by John Brunner
Affecting a jovial manner, he said, “Señor! Join me for breakfast!”
During their repast, while he dutifully noted down whatever Manuel could tell him in intervals between preening—he had never before been the guest of a passenger here in the cabin—Joel had something else on his mind, constantly distracting. Arthur had put in an appearance, his expression defiant, as though challenging the world to comment on his decision to remain aboard. Spotting Joel, he had taken a place as far away as possible at the common table. But his eyes kept shifting every time there was the noise of a door opening. Small wonder.
In the meantime Joel made frantic notes, wondering how much of what Manuel was recounting Graves would regard as fit to print and thinking it would probably be too little to justify spending all this time on it.
At the back of his mind he was calculating at what point, if the Nonpareil fell even farther behind, it would be worth leaving the boat and overtaking her rival by railroad. Conceivably one might even cut across a narrow neck of land on horseback… No, that was too chancy.
Not that railroads were totally reliable either; had they been, possibly the Grammonts would have overcome their notorious prejudice and sent for the Electric Doctor by that route. But if the train were delayed, it would be by a spectacular amount, involving the slow and costly conveyance of new rails from the nearest depot. Even if a steamer ran aground, she could quickly refloat herself without outside aid. On a commercial average, therefore, it made sense to trust the tried and true steamboat.
How long this would last was anyone’s guess. Long enough, Joel decided, to warrant doing his duty by his paper and getting the best material back to it from every stopping place, or even slowing-down place. He composed himself to go on listening to Manuel, keeping one ear alert for the appearance of Auberon. All his instincts indicated that when the latter set eyes on his brother-in-law there would be hell to pay.
But there was still no sign of him when Manuel, with visible regret, finished eating and announced that he had to go and round up his musicians.
“Excuse me, sir!”
A question at the top of the speaker’s voice. Leaning on the forward rail of the hurricane deck, lowering his telescope, Joel turned in answer.
“I see you have a map, sir!”
Indeed he did: a copy of Schönberg’s The Mississippi, Alton to the Gulf of Mexico, As Seen from the Hurricane Deck, glued to canvas and folded accordion-fashion.
“Does it give the name of those bluffs?”
Although it was already out of date, thanks to changes in the river’s course, Joel was able to answer that one.
“Those must be Ellis Cliffs. In which case we’re about two hundred sixty miles from New Orleans.”
He had to shout because ahead lay one of the straight stretches where the Atchafalaya had built up her lead and the pilot was hoping to close it, so the pounding of the engines was making the entire hull vibrate.
“Thank you!”
After that, for a minute or two, there was no further conversation. It was a stifling day; thermometers were registering in the eighties, with the promise of topping ninety before noon. The river lay gray-green across the landscape like a nightmarish mold, fringed with trees almost as gray, the usual willows and cottonwoods and in the distance hickory and white oak which, to achieve full growth, required longer than the river was prepared to grant. In the shrub-low vegetation that bordered the water, creatures moved as the approaching boat alarmed them: terrapins, more frequently an alligator, most often a flock of birds. Always and everywhere insects swarmed, but their main assault would be at sundown, as usual.
Hereabouts there were few signs of human habitation. Some slight smoke drifted up from a spot astern, but might be due to a short-trade boat overtaken earlier, laboring up from Baton Rouge to Vicksburg like a cart horse being outstripped by a thoroughbred. Soon they would sight Como Landing and beyond that would be the near-twin cities of Natchez and Vidalia, facing one another across the immense bosom of the waters, linked by memory—the saying went—as much as by the struggling ferries that plied between them.
But the land was poor in this area, and too liable to flooding. Disillusioned, a generation of would-be farmers had quit and trudged north, and now their shacks and hovels and barns of bits and pieces lined the banks at other spots just as vulnerable to the Mississippi’s whim. To testify to their former presence, they had left a few wind-battered structures, roofless, warping, rotten, and a scattering of rusty implements too heavy to take away.
If the land had been worth the having, plantation owners would have seized it, as they had done a bend or two higher: Quitman, Fairchild, Zachary Taylor who had gone on to become a general. The lesson had been learned the hard way: it was imperative to be greedy, so as to have enough left over to insure against the depredations of the river. Freed slaves and poor whites stood no chance. The rich could spend their servants, and if an acre or two of truck garden were washed away, it was not they who hungered.
Suddenly Joel realized that the questioner had remained hovering nearby. He said with a start, “Oh, you’re Mr. Gordon’s amanuensis, aren’t you?”
Half-flattered and half-abashed at being recognized, Matthew held up before him—like a shield—a book in an embossed leather slipcover.
“We last met at the Limousin the night of Mardi Gras,” Joel continued. “And I’m glad to have this chance of saying I was made ashamed by what they did to you.”
Matthew’s small-featured face froze for a second, his mouth turned down at the corners. Conscious of a faux pas, Joel offered his telescope, which was accepted with alacrity.
“How far ahead do you reckon she can be?” Matthew said after a careful survey of the horizon.
Very much aware that several people had noticed the telescope and were hovering nearby, hoping for the loan of it, Joel answered with premeditated loudness.
“Too far to be caught up in a hurry!”
At the words the onlookers reacted with animation. Joel hoped that discussion of the possibility of being beaten might supplant last night’s gossip about the threat of wrecking that he had helped to trigger off. He was embarrassed whenever he remembered how he had fallen in with Auberon’s absurd gloss on Josephine’s few wild words.
Where was she, anyhow? So far today there was no more sign of her than of Auberon.
Matthew was persisting with his questions. “Think she’s already made a coaling stop at Natchez?”
“It won’t be a stop as such,” Joel said. “Not unless she still has passengers Drew didn’t manage to get rid of before departure. Even if he does, he may perfectly well just pitch them overside into his empty coal flats! Now he has the lead, he’s not about to yield it in a hurry. Would you?”
Matthew gave a nervous grin and headshake, returning the telescope.
Joel accepted it, glancing uneasily around. Suppose at this very moment Arthur and Auberon were meeting elsewhere on the boat…
Well, if they were, there was nothing he could do about it.
Rapidly, for distraction’s sake, he went on talking to Matthew as he closed the telescope’s leather case.
“What’s more,” he amplified, “it isn’t at Natchez that the real strain will be felt. It’s beyond, in the reach south of Bruinsburg.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Joel echoed, as much for the bystanders’ sake as Matthew’s; his earlier ploy had failed to distract them completely, but given that they presumably knew he was a journalist, they must be forgiven for expecting him to have inside information. “Because south of Bruinsburg, between Rodney and Waterproof Landing, was where Captain Parbury lost the former Nonpareil.”
“Is that so?” Matthew breathed. “Does he know?”
“How could he not?” Joel countered, astonished.
“I mean being blind and all…”
“Oh, I get you. No, blind or not, I swear he knows every reach and bend on the river. And there’s a very special reason why on thi
s of all trips it’s going to rankle if we don’t regain the lead.”
For a moment Joel was tempted to explain how Parbury had hired the man who fired the fatal shot. But he thought better of it. He might be the only reporter aboard; there could, though, all too easily be people who hadn’t yet heard about Caesar and would earn a few dollars by selling the information to a local paper. In any case it was time for him to finish his next report; Natchez was drawing near. He wondered whether, before then, he might corner and grill Parbury concerning his feelings, but decided to reserve that for tomorrow. His conversation with Manuel had given him plenty of material for the time being. He must, though, have a word with Woodley.
Sensing he was no longer welcome, Matthew murmured thanks for the loan of the telescope and moved away. One of the other passengers tried to press Joel for the “special reason,” and Joel parried neatly. The bystanders dispersed. He was about to go in search of Woodley when he noticed that Matthew had left his book behind. Picking it up, assuming it to be a continuation of the journal Gordon required the boy to keep, he idly opened it at a page marked with a slip of paper.
And found it was an illustrated account of Scottish tartans. The marked page dealt with Clan Macrae.
Doubtless Matthew was trying to ingratiate himself with his employer. Not that it seemed to be doing the poor devil any good…
Tucking the book under his arm, intending to return it at the first opportunity, Joel returned to cabin level. And found his worst fears confirmed, for the first thing he spotted was Auberon, immaculately clad, freshly shaved, unnaturally bright-eyed, approaching Arthur, who stood at the bar talking to Hugo Spring.
He rushed inside, arriving just in time to see Auberon touch his brother-in-law on the arm, quite lightly but very firmly.
“Good morning, Arthur,” he said.
Arthur muttered some sort of reply. Glancing around to see who else, apart from Hugo and the tenders, would witness the confrontation, Joel saw a dark, thin figure sitting in the neutral ground near the water cooler, leaning back with eyes closed: Josephine. But she seemed to be paying no attention.
Meantime Auberon had more to say. Much more.
“Forgive me for touching you without invitation. But I had to convince myself you were real. I thought it was a bad dream I was having when I walked in and saw you. I thought it impossible that you should have sent my sister ashore in her condition and returned aboard yourself. Quite impossible!”
“I told her not to come,” Arthur growled. “She insisted, no matter how I warned her.”
“Some would say,” Auberon gibed, “that a man whose wife can make him give in against his better judgment has no better judgment.”
“If I had gone with her it wouldn’t have done any good!” Arthur snapped. “She started arguing that it was because I tried to stop her coming she got these pains. Nonsense, of course! If you ask me, it had more to do with the vanity which makes her insist on tight lacing even now. I’ve told off that damned maid of hers more times than I can count, but—”
“So you dismissed her in the care of this untrustworthy servant,” Auberon cut in, scalpel-neat. Arthur straightened, flushing; his eyes were red from drink and lack of sleep, and he was unshaven and his cravat was loose. He looked worse today than Auberon yesterday.
“Furthermore,” the latter continued, “you are now taking refuge in insulting Louisette. I admit I expected no better of you, of course. However, it gives me grounds for telling you what I plan to do. If you were any sort of a gentleman, but for the fact that it is unmannerly to make a widow of one’s own sister, I would call you out. I’m certain Joel would be glad to act as my second, wouldn’t you?”—with a sidelong smile. “Since your lack of decency makes it out of the question, I shall simply ensure that the other passengers treat you in the manner the English call ‘sending to Coventry’—in other words, decline to speak to you for the rest of the trip. If your behavior results in the death of my sister or the loss of her child, I shall take the skin off your back with a horsewhip. Is that clear?”
He was smaller and slighter than Arthur, but there was such menace in the last few words, it seemed for a moment that he towered over the other like a wild beast, fangs and claws bared. The illusion passed, and he was affably addressing Hugo.
“I trust, sir, you will set a fashion for the rest by removing yourself from the company of this loathsome cad. I now plan to seek out the officers and enlist their support against him. Joel, you are presumably better acquainted with them than I am, having interviewed them. Be so kind as to perform the necessary introductions, will you?”
He turned away. Arthur tossed down the last of his drink, caught him by the shoulder and swung him around, and punched him as hard as he could at the base of the breastbone. Auberon doubled over, gasping—and with the gasp came a sudden bright flow of blood from his mouth and nose.
“Stop, you damned fool!” Joel shouted, seizing Arthur’s wrist. At once they were surrounded by stewards and tenders, black and white, and Arthur, panting, yielded after a brief struggle. Meantime Auberon gasped again, making a horrible bubbling noise.
“Mam’zelle Josephine!” Joel shouted. “Here, quickly!”
Taking his cousin by the arm, he led him to a chair and used his own handkerchief to mop up the blood. Arthur stood staring dazedly, muttering at last, “I didn’t mean to do that. Just wanted to shut the bastard up!”
Josephine, opening her eyes, assessing the situation, hastened over. With professional expertise she looked at the blood, noting what a brilliant color it was, then felt his forehead and took a few counts of his pulse.
Straightening, she said, “Get him to bed at once.”
“I’m all right!” Auberon protested.
“That was a vicious blow!” Josephine declared. “It must have done severe harm! Whoever hit you should be thoroughly ashamed! You and you”—indicating the nearest waiters—“help me take him to his room.”
Arthur made to follow, but Joel checked him with a glare.
“Carry on, and it won’t just be poor sick Auberon you have to deal with, but me! Didn’t I warn you last night? For Loose’s sake I’d rather not, but if Auberon isn’t well enough to horsewhip you, I’ll strip your reputation away instead of your skin, I’ll write two reports to be sent from Natchez. You can choose which one goes ashore. Why not pack your bags?”
And he stalked off in Josephine’s wake.
When Auberon had been made comfortable and they had closed his stateroom door, Joel said in a low tone to Josephine, “It wasn’t just being hit that did the damage, was it?”
She shook her head wearily.
“Of course not. Why didn’t they send him to one of those fancy sanatoriums they got in places like Switzerland?”
“I don’t think they know. If you mean his parents.”
“That figures. Runs in the family. Don’t notice things right under their noses!”
“You mean he hasn’t realized who you are?”
She shook her head again, this time with a faint smile. “Tell him about it one day, I guess… You knew, didn’t you? Right away?”
“Well—I worked it out.”
“And you’re a reporter?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Bet you write the best stories in the paper.”
Joel forced a smile.
“Think he ought to be put ashore at—?”
She cut him short. “Better he goes all the way to St. Louis. They say northern climate is better for cases like his. In fact I guess he ought to go clear to the North Pole. I’m surprised he didn’t sign up with Dr. Cherouen, you know. You heard he went to see him?”
“Yes.”
“His ozone treatment does seem to have been helpful to some TB cases… Anyway, don’t you worry. I’ll take care of him.”
“Uh—there’s the question of your fee.” Joel fumbled coins from his pocket and made to offer them, but she closed her hand firmly over his, thrusting it away.
&nbs
p; “No call for that! I don’t have too much else to do this trip, do I? Now you go explain to the captain.”
He glanced round. There indeed was Woodley striding along the cabin. Josephine gave Joel a firm push and reentered the stateroom.
Well, at least from here he could segue into the interview he had been intending. He pulled pencil and notebook from his pocket, looking around for Arthur.
But of neither him nor Hugo was there any sign.
Elation grew and grew aboard the Atchafalaya as she drew closer to Natchez. She was running as though she were brand new and the engines’ rhythm was clock steady. For the passengers on the upper deck, the back-breaking gut-wrenching work which made that possible was remote, invisible, except when by turns the begrimed and sweating firemen were allowed a minute’s breather on the guards and appeared like very fiends, gasping and spitting gobs of sooty phlegm.
It was known that Drew had made a speciality of fast coaling. His technique was admired yet rarely copied, calling as it did for a skill that few possessed. People on board who ordinarily thought of coal as the concern of servants suddenly developed a vast interest in the technicalities of transferring it from shore to flat—as the barges were called—and flat to steamer. Those who had condescended to take in such data in the past were unexpectedly at the center of attention. How rapid, how alchemical, must be the transformation that converted black random lumps into vapor, heat, and the power to keep those huge wheels lashing the brown water!
But even those who had bet most heavily on the Atchafalaya were not worried about the time she was likely to spend refueling. However long she took, the Nonpareil was certain to take longer.
From the moment Drew relieved Fernand to let him take breakfast with his mother and Dorcas, it had been obvious that the regular watch roster was going by the board. The tension was so tremendous, no four-on, four-off system could be adhered to.