“You didn’t leave me much,” I said. The two most tempting shots on the table were both into the pocket where the eight was hanging; an inaccurate shot could easily knock it in, which would forfeit the game. My only real opening was a bank shot the length of the table. I bent over to line up the shot, and Kenney threw a dime on the table directly in front of me. “Ten cents says you can’t make it.”
I straightened up and looked at him—he was definitely sneering now—then looked at the shot again. It wasn’t really a difficult shot; a bigger problem would be leaving the cue ball in position for pocketing the remaining balls. And if I missed, I would leave him with an easy winning shot on the eight. “You’re on,” I said, and placed the dime on the rail, out of my way. I lined up the shot and stroked the cue firmly; the ball caromed off the far rail and returned, almost in a blur, into the pocket I’d aimed for. I smiled and picked up the dime.
“Good shot,” said Kenney. “Too bad about the position.” I looked at the table and saw the cue ball resting against the far rail. In my eagerness to win the side bet, I’d hit my shot too hard, and left myself almost no chance to pocket the remaining striped balls. I tried to play safe, leaving Kenney without a clean shot at the eight, but the rail kept me from getting enough English to stop the cue ball where I wanted it. It rolled to the middle of the table, and a moment later Kenney tapped the eight ball home and collected his quarter. “Good game,” he said. “Want to try again?”
Silently, I began to rack the balls. While I couldn’t point to outright cheating, I felt that my opponent had beaten me not by playing better, but by taunting me into an unwise shot. This time, I would be wary. I removed the wooden frame from the balls and we began another game.
I lost again, and then a third time—both times by slim margins. “Bad luck,” said Kenney. “Tell you what—let’s make it fifty cents a game, so you have a chance to win it back.” I was about to decline the offer, recognizing that Kenney was a far better player than he pretended to be, but I was interrupted by a resonant voice from the spectators’ bench, saying, “I have a better idea.” I turned to see Major Demayne, the amateur poet, standing there. I’d been so preoccupied with the game that I hadn’t seen him come in.
“And what’s that, stranger?” said Kenney.
“As much as I enjoy watching the game, I’d enjoy playing even more,” said the Major. “Now, I know you gentlemen are enjoying your match, and I don’t want to evict you from the table. What say I team up with this young fellow, and you choose a partner, and we play two a side? For a dollar a game, just to keep it interesting.”
“I don’t know you from Adam,” said Kenney. “How do I know you’re not a pool shark, trying to steal an honest working fellow’s money?”
“How do I know you’re not a pool shark?” countered the Major. “I’ve only seen you play a few games, and you’ve won them all. You get to pick your own partner—you must know the local players—and I’ll play with this young fellow you’ve been beating all night. And just to show you I’m not up to anything funny, I’ll play every other shot left-handed.”
Kenney thought for a moment, then nodded. “Get yourself a stick, mister. Froggy, grab a cue. We’ve got ourselves a money game.” A little fat fellow with a wide mouth and bulging eyes got up from the bench, where he’d been half dozing, and went to the cue rack. I looked at the Major with open curiosity, but he simply smiled and turned to select a cue. A moment later, Kenney was breaking open the racked balls, and the game was on.
Just over an hour later, walking back to the boat, the Major told me, “You should never play billiards for money with strangers, young man.” We had ended the evening nineteen dollars richer, split evenly between the two of us.
“Shouldn’t you be telling that to Dick Kenney?”
“Oh, he knows it perfectly well, now. But you, having won a few dollars this time, might be tempted to try it again. Believe me, there’s no profit in it. Absolutely no profit.”
“How did you learn to play so well left-handed?” I had never seen such an exhibition of ambidexterity as the Major had put on, sinking every conceivable kind of shot with equal skill with either hand.
“It’s the easiest thing in the world,” said Major Demayne. “You see, I am left-handed.”
11
The next morning, I was awakened by the noise and bustle of the crew’s bringing the luggage of the last few passengers on board the Horace Greeley. It was just after nine o’clock when I made my way down to the main deck for a late breakfast—paper-thin cornmeal pancakes with bacon, and excellent coffee.
I was just finishing up when Mr. Clemens walked in. He had come aboard after I turned out my light—I heard him and the captain laughing as they climbed the stair up to the texas. He took a seat opposite me, ordered breakfast, and then regaled me with an account of the previous night’s dinner and conversation with the social and literary set of St. Paul.
I laughed at his description of the company, and then recounted my own adventures exploring the city, while he polished off a plate of eggs. His face lit up when I told of playing billiards with Dick Kenney, and even more when I told of Major Demayne’s riding to the rescue. “Billiards, eh? Best game in the world,” he said. “I didn’t know you played, Wentworth—we’ll have to find a table somewhere and shoot a few racks. And this Major Demayne may be worth paying attention to after all—he can’t be all bad, if he shoots a good game. Have you looked at the fellow’s poetry yet?”
“Not yet, sir. I haven’t yet steeled myself to the task.”
“No great rush. If he’s anything like the rest of the poets I’ve dealt with, he’ll think we’ve slighted his epic if we read it too quickly and then tell him it’s not the best thing since Homer. But try to get to it by the end of the week, so he doesn’t think we’re avoiding it. A fellow that’s taken up your cause twice in twenty-four hours deserves at least that courtesy.”
The whistle sounded—the first time I’d heard it—and Mr. Clemens smiled. “Now, that’s music to my ears.” He looked at his watch. “If everything’s on schedule, we should be casting off in fairly short order. Let’s go up to the pilothouse and see who’s going to be steering us downriver.”
There was unmistakable excitement in the air as we came out on deck. The sun was already bright, with harmless little white clouds dotted about the sky. Tiny Williams had his crew on the lower foredeck, ready to handle the ropes, and a haze above the twin smokestacks at the front of the boat gave evidence that Frenchy Devereaux had a fire going in the boilers. Many of the passengers had crowded onto the open decks for a good view of the proceedings. A number of them smiled and nodded to Mr. Clemens as they spotted him, and he stopped several times to exchange greetings with someone he knew. I began to see how this mode of travel might hold more charm than the usual businesslike railroad journey.
As we reached the hurricane deck, I saw Miss Patterson again, wearing a pretty lace shawl and carrying a parasol. She smiled and waved to us as we turned up the stairway to the texas. I waved back, then hurried to catch up with Mr. Clemens, who was climbing toward the pilothouse like a man half his age. At the foredeck of the texas, I spotted Captain Fowler with a megaphone in his hand, overseeing the colorful assembly of crew and passengers. And then Mr. Clemens opened the door to the pilothouse and we stepped into the calm center of all the Horace Greeley’s preparations for departure.
I don’t know if it would describe the man standing by the wheel more accurately to call him “thin” or “plump.” His arms and legs were as spindly as toothpicks, and his chest and shoulders were in proportion; but underneath his blue uniform jacket, his waistline showed a distinct bulge, and his clean-shaven face was as round as a pumpkin. His high, tight collar gave the first impression that he had no neck at all. Combined with his short stature and rigid posture, his severe expression seemed to make his incongruous appearance more, rather than less, comic. Next to him stood a boy of perhaps sixteen, who could have been a miniature vers
ion of him, right down to the tight collar and sour expression.
The pilot (as I assumed the man before us to be) gave Mr. Clemens and me a disapproving look, but Mr. Clemens slid onto the broad bench at the back of the pilothouse without a word, and I followed his example. After impaling us with his gaze for an uncomfortable span of time, the pilot turned back to the wheel and continued his preparations for castoff. The young fellow next to him—his apprentice—continued to stare at us as if he had caught us nipping on a flask of whisky during church services.
Presently, I heard the captain shout, “Cast off, you men! All ashore that’s going ashore! Mr. Parks, she’s yours.”
Mr. Parks nodded and pulled on one of the cords dangling from the roof, sounding the whistle twice, then spoke into the wooden tube I had noticed on my previous visit to the pilothouse. “Give me dead-slow back speed, Frenchy,” he said, and the sound of engines came from below. As if by magic, the boat began to inch away from the dock. The pilot made little adjustments to his wheel; then, after we’d cleared the boats on either side, he swung it around hard, turning the prow of the boat downriver. He sounded the whistle again and spoke into the tube: “Half-speed ahead,” and we were off on our expedition downriver.
“Nicely done,” said Mr. Clemens, standing up and taking a couple of steps toward the pilot.
“Where do you think you’re going?” said the pilot in a loud voice. “Nobody asked you to come up here, and I’ll be danged if I can see what business you have getting in my way when I’ve got a boat to run.”
Mr. Clemens stopped as if someone had leveled a pistol at him. “Hold on now, son,” he said. “My name’s Sam Clemens, and I used to be a pilot.”
“I don’t care if you used to be General Grant,” said Parks. “I’ve seen your kind before. Just because you used to steer some two-bit backwater boat, you think you know all about being a pilot. Well, I’ll tell you something, mister. The river’s changed, and the boats have changed, and you old-timers don’t have a shade of a notion how things work these days. When’s the last time you were behind the wheel, anyway?”
Mr. Clemens stood there dumbfounded for a moment, then said, “About twelve years ago, below St. Louis.”
“So, it’s been twelve years since you were a pilot, and below St. Louis, at that.” The pilot snorted. “And then took retirement and an old-age pension, did you?”
“Why no, I quit piloting in ’61, when the war broke out. You must have heard of—”
“I’ve heard a lot of foolish things in my time, but that tops ’em all. The pilot who let you steer should have lost his license,” said Parks, with some vehemence. “It’s not reg’lar to let passengers steer a boat, and a man who hasn’t run the river in thirty years is no better than any other passenger. The insurance companies won’t allow him to get behind the wheel, and the United States gov’ment won’t allow it, and no pilot worth a brass penny would allow it. I suppose you think I’ll give you a turn at the wheel. Tell the truth!”
“Well, I didn’t think there’d be any harm in it. . . .” Mr. Clemens was shrinking back toward the bench, visibly intimidated by the pilot’s tirade.
“You didn’t think there’d be any harm in it! Did you think about what would happen if you ran this boat into the riverbank and drowned two hundred people? Did you think about how you’d pay the owners and the passengers after you sank it, larking about as if a steamboat were some sort of toy? Did you think about how I’d find a job after they took my license away for letting some old fool steer my boat?”
“No, but . . .”
“Look at you, anyhow!” Parks continued, stepping away from the wheel and backing Mr. Clemens down. “Look at that long hair! Against every regulation on the books. What if it got caught in the wheel? What then, eh? I bet you’d have a fine time, then.”
Mr. Clemens stiffened. Apparently he had had enough. “Why, you young puppy, you wouldn’t even have a ride on this boat if it weren’t for me. I was one of the top pilots on the river before you were even born, and never once had anybody say a word about my hair. I’d bet twenty-five dollars I can outsteer you with one hand behind my back, hair or no hair.”
“It wouldn’t be reg’lar,” said Parks, returning to his wheel. “I just might let you steer if you paid me fifty dollars and got all your hair cut off, and that filthy mustache, too, but not a minute sooner.”
Mr. Clemens turned visibly red. He opened his mouth to reply, and I shrank down in my seat, anticipating a retort of volcanic intensity, when the pilothouse door opened and Captain Fowler stepped in. ‘‘Well, very smoothly done, Mr. Parks. Good morning, Sam,” he said, smiling broadly. “I assume you’ve met our pilot, Elmer Parks?”
Mr. Clemens’s jaw dropped for an instant; then he cut loose with a string of invective so loud and sulfurous that I expected the pilothouse’s windows to shatter and the river water to boil. He complained of the insults he’d been offered, and wished a host of calamities on the pilot and all his ancestors. Finally, he came to the crowning indignity. “And this no good half-breed son of a deaf mule has the gall to tell me I can’t steer the boat unless I get all my hair cut off, and my mustache, too!”
Captain Fowler listened patiently, an indulgent smile on his face. When my employer had finished, the captain said mildly, “Why, Sam, if I’d known you was so anxious to steer the boat, I’d have told you all this before. I thought you knew how things have changed on the river—these gol-durned government regulations are the devil’s work, but there’s no getting around them. Now, if you really want to take the wheel, I’m sure the barber can give you a clean shave and a nice short trim in no time flat.”
For a moment, I was afraid that Mr. Clemens was about to have a stroke. His face turned red, his eyes grew wide, and he began to sputter. I was ready to come to his assistance, when he stood erect and gazed suspiciously at Mr. Parks and the captain for several seconds. Then Parks’s apprentice giggled, and Captain Fowler grinned. At that, Mr. Clemens slapped his knee and broke into a great peal of laughter, in which he was joined by the captain and the pilot. He finally regained control of himself enough to say, “You got me, boys—Oh, you got me! Baited me like a catfish, and I swallowed it whole!” He laughed again, and tears ran down his cheeks.
The pilot smiled broadly—an expression that made his face a good bit more pleasant than before. “For a minute there, I was afraid you weren’t going to go for it,” he said, shaking Mr. Clemens’s hand. “But Captain Mike played his part to perfection. Welcome aboard, Mr. Clemens. I’ve been hearing stories about you since I was a cub.”
“I know I’m back on the river now,” said Mr. Clemens, wiping his eyes. “Next thing I know, you’d have been shaving my head and painting it blue. I should have known Mike Fowler wouldn’t have a rule-book man for a pilot, but you sure had me fooled. Captain, you’re an unprincipled rascal, and I love it!”
“It didn’t seem right not to have some sort of hoax ready to spring on you,” said Captain Fowler, putting his arm around Mr. Clemens’s shoulder. “The old days may be gone, but some of us remember them, Sam. Why, I’ll never forget you telling me about alligator nets, and how the critters would crawl up and catch the passengers, back when I was a cub. I was too scared to sleep for most of a week.” Something clicked into place in my mind as the captain said this, and I looked suspiciously at my employer, but for some reason he avoided my eye.
“A hell of a way to bring back memories,” said Mr. Clemens. “Mr. Parks, I hope you won’t mind if I come up here now and then to get away from the crowd. Just sitting in a pilothouse makes me feel young again.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Clemens,” said the pilot. “I’d feel bad if you didn’t think you could come up here and relax. And once we get out on the open river, if you want to take the wheel for a spell, just say so.”
“Call me Sam,” said Mr. Clemens. “And I expect I’ll take you up on that offer, Mr. Parks. I’m glad to know that pilots still know how to hoax a stranger. I was afraid t
hat the riverboat life I used to know was dead and gone, but now I know there’s some of it still alive and kicking.”
The captain grinned. “Well, Sam, next time you need a kick in the pants, you’ll know where to apply.”
Mr. Clemens laughed. “It’s good to be back on the river, boys,” he said. Elmer Parks turned around and grinned, then reached up and pulled the whistle cord again, and we heard the muted sound of cheering from the passengers on the deck below. The Horace Greeley was on its way to New Orleans.
12
“Do me a favor and read this,” said Detective Berrigan. He handed me several sheets of paper. I had spent most of that first morning watching Mr. Clemens talking happily (and ceaselessly) to the pilot. The majority of the talk was about people, places, and events I had never so much as imagined, let alone heard of, so I sat there restlessly until appetite got the better of me. A little after noon, I made my way down to the main cabin for a sandwich.
I was annoyed that Berrigan had chosen this time to interrupt me, but I looked at the top page. It was a neatly written list of names and cities; at the top of the first page I saw Sam’l Clemens, Hartford, Connecticut. The rest of the names on the page were completely strange to me. “What is this?” I asked.
“Mr. Snipes gave me the complete passenger list of the Horace Greeley,” said Berrigan. “Take a look at it and see if you recognize any names.”
I glanced over the document, taking a bite of my sandwich every now and then. A good number of the names were those of passengers I had met the previous day aboard the boat: Laura Cunningham, the Reverend Elijah Dutton and family, the reporter Andrew Dunbar, Martha Patterson, and Claude Dexter, the steamboat enthusiast. Toward the bottom of the third page, I saw Ed McPhee, Cincinnati, and then Bill & Al Throckmorton, Cincinnati. The latter two names were struck out, with KIKKED OFF BOAT & passige refunded written in the margin in a different, coarser hand. On the final page, I found my own name, followed by Paul Berrigan, New York City police, and Maj. Roy Demayne, GAR, Trenton, New Jersey. I told Berrigan which names I recognized, and he nodded.
[Mark Twain Mysteries 01] - Death on the Mississippi Page 12