Dance on the Wind tb-1

by Terry C. Johnston

  Ovatt nodded, then pressed his lips against Bass’s ear, to yell, “It be just a matter of Ebenezer and the river now! Him alone agin it!”

  Zane laid his weight against the rudder again and again. Moving the boat this way and that, feeling his way through the rocks and water and great gray slabs of icy granite, throwing his flatboat and its cargo toward one shore, then the other, as the other four men clung to the slippery gunnels, unable to assist, knowing only that the next few moments of their lives were most precious, for above them hovered the specter of an icy death.

  For Titus this staring into death’s face had a cold, metallic taste to it. Almost like sucking on an iron fork.

  Time and again the pilot steadied himself, bracing his great, powerful legs within that square yard of icy deck, holding his own against the cargo lashed on three sides about him, holding his own against the frothing river that sought to snatch the rudder from his grip. Over and over the boat seemed to exercise a mind of its own, the great force of the Ohio flinging the flatboat out of the current only to plop down with a crash, its unyielding sides of strong yellow poplar groaning against the unmitigated forces of nature at her rawest.

  Bass wasn’t sure if he was shaking because of the cold—how wet he was, standing like the rest, soaked to the marrow with sleet, wind, and river spray. Or if he was trembling down to the very core of him out of undeniable fear. Either way, his teeth chattered like bone dice in a horn cup. Loud enough he was sure the others could hear them.

  Then it struck him. He started to smile, looking at Ovatt. The gouger smiled back, both of them realizing that no more did the flatboat creak and groan. No longer did the river thunder about their ears. No more were they caught in the merciless grip of a watery hell.

  There was only heaven. A quiet that slowly grew just the way the noise of the Falls had swelled and pounded at him. But now that pounding terror was behind them, and the persistent hammer of the sleeting rain was about all Titus could make out above the occasional dull slap of river against the flatboat’s sides as Ebenezer Zane worked the rudder into the current, moving them closer and closer to the Kentucky shore once again.

  “Yonder’s Indiana,” Ovatt said, his voice strangely muted now in the absence of that thunder. “Place called Clarksville over there right about so. It sits at the bottom of the Falls—just about the last village of any size ’tween Louisville and St. Louie. Wish you could see it, but for the clouds.”

  Titus could see very little of the Indiana shore, upstream or down. “Clarksville.”

  “Named for George Rogers Clark. You hear of him?”

  Wagging his head, Titus said, “No, I ain’t.”

  “Hero of Vincennes. He kept the Northwest out of enemy hands many a year ago,” Ovatt explained in a reverent voice. “I see’d him once. Sure of it.”

  “You seen Clark?”

  “He was a old man then. Thin as a broom handle, all wored down with age. But every day he come to the river, folks said. An’ he’d wave to us what was going down. Clark’s the one opened this country—held back the enemy, and pushed back the Injuns across the Wabash.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Wabash? A river comes into the Ohio from the north. We’ll reach it soon enough. But for now, looks to be Ebenezer is about to put over to the Kentucky side and let you off.”

  With a start Titus whirled about, finding the pilot indeed easing the flatboat ever closer to the south bank. His heart pounding, his mouth gone dry, and his throat feeling like he had daubed with tannic acid, Titus started to scramble over the crates and kegs and great coils of oiled hemp smelling fragrant in the moist, icy air. Root and Kingsbury were at the port gunnel, both with loops of rope over their shoulders by the time Titus clambered his way to midship. As Zane eased the stern of his cumbersome craft crosswise to the current, slipping them toward a muddy section of land, Reuben and Hames freed the ropes securing the small two-man skiff at the side of the flatboat and let it drop into the icy river with a splash. Leaping on board with their heavy coils of hawser rope, the pair quickly paddled toward shore. Beaching the skiff among the leafless brush, they slogged about in the frozen mud up to their ankles to knot their mooring ropes around a couple of trees with roots exposed by the relentless Ohio.

  “Gimme a hand here!” Ovatt cried out at the capstan, where he began to turn the wheel with one of the short, stout, removable poles, walking round and round in that cramped area left free of deck cargo clutter. Already the flatboat was beginning to jolt and shudder as the ropes snapped, went taut with a creak, and the timbers groaned, Ebenezer’s Kentuckyboat bouncing against the current as she was drawn toward the bank.

  “You heard the man, Titus!” Zane shouted. “Get up there and put your back into it so we can set you off on that shore.”

  “Eb—Ebenezer?”

  For a moment Zane watched Heman Ovatt and the others over the youth’s shoulder, then peered into the lad’s face. “What is it, Titus Bass? You of a sudden got something agin hard work?”

  “No … no, sir! You won’t think ill of me if’n I go an’ break our bargain, will you?”

  “Goddammit, boy!” Ovatt growled menacingly as he struggled against the capstan. “Get over here help me out!”

  “Keep your back into it, Heman! Titus got something to say to me!” Ebenezer hollered. Then, squinting sternly at Bass with one eye, the pilot replied, “So you ain’t a man of your word, that it?”

  “Nothing of the kind. I—”

  Ebenezer interrupted, “Just how you figure on breaking our bargain? I brung you downriver like I said I would, and you rode with us through the Falls. Sounds to me we’re square.”

  “But I didn’t do nothing to help us—”

  “Nothing nobody could do. Allays just river an’ me”—then Zane’s eyes flickered to the sleeting heavens—“an’ God too what brung us through. It don’t matter none that I didn’t work you for your passage. But that ain’t breaking your bargain. You get on up there and help Heman haul us in to shore.”

  His tongue felt pasty inside his mouth, his heart hammering and breath coming short and hard.

  With sweaty palms Titus said, “I wanna stay.”

  “Stay?”

  Root and Kingsbury slogged down the muddy bank clutching the ends of their ropes, both of them intent on trying to overhear the talk. Ovatt continued to grunt, pushing round and round a step at a time there at the capstan among the ice-coated cargo lashed near the bow.

  “Wanna stay on down the river with you fellas.”

  “You know where we’re heading?”

  “Natchez you said. On to Norleans.”

  Zane wagged his head thoughtfully. “I dunno. Got me half a year’s earnings here.”

  Bass said quickly, “I wanna go with you. See what’s there.”

  “Thought you was wanting to go to St. Lou.”

  He tried out a smile on Zane. “I figure it’ll still be there come next year. Plenty of time for me.”

  “I was young as you once,” the wrinkled river pilot replied. “Seemed there was all the time in the world back then.”

  For a moment Titus looked around him at the other three boatmen, then said, “You consider taking me?”

  “Figure to hire on, are you?”

  “A man don’t ride for free,” Root grumbled.

  Bass nodded. “Reuben’s right. I don’t ’spect to ride for free.”

  A grin grew within that great black tangle of hair Zane called his head. “I’ll work you, Titus Bass. I’ll work you hard.”

  Bass gulped, asking, “That the hardest piece of river we go through to get to Norleans?”

  Zane tilted his head back and roared with laughter, so deep and hearty was it that he showed his tonsils. “Just about, son.”

  “Then I figure to ride the river with you fellas.”

  Leaning forward, he held out his hand to the youth. “Good to have you with us, Titus Bass.” He straightened and hollered at the two on shore, “Loose tha
t hemp, boys!”

  “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” Kingsbury yelled in exasperation from the bank. “What in the goddamned hell?”

  Zane waved his free arm, gesturing his crew in. “We’re bound for the Mississip with a new man!”

  Grumbling, Root and Kingsbury freed the double-fist-sized knots from their moorings, then pushed off, paddling furiously, heading out into the channel to catch the flatboat while Ovatt hurriedly coiled in the hundred or so feet of loose hawsers across the wind-whipped surface of the Ohio.

  Coming alongside, Reuben and Hames tied off the skiff to a pair of check-poles along the flatboat’s gunnel and clambered aboard.

  Root asked of Zane, “This here green man you’re fixing to hire on—ain’t we gonna get him started right, Ebenezer?”

  “How you mean—started right?” the pilot asked.

  “Have the boy here scour and grease the anchor?”

  Ebenezer chuckled. “You can sure be one mean son of a bitch, Reuben. No, sir. I never did cotton to pulling such pranks on a feller what sets foot on my flatboat for his first trip downriver.”

  “Not even a li’l fun?” Root whined, disappointment now where glee had been.

  “What you figure to have Titus Bass do to make fun for you, Reuben?” Kingsbury asked.

  He turned to Hames, saying, “I was figuring on him cooning the steering oar.”

  With a lusty guffaw Zane shook his bushy head like a lion’s mane. “No, Reuben—less’n you’re willing to coon it yourself.”

  “Shit! I ain’t no green hand like him—”

  “Hap that you remember I never made you do nothing of the kind when you was a green hand?” Zane snapped. “You hap to think back on that?”

  Sullen, Root nodded.

  Having watched and listened in confusion, Titus finally asked, “What’s cooning the steering oar?”

  All four of the boatmen roared in great peals of laughter.

  Nearly out of breath, Kingsbury finally explained, “On many a boat the old hands will play some mean trick on a new hand—something like Reuben wanted you to do.”

  “Cooning the steering oar,” Zane continued, “means we’d have you climb out to the end of this here rudder of mine.”

  Bass’s eyes grew big as coffee tins as he stared at the water flowing around the back of the boat where the pole sank beneath the river’s surface. He gulped. “You’d had me climb out there, hanging on to just the rudder pole?”

  Root was still hooting, slapping his knee in merriment. “Make sure you touch the rudder out there now, Titus … or we don’t let you climb back onter the boat!”

  “It’s easy enough,” Ovatt confided. “Just hang on with your arms and legs. I done it years afore.”

  “Yeah!” Root roared. “Best you hang on real tight!”

  “Or you get a cold bath in the river,” Kingsbury concluded with a shudder. “Like I done.”

  “B-but, none of you gonna make me do that, are you?” Bass inquired.

  “You’re part of the crew anyways,” the bushy-headed pilot replied. “I see no need for them silly games just to make these fellers laugh on your account.”

  “I thankee for that, Mr. Zane,” Titus replied, wanting to sense some real gratitude, but not really sure how he should feel at that moment. Perhaps such a ritual of initiation was really necessary for him to become part of the crew. Maybe they never would accept him as one of their own if he didn’t suffer some of their lighthearted pranks.

  “No need to thank me, Titus,” Ebenezer said, his eyes softening in that kind, hairy face.

  Titus started to turn away, ready to head to the bow, where he intended to lend his muscle to Heman’s efforts at the gouger, when Zane caught him by the shoulder, saying, “Why’n’t you stay back here with me for now, Titus Bass? That’s easy rope work for Ovatt now—and I could use the company, I could at that.”

  As Hames and Reuben reached the stern of the flatboat to tie the skiff off to a snubbing post before clambering up the side and over the gunnel, Titus settled in near Zane, his heart still hammering, desperately wanting this to be the right thing for him to do.

  “I don’t figure I done enough yet to thank you, Ebenezer,” he began. “I was fixing on helping the rest of you get through the Falls. But I didn’t do nothing. ’Stead of troubling yourself with me—why didn’t you just leave me back at Louisville when I told you I was all for staying on there?”

  Grinning into the slanting hammer of the wind-driven sleet, Zane replied, “I figured there was no other way to find out if you was a riverman or not—but to take you with us through the Falls.”

  “So what’d you find out?”

  The pilot tousled Titus’s hair, then peered on down the gray Ohio once more. “You’ll do to ride the river with, Titus Bass. By damned, you’ll do.”

  Autumn was all but done for by the time Ebenezer Zane’s broadhorn reached the mouth of the Ohio. What ducks and geese and other species of winged creatures hadn’t already flapped their way overhead were destined to struggle out the winter here in the north: all manner of doves, redheaded woodpeckers, and nighthawks too. The sort that stayed behind.

  One day on the trip they spotted some gray and black squirrels, hundreds upon hundreds of them, all sweeping down from the north bank, plunging into the river to bob and swim with all their might against the current, like a mighty exodus that crossed to the south. Hundreds of heads dotted the murky brown water all about the boat, hundreds more pressing behind. And every day the men watched the shorelines for bigger species. Titus was amazed at the growing numbers of bear and deer, turkey and fox, he spotted as they rode the river farther west, heading for the Mississippi.

  And always they sang—ballads of death and love and hard-hearted maidens.

  “Rise you up, my dear, and

  present me your hand,

  And we’ll take a social walk to

  a far and distant land;

  Where the Hawk shot the Buzzard and

  the Buzzard shot the Crow.

  We’ll rally in the canebrake and

  shoot the Buffalo!

  Shoot the Buffalo! Shoot the Buffalo!

  Rally in the canebrake and

  shoot the Buffalo!”

  For the longest time he pondered that the old song said just what his grandpap had told him: there had been buffalo in the canebrakes. Which set Titus to brooding on how those who had gone before him had shot the buffalo until there were no more.

  Then Hames Kingsbury would always lift Bass’s spirits by singing what had long been Ebenezer Zane’s favorite, sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.”

  “We are a hardy, freeborn race,

  Each man to fear a stranger;

  Whatever the game, we join the chase,

  Despising toil and danger;

  And if a daring foe annoys,

  No matter what his force is,

  We’ll show him that Kentucky boys

  Are alligator-horses!”

  Then Heman Ovatt started in on one of his own.

  “Way down the Ohio

  my little boat I steered.

  In hopes that some pretty girl on

  the banks will appear.

  I’ll hug her and kiss her

  till my mind is at ease,

  And I’ll turn my back on her and

  court who I please.”

  When Root bellowed forth with “Bird in a Cage”:

  “Bird in a cage, love,

  Bird in a cage;

  Waiting for Willie

  To come back to me.

  “Roses are red, love,

  Violets are blue.

  God in heaven

  Knows I love you.

  “Write me a letter,

  Write it today.

  Stamp it tomorrow,

  Send it away.

  “Write me a letter,

  Send it by mail.

  Send and direct it

  To the Burlington jail.”

  “Burlington?” T
itus asked Ovatt. “Is he singing ’bout the Kentucky Burlington?”

  “I don’t know no other Burlington.”

  “Sing me ’nother of those I like,” Ebenezer commanded from the stern.

  Kingsbury began to sing another to the tune of a 1766 hymn by Isaac Watts.

  “I’m far from home, far from the wife,

  Which in my bosom lay,

  Far from my children, dead, which used

  Around me for to play.

  “This doleful circumstance cannot

  My happiness prevent

  While peace of conscience I enjoy

  Great comfort and content.”

  Titus took his eyes off Zane to ask of Ovatt, “Ebenezer married?”

  “He was,” Heman replied.

  “And had he children?”

  “Them too.” But Heman warned, “Wouldn’t do for you to ask after them. It makes the man powerful sorry.”

  “What happened to his family?”

  “They was kill’t.”

  “Injuns?”

  “Long ago, when the children was but babes,” Ovatt explained. “All boys, they was. Their heads smashed in by Shawnee.”

  Titus turned to gaze at the pilot, regarding the man studiously, wondering how it was to have one’s family taken by a sudden act of savagery, rather than merely an act of leaving.

  Zane winked at Titus as he called out to Kingsbury, “Sing ‘The Boatmen’s Dance.’”

  “High row, the boatmen row,

  Floating down the river of Ohio.

  The boatmen dance, the boatmen sing,

  The boatmen up to everything.