"Fevre Dream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R. R.)

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 amp; 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.

Abner Marsh didn’t waste time looking at books, though. Next to the bookcase was a wooden wine rack, with twenty or thirty bottles lying neatly on their sides. He went directly to it and pulled out a bottle. The bottle was unlabeled, and the liquid within was a somber red, so dark it was almost black. A cap of shiny black wax sealed the cork on. “You got a knife?” he asked York, turning with the bottle in his hand.

“I don’t think you’d care much for that vintage, Abner,” York said. He was holding a tray with two silver goblets and a crystal decanter. “I have some excellent sherry here. Why don’t we have that instead?”

Marsh hesitated. York’s sherry was usually just fine and he hated to pass it up, but knowing Joshua he figured that any wine he kept a private stock of had to be superlative. Besides, he was curious. He shifted the bottle from one hand to the other. The liquid within flowed slowly, creeping along languidly like some sweet liqueur. “What is this anyway?” Marsh asked, frowning.

“A home brew of sorts,” York replied. “Part wine and part brandy and part liqueur, tasting like none of them. A rare drink, Abner. My companions and I have a fondness for it, but most people find it not to their liking. I’m sure you’d prefer the sherry.”

“Well,” Marsh said, hefting the bottle, “anything you drink is probably just fine for me, Joshua. You do serve up good sherry, though, that’s true enough.” He brightened. “Say, we’re in no hurry, and I got myself a fierce thirst. Why don’t we try both?”

Joshua York laughed, a laugh of pure spontaneous delight, deep and musical. “Abner,” he said, “you are singular, and most formidable. I like you. You, however, will not like my little drink. Still, if you insist, we shall have both.”

They settled themselves into the two leather chairs, York putting the tray on the low table between them. Marsh handed over the bottle of wine, or whatever it was. From somewhere within the pristine folds of his white suit, York produced a skinny little knife, with an ivory handle and a long silver blade. He sliced away the wax, and with one single deft twist flicked the knife point into the cork and brought it out with a pop. The liquor poured slowly, flowing like red-black honey into the silver goblets. It was opaque, and seemed full of tiny black specks. Strong, though; Marsh lifted his goblet and sniffed at it, and the alcohol in it brought tears to his eyes.

“We ought to have a toast,” York said, lifting his own goblet.

“To all the money we’re going to make,” Marsh joked.

“No,” York said seriously. Those demon gray eyes of his had a kind of grave melancholy in them, Marsh thought. He hoped that York wasn’t going to start reciting poetry again. “Abner,” York continued, “I know what the Fevre Dream means to you. I want you to know that she means much to me, as well. This day is the start of a grand new life for me. You and I, together, we made her what she is, and we shall go on to make her a legend. I have always admired beauty, Abner, but this is the first time in a long life that I have created it, or helped in its creation. It is a good feeling, to bring something new and fine into the world. Particularly for me. And I have you to thank for it.” He lifted his goblet. “Let us drink for the Fevre Dream and all she represents, my friend-beauty, freedom, hope. To our boat and a better world!”

“To the fastest steamer on the river!” Marsh replied, and they drank. He almost gagged. York’s private drink went down like fire, searing the back of his throat and spreading warm tendrils in his innards, but there was a kind of cloying sweetness to it as well, and a hint of an unpleasant smell that all its strength and sweetness could not quite conceal. Tasted like something had rotted in the bottle, he thought.

Joshua York drained his own goblet in a single long motion, his head thrown back. Then he set it aside and looked at Marsh and laughed again. “The look on your face, Abner, is wonderfully grotesque. Don’t feel you have to be polite. I warned you. Why don’t you have some sherry?”

“I believe I will,” Marsh replied, “I do believe I will.”

Later, when two glasses of sherry had wiped the aftertaste of York’s drink from Marsh’s mouth, they got to talking.

“What is our next step after St. Louis, Abner?” York asked.

“The New Orleans trade. Ain’t no other run for a boat as grand as this one.”

York gave an impatient shake of his head. “I know that, Abner. I was curious about how you intend to realize your dream of beating the Eclipse. Will you seek her out and issue a challenge? I’m willing, so long as it does not delay us unduly or take us out of our way.”

“Wish it were that simple, but it ain’t. Hell, Joshua, there’s thousands of steamers on the river, and all of them would like to beat the Eclipse. She’s got runs to make, just like we do, passengers and freight to move. Can’t be just racing all the time. Anyhow, her cap’n be a fool to lissen to any challenge from us. Who’re we anyway? Some new steamer fresh out of New Albany that nobody ever heard of. Eclipse ’d have everything to lose and nothin’ to gain by racing us.” He emptied another glass of sherry and held it out to York for a refill. “No, first we got to work our trade, build ourselves a reputation. Get known up and down the river as a fast boat. Pretty soon folks will get to talkin’ about how fast she is, and get to wonderin’ how Fevre Dream and Eclipse would match up. Maybe we run into her on the river a couple times, say, and pass her up. We build up the talk, and folks start to betting. Maybe we make some of the runs the Eclipse makes, and we beat her time. A fast steamer gets the trade, y’know. The planters and shippers and such, they want to get their wares to market soon as they can, so they go with the fastest boat around. And passengers, why they all love to ride on a famous boat if they got the money. So what happens, you see, is that after a time people start thinking we’re the fastest boat on the lower river, and the trade starts moving our way, and the Eclipse gets hurt a little where it counts, in the purse. Then you just watch how easy we get us a race, to prove once and for all who’s faster.”

“I see,” said York. “Is this run to St. Louis going to start our reputation, then?”

“Well, I ain’t trying for no record time. She’s a new boat, and we got to break her in. Don’t even have our regular pilots on board yet, no one is real familiar with how she handles, and we got to give Whitey time to work out all the little problems with the engines and get his strikers trained proper.” He set down his empty glass. “Don’t mean we can’t start in some other ways, though,” he said, smiling. “Got something or other in mind along those lines. You’ll see.”

“Good,” said Joshua York. “More sherry?”

“No,” Marsh said. “We ought to get on down to the saloon, I think. I’ll buy you a drink at our bar. Guarantee you it’ll taste better than that damned stuff of yours.”

York smiled. “My pleasure,” he said.

That night was not like other nights for Abner Marsh. It was a magic night, a dream. There seemed to be at least forty or fifty hours in it, he could have sworn, and each of them was priceless. He and York were up till dawn, drinking and talking up a storm, wandering all over the wonder of a boat they had built. The day after, Marsh woke with such a head that he could barely recall half of what he’d done the night before. But some moments were indelible in his memory.

He remembered entering the grand saloon, and it was better than entering the finest hotel in the world. The chandeliers were brilliant, lamps aglow and prisms glittering. The mirrors made the long narrow cabin seem twice as wide as it really was. A crowd was gathered around the bar, talking politics and such, and Marsh joined them for a while and listened to them complain about abolitionists and argue over whether Stephen A. Douglas ought to be president, while York said hello to Smith and Brown, who were at one of the tables playing cards with some planters and a notorious gambler. Someone was tinkling on the grand piano, stateroom doors opened and closed all the time, and the whole place was bright with light and laughter.

Later they went down to a different world on the main deck; cargo piled everywhere, roustabouts and deckers asleep on coils of rope and bags of sugar, a family gathered around a little fire they’d built cooking something or other, a drunk passed out behind the stairs. The engine room was awash in the hellish red glow of the furnaces, and Whitey was in the middle of it all, with his shirt soaked by sweat and grease in his beard, bellowing at his strikers to be heard above the hiss of the steam and the chunkachunka of the wheels churning water. The rods were awesome, moving back and forth in their long powerful strokes. They watched for a while, York and he, until the heat and smell of machine oil got to be too much for them.

Some time later they were up on the hurricane deck, passing a bottle between them, strolling and talking in their own cool wind. The stars were bright as a lady’s diamonds overhead, the Fevre River banner was flapping on both fore and verge flagpoles, and the river around them was blacker than the blackest slave Marsh had ever seen.

They ran all night, Daly standing the long watch up in the pilot house, keeping them moving at a smart clip-though nothing to what they could do if pressed, Marsh knew-along the dark Ohio, with nothingness all around them. It was a charmed run, with no snags or sawyers or sandbars to bedevil them. Only twice did they have to send out a yawl ahead of them for soundings, and both times they found good water when they dropped lead, and the Fevre Dream steamed on. A few houses were glimpsed on the shore, most dark and shuttered for the night, but one with a light burning in a high window. Marsh wondered who was awake up there, and what they thought when the steamer went on by. She must have been a fine sight, with her decks all lit and the music and laughter drifting out over the water, the sparks and smoke from her chimneys, and her name big on the wheelhouse, Fevre Dream done all in thick fancy blue lettering with silver trim around it. He almost wished he was on shore just to see it.

The big excitement of the night came just before midnight, when they first sighted another steamer churning water ahead of them. When Marsh saw, he took York by the elbow and led him on up to the pilot house. It was crowded up there, Daly still at the wheel, sipping coffee, two other pilots and three passengers sitting on the couch behind him. The pilots weren’t nobody hired by Marsh, but pilots rode free if they wanted to, that was a custom of the river, and they usually rode in the pilot house to chat with the man at the wheel and keep up on the river. Marsh ignored them. “Mister Daly,” he said to his pilot, “there’s a steamer up ahead.”

“I see it, Cap’n Marsh,” Daly replied with a laconic grin.

“Wonder what boat that is? You got any idea, Daly?” Whatever boat it was, it wasn’t much; some squat stern-wheeler with a pilot house square as a cracker box.

“Sure don’t,” the pilot replied.

Abner Marsh turned to Joshua York. “Joshua,” he said, “you’re the real captain, now, and I don’t want to be givin’ you too many suggestions. But the truth is, I’m awful curious as to what steamer that is on up ahead of us. Why don’t you tell Daly here to catch her for us, so I can relax a bit.”

York smiled. “Certainly,” he said. “Mister Daly, you heard Captain Marsh. Do you think the Fevre Dream can catch that boat on ahead?”

“She can catch anything, ”the pilot said. He called down to the engineer for more steam, and pulled the steam whistle again, and the wild banshee scream echoed over the river, as if to warn the steamer up ahead that the Fevre Dream was coming after her.

The blast was enough to bring all the passengers out of the main saloon onto the deck. It even got the deck passengers up off their bags of flour. A couple of passengers came wandering up and tried to enter the pilot house, but Marsh chased ’em all down below again, along with the three who’d already been up there. As passengers will, all of them rushed to the front of the boat, and later to the larboard side, when it became clear that was the side they’d pass the other boat on. “Damn passengers,” Marsh muttered to York. “Never will trim boat. One of these days they’ll all rush to the same side and tip some poor steamer right on over, I swear it.”

For all his complaining, Marsh was delighted. Whitey was chucking in more wood down below, the furances were roaring, and the big wheels moved faster and faster. It was over in hardly no time at all. The Fevre Dream seemed to eat up the miles between her and the other boat, and when she passed her a ragged cheer came up from the lower decks, sweet music to Marsh’s ears.

As they surged past the small stern-wheeler, York read her name off the pilot house. “She seems to be the Mary Kaye, ”he said.

“Well, boil me for an egg!” Marsh said.

“Is she a well-known boat?” York asked.

“Hell no,” said Marsh. “I never heard of her. Can you beat that?” Then he laughed uproariously and clapped York on the back, and before long everyone in the pilot house was laughing.

Before the night was over, the Fevre Dream had caught and passed a half-dozen steamers, including one side-wheeler near as big as she was, but it never got as exciting as that first time, catching the Mary Kaye. “You wanted to know how we’d begin it,” Marsh said to York when they left the pilot house. “Well, Joshua, it’s begun.”

“Yes,” said York, glancing back behind them, where the Mary Kaye was growing small in the distance. “Indeed it has.”