‘McBride has not yet confirmed the suspicions of the rest. Although I could not be specific and was unable to show him proof of our intent, I think he believes me. But he claims that his position as master of the Delta Dawn means he must be neutral. That the safety of his ship and her passengers and crew is his prime concern.’
‘That is traditional,’ Charity put in tautly.
‘Tradition is the main obstacle to progress,’ Rhett muttered. ‘That’s said a lot.’
‘Tradition of burying the dead is sure holding us up,’ the half-breed augmented.
McBride had opened the bible now and every man at the graves had removed his hat. The captain’s words did not carry as far as the salon.
‘But he is prepared to put it to a democratic vote,’ Ferris continued, his tone betraying irritation at the interruption. ‘After the interment, he will take advantage of having the ship’s company and the passengers gathered together. He will tell them what I told him and ask them to choose whether we should be allowed to continue as passengers.’
Charity vented an unladylike snort of disgust. ‘Adding there is always the risk that the Rebels will strike again, with little regard for the lives of the innocent!’
Edge glanced over his shoulder towards the table. He saw that the woman’s chagrin was directed entirely at the older man. Ferris attempted to cover one of her hands with his own. But she snatched her arm back quickly. Ferris looked hurt, then stared earnestly at Edge’s back.
‘I appreciate that you acted in the interest of our mission this morning. Having taken part in the killing myself, I obviously condone what you did. But I cannot allow innocent lives to be put at risk in the future - unless those in danger are aware of the situation. I therefore intend to abide by the will of the majority.’
He sighed deeply, as if intensely relieved to have stated his views.
Edge continued to look out at the funeral, as he struck a match on the bulkhead and lit a just rolled cigarette.
‘We’re gonna get off this boat and walk if that’s the way the vote goes?’ he asked evenly.
‘We will disembark, certainly,’ Ferris confirmed pompously. The horses of the Rebels will not have scattered far in these weather conditions. Indeed, it may well be advantageous to leave this ship and travel by another means - unknown to the enemies of the Union.’
There was a long silence inside the salon. Outside, at the rear of the dock, McBride snapped the bible closed and put his uniform cap back on his head. Roustabouts moved forward, to begin shoveling displaced earth back into the graves. But McBride shouted and held up his hands, to recapture attention again.
‘What do you think, Edge?’ Charity asked.
‘It is immaterial!’ Ferris said firmly. ‘I am in charge of this mission. I welcome help, whether the reason it is given me be patriotism or financial reward. But I am prepared to complete it alone if needs be. Mr. Edge, Mr. Rhett or you, my dear, may certainly remain aboard the Delta Dawn if any of you feel so inclined.’
Out on the burial ground, McBride was making a speech. Interest, rather than a sense of duty, ensured he held the attention of his audience this time. Edge put his back to the scene.
‘I’m with you, Captain,’ Rhett said eagerly.
The half-breed curled back his lips to display his teeth: very white against the darkness of his bristles. ‘Got no objection to that, feller. When we’ve got our backs to the wall.’
Rhett showed a much warmer grin than that of the half-breed. ‘I don’t like it, but I’ll take it - from you.’
Despite Charity’s disenchantment with Ferris, it was obvious the new turn of events had not cancelled out her ill-feeling towards Edge. But the half-breed was certain she would go along with his opinion.
He wrinkled his nose, as if he had caught a bad odor on the stove-heated air.
‘Is that your response?’ Charity snapped.
‘Just seeing if that kind smells, lady,’ he answered.
‘Kind? Of what?’ The color that filled her cheeks was created by impatience now.
‘Bullshit.’ He glanced over his shoulder as Ferris made a spluttering noise.
McBride had put the proposition to his audience and no more than half a dozen had raised their hands. As Edge’s narrowed eyes located the scene, these hands were lowered. McBride said a single word and many more arms were thrust skywards. The master of the Delta Dawn showed a smile of relief and waved for the roustabouts to fill in the graves as he started back for his boat.
‘Sir, I resent—’ Ferris started.
Edge swung his head and fixed the man with a stare that was colder than the outside temperature. He pumped the action of the Winchester. Ferris expressed fear. Rhett brightened his grin and Charity showed satisfaction.
‘Ain’t no democracy in war time, feller,’ the half-breed muttered. ‘We just lost the vote. But I ain’t about to concede anything.’
Ferris started to rise.
‘Rhett!’ Edge snapped.
‘Captain?’
‘If he tries for the knife, kill him!’
Charity gasped.
‘Will do!’ Rhett acknowledged, leveling, cocking and aiming his rifle.
Edge went to the door, jerked it open, threw the stock of the Winchester to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. Yells and screams accompanied the gunshot. The bullet kicked up snow a foot in front of McBride. The man halted abruptly. His, and every other head on shore swung towards the tall, rock-steady, almost statue-like figure of the half-breed at the deck rail. Some of the shocked eyes blinked as sunlight glinted on the rifle-barrel.
‘You people want some more of hell froze over?’ Edge shouted.
‘Ferris agreed to abide by the wish of—’
‘That was between you and him!’ Edge cut in. ‘Awhile back. He ain’t very agreeable at all, right now.’
‘We can rush ’em, Mr. McBride!’ a man on one side of the crowd suggested, his voice tremoring with excitement or fear.
Edge turned from the waist, elevated his aim and squeezed the trigger. The man who had yelled vented a howl and the Winchester was back covering McBride by the time the displaced hat scaled to the snow.
‘Just a hat!’ Edge snarled at the shocked crowd. ‘Anyone want to bring matters to a head?’
The threat erupted screams and gasps, then brought silence.
‘What is it you want?’ McBride demanded at length. ‘My ship?’
‘Already got that. Vote wasn’t unanimous.’
The big Negro - Linn - was the first to elbow his way clear of the crowd and swing wide of McBride to approach the forward gangplank.
‘Stinkin’ nigger!’ an unidentified voice yelled.
‘Boy, the North-South trouble ain’t just about abolition!’ another man called.
Linn halted halfway across the gangplank. Six other men broke from the crowd to trail him.
‘Maybe so!’ the big black man drawled. ‘But it sure is the only bit I give a shit about.’
The men trailing him were viewed with mass contempt by the crowd they had left. Four of them were crew members and the other two passengers. Edge knew that at least one - perhaps two - had not voted in favor of aiding and abetting Ferris.
‘All you people are guilty of serious crimes!’ McBride shouted. ‘Mutiny or piracy!’
‘And perhaps even murder!’ a woman added shrilly. ‘We could all perish left here without food and hardly any shelter.’
‘Nonsense!’ Charity Meagher countered as she stepped from the salon doorway. ‘With the blizzard over there’ll be many boats passing shortly.’
‘Hey, up there! We got ’em covered real good.’
Edge canted the Winchester to his shoulder and leaned over the rail to look down at the Main Deck. The six white men were positioned at regular intervals along the lower deck rail. All of them had claimed a Winchester from the pile of weapons taken from the dead raiders. They aimed the rifles out towards the group behind the dock. Linn was standing at the bow cl
eat.
‘I want to get off!’ This was a short, fat man who waddled to the stern gangplank. ‘Is it all right if I get off? Me and my ladyfr... me and my lady wife?’
He had a bald head that glistened with the sweat of fear. The woman who trailed tentatively behind him was thin, sour-faced and twice his age. Her complexion was beet red.
‘Please, we don’t want to get involved!’ the woman called up towards Edge.
‘I don’t have to like your choice, feller,’ the half-breed answered wryly. ‘But you can get it off with whoever you like.’
The couple scuttled out across the gangplank. Edge redirected his attention to the riflemen below him.
‘You fellers can run this boat?’
‘No sweat, suh!’ Linn confirmed.
‘So do it. You won’t get any hassle.’
He straightened and tipped the Winchester forward again, bringing up his free hand to steady his aim at McBride. Something brushed his elbow and he shot a sidelong glance at the woman. She was aiming Rhett’s Winchester in the same manner, grimacing at the weight of the gun.
‘It’s all right,’ she rasped. ‘Mr. Ferris has a knife at his throat.’
‘Puts him in a hell of a lot more danger than the people down there,’ the half-breed muttered.
‘They don’t know that,’ she countered stiffly.
Steam hissed from the safety valves with urgency for the first time since the late night docking. And the engines rumbled with the drive still disengaged.
‘You won’t get far without a pilot!’ McBride snarled. ‘And if snags don’t stop you, I’ll make sure the authorities do.’
‘Cast off forward!’ Linn shouted from the wheel-house. ‘Cast off the stern line!’
‘I don’t like it,’ Charity muttered.
‘It didn’t show - the first time.’
She snorted, unladylike again. ‘I mean the way they’re taking it so calmly. You’d think—’
‘I think not too many people take guns to a funeral,’ Edge cut in. ‘I think most of them are scared. I think maybe there are just a handful of them feel strong enough to join in another war.’
The lines had been released and the gangplanks hauled aboard. Black smoke was billowing from the twin stacks. The Delta Dawn drifted away from the wharf and downstream on the Missouri current. Drive was engaged and the paddle-wheel began to thrash the water. Her rudders were held hard over and she nosed out further towards mid-river and began to make way.
Edge lowered his rifle and the woman imitated him, with a sigh of relief. She sagged against the rail.
There are women and old people here!’ McBride roared, turning towards the crowd as they made to surge forward. He threw his hands high in the air and his voice and the gesture halted the rush. ‘Men more able than us will see those people get their just desserts!’
‘McBride is right, Edge!’ Horace Ferris snarled as he was urged across the salon threshold by Rhett’s pressure - the blade part of the combination weapon held against the nape of his neck. ‘You have committed piracy and incited mutiny. Most serious crimes at a time when a state of war does not exist.’
‘Same brand of bullshit as before, uh Captain?’ Rhett asked. ‘Just because there hasn’t been any big battles, that doesn’t mean we aren’t in a war of some kind.’
The sun continued to shine down brightly as it touched its mid-morning position against the eastern dome of the sky. The air, again given an illusion of movement by the forward progress of the boat, seemed to penetrate clothing and flesh to chill deep-buried bones. Ice-floes started to crunch against the stern-wheeler’s spoon bow again. Nebraska and Iowa were covered with a deep layer of crusted snow for as far as the eye could see.
Edge jerked his hat brim lower over his forehead, turned up the collar of his coat and held the rifle in the crook of his right arm so he could push his hands into his pockets.
‘If it is, feller,’ he muttered, ‘it sure is a cold war.’
CHAPTER TEN
The Delta Dawn made good time away from the stranded crew and passengers at the fuel stop. The two passengers who had chosen to continue north aboard the stern-wheeler elected to fire the boilers. Both were young, and strong from the rigors of silver mining, which was their trade. Linn and the ship’s cook shared the first period of duty in the wheel-house and the only man handling his own job was an engineer. The other two men, together with Edge and Rhett, divided their time around the boat, learning what was necessary for when the watches changed,
Charity Meagher and a subdued Horace Ferris kept busy in the galley, preparing the midday meal.
Presented with the fait accompli of the confiscated boat, Ferris acknowledged that lack of co-operation could only harm his aim. He had his knife returned to him and, like everyone else aboard, was hardly ever without, and always within easy reach of, a rifle or revolver.
The weather remained bright and bitterly cold, the sun being the only blemish on the otherwise solid blue of the sky. There was no wind and the Missouri flowed evenly - muddy brown except for the clear bow-waves and white wakes of boat traffic.
As morning grew old, noon was overtaken and the afternoon progressed, every kind of craft showed on the wide waterway. Stern-wheelers, side-wheelers, yawls, mackinaws, keelboats, flatboats, rowboats and dugout canoes travelled both north and south. The Delta Dawn often swung wide with the skilful handling of the Negro to pass other north-bound boats. Always to leave them far behind in quick time, her boilers roaring, her engines whining and her wheel thudding.
The broadly grinning Linn, immensely enjoying his role as token master, always ignored the enraged shouts and violently shaken fists that were directed towards his wheelhouse as other craft underway were pitched and rolled in the thrashing, foaming water swirled up by the rapidly-turning wheel.
Once everybody aboard, with the exception of Charity and Ferris, was familiar with the intricacies of the boilers, engines and steering gear, off-duty men either slept or kept watch on the banks. This careful surveillance of Nebraska and Iowa was maintained from the superstructure each side of the wheel-house: the man inside who was not on the helm having to concentrate his attention on the river immediately ahead - searching for ice-floes and snags that could rip the bottom out of the racing stern-wheeler, sandspits which could ground her or lesser obstructions which were a risk to the twin rudders and paddle-wheel.
Edge was watching the Iowa side of the river when Charity came up the stairway from the Hurricane Deck, two mugs of steaming coffee in either hand. She gave one to Rhett who was watching the Nebraska bank, handed two into the wheel-house and then squatted down beside the half-breed with the final one.
‘It’s too easy, isn’t it?’ she asked nervously after watching him drink the fast-cooling coffee.
‘It’ll get tougher, ma’am.’
‘I realize that.’ She hugged herself, her arms forming bars against the coat-contoured mounds of her breasts. But there was no way to protect her face from the bite of the freezing air and her clear skin was bluish white. ‘Mr. Ferris feels the authorities are turning a blind eye to us. The people we left behind must have been rescued by now.’
Edge nodded as he continued to survey snow-covered Iowa. ‘But first they got to get to a telegraph office. Closest one will be at Omaha.’
‘Of course!’ Charity exclaimed.
‘And we ain’t passed no town bigger than a couple of shacks so far. Maybe Sioux City has a telegraph office. I don’t know.’
‘Neither do I.’
The half-breed drained the mug, swallowed most of the coffee, and spat the grit-like grounds over the side. That might be the kind of information people would expect a secret agent to know,’ he growled.
Charity didn’t answer for long moments, until Edge directed a bleak-eyed glance at her. ‘All right, you might as well be told. Mr. Ferris and me are no more secret agents than you are. He’s just a New Orleans cotton man and—’
‘Who just happens to be good with a
throwing knife. A little slow maybe, but—’
‘A skill he acquired as a child! One he used as a party trick until this started.’
‘Sure beats pulling rabbits out of a hat.’
‘And I am merely a school-teacher. But everything else we told you is true. There is a letter: and a group of Government agents in New Orleans did obtain it from the new Rebels.’
‘Always did believe that, ma’am,’ he told her, raking his hooded eyes back and forth along the river bank again. ‘Wouldn’t have done so much killing on a hunch.’
‘It was that last man you shot which turned you against Mr. Ferris, wasn’t it?’
‘You weren’t exactly rooting for him for awhile, ma’am.’
‘Because l disagreed with his decision. Although I despise killing, I realized you had to kill that man to salvage whatever shreds of secrecy are left with regard to our mission. Then Mr. Ferris told Captain McBride almost everything.’
‘Secret agent wouldn’t have done that,’ Edge pointed out wryly.
Charity sighed and her tone became melancholy. ‘John Ferris worked for the Government, Edge. He was the son of Mr. Ferris and the last member of the group to die. He gave the letter to his father and made him promise to deliver it personally to Mr. Coolidge. I got there just as John died.’
‘Why you, ma’am.’
‘John and I were engaged to be married. He was the first, and the last man before you.’
When Edge glanced at her again, he saw she had learned to control her blushes. Her pretty face was still white tinged with blue.
‘I said I’d help Mr. Ferris. But when the Rebels caught up with us, we knew we’d have little chance of success on our own. And we didn’t think anyone would help us unless we claimed official status. For we are doing this only partially from patriotism. Mostly, we feel we owe it to a man we both loved.’
The Delta Dawn steamed past a farmstead perched on a low bluff. A rowboat moored at a small wooden dock pitched crazily in the wash from the stern-wheel.
‘You are helping for another consideration, Edge. Mr. Ferris asked me to give you this.’
She thrust out a hand towards him. He looked at the stack of ten dollar bills held against the palm by her thumb.
Edge: Echoes of War (Edge series Book 23) Page 12
