Crows & Cards

by Joseph Helgerson

  Crows & Cards

  A NOVEL

  Joseph Helgerson

  * * *

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN STEREOTYPE EDITION

  WRITTEN WITH DILIGENCE

  BY

  MR. JOSEPH HELGERSON;

  TO WHICH ARE ADDED

  FINE ILLUSTRATIONS

  BY

  MR. PETER DESÉVE.

  ALSO INCLUDED IS

  DICTIONARIUM AMERICANNICUM;

  BEING THE WORDS HEREIN MOST ARCANE AND ALIEN AND THEIR DEFINITIONS

  PUBLISHED BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, BOSTON NEW YORK

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

  2009

  * * *

  TEXT COPYRIGHT © 2009 BY JOSEPH HELGERSON

  ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT © 2009 BY PETER DE SÈVE

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. FOR INFORMATION ABOUT PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE SELECTIONS

  FROM THIS BOOK, WRITE TO PERMISSIONS, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY,

  215 PARK AVENUE SOUTH, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10003.

  WWW.HMHBOOKS.COM

  THE TEXT OF THIS BOOK IS SET IN BODONI BOOK.

  THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE WAX CRAYON.

  GLOSSARY WOODCUTS ARE FROM 1800 WOODCUTS BY THOMAS BEWICK AND HIS SCHOOL,

  PUBLISHED BY DOVER PUBLICATIONS.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  HELGERSON, JOSEPH.

  CROWS AND CARDS / BY JOSEPH HELGERSON.

  P. CM.

  SUMMARY: IN 1849, ZEB'S PARENTS SHIP HIM OFF TO ST. LOUIS TO BECOME AN APPRENTICE

  TANNER, BUT THE NAIVE TWELVE-YEAR-OLD REBELS, CASTING HIS LOT WITH A CHEATING RIVERBOAT

  GAMBLER, WHILE A SLAVE AND AN INDIAN MEDICINE MAN TRY TO GET ZEB BACK ON

  THE RIGHT PATH. INCLUDES HISTORICAL NOTES, GLOSSARY, AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL

  REFERENCES.

  ISBN 978-0-618-88395-0

  [1. APPRENTICES—FICTION. 2. GAMBLING—FICTION. 3. SLAVERY—FICTION. 4.

  SHAMANS—FICTION. 5. INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA—MISSOURI—FICTION. 6. CONDUCT

  OF LIFE—FICTION. 7. ST. LOUIS (MO.)—HISTORY—20TH CENTURY—FICTION. 8.

  HUMOROUS STORIES.] I. TITLE.

  PZ7.H37408WES 2008

  [FIC]—DC22

  2008013308

  MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  * * *

  FOR THE MONDAY MORNING LIBRARY CLUB

  AND THE LIBRARIANS WHO HELPED US.

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Kate O'Sullivan for asking hard questions, George Rabasa for insights on writing, Tim Johnson for discussing dictionaries, Helen Kay Stefan for help with tin ears, Mike Stinocher for first driving me to St. Louis, Earl Brown for dog talk, Justin O'Connell for sharing his love of language, and Crow Dan for taking me under his wing.

  Also, I'd like to thank the people and organizations that helped free up time to write this story with an artist grant. Funding was provided in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and private funders.

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHEN I TURNED TWELVE, my pa guessed it was time I learned a trade. Not wanting to disappoint, I told a stretcher and said I was all for it. That's when the bargaining started.

  "How about apprenticing with a cooper?" he suggested.

  The thought of making wood barrels all the rest of my born days left me kind of squirmy. True, there's nothing so handsome as a well-made butter churn or molasses barrel or milk bucket, but I hated slivers. Having Ma take a needle to one stuck in the meaty part of my hand made me carry on worse than a colicky baby. And since coopers are forever working in wood, well ... So after pretending to build up some steam thinking about it, I shook my head no, all regretful-like.

  "Wouldn't seem to be much of a future in it," I reckoned.

  Telling Pa I was scared to death of slivers would never have worked, but bringing up the future nearly always bought me some breathing room.

  "All right," Pa allowed, still sounding fresh about our talk. "How about blacksmithing?"

  "Wouldn't you think I'm kind of scrawny for it?"

  "It'd put some meat on your bones," he pointed out.

  On goes my thinking hat again as I ground away, real serious-like, on the prospects of being a blacksmith. Of course, I already knew that blacksmithing wouldn't do either. Aside from my being a runt, which would make it hard to handle the bellows and pound the horseshoes and such, I'm awful jittery about getting burnt. And what blacksmith can do his job without a ripping hot fire?

  "Wouldn't there be some dark days ahead for blacksmiths?" I asked. "What with the coming of railroads and all?"

  The year was already 1849, after all, and the railroads had big plans, though I hadn't heard any talk about their doing away with blacksmithing. Lucky for me, Pa considered the smithy in the nearest town—that'd be Stavely's Landing, on the Mississippi—to be a rude and balky brute, which made it one possibility he was willing to let slip away without a fight.

  "Hmm," Pa said, turning thoughtful and sizing me up with one eye, kind of squinty-like. "What would you say to working in a livery stable? There's steady work there."

  Well, taking care of horses and fancy carriages and such would be pretty quality, all right, but I figure Pa's up to something with this one. Everybody knows how bad horsehair gives my nose the dithers.

  "'Fraid they wouldn't have me," I sighed. "Not the way I'd always be sneezing and spooking the livestock."

  "Couldn't have that," Pa agreed, smiling despite himself. "Say, maybe you'd like to set your sights on becoming a preacher? Your Uncle Clayton went that route, you know."

  We were talking about Pa's favorite brother, the one where my middle name sprang from and who'd baptized me in the river. I'd heard the story of my dunking many a time, 'cause my uncle got carried away with his preachifying and held me under a might long, till I was blue. Course, they got me working again, but my near miss of heaven left my family feeling I had a leg up when it came to talking with higher powers. So real careful-like, I asked, "Didn't he get swallowed up by the wilderness?"

  "We don't know any such thing at all," Pa snorted. "He could show anytime."

  "Sorry, Pa," I said, doing my level best to sound overlooked and dejected, "but I'm afraid I ain't heard no trumpets calling. Not yet, anyway."

  "Now listen here," Pa grumbled, bearing down. "Is there anything you'd be willing to try?"

  "Oh, most everything," I volunteered, hoping I sounded helpful.

  "Could have fooled me."

  "Wouldn't want me to jump into something without considering it real careful, would you?"

  "I'm beginning to think maybe I wouldn't mind that at all." Pa wagged his head in wonder. "You're twelve now, ain't ya?" Then a knowing smile ruffled his mustache and I braced myself for the worst. "Say, how about this: maybe we could get you work as a cabin boy on a steamer."

  Well, there weren't many boys along the Mississippi, Ohio, or Missouri rivers who wouldn't have given all their marbles along with a first-rate mumblety-peg* knife for such a chance as that. So I had to take her slow. First off, I grinned at Pa, on account of it was expected.

  "Yes sir," Pa pressed on, probably thinking he was on the trail of something promising at last. "You'd start out low, but it wouldn't be long before you moved up to mud clerking or maybe cubbing for a pilot. After that, who knows?"

  I nodded at the grandeur of it all, but pretty soon I frowned a tiny bit, as if a troublesome thought had crept up on me. As of yet, I didn't know what that thought might be, but I hoped it would come to me quick. I was deathly afraid of drowning in the Mississippi, though it goes without saying that I
couldn't tell Pa such a thing; squawking never got me anywhere with that man. Obstacles only made him more set in his ways. He didn't have a mean bone in him, but he didn't have any that were known to bend either. To change his mind, I had to come at him sort of sideways.

  So while Pa went on about how he hadn't been selling wood to steamboats for going on ten years without knowing himself the names of some captains, I got busy sweating over how to tackle this one. You see, my pa's own pa had spent all his years yanking out tree stumps and starting up farms clear across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, which didn't leave time nor money for setting his sons up in a trade. Naturally, that meant my own pa was bound and determined to see things turn out different for me. Finally, I couldn't bear his enthusiasms a minute longer and called out real desperate, "Wouldn't be much of a future, would there?"

  "No future?" he cried, digging a finger in his ear like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Why, not even the railroads can put a dent in the future of this river and the steamers it carries. The whole West's being settled, and it's the rivers getting it done. Without 'em there wouldn't be no civilization beyond the Alleghenies. There wouldn't be nothing out here but a few smelly trappers and warbling Indians and..."

  He began to wind down about then, maybe noticing how I looked sort of glum. Finally he stopped talking altogether and took a minute off to gaze up at the sky before muttering to himself, the way he does when our mule won't haul nothing.

  "You seem to think the future's a mighty dark place," he concluded. "Why is that, son? Most anybody else you talk to is usually pretty high on her."

  "Just a feeling that slides over me," I mumbled.

  "Let me remind you of one little thing," Pa went on. "You're going to be living the rest of your life in the future, so you better get on speaking terms with it."

  "Yes sir."

  "So what troubles you about steamboating?"

  "Well," I wheezed, taking the plunge without knowing what was going to pop out of my mouth, "the way this river changes its course so often, who's to say it'll keep going where we need it to?"

  That pretty much did it—sealed my fate, so to speak. Pa smoldered for most of a minute, looking like he was about to blow cinders out his top any second. Finally he did, speaking up loud enough for our neighbors a half-mile distant to catch what was on his mind.

  "Here's what's happening: You've got a great-uncle, name of Seth, who's down in St. Louis. He used to be a trapper on the Missouri but has turned to tanning in his dotage. Fact is, I hear tell he's the best tanner there is west of the Mississippi. When it comes to treating furs, he knows himself some secrets. Picked 'em up from the Indians, I shouldn't be surprised. We're going to put you on a steamer with a letter of introduction and see if he'll take you on."

  Hearing that left me feeling buried alive, with Pa's every word landing like another shovelful of dirt atop me. When it comes right down to it, twelve-year-olds don't have much bargaining power, not with the likes of my pa. So it looked as if I was doomed to learn a trade that didn't have any future at all. What with beaver hats going out of fashion, the fur business was keeling over as we spoke. Beavers themselves were getting trapped out, as was pretty much every other living thing with the misfortune to wear fur and have four legs. Most all the river men said it. What's more, it wasn't just horsehair that made me sneeze—most any kind of fur would do. But when I tried to point out that working with hides might rip my nose apart, Pa claimed that us Crabtrees were made of sterner stuff than I knew. And on top of that, getting from Stavely's Landing to St. Louis would require riding one hundred and sixty-odd miles down the Mississippi on a steamer, which meant I could fall overboard and drown any second. I imagined I'd be turning a hundred and sixty-plus shades of green by the time I got there, if I got there. The only good thing about the whole undertaking was a chance to see St. Louis. The bad part of that was this: if St. Louis was only half as amazing as everyone claimed, I'd still probably be knocked blind by the sights.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THOUGH THAT CONVERSATION SNOWED DOWN ON ME in midwinter, Pa and Ma couldn't ship me straight off to St. Louis on account of spring planting. It wasn't shaping up to be anywhere near a long enough spring planting from my view.

  "You're a goner," Matilda told me. She was my oldest sister, born one year after me, and could generally get away with such spouting 'cause of her size.

  "Not yet, I ain't."

  "Heard Ma and Pa talking," she breezed on. "They're agreed. It's for your own good."

  That news struck me like a blow 'cause I'd been angling to enlist Ma on my side, but if it'd already reached the for-your-own-good stage, then all was lost.

  Everything fell to pieces on me after that. I couldn't seem to talk to no one without provoking some testiness, and scratch as I might, I couldn't uncover so much as a glimmer of hope anywhere. I tried everything, even taking an oath—one hand on the Good Book—that what I really wanted to do was stay home and help run the wood yard, slivers and all.

  Didn't wash.

  No amount of sass, cow-eyed sulks, filibustering, or flat-out refusals got me anything but trips to the smokehouse. Now some families maybe use their smokehouses for whippings, but being alone with yourself was how ours got put to use. Dark and gloomy as my thoughts were ranging, I almost wished Pa believed in using the strap for misbehaving. But no, I had to sit out there in the dark, with no one to talk to but myself and an old crow who used to come peek at me through a knothole. By the start of April I'd spent so much time out there that whatever that bird was croaking about came so close to making sense that I had to plug my ears. The only good that came of all that was my swallowing hard enough to tolerate fate: I was St. Louis bound.

  Pa had even written my Great-Uncle Seth, wanting to make sure he was still alive and would have me.

  Yes and yes—for a fee.

  Having to cough up money for this apprenticeship of mine nearly saved the day. Pa grumbled about the old skinflint and slammed logs around the wood yard for most of a week before hunkering down and making up his mind: if they was ever going to get rid of me, they'd have to sell off some livestock. In the end he had to unload half our cows and a fine old sow to scrape up seventy dollars, which would buy me six years' training. If I worked out, I'd start earning a dollar a week after three years. That would get bumped up to two dollars after five years. Out of these wages I'd have to buy my own clothes, pay for any doctoring I needed, and set aside enough to repay seventy dollars to Ma and Pa, leaving them fee money for my younger brothers. Food came with the job, though I'd probably have to cook it myself.

  Leastways, that's how my contract read. Me, I was wondering what kind of great-uncle charged his own flesh and blood seventy dollars for a chance to work with a bunch of smelly old hides.

  ***

  Come mid-April the corn and oats was in the ground, and my folks were driving me down to Stavely's Landing on the buckboard. Pa bought me a ticket for the Rose Melinda, a big side-wheeler hauling lead from the mines at Galena and picking up passengers on the way downriver. Once to the levee, he tucked the letter of introduction, along with the seventy-dollar fee and directions to my Great-Uncle Seth's place, inside my pants for safekeeping.

  "Seth will work you hard but probably not to death," Pa said, giving my hand a shake. "Good luck, son."

  My ma gave me a hug along with some advice. "Remember your reputation. It's worth more than gold."

  Then she rustled away before coming up a hankie short. Back at the wagon, my brothers, James, Harold, and Lester, were watching mighty close. My sisters, Matilda, Rebecca, and Emily, weren't missing anything either. Up to that very moment, there'd always been seven of us kids who showed up at the dinner table, and that had seemed like the way it'd always be. The only world we'd ever known was our log cabin, which stacked up as a pretty special place, living along the Mississippi as we did. There wasn't nothing but dark woods and tall bluffs all around us, and at night the lights from Quincy, across the rive
r in Illinois, twinkled away like jewels in a crown. The days, they stretched out forever before us, or so we had believed. Given the curious and shocked way my brothers and sisters were watching my departure, other possibilities were dawning on them. Every step I took left me feeling as though I was about to stumble over the edge of a cliff and the whole world seemed to be holding its breath to see how far I'd fall. Hang it all, there was even a dab of wet smearing up my eyes.

  But none of that stopped Pa from walking me up the boarding plank and putting my ticket for deck passage in the purser's hand. The ticket cost him two dollar and ten cents above and beyond the seventy-dollar apprentice fee. That done, Pa removed himself from the ship, leaving me all alone for the first time in my life.

  Of course, strictly speaking, I wasn't anywhere near alone, not with all the strangers crammed on that steamer, but just then I wasn't paying them any mind. I was too busy watching Pa. He stood on shore while the Rose Melinda rang her bells and blew her whistle and backed out into the river. It took only a minute or two, but as minutes go, they were about as jam-packed as any I'd ever find. There were more things swishing around inside me than I could count, and outside of me, deck hands were rushing everywhere with cargo and shouts.

  From the wagon, Ma and the others made little, tiny hand waves goodbye, as if their arms were broke. Pa didn't even manage that much.

  He stood alone, still as a fence post till he was nothing but a speck on the shore behind us. Then I couldn't see him at all, though I kept looking. Something beneath my ribs told me he hadn't budged yet. What with all them mouths to feed, I'd never seen Pa stand in one place for more than a few seconds, but somehow I knew he'd stay standing on that levee, just to make sure I didn't figure out some way off the boat. My escaping was an unlikely proposition, surrounded as I was by all that water, and I suppose it was awful smallish of me to think that's why Pa stood there watching. Hadn't he been the one to fetch the doc for me in that ice storm? And hadn't he, who swam about as good as a heavy rock, somehow saved me from drowning that time I was fooling around and fell off the ferry? And weren't there a thousand or more other hadn'ts to boot, every one of them adding to the bulge in my throat? No, something deep inside me said he'd stay planted on that shore till my steamer was long gone and Ma came to get him. But he wouldn't be standing there 'cause he didn't trust me. There were deeper wells than that to the man, or so I told myself.