by John Brunner
—Louis C. Hunter,
Steamboats on the Western Rivers
The Atchafalaya—fourth boat to wear that name—gentled in at a New Orleans wharf she had last visited in April 1861. The river was close on bank-full and she had made fast time from Cairo, so she was arriving when people were more concerned with breakfast than the day’s work. But that was not why she was able to moor straight away. The years of bloodshed and destruction had left their traces in every corner of the nation. Fortunate though New Orleans was, in the accepted view, to have fallen to Union troops as early as April 1862, this city had not escaped unscathed. In the old days its port had been so crowded that incoming steamers were obliged to stand off, impatiently sounding their whistles, until a place could be contrived for them. Now there was room and to spare. So many of the famous vessels that used to call here lay like corpses in the upriver shallows, their hulls to rot and their boilers and engines to make fossils for the future.
But the Atchafalaya too was famous, and her reappearance was bound to create a sensation, particularly because it had been harbingered by telegraph messages hinting at a coup on the part of her captain that was exciting among his colleagues at best envy, at worst fury. It had always been customary for Mississippi steamers to work in whatever trade proved profitable and to lay up when none was paying well. But only the most devoted friend of someone who had laid up during the entire war, then reemerged to snatch the most sought-after contract going, would presume to defend his course of action.
And the captain of the Atchafalaya was Hosea Drew, a man who seemed dedicated to managing without friends altogether.
From a distance the steamer shaped up every bit as splendid as “befohdewoh.” Not until she drew alongside did onlookers enjoy the melancholy satisfaction of observing the rust that almost exceeded in area the red paint on her chimneys and the hasty patches applied where rot had attacked her decks and guards.
And, since most of those on board were released Confederate prisoners of war as eager to see their homes again as the authorities in Washington were to be shut of them, not until her cabin passengers filed on to the levee did word get around concerning mildew staining the carpets, fungi that made several staterooms too disgusting to be slept in, hellish noises announcing steam leaks at all hours, and the cries her timbers uttered when the slightest cross-current was encountered. Then accusations spread like fire taking hold of a steamer’s fretwork finery in a windstorm. Among the passengers were some who had a special cause to feel aggrieved; these were southerners trapped by the war in the squalid feverish marsh of “Egypt”—meaning Illinois in the vicinity of Cairo—who had been unwilling to return home until the fighting was over and even then were reluctant to patronize a northern steamer. For this special reason they had been delighted to hear of the Atchafalaya, with her solid Louisiana name, and were appalled to find her captain wearing blue.
Worst of all, he himself had spent the journey in the highest of spirits. The most vigorous representations concerning the condition of his boat and the suffering of those who had been foolish enough to take passage with him were brushed aside.
It had consequently been resolved that something must be done to make amends. Something. Anything! Before he was out of reach.
“Captain!” And more insistently: “We demand to speak with the captain!”
The cries grew to a chorus as the most infuriated of the cabin passengers clustered at the foot of the steps leading to the hurricane deck. Accustomed to priority, they had been balked in their attempt to be first ashore by freed prisoners who showed no concern for baggage, since they had none, nor indeed for anything except haste.
The Atchafalaya being secure now, she might be left in the care of her clerks and mates. Here came Drew from the pilothouse, humming. Not all captains were qualified pilots, nor did all pilots aspire to captaincy. Many of the former owed their commands to nothing more than having scraped together the price of a boat. Earned, borrowed, inherited, won at the gaming tables—even, in a few notorious cases, stolen—money was money, and enough of it could purchase a steamer.
But without pilots that vessel remained worthless. There were captains who paid themselves three hundred dollars a month out of their takings and were glad to pay two pilots five hundred each. They were the princes of the river, sporting kid gloves and silk hats and diamond rings, and even when serving with a captain who was himself a pilot they reigned supreme during their allotted watches.
To look at Hosea Drew without knowing more than that he owned a steamer would lead people superficially acquainted with the river to assume he must have made his way up the ladder as a mate: a commoner course formerly than now, when a clerk stood a better chance since he was in a position to buy part shares in a promising cargo while it was still on shore, but colorable enough because Drew seemed older than his actual age.
Nobody judging wholly by appearances would have guessed that for twenty years he had been as good a pilot as the oldest rivermen could recall. One simply did not picture a pilot turned captain in these terms: greasy ancient cap askew on his head, gray beard untrimmed and marked with traces of the chewing tobacco that was his sole indulgence, gray hair hanging untidy over the collar of a coat that had been uniform blue but was now greatly faded, clutching both a much-mended carpetbag and a knobbly staff that, rumor claimed, served not only to discipline his crew but also to impress his authority on passengers.
And, at just about the moment Drew appeared, the pilot who had served alternate watches with him this trip—portly, balding William Tyburn, who was never addressed as Bill or Willy but some of whose close associates knew the complicated and indirect reasons why they might call him Ketch, not meaning any sort of boat—was following one of the black deckhands, the porter of his portmanteau, down the forward stage of the levee.
A red-faced man stepped into Drew’s path, expression menacing.
“Captain, another trip aboard this steamer would be enough to—!”
But Drew clapped his shoulder with his free right hand, beaming.
“My agents are at Thirty Tchoupitoulas! Call there, and Mr. Caudle will see you right!”
After which, somehow, the stumpy figure had passed on.
To be confronted by a positive gorgon of a woman in black with bottle-green relief at neck and cuffs, leveling a parasol like a gun.
“Captain!” she rasped in a voice which displayed all the sweetness of a shaft bearing with sand in its oilbox. “The sustenance provided during this voyage has been—!”
“Yet another casualty of war, ma’am,” came the response with the slickness and free movement of a perfectly aligned piston. “Thanks to the hostilities, I long ago lost my regular caterer, with whose provisions no one ever used to find fault! Good day!”
Still another passenger accosted him. “Mr. Drew! Your rates for freight, as well as passage whether on deck or in the cabin, can only be described as—”
“My rates?” echoed Drew. “See the chief clerk, please—Mr. Hopper. But bear in mind that while we re completing our government contract there will be great pressure on the space available. Good morning!”
By this point he was through the thick of those who had paid their own way here and well among those who had been delivered at the charge of a relieved government. Not only were the latter grateful to be home; they were fresh from military prison camps and anyone rating the rank of captain sparked reflexes in their minds. Not many actually thanked Drew, but a good few made way for him and ensured that others did too.
He was therefore able to shout at Tyburn while still in earshot. Albeit with a deep sigh, the fat pilot told the deckhand to wait until Drew caught up.
Frustrated, several of the cabin passengers were nonetheless sufficiently annoyed to follow Drew’s parting injunction. In ordinary circumstances it would have been a normal enough procedure. Under the master, and pilot or pilots, three officers on a riverboat exercised significant authority: the first mate, who oversaw the cr
ew; the chief engineer; and the senior clerk, who attended to matters touching money. Because they included the taking-on of cargo and the letting of cabin and deck space, it was the latter’s name that customarily appeared with the captain’s in advertisements.
Mr. Hopper, though, rebuffed the complainants in tones of frigid formality.
“Sir—ma’am—I signed on specifically to attend to commercial matters. I am unfamiliar with Mr. Drew’s practice in other departments of steamboat operation because this is the first trip I ever made in his employ!”
Resigned, the passengers gave up and went away. Only a handful lingered long enough to hear him add, under his breath, this entirely and absolutely unprofessional qualification:
“God willing, it shall also be the last!”
Negotiating the maze of merchandise that littered the wharf, Drew caught up with Tyburn. Automatically the black man carrying the latter’s bag reached for the former’s also.
And looked abruptly puzzled, for he could heft it on one finger. “Cap’n!” he exclaimed. “Are yo’ sho’ dishyear bag—?”
“Yes, it’s the one I meant to bring,” Drew interrupted, still obviously in the high good humor he had enjoyed throughout the trip. “It may be empty right now, but I’m on my way to fill it. Mr. Tyburn!”
He was not among those privileged to say “Ketch.”
Tyburn dressed and acted in a style more suggestive of a pilot’s station in life than Drew did; during the voyage he had frequently been addressed as “Captain” by passengers who imagined the boat’s owner to be a hireling. Moreover he was of peculiarly striking appearance. He affected side-whiskers, but he was ash-blond, while his skin was tanned and leathery from much exposure to weather; consequently he gave the curious impression of being reversed, like a photographic negative.
In response to Drew he cocked an eyebrow.
“Are you bound for the parlor?”
That was the meetingplace of the Pilots’ Guild to which they both necessarily belonged, the room where all newly arrived members were obliged to post their latest findings about the condition of the river.
“It’s expected,” Tyburn murmured.
“Then let us walk along together.”
“Walk?”—in a gentle but quizzical tone.
“Why, it’s less’n a mile from here to Gravier Street, unless the river drifted this bit and that of the city farther apart since last I called here!”
“Far’s I know,” Tyburn said, “Gravier is where it was. But you, sir, draw a deal less water for’ard than do I!” He patted his comfortable paunch. “Walk if you prefer it. I’m about to call a landau.”
For an instant Drew’s notorious meanness could be seen struggling with the courtesy due a colleague. It was a standing joke up and down the river—or it had been in the days “befohdewoh”—that if he could avoid spending a single cent Drew would so so… despite having run two of the most popular of Mississippi steamboats. Some of his competitors had amassed fortunes despite the war by taking risks. One in particular had cleared a quarter-million dollars from a single trip in 1863, because cotton was selling at four cents a pound in Louisiana, where the growers were desperate to clear their warehouses, and at forty cents in the North, which had been cotton-starved since the war broke out. But it would have been foreign to Drew to gamble so much capital on one load.
Of course, it was possible he had changed since moving north; this was a time of changes. He might equally have decided to quit New Orleans for St. Louis even without a premonition of the war. Rightly or wrongly, though, his acquaintances down here were unanimous in assuming he must be worth a hundred thousand as he stood.
It didn’t show. He hadn’t built a mansion; he hadn’t launched a new and spectacular boat, but had spent the war meekly serving as a hired pilot in short upper-river trades. What could he have done with his savings, this bachelor who begrudged himself any luxury beyond a chaw of tobacco?
Who was even sorry to part with the cost of a cab ride!
This time at least he yielded, and the black man ran to find a landau. In it the rivermen rolled away from the waterfront, speaking little. Drew was preoccupied with the look of the city, which he had not lately visited, and Tyburn with the state-of-the-river form he, like Drew, was obliged to fill out.
At only one point did he address his companion directly. Tucking his now finalized report into his pocket, he suggested, “You had yours ready before we tied up, I guess.”
“What?” Drew had been lost in thought. “Oh, my report? Yes, I care better for first impressions than those recollected in tranquillity. Distance lends—disenchantment to the view.”
During their trip Tyburn had been half-smothered with the captain’s sometimes misremembered poetical allusions. He had settled on the safest course, which was to let them pass like floating garbage and concentrate on the main channel of conversation.
“There’s one thing I would like to say,” he began. Drew rounded on him.
“Bad news? Complaints?”
“The very opposite!”
“Amazing. You sounded as solemn as a doctor telling his patient to get measured for a coffin.”
Tyburn gave a dutiful smile. “I only set out to say I was impressed by the way you tackled the lower river. There have been a lot of changes. I was making bets with myself that one would catch you. I lost them all.”
For once it seemed Drew might respond in kind to a kind word. His look was that of a man so unaccustomed to compliments that he had steeled himself against the eventuality.
But the landau got under way again before he thawed. All he uttered was the admission that he was tolerably content with what he’d done.
Wonderingly Tyburn shook his head, but he forbore to press his point.
They halted outside the large and handsome building, let as offices at street level, whose second floor contained the premises of the Pilots’ Guild. Tyburn paid the driver, without offering to divide the fare with his companion, and turned to enter.
And checked in mid-stride.
Drew was staring up the street, whose west side by now enjoyed the morning sunlight.
Approaching along the same sidewalk on which he and Tyburn stood, but as yet out of earshot thanks to the constant noise of the city—shouting, grinding of cart and carriage wheels, clanging bells on streetcars, and above all the racket of new construction, for the end of the war had triggered a wave of development—came a woman of middle age clad in whole mourning.
Walking half beside, half behind her, his left hand resting lightly on her shoulder and his right grasping a cane, was a lank and bony man in equally somber garb. He went with a hesitant gait that caused his guide much difficulty. A tall hat cast shadow over his face, but as the distance reduced it became possible to discern that his eyes were barred with a black cloth band.
“I could swear—!” Drew exclaimed suddenly. “But surely it can’t be!”
With transient malice Tyburn simply waited.
“Parbury?” Drew breathed at last.
“Yes.”
“Is that his wife?”
“She has to lead him about now. Or someone must. Most days she’s well enough to walk abroad. Now and again she takes sick, so their servant does it, but often then he can’t leave home because she needs constant attention.”
“What happened?” Drew seemed almost to be choking.
“You didn’t hear he was blinded when a Union battery sank his last boat?”
“I…” Drew swallowed hard. “I was told he lost the Nonpareil in some such manner. But that was all.”
He swung to face Tyburn. “You said ‘their servant’?”
“Yes, a nigra woman used to nurse their boy before he died. Stayed on ‘cause she had no place else to go.”
“One servant?” Drew emphasized.
Tyburn shrugged. “All they can afford, I guess.”
“And their son is dead…? Mr. Tyburn, here’s my report!” Feverishly he drew the folded paper
from his pocket. “Convey it to the officers of the Guild—they’ll find it done in regulation style! But as for me… Well, I realize the business I must attend to next is more pressing than I allowed for! Tell ‘em that!”
By this stage he was almost gabbling. Incapable, it seemed, of further speech, he spun on his heel and marched away. Tyburn watched him go in frank astonishment.
Ten minutes later, having exchanged civilities with Parbury—and his wife, whom he as ever turned back with a mutter of insincere thanks—and having tried to help him up the tricky narrow stairs, to no avail because the blind captain was as neat at dodging the heavy picture frames that shoaled the walls as formerly in eluding traps set by the Father of Waters, Tyburn was able to pin on the bulletin board his pilot’s report.
To which, having unfolded it, he added Drew’s.
“Drew?”
The monosyllable multiplied. A hush had fallen in the comfortably furnished parlor, as ever when reports were being posted.
“Hosea Drew?”—at last, in a tone bordering disbelief.
“We never voted to disbar him!”
That croaking comment came from Parbury, now settled in his regular seat, surrounded by his regular entourage. Some were themselves pilots; to a man, these felt that the war had cheated them by interfering with their careers. Additionally, on the fringe of the group, there were half a dozen steersmen in training who had detected that Miles Parbury possessed a talent their own mentors lacked, and often appealed to him, an eyeless man, to arbitrate disputes between two whose sight was whole. These were they whom some wit had baptized “Parbury pirates.” In the old days such “cubs” had not been allowed the run of the Guild’s premises. The war, though, had thinned the ranks of the profession, and Parbury had been insistent about the need to bring youngsters into the company of experts as soon as might be. His opinion, as always, had been heeded.