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“Thank you, Sir, you have been most helpful,” says I, having heard enough. “A very good day to you, then.” I dip down in a half curtsy as we leave him astounded in the dusty street.
“We will go to the General Butler,” I pronounce, seeing the sign for the establishment swinging up ahead, “to see what we will see.”
The interior of the General Butler is dark, smoky, and gloomy, but that is how it is supposed to look, and so I advance to the bar. I have found that I like working with landladies more than landlords, as the lords often tend to want a somewhat different kind of performance out of me than I’m willing to give.
“I wish to speak to Miss Molly Murphy,” says I to the person behind the bar, who I suspect is Murphy herself.
I find I am not wrong.
“So, that’s me,” she says, without affectation. “So, what is it you want, dear?” I like her already.
I puff up and say, “I am a musical and theatrical performer. I sing, I dance, I tell stories, I recite poems, I play the pennywhistle, fiddle, and concertina. If allowed to set up in your fine establishment, I will double your customers, guaranteed,” I say.
“And how old are you, dearie,” asks Molly, eyeing me not unkindly, “to be promisin’ me all this?”
“Old enough, Missus,” I answer, slipping into the Irish way of speaking. “Will you listen to this, then?”
Higgins hands me the Lady Gay, and instead of the raucous tunes I usually rip out at a time like this, I play a
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medley of the sad songs “Mountains of Mourn” and “Broom o’ the Cowdennelles” and “Londonderry Air.” It’s the last one that nails her, which is good—if ever I can’t make an Irishman cry with my fiddle, then I should hang it up and sit quietly by the fire forevermore.
The deal is struck. We get room and board for the four of us, and I will do two sets, one early evening and one that night. Katy will help out with serving the increased crowds, and Higgins’ll provide security, with Jim to help out where he can.
We scope out where the stage is to be and then go back to the Belle to get ready for the night’s revels.
Oh, I will be so glad to be back where I belong!
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Chapter 22
Jaimy Fletcher
In the company of Mike Fink
On the Allegheny River
Pennsylvania, USA
Jacky,
It soon became apparent that Mike Fink intended for me to do all the rowing, as he plunked himself down in the stern, with his hand on the extra oar that he was using as a rudder, and guided us along while I provided the sole power. When I am done with this American odyssey, I shall be able to hire out as a circus strongman.
Clementine perched behind me in the bow seat and kneaded my shoulders to lend them relief. I had taken off my shirt in the heat and her hands felt good on my aching muscles.
Fink slumped in the back, mumbling curses over some recent bad luck he had recently experienced.
“Goddamn…goddamn…best boat I ever had, it was, too, and she stole it. Goddamn her to Hell and back. Fooled
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poor Mike Fink, who was good enough to give her a ride on his boat, then she stole it from him, bighearted, stupid Mike Fink. Damn! But I’m a-gonna catch her and I’m a-gonna kill her…”
I was sure this was just another interesting tale of mischief on the river, no doubt perpetrated on the wounded Mike Fink by some river slattern of low moral character, but I didn’t ask for details. I knew it would come out, Fink being the braggart he most plainly was. It occurred to me that he was bragging even about being bested by this woman who had robbed him.
He left off his rant for a moment to peer closely at me and ask, “How come you’re tryin’ to get to Pittsburgh? Looking for work, I reckon.”
“Yes,” I said, mindful of Clementine listening behind me. “I am also trying to locate a friend, and furthermore, I would not mind catching up with the two men who robbed me on the road, taking all I had.” I then recounted to him, between strokes of the oars, the story of my downfall and my rescue by Clementine.
“Hmmm,” he mused, stroking the massive mat of his beard, “so you mean to kill them fellers, I suspect.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I wheezed, pulling at the oars, “being that they clubbed me and stripped me and shot me and left me for dead.”
“All right,” said Fink, “we’ll get down there and you kill them fellers and I’ll kill that thievin’ little bitch. Here’s how I’m a-gonna do it: I’m a-gonna wrap my two hands around her skinny little neck till her face turns blue and them big brown eyes pop right outta her skull!”
Right about then a cold suspicion began to dawn on me.
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It was the “little bitch” that first alerted me to an awful possibility. No, it could not be… It was.
“She was there with those three others, her big fancy man and the boy and the other girl,” Fink went on. “But you could see plain that she was the boss of all of ‘em. ‘Oh, thank you, Higgins,’ she’d say for any little thing he done for Her Royal Majesty. And, oh, she’d prance around like the most frail and delicate thing, ready to swoon and faint away at the sound of any decent cussword. ‘Oh, Mr. Fink, you are so very big and strong, you must be the very finest man I have ever met! Oh, please, tell me another story of your adventures!’ she’d plead, and flutter those big brown eyes at me, and me, the fool, just lapped it up, when all along she was plannin’ to steal my boat. It ain’t right, t’ain’t right, and I got to kill her.”
I continued pulling away at the oars, hoping he would not pronounce your name. It was, of course, a vain hope.
“Yep, it won’t be long now, as she’s only got about three days’ head start on me. Yep, Miss Jacky Faber has got about four days left on this earth,” said Fink, with great satisfaction.
Oh, Lord…
Clementine’s hands tightened on my shoulders, and then I felt them drop. Her freckled face appeared next to my left cheek, her blue eyes drilling into mine.
“I thought you said Jacky Faber was a boy,” hissed Clementine into my ear, but loud enough for Fink to hear. “Why’re you chasing her, Jaimy? You tell me. You tell me now.”
I didn’t have to respond, for Mike Fink exploded in rage. He pointed his finger at my nose and shouted, “You know
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her! Goddammit! You’re part o’ her filthy gang o’ thieves! It comes to me now—you talk funny, jest like that Jacky Faber and her fancy man. Well, by God, yer gonna get it!”
With that, he threw over his improvised rudder, and we hit the shallows next to the bank. He jumped out of the boat, remarkably light on his feet for such a huge man. He paused to throw back his head and cry out with a mighty roar, then he lunged at me.
I rolled over to the opposite side of the boat to evade his grasp, but he managed to grab the suspenders of my overalls and hurl me onto the muddy bank on which we had just landed. I tried to gain my feet, but could not. Fink whipped me around like a toy and slammed me down face-first in the muck, his foot planted on the back of my neck. All my circus strongman illusions were gone, for I realized that the man was incredibly strong.
But he was also immensely vain. While he took a moment to rear back to beat his chest and loudly bray out his superiority to a pansy weakling such as the likes of me, I managed to scramble out from under his foot and jump to my feet.
I steadied myself enough to face him. I was breathing hard and thinking that I had endured just about enough of America and its brigands and river louts. Propelled by all my pent-up anger, I pulled back my right fist and punched him in the face where I thought his chin might be under all that matted hair. I hit with all the force and anger within me. Pain radiated up my arm—I feared that my knuckles were shattered and my wrist was broken.
Fink stepped back, surprised. He put his hand to his whiskered jaw and looked off, thoughtful. “Wal, now,” he
asked, working his jaw like a ruminating steer, “was that a
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fly, a mosquito? Nah, must have been a gnat. A baby gnat…Must’ve been. C’mere, boy, I’m about to show you what real river fightin’s like.”
With that he snaked out a hand to catch me behind the head and pulled me to him and smothered me in a great bear hug, my arms pinned to my side, a hold I could not break from.
“Y’see, boy,” he whispered into my ear, “on the river we don’t box like little dancin’ fairies. Nope, on the river we rassles!”
Back we went, down into the mud again. On the way down, he shoved a knee into the small of my back and wrenched up my right arm behind me.
“See, boy, tha’s how we do it,” he snarled as he yanked my arm further up my back. I shrieked with the pain of it. “Steal my boat, will you?” he growled, grabbing a handful of my hair in his other fist and pushing my head down into the mud. When I cried out in pain, the muck oozed into my mouth, my nose, and my eyes.
I was convinced that I would end my days here in this stinking swamp, killed by a maniac. It was then that I heard a steady Thump! Thump! Thump!
In my distress I thought it was a troop of marines, marching to my rescue, but no. My vision cleared enough for me to see that Clementine, wielding a four-foot-long driftwood log, was standing over Fink and repeatedly swinging it and bringing it to bear on the back of his head.
His eyes crossed on the first several blows, but he shook them off. She, however, was relentless and kept on pounding him. Eventually, his grip on my arm weakened, then let go. Mike Fink rolled off me and slumped back in the mud.
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“All right, girl, you kin stop now. Mike Fink’s done.” He groaned, his chest heaving. “And I don’t blame you now for standin’ up for your man. You’re a good girl, I kin see. Just don’t hit me no more. 01’ Fink’s done.” He shook his head to clear it. “We’ll all go down this river. This boy’ll kill them two fellers and then I’ll kill this Jacky Faber and get my boat back and ever’body’ll be happy. He kin bed her ‘fore I kills her if’n he wants to, but that’ll be the end of that. Jest put that log down now, y’hear?”
Clementine flung the log aside and stalked off to sit alone in the woods as Fink and I picked ourselves up.
Afterward, Fink and I stripped off our muddy clothes and Clementine washed them in the clear river and hung them on branches to dry, then we turned in for the night, Fink wrapped in a blanket in his rowboat, and me and Clementine under a bush on the shore.
Me, anyway. Clementine kept a good distance away from me. I could hear her crying in the darkness. Sobbing, Jacky, like I have heard you sob in the past, crying like your whole body was going to come apart. I lay back and waited. It didn’t take long.
“I thought I was your girl.”
“You are the best of girls, Clementine.”
“Tell me this Jacky Faber and you is jes’ friends,” she demanded.
“We are friends. We were children together on that British ship I told you about.”
“Tell me you ain’t been with her like you’ve been with me.
Well, that’s true, anyway.
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“No, Clementine, I have not.” She sniffed in the darkness.
“What you gonna do, just leave me in the woods someplace when you find her?”
“I will tell you this, Clementine. Whatever happens, I will never leave you in a sorry condition. I will always do my best to take care of you as you have taken care of me. Do you believe me?”
She believed me enough to come to my side. She started out the night with her back toward me, which she had never done before, but in the morning we were again entwined as one….
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***
Chapter 23
Jacky Faber
The Sign of the General Butler Inn
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
At the headwaters of the Ohio River
July something, I’ve lost track
1806
Lieutenant James Fletcher
Somewhere in England, probably
Dear Jaimy,
I am writing to you in the same spirit that you once wrote to me—such that we might someday look back on these letters and have a good laugh at their contents. I cannot actually send it, of course, for it might be intercepted and read by those who pursue me. I will write to Ezra, however, and actually dispatch it, for I think that will be safe enough. I will tell him my news, and if you are in contact with him, well then, you, too, shall hear it.
Pittsburgh is a booming town, throbbing with commerce
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and industry. There is the sound of hammers everywhere, and buildings and factories are going up all around. It is music to my mercantile ears. I almost wish I could stay to join in the progress that is going to be made here, but, alas, I cannot. I must journey down these rivers so as to get back to you, which, of course, is what I really want to do. I do miss you so.
I have a boat again, Jaimy, can you even believe it? I have named her the Belle of the Golden West. She is a river flatboat. Well, technically, she is a keelboat, because she has a hull that is built on ribs, not like the regular flatboats that are just floating boxes. She is pretty flat, though, because of the shallow water she has to navigate as we travel downriver, but she does have pointy ends, not like those other scows. She is quite elegant, in her way, in spite of the fact that she lacks sails. For now, anyway. I do have plans in that regard.
I am back to singing and dancing in the taverns. I know you don’t want to hear that, as you always seem to want to have me tucked down in some safe, domestic place, but we must have money. Plus, I enjoy it hugely, and if you don’t want the children to hear that their mother was a saloon singer in her youth, well, just don’t read them this part.
The first night in Pittsburgh, I played at the Sign of the General Butler and was most pleased with both my performance, rusty as I was, and the warm reception I received. How I do love applause! We had sent Jim Tanner out into the town as a crier, telling the populace that Jacky Faber, the Toast of Two Continents, would be in solo performance at the General Butler, singing songs both happy and sad, fast and slow, telling funny stories, etc. You know, Jaimy, my usual patter.
Anyway, we had a good house that first night, and the
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owner, Molly Murphy, a dear soul, pronounced herself most satisfied, so I was invited to stay as long as I liked. The second and third nights were even better, the crowd larger on each succeeding night. I think you would enjoy, Jaimy, the spectacle of a ninety-pound female sawing away on her fiddle while being guarded by a very large English gentleman’s gentleman in full rig—a rig that includes the butts of two pistols peeking discreetly from beneath his jacket. Katy, too, proved valuable, helping out a grateful Molly with serving the drinks to the crowd. She was capable and efficient and earned herself some nice tips, too.
We have been hired to play at a wedding on Saturday and a barn dance on Sunday afternoon—no blue laws here, so it’s my kind of town.
It is good we are making some money—for one thing, I get to pay Katy and Jim something for their labors to date. Upon receiving their coins, they hied off together into the town. Jim came back proudly wearing a black boatman’s hat adorned with a red grosgrain band, and Katy returned with some new stockings and cloth for making a new shirt. I believe it was her first shopping trip ever, and it warmed my heart to see her quiet self pleased about something. I also have bought a boatman’s hat for myself and one for Higgins, too. After all, I must keep my fair complexion away from this fierce American sun while we are on the water, and also I need to blend in with the river folk. Higgins, too, wears his, though it offends his sense of style, but he does realize the importance of blending in when we are under way. On shore, of course, he remains his well-dressed self.
The food is good at Molly’s, and believe me, it sure was fine shoving my face into a big bowl of thick beef stew after
all that fish. Good wines hereabout, too. I shall certainly stock the Belle’s wine cellar before we leave. For the passengers, of course—I do intend to offer a quality cruise.
Speaking of the wine cellar, we have hired a carpenter— labor and lumber are plentiful and cheap around here—to help us make some changes to the boat. We have built a partition across the back of the hold such that it makes a stateroom for me and my mates—two bunks, one over the other, on each side, and a curtain between. So Katy and I will be on one side and Higgins and Jim on the other. There is a door at the back so we have a private entrance, right back by the steering oar. A command post, as it were.
In the passenger section, Katy has sewn muslin curtains for each bunk, and Jim, under Higgins’s supervision, has installed locks on the cargo section where the wine and spirits and kitchen supplies will be stowed. There is a bunk in the kitchen area for the cook we will have to hire. Higgins will cook for me, but not for ten or twenty.
I have also bought this journal in which I’m writing this down. I shall start keeping a ship’s log like I did on the Star and the Emerald. I must now, however, put up my quill and get ready for this evening’s performance.
It is my most fervent hope that you are safe and well. Higgins tells me not to worry about any trouble you might be in because of me, so I shan’t.
Know that I think of you all the time, Jaimy, and that I remain,
Your girl always,
Jacky
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***
Chapter 24
Jaimy Fletcher
On the Allegheny River
Pennsylvania, USA
Sometime in the summer of 1806
As I have lost track of the actual day
Jacky,
Fink has been pushing me to the limit, such was his determination to attend to your quick execution and to reclaim his boat. I pull on the oars and hope for the best, having one angry but somewhat mollified female seated behind me and one female up ahead of me who will be very angry, too, should she meet either Mike Fink or Clementine Jukes. One day at a time, I continually tell myself. Just pull at your oars, Mr. Fletcher.
Mississippi Jack: Being an Account of the Further Waterborne Adventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman, Fine Lady, and Lily of the West (Bloody Jack Adventures) Page 13