Fevre Dream Read online

  And there was the wheel. Only the top half of it was visible, so huge was it, and even that stood as high as Marsh himself, while the bottom half was set in a slot in the floorboards. It was fashioned of soft black teak, cool and smooth to the touch, and the spokes wore ornamental silver bands like a dancehall girl wears garters. The wheel seemed to cry out for a pilot’s hands.

  Joshua York came up to the wheel and touched it, running a pale hand over the black wood and silver. Then he took hold of it, as if he were a pilot himself, and for a long moment he stood like that, the wheel in his hands and his gray eyes brooding as they stared out into the night and the unseasonable June fog. The others all fell silent, and for a brief moment Abner Marsh could almost feel the steamboat move, over some dark river of the mind, on a voyage strange and endless.

  Joshua York turned then, and broke the spell. “Abner,” he said, “I would like to learn to steer this boat. Can you teach me to pilot?”

  “Pilot, eh?” Marsh said, surprised. He had no difficulty imagining York as a master and a captain, but piloting was something else—yet somehow the very asking made him warm to his partner, made him understandable after all. Abner Marsh knew what it was to want to pilot. “Well, Joshua,” he said, “I’ve done my share of piloting, and it’s the grandest feeling in the world. Being a captain, that ain’t nothin’ to piloting. But it ain’t something you just pick up, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “The wheel looks simple enough to master,” York said.

  Marsh laughed. “Hell yes, but it’s not the wheel you got to learn. It’s the river, York, the river. The old Mississippi hisself. I was a pilot for eight years, before I got my own boats, licensed for the upper Mississippi and the Illinois. Never for the Ohio, though, or the lower Mississippi, and for all I knew about steamboatin’ I couldn’t have piloted no boat on those rivers to save my life—didn’t know ’em. Those I did know, it took me years to learn ’em, and the learnin’ never stopped. By now I been out of the pilot house for so long that I’d have to learn ’em all over again. The river changes, Joshua, that it does. Ain’t never the same twice in a row, and you got to know every inch of it.” Marsh strolled to the wheel and put one of his own hands on it, fondly. “Now, I plan to pilot this boat, at least once. I dreamed about her too long not to want to take her in my hands. When we go against the Eclipse, I mean to stand a spell in the pilot house, that I do. But she’s too grand a boat for anything but the New Orleans trade, and that means the lower river, so I’m going to have to start learnin’ myself, learn every damn foot. Takes time, takes work.” He looked at York. “You still want to pilot, now that you know what it means?”

  “We can learn together, Abner,” York replied.

  York’s companions were growing restless. They wandered from window to window, Brown shifting the lantern from one hand to the other, Simon as grim as a cadaver. Smith said something to York in their foreign tongue. York nodded. “We must be going back,” he said.

  Marsh glanced around one final time, reluctant to leave even now, and led them from the pilot house.

  When they had trudged partway through the boatyards, York turned and looked back toward their steamboat where she sat on her pilings, pale against the darkness. The others stopped as well, and waited silently.

  “Do you know Byron?” York asked Marsh.

  Marsh thought a minute. “Know a fellow named Blackjack Pete used to pilot on the Grand Turk. I think his last name was Brian.”

  York smiled. “Not Brian, Byron. Lord Byron, the English poet.”

  “Oh,” said Marsh. “Him. I’m not much a one for poems. I think I heard of him, though. Gimp, wasn’t he? And quite a one for the ladies.”

  “The very one, Abner. An astounding man. I had the good fortune to meet him once. Our steamboat put me in mind of a poem he once wrote.” He began to recite.

  She walks in Beauty, like the night

  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

  And all that’s best of dark and bright

  Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

  Thus mellowed to that tender light

  Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

  “Byron wrote of a woman, of course, but the words seem to fit our boat as well, do they not? Look at her, Abner! What do you think?”

  Abner Marsh didn’t quite know what to think; your average steamboatman didn’t go around spouting poetry, and he didn’t know what to say to one who did. “Very interesting, Joshua,” was all he managed.

  “What shall we name her?” York asked, his eyes still fixed on the boat, and a slight smile on his face. “Does the poem suggest anything?”

  Marsh frowned. “We’re not going to name her after any gimp Britisher, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said gruffly.

  “No,” said York, “I wasn’t suggesting that. I had in mind something like Dark Lady, or—”

  “I had somethin’ in mind myself,” Marsh said. “We’re Fevre River Packets, after all, and this boat is all I ever dreamed come true.” He lifted his hickory stick and pointed at the wheelhouse. “We’ll put it right there, big blue and silver letters, real fancy. Fevre Dream.”He smiled. “Fevre Dream against the Eclipse, they’ll talk about that race till all of us are dead.”

  For a moment, something strange and haunted moved in Joshua York’s gray eyes. Then it was gone as swiftly as it had come. “Fevre Dream,” he said. “Don’t you think that choice a bit . . . oh, ominous? It suggests sickness to me, fever and death and twisted visions. Dreams that . . . dreams that should not be dreamed, Abner.”

  Marsh frowned. “I don’t know about that. I like it.”

  “Will people ride in a boat with such a name? Steamboats have been known to carry typhoid and yellow fever. Do we wish to remind them of such things?”

  “They rode my Sweet Fevre,”Marsh said. “They ride the War Eagle, and the Ghost, even boats named after Red Indians. They’d ride her.”

  The gaunt, pale one named Simon said something then, in a voice that rasped like a rusty saw and a language strange to Marsh, though it was not the one Smith and Brown babbled in. York heard him and his face took on a thoughtful cast, though it still seemed troubled. “Fevre Dream,” he said again. “I had hoped for a—a healthier name, but Simon has made a point to me. Have your way then, Abner. The Fevre Dream she is.”

  “Good,” Marsh said.

  York nodded absently. “Let us meet tomorrow for dinner at the Galt House. At eight. We can make plans for our voyage to St. Louis, discuss crew and provisioning, if that is agreeable to you.”

  Marsh voiced a gruff assent, and York and his companions went off toward their boat, vanishing into the mists. Long after they had gone Marsh stood in the boatyards, staring at the still, silent steamer. “Fevre Dream,” he said loudly, just to test the taste of the words on his tongue. But oddly, for the first time, the name seemed wrong in his ears, fraught with connotations he did not like. He shivered, unaccountably cold for a moment, then snorted and set off for bed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream,

  Ohio River,

  July 1857

  The Fevre Dream left New Albany by dark, on a sultry night early in July. In all his years on the river, Abner Marsh had never felt so alive as he did that day. He spent the morning attending to last minute details in Louisville and New Albany; hiring a barber and lunching with the men from the boatyards and posting a handful of letters. In the heat of the afternoon, he settled into his cabin, made a last check round the steamer to make certain everything was right, and greeted some of the cabin passengers as they arrived. Supper was a rushed affair, and then he was off to the main deck to check the engineer and the strikers checking the boilers, and to supervise the mate as he supervised the loading of the last of the cargo. The sun beat down relentlessly and the air hung thick and still, so the roustabouts gleamed with sweat as they carried crates and bales and barrels up the narrow loading planks, the mate cussing at them all the while.
Across the river to Louisville, Marsh knew, other steamers were departing or loading up as well: the big, low-pressure Jacob Strader of the Cincinnati Mail Line, the swift Southerner of the Cincinnati & Louisville Packet Company, a half-dozen smaller boats. He watched to see if any of ’em went down the river, feeling awful good despite the heat and the swarms of mosquitoes that had risen from the river when the sun went down.

  The main deck was crammed with cargo fore and aft, filling most all the space not taken up by the boilers and furnaces and engines. She was carrying a hundred-fifty tons of bale leaf tobacco, thirty tons of bar iron, countless barrels of sugar and flour and brandy, crates of fancy furniture for some rich man in St. Louis, a couple blocks of salt, some bolts of silk and cotton, thirty barrels of nails, eighteen boxes of rifles, some books and papers and sundries. And lard. One dozen big barrels of the finest lard. But the lard wasn’t cargo, properly; Marsh had bought it himself and ordered it stowed on board.

  The main deck was crammed with passengers as well, men and women and children, thick as the river mosquitoes, swarming and milling amid the cargo. Near three hundred of ’em had crowded on, paying a dollar each for passage to St. Louis. Passage was all they got; they ate what food they brought on board with them, and the lucky ones found a place to sleep on the deck. They were mostly foreigners, Irish and Swedes and big Dutchmen all yelling at each other in languages Marsh didn’t know, drinking and cussing and slapping their kids. A few trappers and common laborers were down there as well, too poor for anything but deck passage at Marsh’s bargain rates.

  The cabin passengers had paid a full ten dollars, at least those who were going all the way to St. Louis. Almost all the cabins were full, even at that rate; the clerk told Marsh they had one hundred seventy-seven cabin passengers aboard, which Marsh figured had to be a good number, with all those sevens in it. The roster included a dozen planters, the head of a big St. Louis fur company, two bankers, a rich Britisher and his three daughters, and four nuns going to Iowa. They also had a preacher on board, but that was all right since they weren’t carrying no gray mare; it was well known among rivermen that having a preacher and a gray mare on board was an invitation to disaster.

  As for the crew, Marsh was right pleased with it. The two pilots, now, were nothing special, but they were only hired on temporary to take the steamer to St. Louis, since they were Ohio River pilots and the Fevre Dream was going to work the New Orleans trade. He had already written letters to St. Louis and New Orleans, and he had a couple of lightning lower Mississippi pilots waiting for them at the Planters’ House. The rest of the crew, though, were as good as any steamboatmen on any river anywhere, Marsh was sure. The engineer was Whitey Blake, a peppery little man whose fierce white whiskers always had grease stains in ’em from the engines. Whitey had been with Abner Marsh on the Eli Reynolds, and later on the Elizabeth A. and the Sweet Fevre, and there wasn’t no one understood a steam engine better than he did. Jonathon Jeffers, the clerk, had gold spectacles and slicked-back brown hair and fancy button gaiters, but he was a terror at ciphering and dickering, never forgot anything, struck a mean bargain and played a meaner game of chess. Jeffers had been in the line’s main office until Marsh had written him to come down to the Fevre Dream. He’d come right away; for all of his dandified appearance, Jeffers was a riverman through to his dark ciphering soul. He carried a gold-handled sword cane too. The cook was a free colored man named Toby Lanyard, who had been with Marsh fourteen years, ever since Marsh tasted his cooking down in Natchez, bought him, and gave him his freedom. And the mate—who was named Michael Theodore Dunne though nobody ever called him anything but Hairy Mike except for the roustabouts, who called him Mister Dunne Sir—was one of the biggest and meanest and stubbornest men on the river. He was well over six foot tall, with green eyes and black whiskers and thick black curly hair all over his arms and legs and chest. He had a foul mouth and a bad temper and never went noplace without his three-foot-long black iron billet. Abner Marsh had never seen Hairy Mike hit anyone with that billet, except once or twice, but it was always wrapped in his hand, and there was talk among the roustabouts that he’d once split open the head of a man who’d dropped a cask of brandy in the river. He was a hard, fair mate, and no one dropped anything when he was watching. Everyone on the river respected the hell out of Hairy Mike Dunne.

  It was a damn fine crew, those men on the Fevre Dream. Right from the first day, they all did their jobs, so by the time the stars were all out over New Albany, the cargo and the passengers were on board and on the records, the steam was up and the furnaces were roaring with a terrible ruddy light and enough heat to make the main deck warmer than Natchez-under-the-hill on a good night, and a fine meal was a-cooking in the kitchen. Abner Marsh checked it all, and when he was satisfied he climbed on up to the pilot house, which stood resplendent and dignified above all the chaos and bellowing below. “Back her out,” he said to his pilot. And the pilot called down for some steam, and set the two great side wheels to backing. Abner Marsh stood back of him respectfully, and the Fevre Dream slid smoothly out onto the black, starlit waters of the Ohio.

  Once out in the river, the pilot reversed the wheels and turned her to downstream, and the big steamer vibrated a little and slipped into the main channel easy as you please, the wheels going chunkachunka chunkachunka as they churned and roiled the water, the boat moving along faster and faster, with the speed of the current and her own steam, sparklin’ along swift as a steamboater’s dream, swift as sin, swift as the Eclipse herself. Above their heads, the chimneys gave off two long streamers of black smoke, and clouds of sparks flew out and vanished behind them, settling to the river to die like so many red and orange fireflies. To Abner Marsh’s eyes, the smoke and steam and sparks they trailed behind them were a finer, grander sight than all the fireworks they’d seen in Louisville on the Fourth. The pilot reached up and sounded their steam whistle then, and the long shrill scream of it deafened them; it was a wonderful whistle, with a wild keening edge to it and a blast that could be heard for miles.

  Not until the lights of Louisville and New Albany disappeared behind them and the Fevre Dream was steaming between banks as black and empty as they’d been a century ago did Abner Marsh become aware that Joshua York had come up to the pilot house and was standing by his side.

  He was done up all fine, in trousers and tailcoat of the purest white, with a deep blue vest, a white shirt full of ruffles and fancies, and a blue silk tie. The watch chain that stretched across his vest was silver, and on one pale hand York wore a big silver ring, with a bright blue stone set in it, gleaming. White and blue and silver; those were the boat’s colors, and York looked a part of her. The pilot house was hung with showy blue and silver curtains, and the big stuffed couch to the back of it was blue, and the oilcloth, too. “Why, I like your getup, Joshua,” Marsh said to him.

  York smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “It seemed appropriate. You look striking as well.” Marsh had bought himself a new pilot’s jacket with shiny brass buttons, and a cap with the steamer’s name embroidered on it in silver thread.

  “Yeah,” Marsh replied. He was never at ease with compliments; cussing was easier and more comfortable to him. “Well,” he said, “were you up when we left?” York had been sleeping in the captain’s cabin on the texas deck most of the day, while Marsh sweated and worried and performed most of the captain’s actual duties. Marsh had slowly grown accustomed to the way York and his companions lived up the nights and slept during the day. He’d known others who’d done the same, and the one time he’d asked York about it, Joshua had just smiled and spouted that poem about “gaudy day” at Marsh again.

  “I was standing on the hurricane deck, forward of the chimneys, watching everything. It was cool up there, once we got underway.”

  “A fast steamer makes her own wind,” Marsh said. “Don’t matter how hot the day is or how fierce the wood’s burning, it’s always fine and cool up above. Sometimes I feel a mite sorry for those down
on the main deck, but what the hell, they’re only payin’ a dollar.”

  “Of course,” Joshua York agreed.

  The boat gave a heavy thunk just then, and shook slightly.

  “What was that?” York asked.

  “We just run over a log, probably,” Marsh replied. “That so?” he asked the pilot.

  “Grazed it,” the man replied. “Don’t fret, Cap’n. No damage done.”

  Abner Marsh nodded and turned back to York. “Well, should we be going on down to the main cabin? The passengers will all be up and about, seeing as how this is the first night out, so we can meet a few of ’em, talk ’em up, see that everything is good and proper.”

  “I’d be glad to,” York replied. “But first, Abner, will you join me in my cabin for a drink? We ought to celebrate our departure, don’t you agree?”

  Marsh shrugged. “A drink? Well, I don’t see why not.” He tipped his cap at the pilot. “Good night, Mister Daly. I’ll have some coffee sent up for you, if you’d like.”

  They left the pilot house and repaired to the captain’s cabin, pausing for a moment while York unlocked the door—he had insisted that his cabin, and indeed all the staterooms on the boat, have good locks. That was a bit peculiar, but Marsh had been willing to acquiesce. York wasn’t used to life on a steamer, after all, and most of his other requests had been sensible enough, like all that silver and the mirrors that made the main saloon such a splendid place.

  York’s cabin was three times the length of the passenger staterooms and twice as wide, so by steamer standards it was immense. But this was the first time Abner Marsh had been inside it since York had taken possession, so he looked around curiously. A pair of oil lamps on opposite sides of the cabin gave the interior a warm, cozy light. The wide stained-glass windows were dark now, shuttered off and curtained with heavy black velvet that looked soft and rich in the lamplight. In one corner was a tall chest of drawers with a basin of water set atop it, and a silver-framed mirror on the wall. There was a narrow but comfortable-looking featherbed, and two big leather chairs, and a great wide rosewood desk with lots of drawers and nooks and crannies. It stood flush against one wall. Above it, a fine old map of the Mississippi river system had been tacked up. The top of the desk was covered with leather-bound ledgers and piles and piles of newspapers. That was another of Joshua York’s peculiarities; he read an inordinate number of newspapers, from just about all over—papers from England, papers in foreign languages, Mr. Greeley’s Tribune of course and the Herald from New York as well, just about all the St. Louis and New Orleans papers, and all kinds of little rivertown weeklies. He got packets of newspapers delivered to him every day. Books too; there was a tall bookcase in the cabin, and it was crammed full, and more books were stacked up on the little table by the bed, with a half-melted reading candle on top of them.