Mississippi Jack: Being an Account of the Further Waterborne Adventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman, Fine Lady, and Lily of the West (Bloody Jack Adventures)

by Louis A. Meyer

  Fink gains his voice.

  “What can ye do? You can bail us out of here and give me back my boat!”

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  “Ah, Mr. Fink, I have here next to my heart a Bill of Sale for that boat, signed by you,” I reply. “Do you see your signature there? Do you deny that it is yours?”

  “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! Kill you, kill you, kill, kill, kill—”

  “And just how long is your sentence, Mr. Fink? Twenty days? Ah, that is a very convenient time, Mr. Fink. I’m afraid I have no connection to the local law, and I and the Belle of the Golden West will be long gone before you get out. But don’t despair. You may reclaim your boat in New Orleans, as I shall be done with it then. I shall leave it in good condition, better condition than when I found it. I am not greedy. I will name you a fair price for it.”

  I know it is evil to taunt him, but it is so much fun. Fink rages and tries to rip out the bars, but it is all to no avail. I think I hear someone else within the jail calling out, too. I think I heard my name shouted, but that’s probably ‘cause I’m getting so well-known around here.

  “Well, Mr. Fink, this has been a most enjoyable conversation, but I must take my leave now, as business calls. My ship needs further outfitting before we embark for points south. Adieu, Mr. Fink. I do hope you’ll enjoy your stay as a guest of this fair city,” I say as I give him a slight curtsy while turning to leave.

  “Wait a minute,” Fink says in a more or less normal voice. I stop and wait. “There’s a little girl, prolly sittin’ by the front door of this here jail. She’s got no one to watch out fer her, ‘cause her man’s in here with me. He’s only got ten days while I got twenty. If you could do sumthin’ fer her, I’d take it kindly. He would, too.”

  “Why, Mr. Fink,” I exclaim, pleased. “That’s the most decent

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  thing I have ever heard you say. I shall see what I can do. Goodbye, Mr. Fink.” I give him a little finger wave and my brightest smile.

  “I’ll be seein’ you again, girly-girl, when you least expect it, but you’ll know it’s me who’s killin’ you, I’ll make sure o’ that,” replies Fink, back to his old mean self. “And you know somethin’ else? I know a secret thing that you don’t know and I ain’t gonna tell you what it is.”

  “To make rabbit stew, you must first catch the rabbit, Mr. Fink,” I answer, all smug. “And I don’t think I need to know your secret. Cheerio, Mr. Fink. I don’t think we’ll be meeting again.”

  I leave Mike Fink banging his head against the bars and go around the corner with Crow Jane to claim the Hawkes boys. I wonder, but not too much, about what secret he had to tell. I was glad to learn of Fink’s being in jail, though— I was kinda worried he might catch up to us and cause trouble. And now he can’t, for twenty days gives us too big a lead for him to catch up with us. Yes, this works out just fine.

  Crow Jane chuckles. “OF Mike Fink, brought down by a girl. Wait’ll the river hears about this. Yiyiyiyi, wah-toh-pahr

  I don’t know what it means, but I can guess.

  At the entrance to the jail is a bench and on the bench sits a girl. She is a little rag of a thing, with lank, strawlike hair, crudely cut across at the eyes, which are a washed-out blue. She is freckled all over her face and shoulders and even on her bare arms. A rag, too, is the old faded yellow dress she wears, its torn hem barely reaching to her bony knees. I suspect she has owned that dress a very long time, probably from when the hem came down to her ankles. She wears a white apron over the dress. Her nose is red, from crying

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  probably, hands red from work are twisting in her lap, and her feet look like they probably never saw shoes. A fuzz of fine white hair grows on her lower legs. She’s pretty clean, though, considering. At least there’s no caked dirt between her toes.

  “My name is Jacky Faber,” I begin. “What is your name and how old are you?”

  At the mention of my name, the girl jerks as if she has been touched with a hot poker. She glances up at me with a look of pure hatred, locking eyes with me.

  “M-m-my name is Missus Clementine Fletcher. I am fourteen, if that is any bidness o’ yours, which it ain’t.”

  Well. This is a tough one.

  “That’s young to be married,” I say.

  “It’s old enuff.” She lowers her eyes and looks to the side.

  “Boss, I’m goin’ in t’ get the Hawkes boys,” says Crow Jane. “They’ll need someone to vouch for ‘em, say they got a job and all, or the sheriff’ll jus’ arrest ‘em again for bein’ vay-grunts.”

  “Good. Thanks, Jane,” I say, and turn my attention again to Mrs. Fletcher. “I, too, have a boy named Fletcher, Jaimy Fletcher, and I hope to be his wife someday, but he lies far over the sea. Count yourself lucky to have your man out in twenty days. I would gladly trade places with you.”

  “Jes’ bet you would.”

  “What does that mean?” This is one strange girl, I’m thinking.

  “Nothin’. Go away.” Hmmmm.

  “I told Mike Fink I’d see what I could do for you, but I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for your lodging, or put up with your

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  lip. Get up. You can stay on my boat and work for your keep till we leave, or you can go to Hell, for all I care.”

  “All right. I’ll go to Hell. Now just go away and leave me alone.”

  “What are you going to do for all that time? Just sit there?”

  “Yup. If’n I have to.”

  I have to admire her loyalty, if not her intelligence. Why does she hate me so? Could it be my fine clothes while she sits in rags? Could it be that she’s heard of my singing and dancing and doesn’t approve ‘cause that sort of thing’s against her religion? I’ve found that there’s lots of crazy cults that call themselves Christian in this country, that’s for sure.

  “Come along with me or you’ll be arrested for vagrancy,” I snarl. I am growing irritated. I am not used to having my charity spurned.

  Just then Crow Jane comes out the jailhouse door behind two long and lanky young men who are protesting violently the fact that she’s switching them unmercifully from behind.

  “Crow Jane, now, you stop that! Yow!” begs the blonder of the two brothers. Both are clad in boatman’s gear of canvas pants held up by a rope, loose white shirt, boots, and the boatman’s black hat. Their unruly hair hangs loose and unbound to their shoulders. Each could use a shave and, from the smell of ‘em drifting over to my nose, a bath.

  “I’ll stop, Matthew Hawkes, when you two polecats stop actin’ like fools, drinkin’ rotten whiskey, and chasin’ squa ever’ chancst y’git when y’got some jingle in yer pants,” says Crow Jane, driving them relentlessly on till they stand in front of me. “This here’s yer new boss lady. Take off yer hats. Ain’t-cha got no manners?”

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  “A girl is our new boss, Crow Jane? Now that cain’t be right,” says the darker of the two. His hair grows back from a high forehead and he affects a pointy little chin beard. For his impertinence he receives another switch from Jane’s rod. “All right, all right!” he cries. “She’s our new boss!”

  “Damn right, Thaniel Hawkes,” says Jane.

  The Hawkes boys take off their hats and hold them to their chests. “Pleased to meet-cha, Ma’am,” they say in unison, exposing their teeth in what I’m sure they take to be winning smiles.

  “Mutual, Messrs. Hawkes,” says I. “I hope you will turn out to be good men. Now let us return to the ship and acquaint you with your duties. Clementine, come along.”

  The girl does not move.

  “You want this ikouessens on the boat?” asks Crow Jane. “Then, here.” And with that she reaches down and grabs Missus Clementine Fletcher’s left ear and hauls her to her feet, howling in pain.

  “Wait, wait!” cries the girl. “I’ll go with you!”

  “Thought you might,” says Crow Jane, releasing her ear, which now glows a bright red from the pinch.

/>   “Got our rowboat over there. Got our stuff in it,” she says, rubbing her ear.

  “Matty,” says Crow Jane, and nods in that direction, “we’re on the next dock over. The boat with all the fancy stuff on the sides.”

  Matty Hawkes, glad to get out of range of Jane’s switch, lopes over to the rowboat.

  It’s plain who is the Captain of the Belle, and also who is First Mate. It’s now also plain who is the Bo’sun.

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  “I’m glad you decided to do the smart thing, girl,” I say to the sullen Clementine.

  In all her sullenness I think I see a new look of cunning come over her face.

  “I will come along with you, Miss Jacky Faber, oh, yes, I will,” she whispers low. “It is the right thing to do, I see that now.”

  Could it be that I see a warning of danger in her hot blue eyes?

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  ***

  Chapter 28

  Jaimy Fletcher

  In the Pittsburgh Jail

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  In the Goddamned United States of America

  Jacky,

  I have been chained ankle to ankle with Mike Fink and various other lowlifes in this stinking jail cell since our arrest last night outside the White Horse Tavern. I have been massaging my swollen jaw and amusing myself by thinking up variations on USA. How about Ubiquitous Swine devoted to Anarchy? No? Then how’s this: Unwashed Savages of Abysmal ignorance? I find myself longing for a civilized drawing room in London. Perhaps a soiree or a grand banquet, or at the Captain’s table on a first-rate ship of the Line of Battle just before some Glorious Action? I, who have sat at the same table as Lord Nelson, himself, now sit on a cold stone floor in a squalid prison, shackled to…no, wait… squalid ‘s a good word…let’s see…Unabashedly Squalid and Asinine. That’s a good one.

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  Or, as my present companions would say, “Tha’s a good ‘un, har-har, lesh haf another.”

  Oh, Jacky, how I languish in this land that you seem to thrive in.

  Mike was standing up at the window, yelling at someone outside a little while ago, and it took my battered mind a while to realize that it was you he was addressing, and by then it was too late. Always too late, I moaned to myself. You, right outside this wall… Damn, my head hurts! I vow vengeance on yet another bloody bastard who has brought pain and anguish to me. That grizzled cove who last night caught me unawares, he shall pay, too, count on it. I have been making plans for what I shall do upon my release.

  Earlier in the day, we were taken to court, Justice of the Peace Judge Otto Stottlemeyer sitting in judgement. It was my considered opinion, upon viewing this court, that this judge was only half literate and, similarly, only half sober— there being a glass of whiskey, which was constantly replenished, at his elbow during the entire proceedings.

  The first cases were disposed of quickly—drunkenness, ten days on the work gang; fighting, twenty days; petty theft, ninety days; horse stealing, remanded for trial; and so on. I would have found the proceedings intensely boring if not for the fact that I was to be very similarly judged. That, and the judgement of a prisoner who came up just before us.

  “Amos Beatty, you are charged with possession of stolen property, that bein’ this man’s saddle and bags. How do you plead?”

  “Not guilty!” shouted this Beatty.

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  “Wha’ve you got to say, Mr. McWhirtle?”

  McWhirtle stood and said, “I saw him take ‘em off me horse, plain as day. Woulda stole the horse, too, if’n I didn’t come upon him.”

  “Guilty!” said the Judge. “Guilty as hell! Fifteen days on the road gang for you, and give the man back his goddamn saddle. Next case!” Down came the gavel, and Mr. Amos Beatty was led away to serve his time. I smiled to myself…Mr. Amos Beatty, one of the two highwaymen who laid me low and left me for dead on that fateful day. Well, well, I thought, with some satisfaction, sometimes Fate is, indeed, kind.

  Mike and I were up next.

  We were stood up in our shackles while the Judge read out the indictment, there being no Clerk of Courts as far as I could see. Or any other court official, aside from the sheriff and his very burly deputies.

  “Mike Fink, who is well known to this court, and uh…a Mr. James Fletcher, are each accused of Being a Public Nuisance,” pronounced Judge Stottlemeyer. “What do you have to say for yourself, Mike?”

  “Jeez, Judge, we just went in to the White Horse to have a drink and that little weasel of a landlord sicced Man Mountain Murphy on me for no good reason. ‘Course I had to break his jaw; wouldn’t you do the same thing?” asked Mike, the voice of sweet reason.

  I looked over to see the wounded Mr. Murphy in the witness area, a very large man, to be sure, taking up two seats and looking very mountainous, and very aggrieved, as well. His jaw is bandaged and, I am sure, missing more than a few teeth. He shaked his massive head in denial.

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  “Guilty!” said the Judge, slamming down his gavel. “If you ain’t guilty of this, you polecat, yer guilty of somethin’ else twice as bad. Twenty days on the road gang and not a minute less! Next!”

  Mike took a great deep breath and opened his mouth and I knew that he was going to go into one of his fits of braggadocio, and he barely got out a “whoooeee” before I rammed my elbow into his gut, cutting off both his air supply and the coming rant. He doubled over and coughed but said nothing further.

  “Now for you, James Fletcher, how do you plead?” said the Judge.

  I like to think that my sense of self-preservation never leaves me, especially in times of great stress or pressing danger, but at this moment, I started, unaccountably, to laugh. And to laugh uncontrollably. Me, Lieutenant James Emerson Fletcher, of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, Decorated Veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar, charged with Being a Public Nuisance by these barbarians in this barbaric land, and this barely literate so-called judge about to pass sentence upon me! A Public Nuisance! It and the events of the past few weeks were all too much. I laughed out loud and I could not stop.

  “I plead insanity, Your Honor,” I crowed out. “Absolute and complete insanity! Ha-ha!”

  “See if you find this funny, boy!” spit out the Judge. “Five dollars or five days, hard labor!”

  Mike stepped on my foot to stop me from laughing. “This boy didn’t have nothin’ to do with the fight, Judge,” said Fink, rather gallantly I thought, and I fought to bring myself under control.

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  “Your Honor,” I managed to say without much giggling, “I am Lieutenant James Fletcher, an officer in His Majesty’s Royal Naval Service, and I…”

  I noticed that the place suddenly went dead silent. The Judge leaned over his desk.

  “You mean you’re a British officer, like the ones who’ve been runnin’ around here tryin’ to get the Injuns riled up ag’inst our settlers?” he asked, his unforgiving eye on me.

  “No, Sir, of course, I—”

  “I am sorry, I misspoke, Lieutenant Fletcher,” said he. “Make that ten dollars or ten days at hard labor! Court’s adjourned! Get ‘em outta here!”

  We were taken out, stripped of our clothing, hosed down with cold water, treated with delousing solutions to our heads and nether parts, and then thrown into our cells. We were given crude trousers and shirts, all imprinted with broad black and white stripes, and were told we would be working to build up the seawall on the southward side of the Ohio River come dawn tomorrow.

  At night, the one window of the jail becomes a place for those connected to the inmates to come to talk and to lend support to those within, and to tell of news of family and friends. There are wives and sisters and brothers and friends, and in some cases, there are sweethearts who profess profound feelings of longing and of love.

  Clementine, however, does not appear when it is my turn at the window, and a worm of worry begins to work itself into the mind of one poor prisoner….

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  ***

>   Chapter 29

  ***

  “You’re gonna sweeten up, Clementine, if you’re ‘ gonna stay with us for a week, and I mean that, girl,” I snarl, pointing my finger between the girl’s sullen eyes when we get back to the Belle on this, her first day aboard. “Your job will be Cook’s Assistant. You will take orders from Crow Jane, Mr. Higgins, and me. You will wash dishes, scrub floors, do laundry, and anything else you are asked to do in return for your keep. You will also be paid some money so that you’ll have a little when your husband gets out, and maybe it will help you on your way. Is that clear?”

  The girl nods, without expression. She stands there with a sack that holds what little she owns. It sounds like it contains a few pots, muffled like maybe they are wrapped in a blanket. There was a long old-fashioned rifle in the rowboat, too, but that we put away, as per the ship’s rule about checking firearms before boarding. “What you want me to do now?”

  “Stow your stuff down in the after cabin,” I say, jerking my thumb back in the direction of our sleeping quarters. “That’s where you’ll be sleeping. Then report to Crow Jane. She’ll tell you what to do. If she ain’t got nothin’ for you, then report back to me. This deck back here needs scrubbin’.”

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  She nods again, and then goes to do it.

  “Sure wish I had some holystone, Higgins,” I say, looking down at the deck, which could surely use that kind of scouring.

  “I shall check for availability, Miss,” says Higgins, who had observed this last exchange, “but I fear I shall not have much luck. Very few Royal Navy ships dock here in this place.”

  “There is one here now, Higgins,” say I, proudly. “HMS Belle of the Golden West, manned and ready for sea. Or river. Or creek. Or puddle. Or whatever comes.”

  “The girl?” inquires Higgins with one of his raised-eyebrow questions.

  “A country girl. Says she’s married to one of the men inside the jail. Mike Fink asked me to look out for her till the man’s release, which’ll be a few days after we leave. I said I’d do it.”