by John Brunner
“Mr. Siskin!” Drew rapped. “What’s going on?”
Pale, shaking from suppressed rage, Joel answered, “The damn’ fools think it’s funny! But if I’d known what they had in mind I swear I’d never have come!”
“Why?” Fernand demanded.
“It’s the boy’s birthday,” Joel muttered. “Gordon’s giving him his first woman. And they’ve made him so drunk he can scarcely stand in the regular sense, let alone—”
Abruptly he realized he was not talking to an all-male audience. “Miss, I’m sorry!” he blurted to Dorcas.
Before she could react, there was a crash from the salon. An alert waiter flung the door wide again. Matthew had tripped on a rug, tried to save himself, caught at a fringed tablecloth, and pulled down a tray laden with a complete coffee service.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Gordon rasped, hauling him to his feet. “This isn’t how I expected you to act tonight! Here, Elvira! Take him away and make a man of him!”
With a shrug the girl let them try to drape Matthew’s arm around her bare shoulders. But the boy kept closing his eyes and moaning, and Gordon and Woodley grew angrier by the moment. When a third attempt failed, Gordon stepped back with an oath.
“Well, yon’s a fine end tae yir birthday party! After a’ the trouble I went tae—a’ the money I spent! Ye thankless son of Auld Nick!”
He drew back his hand as though to slap Matthew sober, but Woodley caught his arm. He had realized how many people were watching.
Everything beyond the immediate vicinity seemed to recede, as though they were aboard a riverboat when just enough mist lay on the water to make the banks hard to discern, yet it was by no means foggy and the pace of events continued without slacking.
For, harassed and weary because during this evening he had had his bellyful of customers who regarded themselves as more important than the rest of his clientele, Barber strode from the direction of the main entrance, saying, “Gentlemen, this is absolutely the best I can do for you right now, and if you don’t care for it, I’m sure there are other places you can go!”
The gentlemen were Denis Cherouen and Auberon Moyne.
“Why, Joel, my dear fellow!” the latter exclaimed. “I was thinking of you only a minute ago. I—”
And broke off, for the scowl Joel bent in his direction was calculated to bring him out in blisters. Wholly misunderstanding, assuming this to be repayment for slights committed earlier, Auberon snapped his mouth shut and turned away.
But his companion was oblivious of that.
Of late Cherouen had taken to pince-nez eyeglasses, for it was the fashion among professional men, and he, like all doctors, hoped to shed the legacy of quacks and leeches and disreputable barber-surgeons and be admitted to the same company as ministers and lawyers. Donning them, he stared at Matthew with the owlishness of the not-quite-drunk.
“He seems unwell,” he opined.
“Unwell!” Auberon echoed. “I’ve heard it called by plainer names. He’s tight!”
“Not because he chose to be!”
That escaped Joel and earned a glower from Gordon.
“What do you mean by that?” Woodley demanded.
“I reckon, exactly what he says.” Ponderous, like a wreck being raised, Drew stood up and lumbered around the end of the table as Gordon and Woodley returned, abandoning Matthew to Elvira and the waiter. Elvira’s gaze shot arrows of disgust after them, for by now the boy was starting to retch.
“Mr. Gordon!” Drew said, raking the financier in his exotic garb with a broadside of a glare. “Do you have children?”
“I’m no’ marrit!” Gordon barked. “An’ what is it tae dae wi’ yirsel’?”
As though he had not spoken, Drew ploughed ahead. “Now I have no children of my own body, but I do have three nephews and a niece as well. I—”
“You better watch your tongue!” Woodley exclaimed, storming forward.
“Why? Because I wouldn’t make a boy my nephews’ age as drunk as you’ve made him? Because I wouldn’t butcher him to make a Gordon holiday?”
“What the de’il d’ye mean?” Gordon rapped, seething, while Joel tried to make himself look small. By now it was plain there was bound to be a ruckus. From their distant table Hogan and Trumbull were dispatched by their dismayed companions, charged to investigate. Up to now the music had prevented them from hearing clearly, but Gaston, as nervous as any of the customers, had brought the current piece to an end at the next double bar.
More than a hundred pairs of eyes followed them as they crossed the room. They were fellow pilots; accordingly Drew exchanged civil nods with them before continuing to Gordon, “You told off Eb Williams for a whiskey breath.”
Disconcerted by the change of tack, Gordon was momentarily at a loss. Woodley broke in. “Do you pay to keep spies on other people’s boats? Maybe that’s where your money goes! We’ve all been wondering for years!”
During his time as a cub, Fernand had discovered how in fact Drew’s earnings had been spent. He was on the point of attacking Woodley when Dorcas managed to calm him down.
In any case Drew needed no assistance.
“No, I found out because the river is my business and I take pains to learn what’s going on. And what I learned in that connection was that a rich stranger who don’t mind getting drunk himself or making his pet boy drunk and foolish to amuse his pals won’t allow a hard-working engineer a nip of whiskey in a misty dawn.”
“Why, ye—!” Gordon was poised to rush at Drew, but Woodley hampered him long enough for Hogan and Trumbull to lend their support. Gordon’s face was bright red by now, his eyes bulbing, his fists balled, his breath coming in great gasps. In the salon doorway Elvira was on her knees at Matthew’s side; the boy was moaning with eyes tight shut and mouth ajar. Cherouen had made no move to assist her, but was standing fascinated, as was Auberon, like spectators at a cockfight waiting for the last moment to place bets.
Sensing trouble, Barber had contrived to send a message to his bodyguards. Taking advantage of the distraction afforded by their arrival, he said in a soothing voice, “Gentlemen, this is a blot on our Mardi Gras celebrations! Go back to your tables, please! Youngsters like him”—a gesture towards Matthew—“haven’t had the chance we’ve enjoyed to case-harden our livers. He’ll get over it by morning.”
“But they made him drunk deliberately, to mock him!” Drew roared.
“Who said so?” Gordon shouted.
“That damned reporter,” Woodley growled, pointing. With a fist. “I knew you shouldn’t’ve invited him!”
Covertly to Cherouen, Auberon whispered, “Oh, isn’t it a main? Isn’t it just a perfect main?”
Bright-eyed, Cherouen nodded, producing a cigar and glancing around for a light. One of four waiters stranded here by the developing quarrel was prompt to supply his need and looked relieved at having something ordinary to do. Swarthy, he wore a luxuriant moustache, and his jacket was far too tight for him.
“Don’t blame him!” Drew rapped.
“Why not? If it wasn’t his idea, where did you get it from?” Woodley insisted.
“I figured it out by looking!”
“I see! Same as you figured out by looking that he”—a stab of the finger toward Fernand—“was the best kind of cub for you to take on! I guess like finds like in God’s good time.”
Fernand was by this time ready to break Woodley’s nose, but Dorcas doggedly restrained him.
“No!” Drew bellowed. “Same way I can figure out by looking your Nonpareil wouldn’t beat my Atchafalaya no matter how you rigged the odds! This boy of mine is solid!” Stepping back half a pace, he clapped Fernand on the arm. “Your pretty new boat is all sham and show! Just ask her pilots! Colin—Dermot—speak the truth now!”
“Are you suggesting”—this from Auberon with the delicacy of a surgeon inserting a scalpel—“that your boat will outrun Mr. Woodley’s under any and all circumstances?”
“Yes!” Drew blurted
.
“Fascinating! Then you would doubtless be prepared to race.”
Nervous, the other diners at the common table were slipping away for fear of being involved in a brawl. They checked and exchanged glances, their thoughts reflected on their faces.
A race between the Atchafalaya and the Nonpareil? Now there was a notion to be conjured with! Instantly it called up memories of antebellum days: the Queen of the West against the Morning Star; the Baltic versus the Diana; the peerless Eclipse beating the A.L. Shotwell by a scant fifty minutes over one thousand three hundred and fifty miles from New Orleans to Louisville, slashing the record to less than four and a half days and packing into every hour better than twelve and three-quarter miles—this against the current of the mightiest of navigable rivers. Immortalized in prints from Currier and Ives, these and other famous contests had fascinated a whole generation.
But since the war, with much of the river under direct military law and the grip of the steamboat inspectorate tightening, there had been scarcely any similar events. None had excited half the interest of the races that the old-timers now harked back to with sighs of regret, despite the testimony of records showing how often it was while racing that steamers were wrecked by snags, pilot error or—worst of all—boiler explosions.
Moreover, and this gave a special point to the idea, tomorrow Lent began. Forty days of abstinence made a depressing prospect to anybody patronizing the Limousin, particularly in view of its proprietor’s superstitious adherence to the strict observances. He did not enforce them on customers against their will, for that would have been commercially disastrous, but a succession of forty Fridays, however ingeniously the cooks evaded the spirit while obeying the letter, grew inevitably boring. And boredom was what the gamblers, the sporting men, and the filles de joie feared most. In other words, four-fifths of the Limousin’s clientele.
Abruptly Woodley burst out, “Well, if Hamish won’t say it, I will! The Nonpareil will take the horns off you—old man!”
It was as well that Drew had surrendered his knobbed staff; otherwise he would have smashed it down on Woodley’s head. Instead he chose weapons of another kind, borrowing from a book of Scottish ballads that had been his companion on a slow trip.
“I know something of what happens to gamblers and drunkards on the river, and they do not take the horns from decent sober men! Think on the fate of my late brother—it’s no secret! As for your precious friend, he knows damn-all about steamboating, even less than you! But I reckon he may well be fast, having cut his skirt so short it will never hamper his legs! Wager he can’t outrun Johnny Cope and I’ll take you on!”
Speechless with rage, Woodley made as though to rush at Drew, but Gordon thrust him roughly aside.
“Skirt?” he roared. “Skirt? This is the kilt of my ancestors, the feile-beg! And in the tartan of my clan, what’s more! Apologize or show the sky yir yellow gut!”
With unexpected swiftness he caught up from his stocking the ivory-handled knife he had earlier shown off to Matthew. A woman screamed, not Dorcas or Elvira, as he advanced menacingly on Drew.
It was not the first time such events had occurred under Barber’s roof. Almost wearily, he was preparing to signal Jones to take care of the matter—Cuffy was faster, but let it once be noised abroad that he had authorized a black man to lay hands on a white one, and…
Then two things happened suddenly and simultaneously, and the world felt like a different place.
For a long moment Manuel could not believe his luck. Then unholy joy flooded through his being. This he understood! In the fishing village where he had spent his childhood, empty months might drag by with nothing to vary the monotony except a knife fight. Since arriving in the Estados Unidos he had scarcely seen, let alone participated in, one worth remembering. These Norteamericanos used fists or pistols, the one barbaric, the other brutal. But the knife was subtle…! Whoever would have imagined that this silly fat-paunched man in a skirt as short as a chorus girl’s understood the art of the knife? But he held his weapon correctly, and if his guard were a little—
No time for such reflections. Action! He snatched the cloth off the nearest table, spilling wine over the two gentlemen and one dubitable lady who sat there—but no matter—and with a deft gesture wrapped it around his left forearm. It was no substitute for a leather cape; still, it was what he had to hand. These people had ordered roast turkey, and it was being carved on a nearby dumbwaiter. The carving knife, equally, was no replacement for a proper fighting knife, but, alas, his own reposed in a pawnbroker’s shop, so…
Equipped after a fashion, he set forth headlong to intervene between the Scotsman and the grizzle-bearded American who was boldly standing his ground, though unarmed. Manuel felt a stir of admiration. If only—
The room spun dizzily. He was down on his butt on the hard tiled floor and the carving knife had struck with such a jolt it stung his arm clear to the elbow and his fingers had opened by reflex and what was that noise he could hear? Laughter? It couldn’t be! El Señor Dios would not permit…
But… He had.
The conductor had tumbled off the bandstand in a dead faint just as Manuel drew level.
Hissing curses, he struggled to stand up. A heavy hand fell on his shoulder: the head waiter, come to drag him away because of what he had done with the tablecloth.
Almost he cast around for the knife again. But his fury was vain, and it evaporated. Shoulders slumped, he turned obediently, while someone brought smelling salts for Gaston.
Barber smiled. The change in the world was illusory after all. It usually was. He completed his signal to Jones, and the latter delivered a perfectly timed blow. The sgian-dubh went flying across the floor. Gordon yelled!
“You’ll pay for that!” he roared, rounding not on Jones but on Barber. “You have no right—”
“On the contrary. All these people will witness that I acted with the utmost correctness. Gentlemen?”
With a gesture he drew attention to the customers who had left their tables, either to watch what they hoped might become a full-scale fight, or en route to the gaming rooms. They had arrived in time to see Gordon pull his knife. Now they concurred with Barber.
“Thank you!”—with a bow and flourish. “No, Mr. Gordon, it is you who will pay. Settle your party’s score and go sober up! I am not one to hold grudges. Come back tomorrow or another day and behave like a gentleman, and you’ll be welcome. But not tonight. And leave that knife! Send for it tomorrow. It will be in my office. Cuffy, bring it there right away.”
The black retrieved it and disappeared.
“Take your boy with you,” Barber concluded curtly, pointing at Matthew, death-pale and horribly ashamed, leaning on the salon door jamb. “And next time he makes a birthday, don’t fill him so full of liquor!”
“Hear, hear!” Dorcas said unexpectedly. Giving her first an astonished glance, then a broad grin, Elvira clapped her hands. Her coiffure was in ruins and Matthew’s vomit had stained her skirt.
The financier favored both women with a scowl before resignedly turning away. Relieved at such a relatively peaceful outcome, Fernand, Drew, and Dorcas resumed their chairs as Barber urged those who had intended to go up to the gaming rooms to do so now, for there would be no more excitement down here. He signaled to the musicians, and despite lack of a conductor they struck up a lively strain. All seemed as calm as before.
But the dying coals were stirred by a sharp poke from Auberon.
“Say, Joel, which paper do I look in tomorrow for an account of this affair? The Intelligencer, ain’t that right?”
Gordon checked and swung half around. Drew’s brows clashed in a monstrous frown.
Bright-eyed, Auberon advanced on his cousin. “You won’t let a chance like this slip away? If you do, you’re not the boy I grew up with. ‘Famous financier draws knife on steamboater at sink of iniquity!’ I can see the headlines now. What’s more, Captain Woodley is prepared to back the Nonpareil against the Atcha
falaya. He said so, and you heard him! Two scoops for the price of one!”
“Don’t waste your breath,” Drew called. “So long as I’m alive, the Atchafalaya will never race. My partner could tell you as much. Couldn’t you?”
Barber forced a smile, but his eyes were darting hither and yon in search of a way to break this unwelcomely renewed impasse.
“Tell you one thing,” Drew continued. “You may know less’n a row of beans about steamboating, but the way you told off Gordon you’d make a right good mate—a better mate anyhow’n he’d make a deckhand!”
With a bellow the financier tried to fling himself at the older man, but Hogan and McNab were prompt to restrain him.
Ignoring the abortive attack, Drew said, “Good night, Fernand—Miss Archer. I’ve changed my mind about putting up here. The company is bad for my digestion. Fernand, you’ll wait on me in the morning?”
Fernand nodded vigorously.
“Capital. Say, here’s good news—might cheer you up.” He clapped Barber on the back as he passed. “Mr. Lamenthe is rejoining the Atchafalaya for the coming season. We resume our weekly trips to Louisville on Thursday next. And that”—with a jut of his chin at Joel—“can go in your report along with Gordon’s drunken rage!”
Woodley had been fuming. Now he exploded. “Louisville! Naturally! Because we’ve advertised the Nonpareil for the St. Louis trade, and you’re afraid to meet us!”
Drew looked him frostily up and down. “You’re free to pick the trade you run her in,” he said. “Won’t make her any better suited to the work.”
He pushed past. Woodley made to seize him, but a warning tap on the shoulder from Jones prevented him.
“Let him go,” Gordon said sullenly. “The rest of you clear up and come along. Someone find a cab for the boy. He can go right back to the St. Charles. But I’m damned if I’ll let him spoil my evening!”