George Martin - Fevre Dream

“A home brew of sorts,” York replied. “Part wine and part brandy and part liqueur, tasting like none of them. A rare drink, Abner. My companions and I have a fondness for it, but most people find it not to their liking. I’m sure you’d prefer the sherry.”

“Well,” Marsh said, hefting the bottle, “anything you drink is probably just fine for me, Joshua. You do serve up good sherry, though, that’s true enough.” He brightened. “Say, we’re in no hurry, and I got myself a fierce thirst. Why don’t we try both?”

Joshua York laughed, a laugh of pure spontaneous delight, deep and musical. “Abner,” he said, “you are singular, and most formidable. I like you. You, however, will not like my little drink. Still, if you insist, we shall have both.”

They settled themselves into the two leather chairs, York putting the tray on the low table between them. Marsh handed over the bottle of wine, or whatever it was. From somewhere within the pristine folds of his white suit, York produced a skinny little knife, with an ivory handle and a long silver blade. He sliced away the wax, and with one single deft twist flicked the knife point into the cork and brought it out with a pop. The liquor poured slowly, flowing like red-black honey into the silver goblets. It was opaque, and seemed full of tiny black specks. Strong, though; Marsh lifted his goblet and sniffed at it, and the alcohol in it brought tears to his eyes.

“We ought to have a toast,” York said, lifting his own goblet.

“To all the money we’re going to make,” Marsh joked.

“No,” York said seriously. Those demon gray eyes of his had a kind of grave melancholy in them, Marsh thought. He hoped that York wasn’t going to start reciting poetry again. “Abner,” York continued, “I know what the Fevre Dream means to you. I want you to know that she means much to me, as well. This day is the start of a grand new life for me. You and I, together, we made her what she is, and we shall go on to make her a legend. I have always admired beauty, Abner, but this is the first time in a long life that I have created it, or helped in its creation. It is a good feeling, to bring something new and fine into the world. Particularly for me. And I have you to thank for it.” He lifted his goblet. “Let us drink for the Fevre Dream and all she represents, my friend-beauty, freedom, hope. To our boat and a better world!”

“To the fastest steamer on the river!” Marsh replied, and they drank. He almost gagged. York’s private drink went down like fire, searing the back of his throat and spreading warm tendrils in his innards, but there was a kind of cloying sweetness to it as well, and a hint of an unpleasant smell that all its strength and sweetness could not quite conceal. Tasted like something had rotted in the bottle, he thought.

Joshua York drained his own goblet in a single long motion, his head thrown back. Then he set it aside and looked at Marsh and laughed again. “The look on your face, Abner, is wonderfully grotesque. Don’t feel you have to be polite. I warned you. Why don’t you have some sherry?”

“I believe I will,” Marsh replied, “I do believe I will.”

Later, when two glasses of sherry had wiped the aftertaste of York’s drink from Marsh’s mouth, they got to talking.

“What is our next step after St. Louis, Abner?” York asked.

“The New Orleans trade. Ain’t no other run for a boat as grand as this one.”

York gave an impatient shake of his head. “I know that, Abner. I was curious about how you intend to realize your dream of beating the Eclipse. Will you seek her out and issue a challenge? I’m willing, so long as it does not delay us unduly or take us out of our way.”

“Wish it were that simple, but it ain’t. Hell, Joshua, there’s thousands of steamers on the river, and all of them would like to beat the Eclipse. She’s got runs to make, just like we do, passengers and freight to move. Can’t be just racing all the time. Anyhow, her cap’n be a fool to lissen to any challenge from us. Who’re we anyway? Some new steamer fresh out of New Albany that nobody ever heard of. Eclipse ’d have everything to lose and nothin’ to gain by racing us.” He emptied another glass of sherry and held it out to York for a refill. “No, first we got to work our trade, build ourselves a reputation. Get known up and down the river as a fast boat. Pretty soon folks will get to talkin’ about how fast she is, and get to wonderin’ how Fevre Dream and Eclipse would match up. Maybe we run into her on the river a couple times, say, and pass her up. We build up the talk, and folks start to betting. Maybe we make some of the runs the Eclipse makes, and we beat her time. A fast steamer gets the trade, y’know. The planters and shippers and such, they want to get their wares to market soon as they can, so they go with the fastest boat around. And passengers, why they all love to ride on a famous boat if they got the money. So what happens, you see, is that after a time people start thinking we’re the fastest boat on the lower river, and the trade starts moving our way, and the Eclipse gets hurt a little where it counts, in the purse. Then you just watch how easy we get us a race, to prove once and for all who’s faster.”

“I see,” said York. “Is this run to St. Louis going to start our reputation, then?”

“Well, I ain’t trying for no record time. She’s a new boat, and we got to break her in. Don’t even have our regular pilots on board yet, no one is real familiar with how she handles, and we got to give Whitey time to work out all the little problems with the engines and get his strikers trained proper.” He set down his empty glass. “Don’t mean we can’t start in some other ways, though,” he said, smiling. “Got something or other in mind along those lines. You’ll see.”

“Good,” said Joshua York. “More sherry?”

“No,” Marsh said. “We ought to get on down to the saloon, I think. I’ll buy you a drink at our bar. Guarantee you it’ll taste better than that damned stuff of yours.”

York smiled. “My pleasure,” he said.

That night was not like other nights for Abner Marsh. It was a magic night, a dream. There seemed to be at least forty or fifty hours in it, he could have sworn, and each of them was priceless. He and York were up till dawn, drinking and talking up a storm, wandering all over the wonder of a boat they had built. The day after, Marsh woke with such a head that he could barely recall half of what he’d done the night before. But some moments were indelible in his memory.

He remembered entering the grand saloon, and it was better than entering the finest hotel in the world. The chandeliers were brilliant, lamps aglow and prisms glittering. The mirrors made the long narrow cabin seem twice as wide as it really was. A crowd was gathered around the bar, talking politics and such, and Marsh joined them for a while and listened to them complain about abolitionists and argue over whether Stephen A. Douglas ought to be president, while York said hello to Smith and Brown, who were at one of the tables playing cards with some planters and a notorious gambler. Someone was tinkling on the grand piano, stateroom doors opened and closed all the time, and the whole place was bright with light and laughter.

Later they went down to a different world on the main deck; cargo piled everywhere, roustabouts and deckers asleep on coils of rope and bags of sugar, a family gathered around a little fire they’d built cooking something or other, a drunk passed out behind the stairs. The engine room was awash in the hellish red glow of the furnaces, and Whitey was in the middle of it all, with his shirt soaked by sweat and grease in his beard, bellowing at his strikers to be heard above the hiss of the steam and the chunkachunka of the wheels churning water. The rods were awesome, moving back and forth in their long powerful strokes. They watched for a while, York and he, until the heat and smell of machine oil got to be too much for them.