by Tim Bryant
"Behind the house, George had built a carriage house. It looked newer than the main house, mostly because its paint job was a couple of shades whiter. The carriage was still parked inside and in pretty decent shape. Zeus could've pulled it just fine, but it was bigger and fancier than what I was used to. There had been a barn, but it had fallen in and wasn't of much use to anybody except for scrap lumber. The wood line had moved in and grown up around it, making the top half the only part that was visible. Besides that, there was the outhouse. I didn't feel any call to check that out.
"This all belongs to you, Art, Harmon said. We were looking around at the tables full of knick-knacks and figurines in the main room. What was I going to do with a bunch of knick-knacks and figurines. You could tell George had lived out the final years of his life in his wife's home. He'd likely never moved anything after she passed.
"Did Lovey live here with them? Harmon said.
"Long time ago, I said. She died real young.
"Of course, Harmon knew that. Knew just how she died. Had heard from George's own lips how she had fallen through ice on the river after a late January freeze. How she had been pulled to safety by a cousin but had come down with sickness and died three days later. How she had walked out into the backyard on the evening of that third day and fell over dead in the snow. Still, saying that much kept either of us from having to acknowledge anything more.
"There was a photograph on a table in Lovey's bedroom. In it, Carrie, dressed in black and with a veil covering the greater part of her face, held her dead daughter in her arms and looked blankly into the camera. Lovey, in white, gazed off into the distance as if she was seeing something no one else knew about. The stamp on the bottom showed that it was made by the same photographer who had taken the one of me, Momma and Wash, but you could tell it wasn't on the boat. The seed store was cleaner, neater, but identifiable, a reminder that George had also served as the local undertaker. He quit the undertaking after that.
"It gave me the shivers, just looking at that picture. And now, everybody in both photographs— the one with Carrie and Lovey Delafield and the one with us— was as dead as little Lovey. All except for me.
"I didn't mention my thoughts or the photograph. I said I was ready to go back to the store, and we were on our way when Harmon stopped.
"Wait right here, Art, he said. I believe I'm gonna go find that shithouse.
"I sat on the porch in the swing and tried not to think about the photograph inside the house. Of course, the more I tried, the harder it got. You know how that is. I was angry at myself for not getting George buried at Mount Violet. I was angry at myself. He should have been buried next to Carrie and Lovey. He should have been buried with the photograph. I was sitting there, rocking back and forth and thinking on all of these matters when my thoughts were interrupted, again by Harmon. But this time he sounded far away."
"Art, you gotta come see this. Art. You gotta. Come see it.
"I walked down the trampled path in the direction of Harmon's voice, smelling the outhouse before I could see it.
"I don't want to see no goddamn shithouse, I said.
"I didn't care if it had padded seats that tickled your ass and confederate money to wipe with.
"All of a sudden, Harmon appeared on the path ahead of me. He looked like the time he found a bottle of gin wrapped in a copy of the newspaper announcing Lincoln's assassination. Before he found out it was a worthless reproduction that they churned out like sausages.
"He said, This ain't no shithouse I'm looking at, Art.
"I walked past the building, which, I have to admit, looked nicer than most shithouses I've laid eyes on, around a curve and looked down in a ravine that broke off the river and snaked back toward the woods. I shook my head and laughed.
There in the ravine, dry docked and wasting away from neglect stood a steamboat. The name Camargo in a fading blue against the white. It seemed both proud and embarrassed at the same time. The boat was small, the only kind that could easily navigate this far upriver, but it had a deck. A sidewheeler, the wheel I could see was bleeding red into the ground like a dying soldier, but the bones of it looked sturdy. The wheel was about all that did.
"You could sell this thing, Harmon said.
"He took a calculated leap and landed on the boat's stern, which greeted him with a groan but held firm.
"Or maybe set sail."
"If that ain't exactly what I've been needing all my life, I said. A goddamn steamboat.
"I kicked a rock and watched it dance across the deck and come to rest not two feet away from Harmon. He just smiled at it.
"So what you think?
"I looked it over from stem to stern and back again.
"I told him, I might sell it for kindling wood.
"The hull had rotted clean through on the port side, which was causing it to list at an angle. Still, it as much a boat as I was a man. I wasn't seeing perfection in my shaving mirror, I damn sure wasn't expecting it anywhere else. And my carpentry skills were still good enough, I knew I could patch that old boat up a lot easier than I could patch myself.
"I left the boat there, but I couldn't walk away from thinking about it. In bed that night, my mind went back to the Kate. Wash was there. Momma Jodora. Mostly, that feeling of being so close to a real freedom. When the boat tied up at dock, the ropes didn't burn or bind. Soon enough, they would fall away, and the Kate would be off again, stopping when and where she wanted to.
"The feelings of a young boy were still there inside the man. You know what I mean? You know what I mean. I hadn't been my own person all those years ago. You may not know what that's like. But now, I called myself free. Free. And the legal owner of a steamboat."
"I checked out the boiler and the engine on the old steamboat. They had rusted but still looked to be in fairly decent shape. Unfortunately, I knew we wouldn’t be able to fire up the boiler and check them out for real until we could get the Camargo into the water. And we had to fix up the hull before we could do that. It was a flat bottom boat, made to skim along in shallow water when necessary, and the entire section that had to be replaced was on the bottom, beneath the water line. The entire left side of the boat was sitting off the ground, which meant we only had to crawl beneath it and lie on our backs to do the work. I put a crow bar in Harmon's hand and sent him up to the barn to pull enough wood away to patch things up.
"Meanwhile, I checked out the hull and cut everything that needed to be replaced with an old hack saw I'd found behind the carriage house. I was an hour or so deep into my work, laid out under the boat and somewhere else entirely in my mind, when I heard someone coming back down the path. I could tell right away it wasn't Harmon's lope. I hoped, whoever it was, that they were looking for the outhouse. I would leave them to their business if they would leave me to mine.
"What in the devil is that?"
"I pulled myself out from under the hull and sat up, the saw still in my hand. I recognized that goddamn banker's voice before I got an eye on him.
"It's the Lady Camargo," I said. I pointed in the direction of the name, painted along the deck. The sign didn't say Lady Camargo. Only said Camargo. I had already decided to add the lady part. I liked the way it rolled off my tongue. Lady Camargo.
"Banker man looked it over from stem to stern and whistled.
"I know at least a man or two would probably pay you a penny or two for it, he said.
"I shook my head.
"Don't reckon I aim to sell it.
"That banker man, he took off his hat and fanned himself with it, like the mere thought of a negro with a steamboat was about as much as he could take.
"Pray tell what are you think you're gonna do with a damn thing like that? he said.
"I stood up and dusted myself off.
"I guess you're wondering, what's a nigger doing, thinking he can drive a goddamn river boat, I said,
"He bowed all up.
"Now, Arthur, he said, you know that's not what I said. No
w, Arthur.
"I wanted to say, motherfucker, I don't know who you're talking to. Ain't nobody here I know of named Arthur.
"I raised that hack saw until it was right between my line of sight and his. Shut one eye and drew it right down the middle of his body.
"I'm just about wondering what would happen if I tried to cut your goddamn head off, but that's not what I said either.
"Good lord, I could feel my heartbeat through my shirt. I think I tried to tell myself it was from working on the boat, but it was from either pure anger or it was from fear. I don't think I can tell you which it was to this very day. I know I wasn't afraid of the man. He looked soft, and he didn't have that hammer with him this time. No sir, he didn't have that hammer anymore.
"Still, I knew what could happen from losing my temper. A colored man loses his temper, he's got a lot to lose for sure. I sunk back down onto the ground and pulled myself back under the Camargo, as much for protection as anything. I sat there with my eyes closed for a minute and finally heard him moving. I turned my head and watched for his feet. They moved away and not closer. Soon enough, they moved on out of my sight. After another minute or two, I got back to my work."
"I figured I knew enough about steamboats to get along. I knew the boiler ran on coal, and I'd been lighting coal stoves long as I could remember. When the boiler got hot enough, it converted the water to steam and that's what ran the engine. I also knew that there was still a large supply of coal in the back of the seed store, because of the stove there and because the Delafields had sold coal by the pound for years and years. Every stove in Pattonia used coal back in those days, and so did the stoves here in Persimmon Grove and Marion's Ferry. Not to mention, so did half the boats that came up the river.
"The Delafields always sold their coal for just a little bit cheaper than the places down river. Whatever it was going for in Sabine Pass or Jasper, they would have a little bit better deal. Whatever it was in Beaumont, it was bound to be a good bit cheaper. They probably made more money off coal than they ever did selling seed.
"George Delafield had said as much. When I asked why he still sat on so much of it later on, he said when the railroads started coming through east Texas, the Angelina River dried up like a bluebonnet in hell. Steamboats stopped coming upriver, and it started a chain. What it started was like a great big chain breaking. People started moving off from Pattonia. Seemed like from one month to the next, the market for coal just fell off.
"George told me, his only consolation is he got a lifetime supply of the stuff, sitting back behind the store. He said, I might start up a fire all year long. And I 'bout believe he did. Even when he died, there was still plenty left to power the Lady Camargo for as far as I figured she would go.
"So we were sitting there— maybe it was the next day— and we were talking, Harmon Little John and me, and Harmon said, where are you going?
I had done told him the story of the banker— of how I'd raised up the saw and threatened to cut his head plum off with it— and Harmon said that it explained why he'd marched past him looking all burnt up. I was already regretting that whole deal, because I just knew that man would be back and probably with some of his buddies. I had already been served notice that I had a limited time to either shit or get off the pot, and now I had even less.
"Where am I going? I said. You're coming with me.
"Up until that moment, I hadn't given any real thought to where we were going. To begin with, I would have been completely happy tied up at the old dock right there across from the Delafield house. The fishing was good, the scenery was good, with the oak and pine trees hanging out over the water and the wild flowers and tall grass soaking up their surroundings. I knew by then that that probably wasn't going to be one of my options. The banker would be back with his hammer and his papers, and he would use big words to either wrestle the boat away from me or me away from the boat.
"We have just a day or two left to patch up the boat, slide it into the water, and then load it up with as much of the things from the old house as we can get onto it, I said.
Harmon wiped his brow with the brim of his hat and put it back on his head.
"We best get back to work then, he said.
I want to say that's exactly what we did, with the wind at our backs, but we both knew it was something more threatening that was pushing at me.
"George Delafield's grandfather Howard owned more slaves than the Conrays ever did, and two of his sons wound up inheriting them when How, as everybody knew him, died. George's father, William, the youngest of the three brothers, made it known to How that he didn't want a third of the property, slaves or no slaves. To hear him tell it after the war, he could never stomach the idea of owning human flesh and blood like it was cattle. But he also had a natural inclination toward business. So William gave away his portion of the Delafield plantation in exchange for the seed store. For a long time, it was the heart of the community. I don't think he ever regretted his decision for a minute.
"After the Civil War, the War of Northern Aggression as most of his people called it, William's two older brothers— Howard Junior and Theodore— held onto the farm until it was sufficiently run down that they couldn't get nearly what How had put into it. They paid a number of the coloreds to stick around and help, but as the years went by, the brothers wound up doing more and more of the work, even as the work became less and less regular. The railroads hurt them, but George said the brothers held on. Held on for way too long, telling everyone that good days would cycle back around. Ten years later, Howard Junior finally got tired of waiting and lit out for Houston. A few months later, Theodore slipped down on a wet terrace out behind their house and slowly bled to death. They found him two days later. What was left of him.
"Meanwhile, William did real good for himself. When son George came along, he took over. They both made a small fortune, and by the time things slowed down, William was gone and George was ready to slow down. George always said he had more money than Ben Gump and nobody but Carrie to spend it on. I never knew who the hell Ben Gump was, but every time I heard that man's name, they were talking about how rich he was, so I know George was doing alright for himself. He was doing alright.
"When George's wife Carrie died, not long after William, George was as alone as I was. We began our slow race to see who which of us would be the last resident of Pattonia. He never did really close down the store.
"George had what was left of a deer stand on the backside of his store property. It sat a good fourteen or fifteen feet off the ground because George swore that anything lower, the deer could smell you and would go the opposite direction. There never was much to the stand, and all that was left at that point was the ladder. That was all I needed.
"I had once heard of a band of Indians moving a big boat from the Neches River to the Sabine by rolling it over land on a bunch of logs. Each time one rolled free at the back, they would haul it back around to the front. The ladder consisted of a pole George had cut at the saw mill down close to Marion's Ferry and a bunch of two by fours nailed about a foot and a half apart.
"It took me an hour to cut the pole down level with the ground and pry the steps from it. Then I cut it into two equal pieces. Way I saw it, if I could get the Camargo moving, it was bound to gather enough momentum to launch itself into the river. I only hoped it wouldn't undo my patchwork in the process.
"I got Zeus to help me pull the first post the half mile to the ravine, but he was about as useless as Harmon, so I managed the second one by myself, one foot at a time. By the time I had both of them rolled up to the side of the boat, I was whacked. I sat down on one of the logs and looked at Zeus. I've never heard a mule speak, never claimed to, but I swear Zeus looked at me with a look as clear as the voice of the donkey to Balaam in the Bible.
"You don't think so, huh, I said. Not today, huh?
"I figured I could get the boat out into the water, but, if I did, the day would be spent and I would have to leave her out
there overnight. Sometimes it's better to hold off and leave something for tomorrow. Momma Jodora used to say that.
"Zeus must have thought I was crazy, sitting there laughing at him and then myself, but he was right. We would roll the Lady Camargo out for her first voyage in many years, but it wasn't going to be that day. Looking back, I would regret that decision, but I didn't know any better at the time.
"The Conrays had a boy named Jed, or Little J.T. Jed was two years older than me, and he was bad news for both me and Wash, mostly because he was forever getting into trouble, and one of us usually paid for it. Usually me.
"J.T. had a model of the Kate steamboat sitting on a desk in his room in the big house. It had been given to him by the Kate's owner, and it was an exact replica, right down to the name painted on the side of its two decks. I never would have seen it, because I never once set foot in the big house, but I heard Jed talk about it. And Wash swore he had seen it one time when he was asked to carry a basket full of cloth from the big house back down to the quarters, for the women to use to make us winter clothes.
"Some time after the whole incident with Blue Dick, Jed got the question in his head, whether that model boat would float like a real one. Wash said that it wouldn't, said it was sure to sink like a rock, but Jed didn't believe him, and it made the question that much stronger. It was on a Sunday afternoon, after church, that Jed took the model down from his father's desk and carried it outdoors. That was the first and only time I ever laid eyes on it. That afternoon, Jed and his cousin from Nacogdoches took the model down to the river and let it loose. It floated all right, at least until a current got a hold of it and took off. The boys wound up chasing it clear out of Pattonia, finally getting enough ahead of it to grab it with a stick and fish it out of the water. The top deck was missing as was the paddle wheel. They spent hours diving down into the muddy river water and never found a trace of either.