by John Brunner
It was a euphemism; she would not send but bring, for they could not afford—nor in any case would the house have accommodated—the establishment of servants they had been used to before the war. Still, things were improving. For years they had been reduced to one servant. Now they had two.
And this girl—no, this young lady—whom Dr. Malone had recommended as a companion for Adèle was better than a dozen unwilling slaves. She was gentle, dutiful, sympathetic, even generous. Had she not saved and scrimped from her exiguous pay to make him a present, and a valued one? In place of the coarse bandage that had formerly veiled his eyesockets, she had given him a bandanna of soft and supple silk.
Oh, she was worth her weight in gold!
Remaining in bed, as usual, for fear he might cut a ridiculous figure in bare feet and nightshirt, he replied to her question.
“Please do. Then lay out my clothing for a trip and pack my usual bag.”
“Yes, Captain.” A brief hesitation. Then, in a changed tone: “Sir, excuse me, but…”
“What is it?”
“Is there really going to be a race between the Atchafalaya and the Nonpareil? I don’t know what I should believe!”
Drawing fast the sliding door, she came to perch shyly on the side of the bed.
“In the newspapers I see advertisements from Mr. Gordon and Captain Woodley, and Captain Drew as well, saying no one has the least intention of racing. Yet everybody keeps insisting that’s a bluff, and so many people have bet such a lot of money there will have to be one now.”
“Who’s this ‘everybody’—hmm?”
“Well, sir, when I bring you to the Guild parlor, there are by now certain gentlemen who recognize me, with whom courtesy obliges me to pass the time of day, and without exception they maintain a race is inevitable.”
So interested in my affairs!
The idea filled Parbury with enormous satisfaction. It showed in his tone when he said, “What if it is?”
“Oh, sir! Surely even in peacetime the river is a dangerous place enough, with its snags and its sawyers and its shoals!”
Parbury started. Ever since she started guiding him to the Pilots’ Guild, he had naturally talked about river matters on the way, but he had had no idea until this moment that she had so absorbed what he was telling her. She was continuing, moreover, and with such intensity that she was trembling; he could feel the vibration through the bedstead.
“Must one add other perils to what are there already? Suppose a boiler were to burst! Suppose—!”
“My dearest Dorcas!” he exclaimed, reaching for her hand and clasping it in both of his. “I’m touched, I’m deeply touched by your concern!” Her pulse was pounding under his fingertips; he tried to stroke her anxiety away.
“But I assure you, your alarm is needless! At no time is a steamboater more alert than when he’s racing. The pilot musters total concentration; the engineers survey their gauges constantly; even the lowliest deckhands dedicate themselves entirely to success. After all, to win, you must arrive intact! You needn’t worry. In spite of all, I hope to live out my time.”
For, to his amazement, he had early discovered there could be compensations even for blindness. Soon after his return home, at about the time he became able to leave the house, it had dawned on him that he no longer stammered. And this, though it was hardly a level exchange for the keen vision he had reveled in, was at least worth having.
All the more so, it suddenly occurred to him, because… Well! How, for example—no: how above all would Dorcas have reacted to a blind man older than her father who was also tongue-tied? Not, surely, with frank expressions of concern for his safety, the outward show of what must be, what could only be, affection?
His heart pounded as violently as hers now he realized the full implications.
True, she had once been frail enough to bestow her affection unwisely. In that, however, she was not alone, and there were circumstances when—as even Adèle had conceded after a discussion with her confessor—such an act might proceed from no worse flaw than excessive generosity of spirit.
It had been balm to his soul to realize he was still capable of inspiring respect. The fact that the new Nonpareil had been built to his design and given the name he wanted was proof of it. Now here was evidence he might be loved as well! For Dorcas was still talking, her apprehension unallayed.
“You mean there is going to be a race?”
“I agree with those who say it’s bound to happen, and it may very likely start this evening. All being well.”
She had not let go his hand. Now she clutched it to her bosom.
“You approve?” she whispered. “Never tell me you are among the people who have laid bets!”
Sourly he said, “What with? I have no fortune any more! I have a part share in the Nonpareil, but that’s only thanks to Mr. Gordon, and she’s too new to have returned more than a pittance on what he’s invested. No, but if she wins—when she wins—she’ll have run out her major rival. From that day forward she will carry the choicest cargoes and the choosiest passengers.”
“But she doesn’t have to race to achieve that! Let her simply prove herself! Does she not already enjoy the reputation of being fast?”
“Oh, yes! As soon as she made her first trip, that was assured!”
“Then—”
“Dear girl!” Groping, he drew her to him and stroked the smooth hair which she wore in a tight knot. “I could no more…”
For a second his voice failed him. Without warning his mind was diverted off course toward a sensation recollected from his recent bad dream. He had felt a sort of resignation when Carradine insisted that the steamer round the point where they were loading enemy guns. He had known something was sure to go wrong, but he had been unable to convey his feelings.
Now he experienced the same, but in a mirror. He knew all would go well. If there were such a thing as weather in human affairs, then it was set fair for victory.
He remembered what he had not thought about for years: the thermometer-barometer, Adèle’s gift, which had hung in the pilothouse of the old boat.
Recovering, rising to her feet, Dorcas said, “Sir, you were going to say…?”
“I was going to say I could no more stop this race than I could stop a war.”
“Yes, Captain,” she said after a pause. “I fully understand.”
And hastily left the room, for she was afraid a sob might break into her voice.
She had done her utmost to dissuade Mr. Parbury from supporting the race. She had failed. But she had failed before, often enough to be no longer overwhelmed by the experience.
Resignedly, therefore, she went about her ordinary business in the kitchen.
And abruptly said to the air, “Why, of course! The old fool must think it’s because of him I don’t want there to be a race!”
A moment later she was struggling not to laugh.
THE HOLDER OF THE HORNS
29TH JUNE 1870
“As with all transport, speed was foremost concerning river steamboats. Records were kept of the best times between principal river cities, and to the fastest went the honor of ‘holding the horns.’ These were a gilded pair of deer antlers, a symbol of the speed king, mounted on the pilothouse. The horns were passed to the fastest boat, and since fast boats attracted business, the holder of the horns was in a unique position to profit from his distinction.”
—Norbury L. Wayman,
Life on the River
“But,” said Captain Drew with a sigh, “even after my agreement with Barber was signed and sealed, all was not even then to be plain sailing. ‘The best-laid schemes…’!”
“ ‘Gang aft agley,’” automatically completed the reporter, scarcely daring to believe his luck as his pencil flew across page after page of his notebook. Most people who tried to interview the celebrated Hosea Drew had to go away content with a few brusque comments about the unchallengeable superiority of his steamer. Now it had been proved, he wa
s in an amazingly expansive mood.
And the right note to make him open up still further had just been struck. Drew was beaming: eyes sparkling, cheeks chubby and red above his neat gray beard. For the summer heat, his regular coat of blue had been laid aside and he was in vest and shirt-sleeves.
“Why, you’re acquainted with the Bard of Scotland, Mr.—ah—Siskin?”
“That’s right, sir: Joel Siskin!” It was only the fourth time he had talked with Drew, and now his name was being remembered. Progress! “Yes, I’ve admired Burns’s poetry since my boyhood.”
“Then you’re a man of taste…! But now is not the time to indulge my hobbyhorses.”
“You were referring,” Joel hinted, “to obstacles which delayed the building of the new Atchafalaya.”
“So I was. We applied at once to Hupp & Tonks, of course. But their yard had been severely damaged in the war. Next on my list would have been D. & J. Howard, who had lately built the Ruth for Captain Pegram.”
Joel knew all about the Ruth. The New Orleans Intelligencer, for which he mostly wrote, had published a grandiose puff for her about the time he sold his first article to the paper, five years before. But he wanted to know about the Atchafalaya.
“Couldn’t Howard’s take your business either?”
“Oh, they had contracts to occupy them the next eighteen months. Besides, there was a shortage of iron. The boilers alone would call for forty tons of it, and when you figure in the main engines, the doctor engine, the freight hoister, and everything else, I was bound to need at least another hundred. So for a while I was again obliged to make ends meet in casual employment.”
“Would your partner not have saved you from such makeshifts?”
Abruptly Drew’s tone grew harsh. “Oh, I guess so! But being holed up here in lonely luxury… Not to my taste at all! Besides, this river of ours—she’s a cunning old bitch!” He glanced through the pilothouse window at the broad brown flow aswarm with boats. “So I felt an obligation to make all the trips I could and keep my hand in. Once that habit’s in your blood you can never break it. Captain Parbury, you know, goes tripping in spite of being blind.”
Here was another fantastic stroke of luck. Joel had been hunting for a chance to mention the gray eminence behind the new Nonpareil. Hamish Gordon might have financed her; Cato Woodley might officially be her master; but the man who had created her was Parbury. And there she lay two berths distant!
Before he could phrase a fresh question, however, Drew was back on his former course.
“In the upshot, eight months wore away before a yard was found to take on such a grand project. When news was brought that a Mr. Cleech had tendered from New Albany, that rang none of my bells. Still, New Albany was where they built the great Eclipse, so at the next opportunity I visited his yard, and what I saw of the work he was doing on smaller boats decided me at once. Mention Wenceslas Cleech in your report, Mr. Siskin! He deserves it. The Atchafalaya has passed her fourth anniversary. Many steamers are worn out by that age, but this boat of mine was built to such a standard, she will serve as long again. You’ll note that workmen have restored all the fittings which were removed for the run I was obliged to make to St. Louis the other day”—his eyes strayed almost guiltily to the golden horns swinging between the tall red chimneys; others, for shorter sections of the journey, adorned the pilothouse—“and deduce that were she not extremely sound I’d never have felt that worth the outlay. But I did, and you may assure your readers she is now as fine as ever she was, or maybe better.”
“If proof were needed,” Joel said in a professional tone which hovered on the edge of fawning, “that fast run would have supplied it. Has any other steamer achieved so long a run without touching shore?”
“None that I have heard of,” said Drew with complacency. “It was a matter of—well, let’s say of particular foresight.”
“On the same tack,” Joel pursued, “you went to some trouble to rehire the only pilot you ever trained personally. Was this with a record run in mind?”
This provoked a frown. Notoriously Drew’s employment of a colored pilot on his high-speed trip was creating ill feeling among his colleagues. But it was far from the first time he had offended them.
“Mr. Lamenthe,” Drew said at last, “qualified for his license under my supervision. Subsequently he has handled many other vessels and earned the approbation of their masters. Finding myself obliged to hire a co-pilot for the 1870 season, I judged it best to recruit one perfectly acquainted with the Atchafalaya. Any money I was obliged to lay out to release him from existing obligations seemed petty, for the lives of children were at stake. Bear that in mind!”
Maybe, Joel reflected sadly, this was how a man grew rich. Maybe he had to be hypocritical as well as clever. What he had seen in the case of his own father, who had bought and sold human beings like shares in a speculative flotation, and of the Moynes, who had treated their only daughter as though she were collateral for a long-term deal, indicated that might well be the dismal truth.
One naturally agreed that nothing was too much to save a child’s life. But what could that possibly have to do with Drew rehiring his former cub—?
As though hauling on the reins of a runaway horse, Joel checked the headlong impetus of his thoughts.
There were other children at St. Louis: Drew’s half-nephews and half-niece.
Perhaps he had not just been beating a retreat in face of the impending war. Perhaps he had been genuinely concerned about his closest relatives. Were they all the family he had? Joel’s memory whirled like turbulence in the wake of a steamer’s wheels.
But journalistic reflexes framed his next inquiry.
“Ah, I was about to ask whether you have news of the Grammont children.”
“There have been telegraph messages. Seemingly they are as well as can be expected.”
Obdurate, Joel probed further. “I’ve seen those messages, sir. Most are from Mrs. Grammont, not Mr. Grammont, and hint at the need for other treatment than the physic Dr. Larzenac brought from France.”
“In medical matters,” Drew said with frosty reproof, “I have the sense to rely on those qualified to judge. But should I be required to make another fast run to St. Louis, I shall do so. No one is better qualified to undertake that.”
“Are there not certain parties who believe they are?”
“For instance?”
“Well, persons operating more frequently in the St. Louis trade, one of whom, according to report, once struck at you in public with a buggy whip.”
For an instant Joel feared he had gone too far, because Drew took a long while in answering. Apparently against his will, his gaze strayed to the window through which the Nonpareil could be seen.
“We are enjoined,” he said eventually, “to do good to those who hate us! If that disappoints you, then—too bad! You’ve been on this wild-goose chase since Mardi Gras, if memory serves. Long enough to learn better! I regard a high-speed run as normal practice, sir. Because I own a steamer in first-rate condition, I am accustomed to rapidity of transit. So are my passengers and those who entrust freight to my care. At no price, however, would I exchange a victory over anybody for the security of property or human life.”
“Suppose, though, Mr. Parbury—excuse me: Mr. Woodley—”
“You are well-informed!” Drew interrupted with a humorless grin.
Joel gave a less than bashful shrug. And resumed: “The Nonpareil lies within sight of where we stand, and although she and the Atchafalaya are advertised for different destinations, the route both must traverse is common as far as Cairo. What if the Nonpareil attempted to pass the Atchafalaya under way?”
“Why, then, Mr. Parbury—excuse me: Mr. Woodley—would come to believe that the Atchafalaya was a hundred miles long! Now, Mr. Siskin, you must forgive me, but I have many urgent duties to attend to!”
CANDLES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY
19TH JUNE 1867
“I entered upon the small
enterprise of ‘learning’ twelve or thirteen hundred miles of the great Mississippi River with the easy confidence of my time of life. If I had really known what I was about to require of my faculties, I should not have had the courage to begin. I supposed that al! a pilot had to do was to keep his boat in the river, and I did not consider that that could be much of a trick, since it was so wide.”
—Mark Twain,
Life on the Mississippi
Candles in the middle of the day…
Always, for as long as he could remember, Fernand Lamenthe had felt there was something false about that aspect of the religious practice he had been raised to. What merit lay in driving away a darkness that people had themselves created by erecting a roof between themselves and the sky where from dawn to dusk the Lord lit his own lamp?
As for the darkness of the grave—!
He shivered as he climbed into the carriage which had been hired to convey him and his mother away from the Cathedral of St. Louis after requiem mass for his uncle Edouard. The two Lamenthe had taken insincere leave of Eugene and Richard (Marocain!) and their wives who made even whole mourning into the excuse for another round of the game they played so obsessively: “who’s in style?”
Eugene’s Marie had a son. Richard’s Hélène had recently brought forth a daughter. During the service Hélène had made it obvious that she thought her outfit, sent from Paris in advance of Edouard’s death, evened the score.
Therefore Fernand went on shivering as the carriage clattered over the rough paving of Chartres Street toward Toulouse… and also because bit by bit the remembered odor of wax mingled with incense gave way to the charnel stench of the vehicle’s black leather seating. Logically it was the heat that caused its dead-animal smell to be so perceptible, but for a moment he was prepared to believe he was inhaling the postmortem vapors of those who had starred at similar events of long ago. At home—at what he now forced himself to refer to as his mother’s home, for he was determined to declare his independence as soon as might be—there was a set of bound volumes of the defunct magazine Southern Literary Messenger, and of all the contributors thereto a man called Poe had made the most powerful impact on the teen-age Fernand.