George Martin - Fevre Dream

Near where the mouth of the Red River emptied into the wider Mississippi, a comfortable mile separated the two steamers. Marsh had just brought a fresh pot of coffee up to the pilot house, and was helping the pilot drink it, when the man squinted over the wheel and said, “Take a look here, Cap’n, appears the current’s pushin’ her sideways. Ain’t no crossing to be made there.”

Marsh put down his cup and looked. The Fevre Dream looked a lot closer all of a sudden, he thought, and the pilot was right, he could see a good portion of her larboard side. If she wasn’t making a crossing, maybe the waters rushing in from the lesser river were responsible for her sheer, but he didn’t see how a decent pilot would allow that. “She’s just anglin’ round a snag or a bar,” Marsh said, but there was no certainty in his tone. As he watched, the side-wheeler seemed to turn even more, so she was practically at cross angles to them. He could read the lettering on her wheelhouse in the moonlight. She almost looked like she was drifting, but the smoke and sparks still steamed from her stacks, and now her bow was swinging into view.

“Goddamn,” Marsh said loudly. He felt as cold as if he’d just taken another fall into the river. “She’s turnin’. Damn it all to hell! She’s turnin’!”

“What should I do, Cap’n?” asked the pilot.

Abner Marsh did not answer. He was watching the Fevre Dream with fear in his heart. A stern-wheeler like the Eli Reynolds had two ways to reverse directions, both of them clumsy. If the channel was wide enough, she could round to in a big U, but that took a lot of room and a lot of push. Otherwise she had to stop and reverse her paddle, back and turn, stop again and start forward to complete the turnabout. Either way took time, and Marsh didn’t even know if they could round to right here. A side-wheeler was a damn sight more maneuverable. A side-wheeler could just reverse one wheel and keep the other going forward, so she’d spin about neat as you please like a dancer twirling on a toe. Now Abner Marsh could see the forecastle of the Fevre Dream . Her stages, drawn up, looked like two long white teeth in the moonlight, and pale-faced figures in dark clothing were clustered together on the forward portions of the main and boiler decks. The Fevre Dream loomed ahead of them bigger and more formidable than ever. She had almost completed her spin now, and the Eli Reynolds was still paddling toward her, whapwhapwhap, paddling toward those white maggot-faces and darkness and hot red eyes.

“You damn fool!” Marsh bellowed. “Stop her! Back her, dammit, turn her! Ain’t you got eyes? They’re comin’ after us! ”

The pilot gave him an uncertain glance, and moved to stop the paddle wheel and commence to turn, but even as he did Abner Marsh saw that it was too damn late. They’d never come around in time, and even if they did, the Fevre Dream would be on them in minutes anyway. Her power would be much more telling when both boats were struggling against the current. Marsh grabbed the pilot’s arm. “No!” he said, “keep on! Faster! Go wide around them. Get some more lard in there quick, dammit, we got to shoot past ’em before they’re on us, you hear?”

The Fevre Dream was creeping toward them now, her decks acrawl with the night folks. Smoke poured from her chimneys, and Marsh could almost count the waiting figures. The pilot reached for the steam whistle, but Marsh grabbed him again and said, “No!”

“We’ll collide!” the pilot said. “Cap’n, we gotta let ’em know which side we’re takin’.”

“Keep ’em guessin’,” Marsh said. “Damn you, it’s our only chance! And get that lard in there! ”

Across the dark moonlit waters, the Fevre Dream shrieked in triumph. It sounded like some demon wolf, thought Abner Marsh, howling after prey.

Aboard the Steamer Ozymandias, Mississippi River, October 1857

“Well, well,” said Sour Billy Tipton, “he’s comin’ right to us. Ain’t that nice of him?”

“You are certain it is Marsh, Billy?” asked Damon Julian.

“Take a look-see for yourself,” Sour Billy said, handing Julian the telescope. “Right up there in the pilot house of that rattletrap. Ain’t no one else so fat or so warty. Good thing I got to wonderin’ why they was stayin’ behind us like that.”

Julian lowered the glass. “Yes,” he said. He smiled. “What ever would we do without you, Billy?” Then the smile faded. “But Billy, you assured me that the captain was dead. When he fell into the river. I’m sure you recall. Don’t you, Billy?”

Sour Billy looked at him warily. “We’ll make sure this time, Mister Julian.”

“Ah,” said Julian. “Yes. Pilot, when we pass I want us within feet of their side. Do you understand, pilot?”

Joshua York looked away from the river briefly, without releasing his sure grip on the big black and silver wheel. His cold gray eyes met Julian’s across the darkness of the pilot house, then dropped abruptly. “We will pass close to them,” York said in a hollow voice.

On the couch behind the stove, Karl Framm stirred weakly, sat up, and came over to stand behind York, staring out over the river with filmy, half-dead eyes. He moved slowly, unsteady as a drunk or a weak old man. Looking at him, it was hard to recall how troublesome the pilot had been at first, Billy thought. Damon Julian had tended to Framm proper enough, though; that day he’d come lollygagging back to the boat, not realizing how things had changed, the lanky pilot had made some damn fool brag about his three wives within Julian’s hearing. Damon Julian had been amused. “Since you won’t be seeing the others anymore,” Julian had said to Framm later, “you’ll have three new wives aboard our steamer. A pilot has his privileges, after all.” And now Cynthia, Valerie, and Cara took turns with him, careful not to drink too much all at once, but drinking regular enough. As the only licensed pilot, Framm couldn’t be permitted to die, even though York did most of the steering now. Framm wasn’t high and mighty anymore, nor troublesome. He hardly talked at all, and he sort of shuffled when he walked, and he had tooth marks and wounds and such all up and down his skinny arms, and a feverish look in his eyes.

Blinking at the approach of Marsh’s squatty stern-wheeler, Framm almost seemed to perk up a mite. He even smiled. “Close,” he muttered, “you bet she’ll come close.”

Julian looked at him. “What do you mean, Mister Framm?”

“Nothing a-tall,” said Framm, “exceptin’ that she’s goin’ to ram right into you.” He grinned. “I bet ol’ Cap’n Marsh has that dern boat stacked up to the boiler deck with explosives. It’s an old river trick.”

Julian flicked his gaze back to the river. The stern-wheeler was bearing straight down on the Fevre Dream, belching fire and smoke like nobody’s business.

“He’s lyin’,” said Sour Billy, “he always lies.”

“Look how fast she’s coming,” Framm said, and it was true. With the current behind her and her paddle churning furiously, the stern-wheeler was coming on like the very devil.

“Mister Framm is right,” said Joshua York, and he was turning the huge wheel as he spoke, hand over hand, with smooth swift grace. The Fevre Dream swung her head sharply to the larboard. An instant later, the oncoming stern-wheeler sheered in the other direction, racing away from them. They could read the faded square lettering on her side: ELI REYNOLDS.

“It’s a damn trick!” Sour Billy shouted. “He’s lettin’ them get past us!”

Julian said coldly, “There are no explosives. Put us close to them,” and York began turning the wheel back at once, but it was too late; Marsh’s boat had seen her chance and lurched forward with surprising speed, steam hissing from her ’scape-pipes in tall white plumes. The Fevre Dream responded quickly, her head moving back in line, but already the Eli Reynolds was thirty yards to the starboard and surging past them, away safely, heading downriver. A shot rang out from her as she receded, the report clear even above the thunderous stroke of the Fevre Dream ’s engines and the noise of her paddles, but no damage was sustained.