Perish from the Earth

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  Devol looked at me with barely concealed contempt. “If you think I avoided Jones because of Pound’s little deception, you haven’t been paying attention. That boy was nowhere near to doing me mortal harm.”

  “So who did kill him?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. My concern is where the cards lie.”

  “How about that last voyage in general, then? I know you’ve steamed aboard Pound’s ship before. Was there anything unusual about the run?”

  Devol’s face was so practiced at remaining straight that I didn’t even bother to scrutinize it. But the way he paused before answering made me think I was on to something. He was, after all, a man whose very gift lay in knowing the unsaid thoughts of others, his adversaries and allies alike. Or, I considered, perhaps Devol had merely adopted an alternate way to run me.

  “Maybe there was.” He shrugged and started shuffling his deck again.

  “What?”

  “Pound seemed—distracted—by something on board.” Before I could press him further, he added, “Or someone. Maybe you. He certainly was unhappy to see you. Perhaps it’s your own tail you’re chasing, Speed.”

  “Do you have a usual place where you run your side operation for the really big bettors?” I asked. “In your cabin? Or maybe late at night in the barber’s shop?”

  “The bank’s open again for business,” Devol shouted to his players. “Come place your bets.”

  The players crowded around and began pushing me away from the table. As I retreated, I looked around the room again and noticed that someone was missing from the tableau.

  “Where’s your slave tonight?” I called to Devol.

  “Who?”

  “Your slave. She was right there—standing against that wall—the night of the monte.”

  “I would and could hold no person in bondage,” said Devol, looking me directly in the eye for once.

  “Then whose slave was she?”

  Devol shrugged and turned back to the board to scrutinize the bets. He burned off the soda and commenced play. Thinking hard about what I had learned, I went to join my sister.

  “It’s Mr. Speed, isn’t it?” said Martha when I reached her.

  “What are you reading so intently, Miss Bell?” I replied. “If you strain your eyes from reading too much, you’ll make an unattractive old maid someday, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s called The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,” she said. “By a new author from England—goes by ‘Boz,’ nothing more. And may I suggest you work on your conversational skills? You’re not nearly handsome or smart enough to rely on either attribute, and I’m afraid your banter leaves a great deal to be desired.”

  Both of us worked to suppress smiles.

  “Won’t you tell me that story about your father’s farm?” she said loudly, in case anyone could overhear. She added, in barely a whisper, “I’m glad you came over. I was about to give up for the night and retire to our cabin. Aunt Nanny dozed off an hour ago. How did things go with the captain and mon ami Monsieur Daumier?”

  “He’s no friend of mine,” I said, “and he’d better not become one of yours either. You were reckless to engage him at supper like that. I doubt you’ll be able to get rid of his attentions now.”

  “Are you jealous?” Martha teased, her eyes sparkling. “Worried that Monsieur Daumier is more experienced in the ways of the world than you?”

  “I’m concerned for your safety,” I returned in a serious whisper, “as you should be too. I have half a mind to take you off the boat at Cape Girardeau and put you on an Ohio River steamer heading back to Louisville for good.”

  “If you do,” she said with a smile, “you’ll never know what I learned from your adversary.”

  When she did not continue, I prompted, “Such as?”

  “That Jones died from a blow to the back of the head.”

  I gaped at her. “That’s big news,” I said excitedly, before remembering to lower my voice again. “At the court hearing, he and Prickett acted as if they didn’t know how he died. How did you possibly get Daumier to tell you?”

  “He didn’t know he was,” said Martha with a sly grin. “In fact, he didn’t know he was telling me anything of interest. He thought he was flirting with a foolish young woman of society who was playing at her schoolgirl French.”

  “Well, I have to admit, I’m impressed.”

  “I told you I’d be useful.”

  “What about Nanny Mae?” I asked. “How did you convince her to go on this voyage with you?”

  At the sound of her name, the old woman snorted softly from the other end of the couch. Both of us looked over at her, but her eyes remained closed, and she soon resumed her contented snore. Nonetheless, we lowered our voices still further.

  “It was easy,” whispered Martha, smiling with self-satisfaction. “I told her you were steaming south and were hesitant to let me come. She offered to come aboard with me before I could even voice the request.”

  “Did you tell her why I was coming aboard?” I whispered.

  “Only that it had something to do with Father’s interest in the ship. I didn’t mention Mr. Bingham. But I could have. I know we can count on her as an ally, if we need her.”

  I glanced at the sleeping old woman and back at my sister. “Other than each other, there’s no one aboard whom we should trust.”

  Martha made a face. “She’s a dear, kind person.”

  I suddenly noticed the quiet. Nanny Mae had stopped snoring. I stared at her, and before long, the gentle snoring resumed. Perhaps, I considered, we had been too quick to accept her as a fortuitous companion for Martha.

  “How far down the river is she planning to go?” I asked in a church whisper.

  “I may have mentioned we were heading to Commerce. She said her daughter lived in those same parts, so that would work perfectly for her.”

  Martha glanced away from me and I followed her gaze. A man about my age, with fine whiskers and a well-tailored frockcoat, was walking toward us. He was carrying a port-wine glass in each hand and there was a determined look in his eyes.

  Urgently, Martha whispered, “Kiss me.”

  “What?”

  “Kiss me. On the cheek. Now. Lean over to kiss me.”

  I did as I was told. When my lips were two inches from her cheek, she slapped my face, hard, with the open palm of her hand. I gave a genuine yell of pain.

  “I told you, Mr. Speed, that is enough,” Martha said loudly, gathering her skirts and rising to her feet as the young man with the port wine hurried toward us. “I have listened patiently to you tell me every last detail of the operation of your father’s farm, but my patience should in no way have been confused with an interest in your attentions.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t care how many bottles of wine you’ve consumed tonight,” she continued. “I may be from a small farm, but I know that’s no way to treat a proper young lady.”

  The port-wine man was beside us now, and he grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me away from the couch. “You heard her,” he said. “Shove off.”

  “I meant no harm,” I said, endeavoring to act with the unsteadiness of a man who had consumed several bottles. “I was merely visiting with Miss Bell.”

  “Miss Bell doesn’t want to be visited with, does she?” he said, leading me still farther away from the couch and toward the door.

  The entire room had turned its attention to our little drama. Two or three other men started determinedly toward Martha’s couch, sensing the opportunity to offer their own ministrations. So much for my advice that Martha lay low on the ship, I thought.

  I shook loose from the port-wine man and straightened my coat, affecting a look of wounded pride. “Perhaps it was a misunderstanding, friend,” I said. “Perhaps it wasn’t. You know how fickle these young women can be. You can’t ever play a hand if you don’t ante up now and again, eh?”

  The man turned back to Martha, but he was to be denied the w
ages of his gallantry. Several men now milled around my sister, inquiring solicitously of her well-being and shooting glances at me that were reproachful and jealous in equal measure.

  What was more, the commotion had roused Nanny Mae. The old woman was gathering her knitting together in her weathered hands. Soon she asked Martha to help her to her feet.

  “I declare I’ve had enough excitement for one evening, dear aunt,” Martha said. “And you look like you’re ready for sleep yourself. You’ve been on the edge already, I venture. Shall we retire to our cabin?”

  “Yes, my dear,” Nanny Mae said, stroking Martha’s hand soothingly. “I think that’s just the thing for both of us.”

  The two women, young and old, processed together from the room, parting the cluster of would-be suitors as Moses parted the Sea of Reeds. When Nanny Mae passed by my position, she half turned toward me. I expected some sign of understanding or at least recognition. But instead her lips hardened into a frown, and even this she did not deign to show me directly as she led my sister from the room.

  CHAPTER 15

  The next morning, I stood on the forecastle and watched the passing riverbanks, well-timbered with cottonwood and beech. The War Eagle was making swift progress downriver, covering twelve miles or more in the course of each hour. The river was dotted with low islands, many covered by stands of tall trees, and the pilot weaved in and out of them expertly, following a navigable channel known only to him. A clutch of birds soared overhead, heading south like us but making faster time on their airy river than we could on our earthbound one.

  Here and there we passed a shanty or a rude cottage teetering on an exposed bank. Beside one dwelling, a hollow-cheeked, pale man stood motionless and watched us go by. At midmorning we steamed past a dozen Indians encamped on the western shore. They turned their backs with disinterest at the White Man’s floating castle.

  Not just the natural scenery was on display. The Mississippi was alive with vessels, and it seemed miraculous we did not collide with any of our fellow travelers. Most numerous were an endless variety of flatboats, ranging from one-person rafts no larger than a horse-drawn wagon to multi-boat barges—lashed together with thick dock rope—nearly as broad as the War Eagle herself.

  The flatboats carried on their open-air decks the entire variety of goods in Western commerce: cows, horses, pigs, produce, lumber, grain, slaves. On one flatboat alone, I counted eleven horses, munching peaceably on hay and seemingly oblivious to their surroundings as they floated downstream. On another, four slaves sat in a circle, their arms chained behind them, watching the riverbank pass with tight expressions.

  The flatboats went exclusively downstream, but we passed a few keel-boats headed back upriver toward St. Louis. Narrow walkways ran along each side of the central roofed compartment of the keel-boats. On each walkway, a line of muscular boatmen walked steadily toward the rear of the ship, bracing against their shoulders long poles that reached the river bottom, thus propelling the craft forward. As each man in the chain reached the rear of the ship, he would pull his pole out of the river’s muck, race back to the bow of the boat, and thrust his pole back into the river bottom, thereby overcoming the current by sheer human will.

  I heard the clanging of the ship’s bell for the second time that day—the first had been at daybreak, as the vessel weighed anchor—and left the absorbing river scene and headed back to the captain’s office. Pound was absent, but another officer was there, and he gestured to several sheaves of paper spread out across the mahogany desk. I helped myself to Pound’s chair and got to work.

  The first thing I did was to locate the daily ledger of income and expenses. I wet my index finger and pressed it onto an entry from the previous day. A small smudge appeared on my finger; the ink was still slightly wet. I picked several entries from the prior weeks and repeated the same exercise. No smudges. The ledgers had not been rewritten overnight.

  Four hours later, my eyes stinging from squinting so long at the tiny handwriting that filled the books, I was certain of little else. The transport numbers for slaves were down greatly from prior years, just as Pound had said, as were the numbers for barrels of whiskey and molasses and tonnage of cotton transported. The number of passengers had declined too, though more modestly, while the expenses recorded seemed necessary and unexceptional.

  My head swam with figures—dates, dollars and cents, tonnage and heads. It felt like I was staring out from the forecastle into a pea-soup fog as the ship crept down the river at low throttle: there was something out there, somewhere, but I didn’t know what it was or where to look.

  There was just one item that struck me as out of place. On several occasions during the present year, the term “Inspector” appeared in the listing of expenses. The size of the costs associated with the entry varied, but they were large enough to make a difference to the overall profitability of the War Eagle—large enough to matter to my father. It was as if there really was an Inspector of the Port, demanding payments from the ship, but Pound had confirmed for me the prior night that no such person existed.

  I went off in search of Pound to seek an explanation. But when I reached the forecastle, another event intervened. It was time for the ship’s daily wooding stop. A crewman was circulating among the cabin passengers, explaining that the boat would stop at the next wood-yard for thirty-five minutes but not a second longer and that any cabin passenger who wanted to go ashore to stretch his or her legs was responsible for being back on board before the ship cut loose.

  “The captain has never been known to wait for a tardy man,” the crewman cried boastfully. “And as for the only woman who tried to make him wait—the captain left his own wife behind without a second glance.” The gentlemen around me chuckled appreciatively at the captain’s manly instincts.

  Meanwhile, I could hear another crewman below, shouting out for recruits from among the deck passengers to help with loading the wood. Any man who volunteered, I heard the crewman shout, would be entitled to ten cents off his passage. Leaning over the railing and looking down at a jostling mass of deck passengers, I saw many who were prepared to trade upon their labor.

  Soon we rounded a great bend in the river and saw a large wood-yard, stretching for nearly a quarter mile, ahead of us on the eastern bank. Neat stacks of logs, eight feet high and some eighty feet long, lined the yard. There was another steamboat—a two-deck, side-wheeled affair, perhaps half the size of the War Eagle—tied up at the small dock adjoining the yard. A continuous line of men marched through the yard and up the plank of the smaller ship, logs held aloft on each shoulder, like an army of industrious ants filling up the colony’s communal food supply before an approaching storm.

  The crew of the War Eagle cut her engines, and we drifted with the current toward the other ship, trying to time matters in order to pull up just as the other steamer was ready to cast off. The forecastle was crowded now as the cabin passengers came out in force to watch the wooding operation. Martha and Nanny Mae had reappeared and stood ten feet from my perch. As we approached, I could see the name “Vicksburg” painted on the other ship’s hull. Soon the ships were quite close together, separated by perhaps one hundred feet in the swirling waters, and we could easily see the passengers lining the decks of the Vicksburg.

  Suddenly three pulses of bright light flashed into my eyes, temporarily blinding me. I blinked, then sought out the source of the light. It had come from the direction of the Vicksburg, and looking down at its top deck I saw a squat, unshaven man with a low cap slipping a spyglass into his pocket. He should be more careful, I thought as the man turned away from the War Eagle, he could have blinded—

  I gasped. As the spyglass man turned, the afternoon sun cast his silhouette against the base of the Vicksburg’s pilot house in stark relief. The profile was unmistakable. It was the hook-nosed man.

  I called out and waved my arms. But the man either couldn’t hear me or chose to ignore me, as he continued to walk toward the stern of the Vicksburg.
What’s more, at that moment, the Vicksburg cast off from the wooding dock, and its waterwheels began to pick up speed. It pulled away from the dock, heading downstream, while at the same time the War Eagle steered toward the vacated berth.

  I grabbed the tunic of the nearest crewman. “We must proceed downriver at once,” I shouted. “Follow that ship!”

  “Soon enough, sir,” he replied, firmly removing my hand from his shirt. “The wooding shouldn’t take longer than half an hour, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “But we need to leave now!”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossi—”

  “Where’s Captain Pound?” I demanded, realizing only his word would produce the needed result.

  “There’s no need to panic, sir. We’ll be on our way soon.”

  “Where’s Captain Pound?” I shouted again. Not a few cabin passengers had noticed the commotion by now. I had the vague sense Martha and Nanny Mae were among the onlookers, but I had no time to spare for them.

  “The capt’n likes to supervise the wooding personally,” the crewman said, looking at me with distaste. “I imagine you’ll find him by the guards on the main deck, right next to the boiler room.”

  I raced down three flights of stairs and was almost decapitated as I rounded a bend and nearly ran headlong into the first set of logs being carried aboard. But I managed to duck beneath them at the last minute, and on the other side of the gathering procession of wooders, I found Pound. He was in full throat, directing the stacking of the logs crossways in a cavernous hold that was virtually empty, save for enormous twin black boilers, each the size of a small house, which gurgled and spat at the far end of the space.

  I ran up to him. “Do you know the ship at the wood-yard just before us? The Vicksburg?”

  Pound made a show of directing a half-dozen newcomers in turn to the corners where he wanted them to stack their logs. Then, as slowly as humanly possible—no, slower—Pound turned to acknowledge my presence.

  “I know all the ships on the river,” he said with exaggerated deliberation. “As soon as we finish wooding up, I’m sure I’d be content to instruct you about each of them, starting with the Vicksburg, if you like.”