by Mike Blakely
Now, wading in the murky waters of Goose Prairie Cove, Colton was planning the exact moment the friendship would end. The water he waded in did not feel the least bit cool. The long summer had warmed the shallows. Besides being warm, it was unusually muddy. For nearly three months, hundreds of pearl-hunters had been churning up the mud with their toes in search of mussels. When he came out of the water every day for lunch and drinks, Colton found layers of silt in his pockets, and his fingertips looked as wrinkled as prunes. He had enjoyed as much hunting as he could stand. It was time to find his pearl.
Giff Newton rowed the captain into the cove right on schedule. Colton reached into his right-hand pocket and found the little coin purse he had brought from Chicago. Carefully, he removed it from his pocket and opened it just wide enough to get his fingers in. He probed cautiously so as not to swish out the contents. In the bottom of the purse, the same thumb-and-forefinger grip that had pinched Carol Anne so smartly now delicately grasped the pearl he had been given in Chicago—a fine, round, freshwater gem of twenty-five grains. He let the purse sink and placed the pearl carefully in his left palm, closing his fist around it.
He drew in a breath and shouted “Pearl!” His voice cracked when he said it. He waved at the big Australian and saw the rowboat angle toward him.
“Henry!” The big man’s voice came booming across the top of the water. “I have no time for bloody pranks!”
Colton held the fist above the water. “Prank, hell, Trev!” He put on his biggest grin. “You ain’t gonna believe what I found.”
The surrounding pearl-hunters stopped to watch the boat approach Colton in the water. Henry hooked the gunnel of the rowboat in the bend of his left elbow and slowly, carefully opened his hand. Brigginshaw stroked his beard, pushed his panama back on his forehead. His huge fingers delicately grasped the pearl and lifted it from Colton’s lake-softened palm.
“This is what the fuss is all about, Henry? This?” His eyelids sagged disinterestedly. “Fifty dollars.”
“Ha! Don’t bullshit me, Trev. I didn’t go into the pearling business half-cocked. I’ve talked to every successful hunter in camp, and read all the Steam Whistle articles from three weeks back, even before I came here. I know what a pearl is worth, and I won’t take less than five hundred for that beauty!” He could feel the nearby pearl-hunters straining to hear.
Trevor rolled his eyes and looked at his oarsman. “Another overnight expert, Giff.”
Giff played along, pursing his lips and shaking his head.
“With all due respect to my friend, John Crowell, his newspaper accounts are based on exaggerated hearsay. All pearl sales are confidential. I can offer no more than a hundred and fifty dollars for this slug.”
“You’re gettin’ there,” Henry said. “Pretty big jump, Trev, fifty to a hundred and fifty, but you’ve got a sight more jumpin’ to do. That slug, as you call it, will go thirty-five grains, and I can’t possibly take less than four-fifty.”
The Australian’s rich laughter skipped across the water. “What do you know about grading pearls, Henry?”
“When I was in the beef business, I could judge ‘em on the hoof. When I was mining, I could assay a ton of ore with my eyes closed. Now I’m in pearls, and I know what’s what with ’em. Get your scales out, Trev. I’ll bet you four hundred fifty dollars that pearl weighs thirty-five grains.”
The big man chuckled as he removed the pieces of his scale and put them together. He placed the pearl in the pan, and added weights to the tune of twenty-five grains.
“Bloody Hell!” Trevor said. “I had judged it at no more than fifteen grains. Its lack of luster makes it look smaller, Henry, but if it’s twenty-five grains, I’ll go as high as two hundred and fifty.”
“Lack of luster, my ass, Trevor! That’s the best pearl you’ve seen on Caddo Lake yet. Don’t try hoodwinking Henry Colton!”
The captain smirked at Giff. The oarsman shook his head and looked at the sky.
“Three hundred,” Trevor said.
“Four hundred.”
“Three twenty-five, and that’s the absolute ceiling.”
“Three seventy-five.”
Trevor looked at his oarsman. “What do you think, Giff?”
Giff shrugged. “Meet him in the middle, Captain.”
Henry cupped his hand and splashed the oarsman. “Oh, hell, boy, you don’t even know where the middle is!” he shouted.
The surrounding pearlers did not so much as ripple the surface. They were statues in the water, not looking, but listening to the negotiations and wishing they had ears like swamp rabbits.
“What Giff lacks in education, Henry, he makes up for with good common sense. His principle is a sound one, don’t you think? If you won’t take three-fifty, you might as well throw that pearl back to Goose Prairie Cove. I won’t pay more, and I’m the only buyer on the lake. You could peddle it in New York, but your traveling expenses would consume everything over three hundred and fifty, if you could get more than that, and I doubt you could. Three-fifty, take it or leave it, mate.”
Henry grinned. “Three-fifty and you buy the drinks tonight,” he said.
“Bloody mercy, Henry! You drive a hard bargain. Done! Esau’s saloon tonight at dark.” He shook the grinning pearl-hunter’s hand, pulled a velvet case from the satchel, and inserted the gem. “Now, what will it be? Gold, silver, or government notes?”
“Gold’s the heaviest. I guess I ought to take some of that off your hands so’s the next man to get hit with that money bag won’t hurt so bad when he wakes up.”
Trevor rocked the rowboat with his laughter. He counted out the gold coins, put them in Colton’s hand, and reached for the ledger book. Opening the book, he held it above Colton’s line of sight and flipped to the appropriate page. He reached into his coat pocket for his pencil and began writing in a careful, deliberate hand.
“What are you writing down in there, Trev?” Colton asked.
“White sphere …” he said slowly, speaking the words as the-pencil spelled them. “Twenty … five … grains. Three … hundred … fifty … dollars. Henry … Colton.”
“You sure you know how to spell three hundred fifty?” Colton said. “Ask Giff if you don’t.”
“I spell it ‘three, five, zero,’ you bleeding idiot.” Brigginshaw laughed, slammed the book shut, and inserted it in the leather satchel. “To the camps, Giff. We’ve wasted enough time with Mr. Colton.”
“Now, don’t ‘mister’ me, Trev! I’ll see you tonight at Esau’s.”
18
HENRY COLTON SAT IN HIS ROOM READING THE LATEST EDITION OF THE Steam Whistle. He had booked an upstairs suite on the north side of Widow Humphry’s inn. Through the rain-streaked glass of his window, he could watch the movements around the Treat Inn and keep tabs on Trevor Brigginshaw. He still frequented Esau’s saloon with the captain, too, and had learned that Trevor intended to take the first steamer to New Orleans, now that the rain had brought an early end to the pearling season.
September had come on wet. Day after day of rain and drizzle had dampened the spirits of the pearl-hunters and sent the farm families packing for their fields. After several days of rain, the Caddo Lake pearling camps had become little more than ash heaps and leftover wood piles.
The tourists left town as fast as Joe Peavy’s stagecoach could carry them off. Many of them were concerned about getting back to Marshall before the road got too muddy. Wagons had been known to bog down between Port Caddo and Marshall.
In Port Caddo, however, morale remained high. These early rains would raise the lake level and bring the riverboat traffic back. It looked as if the town’s run of luck would hold. The Steam Whistle predicted that the steamer season would begin early, supplementing the economic lift the pearls had brought to Caddo Lake during the summer.
That John Crowell is a hell of a booster, Colton thought as he turned a page. Hardly a dreary word to report in the whole newspaper. He glanced through the windowpane, then returned t
o the article Crowell had written about the steamer traffic.
The government snag boats had virtually finished removing the Great Raft from the Red River. Steamers would find a more navigable channel into Caddo Lake once the giant logjam was gone. True, Marshall was getting a railroad, but Jefferson, upstream on Big Cypress Bayou, had decided against the iron horse, preferring to stick with the familiar riverboat trade. Steamers would ply Caddo Lake for many years yet, according to the Steam Whistle.
Sentimental fools, Colton thought. Riverboats couldn’t compete with railroads. They were slower, smaller, less reliable, and more sex-pensive. Any town that chose steamboats over trains was signing its own death warrant.
The pearls, though—that was a different matter. Crowell’s editorial headlined “Sustainable Pearl-Based Economy Challenge to Port Caddo” seemed to make sense, if the local folks would take it to heart.
“Our mussel beds,” Crowell had written, “are more valuable than any deposits of gold or silver found elsewhere upon the continent. Our resource is a living, renewable one that if protected, will continue to produce fine gems for generations to come … .”
Crowell quoted extensively the two local pearl experts—Treat and Brigginshaw—and finally arrived at four laws recommended to protect the Caddo Lake mussel beds for future generations:
1. Divide the lake into four sections and allow pearling in just one section each year.
2. Establish limits regarding sizes of mussels to be opened and number of mussels allowed to each pearler.
3. Close the pearling season from January through May.
4. Prohibit destructive apparatus (such as George Blank’s mussel rakes and tongs).
Maybe the pearl industry would last, Colton thought. But even if it did, Trevor Brigginshaw wouldn’t be a part of it. His days as a pearl-buyer were numbered. If only he could get into the Australian’s leather satchel. That was proving to be the toughest part of this assignment. The captain rarely let the thing get out of his grasp, much less his sight. Colton couldn’t be sure of success until he got into that case, and the sooner the better.
This was his last chance. He had to see this job through, or find employment elsewhere.
He was about to doze off with the newspaper on his lap and the rain beating against the window, when the faint blast came. A single note from a faraway steam whistle. The pearl season was over and the steamer season had begun.
The boat was an ugly patchwork of unpainted lumber that had reached the age of ten in a rare case of longevity among light-draft steamers. She was called the Slough Hopper, and her pilot was an infamous old rake by the name of Emil Pipes, who had no objection to wiles such as price-gouging, smuggling, and graft, though he had never gotten rich off of any of them.
Unlike most Caddo Lake steamers, the Slough Hopper was a side-wheeler. Most people considered her unsafe because her paddle wheels were exposed. Huge fenders had once enclosed them, until Pipes decided to strip all unnecessary woodwork from the Hopper to lighten her and make more room for cargo. Now there was nothing to keep a man from falling into the churning machinery of the giant wheels that reached from the waterline to the texas. The exposed wheels presented danger to passengers and crew on the main deck, the boiler deck, and the hurricane deck.
If the Glory of Caddo Lake had once headed the list of favorite Port Caddo riverboats, the Slough Hopper anchored the other end. Her so-called “staterooms” were separated by moldy curtains. Her galley fare was barely edible. Her drab appearance was enough to drive a man to depravity, which was probably why the Hopper carried such a large stock of poor whiskey and hosted nightly poker games.
It was a sorry way to start the riverboat season, but it was a start nonetheless, and an early one at that.
The rain had let up some by the time the Hopper moored at the Port Caddo wharf. Townspeople started appearing on the street, easing toward the wharf to greet the first steamer of the season and to get the latest news from New Orleans.
Through his window, Henry Colton saw Trevor Brigginshaw and Billy Treat leave the Treat Inn and slog through the mud to the wharf. The captain had his leather case with him, of course. Colton folded his newspaper and left his room to join the throng.
A considerable commotion obscured his approach. People were talking and shouting to crew members on the steamer. Roustabouts sang a coonjine as they carried huge loads of firewood aboard. Colton reached the end of the cobblestones and slid down the muddy flood-bank between the Treat Inn and Constable Hayes’ log jailhouse. Reaching the wharf, he eased up behind Billy and Trevor, who were looking at the Slough Hopper when he drew close enough to hear them speak.
“Why don’t you wait for another boat, Trev? This thing’s barely floating.”
“The sooner I can get back to New York, the better.”
“Why? What’s your hurry?”
Trevor lifted his satchel and patted it. “Thanks to your little pearl rush, Billy, I’ve made enough in commission on this trip to buy a new sloop. The Wicked Whistler. Two, I’ll call her. I’ll be back among the Pearl Islands next summer.”
“You’re not coming back here next year?”
“Afraid not, mate. I belong on the open seas, not in these bloody bayous.”
Colton removed himself from the pair of friends and joined several Port Caddoans who were boarding the Slough Hopper to talk with the crew members. He had to jump between two wood-toting rousters to climb the mud-slick gangplank, which bounced under the weight of men and cordwood. He climbed the creaking stairs to the boiler deck and entered the saloon from the front of the passenger cabin.
Passing the whiskey bar and the dirty dining table, Colton came to the first of the berths enclosed by curtains. He pulled back the tattered cloth. He imagined Trevor lying in the berth, intoxicated. He might find his chance to open the leather satchel while aboard the Slough Hopper,. He could reach in through the curtains and have a look-see while the Australian was sleeping off one of his violent drunks.
He left the saloon and climbed the next flight of stairs to the hurricane deck. He saw Emil Pipes smoking a cigar outside the grimy glass pilothouse standing above the texas.,
“Afternoon, Captain,” he said.
Pipes shook some ashes down on Colton, but didn’t return the greeting.
“What’s the schedule?” Colton queried.
“Ask the clerk.” He turned into his pilothouse to avoid further interrogations.
Colton found the clerk on the bow taking note of some cargo the rousters were off-loading to the wharf. “What’s the schedule?” he asked again.
The clerk was all of nineteen. “Take on wood and head upstream for Jefferson. We’ll be back here, probably tomorrow night, for the downstream run to New Orleans.”
Colton thought for a moment. “Can I take a berth upstream to Jefferson, then hold on to it for the downstream run to New Orleans, too?”
The clerk glanced from his ledger book. “Of course.”
“I’ll be back directly with my belongings.”
Colton trotted back down to the wharf with his suitcase, but stopped before climbing the gangplank and veered toward Trevor and Billy. “It was a pleasure drinking and pearling with you, Captain, but it’s time I headed back to my squaw in the Indian Territory.”
Trevor was unusually formal because Billy was there, and Billy was still mad at Colton for having groped Carol Anne. “Very well, Mr. Colton.”
“I’ve told you a dozen times, Trevor. Don’t ‘mister’ me. It’s Henry to my friends.”
The shrill whistle of the Slough Hopper blew.
“So long, Captain. You, too, Mr. Treat.”
Billy frowned, but tipped his hat.
19
HENRY COLON STOOD ON THE BOW OF THE SLOUGH HOPPER AND WATCHED the dark bayou pass in the night. The rain had stopped while the boat was taking on cargo and a few passengers at Jefferson. Now the Hopper was steaming downstream for Port Caddo, New Orleans, and all points in between. The sky had cleared
and stars were shining.
He would have seen them more clearly but for the burning pine knots. They flared and popped in a large iron basket that extended over the water from the bow, like a flaming figurehead. Coals fell into the bayou, but occasionally a spark blew back and landed on the deck.
It’s a wonder this boat hasn’t burned yet, he thought.
He was hurting pretty bad. He had pulled a good drunk in Jefferson. He had made unwise advances toward the girlfriend of a bully in a billiards hall. He could still feel the cue stick breaking over his head. That glorious drunk would have to stave him off until New Orleans. He would have to stay sober on the riverboat if he wanted to get a look into Trevor Brigginshaw’s satchel.
He knew the captain was waiting to board at Port Caddo and ride to New Orleans. There was no other way the big Australian could get out of town. The roads were too badly bogged to get to Marshall.
A rouster came forward with a shovelful of fatwood chunks and threw them into the big iron basket to burn. A few sparks flew past the hogshead Colton was sitting on. “Watch it, boy!” he said.
The big black man didn’t reply.
The trunks of huge cypress trees flickered strangely in the shadows, very near the boat in the narrow bayou. Emil Pipes rang the bell often. He used his side-wheels well to steer the Hopper through the crooked bayou, sometimes shutting down one wheel to take bends, or turning the wheels in opposite directions to make sharp turns in the channel.
“Good evenin’, Mr. Colton,” someone suddenly said over the pop and hiss of the steam engines.
Colton turned to see the Hopper’s young clerk smoking a pipe. “Howdy,” he said. “Glad you happened. along. I want to talk to you.”
“What about?”