John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

“Ziba Goss,” said Parson, furrowing his downy brow. He turned and started up the path, drawing the Redeemer in his wake. “I’ve heard old Ziba’s getting notions.”

I groaned aloud at this.

“Ah! Is it Virgil?” Parson said, squinting back over his shoulder.

“I made a run with Ziba two weeks ago, Parson. There’s no trouble with him at all.” I fixed my eyes on the Redeemer. “I need Ziba on this run.”

“Oh! There’s no trouble with Ziba, Virgil,” the Redeemer said. “You’re perfectly right. There’s no trouble with him, as such, but neither is there—”

“You’ll give me Ziba Goss, sir, or the run to Memphis can get buggered.”

The both of them regarded me silently for a time, their eyes identically narrowed. But I neither begged their pardons, nor averted my eyes, nor amended my declaration in the slightest—: I was determined to hold my ground at any cost. In doing so, I have no doubt that I confirmed their worst suspicions, and thereby sealed and ratified my fate. My fate was sealed already, of course—; but I didn’t know it then.

“Ziba might not be three-quarters dead, sir, like the niggers Parson scares up from God knows where to paddle his funeral barges—”

“Here’s our Asa!” the Redeemer said brightly, looking up the hill.

The figure in question was already half-way down the bluff, his limbs a blur of antic jerks and twitches. I’d met him only once before— in the whist room, at the Trade’s first meeting — and remembered him as little more than a brittle, anxious voice and a shock of coal-black hair. Clearly his condition, whatever it was, had worsened. His lips fluttered pauselessly, sometimes in accompaniment to a smile, sometimes an indignant tossing of the head—; his right hand clutched a hat-box, his left a parasol. He was less than six paces off before he noticed us. Never have I seen a man look more like the wretch that gossip and calumny would have him be.

“Mr. Ball!” he squeaked, stepping past the Redeemer and Parson and taking my arm eagerly in his. “I understand you’re my passage to the City of the Sun.”

“I’m bound for Memphis, as per our Redeemer’s orders,” I said, freeing myself from his grip.

But Trist took no notice of my manner. Turning back to the others, he exclaimed—:

“One sees the Jew in him, it’s true. There’s a sallowness to the skin, a richness—; a biblicality, in short. I’d die for the least scrap—?”

“You’ll have to ask Mr. Ball himself, Asa,” the Redeemer said, looking as though he’d bit into a peach-pit. Parson watched the two of us contentedly.

“Ideally, I’d take a cutting from the praeputium,” Trist continued. “However, in this case—”

“The which, Mr. Trist?” I asked, taking a step backwards.

Trist gave me a beatific smile. “The praeputium, Mr. Ball. The foreskin.”

“Quod ergo Deus coniunxit, homo non separet,” 1Parson intoned, holding up a finger.

WITH THAT I WAS LEFT to the readying of the boat. Ziba Goss appeared not long after, and we stretched ourselves out on the lee deck, passing a tin of tobacco back and forth. Goss had always been my favorite striker, largely on account of his extraordinary greed, which kept him sober and level-headed at all hours. Knowing exactly what he liked and how to get it made him a personable companion, rarely out of temper—; what’s more, he was possessed of common sense, an almost unheard-of quality among river-men. I asked him, after a time, what he thought about the run—; he simply shook his head and grinned.

“I don’t think nothing about it, Mr. Virgil. Not a thing.”

“You’re happy, I expect. There’ll be a fine cup of gravy on fiftyseven head.”

His answer took me by surprise. “Oh! I ain’t thinking about that, ” he murmured. He beamed out sleepily at the river.

Ziba had a secret, and I guessed it soon enough—: chaw always quickened my wits. “You’re set to leave the Trade, aren’t you.”

His eyes fell closed. “Got me a new address, Mr. Virgil.” He began to grin. “A beef-steak-chewing woman, now! A full-on roly-poly.”

“There’s a term for men like you, Ziba,” I said, spitting over the rail. “A sacrificial lamb.”

Ziba laughed. “You won’t tell?”

I shook my head, yawned, and looked up toward the Panama House. To my surprise, Trist was already half-way down the path, waving his arms as though the boat might steam away without him—; Parson followed just behind. Both were traveling with all the speed their respective dignities would allow. Not surprisingly, Trist reached the landing first.

“Do you have any difficulty with leeches, Mr. Ball?” he called out in place of a greeting, clutching his battered hat-box to his chest.

I stared at him a moment, weighing all possible answers to this latest piece of poetry. Parson kindly answered for me.

“He wouldn’t be ferrying you to Memphis, Asa, if he did!”

by Frank S. Kennedy.

IT WERE THAT COZY BASTARD G. Harvey thought it up, Kennedy says.

I were hunched back there slopping the evening’s cups, passing the time of the day with T.M., when be darmed but that fat cherry-popper comes waltzing in, a yaller silk jacket on him fit for the privy-master to the royal house of Brunswick.

It’s His Grace, Goodie Harvey, says I to T.M.

So it is, says he. I’d thought it was a banana.

Good-day to you both, says Harvey, lisping as he done. A pint of thith or that, Mithter Kennedy, if you would.

You’ll get as much as can fit in your eye till you pay debits outstanding, says I.

You’re not square with me either, Goodman, T.M. puts in.

The very aim of my vithit! Harvey chirps. Firthtly! Kennedy—: your two dollarth fifty.

And bedam but he pulls five chits out from his pocket and lays them on the counter.

I must of look like a monkey’s butler cause T.M. lets out a laugh and slaps me on the back. There’s an easy enough answer for it, Stuts, says he. I just heard the angel Gabriel sound his trumpet.

Thimpler than that, even, Harvey says. Gentlemen—: I have found me an eathy mark.

They are all of them easy to a snit of your caliber, Goodie, says T.M.

Christ, but that little rounder blushes. Thank you, thir. But thith one I can’t take no credit for. Thith nut ith cracked wide open. He leans forward on his hands. I thuppoth you have both heard tell of the Tritht thugar empire.

T.M. looks him hard in the face. You haven’t got hold of Sam Trist’s idiot son, says he.

Harvey says nothing, twiddling his mug.

Mister Harvey, says T.M. You aren’t come in here jabbering and japing to take the vow of silence on us now. Give out.

Harvey digs at the corner of his gob with his tongue. I’m blue moldy for the want of a drink, says he.

T.M. grins. Give the man his due, Kennedy.

I could always tell it when something were cooking with T.M. Harvey takes up his mug and sucks it and the story comes out of him like piss from a horse’s croppers.

It happened thith way, says he. Tritht the father is getting on, and our dear boy ith hith one and only. Deedth him three old family parcelth to keep in running order, for to learn the rigging of it. Thee? And young Atha barely out of thort panth, and crazy ath a beaver into the bargain.

He stops a bit.

Lets hear it, Harvey, you dithered little shite, says I.

All right, says he. What do you reckon our nutter planth on doing firtht?

Enlighten us, says T.M.

He meanth to let em go, Harvey yells, slapping both hams on the counter.

Who? says I.

HITH NIGGERTH!