“Here, now,” Timmons said with a scowl on his face. “The engine room, is it? You’d rather break your back and cover your face with soot than be captain of the boat? What kind of ambition is that?”
“Perhaps the lad is looking to learn the business from the bottom up, Cap’n,” Dewey suggested, with a glance that told Art to go along with him. “Sure’n there’s nothin’ wrong with knowing the boat from stem to stern.”
Captain Timmon’s scowl changed to a smile. “Aye, a good point, Mr. Dewey. A good point indeed. Very well, lad, if it’s a fireman’s job you seek, ’tis a fireman’s job you’ll have. Report aboard first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Art said.
* * *
Art stood on the boardwalk in front of the Blue Star, recalling the last time he had been here. That was nearly three years ago. He smiled. What a babe in the woods he had been then.
Hitching up his trousers, he went inside. It hadn’t changed. It was still well appointed with finished furniture and gilt-edged mirrors, but somehow, it didn’t make quite as big an impression on him now as it had before.
“Come in, mister, come in,” the man behind the bar called. “Pick yourself out a seat. Just come in on the Delta Maid, did you?”
“No, sir, but I’ll be leaving on the Delta Maid,” Art said. “How have things been with you, Mr. Bellefontaine?”
Bellefontaine looked surprised at being addressed by name. “Have we ever met, boy?”
“Yes, sir, we have. But I’m a bit older and a mite taller now than I was then. I was in here sometime back with Major . . .” The rank came automatically and he stopped in mid-sentence, then corrected himself. “With Mr. Harding. Pete Harding.”
“Glory be, yes, I do remember you, boy. Just a minute. Lily!” he shouted. “Lily, get down here.”
A woman appeared on the upstairs landing. She walked up to the railing and leaned over to look down. “What is it?” she asked.
“Look who has showed up,” Bellefontaine said.
Lily looked at Art, but it was obvious she didn’t recognize him.
“Who is it?”
“You remember the boy who come in here with Harding that time? The boy that disappeared?”
Lily smiled broadly. “Oh, Lord, honey, was that you?” she asked, coming quickly down the stairs.
“Yes, ma’am, I reckon it was,” Art replied.
Lily opened her arms wide, then pulled him to her. He could feel the softness of her full breasts under her embrace.
“Well, for crying out loud,” she said. “Sit you down and tell me all about yourself. What happened to you that night? And where have you been since then. Lord, honey, you are growing into a handsome man, did you know that?”
Art blushed, and Lily laughed. “Now, ain’t that cute. You’re still innocent enough to blush. Damn if I’m not about half inclined to take that innocence away from you.”
Art cleared his throat nervously, and Lily laughed again.
“Don’t worry about it, honey. I don’t do it for free, no matter how handsome the fella is. And 1 figure that, at this point in your life, you got better things to do. Now tell me about Pete. Where is that scoundrel, and when is he going to come see me again?”
The smile left Art’s face. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he said. “But Pete’s dead.”
“Dead?” Lily gasped. Art was surprised to see her eyes fill with tears. “But when? How?”
Art told her the story of the Battle of New Orleans, playing down any role he’d had in it, telling it only from the perspective of having been an eyewitness.
Others, seeing Lily crying, came over to find out what was going on, so Art’s telling was broadened to include them. He was surprised to see how many people knew and genuinely liked Pate Harding. But then, he didn’t know why he should have been surprised. Harding was a very good man who had made a positive impression upon nearly everyone he’d ever met.
“Oh, uh, Mr. Bellefontaine, I owe you for a supper,” he said.
“What?”
“That night I was here, I recall ordering my supper. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in a wagon, headed north. I figure you went ahead and fixed my supper anyway, and when I didn’t come back, that meant you lost it. So, by rights, I should be paying for it.”
Bellefontaine chuckled. “Truth to tell, I wound up getting paid twice for that supper,” he said. “When you didn’t show up for it, someone else bought it. Then, the next day, Harding paid for it. That was when he was out looking for you.”
“Oh, honey, he turned this town upside down looking for you,” Lily said. “I never saw anyone set so much store in another so fast. He was some worried about you, I’ll tell you that.”
“I wish there had been some way I could have let him know what happened to me,” Art said. He laughed. “But to this day, I don’t know myself.”
“It’s pretty obvious what happened to you,” Bellefontaine said. “It’s happened before. Someone knocked you in the head, then took your money.”
“Yes, that’s true. When I woke up in the wagon the next morning, I had a knot on my head and no money in my pocket.”
“Uh-huh,” Bellefontaine said. “And if truth be known, the fella that picked you up is more’n likely the one who hit you in the first place.”
Art thought about Younger. Until this moment he hadn’t considered the fact that Younger might have been responsible. As it turned out, Younger was so evil in every other way that the possibility had never dawned on Art. Now, as he considered it, he was almost positive that Younger was to blame.
“I’ll be damned,” Art said. “I do believe you are right.”
“Well, it’s not good to dwell on such things,” Bellefontaine said. “Answer me this, boy. When’s the last time you had a really good meal? I mean fried chicken, ’taters, beans, biscuits, maybe even a piece of pie.”
Art smiled. “It’s been a long time,” he said. “It’s been a really long time.”
“Well, it ain’t goin’t be a very long wait till you do, ’cause I aim to whip you up just such a meal.”
“I thank you, Mr. Bellefontaine, but I . . .,” Art started to tell Bellefontaine that he needed to save the money he had left in order to outfit himself for his trek west, but before he could speak, Bellefontaine interrupted him.
“I ain’t goin’ to be takin’ no for an answer, boy,” he said. “You see, this here ain’t goin’ to cost you one penny. It’s all on the house.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Art said. “But why would you do that?”
“Well, we could say it’s because you was a friend of Pete Harding. And any friend of Pete Harding is a friend of mine,” Bellefontaine said. “And that would be true. But we could also say it’s because you fought down at New Orleans and I reckon that, because of what you done, this here territory is still part of America. 1 figure all you boys that fought down there is owed somethin’.”
“Thank you,” Art said.
Lily, who was still wiping the tears from her eyes, smiled through her tears and put her hand on Art’s shoulder.
“Honey, I feel that way too, really I do,” she said. “And I’m willin’ to do somethin’ I ain’t never done before. I’ll let you lie with me for free. Only, don’t make me do it tonight. I don’t intend to lie with anyone tonight. I need tonight to cry over poor, dear Pete.”
“That’s all right,” Art said. “I understand.”
Art didn’t tell Lily that he wasn’t going to be there tomorrow night. He was just as glad of it too. He still connected her to Harding and he felt as if it would be wrong for him to be with her. He knew that was dumb. After all, Lily was a whore and others were with her all the time. Harding also knew she was a whore and it hadn’t bothered him. But somehow, Art’s being with her wouldn’t be the same thing.
“Lily, the boy . . .” Bellefontaine began, but Art got his attention, and with a small shake of his head, interrupted the revelation. Be
llefontaine nodded his understanding.
18
Early the next morning, Art reported for work. Once on board, he walked out onto the hurricane deck of the Delta Maid and stood against the stern railing, then faced forward to look along the length of the boat. He could see the neat stacks of cargo and the long ricks of firewood.
Dewey told Art that his job would be to keep the boiler stoked with firewood and, when the time came, to join the other members of the crew in replenishing the supply of firewood every time they stopped.
Some distance forward of where Art was standing was the bow of the Delta Maid. Already, there was talk of outfitting special boats to go up and down the river, dredging a channel to facilitate faster travel by the steamboats. But that had not yet been done, so for now the bow of those boats already plying the river were shaped like a spoon, thus allowing them to slip easily over shoals and sandbars.
The Delta Maid was 160 feet long, with a beam of thirty-two feet. From her lower deck to the top of the wheelhouse, she rose forty feet. It was nearly sixty feet to the running lights at the very top of the twin fluted smokestacks.
The Delta Maid could carry 220 tons of freight and thirty-six cabin passengers. The large paddle wheel at the stern was eighteen feet in diameter and twenty-six feet wide. The wheel was rotated by a steam engine at a rate of twenty revolutions per minute.
The wheel was motionless now, and Art turned to look down where the paddle blades met the water. A twig hung up on one of the blades for a moment, then broke loose and floated on by the keel. He had never been on a steamboat before, and he couldn’t help but be a little excited over the prospect.
“Cast off the lines, fore and aft!” Captain Timmons shouted from the pilot deck, using his megaphone to amply his orders.
“Aye, Cap’n, fore and aft!” his mate, who was down on the main deck, replied.
Captain Timmons pulled on the chain that blew the boat whistle, and its deep-throated tones could be heard on both sides of the river. Timmons put the engine in reverse, and the steam boomed out of the steam-relief pipe like the firing of a cannon. The wheel began spinning backward, and the boat pulled away from the bank, then turned with the wheel pointing downriver and the bow pointing upstream. The engine lever was slipped to full forward, and the wheel began spinning in the other direction until finally it caught hold, overcame the force of the current, and started moving the boat upstream.
They beat their way against the current, around a wide, sweeping bend, with the engine steam pipe booming as loudly as if the town of New Madrid was under a cannonading.
For the rest of the day the Delta Maid beat its way up river, with the engine clattering and the paddle wheel slapping and the boat itself being enveloped in the thick smoke that belched out from the high twin stacks.
Already the boiler furnace required restoking, and Art had gone through several ricks of wood, marveling at how fast their supply of fuel was being consumed. He was told their next fueling stop would be Cape Girardeau. He couldn’t help but wonder if the fuel they had on board would last even that long.
* * *
“I tole’ you I heered the boat a’comin’,” Eby said to the others. “Lookie there, over the top o’ them trees. You can see the smoke.”
Eby had eight armed men with him, nine counting himself, divided into three men each in three skiffs. They were waiting just north of a wide, sweeping bend.
“How much you reckon we’re going to get offen this here boat?” Poke asked.
“I’d say more than you could get off ten flatboats,” Eby replied.
“Lord, how we goin’ to get all that out of here?”
“We’ll scuttle the boat ag’in the sandbar,” Eby explained. Kill ever’one on board, then just take our time unloadin’ it. After we get ever’thing off it, we’ll burn it.”
The steam pipe boomed, and Poke jumped. “What the hell? They got a cannon on that boat?”
Eby laughed. “That ain’t no cannon,” he said. “That’s just the steam engine. It does that sometimes, makes a noise so loud you’d think it was a cannon.”
“I just got a glimpse of it through the trees,” one of the others said. He pointed. “There, you see it?”
“Yeah,” Eby answered. “I see it. All right, boys, get in your boats and make sure your guns is primed and loaded. We’uns is about to get rich.”
* * *
Art saw them when he was out on the deck, picking up another bundle of wood. Glancing toward the riverbank, he saw three boats waiting behind a fallen tree trunk. At first, he thought it was just curious; then, when he realized that there were three men in each boat, and that they were just sitting there, he got suspicious. His suspicions were confirmed when he recognized one of them as Eby, the man who had run the cave trading post back on the Ohio. He remembered that when the river pirates had attacked Harding’s flatboat, one of them had mentioned Eby’s name. If Eby was here with eight other men, trying not to be seen, it had to be for some foul purpose.
Putting the bundle of wood down, he went back into the engine room.
“Where’s the wood?” Dewey asked.
Without a word, Art picked up his rifle, and began loading it.
“What is it, boy? What’s wrong?” Dewey asked.
“I think we’re about to have company,” Art answered.
“River pirates?”
“Looks that way to me,” Art said. His rifle loaded, he started on his pistol.
“Mule!” Dewey shouted.
“Yes, sir?” Mule answered. Mule was a free black man who worked on the boat in the same capacity as Art.
“Spread the word around, we’re about to get jumped by pirates,” Art said. “Tell everyone to get to their guns.”
“Yes, sir!” Mule replied, springing into action.
Dewey brought the engine to all stop. As soon as he did, the speaker tube whistled. Dewey knew that it would be the captain, wondering why the engine had stopped, so he walked over to the speaker tube and yelled into it.
“Pirates ahead, Captain!” he shouted.
“There they are!” one of the crewman yelled, and Art stepped out onto the deck to see the three boats suddenly dart out. They were paddling fast, using the momentum of the current of the river to bring them to mid-channel.
One of the men in one of the skiffs fired toward the steamboat. Art heard the crash of glass and when he looked up, saw that the pirate was shooting toward the wheelhouse, trying to hit the pilot and thus cause the boat to wreck. Thankfully, he’d missed the man.
Using a bale of cotton not only for cover, but also to provide a resting place for his rifle, Art fired at the pirate who had just shot, and saw him grab his chest, then fall back into the river.
That seemed to open the door, for those two single shots were followed by a rippling volley of fire as men in the skiffs and men on the boat exchanged fire with each other. The sounds of the shots, barely separated from one another, rolled back from the trees on each side of the river, thus doubling the cacophony of the battle.
The battle was brief but brutal. Realizing that they had lost the advantage, the pirates gave up the fight and started paddling hard to get away. At almost the same time, Dewey put the engine into full speed forward. The Delta Maid leaped forward. It was a moment before Art realized what they were doing, but once he understood, there was nothing he could do but stand by and watch.
Captain Timmons deliberately ran over one of the boats. Art rushed to the railing and saw pieces of the boat drifting away as the three men who had been in the boat were paddling hard to stay afloat. One of them slipped underwater and, caught by the severe undertow, didn’t reappear. The other two swam hard for the opposite shore, chased by bullets fired at them by the angry crewmen of the Delta Maid.
Bullets popped into the water all around the swimmers, sending up tiny geysers as they did so. One of the two was hit and, like the unlucky man who had caught the full brunt of the collision, he went under and didn’t come bac
k up. The third man reached the sandy shore on the other side, pulled himself out of the water, then started toward the tree line.
At that moment, only Art, of all the men on board, had a rifle that was primed and ready. He raised the Hawken to his shoulder, touched his finger to the trigger, then had second thoughts. The man represented no immediate danger now, so why kill him?
Art lowered his rifle, then realized that if he didn’t shoot, the others might question him. Raising his rifle, he did shoot, aiming not at the escaping pirate, but at a tree branch just above him. He pulled the trigger, there was a flash and a boom, then the tree limb exploded, just over the fleeing pirate’s head.
“Ayii!!” the pirate shouted in fear, his cry of terror clearly heard by everyone on the boat.
“Good job, lad, you put the fear of God into him, that’s for sure an’ certain!” Dewey said, laughing.
“Too bad you ain’t a better shot,” one of the others said. “If you was, we would’a got ’em all.”
At that moment the pirate who had made good his escape looked back toward the boat, and Art was able to see him more clearly. It was Eby.
* * *
When Eby stepped into the parlor of Etta Claire’s Visitation Salon in Cape Girardeau, he was met by Etta Claire herself.
“Good evening, sir,” she said. “May I get you a glass of wine while you are making up your mind which of our girls you will be visiting tonight?”
“I ain’t visitin’ with none of them,” Eby said. “I’m Bruce Eby. I’m here to claim my girl, Jennie.” He showed Etta Claire the papers proving that he owned Jennie.
“Oh, Mr. Eby,” Etta Claire said. “Yes, I knew who you are, even though I’ve never met you. Jennie is engaged at the moment. If you will be patient for just a little longer, she’ll be free, then you can go up to see her.”
“I ain’t here to see her. I’m here to take her out of here,” Eby said.
“I’ve been making the deposit on a regular basis,” Etta Claire said. “There is no difficulty with that, is there?”
“No, I got the money all right,” Eby said.
“Then, I don’t understand. If you are getting the money, then why do you want to take Jennie from here? It seems to be working out so well, and I know she is happy here.”
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