by S. F. Wood
On the top of the Kansas Star, where the smoke stacks broke through and reached up to the sky, stood the pilot cabin. “It’s little more than a hut,” said Jackson, unimpressed. It was slightly forward of the center and the mate was leaning out of a window yelling orders to the Bossman. The latter was an immensely built colored man and he was the go-between who made sure the roustabouts got the boat ready in time.
They went back down the ladder to the main deck
The boat was filling up, a combination of new passengers and those who had disembarked for a few hours to stretch their legs. There was but little breeze, so smoke from the stacks lingered around the riverboat. The pilot kept sounding the ‘scape, encouraging those who had yet to board to do so. “Mornin’ Ma’am, Sir,” Jackson touched the brim of his hat, stepping to one side to allow two fellow passengers pass. The woman acknowledged Jackson’s good manners, because, as all right-thinking people know, good manners need acknowledging. Not that she stopped to talk as she passed Jackson and the Preacher. That would be too forward and indeed, would not be what Good Manners demanded. The Preacher tipped his hat in a similar fashion, but declined to say anything. However, unlike Jackson, the Preacher ignored completely the old man in a bath chair that was being pushed by the woman. The man’s expression was vacant, bereft of any form of acknowledgement.
“I hope I never grow so old,” said the Preacher once the pair had moved out of earshot. “He must be what? Threescore year and then some? Man’s allotted time cannot come quick enough for him.”
“I hope I do indeed grow as old. And older still. But if we do not get inside and have some coffee I declare I shall grow as crotchety as the oldest of old men.”
“Really? You want to get to be that old?” The pair went inside and took a table. “Surely you will just prolong the misery that is this life on Earth.” The Preacher seemed less to be contemptuous of the old man, more of old age itself.
“I do not want to wish away my youth. But do you want me to think that the promise of your heaven is to be preferred to the so-called misery on Earth?” Jackson smiled at the waitress as she approached the table. “A pot of Arbuckle’s please ma’am.”
“You are a decent fellow, Mr. Beauregard,” said the Preacher. “But I cannot say whether your goodness is enough. You need to love the Lord to get into heaven.”
The Preacher had to wait a few moments while the waitress walked away with their order before he received a response from Jackson. Once she had passed out of view - that is, Jackson’s view - the younger man asked, “So I can be evil, so long as I love the Lord?”
“The very act of loving the Lord will ward off much evil in a man.”
“Yet if there were a Good Man, a decent fellow, but one who did not follow the Lord? What of him?”
“I would not give a penny for his chances. But you, Mr. Beauregard, well you have such a way that I think St Peter might persuade himself to let you in.”
The coffee pot arrived. Jackson filled his mug and passed the pot to the Preacher. “Be that as it may, I would postpone those heavenly joys until I reached one hundred years, if I could.”
“To live to one hundred years, Mr. Beauregard? One Hundred Years? Pray, why?” The Preacher set the coffee pot back on the table. “I sometimes feel that these past 50 years have been like a hundred. But to actually walk this earth for a century! Coleridge, I think it was, who wrote of a mariner who was cursed in the manner in which you seek to be blessed! One hundred indeed.” The Preacher drank his coffee. Damned waitress hadn’t made it hot enough.
“More than one hundred if I could. Two hundred! Three... Four!” Jackson was laughing as he said this. But beneath the humor he was serious. “Are you not curious?”
“About what?”
“About everything! About what the future will bring. About whether the lost city of Atlantis be discovered, or Eldorado for that matter; about whether a locomotive can reach one hundred miles an hour and what it would be like to travel in one; whether science can find a cure for the maladies that afflict and bring misery to so many...”
“Science?” the Preacher almost spat the word.
Jackson took this in his stride. “Maybe man can build a tower to the moon. Maybe he can...”
“Man has built such a tower before, Mr. Beauregard. In the Land of Shinar. And look what happened then. Genesis 11, if my memory serves me correctly. Which it does.”
“I know the story, but that does not deflect me. I am aware that I cannot live to a hundred years - although your Bible has - who was it? Methuselah? Lived 900 years, did he not?”
“The oldest man who ever did live. Nine hundred and sixty-nine years.”
“Well imagine the things you would see, the terrifying sights, the fabulous march of Mankind. What I would give just to know that! Just to see that! Does it not fire your enthusiasm?”
“It sounds as if you would indeed trade heaven for Earth, Mr. Beauregard. So beware what you wish for. But I must say, your optimism is endearing. I confess that it would be tiresome to me in another man, but you carry it well.”
“Pass on the flattery! I am deadly serious! You may mock me, but I think I am a realist. Things are better now than they ever have been, so clearly if we - Mankind - can continue doing well the things that we are already doing, then surely life will get better still.”
“Better? Do you, Mr. Beauregard, seriously think things are better now than, say, before the war? Life was better then. More civilized, more...”
“Better? For all? Really? Better for...”
“Yes, yes Mr. Beauregard!” interrupted the Preacher, putting down his mug. “Yes, I know what it is that you are about to say. But I will maintain, better for the Black man too.”
“Those working in the boiler room.” Jackson took a mouthful of his coffee.
“What of them? Stoking the boiler, burning wood. I would venture they did as much when they were indentured.”
“Enslaved.”
“Call it what you will.” The Preacher dismissed the objection with a wave of his hand. Mere semantics.
“But you acknowledge now, surely, that slavery was wrong?”
“I acknowledge that the Law prohibits it now, and I do not intend to challenge the Law. But it was once lawful, Mr. Beauregard. And being a law-abiding person, I did not challenge the Law then either. Why, owning slaves was readily acknowledged as a fact of life in the Bible. Leviticus if I am not mistaken, which, as you know, contains Laws. Now the American Law has set the black man free and his lot is not improved. At the very least they should have been sent to central America.”
“But now they get paid!”
“They got paid on the plantations!” The Preacher’s tone was one of exasperation, of frustration. Jackson took this as a sign he was winning the argument. But the Preacher persisted: “Only that payment would not have been in coin, but by providing a roof over their families’ heads, Scripture to be read to their children, and certainty about their collective place in society. Now? What does the black man get? 10 cents a day? Twelve if he is lucky? More if he is crooked! And what’s to stop him being crooked now, eh, Mr. Beauregard? What’s to stop him now that he does not have a Master to shelter him from the evil ways? A benevolent Master, that is what’s best for the Black.”
“They are not children!”
“As good as.”
“I do not think you mean what you say.”
“I do.”
“You say you do, but I know your nature. You say these things to provoke.” Jackson took another mouthful of Arbuckle’s. “But I declare I might be the one doing the provoking, and it is your mind that is being provoked.”
The Preacher had come to the bottom of his mug. He reached for the pot, proffering it first to Jackson, who declined a re-fill. Once his own mug was refreshed he said to Jackson, “You don’t provoke me, Mr. Beauregard.”
“I make you think, question.”
“I have answers.”
“And that sir,
” said Jackson, leaning back in his chair, “is what Democracy is about.”
“Democracy Mr. Beauregard? Democracy?” The Preacher was on the way to becoming apoplectic. “Democracy has given us thousands of one-time slaves walking about the land. Itinerants!”
“No! Democracy means you and I can debate something as strong and as divisive as slavery, yet remain civil. And do you know why?”
“I fear I do not. And I fear even more that you are about to tell me.” The Preacher turned away, mug in hand, supping and shaking his head at the way the conversation was going.
Jackson let this pass. “Democracy means we can argue something as violently divisive as slavery because...” he leant forward, trying to keep the Preacher’s attention, “because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, either of us can do about it.”
“Our views do not matter?”
“Between us, they do. I might even change your views.” Again, Jackson was smiling. He did enjoy testing his wits with the Preacher. “But we can’t influence those who rule us, be they Kings or Congressmen.”
“You could never, and I mean never, change me, Mr. Beauregard. I am too long in the tooth. A man can change from his childhood to manhood. Indeed, he must. And again, when he settles down with a wife and a family. But after, then a man cannot change. I would argue, must not change, for fear that he loses himself.”
“The men in the boiler room. Life has changed for them. Changed from slave to free men. Shall we ask them?”
“Ask them?” And then in a more horrified tone, “Talk to them? Talk to nigras? Have you taken leave...? To ask them what?”
Ten minutes later the two found themselves standing at the entrance to the boiler room. The men working there were stripped to the waist, black bodies - for they were all blacks of course - covered in sweat, glistening in the heat. The furnace was intense. One of them stopped what he was doing - which was sweeping the floor - and looked at the two white men. “You not s’possed to be here. Passengers upstairs.”
The Preacher was more than happy to abide by this ruling, even if it had just been given him by a negro. But Jackson persisted. “Do you mind if we ask you a question?”
“You Law?” Not one of the other stokers dared turn around, dared turn from their task. But they listened.
“No, no, we are not officials. Please, we have a question that you might be able to answer.”
“I don’ know nuttin’.” And with that the man turned his back on Jackson and continued sweeping. And listening.
“You can help settle a friendly debate. A dollar coin for your time as I can see you are busy.” Jackson pulled a coin from his frock coat pocket.
The man looked at the coin, then looked Jackson in the eye.
“My name is Beauregard, Jackson Beauregard.” The Preacher was not surprised to see Jackson offer his hand by way of a greeting. He had no intention of following suit. The negro was surprised too. However, he had his wits about him, that the Preacher had to acknowledge, for his response was not to accept the handshake, but to hold his palm out flat, in anticipation of the coin that was surely now coming his way.
Jackson mumbled an apology and handed over the coin. “I am a newspaper correspondent, from New York. You may have heard of the journal I write for? The New York Herald?”
The Preacher let the silence hang for a moment - if there could be such a thing as silence there, what with the boiler and the pistons and the sound of the paddles turning. Then he said, “I might be wrong, but I don’t think your esteemed journal has much attraction for those who cannot read, Mr. Beauregard.”
Jackson continued nevertheless. “Our readers are interested in knowing how emancipation has changed your lives.”
“Just how interested are they really, Mr. Beauregard? Compared with, say, stories about the Queen of England?”
Jackson ignored him. “It has been five years since the end of the, the...” He glanced at the Preacher before adding, “War of Liberation. What has the freedom that the Union Army fought so hard to give you meant to you?”
The black man pocketed the coin. Then spat on the floor. Spat right in front of the Preacher’s feet. “It is not only me that is free. My hands,” He held his hands up to show Jackson. Big hands, powerful. Rough, hardened, nails blackened, one little finger missing. “These were in chains many a year. Feet too, but ma hands mainly. If’n a white man beat me I could do nuttin’ I mean nuttin’ ‘bout it.”
“Carry on, please.”
“It was not only the massa what beat me. Any whitey could do. And would do.” The boilerman stooped to pick up a piece of timber. He held it loosely out in front of him, a hand at either end. “With ma hands in chains, I could do nuttin’ but accept da beating. But now...” His fists tightened their grip on the piece of wood, his biceps flexed, the veins in the man’s neck began to bulge, the look in his eyes grew intense. The boiler man was looking straight at Jackson, never took his eyes off Jackson. Did not flinch while he looked at Jackson. And when the timber snapped in two he was looking at Jackson.
Jackson flinched.
“So now,” said Jackson, clearing his throat to ensure his voice remained authoritative, “now you can defend yourself. Defend yourself with...” and here Jackson turned to the Preacher, preparing to lay the winning card, “with the full protection of the Law.” He turned back to face the black man. “That’s the difference now. Thank you, sir. That was all I wanted to know.”
But as Jackson was about to take his leave, the boiler man said, “It don’ bare make no diff’rence. Da only diff’rence is that whitey would be dead. Snapped in two. But I knows I will be strung up by de judge for it. ‘Cos Law say no matter what, it can’t be ever a case where a black man can kill da white man. No way. Not e’vn self defense. No way.” The boiler man turned to collect his broom, which had remained idle the while. “The diff’rence, such it is, would be that da whitey would be stone dead too. For that, I thank Abe Lincoln.”
With that, he turned his back on the two whiteys, and carried on with his work.
Chapter 12
The steamboat, Missouri Belle, like the other boats the two men had been sailing on since that first trip on the Kansas Star three months back, was a sternwheeler. Two decks sat high above the main deck, with the Pilot House perched atop. Now this really was a new vessel, and as such had more in the way of creature comforts than the Preacher and Jackson had gotten used to. It had moored at the dockside at Sioux City a few hours earlier. The two men had been aboard for just a couple of days. But the Preacher was going no further.
“One day I will take a suite on a boat like this,” said Jackson, looking up from the main deck.
“You will need either to get better at the tables, Mr. Beauregard, or start writing for your newspaper again. I would advocate the latter, given the limited impact you’ve made on the gambling fraternity of late.”
“Harsh words. But I admit to not having done as well as you. Indeed, you have excelled! You should be able to build that chapel in California now.” Jackson looked at the Preacher. “If that’s what you really want to do.”
“I have contributions enough from the sinners that the Good Lord has sent my way. But I don’t think I have taken much from you, if anything. Your losses are purely down to you.” The Preacher had done his best to point out to Jackson the games that did not look crooked. These were the ones that Jackson would join, the ones that gave him the chance to pit his wits against men who played ‘according to Hoyle’. Which meant of course that the young man’s losses were due to the Preacher’s original observation, made back in the summer, which he now repeated: “Your countenance is too open to be a good poker player, Mr. Beauregard.”
“What difference does my face make?”
“In your case, it makes you a poor poker player. And the adjective is to be taken in both senses of the word, Mr. Beauregard. By way of evidence, you yourself have just pointed out that you cannot afford to stay in one of the high-class staterooms.”
The two men continued their walk around the Belle. “Oranges.”
“Oranges, Mr. Beauregard?”
“Or grapes.”
The two men reached the stern and turned to continue their walk on the river side of the boat. “Are you going to demonstrate how many fruits you can name? Rather pointless I would say.”
“Some would say building a chapel was pointless.”
“Some.”
“So, buy an orange grove. In California. Though a vineyard would do just as fine.” Jackson could barely restrain the enthusiasm he felt at this idea, which in truth, he had only just conceived.
“I know nothing about citrus fruit, nor wine. And I am too old to learn new ways. That’s the end of it.”
“But you do, you do!” Jackson looked at the Preacher. “You used your slaves to grow crops! Now do so yourself.”
“Cotton, not fruit.”
“But it’s cultivation! Growing! Sowing! Harvesting! Back to the Land where you were for so long. And, if I may be so bold, you long for still. Putting down roots again, in more ways than one.”
Time was running out, in more ways than one. “Be that as it may, you should be underway in an hour. I will miss your company Mr. Beauregard, though not your talk of oranges. But all good things must come to an end, as they say. You should be the one to think of settling down. If not, you’ll soon be a bankrupt, that I predict with some certainty.”
“Well I shall miss your ‘optimistic’ outlook on life. And I say that with some certainty too,” said Jackson, refusing to rise to the bait. “But we might meet up again when I make my journey south. I guess that depends upon how long your business in Sioux City takes.”
They were now overlooking the quayside so the Preacher stopped and leant on the guardrail. He thought about what a passenger had told him on an earlier vessel, and what he would do with that knowledge. How many times had he chased after rumor? How often had he cornered an innocent? Held a gun to his head? Made him beg for his life? Before realizing the enormity of his mistake. How close he had come to committing murder?