Marsh soon put the incident out of his mind, and plunged back into business. On the night before their scheduled departure, however, something else bothered him. He had called on Joshua York in his cabin to go over a few details of their trip. York was sitting at his desk, with his slim ivory-handled knife in hand, slicing an article out of a newspaper. He and Marsh chatted briefly for a few minutes about the business at hand, and Marsh was about to take his leave when he noticed a copy of the Democrat on York’s desk. “They were supposed to run one of our advertisements today,” Marsh said, reaching for the paper. “You finished with this, Joshua?”
York dismissed the paper with a wave of his hand. “Take it if you’d like,” he said.
Abner Marsh carried the paper under his arm to the main cabin, and paged through it while Simon made him a drink. He was annoyed. He couldn’t locate their advertisement. Of course, it might not be an omission; York had sliced out a story on the page that backed up the shipping news, so there was a hole just in the prime place. Marsh drained his glass, folded up the paper, and went forward to the clerk’s office.
“You got the latest number of the Democrat?” Marsh asked Jeffers. “I think that damn Blair left out my advertisement.”
“It’s there yonder,” Jeffers replied, “but he didn’t. Look on the shipping page.”
And sure enough, there it was, a box smack in the middle of a column of similar boxes:
FEVRE RIVER PACKET COMPANY
The splendid fleet steamer Fevre Dream will leave for New Orleans, Louisiana, and all intermediate points and landings, on Thursday, making the best time and manned by all experienced officers and crew. For freight or passage, apply on board or at the company office at the foot of Pine St.
—Abner Marsh, presdn’t
Marsh inspected the advertisement, nodded, and flipped back a page, to see what Joshua York had cut out. The item looked to be a reprint lifted from some downriver paper, about some old no-count woodyard man found dead in his cabin on the river north of New Madrid. The mate of a steamer that had put in for wood found him, when no one answered their calls. Some thought that Indians did it, some others said wolves, since the body had been all ripped up, and half eaten. That was just about all it said.
“Something wrong, Cap’n Marsh?” Jeffers asked. “You got a queer look on your face.”
Marsh folded up Jeffers’ Democrat and stuck it under his arm with York’s. “No, nothin’, damn paper just spelled a couple things wrong.”
Jeffers smiled. “Are you certain? I know spelling isn’t your strong suit, Cap’n.”
“Don’t you go joshing me about that again, or I’ll chuck you over the side, Mister Jeffers,” Marsh replied. “I’m going to be takin’ your paper, if you don’t mind.”
“Go ahead,” Jeffers said, “I’d finished.”
Back at the bar Marsh reread the story about the woodyard man. Why should Joshua York be cutting out some item about some fool trash killed by wolves? Marsh couldn’t figure an answer, but it bothered him. He looked up and noticed Simon’s eyes on him in the big mirror over the bar. Marsh quickly folded up the Democrat again and stuffed it into a pocket. “Let me have a little glass of whiskey,” he said.
Marsh drank the whiskey straight down, and made a long “Aaaaaaah” as the burning spread down through his chest. It cleared his head a mite. There were ways he could find out more about this, but then again it wasn’t rightly his business what kind of newspaper stories Joshua York liked to read. Besides, he had given his word not to go prying into York’s business, and Abner Marsh fancied himself a man of his word. Resolute, Marsh set down his glass and moved away from the bar. He clomped down the grand, curving stair to the main deck, and tossed both newspapers into one of the dark furnaces. The deckhands looked at him strangely, but Marsh felt better immediately. A man shouldn’t go around entertaining suspicions about his partner, especially one as generous and well-mannered as Joshua York. “What are you lookin’ at?” he barked at the deckhands. “Ain’t you got no work to do? I’ll find Hairy Mike and see he gets you some!” Immediately the men were busy. Abner Marsh went back up to the main cabin and had himself another drink.
The next morning Marsh went over to Pine Street, to his company’s main office, and tended to business for several hours. He lunched at the Planters’ House, surrounded by old friends and old rivals, feeling grand. Marsh bragged up a storm about his steamer, and had to endure Farrell and O’Brien flapping their jaws about their boats, but that was all right, he just smiled and said, “Well, boys, maybe we’ll meet on the river. Wouldn’t that be grand?” Not a soul mentioned his previous misfortune, and three different men came up to his table and asked Marsh if he needed a pilot for the lower Mississippi. It was a fine couple of hours.
Strolling back to the river, Marsh chanced to pass a tailor’s shop. He hesitated, tugging at his beard thoughtfully while he mulled over an idea that had struck him real sudden. Then he went inside, grinning, and ordered up a new captain’s coat for himself. A white one, with a double row of silver buttons, just like Joshua’s. Marsh left two dollars on account, and arranged to pick up the coat when the Fevre Dream returned to St. Louis. He left feeling very satisfied with himself.
The riverfront was chaotic. A consignment of dry goods had arrived late, and the roustabouts were sweating to get it loaded up in time. Whitey had the steam up; tall white plumes were rising from the ’scape-pipes, and dark smoke rolled out of the chimneys’ flowered tops. The steamer to the left of the Fevre Dream was backing out, with great gouts of smoke and much whistle-blowing and shouting. And the big side-wheeler to the right was unloading freight onto its wharfboat, an old decrepit shell of a steamer tied permanently to the landing. All up and down the riverfront there were steamboats, as far as the eye could see in either direction, more boats than Marsh could count. Nine boats up was the luxurious, three-decked John Simonds, taking on passengers. Down from her was the side-wheeler Northern Light, with a picture of the Aurora painted gaudy on her paddle boxes; she was a brand new upper-Mississippi steamer, and the Northwestern Line said she was faster than any boat that had plied those waters yet. Coming downriver was the Grey Eagle, which the Northern Light was going to have to take to live up to her brag. There was the Northerner, and the crude, powerful stern-wheeler St. Joe, and the Die Vernon II, and the Natchez.
Marsh looked at each of them in turn, at the intricate devices suspended between their chimneys, at their fancy jigsaw carpentry and their bright paint, at their hissing, billowing steam, at the power in their wheels. And then he looked at his own boat, the Fevre Dream, all white and blue and silver, and it seemed to him that her steam rose higher than any of the others, and her whistle had a sweeter, clearer tone, and her paint was cleaner and her wheels more for-mid-a-bul, and she stood taller than all but three or four of the other boats, and she was longer than just about any of them. “We’ll take ’em all,” he said to himself, and he went on down to his lady.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream,
Mississippi River,
July 1857
Abner Marsh cut a wedge of cheddar from the wheel on the table, positioned it carefully atop what remained of his apple pie, and forked them both up with a quick motion of his big red hand. He belched, wiped his mouth with his napkin and shook a few crumbs from his beard, and sat back with a smile on his face.
“Good pie?” asked Joshua York, smiling at Marsh over a brandy snifter.
“Toby don’t bake no other kind,” Marsh replied. “You should of tried a piece.” He pushed away from the table and stood up. “Well, drink up, Joshua. It’s time.”
“Time?”
“You wanted to learn the river, didn’t you? You ain’t goin’ to learn it settin’ to table, I’ll tell you that much.”
York finished his brandy, and they went up to the pilot house together. Karl Framm was on duty. He was lounging on the couch, smoke curling up from his pipe, while his cub—a tall youth
with lank blond hair hanging down to his collar—worked as steersman. “Cap’n Marsh,” Framm said, nodding. “And you must be the mysterious Cap’n York. Pleased to meet you. Never been on a steamer with two captains before.” He grinned, a wide lopsided grin that flashed a gold tooth. “This boat got almost as many captains as I got wives. Of course, it stands to reason. Why, this boat got more boilers and more mirrors and more silver than any boat I ever seen, so it ought to have more captains too, I figure.” The lanky pilot leaned forward and knocked some ashes from his pipe into the belly of the big iron stove. It was cold and dark, the night being hot and thick. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” Framm asked.
“Learn us the river,” said Marsh.
Framm’s eyebrows rose. “Learn you the river? I got myself a cub here. Ain’t that right, Jody?”
“Sure is, Mister Framm.”
Framm smiled and shrugged. “Now, I’m learnin’ Jody here, and it’s all been arranged, I’m to get six hundred dollars from the first wages he gets after he’s been licensed and taken into the association. I’m only doin’ it so cheap cause I know his family. Can’t say I know your families, though, can’t say that a-tall.”
Joshua York undid the buttons on his dark gray vest. He was wearing a money belt. He brought out a twenty-dollar gold piece, and placed it on top of the stove, the gold gleaming softly against the black iron. “Twenty,” said York. He set another gold piece atop it. “Forty,” he said. Then a third. “Sixty.” When the count reached three hundred York buttoned up his vest. “I’m afraid that is all I have on me, Mister Framm, but I assure you I am not without funds. Let us agree to seven hundred dollars for yourself, and an equal amount for Mister Albright, if the two of you will instruct me in the rudiments of piloting, and refresh Captain Marsh here so he can steer his own boat. Payable immediately, not from future wages. What say you?”
Framm was real cool about it, Marsh thought. He sucked on his pipe thoughtfully for a moment, like he was considering the offer, and finally reached out and took the stack of gold coins. “Can’t speak for Mister Albright, but for myself, I was always fond of the color of gold. I’ll learn you. What say you come on up tomorrow during the day, at the start of my watch?”
“That may be fine for Captain Marsh,” York said, “but I prefer to begin immediately.”
Framm looked around. “Hell,” he said. “Can’t you see? It’s night. Been learning Jody for near a year now, and it’s only been a month I been lettin’ him steer by night. Running at night ain’t never easy. No.” His tone was firm. “I’ll learn you by day first, when a man can see where’s he runnin’ to.”
“I will learn by night. I keep strange hours, Mister Framm. But you need not worry. I have excellent night vision, better than yours, I suspect.”
The pilot unfolded his long legs, stood up, and stalked over and took the wheel. “Go below, Jody,” he said to his cub. When the youth had gone, Framm said, “Ain’t no man sees good enough to run a bad stretch of river in the dark.” He stood with his back to them, intent on the black starlit waters ahead. Far up the river they could see the distant lights of another steamer. “Tonight is a good clear night, no clouds to speak of, a half decent moon, good stage on the river. Look at that water out there. Like black glass. Look at the banks. Real easy to see where they’re at, ain’t it?”
“Yes,” said York. Marsh, smiling, said nothing.
“Well,” said Framm, “it ain’t always like that. Sometimes there ain’t no moon, sometimes there’s clouds covering everything. Gets awful black then. Gets so a man can’t see much of nothin’. The banks pull back so you can’t see where they are, and if you don’t know what you’re doin’ you can steer right into ’em. Other times you get shadows that hulk up like they were solid land, and you got to know they ain’t, otherwise you’ll spend half the night steerin’ away from things that ain’t really there. How do you suppose a pilot knows such things, Cap’n York?” Framm gave him no chance to reply. He tapped his temple. “By memory is how. By seeing the dern river by day and rememberin’ it, all of it, every bend and every house along the shore, every woodyard, where it runs deep and where it’s shallow, where you got to cross. You pilot a steamer with what you know, Cap’n York, not with what you see. But you got to see before you can know, and you can’t see good enough by night.”
“That’s the truth, Joshua,” Abner Marsh affirmed, putting a hand up on York’s shoulder.
York said quietly, “The boat up ahead of us is a side-wheeler, with what appears to be an ornate K between her chimneys, and a pilot house with a domed roof. Right now she’s passing a woodyard. There’s an old rotten wharf there, and a colored man is sitting on the end of it, looking out at the river.”
Marsh let go of York’s shoulder and moved to the window, squinting. The other boat was a long way ahead. He could make out that she was a side-wheeler right enough, but the device between her chimneys . . . the chimneys were black against a black sky, he could barely see them, and then only because of the sparks flying from them. “Damn,” he said.
Framm glanced around at York with surprise in his eyes. “I can’t make out half that stuff myself,” he said, “but I do believe you’re right.” A few moments later the Fevre Dream steamed past the woodyard, and there was the old colored man, just like York had described. “He’s smokin’ a pipe,” Framm said, grinning. “You left that out.”
“Sorry,” Joshua York said.
“Well,” said Framm thoughtfully, “well.” He chewed on his pipe, his eyes on the river ahead. “You surely do have good night eyes, I’ll give you that. But I’m still not sure. It ain’t hard to see a woodyard up ahead on a clear night. Seein’ an old darkie is a mite harder, with the way they blend in and all, but still, that’s one thing, and the river is another. There’s lots of little things a pilot has got to see that your cabin passenger would never notice a-tall. The look of the water when a snag or a sawyer is hidin’ underneath it. Old dead trees that’ll tell you the stage of the river a hundred miles farther on. The way to tell a bluff reef from a wind reef. You got to be able to read the river like it was a book, and the words is just little ripples and eddies, sometimes all faded so they can’t be made out properly, and then you got to rely on what you remember about the last time you read that page. Now you wouldn’t go try readin’ a book in the dark, would you?”
York ignored that. “I can see a ripple on the water as easily as I can see a woodyard, if I know what to look for. Mister Framm, if you can’t teach me the river, I’ll find a pilot who can. I remind you that I am the owner and master of the Fevre Dream.”
Framm glanced around again, frowning now. “More work by night,” he said. “If you want to learn by night, it’ll cost you eight hundred.”
York’s expression melted into a slow smile. “Done,” he said. “Now, let us begin.”
Karl Framm pushed back his slouchy hat until it sat on the back of his head, and gave a long sigh, like a man who was inordinately put upon. “All right,” he said, “it’s your money, and your boat too. Don’t come botherin’ me when you tear out her bottom. Now listen up. The river runs pretty straight from St. Louis down to Cairo, before the Ohio comes in. But you got to know it anyhow. This here stretch is called the graveyard from time to time, cause a lot of boats went down here. Some, you can still see the chimneys peeping up above the water, or the whole damn wreck lyin’ in the mud if the river’s low—the ones that are down under the waterline, though, you better know where they lie, or the next damn boat comin’ down is goin’ to have to know where you lie. You got to learn your marks, too, and how to handle the boat. Here, step on up and take the wheel, get the feel of her. You couldn’t touch bottom with a church steeple right now, it’s safe enough.” York and Framm changed places. “Now, the first point below St. Louis . . .” Framm began. Abner Marsh sat himself down on the couch, listening, while the pilot went on and on, meandering from the marks to tricks of steering to long stories about the steamers that lay s
unken in the graveyard they were running. He was a colorful storyteller, but after every tale he’d recollect the task at hand and meander back to the marks again. York drank it all in, quietlike. He seemed to pick up the knack of steering quickly, and whenever Framm stopped and asked him to repeat some bit of information, Joshua just reeled it back at him.
At length, after they’d caught and passed the side-wheeler that had been running ahead of them, Marsh found himself yawning. It was such a fine sharp night, though, that he hated to go to bed. He hoisted himself up and went down to the texas-tender, coming back with a pot of hot coffee and a plate of tarts. When he returned, Karl Framm was spinning the yarn about the wreck of the Drennan Whyte, lost above Natchez in ’50 with a treasure aboard her. The Evermonde tried to raise her, caught fire and went to the bottom. The Ellen Adams, a salvage steamer, came looking for the treasure in ’51, struck a bar and half sank. “The treasure’s cursed, y’see,” Framm was saying, “either that or that old devil river just don’t want to give it up.”
Marsh smiled and poured the coffee. “Joshua,” he said, “that story’s true enough, but don’t you go believing everything he says. This man’s the most notorious liar on the river.”
“Why, Cap’n!” Framm said, grinning. He turned back to the river. “See that old cabin yonder, with the tumbly-down porch?” he said. “Good, cause you got to recollect it . . .” and he was off again. It was a solid twenty minutes before he got distracted by the story of E. Jenkins, the steamer that was thirty miles long, with hinges in the middle so it could make the turns in the river. Even Joshua York gave Framm an incredulous look for that one. But he was smiling.
Marsh retired about an hour after he’d eaten the last of the tarts. Framm was amusing enough, but he’d take his lessons by day, when he could damn well see the marks the pilot was talking about.