Fevre Dream Read online

When he woke, it was morning and the Fevre Dream was at Cape Girardeau, taking on a load of grist. Framm had elected to put in there sometime during the night, he learned, when some fog closed in around them. Cape Girardeau was a haughty town perched up on its bluffs, some 150 miles below St. Louis, and Marsh did some figuring and was pleased with their time. It was no record, but it was good.

  Within the hour the Fevre Dream was back on the river, heading downstream. The July sun was fierce overhead, the air thick with heat and humidity and insects, but up on the texas deck it was cool and serene. Stops were frequent. With eighteen big boilers to keep hot, the steamer ate wood like nobody’s business, but fuel was never a problem; woodyards dotted both banks regularly. Whenever they got low the mate would signal up to the pilot, and they’d put in near some ramshackle little cabin surrounded by big stacks of split beech or oak or chestnut, and Marsh or Jonathon Jeffers would go ashore and dicker with the woodyard man. When they gave the signal, the deckhands would swarm ashore at those cords of wood, and in three blinks of your eye it would be gone, stowed aboard the steamer. Cabin passengers always liked to watch the wooding operations from the railings on the boiler deck. Deck passengers always liked to get in the way.

  They stopped at all manner of towns as well, causing no end of excitement. They stopped at an unmarked landing to discharge one passenger, and a private dock to pick one up. Around noon they stopped for a woman and child who hailed them from a bank, and close to four they had to slow and back their wheels so three men in a rowboat could catch them and clamber aboard. The Fevre Dream didn’t run far that day, or fast. By the time the westering sun was turning the broad waters a deep burnished red, they were in sight of Cairo, and Dan Albright chose to tie up there for the night.

  South of Cairo the Ohio flowed into the Mississippi, and the two rivers made an odd sight. They wouldn’t merge all at once, but kept each to itself, the clear blue flow of the Ohio a bright ribbon down the eastern bank, against the murkier brown waters of the Mississippi. Here too was where the lower river took on its own peculiar character; from Cairo to New Orleans and the Gulf, a distance of nearly 1100 miles, the Mississippi coiled and looped and bent round and about like a writhing snake, changing its course at the merest whim, eating through the soft soil unpredictably, sometimes leaving docks high and dry, or putting whole towns under water. The pilots claimed the river was never the same twice. The upper Mississippi, where Abner Marsh had been born and had learned his trade, was an entirely different place, confined between high, rocky bluffs and running straight as often as not. Marsh stood up on the hurricane deck for a long time, looking at the passing scenery and trying to feel the difference of it, and the difference it would make to his future. He had crossed from the upper river to the lower, he thought, and into a new part of his life.

  Shortly after, Marsh was jawing with Jeffers in the clerk’s office when he heard the bell sound three times, the signal for a landing. He frowned, and looked out Jeffers’ window. Nothing was visible except densely wooded banks. “I wonder why we’re landin’,” Marsh said. “New Madrid’s the next stop. I may not know this part of the river, but this sure ain’t New Madrid.”

  Jeffers shrugged. “Perhaps we were hailed.”

  Marsh begged his pardon and went on up to the pilot house. Dan Albright was at the wheel. “Was there a hail?” Marsh asked.

  “No, sir,” answered Albright. He was a laconic sort. He answered what you asked him, barely.

  “Where we stopping?”

  “Woodyard, Cap’n.”

  Marsh saw there was indeed a woodyard up ahead, on the west bank. “Mister Albright, I do believe we wooded up not an hour ago. We can’t have burned it all already. Did Hairy Mike ask you to land?” The mate was supposed to keep track of when a steamer needed wood.

  “No, sir. This is Captain York’s order. The word was passed along that I was to put in at this particular woodyard, whether we wanted wood or not.” Albright glanced over. He was a trim little fellow, with a thin dark moustache, a red silk tie, and patent leather boots. “Are you telling me to pass by?”

  “No,” Abner Marsh said hastily. York might have warned him, he thought, but their bargain gave Joshua the right to give queer orders. “You know how long we’re goin’ to be here?”

  “I hear York has business ashore. If he don’t get up till dark, that’s all day.”

  “Damn. Our schedule—the passengers will be askin’ no end of bothersome questions.” Marsh frowned. “Well, I suppose there’s no help for it. We might as well take on some more wood long as we’re here. I’ll go see to it.”

  Marsh struck up a bargain with the boy running the woodyard, a slender Negro in a thin cotton shirt. The boy wasn’t much for dickering; Marsh got beech from him at cottonwood prices, and made him throw in some pine knots too. As the roustabouts and deckhands meandered over to load up, Marsh looked the colored boy square in the eye, smiled, and said, “You’re new at this, ain’t you?”

  The boy nodded. “Yassuh, Cap’n.” Marsh nodded, and was starting to turn back to the steamer, but the boy continued, “I jest been here a week, Cap’n. Ol’ white man useta be here got hisself et up by wolves.”

  Marsh looked at the boy hard. “We’re only a couple miles north of New Madrid, ain’t we, boy?”

  “Thass right, Cap’n.”

  When Abner Marsh returned to the Fevre Dream, he was feeling very agitated. Damn Joshua York, he thought. What was the man up to, and why did they have to waste a whole day at this fool woodyard? Marsh had a good mind to go storming up to York’s cabin and give him a good talking to. He considered the idea briefly, then thought better of it. It was none of his business, Marsh reminded himself forcibly. He settled down to wait.

  The hours passed slowly as the Fevre Dream lay dead in the water off the woodyard. A dozen other steamers slid by downriver, much to Abner Marsh’s annoyance. Almost as many came struggling upstream. A brief knife fight between two deck passengers in which no one was injured provided the afternoon’s excitement. Mostly the passengers and crew of the Fevre Dream lazed about on her decks, chairs tilted back in the sun, smoking or chewing or arguing politics. Jeffers and Albright played chess in the pilot house. Framm told wild stories in the grand saloon. Some of the ladies started talk of getting up a dance. And Abner Marsh grew more and more impatient.

  At dark, Marsh was sitting up on the texas porch, drinking coffee and swatting mosquitoes, when he happened to glance toward shore in time to see Joshua York leave the steamer. Simon was with him. They stopped by the cabin and talked briefly to the woodyard boy, then vanished down a rutted mud road into the woods. “Well, I’ll be,” Marsh said, rising. “With not even a by-your-leave or a hello.” He frowned. “No supper neither.” That reminded him, though, and he went on down to the main cabin to eat.

  The night went by; passengers and crew alike grew restless. Drinking was heavy around the bar. Some planter started up a game of brag, and others began to sing, and one stiff-necked young man got himself hit with a cane for calling for abolition.

  Near midnight, Simon returned alone. Abner Marsh was in the saloon when Hairy Mike tapped him on the shoulder; Marsh had left orders to be summoned as soon as York came back. “Get your roustas aboard and tell Whitey to get our steam up,” he snapped at the mate, “we got us some time to make up.” Then he went to see York. Only York wasn’t there.

  “Joshua wants you to go on,” Simon reported. “He will travel by land, and meet you in New Madrid. Wait for him.” Heated questioning drew nothing more out of him; Simon only fixed Marsh with his small, cold eyes and repeated the message, that the Fevre Dream was to wait for York at New Madrid.

  Once steam was up, it was a short, pleasant voyage. New Madrid was a bare few miles downriver from the woodyard where they had been tied up all day. Marsh gladly bid the desolate place farewell as they steamed off into the night. “Damn that Joshua,” he muttered.

  They lost almost two full days in New Madrid.

&nb
sp; “He’s dead,” Jonathon Jeffers opined when they had been tied up for a day and a half. New Madrid had hotels, billiard parlors, churches, and diverse other recreations not available in woodyards, so the time spent at the landing was not near as boring, but nonetheless everyone was anxious to be off. A half-dozen passengers, impatient with the delay when the weather was good—the boat seemed in fine fettle, and the stage was high—came up to Marsh and demanded a refund of their passage money. They were indignantly refused, but Marsh still seethed and wondered aloud where Joshua York had got himself to.

  “York ain’t dead,” Marsh said. “I’m not sayin’ he ain’t goin’ to wish he was dead when I get ahold of him, but he ain’t dead yet.”

  Behind the gold spectacles, Jeffers’ eyebrow arched. “No? How can you be so sure, Cap’n? He was alone, on foot, going through the woods by night. There are scoundrels out there, and animals, too. I do believe there have been a number of deaths around New Madrid the last few years.”

  Marsh stared at him. “What’s that?” he demanded. “How do you know?”

  “I read the papers,” said Jeffers.

  Marsh scowled. “Well, it don’t make no difference. York ain’t dead. I know that, Mister Jeffers, I know that for a fact.”

  “Lost, then?” suggested the clerk, with a cool smile. “Shall we get up a party and go look for him, Cap’n?”

  “I’ll think on that,” said Abner Marsh.

  But there was no need. That night, an hour after the sun had set, Joshua York came striding up to the landing. He did not look like a man who had spent two days off by himself in the woods. His boots and trouser legs were dusty, but other than that his clothing looked as elegant as on the night he had left. His gait was rushed but graceful. He bounded up the stage, and smiled when he saw Jack Ely, the second engineer. “Find Whitey and get the steam up,” York said to Ely, “we’re leaving.” Then, before anyone could question him, he was halfway up the grand staircase.

  Marsh, for all his anger and restlessness, found himself remarkably relieved at Joshua’s return. “Go ring the goddamned bell so them that went ashore know we’re leaving,” he told Hairy Mike. “I want to get us out on the river again soon as we can.”

  York was in his cabin, washing his hands in the basin of water that sat atop his chest of drawers. “Abner,” he said politely when Marsh came rushing in after a brief, thunderous knock. “Do you think I might trouble Toby for a late supper?”

  “I’ll trouble you to ask why we been wastin’ all this time,” Marsh said. “Damn it, Joshua, I know you said you’d act queer, but two days! Ain’t no way to run a steam packet, I tell you that.”

  York dried his long, pale hands carefully, and turned. “It was important. I warn you that I may do it again. You will have to accustom yourself to my ways, Abner, and see that I am not questioned.”

  “We got freight to deliver, and passengers who paid for passage, not for loungin’ around at woodyards. What do I tell them, Joshua?”

  “Whatever you choose. You are ingenious, Abner. I provided the money in our partnership. I expect you to provide the excuses.” His tone was cordial but firm. “If it is any solace, this first trip will be the worst. On future trips, I anticipate few if any mysterious excursions. You’ll get your record run without any trouble from me.” He smiled. “I hope you can be satisfied with that. Take hold of your impatience, friend. We’ll reach New Orleans eventually, and then things will go easier. Can you accept that, Abner? Abner? Is anything wrong?”

  Abner Marsh had been squinting hard, and scarcely listening to York at all. He must have had an odd look on his face, he realized. “No,” he said quickly, “just two days, that’s all that’s wrong. But it’s no matter. No matter at all. Whatever you say, Joshua.”

  York nodded, seemingly satisfied. “I am going to change, and bother Toby for a meal, and then go on up to the pilot house to learn more of your river. Who has the after-watch tonight?”

  “Mister Framm,” said Marsh.

  “Good,” York said. “Karl is very entertaining.”

  “That he is,” replied Marsh. “Excuse me, Joshua. Got to get down below and see to things, if we’re goin’ to get underway tonight.” He turned abruptly and left the cabin. But outside, in the heat of the night, Abner Marsh leaned heavily on his walking stick and stared off into the star-flecked darkness, trying to summon up the thing he thought he’d seen across the cabin.

  If only his eyes were better. If only York had lit both oil lamps, instead of just one. If only he had dared to walk closer. It had been hard to make out, all the way over there on the chest of drawers. But Marsh couldn’t get it out of his mind. The cloth on which York had been wiping his hands had stains on it. Dark stains. Reddish.

  And they’d looked too damn much like blood.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream,

  Mississippi River,

  August 1857

  Day after tedious day slipped by as the Fevre Dream crept down the Mississippi.

  A fleet steamer could run from St. Louis to New Orleans and back in twenty-eight days or so, even allowing for intermediate stops and landings, for a week or more at wharfside loading or unloading, and for a reasonable amount of bad weather. But at the pace the Fevre Dream was keeping, it was going to take them a month just to reach New Orleans. It seemed to Abner Marsh as if the weather, the river, and Joshua York were all conspiring to slow him down. Fog lay over the water for two days, thick and gray as soiled cotton; Dan Albright ran through it for some six hours, cautiously steering the steamer into solid, shifting walls of mist that faded and gave way before her, leaving Marsh a mass of nerves. Had it been up to him, they would have laid up the moment the fog closed in rather than risk the Fevre Dream, but out on the river it was the pilot who decided such things, not the captain, and Albright pressed on. Finally, though, the mists grew too thick even for him, and they lost a day and a half at a landing near Memphis, watching the brown water rush past and tug at them, and listening to distant splashes in the fog. Once a raft came by, a fire burning on its deck, and they heard the raftsmen calling out to them, vague faint cries that echoed over the river before the gray swallowed raft and sound both.

  When the fog had finally lifted enough so that Karl Framm judged it safe to try the river again, they steamed for less than an hour before coming up hard on a bar as Framm tried to run an uncertain cutoff and save some time. Deckhands and firemen and roustabouts spilled ashore, with Hairy Mike supervising, and walked the steamer over, but it took more than three hours, and afterward they crept along slow, with Albright out ahead in the yawl, taking soundings. Finally they got clear of the cutoff and into good water again, but that was not the end of their troubles. There was a thunderstorm three days later, and more than once the Fevre Dream had to take the long way around a bend in the river because of snags or low water in the chutes or cutoffs, or move along slow, paddles barely turning, while the sounding yawl edged out ahead with the off-duty pilot and an officer and a picked crew to drop lead and call back the news: “Quarter twain,” or “Quarter less three,” or “Mark three.” The nights were black and overcast when they weren’t foggy; if the steamer ran at all, she ran carefully, at quarter speed or less, with no smoking allowed up in the pilot house and all the windows below carefully curtained and shuttered so the boat gave off no light and the steersman could more easily see the river. The banks were pitch and desolate those nights, and moved around like restless corpses, shifting here and there so a man couldn’t easily make out where the deep water ran, or even where water ended and land began. The river ran dark as sin, with no moonlight or stars upon it. Some nights it was hard even to spy the nighthawk, the device partway up the flagpole by which pilots gauged their marks. But Framm and Albright, different as they were, were both lightning pilots, and they kept the Fevre Dream moving when it was possible to move at all. The times when they tied up were times when nothing moved on the river, except rafts and logs, and a handfu
l of flatboats and small steamers that didn’t hardly draw nothing at all.

  Joshua York helped them along; each night he was up in the pilot house to stand his watch like a proper cub. “I told him right off that a night like that weren’t no good,” Framm said to Marsh once over dinner. “I couldn’t learn him marks that I couldn’t rightly see myself, could I? Well, that man’s got the damndest eyes for the darkness I ever seen. There’s times I swear he’s seein’ right into the water, and it ain’t nothin’ to him how black it gets. I keep him by me and tell him the marks, and nine times out of ten he sees ’em before I do. Last night I think I would have tied her up halfway through the dog watch, but for Joshua.”

  But York delayed the steamer as well. Six additional landings were made on his order, at Greenville and at two smaller towns and at a private wharf in Tennessee and twice at woodyards. Twice he was gone all night. At Memphis York had no business ashore, but elsewhere he dragged out their layovers intolerably. When they put in at Helena he was gone overnight, and at Napoleon he held them up three days, him and Simon, doing God knows what off by themselves. Vicksburg was even worse; there they idled four nights away before Joshua York finally returned to the Fevre Dream.

  The day they steamed out of Memphis, the sunset was especially pretty. A few lingering wisps of mist took on an orange glow, and the clouds in the west turned a vivid, fiery red, until the sky itself seemed aflame. But Abner Marsh, standing alone up on the texas deck, had eyes only for the river. No other steamers were in sight. The water ahead of them was calm; here the wind sent up a series of ripples, and there the current flowed around the wicked black limbs of a fallen tree jutting out from the shore, but mostly the old devil was placid. And as the sun went down, the muddy water took on a reddish tinge, a tinge that grew and spread and darkened until it seemed as if the Fevre Dream moved upon a flowing river of blood. Then the sun vanished behind the trees and the clouds, and slowly the blood darkened, going brown as blood does when it dries, and finally black, dead black, black as the grave. Marsh watched the last crimson eddies vanish. No stars came out that night. He went down to supper with blood on his mind.