by John Brunner
“Is he going to do well out of this new boat of his?” he concluded with total concentration.
“Parbury?” Joel said. “Oh, I guess so, even on a one-tenth share. But naturally not so well as if she could run out the Atchafalaya.”
Auberon’s eyes were alight with excitement. “She works for Parbury, does she? All kinds of hell will be let loose, then, when Parbury gets to hear that his pretty prize is quitting him for a man who works with his most detested rival.”
“Does pretty matter to a blind man?” Joel countered. “Besides, it takes two to made a race, same as a quarrel.”
“Then I’ll be the other one,” Auberon said with a shrug. “Or someone will… Look here, Jewel!”
It was the first time since returning from Europe that he had employed the childhood nickname. Joel grinned.
“Yes?”
“You keep on saying there won’t be a race. I say there will. Back your judgment!”
Joel’s grin grew even broader. He felt in his pocket for the ritual two cents. “I say no race,” he declared.
“And I say yes race,” Auberon retorted, solemnly imitating him. “Within—oh, let’s say before the end of this year?”
Joel nodded.
“Well, you just settled your own hash,” Auberon said. “Now there will have to be a race. I’ll go make it absolutely certain.” He got to his feet.
“Then I don’t think I’ll accept her as a patient,” the doctor said unexpectedly. “Not unless— Or maybe I guess I should. Hell!”—with sudden vehemence. “I’d best ask Josephine when she gets through with her mumbo-jumbo.”
Realizing that Auberon was on the verge of departure, he reached out an unsteady hand. “Don’t go! I wanted to explain what a headache my chief nurse is. Headache, get it? ‘Physician, heal thyself!’ There’s nothing I can put my finger on, but sometimes I feel she doesn’t take electricity seriously. Or ozone. Cares more for her superstitious simples, even after the years we’ve worked together… As though some weed torn up from the side of the road could stand comparison with the vital force that informs the human frame, the essence, the quintessence of life itself!”
Having achieved his peroration, he slumped back and began to snore. Joel rescued his glass and set it on a handy table.
Turning to Auberon with wry amusement, he checked, then shivered visibly.
“Someone walked over your grave?” Auberon asked.
“I guess…” Joel shook himself, like a dog emerging from water. But his smile did not return.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know.” Joel looked up, as though he could see through the ceiling and out into the midnight sky. It was just on twelve, and before he could say more a clock across the room chimed the official start of Lent. Several people crossed themselves.
Eventually, not looking at his cousin, Joel said, “You know the Greek myth about the Fates who weave the destinies of men?”
“Sure: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. I always used to think it was from Clotho that we got our word cloth. I was kind of disappointed when someone told me it wasn’t.”
Joel ignored the wisecrack. “Just now, all of a sudden I felt we were at a point where the threads come together and make a knot. The lives of certain people intersecting at a certain moment… Like the electric charge that draws down lightning.”
“Oh, I’ve had my bellyful of electricity from Cherouen! When he got talking to me at the Comus ball, I thought he was going to be worth knowing. Instead he turns out to be a gabby drunk… I’ve changed my mind about promoting my race any more tonight, anyhow. I guess it can take care of itself for a day or two. I’ll go play some poker. You coming?” And in a lower tone: “If you’re not flush, I can help out.”
Very pale, trembling from the intensity of his experience, Joel shook his head.
“Thanks, no. I’d better get on home. Most other times I’d have quit long ago, gone running to Abner at the office and been the first to tell him about Gordon pulling a knife on Drew. But he’s not working tonight, so I ought still to be the one. If I’m not, and he finds out I was there, I’ll have the devil to pay, of course.” He forced a smile, extending his hand.
“Good night, then. And… and it’s good to meet you again.”
Cocking one eyebrow, Auberon murmured, “I’d been kind of missing you, as well. As for Loose—!”
“Oh, last time we met she swore she never wanted to see me again.”
“Why do you think no gambler worth his salt will bet with a woman? It may be too late to coax her out of marrying that soak Gattry, but someone ought to try, and it might as well be you. Think about it. Good night!”
Insight afflicted Drew also as he returned to the lonely comfort of the Atchafalaya. Pausing at the foot of her stage, he saw a broad puddle that reflected the light of a torch: briefly disturbed by nothing more than a few ripples, then a heartbeat later pounded by a fusillade of rain drops.
For that instant it stood as the necessary metaphor for the whole huge Mississippi. The configuration of new weather was complete, and a storm without rain, without gales, overlay the water and the land.
A DIFFERENCE OF DOLLARS
22ND JUNE 1870
“An extended experience enables us to say, that the qualities which will most effectively fill the cabin of a Western boat are not (generally speaking) the greater stability and experience of the captain, the safer or more substantial construction of the boat, or engine, but rather, a reputation for speed, which promises a progress of a few more miles a day, or the difference of a few dollars less in the price of the passage. It is in vain to hold it out as an inducement to passengers, (we have seen it tried,) that any boat is furnished with the patent safety-valve, or supplied with life-preservers; another lying alongside, which has proved the faster in a trial of speed, leaves port crowded, while the empty cabin in the former causes captains and owners mentally to resolve, that the next boat they build, shall at all events be a fast one.”
—The North American Review, quoted by Louis C. Hunter in Steamboats on the Western Rivers
Emerging on deck, grateful for the whisper of a breeze to relieve the heat, Woodley spotted Gordon and Matthew approaching amid the bustle of the St. Louis wharf.
The financier was assiduously promoting a scheme to revitalize river traffic by organizing steamers into superlines of fifty or a hundred boats. But Woodley could tell he had drummed up no support here. Of course, if the Nonpareil had been returning her expected profit, it might have been a different matter. As things stood…
He fumed inwardly. Once again his ambition was turning to dust and ashes. He had expected miracles of this steamer; to bring them about, he had worked harder than ever in his life, and obscurely felt he was owed for doing so. True, Parbury treated him with respect. But…
Nonetheless he gave the expected and politic greeting as Gordon ascended the stage, beard limp with sweat.
“Good morning! I trust all went well?”
“Nothing went at all,” Gordon snarled. “Damned fools can’t see further than the ends of their noses. And those are going to be burned by the railways any day!”
“Wasn’t even Mr. Grammont interested?” Woodley demanded. It was no secret that he had long been looking for ways to invest his surplus capital, nor that he had taken shares in a railroad that, on its first day of operation, had sustained a spectacular derailment involving half a hundred casualties, himself and his wife among them… with the result that they were now so prejudiced against this more modern form of transport as to have refused to let Dr. Larzenac travel that way, though precious hours might have been shaved off his journey.
Gordon snorted. “Don’t talk to me about Grammont! He’s gone into a decline along with his two bairns. Won’t talk to anyone except the French doctor. And his woman is worse by far. I swear she thinks the world will end if she loses one of her precious offspring! Isn’t that so, Matthew?” he added, rounding on the boy.
“I b
eg your pardon, sir?” Matthew parried. Despite the summer weather he was very pale. Woodley’s second clerk, Sam Iliff, was much given to helping boys in trouble and had lately recruited one as a mud clerk at his own expense; he had repeatedly expressed concern about Matthew’s health, and Woodley was against his will becoming worried himself. Scandal of the sort that would follow the boy’s illness or even death aboard the steamer was the last thing he could afford.
But in his view half the trouble lay with Gordon, and here was more evidence, for the financier rasped, “What the de’il dae I pay ye for—tae ston’ there wi’ yir mouth ajar catchin’ flees? Tak’ ma coat tae the cabin!”
It took Woodley a moment to realize he meant “flies.” During that time Matthew turned crimson, muttered an apology, and, seizing the coat Gordon peeled off, vanished.
Glaring, Gordon said, “If I’d guessed what a loon he’d prove tae be, I’d ne’er hae ta’en him intae ma employ.”
“Mr. Gordon, I thought I heard your voice.”
In waistcoat and shirt-sleeves, gilt-rimmed pince-nez on his nose, Ian McNab advanced from the office. Despite his and Gordon’s common Scottish ancestry, they had never got on, for they were as far apart in temperament as one country might well produce.
Woodley’s attention was abruptly fully engaged.
Holding out a folded letter, McNab continued, “Our agents here, sir, have favored me with a copy of this communication from the Marocain Bank—and I may say I read it with a heavy heart.”
“May Auld Nick tak’ the Marocains…!” Gordon composed himself, however, and when he spoke again the thick accent was gone from his voice.
“What do they have to say that can’t be said to me directly?”
“They’re asking, sir, whether there is any reasonable chance of the Nonpareil paying the interest on the loan you extracted from them to finance her.”
“But we’re paying off our loans!” Woodley snapped. “We may not be turning the profit we hoped for, but—”
McNab’s eyes switched to the captain, though his head did not move; there was something alligatorlike in the shift of attention that sent a shiver down Woodley’s spine.
“Not the loan to the boat, sir. The loan to Mr. Gordon personally.”
There was a pause. Suddenly giving an ingratiating smile, Gordon took Woodley by the arm.
“Och, but it’s hot in the sun! Let’s find a cool drink, shall we?”
Woodley brushed his hand aside. A huge and terrible suspicion was gathering at the edge of his mind.
“A loan?” he repeated. “But no mention was made of any additional funds…”
“It’s news to me as well,” McNab grunted, extending the letter. “But you should read it, Captain.”
“There’s no need!” Gordon exclaimed. “I know what they’re on about.”
“I don’t!” Woodley seized the letter and cast his eye down it, and with every line felt his fury being fueled. If this were correct, then Gordon must have lied a score of times! Here the Marocains were claiming he had raised capital for the boat on note of hand!
“It’s all because of the Alabama claims!” Gordon barked. “How could I possibly have foreseen that?”
Woodley hesitated, remembering references half-registered in sundry news reports: there was a grand international lawsuit in progress, because the victorious Northern states were suing Great Britain on account of damage done by British-built Confederate-manned warships, one of which had been called the Alabama.
“Until the case is settled, they won’t allow me to transfer money from Britain to America!” Gordon declared. “But I have a lawyer at work on my behalf in—”
McNab interrupted. “That’s as may be, Mr. Gordon. But what are we to do about the Nonpareil? So far we’ve been running with her hold half empty and scarcely more than half the staterooms booked. Regardless of the Alabama claims, this costly steamer is operating at a deficit, and that deficit is greater than I’d been led to believe! Can you take your oath on rectifying that?”
He snatched back the letter from Woodley and confronted Gordon, quivering with rage.
“I’ll not call you a liar, sir—not yet! But I will complain of being grievously misled!”
During the next few seconds Woodley felt a great calmness take possession of him.
“I want all officers to assemble in the cabin,” he said crisply. “Someone call Captain Parbury from his stateroom. I’ve been discussing with him a possible solution to our problems.”
Instead of the strip of plain black stuff he had formerly used, Parbury now bound his eyes with a silk bandanna: a gift, he had told several people, from Dorcas. Clearly he was very proud of it. Woodley, however, was not the only one to wonder whether he knew it was a riotous tangle of all the colors modern dye chemistry afforded—purple, orange, mauve, green… It was taken for granted it had been given as a practical joke.
In Parbury’s presence, though, all thought of mentioning it evaporated. As though the realization of his dream steamer had lent him extra substance, one tended now to think of him as larger than life. He seemed taller, more gaunt, in every way more extreme than those around him. Caring little for himself, he was devoted to the Nonpareil and expected the same dedication from her crew. In Woodley he fancied he had found it. Accordingly the older and younger captains were getting on well. But Woodley feared that sooner or later Parbury’s illusions might be shattered. If the Nonpareil failed to pay her way, he would be obliged to sell his share and try another means of earning his living. And he detested the prospect of reverting to a lowlier status. For wholly selfish reasons, therefore, he was as concerned about the poor financial performance of the steamer as Parbury about her inability to corner the Atchafalaya and run her out.
Parbury had taken his place at the bottom end of a table in the main cabin. All around, steward Mort Bates’s black tenders were dusting, polishing and cleaning. Ordinarily they chatted and sang while about such dull work. Parbury’s entrance had hushed them instantly. It had become one of Woodley’s ambitions to make that sort of impact on people.
Some day, maybe…
The mates, clerks and engineers were assembled, and only the pilots had not yet appeared, when Gordon marched into the cabin, looking daggers, and slumped into his usual chair at Woodley’s right. Behind him, as ever, followed Matthew, whom he had haled out of his stateroom with a curt command to bring his book and come at once.
Only now, with an awful sense of impending doom, did Matthew realize he had snatched up the wrong book. Gordon had meant his journal. Instead his hand had fallen on a volume about Scottish tartans which he had spotted in a St. Louis bookstore and immediately bought, thinking that a knowledge of this subject might ingratiate him with his employer. Gordon was becoming more and more irascible; the least mistake on Matthew’s part drove him into a fury.
Yet when things were going well he could be charming and generous. He had even (how long ago it all seemed now!) brought himself to apologize the day after the Mardi Gras débâcle, blaming his behavior on his rough upbringing and that in turn on the pitiable condition of Scotland.
Suffering his first hangover, Matthew had considered resigning, thinking that if he pawned his birthday presents he could raise enough to get him home. But the idea of confronting his uncle was daunting; he allowed himself to be persuaded to carry on… only to be met with constant reproaches and insults.
If there were someone he could talk to! But there was no one aboard close to his own age, apart from Iliff’s mud clerk Anthony Crossall, and Matthew found him coarse and ignorant.
He was becoming very lonely and rather frightened.
But he had an immediate problem to cope with. Cautiously he assessed his chance of stealing back to collect his journal without calling down another of Gordon’s thunderbolts, and decided it would be best to lay down his book and leave the cabin visibly empty-handed. He did so, and inevitably came the rasping question, “Boy, where are you off to?”
&nb
sp; In a tolerably steady voice he answered, “I don’t know that my pencil will last out the meeting, sir. I’d best bring another.”
Gordon grunted but made no further comment. Next to him Woodley glanced at his watch, frowning. “Where the devil are Colin and Dermot?” he muttered. “Matthew! If you see them, say we’re all waiting!”
“Yes, sir!”
Miraculously the pilots arrived just as Matthew was returning to the cabin. Under cover of the distraction he was able to gain the alcove, a little distance from the table but well within earshot, where he customarily sat during meetings. And froze. Whitworth, chewing one of his usual panatelas, was leafing through the book he had left there, shaking his head. Realizing Matthew was back, he glanced up.
“This yours? With all the pictures of men wearing skirts like music-hall dancers?”
Not waiting for a reply, he slapped shut the book.
“More I learn about you and your precious Mr. Gordon,” he said in a low but savage tone, “the more I wonder why you’re not in jail!”
Dimly aware of what he was implying, Matthew ventured, “But those are only pictures of Scottish national dress, Mr. Whitworth.”
“You should wear it yourself, then,” Whitworth snapped. “Then there couldn’t be any mistake about you!”
With a final glare he took his place near the foot of the table, between Underwood and Burge, opposite Bates the steward and Hans Katzmann the caterer. Everybody looked expectantly at Woodley.
“Gentlemen, I’ve called you together because we’re in trouble. Worse trouble than I formerly believed. Mr. McNab knows what I’m talking about, and Mr. Gordon better than either of us.”
Gordon scowled and hunched further into his chair.