, the distance between the two boats seemed to diminish; the Fevre Dream was just eating up the river. Marsh would be paying a call on Damon Julian in no time at all. Sour Billy Tipton was looking forward to that, looking forward to it real keen.
Then Joshua York had them ease up on the starboard paddle, and began to turn the wheel.
“Hey!” Billy protested. “You’re lettin’ them get away! What are y’ doin’?” He reached behind him and flicked out his knife, brandishing it at York’s back. “What are y’ doin’?”
“Crossing the river, Mister Tipton,” answered York flatly.
“You turn that wheel right back. Marsh ain’t doin’ no crossin’, not so I can see, and he’s gettin’ further ahead.” York ignored the command, and Billy got angrier. “Turn back, I said.”
“A moment ago we passed a creek,” said York, “with a dead cottonwoo
d by its mouth. That is the mark. At that mark, I must cross. If I kept straight on, I’d lose the deep water and sink us. There’s a bluff reef on ahead there, too deep to show much of a sign on the water, but not so deep that it couldn’t tear out our bottom. Isn’t that right, Mister Framm?”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Sour Billy glared around suspiciously. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “Marsh didn’t cross, and he didn’t get his bottom tore out neither, not so I could notice.” He flourished the knife. “You ain’t goin’ to let him get away,” he said. The Eli Reynolds had already put another hundred feet between herself and the Fevre Dream. Only now was the smaller steamer starting to angle a bit to starboard.
“Some mate,” Karl Framm said with contempt. “Hell, that little stern-wheeler we’re chasin’ don’t draw nothin’. After a good rain, she could steam halfway across the city of N’Orleans without ever noticin’ that she’d left the river.”
“Abner is no fool,” said Joshua York, “and neither is his pilot. They knew that reef was too deep to bother them, even with this stage on the river. They steamed right across it, hoping we would follow them and wreck ourselves. At best we’d have been grounded until dawn. Now do you understand, Mister Tipton?”
Sour Billy scowled, suddenly feeling like a fool. He put away his knife, and as he did Karl Framm laughed. It was a chuckle, kind of, but that was enough for Billy to hear. He snapped, “Shut up, or I’ll call your missus.” Then it was his turn to snicker.
The Eli Reynolds had gone around a point, but her smoke was still hanging in the air, and you could see her lights burning on the far side of the trees. Sour Billy stared off at the lights in silence.
“Why do you care so much if Abner escapes?” York asked quietly. “What has the captain ever done to cause you harm, Mister Tipton?”
“I don’t care for warts,” said Billy coldly, “and Julian wants him. I do like Julian wants.”
“Whatever would he do without you,” said Joshua York. Sour Billy didn’t care for the way he said it, but before he could protest York was going on. “He is using you, Billy. Without you, he would be nothing. You think for him, act for him, you protect him by day. You make him what he is.”
“Yeah,” said Billy, proudly. He knew how important he was. He liked it just fine. It was even better on the steamer. He liked being a mate. The niggers he’d bought and the white trash he’d hired were all terrified of him, they called him “Mister Tipton” and rushed to do like he said, without him ever having to raise his voice or even stare at them. Some of the white rivermen had been unruly early on, till Sour Billy slit one open and stuffed him in a furnace with his belly hanging out. After that they got real respectful. The niggers were no trouble at all, except at landings, when Billy chained them up to the manacles he’d rigged on the main deck, so they couldn’t run off. It was better than being a plantation overseer. An overseer was white trash, everybody looked down on him. But on the river, a steamer’s mate was a man of substance, an officer, somebody you had to be polite to.
“The promise Julian has made you is a lie,” York was saying. “You will never be one of us, Billy. We are different races. Our anatomy is different, our flesh, our very blood. He cannot make you over, no matter what he says.”
“You must think I’m pretty damn stupid,” Billy said. “I don’t got to lissen to Julian. I heard the stories. I know how vampires can make other vampires. You were like me once, York, no matter what you say. Only you’re weak, and I ain’t. Are you afraid?” That was it, Billy thought. York wanted him to betray Julian so Julian wouldn’t make him over, because once he was one of them, he’d be stronger than York, maybe as strong as Julian. “I scare you, Josh, don’t I? You think you’re so damn fine, but you wait till Julian makes me over, and I make you come crawlin’ to me. Wonder what it tastes like, that blood of yours? Julian knows, don’t he?”
York said nothing, but Sour Billy knew he’d struck a sore spot. Damon Julian had tasted York’s blood a dozen times since that first night aboard the Fevre Dream. In fact, he had drunk of no one else. “Because you are so beautiful, dear Joshua,” he would say with a pale smile, as he handed York a glass to be filled. It seemed to amuse him to make York submit.
“He is laughing at you all the time,” York said after a time. “Every day and every night. He mocks you, he despises you. He thinks you are ugly and ludicrous, no matter how useful you may be. You are nothing but an animal to him, and he will cast you aside like so much trash if he finds a stronger beast to serve him. He will make sport of it, but by then you will be so corrupt and so rotten through that you will still believe, still grovel for him.”
“I ain’t no groveler,” Billy said. “Shut up! Julian ain’t lyin’!”
“Then ask him when he intends to make you over. Ask him how he will perform this miracle, how he will lighten your skin and make over your body and teach your eyes to see in darkness. Ask Julian if you think he is not lying. And listen, Mister Tipton. Listen to the mockery in his voice when he talks to you.”
Sour Billy Tipton was seething. It was all he could do to stop from pulling out the knife and sticking it in Joshua York’s broad back, but he knew that York would just turn on him, and Julian wouldn’t be pleased either. “All right,” he said. “Maybe I will ask him. He’s older’n you, York, and he knows things you don’t. Maybe I’ll just ask him right now.”
Karl Framm chuckled again, and even York glanced away from the wheel to smile tauntingly. “Why are you waiting, then?” he said. “Ask him.” Sour Billy went below to the texas to ask.
Damon Julian had taken over the captain’s cabin that had been Joshua York’s. Billy knocked politely. “Yes, Billy,” came the soft reply. He opened the door and entered. The room was black, but he could sense Julian sitting a few feet away, in the darkness. “Have we caught Captain Marsh yet?” Julian asked.
“He’s still runnin’,” Billy said, “but we’re goin’ to have him soon, Mister Julian.”
“Ah. Then why are you here, Billy? I told you to stay with Joshua.”
“I got to ask you something,” Sour Billy said. He repeated all that Joshua York had told him. When he was done, the room was very quiet.
“Poor Billy,” Julian said finally. “Do you have doubts, Billy, after all this time? If you doubt, you will never complete the change, Billy. That is why dear Joshua is so tormented. His doubts have left him in between, half-master and half-cattle. Do you understand? You must have patience.”
“I want to start,” Sour Billy insisted. “It’s been years, Mister Julian. Now we got this steamer, things is better than they was. I want to be one of you. You promised me.”
“So I did.” Damon Julian chuckled. “Well then, Billy, we will have to start, won’t we? You have served me well, and if you are so insistent, I can hardly refuse you, can I? You’re so clever, I wouldn’t want to lose you.”
Sour Billy could hardly believe his ears. “You mean you’ll do it?” Joshua York would be awful sorry for his tone, Billy thought wildly.
“Of course, Billy. I have given you a promise.”
“When?”
“The change cannot be done in a single night. It will take time to transform you, Billy. Years.”
“Years?” Sour Billy said, dismayed. He didn’t care to wait no years. In the stories, it didn’t take no years.
“I’m afraid so. As you grew from a boy into a man, slowly, you now must grow from a slave into a master. We will nourish you well, Billy, and from the blood you will gain power, beauty, speed. You will drink life and it will flow through your veins, until you are reborn into the night. It cannot be done quickly, but it can be done. It shall be as I have promised. You will have the life eternal, and the mastery, and the red thirst will fill you. We will begin soon.”
“How soon?”
“To begin, you must drink, Billy. For that we need a victim.” He laughed. “Captain Marsh,” he said suddenly. “He will suffice for you,
Billy. When we catch his steamer, bring him here to me, as I have told you. Unharmed. I shall not touch him. He will be yours, Billy. We will bind him up in his grand saloon, and you shall drink of him, night after night. A man his size must have a lot of blood in him. He will last a long time, Billy, and take you a long way into the change. Yes. You will begin with Captain Marsh, as soon as he is ours. Catch them, Billy. For me, and for yourself.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Aboard the Steamer Eli Reynolds,
Mississippi River,
October 1857
Abner Marsh was watching from the pilot house of the Eli Reynolds when the Fevre Dream slid into her crossing. He stamped his stick down hard and cussed, but down under he wasn’t sure whether he was disappointed or relieved. It would have cut the heart right out of him to see his lady rip herself asunder on that damned bluff reef, Marsh knew. On the other hand, now the Fevre Dream was still after them, and if she caught the Reynolds, no doubt Damon Julian would rip the heart right out of him. It seemed a losing game either way. Marsh stood there frowning while the pilot of the Eli Reynolds turned her rudder and began his own crossing. Steaming after them through the darkness, the Fevre Dream was a fearful sight. Marsh had built her to take the Eclipse, to be the fastest boat that ever got up a head of steam, and now he had to outrun her in one of the oldest, sorriest boats on the river. “No help for it,” he said aloud, turning to his pilot. “We’re in a race,” he said. “See that we ain’t caught.”