by John Brunner
Against orders, one of the waiters flipped up the shade over a glass door at the rear of the cabin.
And there she was! Her chimneys reaching skyward, she loomed against the deceptive darkness of the night, magnified by contrast.
For a heartbeat Fernand was overcome with horror. Then, with indescribable relief, he found himself able to translate the gap between the racing vessels into terms of time, and realized that a good fifteen minutes must separate them, due to be extended—if all went well—by the Atchafalaya’s faster coaling. He had been looking at the Nonpareil, framed by the window, as though at a picture cast on a screen by a magic lantern. An optical illusion had made her seem infinitely closer than she really was: that, plus the extraordinary penetrating power of her whistle.
Yet… And here his pilot’s instincts overcame him. Still, the argument in his head ran, she must have made up half the time she had lost during her tangle with the drift in Grand Cutoff. Which implied…
“You poor dear,” his mother said close to his ear. “You’re worn out!”
Which was so transparently true, he made no objection when they urged him to his stateroom.
He wished with all his heart he might keep Dorcas with him, but even as he removed the second of his boots, sleep claimed him.
His last thought was that Dorcas must have forgiven him for making her cry.
The Nonpareil was closing on the Atchafalaya—no doubt of it! Because the final run toward Memphis was clear and straight, Trumbull had been able to make up an amazing amount of distance during the last half hour. He had come full ahead from President’s Island when Fernand was obliged to slow for the bend at Fort Pickering, and risked the shortest course across that bend. By the time Drew took over, the Nonpareil was already getting up speed, as her rival slowed to poise herself for coaling she was pelting onward with all the power at her command and visibly gaining!
Risking everything on his now long-standing acquaintance with this mettlesome yet awkward vessel, Trumbull had done by night what few pilots would have dared by day: run that final bend on memory alone, trusting the bowsheer to sweep aside and, if worse came to worst, overturn the small boats putting out from shore. Anything, so long as they didn’t foul the wheels!
He’d made it, anyway. And small thanks he would get for it, what with a captain who was not a pilot, a pilot called captain who could never be one, and an owner who cared mostly about money. What a trio! In his heart he was inclined to refer to them as an unholy trinity…
At least Hogan would realize what he had done when he next came on watch. But there was one final chore to be undertaken: linking up with the coal flats. And there was a hell of a racket on the decks below. He reached for the rope that summoned the texas tender, an order to be relayed boiling in his mind like low water in an overstressed boiler. He could not spare attention for any distraction, even music, even song.
Manuel knew no more about the actual operation of a steamboat than your average passenger; however, in common with everybody else aboard, he had sensed the excitement as the Nonpareil doubled her nighttime speed in this final rush toward Memphis. It became pointless to continue playing in the cabin; everybody was going out on deck, even those who were so tired or drink-sodden they could scarcely take two breaths without a yawn.
Besides, the pounding of the engines was imposing its own rhythm, fiercer than any the band could muster.
And suddenly a rhyme popped into his head.
“The Nonpareil,” he muttered half aloud, “is on her way!”
Picking up their instruments to adjourn to the deck, where they expected as usual to play while making this brief stopover, a couple of the musicians overheard: two of the blackest, who took second place whether it was in regard to seating on the bandstand or the right to choose new positions on deck.
They grinned at him, and one of them patted juba on his bass fiddle’s back with one hand as he lifted it with the other: thump, thump! His colleague imitated him with a triplet cross-rhythm on his banjo’s vellum.
“The Nonpareil [slap-slap] is on her way [slap-slap]!”
A passing waiter copied the beat with a pair of spoons, and it acquired a complex percussive obbligato. A tender clearing up the mess along the bar thought for a moment, then dropped sugar lumps into a tall glass and began to rattle it back and forth, improvising a shac-shac.
Manuel beamed. This was the kind of music he loved most—invented on the spur of the moment, identified with the event it commemorated, capable of being recalled for a generation afterward and bringing memories with it.
“The Nonpareil is on her way!” he shouted, brandishing his baton as he followed the rest of the musicians to the foredeck.
Within less than a minute the slogan had seized the imagination of everybody in earshot. The passengers stamped or clapped to its insistent beat; the musicians, one by one, picked up the tune—less than a melody, more than a phrase—and started to embroider it with trills and variations; the deckhands shouted it with defiant approval.
For a brief span it seemed that the entire steamer was pervaded by the conviction of ultimate victory. Manuel danced with excitement, trying to keep the beat going as the engines slowed abreast of the crowded waterfront.
But already the Atchafalaya was beyond the northern city limits, her well-drilled men transferring fuel at an unmatchable rate. And suddenly the message came down from the Olympian height of the pilothouse:
“Mas’ Trumbull he say quiet here! Quiet!”
Little by little the singers and shouters and stampers grew silent. Manuel drooped his head and let his baton fall to his side.
To the devil with them all, these cold-blooded gringos!
“But, Mr. Siskin, haven’t I explained why it could be disastrous were you to publish the fact that you went to Cairo by train?”
Over and over, Gordon had been harping on the same refrain, plying Joel the while with far more beer, wine, and other liquor than he wanted; the table between them was crowded with half-empty bottles. If ever they were to invent the promised device that could repeat human speech, Joel reflected sourly, then it would sound pretty much like Gordon.
He had escaped long enough to finish the report he must cable to New Orleans tonight, but then it had started anew. Abruptly he could put up with it no longer.
With infinite gratitude he saw Auberon approaching, with Josephine hovering beside him like a guardian angel. He was in full fig, but obviously weak, for he was walking with a slim black cane.
Joel leaped to his feet.
“I must take leave of my cousin before I quit the boat!” he exclaimed. “And I have one final thing to say to you, Mr. Gordon!”
By Gordon’s side, as ever, Matthew sat; he flinched as in expectation of a blow.
“I’m a reporter! It’s my duty to record the facts! And the fact is that thus far the Nonpareil has not overtaken the Atchafalaya!”
He thrust back his chair and stalked away.
“Obe, old fellow—”
Auberon interrupted him, eyes feverishly searching the cabin. “Has that bastard Arthur decided to go ashore?” he demanded.
“I haven’t seen him lately! Nor Hugo or Stella. Are they on deck?”
“I don’t know! Night air is said to be unhealthy, so my beloved half-sister won’t let me go and see!”
Pleadingly Josephine put in, “But this is a yellow-fever area!”
Privately Joel felt that any such miasma must already be present in the cabin; what difference could it make whether you breathed the air this or that side of drawn curtains? Mosquitoes penetrated them, after all. Waiters and tenders with a spare moment went around swatting the little devils; nonetheless by morning everybody on board was likely to have been bitten.
He compromised.
“Whether he’s going ashore or not, I certainly am! I wish I could stay, but it’s going to be better for me to report from the leading boat, isn’t it?”
“You’re so certain we’ll be beat
en?”
“If you’re in the lead when you get to Cairo, I’ll rejoin you!”
“I guess you may do so anyhow,” Auberon murmured. “Persuading Drew to let you come aboard may not be as easy as you think… But all that aside!” He made a sweeping gesture. “At least let me see you ashore, and we’ll get in touch next week in New Orleans, okay?”
He frowned down Josephine’s objections, and she yielded.
But as soon as they emerged on deck, Joel was confronted by Anthony Crossall.
“Mr. Siskin! Compliments of Mr. Woodley, and we ain’t putting out no stage here!”
The steamer was slowing now as she approached the shore; there was cheering and shouting and people were waving torches.
“What?”
“I said no stage!” Anthony was sweating gallons, obviously unhappy at being deputed for this task.
“But—” Joel checked in mid-word and reached a decision. “Then I’ll go ashore with one of the coal flats! And, come to think of it, what are you doing about that extra pilot you were scheduled to collect at Memphis?”
“Mr. Woodley canceled his engagement, sir!”
“I’ll do it that way anyhow!” Joel snapped, and spun on his heel. “But tell McNab from me this is no advertisement for the service provided on his boat!”
“Good man!” exclaimed Auberon, and tucked his stick under his arm so he could applaud.
Now the monstrous length of the Nonpareil was lining up parallel to the wharf; now the coal flats were being readied by black and white roustabouts; and on shore, isolable because of their serious demeanor—the majority of watchers were jumping up and down with excitement—surely there were some people waiting, or hoping, to come on board?
Anxious, Josephine said, “My dear, you shouldn’t stay out here—”
Auberon cut her short.
“I told you, damn it! If I have so little time left, I’m going to cram it to the full!”
“That you, Matthew?”
It was indeed, and he was coming to dread Parbury’s harsh tones as much as Gordon’s.
But it was too late to dodge. Matthew sighed.
What he heard next, however, was not what he had anticipated.
“Bear a message for me, boy!” Parbury ordered. “Go to the pilothouse and tell Mr. Trumbull that nobody in my time has better run the bend at Island 47—neither by night nor day!” he added with a nudge in Matthew’s ribs.
“But passengers aren’t allowed in the pilothouse!” Matthew objected; it was one of the first things he had learned about riverboats. Even when Gordon went up there in his guise of part owner, he insisted on his amanuensis remaining outside… more, Matthew suspected, to show he was au fait with river etiquette than because the pilot would truly have complained.
“Anybody bound on my business may go anywhere aboard this boat!” Parbury rasped. “Go tell him what I said! You recollect it?”
“Y–yes, sir!”
“Then hurry up! And come back at once—you’ll find me on the foredeck. I want you to tell me how the coaling goes.”
Matthew felt intolerably conspicuous as he mounted the stairs to the pilothouse. The light from the city made a tremendous contrast with the utter darkness of an hour ago. He set his hand to the door, wondering whether he should knock; decided against it, remembering that pilots disliked sudden distraction; and stepped inside as noiselessly as he could.
There was Trumbull, sour-faced, turning the enormous wheel with one casual hand while peering through the forward windows and gauging his approach with impeccable precision. Scant seconds before the Nonpareil made contact with her flats, he had signaled stop engines with a quick tug on the proper bell rope, and the whole vast mass of the steamer touched as lightly as a kiss. Instantly chaos boiled over as men rushed to load the coal.
He ordered half ahead and took out a handkerchief to wipe his face. In the same moment he grew aware of Matthew.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he barked.
As best he could, Matthew stammered out his message, his eyes darting hither and yon. How in half a lifetime could anybody make sense of this tangle of controls? Yet, by the same token, how could anything as basic as a mess of ropes and speaking tubes direct so complex and so huge a vessel?
“I’ll be damned,” Trumbull said softly. “The old devil did notice after all. I thought he hadn’t, for he’s stayed below these past two hours, despite saying he would spend all his waking time up here… Tell him thanks from me! And tell him something else too.”
He hesitated, framing the proper words.
“Tell him it’s a tragedy he can’t stand his watches, for if he could, we’d have the horns!”
Unnerved by the emotion in Trumbull’s voice, Matthew hastened away, regretting that he now had no excuse to evade Parbury’s command to return.
Given that the Nonpareil was coming to a stop to pick up her coal flats instead of nosing into a cable strung between them like the Atchafalaya, lack of a landing stage was a small handicap to anyone as determined as Joel, even if it meant running the gauntlet of men intent on shifting coal the other way. The shoreward flat would be almost on a level with the steamer’s main deck; he need not even jump.
Clutching his carpetbag, he advanced along the deck.
Just at the point where he was heading for, however, he spotted a kind of ambush. There were Woodley and Gordon talking to Whitworth… who was carrying what looked remarkably like the brother of Joel’s bag. Not what one would imagine a mate on duty required at this juncture.
And as soon as the lines were secured, there went Whitworth at a dead run, while Woodley and Gordon closed on Joel, blocking his way.
All of this was blurred: a montage of black shadows cast by scores of yellow lamps, their flames stirred to flickering by a sluggish breeze.
Joel was about to push the captain and the financier bodily aside, when Hogan (where had he sprung from? But his faint Irish brogue was unmistakable) shouted, “Mary and all the saints! I swear that’s Zeke Barfoot! Captain, we warned you not to—”
“Shut your trap!” Woodley blasted, even as Joel registered the presence of a tall, well-dressed man who had stepped onto the coal flat the instant Whitworth passed him, a fraction before the steamer got under way anew. “You! Siskin! Where do you think you’re going?”
“Leaving your boat because she’s beaten!” Joel retorted, and lifted his bag like a shield in front of his chest.
“You stay with us and tell your readers the truth—that we’ve been unfairly beaten by tricks no decent pilot would descend to!”
“So what’s wrong with your pilots, that they can’t give as good as they get?”
That struck home. Both Hogan and Woodley bunched their fists just as the smartly dressed newcomer leaped nimbly on the deck, avoiding the flow of fuel with the ease of much practice. And—
“Don’t do that to my cousin, Mr. Woodley!”
The words were delivered in a level, almost sleepy tone, but they were accompanied by the slash of a thin black shadow across Woodley’s face. It was cast by Auberon’s cane—except it was no longer just a cane. Now from its lower tip jutted a seven-inch blade of wicked steel, released by a twist of its silver cap.
“How do you like my Parisian sword stick, Jewel?” Auberon inquired. “I’d been hoping to test it on Arthur, but he’s in a stupor, and it’s unsporting to attack a drunken fool. Never mind, I’ll find a reason to square accounts before we reach St. Louis! In the meantime, you get aboard that barge before they cast it off!”
The coal was more than half shifted by now; the rumble was continuous, and the men had converted Manuel’s slogan into a chant:
“The Non- [hanh] -pareil [hanh!]
Is on [hanh] her way [hanh!]”
It was amazing how the singing added to the speed of the work.
And here was the man whom Hogan had recognized as Barfoot, and Woodley’s attention was enough distracted for him to be saying loudly, “But I sent you a
cable canceling—”
“I got it,” Barfoot interrupted. “I wish I may never offend any of my colleagues, like Dermot here! But what’s to stop me looking at the river?”
His invocation of the immemorial custom whereby any out-of-work pilot might travel free of charge on any steamboat was so disarming that Hogan broke out laughing. This gave Joel his chance to board the empty coal flat moments before it was cast loose.
To the accompaniment of thunderous cheering, the Nonpareil swung back into midstream.
But what lingered in Joel’s mind was the sight of Whitworth bound—obviously—on some important errand.
What could it be?
As the lights of Memphis dwindled astern, the passengers on both boats began to turn in, not purely through fatigue, but also because only someone who had the feeling of the Mississippi in his, or maybe her, very bloodstream could be interested in what happened when land, sky and water mingled into one impenetrable backdrop.
Nonetheless, this was one of the most amazing portions of the river. A keen and experienced eye, even at night, might read the clues that hinted at another revision of its course, due next year—the year after—perhaps not for another decade. But it would come, given a great enough flood. And then all this series of twists and bends, as the deep channel switched back and forth around Beef Island and Greenock and Brandywine Point, Paddy’s Hen and Chickens—those treacherous islands which could smash a hull as thoroughly as a hammer smashes an egg—and ultimately the Devil’s Race Ground: all, all would have to be forgotten by the pilots with as much diligence as they had spent on learning it. For it was as grave an error for a steersman to follow an out-of-date map in his mind as not to have memorized it in the first place.
Beyond that they would come to the Chickasaw Bluffs, and Pecan Point, and Fulton at the mouth of the Hatchee, and the tragic site of Fort Pillow, scene of the massacre that stained the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest more deeply even than his founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Sunrise, with luck, would find them rounding the notorious Plum Point en route to Osceola and Ashport.