Abner Marsh snorted. “Damn it, Joshua, you ought to have killed him when you had the chance.”
“Yes,” Joshua York agreed, much to Marsh’s surprise. “I thought I could control him. A grievous error. Of course, that night he reemerged, I tried to rectify that error. I was furious and sick. We exchanged bitter words, and I was determined that this would be the last crime of his long and monstrous life. I commanded him to face me. I intended to make him kneel and offer up his own blood, again and again if need be, until he was mine, until he was drained and broken and harmless. He rose and faced me and . . .” York gave a hard, hopeless laugh.
“He beat you?” Marsh said.
Joshua nodded. “Easily. As he had always done before, except that one night. I summoned up all the strength and will and anger that was in me, but I was no match for him. Even Julian did not expect it, I think.” He shook his head. “Joshua York, king of the vampires. I failed them again. My reign lasted for just over two months. For the past thirteen years, Julian has been our master.”
“Your prisoners?” Marsh asked, knowing the answer but hoping he was wrong.
“Dead. They took them one by one, over the months that followed.”
Marsh grimaced. “Thirteen years, that’s a long time, Joshua. Why didn’t you run off? You must have had a chance.”
“Many,” Joshua York admitted. “I think Julian would have preferred that I vanish. He had been bloodmaster for a thousand years or more, the strongest and most terrible predator ever to walk the earth, and I had made him a slave for two months. Neither he nor I could account for my brief, bitter triumph, but neither could we forget it. We struggled again and again over the years, and each time, before Julian brought all his power to bear, I saw the flicker of doubt, the fear that maybe this time he would be overcome again. But it never happened. And I stayed. Where would I go, Abner? And what good could I do? My place was with my people. All that time, I continued to hope that someday I could take them back from him. Even in defeat, I believe my presence was a check on Julian. It was always I who initiated our contests for mastery, never him. He never attempted to make me kill. When supplies of my drink ran low, I set up my equipment and made more, and Julian did not interfere. He even allowed some of the others to join me. Simon, Cynthia, Michel, a few others. We drank, and stilled the thirst.
“For his part, Julian kept to his cabin. You might even say he was dormant. At times no one but Sour Billy would see him for weeks. Years passed that way, with Julian lost in his own dreams, though his presence hung over us. He had his blood, of course. At least once a month, Sour Billy would ride into New Orleans, and return with a victim. Slaves before the war. Afterward, dance-hall girls, prostitutes, drunks, scoundrels—whomever he could entice out to us. The war was difficult. Julian stirred during the war, and led parties into the city several times. Later he sent out the others. Wars often yield up easy prey for my people, but they can also be dangerous, and this war took its toll. Cara was attacked by a Union soldier one night in New Orleans. She killed him, of course, but he had companions . . . she was the first to die. Philip and Alain were arrested on suspicion, and imprisoned. They were shut up in an outdoor stockade, to wait for questioning. The sun came up, and both of them died. And troops fired the plantation house one night. It was half-ruined anyway, but not empty. Armand died in the blaze, and Jorge and Michel were horribly burned, though they recovered. The rest of us dispersed, and returned to the Fevre Dream when the marauders had gone. It has been our home ever since.
“The years have passed with a sort of uneasy truce between Julian and myself. There are fewer of us, barely a dozen, and we are divided. My followers have my liquor, and Julian’s have their blood. Simon, Cynthia, and Michel are mine, the others his, some because they think as he does, others because he is bloodmaster. Kurt and Raymond are his strongest allies. And Billy.” His expression was grim. “Billy is a cannibal, Abner. For thirteen years, Julian has been making him one of us, or so he says. After all that time, the blood still makes Billy sick. I have seen him retch on it a dozen times. But he eats human flesh eagerly now, though he cooks it first. Julian finds that amusing.”
“You should have let me kill him.”
“Perhaps. Though without Billy we would have died on the steamer that day. He has a quick mind, but Julian has twisted him terribly, as he twists all those who listen to him. Without Billy, this way of life Julian has constructed would collapse. It is Billy who rides into the city, and brings back Julian’s sorry prey. It is Billy who sells off the silver from the boat, or parcels of land, or whatever else is needed to keep some money on hand. And, in a sense, it is because of Billy that you and I have met again.”
“I figured you’d get to that sooner or later,” Marsh said. “You been with Julian a long time, without runnin’ off or doin’ nothin’. Only now you’re here, with Julian and Sour Billy hunting for you, and now you write me this goddamned letter. Why now? What’s changed?”
Joshua’s hands were tight on the ends of his armchair. “The truce I spoke of is over,” he said. “Julian is awake again.”
“How?”
“Billy,” said Joshua. “Billy is our link with the world outside. When he goes into New Orleans, he often brings back newspapers and books, for me, along with food and wine and victims. Billy also hears all the stories, all the talk in the city and along the river.”
“So?” said Abner Marsh.
“Of late much of that talk has been about one topic. The papers have been full of it, too. It is a topic dear to your heart, Abner. Steamboats. Two steamboats, in particular.”
Abner Marsh frowned. “The Natchez and the Wild Bob Lee,”he said. He couldn’t see what Joshua was getting at.
“Precisely,” said York. “From the papers I have read and the things Billy has said, it seems that a race is inevitable.”
“Hell, yes,” said Marsh. “Soon, too. Leathers has been braggin’ all up and down the river, and he’s starting to cut into the Lee’s trade bad, from what I hear. Cap’n Cannon ain’t goin’ to stand that long. It ought to be a hell of a race, too.” He tugged at his beard. “Only I don’t see what that’s got to do with Julian and Billy and your damned night folks.”
Joshua York smiled grimly. “Billy talked too much. Julian grew interested. And he remembers, Abner, he remembers that promise he made to you. I stopped him once. But now, damn him, he intends to do it again.”
“Do it again?”
“He will recreate the slaughter I found on the Fevre Dream,”said Joshua. “Abner, this business between the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee has caught the interest of the whole nation. Even in Europe large wagers are being placed, according to the papers. If they race from New Orleans to St. Louis, it will take them three or four days. And three or four nights, Abner. And three or four nights.”
And all of a sudden Abner Marsh saw where Joshua was going, and a coldness settled on him such as he had never known. “The Fevre Dream,”he said.
“They are floating her again,” said York, “clearing out that waterway we had filled in. Sour Billy is raising money. Later this month he will come to the city and hire a crew, to help make her ready and man her when the time comes. Julian thinks it will all be very amusing. He intends to take her to New Orleans and land her until the day of the race. He will let the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee depart first, and then he will take the Fevre Dream upriver after them. When darkness falls, he will close in on whichever boat is leading, pull alongside her, and . . . well, you know what he intends. Both steamers will be lightly manned, without any passengers, to keep their weight down. Julian will have an easy time of it. And he will compel all of us to take part. I am his pilot.” He laughed bitterly. “Or I was. When I first heard his madness, I fought him, and lost yet again. The next dawn I stole Billy’s horse and fled. I thought that I could frustrate him by running. Without a pilot, he could not bring it off. But by the time I had recovered from my burns, I saw the fallacy in that. Billy will
simply hire a pilot.”
Abner Marsh had a heavy churning in the pit of his stomach. Part of him was sick and furious at Julian’s plan to make the Fevre Dream some kind of demon steamer. But another part of him was entranced by the boldness of it, by the vision of his Fevre Dream showing up both of them, Cannon and Leathers and the whole damn world to boot. “Pilot, hell,” Marsh said. “Them two steamers are the fastest things on the goddamned river, Joshua. If he lets them get off first, he ain’t never goin’ to catch them, nor kill nobody.” But even as he said it, Marsh knew he did not really believe it.
“Julian thinks that makes it all the more amusing,” Joshua York replied. “If they can stay ahead of him, they live. If not . . .” He shook his head. “And he says he has the greatest faith in your steamboat, Abner. He intends to make her famous. Afterward, both boats are to be wrecked, and Julian says we will all escape to the shore and make our way to the east, to Philadelphia or perhaps New York. He is weary of the river, he claims. I believe that is so much empty talk. Julian is weary of life. If he carries through this plan, it will mean the end of my race.”
Abner Marsh got up off the bed and stamped his cane on the floor in fury. “Goddamn it to hell!” he roared. “She’ll catch ’em, I know she will, she could have caught the goddamned Eclipse if she’d been given the chance, I swear it. She ain’t goin’ to have no goddamned trouble outrunnin’ the likes of the Natchez and the Bad Bob. Hell, neither one of them could ever beat the Eclipse. Goddammit, Joshua, he ain’t goin’ to do this with my steamboat, I swear he ain’t!”
Joshua York smiled a thin, dangerous smile, and when Abner Marsh looked into his eyes he saw the determination he had once seen in the Planters’ House, and the cold anger he had once seen when he barged in on York by day. “No,” York said. “He isn’t. That’s why I wrote you, Abner, and prayed that you were still alive. I have thought a long time about this. I am decided. We will kill him. There is no other way.”
“Hell,” said Marsh. “Took you long enough to see that. I could have told you that thirteen goddamned years ago. Well, I’m with you. Only—” He pointed his cane at York’s chest. “—we don’t hurt the steamer, you hear? The only thing wrong with that goddamned plan of Julian’s is the part where everybody gets killed. The rest of it I like just fine.” He smiled. “Cannon and Leathers is goin’ to get such a goddamned surprise they ain’t goin’ to believe it.”
Joshua rose smiling. “Abner, we will do our best, I promise you, to see that the Fevre Dream remains intact. Be sure to caution your men.”
Marsh frowned. “What men?”
The smile faded from Joshua’s face. “Your crew,” he said. “I assumed that you came down here on one of your steamboats, with a party of men.”
Marsh suddenly recollected that Joshua had mailed his letter to Fevre River Packets, in St. Louis. “Hell,” he said, “Joshua, I ain’t got no steamers anymore, nor any men neither. I came down by steamboat, all right. Cabin passage.”
“Karl Framm,” Joshua said. “Toby. The others, those men you had with you on the Eli Reynolds . . .”
“Dead or gone, all of ’em. I was near dead myself.”
Joshua frowned. “I had thought we would attack in force, by day. This changes things, Abner.”
Abner Marsh clouded up like a thunderhead about to break. “The hell it does,” he said. “It don’t change one goddamned thing, far as I can see. Maybe you figured we was goin’ in there with an army, but I sure as hell knew better. I’m a goddamned old man, Joshua, and I’m probably goin’ to die soon, and Damon Julian don’t scare me no more. He’s had my steamboat for too goddamned long and I ain’t happy with what he’s done with her and I’m goin’ to get her back or die trying. You wrote that you made a choice, dammit. Now what is it? Are you comin’ with me or not?”
Joshua York listened quietly to Marsh’s furious outburst, and slowly a reluctant smile crept over his pale white features. “All right,” he said at last. “We’ll do it alone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Julian Plantation, Louisiana,
May 1870
They left New Orleans in the middle of the night, rolling and clattering over dark, rutted roads in a wagon that Joshua York had purchased. Dressed in dark brown, a hooded cloak billowing behind him, Joshua looked as fine as in the old days as he snapped the reins and urged the horses onward. Abner Marsh sat grimly beside him, bouncing and jouncing as they rattled over rocks and holes, holding tight to the double-barreled shotgun across his knees. The pockets of his coat bulged with shells.
Joshua pulled off the main road almost as soon as they were out of the city, and left the secondary road quickly as well, so they moved swiftly down pathways little traveled, and deserted now in the dead of night. The roads became narrow, twisting lanes, through thick stands of yellow pine and heart pine, magnolia and cypress, sour gum and live oak. At times the trees twined together overhead, so it seemed as though they were plunging through a long black tunnel. Marsh found he was nearly blind at times, when the trees pressed close and shut out the moon, but Joshua never let the pace slacken. He had eyes for the dark.
At length the bayou appeared on their left, and the road ran along it for a long time. The moon shone pale and still on the black, quiet water. Fireflies were drifting through the lazy night, and Marsh listened to the deep croaking of bullfrogs and smelled the heavy, rich odors that drifted off the backwaters, where the water lilies grew thickly and the banks were dense with snow-white dogwoods and daddy graybeard beneath the old, towering trees. It might be the last night of his life, Abner Marsh thought. So he breathed it deeply, snorted up all the smells it had to offer, the sweet ones and the sour ones alike.
Joshua York looked straight ahead, and kept them thundering through the dark, oblivious and hard-faced, lost in his own thoughts.
Near dawn—a vague light had just appeared in the east, and some of the stars seemed to be fading—they passed around an ancient Spanish oak, dead now, trailers of gray moss dripping feebly from its withered limbs, and into a wide, overgrown field. Marsh saw a row of shanties off in the distance, black as rotten teeth, and close at hand stood the charred and roofless walls of an old plantation house, its empty windows gaping at them. Joshua York brought them to a halt. “We will leave the wagon here and proceed on foot,” he said. “It is not so far now.” He looked up toward the horizon, where the brightness was spreading and eating up the stars. “At full light, we will strike.”
Abner Marsh grunted assent and climbed down off the wagon, clutching the shotgun tightly. “Goin’ to be a nice day,” he said to Joshua. “Maybe just a trifle gaudy.”
York smiled and pulled his hat down over his eyes. “This way,” he said. “Remember the plan. I will smash the door in and confront Julian. When all his attention is fixed on me, step in and shoot for the face.”
“Hell,” said Marsh. “I ain’t goin’ to forget. I been shootin’ at that face for years, in my dreams.”
Joshua walked quickly, with long strides, and Abner Marsh moved heavily beside him, struggling to match his pace. Marsh had left his cane back in New Orleans. This morning, of all mornings, he felt young again. The air was sweet and cool and full of fragrance, and he was going to get his lady back, his sweet steamer, his Fevre Dream.
Past the plantation house. Past the slave shanties. Through another field, where indigo was growing wild in a profusion of pink and purple flowers. Around a tall old willow tree whose trailing tendrils brushed Marsh’s face as gently as a woman’s hand. Then into a denser stand of woods, cypress mostly, and some palmetto, with flowering reeds and dogwood and fleurs-de-lis of every color growing all about. The ground was damp, and grew damper as they walked. Abner Marsh felt the wetness soaking through the soles of his old boots.
Joshua ducked under a thick gray drape of Spanish moss that hung from a low, twisted limb, and Marsh did likewise one step behind him, and there she was.
Abner Marsh gripped the shotgun very tightly. “Hell,
” was all he said.
The water had returned to the old back channel, and it stood all about the Fevre Dream, but it was not deep enough, and the steamer was not afloat. She rested on a shoal of mud and sand, her head thrust up into the air, listing about ten degrees to larboard, her paddles high and mostly dry. Once she had been white and blue and silver. Now she was mostly gray, the gray of old rotting wood that has seen too much sun and too much dampness and not enough paint. It looked as if Julian and his goddamned vampires had sucked all the life out of it. On her wheelhouse, Marsh could see traces of the whore’s scarlet that Sour Billy had slapped upon her, and the letters OZ real faint, like old memories. But the rest was gone, and the old true name could be seen again, where the newer paint had crumbled and peeled. The whitewash on her railings and colonnades had fared the worst, and that was where she was grayest, and here and there Marsh saw patches of green clinging to her wood, and spreading. He began to tremble as he looked at her. The damp and the heat and the rot, he thought, and there was something in his eye. He rubbed at it angrily. Her chimneys looked crooked because of the way she was listing. Spanish moss festooned one side of her pilot house, and drooped off her verge flagpole. The ropes that held up her larboard stage had snapped long ago, and the stage had come crashing to the forecastle. Her grand staircase, that great curving expanse of polished wood, was slimy with fungus. Here and there Marsh could see wildflowers that had taken root in cracks between the deck boards. “Goddamnit,” he said. “Goddamnit, Joshua, how the hell could you let her get like this? How the hell could you . . .” But then his voice cracked and betrayed him, and Abner Marsh found he had no words.
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