George Martin - Fevre Dream

Marsh looked at each of them in turn, at the intricate devices suspended between their chimneys, at their fancy jigsaw carpentry and their bright paint, at their hissing, billowing steam, at the power in their wheels. And then he looked at his own boat, the Fevre Dream, all white and blue and silver, and it seemed to him that her steam rose higher than any of the others, and her whistle had a sweeter, clearer tone, and her paint was cleaner and her wheels more for-mid-a-bul, and she stood taller than all but three or four of the other boats, and she was longer than just about any of them. “We’ll take ’em all,” he said to himself, and he went on down to his lady.

Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream, Mississippi River, July 1857

Abner Marsh cut a wedge of cheddar from the wheel on the table, positioned it carefully atop what remained of his apple pie, and forked them both up with a quick motion of his big red hand. He belched, wiped his mouth with his napkin and shook a few crumbs from his beard, and sat back with a smile on his face.

“Good pie?” asked Joshua York, smiling at Marsh over a brandy snifter.

“Toby don’t bake no other kind,” Marsh replied. “You should of tried a piece.” He pushed away from the table and stood up. “Well, drink up, Joshua. It’s time.”

“Time?”

“You wanted to learn the river, didn’t you? You ain’t goin’ to learn it settin’ to table, I’ll tell you that much.”

York finished his brandy, and they went up to the pilot house together. Karl Framm was on duty. He was lounging on the couch, smoke curling up from his pipe, while his cub-a tall youth with lank blond hair hanging down to his collar-worked as steersman. “Cap’n Marsh,” Framm said, nodding. “And you must be the mysterious Cap’n York. Pleased to meet you. Never been on a steamer with two captains before.” He grinned, a wide lopsided grin that flashed a gold tooth. “This boat got almost as many captains as I got wives. Of course, it stands to reason. Why, this boat got more boilers and more mirrors and more silver than any boat I ever seen, so it ought to have more captains too, I figure.” The lanky pilot leaned forward and knocked some ashes from his pipe into the belly of the big iron stove. It was cold and dark, the night being hot and thick. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” Framm asked.

“Learn us the river,” said Marsh.

Framm’s eyebrows rose. “Learn you the river? I got myself a cub here. Ain’t that right, Jody?”

“Sure is, Mister Framm.”

Framm smiled and shrugged. “Now, I’m learnin’ Jody here, and it’s all been arranged, I’m to get six hundred dollars from the first wages he gets after he’s been licensed and taken into the association. I’m only doin’ it so cheap cause I know his family. Can’t say I know your families, though, can’t say that a-tall.”

Joshua York undid the buttons on his dark gray vest. He was wearing a money belt. He brought out a twenty-dollar gold piece, and placed it on top of the stove, the gold gleaming softly against the black iron. “Twenty,” said York. He set another gold piece atop it. “Forty,” he said. Then a third. “Sixty.” When the count reached three hundred York buttoned up his vest. “I’m afraid that is all I have on me, Mister Framm, but I assure you I am not without funds. Let us agree to seven hundred dollars for yourself, and an equal amount for Mister Albright, if the two of you will instruct me in the rudiments of piloting, and refresh Captain Marsh here so he can steer his own boat. Payable immediately, not from future wages. What say you?”

Framm was real cool about it, Marsh thought. He sucked on his pipe thoughtfully for a moment, like he was considering the offer, and finally reached out and took the stack of gold coins. “Can’t speak for Mister Albright, but for myself, I was always fond of the color of gold. I’ll learn you. What say you come on up tomorrow during the day, at the start of my watch?”

“That may be fine for Captain Marsh,” York said, “but I prefer to begin immediately.”

Framm looked around. “Hell,” he said. “Can’t you see? It’s night. Been learning Jody for near a year now, and it’s only been a month I been lettin’ him steer by night. Running at night ain’t never easy. No.” His tone was firm. “I’ll learn you by day first, when a man can see where’s he runnin’ to.”

“I will learn by night. I keep strange hours, Mister Framm. But you need not worry. I have excellent night vision, better than yours, I suspect.”

The pilot unfolded his long legs, stood up, and stalked over and took the wheel. “Go below, Jody,” he said to his cub. When the youth had gone, Framm said, “Ain’t no man sees good enough to run a bad stretch of river in the dark.” He stood with his back to them, intent on the black starlit waters ahead. Far up the river they could see the distant lights of another steamer. “Tonight is a good clear night, no clouds to speak of, a half decent moon, good stage on the river. Look at that water out there. Like black glass. Look at the banks. Real easy to see where they’re at, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” said York. Marsh, smiling, said nothing.

“Well,” said Framm, “it ain’t always like that. Sometimes there ain’t no moon, sometimes there’s clouds covering everything. Gets awful black then. Gets so a man can’t see much of nothin’. The banks pull back so you can’t see where they are, and if you don’t know what you’re doin’ you can steer right into ’em. Other times you get shadows that hulk up like they were solid land, and you got to know they ain’t, otherwise you’ll spend half the night steerin’ away from things that ain’t really there. How do you suppose a pilot knows such things, Cap’n York?” Framm gave him no chance to reply. He tapped his temple. “By memory is how. By seeing the dern river by day and rememberin’ it, all of it, every bend and every house along the shore, every woodyard, where it runs deep and where it’s shallow, where you got to cross. You pilot a steamer with what you know, Cap’n York, not with what you see. But you got to see before you can know, and you can’t see good enough by night.”

“That’s the truth, Joshua,” Abner Marsh affirmed, putting a hand up on York’s shoulder.

York said quietly, “The boat up ahead of us is a side-wheeler, with what appears to be an ornate K between her chimneys, and a pilot house with a domed roof. Right now she’s passing a woodyard. There’s an old rotten wharf there, and a colored man is sitting on the end of it, looking out at the river.”

Marsh let go of York’s shoulder and moved to the window, squinting. The other boat was a long way ahead. He could make out that she was a side-wheeler right enough, but the device between her chimneys… the chimneys were black against a black sky, he could barely see them, and then only because of the sparks flying from them. “Damn,” he said.

Framm glanced around at York with surprise in his eyes. “I can’t make out half that stuff myself,” he said, “but I do believe you’re right.” A few moments later the Fevre Dream steamed past the woodyard, and there was the old colored man, just like York had described. “He’s smokin’ a pipe,” Framm said, grinning. “You left that out.”

“Sorry,” Joshua York said.

“Well,” said Framm thoughtfully, “well.” He chewed on his pipe, his eyes on the river ahead. “You surely do have good night eyes, I’ll give you that. But I’m still not sure. It ain’t hard to see a woodyard up ahead on a clear night. Seein’ an old darkie is a mite harder, with the way they blend in and all, but still, that’s one thing, and the river is another. There’s lots of little things a pilot has got to see that your cabin passenger would never notice a-tall. The look of the water when a snag or a sawyer is hidin’ underneath it. Old dead trees that’ll tell you the stage of the river a hundred miles farther on. The way to tell a bluff reef from a wind reef. You got to be able to read the river like it was a book, and the words is just little ripples and eddies, sometimes all faded so they can’t be made out properly, and then you got to rely on what you remember about the last time you read that page. Now you wouldn’t go try readin’ a book in the dark, would you?”