Mississippi Jack

by L. A. Meyer

  "It happened, Miss, that I—"

  "Who the hell is she? Some kind o' princess or some-thin'?" asks the mystified Fink upon seeing this performance, for performance it truly is. "And who the hell are you to be waitin' on her like that?" He squats on the stern next to his sweep and peers suspiciously at us.

  "In a way, she is, Sir," explains Higgins, imperturbable as always. "She is the chief executive officer and major stockholder of Faber Shipping, Worldwide. I am an employee of the same corporation and, as such, am performing my duties in that regard."

  "Well, ain't that somethin'," replies Fink, considering this concept in the dark recesses of his mind. "Hmmmm..."

  "May I pour you a cup, Mr. Fink?" asks Higgins.

  "Might's well. Ain't got no whiskey, and damned if I was gonna buy any off that damned Tweedie, neither, thirsty as I am, which is very thirsty. Thirsty enough to drain a middlin'-sized lake, if'n I drank water, which I don't. Ain't drunk nothin' but good corn likker since the day they pulled me offa my mama's teat, I ain't. Hell, ol' Mama, Torty Fink, which was her given name, liked her corn, too, so I figure the mother's milk I was gettin' outta her was a good fifty proof. It was a good way fer me t' get weaned, as I see it."

  At this, Fink throws back his head and bellows out a song at the top of his plainly very huge lungs:

  OH, IF THE RIVER WAS WHISKEY,

  AND I WAS A DUCK,

  I'D DIVE TO THE BOTTOM,

  AND NEVER COME UP!

  OH, "CORN WHISKEY, CORN WHISKEY,

  CORN WHISKEY," I CRY,

  IF'N I DON'T GET CORN WHISKEY,

  I SURELY WILL DIE!

  He goes into a high keen on the word cry, drawing it out to something like "CA-RYE-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" before finishing off the verse.

  "Tha's a good song, don't tell me it ain't," says Fink, well satisfied with his performance.

  "An excellent song, indeed, Mr. Fink, and so well done, too," I say, applauding. Actually it sounded like gravel rolling off a tin roof, but the song itself has possibilities. I shall have to get the rest of the verses. But not just now.

  "Thank you, girly-girl," says Fink. "I sung that song in memory of my dear mama."

  "Mother Fink has gone on to her reward?" I ask. "I'm so sorry."

  Fink gives a mighty pull on his sweep to get us closer to the shore. As the boat swings over, he again takes up his eulogy. "Yep, 'bout ten years ago, Mama'd been held in the Pigtown jailhouse for three whole days without a single drink, and you know that didn't sit right with Mama. Her mouth got so dry that a brace o' desert rattlesnakes set up housekeepin' in her throat, yeah, and her mouth got so dry that ever' time she spit, she spit out pure dusty sand. They set up a cement mixin' operation next to her cell window, to take advantage of the sand. Warn't able to get her plug o' tobaccy to soften up enough so she could even taste it, and we all know that ain't right. Well, she decided she warn't gonna take it no more, so she raised up a mighty roar and rattled the bars so hard that the very foundations of the jail shook. Then the plaster rained down from the ceiling and the windows all broke, so's they had to let her out, else the place'd fall about their ears."

  "Your mother sounds like a formidable lady," ventures I.

  "Yep, Mama was a big woman," continues Fink, in all seriousness. "Them Frenchy trappers tell me they named the Grand Teton Mountains way out West after Mama, and I believe 'em, cause if'n there's one thing them Frenchies know, it's grand teats, and Mama had 'em fer sure. One time, when she was off on a tear, she swung around a bit too fast and took out half the town of Natchez. It still ain't been totally rebuilt since that calamity, no sir."

  Fink shook his head in wonder at the magnificence of his mother's physical qualities and then went sadly on to re-count her unfortunate end.

  "Well, then Mama tramples three of them jailers to death on her way out of that slammer, and she hit the town runnin'. The first tavern she got to was the Dirty Dozens and she drunk it dry in under twenty minutes—that's beer, wine, them fancy lee-koors, and that fine, fine corn whiskey. She flung the last bottle aside and went into Horsehead Sally's and bellowed out for more. She drunk that place dry, too, of all their likkers and whatnot, even drank the birdbath dry, 'cause it was green and had feathers in it and stunk bad enough to be good. She kicked down the north wall of Sally's place and lurched over to Gypsy Judy's and done the same to that place, but, sad to say, the fact was that she was losin' her final battle. It looked like she was gonna be all right when she broke into Barkley's warehouse and found three fifty-gallon barrels of the best one-hundred-proof Kentucky likker. She clamped her teeth around the bung of the first one, pulled it out, lifted the barrel over her open mouth, and drank it dry. She paused to wipe her mouth—"

  "As she was a lady, after all," I murmur.

  "...and then she did the second. The townspeople gathered 'round in awesome wonder. Then she yanked the cork out of the third and drank it straight down, too..."

  Fink pauses here, as if overcome with emotion, and then he soldiers on:

  "Then she stood up, dropped the empty barrel, gave a mighty belch, which rolled over the countryside and blew out the windows of houses two hundred miles away, and then she just keeled over and died."

  "Ah, so it was the drink that brought her down," I note. "Such a pity."

  "Nahhh, that's what the townsfolk thought, and they sent for the doctor to come look at her mortal remains, which were considerable, believe me, and the doctor come and looked her over and shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'this poor woman did not die of the drink. She died of thirst.'"

  "Of thirst?" I ask, mock incredulous. I do know how to play my part.

  "Yep, it was thirst." Fink sighed, all grim. "There just warn't enough whiskey in that town to slake her thirst, poor woman. My mama died o' thirst." He sniffs back a tear.

  I do not mention to Mr. Fink that I know of an Irish song that has the same punch line, because by now I've grasped the gist of this game and I enter into the spirit of the thing.

  "My own dear mother also has passed from this world." I sniff, then work on coaxing out a tear of my own. "And she was of such purity of heart and soul that a band of a thousand angels came down from Heaven to take her up to her celestial reward. The archangel Gabriel himself played the Death March on his trumpet, and Saint Michael did beat his sword against his mighty shield to mark time for the holy procession. There were legions and legions of the saints and the sanctified on that Glory Road to Heaven, but none were deemed worthy to touch the hem of her snow-white garment. She sits now in glory at the left hand of God Himself."

  "Zat so? Hmmm," says Fink, considering this. "Well, no offense, girly-girl, but it sounds to me like your mama went up to Heaven with a stick up her ass, as I sees it." He clears his throat and goes on. "On my own mama's passin', now, fifty demons from down below come up and prodded her dear and gentle soul down to the lowest depths of Hell with their pitchforks, her hollerin' and squallin' all the way."

  "So sad, Mr. Fink," I say. "May I offer up a prayer for her deliverance?" I press my palms together.

  "Nah, don't bother," says Fink. "Soon's she got there, she throwed Satan hisself out, sayin' she's gonna rule Hell all by herself, and she done it ever since." Fink takes a deep breath and nods at the truth of what he's telling. "Yeah, ol' Satan ain't been the same since, poor devil. Saw him a few days ago, upriver, beatin' his breast and mopin' about on the riverbank. Ain't hardly worth kickin' his tail no more, as he's lost all heart and there ain't no fun in it."

  Mr. Fink heaves a great sigh over the problems of the underworld and goes on, relentless. "As for my mama's cor-pore-ree-al remains, well, there warn't an open space in Pigtown wide enough to dig a hole big enough to put her in, nor men enough to dig it, so they just got two hundred mules and hitched 'em up to her carcass and hauled her down to the river and floated her off. She floated all the way down past Natchez, past Memphis, past Vicksburg, past all them dirty little jerkwater towns, and finally ended up in the Gulf o' Mexico, wh
ere at last she come aground. Some birds landed on her and made their nests there, and turtles climbed aboard, too, and eventually she become the Island of Dry Tortugas, named that way 'cause of the horrible way Torty Fink died. Of an awful thirst. Amen."

  "Amen," I reply. If it's one thing Jacky Faber knows, it's when she's beat. "But now, Mr. Fink, what will be for dinner?"

  "Dinner? Ain't nothin' for dinner," answers our host. "Mike Fink don't eat nothin' 'cept raw, red meat, no, I don't. When I'm hungry, I grabs me the meanest old bear I can find and I eat him from the head on down, bones and all, and then pick my teeth with his foot claws when I gets down to them. Nope, nothin' for dinner. You didn't pay me enough for that."

  Deeper and deeper into the slough of ruin do you place your foot, Mike Fink, I think. And less and less sympathy I have for thee.

  Thinking unkind thoughts of Mr. Fink's hospitality and listening to my belly grumble, I notice Katy stiffen as we come around a bend in the river into some quiet water.

  She lifts her bow and looses an arrow, then another. There are quacks, then squawks, then only the sound of the prey being hauled aboard.

  "Ducks," says Katy Deere. "Ducks is what we're havin' for dinner."

  Chapter 16

  It's another fine day on the Allegheny River. The weather is good, the wind is calm, and the river churns along placidly between its banks.

  Last evening, Katy bagged several more unlucky ducks. Higgins went below to get the biggest pot he could to fill with river water and set it on the fire to boil. When it got to a good rolling boil, we dunked Katy's catch one by one to loosen up the feathers, then plucked 'em. Higgins expertly roasted the ducks while Katy, who was more adept at primitive cookery than Higgins, made up some pretty good biscuits. There was some lard and butter that was not too rancid in Mike Fink's kitchen, and that made the preparation of the food easier.

  I could have just sat idly by, but no, I rolled up my sleeves and helped pluck the birds. I mean, who am I to shirk work? I may be the owner of Faber Shipping, Worldwide, but at present its holdings are limited to my little Morning Star, which is now hanging in Dovecote's boathouse. Sure wish I had her here, but, hey, I'll work with what I got. Or what I am going to get. It's not just me I'm thinking about. I've got three employees with me who are not getting paid anything for their services.

  Mr. Fink brought the boat into a cove next to the shore and dropped the stern anchor. When it caught the bottom to his satisfaction, he tied off the rope, and after we were moored for the night, we finished preparations for dinner and sleep. Flatboats do not sail at night, I was informed. Hidden snags and sandbars and that sort of thing, you know.

  In spite of his declaration that he eats nothing but the raw meat of various creatures that live in this land—bull buffalo's good if'n you let the carcass sit out in the sun for a coupla weeks afore you eat it—he managed to eat more than his share of our ducks, which he pronounced to be good enough, for a light snack.

  After dinner we gazed up at the stars for a while, Mr. Fink telling us many fanciful tales concerning their origins and how he placed them just so in the heavens and all, and then we turned in to our bunks, exhausted from both the journey that brought us to this place in the world and the day's travel 'neath the relentless tutelage of our Mr. Fink and his tall tales.

  The bunks are wide, so after I claimed one, I pulled the reluctant Katy in with me, telling her it is part of her job on this trip to keep me from my nightmares by lending me her presence in my bed, since I do not like to sleep alone.

  That settled, I curled up next to her and sleep came easy and I knew nothing till the dawn of this new morning.

  Breakfast is tea and biscuits. Mr. Fink informs us that we will be stopping at the town of Kennerdell, about thirty miles up ahead, and we can buy things to eat there if we want but he is going to supply us with nothing.

  That news gives me cheer, as I have much on my mind in the way of present gratification and future plans.

  There are no chairs or benches on the flatboat, but the low cabin makes a fine seat anywhere you might want to place your bottom. I sit on the starboard-side middle, so I can see both Katy up at her post on the bow and Mr. Fink aft at the tiller. Jim sits by my side, watching Fink closely, while Higgins busies himself below. He reports to me that the kitchen is quite well fitted out and everything is remarkably clean. Higgins opines that Mr. Fink has not owned this vessel for very long, considering the rather dubious state of Mr. Fink's personal hygiene.

  The cabin's top is a very good vantage point for observing life on the river this fine day. We pass some other boats toiling upriver and Fink flings a few good-natured curses in their direction. I study their method of poling their craft against the current and am glad that I will be going only downstream on this voyage. I see that two teams of men, one on each side, form lines facing astern, and as they dig their long poles into the shallow water, they propel the boat as they walk along the planking specially added along each side of the boat's deck. When each man reaches the stern, he turns around, walks back up to the bow, goes to the head of the line, puts his pole back in, and, poling all the while, trudges to the back, over and over again. Effective, if backbreaking and monotonous. Give me a sail and wind to fill it, any day, I say.

  The men on the boats seem to dress in a very uniform fashion—boots, dark trousers, and loose white shirts with puffy sleeves and lacings at the open neck. A distinctive round black hat with a wide flat brim tops off their outfit. I reflect that I shall have to get us similarly outfitted, so as to blend in. I have taken out my light summer bonnet to keep the sun off my face, but I feel somewhat foolish in it.

  There is something dreamlike in watching the shore slip away beside us—it goes from solid green bank of trees, to quiet cove, to small cluster of simple houses, to stretch of sandy beach, and then back again to a wall of trees crowding the bank. It is not at all like a voyage on the ocean, with wave upon wave upon countless wave numbing the senses and making time stand still and making one retreat into one's own little sphere of existence. No, it's like watching a long, long story that has no plot, and no end, unfold before your eyes.

  I shake my head to rid it of these bootless thoughts and I pull out my pennywhistle, put it to my lips, and play a simple tune.

  "Can you dance as well as you can sing, Mr. Fink?" I ask, after tonguing the last cascade of notes in the "The Dawning of the Day." I also stand up and do a few steps, Irish-style.

  "Huh! You call that dancin'? Play somethin' better'n that and I'll show you, I will. Huh! Call that dancin'? In a pig's eye, that's dancin'. What's this world comin' to, to call that dancin'!"

  "Higgins, if you would," I call out, standing flat-footed, fuming, and glaring daggers at our host. "Please bring up the Lady Gay." I know it is small of me, but I don't take criticism very well, whatever the source, be it from various captains, from teachers, from my mates, or from foolishly boisterous boatmen. Just you wait...

  Higgins obligingly brings up my fiddle and bow from my seabag and hands it to me. I hop up on the low cabin top and lay the bow on the fiddle, give Mike Fink a ladylike sneer, and start out with "Tim Finnegan's Reel." When I finish, I rip off a few fancy steps and put up my bow and challenge him with my defiant gaze.

  "Now that's music, by God!" shouts Mike Fink. "Here, boy, take the tiller," he says, and Jim takes it while Fink bounds to the top of the cabin to tower over me. I reflect just how much like a stage this cabin is. Hmmm. Food for thought.

  Instead of going into a dance right off, he throws back his head and, for the benefit of anyone within five miles, bellows, "OOOOWEEEEEEEE! I'M A RING-TAILED WALLOPER WHAT HAS DANCED WITH THE DEVIL HIMSELF AND BEAT HIM TO A DRAW! HE PUT HIS FORKY TAIL 'TWEEN HIS GOATY LEGS AND BEGGED ME FOR MERCY! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME GO! HOLD ME BACK! HOLD ME BACK! I'M GONNA DANCE! I'M GONNA DANCE! WHOOOOOEEEEEEEE!"

  I certainly had not intended to send him off into another fit of braggadocio, but I guess I did.

  "All
right, girly-girl, play that again, only faster! And I'll show you how to really dance!"

  I put the bow to the Lady and tear it out. Fink puts one hand over his head and one behind his back and proceeds to stomp about mightily, more or less in time to the tune. The entire boat shakes. Be careful of this deck, you great oaf! You'll splinter the damned thing! I'm thinking, as he thunders about on the cabin top. I have begun to take a proprietary interest in this craft.

  I look over at Jim and see him experimenting with the feel of the steering oar as Fink puts on his show. Good boy.

  To prevent any further damage, I bring the song to an end, and Fink, with a final crash of his heavy boots, ends his dance as well.

  "Now that's good dancin'! You can't say it ain't!" he crows in triumph.

  "No, I cannot, Mr. Fink. You are as light and graceful on your feet as any ballerina," say I.

  "Screw bally-rinas," says Fink. "Now play 'The Boatman's Dance.'"

  "I'm afraid I don't know it, Mr. Fink, but if you'll hum a few bars of it..."

  "You got to know it if you're on the river. Goes like this." He again throws back his head and roars out:

  DANCE, THE BOATMAN'S DANCE, OH, DANCE THE BOATMAN'S DANCE,

  DANCE ALL NIGHT TILL THE BROAD DAYLIGHT

  AND GO HOME WITH THE GIRLS IN THE MORNIN!

  HI, HO, THE BOATMEN ROW, FLOATIN DOWN THE RIVER ON THE OHIO!

  HI, HO, THE BOATMEN ROW, UP AND DOWN THE OHIO!

  It is a simple tune and I pick it right up and join in with my fiddle as he goes to the next verse.

  WHEN YOU GO TO THE BOATMEN'S BALL

  DANCE WITH MY WIFE OR DON'T DANCE AT ALL.

  SKY-BLUE JACKET AND TARPAULIN HAT,

  LOOK OUT, MY BOYS, FOR THE NINE-TAILED CAT!

  Hmm. So the Cat rules on these waters, too. I think of the small raised scar I still wear on my back from my encounter with the nine-tailed lash, lovingly laid there by the late Captain Blodgett. Fink bellows out the chorus again and then sings on.