Riverboat Blaze

by J. R. Roberts

  “If he’s still alive,” the copilot said.

  “He better be alive!” the captain said. “So I can get my hands on him.” He turned and looked at his two men. “All right, lads, over the side with ya.”

  “What about you, Captain?” the crewman asked.

  “I’m the captain,” he said simply.

  “I know you gotta go down with the ship, Captain,” the copilot said, “but it’s down. It ain’t sinkin’ anymore. You saved it.”

  “Yeah,” Captain Hatton said, “I saved it so it could burn.”

  “That ain’t your fault,” the crewman said.

  “Actually, it is,” the captain said. “I should’ve insisted on hirin’ the whole crew myself. We got an inexperienced owner, an inexperienced crew, and look what happened.”

  “What did happen, Captain?” the copilot asked.

  “Near as I can figure,” Hatton said, “there must’ve been an explosion belowdecks. Might’ve blown a hole in the port side. We took on water there, started listin’ to that side. If we hadn’t got to the shallows, this tub would’ve flipped.”

  “So the question is, what caused the explosion?” the copilot said.

  “There’ll be an investigation,” the captain said. “I’ll see to it. Now, both of you, over the starboard side. Get yerselves to shore.”

  “Captain,” the copilot said, “you don’t gotta burn up with the ship—”

  “I know that,” Hatton said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be along. But I’ll be the last one off. At least I can do my job to that degree. Now git, both of you.”

  “Captain—” the crewman started.

  “Cap—” the copilot tried.

  “That’s an order, lads!” Captain Hatton said. “Off with yer.”

  The two men exchanged a glance, then slowly left the bridge and made their way to the rail. The captain watched them go over the side. Satisfied that they were safe in the water, he turned his attention to the fire.

  TWENTY-ONE

  When Clint and Angela reached the shore, Clint literally carried her to dry ground, where they both collapsed, breathing heavily.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  “Yes . . . I think . . . so,” she panted. “Just . . . can’t . . . talk . . .”

  “Okay, relax,” he told her. “Catch your breath.”

  With all the people who were on the Dolly Madison , there had to be a lot of them reaching shore on either side. If the other shore was farther, maybe fewer people would make it there, but if it was as shallow there as on this side, Clint figured there should be a lot of survivors. He figured this in spite of the fact that he and Angela had seen many dead bodies floating in the river.

  He considered walking up and down the shore looking for survivors, but what could he do for them? He might be better off staying where he was with Angela, catching his breath, and then walking inland to see where they were. He didn’t know if they were near a town, but maybe they could find their way to a house, where people could help them.

  He wondered about Ava, and Dillon. Also about the captain. Was he bound and determined to go down with the ship?

  And what the hell had happened? What was that sound, and the vibration beneath their feet? All he could figure was that there had been an explosion. Could one of the steam engines have exploded? Would that blow a hole in the side of the boat? And start a fire?

  “What are you thinkin’?” Angela asked, sounding like she’d gotten her breath back.

  “Trying to figure what happened,” Clint said. “It had to be some kind accident . . . unless Dillon has some enemies I don’t know about.”

  “Sabotage?”

  Clint shrugged. “Maybe somebody didn’t want Dean to have the biggest boat on the Mississippi.”

  “But . . . who?” she asked. “Couldn’t the captain have just run it aground? Or hit something?”

  “And started a fire? I doubt it.”

  Angela looked out at the water, where the Dolly Madison was just sitting, her first deck underwater, the other two decks still showing flames.

  “I wonder where Dean is,” she said. “And what about the cargo?”

  “Cargo?”

  “All that stuff that was being shipped upriver,” she said.

  “Like what?” Clint asked. “Anything important?”

  She hesitated, then shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I wasn’t around when Dean was making arrangements. I don’t even know if he’s aware of what was being shipped.” She looked at Clint. “If somebody was shipping somethin’ valuable, why would they say so?”

  “I saw plenty of crates being loaded on,” Clint said.

  “I wish I could talk to the captain. He’d probably know what happened. He could say whether it was an accident or not.”

  “Would he admit it if he ran into somethin’?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “I only met him briefly. He was crotchety, but I had the impression he knew what he was doing.”

  “That fire is still burnin’,” she said.

  “That’s something else I’m wondering about,” Clint said. “The fire. Why isn’t the crew battling it?”

  “They all went overboard, I guess.”

  “Did Dean hire the crew? Or did the captain?”

  “Dean,” she said. “I know that for a fact. I think the captain brought a couple of men with him, but the rest were hired by Dean.”

  “I wonder if he tried to save money on a crew?” Clint said.

  “With all the money he spent on the boat itself?” she asked.

  Clint looked at her.

  “Did he dicker with you on your pay?”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “He probably did that with everyone,” Clint said. “Dealers, crew, stevedores, Ava . . . Damnit, Dean.”

  “He sabotaged himself?”

  “In a way,” Clint said. “If he scrimped on the crew, then they simply weren’t good enough to fight the fire. With an experienced crew, that boat wouldn’t be burning right now. She’d be salvageable.”

  “Dean always said that the boat couldn’t sink, and would never burn. Supposedly, the wood was treated with something special to keep it from burning.”

  “Well, either it wasn’t treated well enough,” Clint said, “or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “He may have been talking about the boat not burning under normal circumstances.”

  “Which this isn’t?” she asked.

  “We don’t know,” Clint said. “If somebody set the fire, and used some kind of oil . . .”

  They both stared out at the boat, and Clint noticed that it was mostly burning up front, not the middle or the back.

  “If the fire was set in the front, then that’s what’s burning,” he said. “It’s not spreading to the rest of the boat because of the special wood treatment.”

  “If that’s true, then somebody must have set it. Someone who knew that,” she said. “But who?”

  “That’s something Dean and his investors are going to have to find out,” Clint said. “Right now we have to do something about getting dry.”

  “How are we gonna do that?”

  “We’ll have to start a fire,” Clint said. “Come, help me gather some wood.”

  “What do you have to start a fire with?” she asked. “Any matches you have will be wet.”

  “I’ve started plenty of fires in my time without matches,” he told her.

  TWENTY-TWO

  They found a clearing, the right kind of wood, and the right kind of stones so that Clint could cause a spark and start a fire. They sat close to it so the heat would dry their clothes.

  Something that surprised Clint was that he had gotten out of the water without losing his gun. Wearing it was so second nature to him that it had never occurred to him to unstrap it in the river and let it sink to the bottom so it wouldn’t weigh him down. He just never noticed that it was any kind of a hindrance.

  Staring out a
t the boat, he noticed for the first time that some of the flames he saw were not coming from it. They were coming from the opposite shore.

  “Looks like some people made it to the other shore and had the same idea,” he said.

  “Where are we?” Angela asked. “How many miles did we cover?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Clint said. “I know the Mississippi winds through Louisiana for a long time. It doesn’t even really start heading north until it crosses into Mississippi. And we were going upstream, which means we were covering ground much slower than we would if we were going downstream. We may be at Baton Rouge, or we may have gone as far as Vicksburg. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t really paying that much attention.”

  He looked across the river again.

  “It only seems to be a few hundred yards wide here, and not that deep. I know there are some places where the river is a mile wide and a couple of feet deep. We don’t seem to be anywhere near that here. We’re just going to have to wait and see, Angela.”

  He was cleaning his gun, getting it dry, when they heard some sounds in the brush. He stood up, gun in hand, as several people came into the light.

  “Oh my God,” a woman said. “We saw your light . . .”

  Clint rushed forward to catch the middle-aged woman before she could fall. There were other people with her, men and women, about eleven altogether.

  “We’ve been wanderin’,” a man said, “and saw your fire . . .”

  “Come and sit,” Angela said. “Everyone.”

  “Have you seen any others?” Clint asked.

  “Some,” the woman said. “Some were going in the opposite direction, looking for help. We saw some . . . some bodies that washed up on shore.” She started to cry. “What a horrible night.”

  Clint collected more wood so he could start a second fire. That way they’d all be able to sit close to the flames and dry out.

  Pretty soon others arrived who had seen the two fires, and Clint started even more. Eventually they had about six campfires going, and more than forty people sitting around them.

  “Does anybody know where we are?” someone asked.

  “I think we’re around St. Louis,” someone said, hopefully.

  “No,” another voice argued, “we haven’t come nearly that far.”

  “There’s really no point in guessing,” Clint said. “At first light we can start walking and see where we end up.”

  “Shouldn’t we stay here so we can be found?” a woman asked.

  “By who?” another voice asked.

  “Rescuers.”

  “You know how long it’ll take before someone comes looking for us?”

  People started to argue loudly, and Clint decided to let them go. Let them tire themselves out even more, he figured, and eventually they did. Before long they were all sitting around the fire with their heads lolling forward or back. Some of them simply used each other to lean against or lie on. Angela was sitting with her head on Clint’s shoulder.

  With all the people who had come into their camp, they still had not seen either Dean Dillon or Ava—or the Warrant brothers. Clint wanted to talk to those two!

  “Maybe,” Angela said to him, “some of us should stay here while others go searching for help.”

  “The women can stay behind,” Clint said. “When we find out where we are, or what town we’re near, we can come back with help.”

  “I don’t want to stay here with a bunch of hysterical women,” she said.

  “Let’s discuss it when the sun comes up,” he said.

  It was spring, but still cold along the shores of the Mississippi at night. They huddled together and kept the fire high for warmth.

  Clint wondered about the people across the river, on the other shore. Was Dillon there with Ava? Was the captain there? He looked at the people around him. They all seemed to be passengers, no crew. Had the crew all swum to the other side?

  As the sun came up, Clint wished for some coffee.

  Angela was sound asleep, and he felt bad, but he had to nudge her awake.

  “Come on,” he said, “time to start walking.”

  She sat up, rubbing her face and her eyes as he stood up.

  “Where are you going?” one woman asked.

  “What’s happenin’?” another said.

  “Folks, I’m going to start walking inland to see if I can figure out where we are. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome. I was thinking that the women could stay here and wait for us to come back with help.”

  “What if you don’t come back?” a woman asked.

  “We’ll freeze to death,” another added.

  “The sun will warm you soon enough,” Clint said.

  “And we certainly will come back with help. We’re not going to leave you stranded here. At least, I’m not.”

  “I’ll go along,” a young man said.

  “Me, too,” an older man said.

  “Jerry, you have to stay with me,” his wife said, grabbing his arm.

  He leaned over, patted her hand, and spoke to her in a low, soothing voice. She nodded, and released his arm, seeming to be appeased, but not happy.

  “I’m coming,” the man said.

  In turn, six more men volunteered to go along, so Clint and eight other men ended up leaving camp to look for help.

  “I’d like to come,” Angela told Clint, “but I think I hurt my foot last night. I better stay behind.”

  “Okay,” Clint said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can with help.”

  She nodded, then stared out at the boat, which had stopped burning. The look on her face was one of longing, he thought, but he had no time to wonder about it. The boat was grounded, though, no question about that, the hold and the first deck filled with water.

  “Okay, gents,” Clint said, “let’s get a move on. Maybe we can get back before nightfall.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  They walked a couple of hours and came to a road, but it was forked.

  “Which way?” someone asked.

  “Both,” Clint said. “We’ll split up. Four can go that way, five this way. I’m going here.” He pointed. “The rest of you decide who’s going where.”

  It took them a while, with lots of arguing and cursing, but finally four of them joined Clint, while the other four followed the road the opposite way.

  “Now I wish I had some of that river water on me,” one of the men said after they’d walked another hour. “That sun is hot.”

  “We shoulda stayed by the river,” another man said.

  Clint ignored them. He hadn’t even felt the need to learn the names of these men. He didn’t expect to see any of them again after this was over.

  The only man who seemed to walk without complaining—even when there were nine of them walking together—was the older man who had spoken softly to his wife.

  “This is quite an adventure,” he said to Clint.

  “No one else seems to think so,” Clint said.

  “Well, why not?” the man asked. “We’re all still alive, and I’ve never gone through anything like this before.”

  Clint looked at the man and was surprised to see that he actually looked happy. The only thing he could figure was that the man was happy to be away from his wife for a period of time.

  “You’re in pretty good shape,” Clint said. “Younger men are lagging behind.”

  “I’ve worked hard for many years,” the man said. “My name is Jerry, by the way.”

  “Clint.”

  The two men shook hands.

  “You seem to have some leadership qualities, Clint,” Jerry said. “Kept everybody together last night, even calm.”

  “There’s no point in panicking, Jerry,” Clint said. “Won’t get anything accomplished that way.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Jerry said. “So, where do you think we’re gonna end up?”

  “Beats me,” Clint said. “I just hope it’s a big enough town to be able to help us all.”


  They walked a bit farther and then Jerry asked, “How did you manage to hold onto that gun while you were in the water?”

  “It’s like my arm,” Clint said. “Someone would have had to tear it off.”

  He was sorry, though, that his Colt New Line, his little backup gun, was on the Dolly Madison. Luckily, the boat hadn’t sunk completely, so when a salvage team was sent out to it maybe he could recover the gun. It had saved his life countless times.

  From behind them they heard two people shout. When they turned, they saw three men on the ground.

  “We can’t walk anymore,” one of them said.

  Clint and Jerry put their hands on their hips and looked at them.

  “Soft living,” Jerry said.

  “Definitely.”

  They walked back to where the men were sprawled on the ground.

  “We’re going to go on ahead and try to get help,” Clint said to them. “Rest for a while, and when you feel better, start walking again.”

  “Wait, wait . . .” one of them said, gasping. He was in his thirties and certainly looked as if he should have been able to walk. “You have the only gun.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What if there’s Indians out here?” another asked.

  Clint looked at Jerry, who said, “Easterner, here to see the Wild West from the safety of a riverboat.”

  Clint rolled his eyes.

  “There are no Indians here,” he said. “You’ll be safe.” He hesitated, then added, “However, there are some animals. Predators. But you should be safe as long as you start moving again.”

  He and Jerry started walking.

  “Wait!” someone shouted.

  “Animals?” another one called.

  Jerry said, “That was mean.”

  Clint said, “Yeah.”

  To their credit the men tried to follow, but eventually Clint and Jerry outdistanced them.

  “You know,” Jerry said, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “I studied the route when we booked passage on the boat,” he said. “I’m an engineer.”

  “What did you think of the boat?” Clint asked.