George Martin - Fevre Dream

“Both of ’em got better times than your ol’ Eclipse, ”she said. She liked to sass him, that woman.

Marsh snorted. “Don’t mean nothin’. River’s shorter now. River gets shorter every year. Pretty soon you’ll be able to walk from St. Louis to New Orleans.”

Marsh read more than just newspapers. Thanks to Joshua, he’d worked up a taste for poetry, of all the damn things, and he looked at an occasional novel, too. He also took up wood carving, and made himself detailed models of his steamboats, as he remembered them. He painted them and everything, and did them all to the same scale, so you could put them alongside each other and see how big they’d been. “That was my Elizabeth A., ”he told his housekeeper proudly the day he finished the sixth and biggest model. “As sweet a boat as ever moved down the river. She would have set records, except for that damned ice jam. You can see how big she was, near three hundred feet. Look at how she dwarfs my ol’ Nick Perrot there.” He pointed. “And that’s the Sweet Fevre, and the Dunleith -had a lot of trouble with the larboard engine on her, a lot of trouble-and next to her that’s my Mary Clarke . She blew her boilers.” Marsh shook his head. “Killed a lot of people, too. Maybe it was my fault. I don’t know. I think about it sometimes. The little one on the end is the Eli Reynolds. Not much to look at, but she was a tough ol’ gal. She took everything I could give her, and a lot more, and kept her steam up and her wheel turning. You know how long she lasted, that little ugly stern-wheeler?”

“No,” the housekeeper said. “Didn’t you have some other boat, too? A real fancy one? I heard-”

“Never mind what you heard, goddamn it. Yes, I had another boat. The Fevre Dream. Named her after the river.”

The housekeeper made a rude noise at him. “No wonder this ain’t never become the town it might have, with folks like you goin’ on about the Fevre River. They must think we’re all sick up here. Why didn’t you call it right? It’s named the Galena River now.”

Abner Marsh snorted. “Changing the goddamn name of the goddamn river, I never heard of such goddamned foolishness. Far as I’m concerned it’s the Fevre River and it’s goin’ to stay the Fevre River no matter what the hell the goddamned mayor says.” He scowled. “Or you neither. Hell, the way they’re lettin’ it silt up pretty soon it’s goin’ to be the goddamned Galena Creek!”

“Such language. I’d think a man who reads poetry would be able to keep a civil tongue in his head.”

“Never mind about my goddamned tongue,” Marsh said. “And don’t go yapping that poetry around town neither, you hear? I knew a man who liked those poems, that’s the only reason I got them books. You just stop buttin’ your nose in and keep my steamboats clean of dust.”

“Certainly. Will you be making a model of that other boat, do you think? The Fevre Dream?”

Marsh settled into a big overstuffed chair and frowned. “No,” he said. “No, I ain’t. That’s one boat I just want to forget about. So you just get to dusting and stop pesterin’ me with your damned fool questions.” He picked up a newspaper and began to read about the Natchez and Leathers’s latest boast. His housekeeper made a clucking noise and finally commenced to dusting.

His house had a high round turret facing south. At evening, Marsh would often go up there, with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, sometimes a piece of pie. He didn’t eat like he used to, not since the war. Food just didn’t seem to taste the same. He was still a big man, but he had lost at least a hundred pounds since his days with Joshua and the Fevre Dream. His flesh hung loose on him everywhere, like he’d bought it a couple sizes too large, expecting it to shrink. He had big droopy jowls, too. “Makes me even uglier than I used to be,” he would growl when he glanced in a mirror.

Sitting by his turret window, Marsh could see the river. He spent a lot of nights there, reading, drinking, and looking out on the water. The river was pretty in the moonlight, flowing past him, on and on, like it had flowed before he was born, like it would flow after he was dead and buried. Seeing it made Marsh feel peaceful, and he treasured that feeling. Most of the time he just felt weary or melancholy. He had read one poem by Keats that said there wasn’t nothing as sad as a beautiful thing dying, and it seemed to Marsh sometimes that every goddamned beautiful thing in the world was withering away. Marsh was lonely, too. He had been on the river so many years that he had no real friends left in Galena. He never had visitors, never talked to anyone but his damned annoying housekeeper. She vexed him considerably, but Marsh didn’t really mind; it was about all he had left to keep his blood hot. Sometimes he thought his life was over, and that made him so angry he turned red. He still had so many goddamned things he’d never done, so much unfinished business.. . but there was no denying that he was getting old. He used to carry that old hickory walking stick to gesture with, and be fashionable. Now he had an expensive gold-handled cane to help him walk better. And he had wrinkles around his eyes and even between his warts, and a funny kind of brown spot on the back of his left hand. He’d look at it sometimes and wonder how it had got there. He’d never noticed. Then he would cuss and pick up a newspaper or a book.

Marsh was sitting in his parlor, reading a book by Mister Dickens about his travels on the river and through America, when his housekeeper brought in the letter to him. He grunted with surprise, and slammed down the Dickens book, muttering under his breath, “Goddamn fool of a Britisher, like to chuck him in the goddamn river.” He took the letter and ripped it open, letting the envelope flutter to the floor. Getting a letter was pretty rare by itself, but this one was queerer still; it had been addressed to Fevre River Packets in St. Louis, and forwarded on up to Galena. Abner Marsh unfolded the crisp, yellowing paper, and suddenly sucked in his breath.

It was old stationery, and he remembered it well. He’d had it printed up some thirteen years before, to put in the desk drawer of every stateroom on his steamer. Across the top was a fancy pen-and-ink drawing of a great side-wheel steamer, and FEVRE DREAM in curved, ornate letters. He knew the hand too, that graceful, flowing hand. The message was short:

Dear Abner,

I have made my choice.

If you are well and willing, meet me in New Orleans as soon as possible. You will find me at the Green Tree on Gallatin Street.

– Joshua

“Goddamn it to hell!” Marsh swore. “After all this time, does that damned fool think he can just send me some goddamned letter and make me come all the goddamned way down to New Orleans? And with never a word of explanation, neither! Who the hell does he think he is?”

“I’m sure I don’t know!” his housekeeper said.

Abner Marsh pulled himself to his feet. “Woman, where the hell did you go and put my white coat?” he roared.

New Orleans, May 1870

Gallatin Street by night looked like the main road through hell, Abner Marsh thought as he hurried along it. It was lined with dance halls, saloons, and whorehouses, all of them crowded, filthy, and raucous, and the sidewalks seethed with drunks and whores and cut-purses. The whores called after him as he walked, mocking invitations that turned to jeers when he ignored them. Rough, cold-eyed men with knives and brass knuckles appraised him with open contempt, and made Marsh wish he didn’t look quite so prosperous and quite so goddamned old. He crossed the street to avoid one throng of men standing in front of a dance hall and hefting live oak cudgels, and found himself in front of the Green Tree.