by John Brunner
In the same instant he was easing the boat into an improbable but necessary curve, because here the old channel was silting up and the new one hardly established. A sense of strength rightly applied flowed up his arms and seemed to permeate his brain. Drew could have challenged his judgment; a teacher with his former pupil had the privilege. And the boat was worth—well, its formal price didn’t matter, but half was Barber’s, and Drew wanted to win it off him, so…
Memories of Edouard flowed back, the old faint voice discussing the impact of money.
Regardless of all that, he had been allowed to continue on his breakneck course! He had come out of night at full split; he was running no faster now than he had been in the half-light of false dawn; he had added to the Atchafalaya’s lead while sheer good luck ensured that he neither heard nor felt so much as a twig brush the hull.
Drew, however, was prepared to accept it as the reward for skill.
This, he thought with a tremor of awe, is why I admired Edouard and do admire Drew; why I may love but can’t respect my mother; why I despise my cousins and their butterfly wives; why I hope to love and cherish Dorcas and have children to whom I can pass on this lesson.
I have been trusted; let it show me how to trust.
In a little while he would greet Dorcas and his mother, escort them to breakfast, taste the first hint of what life would be like as a married man, console the former for what Parbury (damn his guts!) had done to her, comfort the latter as best he might for the fact that he did not believe in her magic: walk the tightrope path between sympathy and insult which was so like steering the monstrous bulk of the Atchafalaya—
A shriek on the edge of hearing! His hand was flying to the backing bell rope before he was able to dismiss what he had reacted to. Like being touched on a naked nerve, the scrape of an underwater obstacle, most likely a rotting branch, had triggered all his pilot’s reflexes. But none of the consequent signs had followed, not even a crunch as it shattered on the implacable buckets of the nearer wheel. It had washed away, was gone.
Image after relevant image pestered him: girls he would never see again, yet never forget; temporary crewmen on the many boats he had now piloted…
Which led him back to the men he had met serving under Drew, and Drew’s stake in this race, and a delicate question of judgment: whether he should rush onward and trust his luck would hold, or yield to caution and chance letting the Nonpareil close the gap.
He stared at the huge flat expanse of water ahead, and glanced back, and shut his eyes for a second and tried to sense the pattern of vibrations reaching him from the giant pistons. It seemed normal to the point of being monotonous, which doubtless must be why he had paid it less and less attention during the course of his watch.
Therefore there was no reason to slow down, except lack of confidence in his own skill. From below he could hear voices, even someone singing. The news was abroad that the Nonpareil was far astern, and there was laughter.
Why disappoint the thrill seekers? Why not enjoy a challenge to himself? Earlier it had been reflexive; this time it could be conscious.
Taking a fresh grip on the wheel, he resolved to lay the steamer into her next marks at unprecedented speed.
What am I doing here?
From a night full of despairing dreams Gaston woke to indescribable strangeness: a low ceiling, confining walls—as in Mr. Poe’s celebrated nouvelle concerning a refined torture of the Inquisition—and an all-pervading throb, as though he had slept in the guts of some colossal beast, close enough to its heart to feel its pounding.
He rolled off the bed and was within arm’s reach of the one tiny window, decorously curtained. Peering out, he found he was looking directly toward one of the most gorgeous sunrises he had ever been privileged to see.
The reds and golds, colors of vitality and action, wiped his mind of pointless fears. Here he was, having cast his bread upon the waters, doing exactly what he had promised himself so long ago: undertaking a voyage up the Mississippi. And there was music of a kind, barbaric though it might be, for idle deckhands were passing time with a mournful chant. He fancied he could make out words he had heard before, concerning judgment day and the fall of stars from heaven. Well, if he were ever to compose the tone poem he had originally imagined, he must accept the crudity of North America and incorporate what raw materials it provided. After all, so trivial a theme as a common chord had served as inspiration for great composers of the past…
His spirits revived. Suddenly he was hungry too.
Within ten minutes of waking, fully clad and donning his best silk hat, Gaston d’Aurade emerged to face breakfast and a whole new life.
Eulalie had scarcely slept; when she did doze off, the engines’ throbbing became like the beating of drums and carried her away to a ceremony in a vast and distant place, where she knew none of her fellow celebrants and where she had to offer her body in turn to countless violent strangers. There was a fire in the center of a ring of dancers. She strove to shape its glow into the form of the crucifix she had brought to aid her son. Again and again, just as she thought she could detect the outline of the cross, came another hot uprush from the embers and a hideous sketch for a human face leered at her with black pits for eyes and a great maw full of tonguelike flames.
Yet, paradoxically, when she awoke she was somewhat comforted, as though she had paid an asked-for price. As yet she dared not guess what it was. There was one terrifying possibility—that she had set in train the very events which would lead to the loss of her only son—but she was incapable of facing the idea. She clung rather to the recollection of having acted in a proper, indeed, a dignified, manner when this young man, born of her loins but grown into an alien, presented his intended wife.
Memory confirmed her first opinion. Here was not what she had been afraid of, some flirty little fortune hunter with a roving eye and a stock of jewels, gifts from her previous admirers. On the contrary, although she was undoubtedly beautiful, this Dorcas seemed meek and polite and affected a respectable style of dress.
A meek daughter-in-law would be an admirable acquisition.
Today, therefore, she resolved to cement the acquaintanceship and establish dominance… not that she verbalized the latter impulse. She had feared a mistake; now she knew she had done perfectly right to arrive aboard her son’s boat on this trip. There were bound to be, had already been, slights to suffer that were due to her—and Fernand’s—color. Never mind! They might smart awhile, but they could never touch the heart of one who was heiress to a greater fortune than any white slave-owning family had ever enjoyed, the mystical and magical bequest of Athalie whom thousands worshiped.
When she discovered that the Atchafalaya had overtaken the Nonpareil, she made up her mind to perform a necessary rite today, perhaps with materials begged from the cooks. There were bound to be chickens on board.
And let the mysterious Josephine remain a mystery to her grave!
It had taken Barber a long time to get back to sleep after the episode at Baton Rouge. Along with everyone else who had been roused from bed by the overtaking, he had relished the spectacle of the Nonpareil frustrated at the wharf. But even his best field glasses could not inform him of the reason for her stop. Gross, however, had assured him it could not be due to mechanical breakdown. He had been an engineer and lost his certificate on grounds he preferred not to go into, though sometimes he hinted they had to do with besting his captain in a barroom fight.
But the moment the notion of breakdown entered Barber’s head, it began to plague him. Not since her maiden voyage had he traveled aboard this vessel he half owned. Since then, had not an alarming coughlike sound developed in the starboard cylinder, or a new shrill wheeze in the other one? Did not the wheels creak over loudly in their bearings? Were not more frightening groans uttered by the hull and upperworks every time the Atchafalaya crossed a contrary current or the wake of another steamer?
Above all, had not the junior engineer been severely sca
lded within a few miles of the start? Today he was informed that the man should be fit for work, but one needed an authoritative opinion.
He pondered all this as he sat in a barber’s chair, being shaved by Jones.
At last, while the surplus lather was being wiped away, he said, “Cuffy! Go invite Dr. Cherouen to take breakfast with me. And don’t let him say no!”
Cuffy departed obediently. Rising, retying his cravat before the mirror, Barber asked his reflection whether he had made a sound decision, betting so much on the older boat. If she lost, would he be left in sole ownership of a vessel of use for little except scrap? Even if she was capable of earning her living for a few more years, he would have to find a new captain, new pilots, new crew…
No, she must win the race, if only because were she to lose it would cost him at least forty-eight thousand dollars.
Of course, there were supporters of the Nonpareil who had bet as much again…
His heart fluttered and trembled in a sensation all gamblers knew. Privately, he sometimes compared it to falling in love.
But that was not something he had much experience of.
Dorcas could scarcely tell whether she had been awake or asleep between midnight and dawn. Even now she wished she might not be awake. The shift and shudder of the room where she found herself, the trembling of the bed she lay in, the rattle of tooth glass against water carafe, the flicker of dust in shafting sunlight—for it was already proving a clear bright day—all, all conspired to mock her plight.
And who was to blame for it? Herself alone.
She strove to think of Fernand and was briefly comforted. A man, that one, not a boy! Tough and trusty, and with a skill to support her, to make him and her both rich after they were wed. And with certain other talents…
She tried to think only of him clothed, his smiling face as he doffed his tall hat and made a bow, and was unable to escape recollection of his bare body. She did not picture it; she had indeed not seen it save as a series of sliding shiny planes by a glimmering lamp. But her hands knew it, and her skin, and her inmost being. He had convulsed her into what was almost terror, as though volcanoes had erupted. Perhaps that was what made sure of his achievement. One night had not cost other girls such a grave penalty; Fibby had lain with her man for more than a year, and his seed fell on barren ground.
For herself, here was only the second time of her life, and it was the second disaster. (What had been the name of the boy with eyes like chips of sky? She had realized with dismay on waking that she no longer knew it. Yesterday she had!)
Turned out of her home, forced to move to a city anonymous and incomprehensible, she had found sanctuary, a lover, a husband, and a future. Had she lost them again?
Her thoughts spun giddily. She began to weep, tears coursing her flawless cheeks like crystal insects. She was indescribably afraid of what she had done and only half understood why. An older and wiser woman could have explained, but the new life growing in her had no skill to communicate.
Expulsion from home for making love, loss of her child, equated in her head with expulsion—by choice—from the Parburys’ house, where she had been secure after a fashion. She had been reborn at New Orleans; now she had to endure a third birth, into responsibility and marriage and motherhood… question mark. This life also might end before it properly began. But at all events she knew one thing. She could never again be what she had been: a dutiful daughter, a dutiful servant. She had failed in both roles.
Now she was condemned to be forever Mr. Lamenthe’s “scarlet woman.” And it had taken such tremendous effort to break the links that bound her to the past, to transform herself for a few brief hours to please him! How could she be that other amazing version of Dorcas for days, weeks, years, a lifetime?
The prospect was unbearable. She lay alone, quietly sobbing. Eventually someone knocked at the door. If only it could be Fernand, or Dr. Malone, who had saved her before…!
But it was doubtless a servant, who went away.
Last night nervous tension—it was always nervous tension, exacerbated this time by having to tend Walt, whose injuries reminded him of the war—had driven Cherouen to drink too much. Consequently he had retired comparatively early. Yet, he had been unable to sleep for a long while. The fact that he had overlooked something as blatant as Josephine’s use of arsenic had struck at the foundations of his self-confidence. He had come to rely implicitly on that woman. How could she have been so stupid?
Above all: without her, was he going to be able to cope?
And what a fool he was going to look if the Nonpareil reached St. Louis first!
That was his last thought before he was claimed by slumber so deep he knew nothing of what happened at Baton Rouge, until…
“Doctor!” And a firm, repeated knock.
“Who is it?” he growled, eyes still closed. “What d’you want?”
“Mas’ Barber’s Cuffy, sah! He sent me to tell you we’s in de lead dis mawnin’—”
Instantly, though bleary-eyed, Cherouen was awake and marveling.
“—an’ to ask ef you’ll take breakfas’ wid’m, sah.”
“Sure I will, just as soon as I’m dressed,” Cherouen declared, and climbed cautiously out of bed. His head throbbed almost as badly as the engines, but he hummed a lively tune as he drew on his clothes.
“Seen your girl today?”
Fernand started, having thought himself alone in the pilothouse. Tyburn was not due to take over for some while yet, and he had assumed that Drew’s rounds would occupy him longer than this. Here he was, though, standing at his shoulder; all of a sudden it was like being a cub again.
But the feeling passed in an instant. He had had a good watch up to now. Jackson’s Point had been safely rounded; he had made a flawless passage of Dead Man’s Bar, named for a corpse seen, long ago, snagged on a flood-uprooted tree in mid-river. Boys among steamer crews liked to frighten passengers and first-timers with the eerie name, evoking ghosts.
Now the toll of islands was reaching 117, 116; yonder to larboard lay Lake Cocodrie, baptized by French explorers who marveled at the hordes of alligators they found there. Beyond Ellis Cliffs, those soft-faced slabs of land raw from the touch of the Creator, there remained only Como Landing before their first coaling stop at Natchez: 279 miles upstream from New Orleans as the river ran at present—and who could guess how far next year?
Except, of course, there would not be a stop. There would be a mere pause, just as during their last St. Louis trip. It was a fine clear morning, and by noon it was going to be swelteringly hot. Everything was working out just fine. Apart from…
When he answered Drew, Fernand’s tone was scarcely that of a lover eager to see his betrothed.
“Not yet, Captain! I guess when I go off watch.”
“I got her,” Drew said, laying his hand on the wheel. “I didn’t see her in the cabin when I passed through just now, and Ernest said she hadn’t been in earlier. Start acting like a man with responsibilities—go rout her out and feed her a decent breakfast.”
Having made a hasty detour to change his shirt and run a razor over his face, Fernand almost collided, as he entered the cabin, with a man taller than himself, impeccable in gray, with a small moustache and imperial beard like his own. Each knew he had seen the other before; neither could coerce memory into recognition. They therefore exchanged apologies and went their ways, and later on kept sneaking puzzled glances at one another.
But for the next few moments this encounter was driven out of Fernand’s mind.
He looked down the colossal vista of the cabin, thinking what a contrast it presented with the last St. Louis trip. Astonishingly they were running better with all the window glass in place, and even with the deadweight of guards and swinging stages. Maybe this was a paradox like the fact that for a given power and breadth of hull a longer boat would always prove faster than a shorter one. Maybe it cost less in terms of effort to have all the air pass by the upperworks than to l
et it come whistling through.
Or maybe their superior speed this time was due to the fact that the river was at a more favorable level, near bank-full, so they were wasting less time on hesitation and second thoughts. At any rate the cabin this morning was most impressive. The linen was as white, the glassware as brilliant, the cutlery as heavy and numerous, as usual.
Of course, most of the places laid were for people not on board.
Of those who were…
Fernand’s eyes roved across the few passengers present. Red-faced and yawning, Cherouen sat next to Barber, engulfing a deal of hot coffee and seemingly nothing else. Apart from those two, and Barber’s attendants, there were only a bunch of nonentities along for the thrill, going to and presumably returning from St. Louis for the mere relief of boredom. To one who must work for his living, for his future wife, for his eventual family, their presence was a sort of insult.
Fernand was disturbed to find himself thinking in this manner. He recalled Uncle Edouard and his reference to “your respectable revolutionary heritage,” and a shiver ran down his spine. He forced himself to make a move. Nodding to Barber and Cherouen, he headed for the water cooler, his gaze searching the zone beyond, wondering what these people would have felt had they been aboard for the Larzenac trip. None so comfortable then!
His attention was abruptly diverted. A head of lustrous black hair, a cheek and hand of rich creamy gold, eyes dark as pits at midnight: seated by herself at one of the tables for four, the most beautiful woman in sight, the only beautiful woman in sight, cynosure of all the men who clustered at the midships end of the common table. In particular the man in gray was ogling her… but who could blame him?
Then time ran aground for Fernand on the reef of awareness that very shortly he was going to need spectacles, an intolerable nuisance for a river pilot.
It wasn’t Dorcas he was looking at…
His recovery was prompt. He marched up to her, bestowed a kiss on her cheek, emphasized the final word in his greeting: “Good morning, maman!”