Joshua looked around. Sunrise was still a half hour away, but on either side of the ship, flat marshlands and tidal waterways were discernible now—Georgia on the left, South Carolina on the right. He straightened. It was time to get some breakfast and pack. Long before the sun reached its zenith, he would be in Savannah.
* * *
The ceiling was just a little lower than six feet high, and Joshua had to keep his head bent as he moved about. That was another thing he looked forward to with relish—more room. For a man used to crossing half a continent in an open wagon, even the best and biggest of the first-class cabins on the ship was cramped and terribly confining.
He finished cleaning up the breakfast he had cooked for himself over the small brass pot filled with hot coals, then he set about to do his packing. It felt funny, not having the constant rolling and pitching of the ship beneath his feet. Surprisingly, he had gotten his sea legs quickly and experienced no more than some temporary seasickness when they ran through a squall off the Florida Keys. Now it seemed strange to have the ship steady and level in the river’s current.
He took down his clothes and folded them neatly on his bunk. Next came his toilet articles. He moved about the cabin, his eyes moving back and forth to make sure he didn’t miss anything. Finally satisfied he had everything, he dropped to one knee by the side of his bunk. Below it was a purchase he had made in New Orleans, a large leather valise with three sturdy buckles.
He placed it on the fold-down table used for meals and started to undo the buckles. Slowly he lifted the top of the valise. For a long moment he just looked at the plain brown package in the case. He was filled with a curious mixture of emotions now. Part of him felt faintly disgusted. Joshua Steed was not a man given to impulse, and yet he had bought this on impulse. Another part of him was puzzled. Sentiment was not part of his disposition either, and yet even the sight of the package filled him with a strange sense of sadness, of longing for what now would not and could not ever be.
He reached down and lifted the package. Slowly he untied the string. He let it fall back into the valise, followed by the outer paper, then the rolls of soft cotton fabric that the saleswoman had used to pack it. When he was finished he set it down carefully on the table and stepped back.
The doll was made of the finest German porcelain. It was a young girl, about seventeen or eighteen. In one hand was a bouquet of flowers. She was studying them intently, her eyes showing pleasure, her mouth half smiling. Her other hand held a parasol, which lay on her shoulder. Counting the parasol, she stood nearly twelve inches high. Her face was exquisite. Dark black curls fell in abundance from beneath a pale blue bonnet. The hands were finely crafted with long, slender fingers. The dress was also pale blue and full length. It was crisscrossed with real satin ribbons. The flowers in the bouquet were tiny, some of the blossoms no larger than the tip of a horseshoe nail, and yet every petal was formed to perfection.
When he had seen it in the store window, he had stood there for nearly five minutes, transfixed. Twice the saleswoman came to the window and smiled her encouragement to him. Finally he went in. He had gasped at the price. Fifty-five dollars! For a doll! That was six months’ wages for a working man. Then, going against every rational part of him, he bought it.
He crossed the room and pulled out a chair. He sat down, his eyes still on the doll but his thoughts turning back. At the store he had told himself he would give it to the daughter he had not seen since about five months after her birth. She would be four years old now. And he was surprised how often he thought of her lately. What did she look like? Did she have any of his features? On two different occasions Joshua had ferried across the river, waited until nightfall, then made his way to the settlement of the Mormons in the Missouri River bottoms. From the trees he had watched, hoping to catch even a glimpse of Rachel. Both times he had failed. Twice he had sent money over anonymously so that his daughter would not starve.
Even now the anger began to churn inside him again. Jessica had turned his daughter into a Mormon, and on top of that, she had taken her away. He felt cheated. Robbed. A man had a right to see his own child.
And then he shook his head. He knew there was blame on his part too. He still burned with shame when he thought about that terrible night when he had struck Jessica. Then struck her again and again. He had been mean-ugly drunk and out of his mind with fury at her for her betrayal of him. But those rationalizations weren’t good enough. From the time he was a toddler at his mother’s knee, he had been taught that no man worthy to be called a Steed ever struck a woman. Not in anger, not in fun.
He had tried to tell her that later, that he was shamed beyond measure, that down deep in the core of his being he had vowed that never again would liquor take control of him. But by then she had fled to the Mormons, and worse, she had become one of them. There was no reasoning with her, not from him, not from her father. Joe Smith and all the craziness he stood for had infected her so deeply that she refused to change. And so he had divorced her.
He stood and moved his chair over closer to the table and sat down again. He leaned forward, peering more closely at the doll’s delicate loveliness. Along with the restlessness of the past two years had come something else. Joshua was finding that he had a growing tendency to be brutally honest with himself. He didn’t always like the result, but he could no longer tolerate his old tendency to hide behind excuses of his own making. And he knew that that was what all these thoughts of Rachel were. Excuses.
He leaned back, closing his eyes, letting his mind go back. Back to the summer of 1827, back to Palmyra and the dry goods store on Main Street. He should have seen it from the first instant he had laid eyes on the doll. The girl was Lydia McBride. He opened his eyes again. It was, the girl was Lydia. Nine years had blurred his memory of her, but in his mind the face was Lydia’s—so lovely that it drove out everything else from a man’s thoughts. It was Lydia’s slender hands and wistful smile, her slim body and dancing brown eyes. And the porcelain made the doll’s likeness to Lydia all the more appropriate. For when all was said and done, that’s how Lydia had been for him—beautiful beyond imagination but cold, stiff, aloof; smiling daintily, but not for Joshua Steed.
It was not love anymore that bothered him. He was past the infantile fantasizing about Lydia that had driven the wedge between him and Jessica. He knew now that he never had a chance with the Palymra beauty. Not from the very first day. He had even come to the point at which he could honestly admit to himself that Nathan was the better man for her. No, it was not love anymore that haunted him. It was something much more terrible than that.
For nearly the past two years Joshua had had a reoccurring nightmare. It was coming less frequently now, but it was always the same. It began with the image of Lydia’s face. At first it was small, far away in the distance. He would feel a flash of joy and call out to her. Then the face would begin to approach him. It was always her face, no other part of her body. But it was not a face filled with happiness, or one that smiled like the doll. As the face loomed larger and larger, he could see that her mouth was twisted in shock, that the eyes were filled with horror and revulsion. As he watched, she would open her mouth in a soundless scream that seemed to go on and on and on.
For a long time Joshua had not known what the dream meant. Then one day it hit him with terrible clarity. Nathan Steed had come to Missouri with the Mormon army in the summer of 1834. Against all counsel, he had snuck across the Missouri River into Jackson County to look for the older brother he had not seen for almost seven years. Jackson County was still seething with anti-Mormon sentiment. Four men caught Nathan. When he claimed he was from New York and knew Joshua Steed, the men had brought him to Joshua.
Abruptly, Joshua stood. In quick, jerky motions, he took the cotton material and wrapped it around the doll again. He rewrapped the brown paper around her and tied up the string. He swung around, taking the clothes from the bed. He packed them in around the doll, covering any sight of the
package. His toilet articles went in next, then the top of the valise went down and was buckled on tight. Only then did Joshua stop. He was breathing hard, trying to keep his thoughts focused on his packing.
But it didn’t work. Never again would he be able to get that terrible memory from his mind. Nathan bound to a chair. Himself shocked to see the brother he hadn’t seen for so long. They had talked that night, he and Nathan. Suddenly both were angry. Emotions exploded. Words were hurled like spears. Joshua had walked out. As he passed the man with the bullwhip he had said simply, “This man’s lying to you. I’ve never seen him before.”
Joshua knew that what he saw in the dream was Lydia’s face at one precise instant in time. It was that instant when Nathan bared his back and Lydia saw him for the first time. The effects of a bullwhip on naked flesh are a sight that inspires horror and shock and revulsion.
Joshua had walked out on Nathan that night. He had not seen the whipping, never seen Nathan’s back. Except in his mind. But that was enough. He knew Lydia’s revulsion was not only for the scarred and battered flesh. It was for Joshua. It was for the man who had done this to a brother. And what was equally unsettling to him was that he knew if he ever saw his mother’s face, or Melissa’s or Rebecca’s, they would be filled with the same horror. Their eyes, like Lydia’s, would be filled with loathing and abhorrence. And that filled him with a sadness that was surprisingly sharp.
He picked up the valise, gave one last look around the cabin, then stepped out into the sunshine. He walked past the young sailor and an older crew member, barely nodding at their greeting. He walked to the bow of the ship, set the valise down, and stared upriver. Far off in the distance, on some green bluffs that lined the riverbank, he could see the outline of buildings. He looked a little closer. There were larger buildings along the river itself. They were in sight of Savannah.
Joshua sent the carriage driver on to the hotel with his bag. After four days of confinement, he wanted to walk. He wanted to see Savannah from the ground, not from a passing carriage. Now he was on River Street, the heart of Savannah’s trade district. Several oceangoing ships were tied up along the wharves. Rows of four- and five-story cotton warehouses looked down on him. He let his eyes drop to the street. He had seen cobblestone walks in Palmyra and cobblestone streets in Cincinnati, but they were nothing like the large, round stones that were laid into the soil here. Some were twelve or more inches long. They looked like they had come from a streambed.
“Those are ballast rocks.”
Joshua turned in surprise. “Pardon?”
A young boy was leaning up against the corner of the nearest warehouse. “Those are ballast rocks. Mostly from England, brought in the bottom of the ships to give them ballast. They dump them out here when they load the ships with cotton or rice for the return trip. So we make our streets out of them.”
Joshua was a little taken aback. “You don’t say.”
The boy nodded wisely, then straightened and sauntered over to join him. Joshua guessed him to be eleven years old, maybe twelve. He was dressed in a cotton shirt, and knickers held up by suspenders. A hat, French beret style, was perched jauntily on his head. Bright brown eyes, wise beyond their years, peered up at Joshua. Suddenly the boy turned, pointing up at the warehouses. “We got a lot of wrought iron here too. Same thing. Iron is brought in as ballast.” He shrugged matter-of-factly. “We got to do something with it.”
Joshua suppressed a smile and let his eyes follow where the boy was pointing. He had already noted the wrought-iron balconies. They had caught his eye because iron railings and balconies out west were a luxury not yet affordable for even the most well-to-do.
He turned back. “And how is it you know all this stuff about ballast?”
The boy removed his hat, revealing a thick shock of deep-auburn-colored hair. He wiped his brow with his sleeve. Though it was still not nine o’clock, the day was already warm and humid. He put his hat back on. “I know everything there is to know about Savannah.”
“I see,” Joshua responded, keeping a straight face. The lad’s impudence was startling, and yet Joshua liked it.
“You from out west?”
That startled Joshua. “Yes, how’d you guess?”
He shrugged again, and Joshua was beginning to recognize it as his trademark—enigmatic, nonchalant, brushing aside the inconsequential. “You talk like a Northerner, but you came in on a ship from New Orleans.”
“Oh.” His admiration for the boy’s quickness moved up a notch. “I’m from a place called Independence, Missouri. Ever heard of it?”
He looked offended. “Of course. It’s on the Missouri River.”
An eyebrow lifted. This boy was just one surprise after another.
“That’s close to Indian Territory.” It wasn’t phrased as a question.
“Yes,” replied Joshua. “Twelve, fifteen miles maybe.”
For the first time a boyishness crept into his voice. “Have you seen real Indians, then?”
Now it was Joshua’s turn to be a little nonchalant. “Yep. See them all the time. Osage, Choctaw, Pawnee, Oglala Sioux.”
Impressed, the boy sized Joshua up. He seemed to make up his mind. “Seems to me, a gentleman like you, being in Savannah for the first time, could use a boy like me, that knows all about the city, to show him around.”
Joshua laughed right out loud. “I don’t suppose this ‘guide service’ is free, is it?”
The chin came up, and there was a flash of defiance in his eyes. “I’ll not be chargin’ you anything.”
For a moment Joshua felt guilty. Maybe he had misjudged the boy. But then an impish look played around the corner of the lad’s eyes. “However, when we’re done, if you think my services are worthy of some thanks, then . . .” He shrugged again, as if it mattered not in the least to him.
Delighted, Joshua clapped him on the shoulder. This boy had already lifted his spirits, and that was worth something to him. “Fair enough, lad. What’s your name?”
“Will. William Donovan Mendenhall.”
“Pleased to meet you, Will. My name is Joshua Steed.” Curious, Joshua decided to do a little probing of his own. “You don’t talk like a Southerner.”
“My mama and my daddy were originally from Maryland. We’ve only been here about seven years.”
“Oh.”
“Come on, let’s start with Factors’ Walk.”
“Factors’ Walk?”
“Yes. Don’t you know about cotton factors?”
Joshua’s look was answer enough for him.
“A factor works with a plantation owner, gives him the cash he needs to raise a good crop, finds a market for it, makes sure he gets the best price.”
“So he’s kind of like a cotton broker.”
Will nodded. “Yep. You here to buy cotton?”
“That’s right.”
“Then we’ll have to find you a cotton factor.”
Lying on the southern bank of the Savannah River, just one block south of River Street, Factors’ Walk was more like a tunnel than a street. On its northern side, the side closest to the river, the warehouses formed a solid wall of buildings three and four stories high. On the southern side a natural bluff rose sharply away from the riverbank. This bluff had been partly cut away and shored up with a sheer, twenty-foot-high wall of stone. The space between the wall of stone and the wall of buildings formed a deep, narrow channel running parallel for several blocks with River Street. But what made the narrow way most unusual was that all along the row of warehouses, at the second-story level, there was a continuous balcony with doorways facing Factors’ Walk. From each doorway a steel catwalk ran from the warehouses to the bluff, bridging the street below in a dozen places.
Joshua and Will were standing on the top of the bluff, near one of the catwalks. Will grunted softly. “Look,” he said. “Now you’ll see why they call it Factors’ Walk.” He pointed off to their left. About a hundred yards away, a wagon was turning off Bay Street. It had hu
ge wheels and creaked under the load of several bales of raw cotton—each bale as big as a sofa and weighing nearly five hundred pounds.
As the driver turned the wagon into the narrowness of Factors’ Walk, the clatter of the steel-rimmed wheels came reverberating down the passageway. Evidently the sound served as a signal, for almost immediately warehouse doors started opening everywhere. Men in suit coats or shirt sleeves stepped out of the buildings and walked onto the catwalks.
Directly across from them, a tall man with a pipe clamped hard in his teeth came out, blinking at the brightness of the sun. He was just putting on his long suit coat. He stopped for a moment, looking in the direction of the wagon, then buttoned his coat, puffed once on his pipe, and moved out onto the catwalk until he was directly over the street below.
“That’s Mr. Richard Wesley,” Will said in a hushed voice. “He’s the best factor in all of Savannah.”
The other men were also out in the middle of their catwalks now, leaning over the rails to peer at the load of cotton as the wagon passed beneath them. The wagon was nearly to where Joshua and Will stood. Joshua saw Wesley’s eyes narrow for a moment as he scanned the bales. There was a slight flicker of one finger.
Will gave a little exclamation of excitement. “Did you see that?” he said. “That means Mr. Wesley wants that load.”
“What if someone else wants it too?”
“If Mr. Wesley wants it, he’ll get it.”
The wagon rumbled on past them, then turned at a place where there was a passageway to River Street beneath one of the warehouses. As Wesley and the others returned to their offices, Will straightened, not trying to hide his excitement. “Give that cotton a week or two and it will be on its way to England or Boston, I’ll bet.”
Joshua was nodding thoughtfully. “Or maybe St. Louis.”
“Yeah,” Will said, understanding immediately what Joshua had meant.
Joshua watched his young guide closely. Suddenly he made a shrewd guess. “You gonna be a cotton factor someday, Will?”
Pillar of Light Page 98