George Martin - Fevre Dream

“No,” Abner Marsh said hastily. York might have warned him, he thought, but their bargain gave Joshua the right to give queer orders. “You know how long we’re goin’ to be here?”

“I hear York has business ashore. If he don’t get up till dark, that’s all day.”

“Damn. Our schedule-the passengers will be askin’ no end of bothersome questions.” Marsh frowned. “Well, I suppose there’s no help for it. We might as well take on some more wood long as we’re here. I’ll go see to it.”

Marsh struck up a bargain with the boy running the woodyard, a slender Negro in a thin cotton shirt. The boy wasn’t much for dickering; Marsh got beech from him at cottonwood prices, and made him throw in some pine knots too. As the roustabouts and deckhands meandered over to load up, Marsh looked the colored boy square in the eye, smiled, and said, “You’re new at this, ain’t you?”

The boy nodded. “Yassuh, Cap’n.” Marsh nodded, and was starting to turn back to the steamer, but the boy continued, “I jest been here a week, Cap’n. Ol’ white man useta be here got hisself et up by wolves.”

Marsh looked at the boy hard. “We’re only a couple miles north of New Madrid, ain’t we, boy?”

“Thass right, Cap’n.”

When Abner Marsh returned to the Fevre Dream, he was feeling very agitated. Damn Joshua York, he thought. What was the man up to, and why did they have to waste a whole day at this fool woodyard? Marsh had a good mind to go storming up to York’s cabin and give him a good talking to. He considered the idea briefly, then thought better of it. It was none of his business, Marsh reminded himself forcibly. He settled down to wait.

The hours passed slowly as the Fevre Dream lay dead in the water off the woodyard. A dozen other steamers slid by downriver, much to Abner Marsh’s annoyance. Almost as many came struggling upstream. A brief knife fight between two deck passengers in which no one was injured provided the afternoon’s excitement. Mostly the passengers and crew of the Fevre Dream lazed about on her decks, chairs tilted back in the sun, smoking or chewing or arguing politics. Jeffers and Albright played chess in the pilot house. Framm told wild stories in the grand saloon. Some of the ladies started talk of getting up a dance. And Abner Marsh grew more and more impatient.

At dark, Marsh was sitting up on the texas porch, drinking coffee and swatting mosquitoes, when he happened to glance toward shore in time to see Joshua York leave the steamer. Simon was with him. They stopped by the cabin and talked briefly to the woodyard boy, then vanished down a rutted mud road into the woods. “Well, I’ll be,” Marsh said, rising. “With not even a by-your-leave or a hello.” He frowned. “No supper neither.” That reminded him, though, and he went on down to the main cabin to eat.

The night went by; passengers and crew alike grew restless. Drinking was heavy around the bar. Some planter started up a game of brag, and others began to sing, and one stiff-necked young man got himself hit with a cane for calling for abolition.

Near midnight, Simon returned alone. Abner Marsh was in the saloon when Hairy Mike tapped him on the shoulder; Marsh had left orders to be summoned as soon as York came back. “Get your roustas aboard and tell Whitey to get our steam up,” he snapped at the mate, “we got us some time to make up.” Then he went to see York. Only York wasn’t there.

“Joshua wants you to go on,” Simon reported. “He will travel by land, and meet you in New Madrid. Wait for him.” Heated questioning drew nothing more out of him; Simon only fixed Marsh with his small, cold eyes and repeated the message, that the Fevre Dream was to wait for York at New Madrid.

Once steam was up, it was a short, pleasant voyage. New Madrid was a bare few miles downriver from the woodyard where they had been tied up all day. Marsh gladly bid the desolate place farewell as they steamed off into the night. “Damn that Joshua,” he muttered.

They lost almost two full days in New Madrid.

“He’s dead,” Jonathon Jeffers opined when they had been tied up for a day and a half. New Madrid had hotels, billiard parlors, churches, and diverse other recreations not available in woodyards, so the time spent at the landing was not near as boring, but nonetheless everyone was anxious to be off. A half-dozen passengers, impatient with the delay when the weather was good-the boat seemed in fine fettle, and the stage was high-came up to Marsh and demanded a refund of their passage money. They were indignantly refused, but Marsh still seethed and wondered aloud where Joshua York had got himself to.

“York ain’t dead,” Marsh said. “I’m not sayin’ he ain’t goin’ to wish he was dead when I get ahold of him, but he ain’t dead yet.”

Behind the gold spectacles, Jeffers’ eyebrow arched. “No? How can you be so sure, Cap’n? He was alone, on foot, going through the woods by night. There are scoundrels out there, and animals, too. I do believe there have been a number of deaths around New Madrid the last few years.”

Marsh stared at him. “What’s that?” he demanded. “How do you know?”

“I read the papers,” said Jeffers.

Marsh scowled. “Well, it don’t make no difference. York ain’t dead. I know that, Mister Jeffers, I know that for a fact.”

“Lost, then?” suggested the clerk, with a cool smile. “Shall we get up a party and go look for him, Cap’n?”

“I’ll think on that,” said Abner Marsh.

But there was no need. That night, an hour after the sun had set, Joshua York came striding up to the landing. He did not look like a man who had spent two days off by himself in the woods. His boots and trouser legs were dusty, but other than that his clothing looked as elegant as on the night he had left. His gait was rushed but graceful. He bounded up the stage, and smiled when he saw Jack Ely, the second engineer. “Find Whitey and get the steam up,” York said to Ely, “we’re leaving.” Then, before anyone could question him, he was halfway up the grand staircase.

Marsh, for all his anger and restlessness, found himself remarkably relieved at Joshua’s return. “Go ring the goddamned bell so them that went ashore know we’re leaving,” he told Hairy Mike. “I want to get us out on the river again soon as we can.”

York was in his cabin, washing his hands in the basin of water that sat atop his chest of drawers. “Abner,” he said politely when Marsh came rushing in after a brief, thunderous knock. “Do you think I might trouble Toby for a late supper?”

“I’ll trouble you to ask why we been wastin’ all this time,” Marsh said. “Damn it, Joshua, I know you said you’d act queer, but two days ! Ain’t no way to run a steam packet, I tell you that.”

York dried his long, pale hands carefully, and turned. “It was important. I warn you that I may do it again. You will have to accustom yourself to my ways, Abner, and see that I am not questioned.”

“We got freight to deliver, and passengers who paid for passage, not for loungin’ around at woodyards. What do I tell them, Joshua?”

“Whatever you choose. You are ingenious, Abner. I provided the money in our partnership. I expect you to provide the excuses.” His tone was cordial but firm. “If it is any solace, this first trip will be the worst. On future trips, I anticipate few if any mysterious excursions. You’ll get your record run without any trouble from me.” He smiled. “I hope you can be satisfied with that. Take hold of your impatience, friend. We’ll reach New Orleans eventually, and then things will go easier. Can you accept that, Abner? Abner? Is anything wrong?”

Abner Marsh had been squinting hard, and scarcely listening to York at all. He must have had an odd look on his face, he realized. “No,” he said quickly, “just two days, that’s all that’s wrong. But it’s no matter. No matter at all. Whatever you say, Joshua.”