Clive Cussler; Craig Dirgo

by The Sea Hunters II

  Belowdecks was the domain of Nicholas Baker, a dark-haired man who stood five feet nine inches and weighed 150 pounds. Baker had a face that was square and sturdy and without contrasts. His appearance might be called plain, save for his bright smile and warm eyes. With help from the six Cajun and Kaintuck deckhands, Baker tended to the engines and kept the boiler’s fires stoked and the steam at a steady 60 pounds.

  At least New Orleans was blessed with an experienced crew.

  Painted an unusual sky-blue, the vessel steamed around the port bend in the Ohio River above Cincinnati. The pile of firewood on the rear deck was less than four feet by four feet, barely enough to make the city docks, since New Orleans burned fuel at the rate of six cords a day. A single cord of wood measures four feet high by four feet wide by eight feet long. When the steamboat was fully stocked with a full day of fuel, she looked like a lumber barge on her way to the mill.

  “Sweep up the scraps of bark,” Roosevelt said to one of the Cajun deckhands, “and straighten the rear deck.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man drawled.

  “We need the boat to look her best,” Roosevelt said as he walked forward, “for as of this instant she’s the most famous ship in the Western Territories.”

  At that instant, the shriek of the steam whistle ripped through the air.

  “Cincinnati dead ahead,” Jack shouted from the pilothouse door.

  As soon as New Orleans was tied fast to the dock, a crowd of citizens went to the waterfront to view the oddity up close. Nicholas Roosevelt was in rare form, and the bizarre events of the journey so far seemed behind them. With a showman’s zeal, he led groups aboard the steamboat.

  “Come one, come all,” he shouted, “see the future of travel firsthand.”

  As the crowds filtered aboard, Engineer Baker explained the workings of the steam engine while Captain Jack demonstrated the steering from the pilothouse. Roosevelt even allowed the guests to tour the cabins and dining room. Other than the grumbling of a spoilsport, who claimed the vessel would never make it upstream against the current, the visit was proving successful.

  It was dark and growing cold by the time the last guests left.

  A chill wind blew from the east. The pregnant Lydia was tired and cold. She was resting in the dining room with a blanket around her legs. Her feet were propped up on a chair. Nicholas chased the last of the guests off New Orleans, then pulled the gangplank back aboard. Entering the dining room, he walked over to his wife.

  “We couldn’t fire the cookstove because of all the people aboard,” Lydia said, “so we’re having cold roast beef sandwiches for dinner.”

  Nicholas nodded wearily.

  “The cook did have a chance to slip ashore and buy milk, however,” Lydia said, “so you can have a cold glass of milk with your sandwich.”

  Nicholas pushed the clasp on his gold pocket watch, and the top popped open. Staring at the roman numerals inside, he could see it was nearly 7 P.M. “I need to go ashore for pipe tobacco. The store closes soon. Do you need anything?”

  Lydia smiled. “If there’s a pickle barrel, a few dills would be good.”

  “The baby, my dear?” Roosevelt asked.

  “Yes,” Lydia agreed, “it seems he craves sour.”

  “Be right back,” Roosevelt said.

  “I’ll be waiting with your sandwich,” Lydia shouted after her retreating husband.

  Nicholas leapt the short distance to the receiving pier, then hurried up the cobblestone street to the store. Cincinnati was a frontier town. No streetlights lined the avenue, and what scant illumination was available came from candles and fuel oil lamps inside the shops lining the road. Half of the shops were closed for the night, and the cobblestones were a patchwork of light. Finding the mercantile, Nicholas entered, made his purchases, then started back for the boat.

  Roosevelt was bone-tired. The excitement of the last few days, combined with the fact that he had yet to eat dinner, was dragging him to the edge of exhaustion. He walked with his head down as he descended the hill to the river.

  Roosevelt did not see the approaching man until he was already upon him.

  “The end is near,” the man shouted, as Roosevelt nearly bumped into him.

  Nicholas raised his eyes and took in the stranger. The man was bedraggled and badly in need of a bath. His hair was long, halfway down his back, and matted. His face was deeply tanned, as if he lived outdoors. What few remaining teeth he had were stained from chewing tobacco. It was his eyes that Roosevelt focused on. They burned with an intensity of conviction or madness.

  “Back away, my good man,” Roosevelt said, as the man edged closer.

  “The squirrels, the birds, a fiery comet,” the man muttered. “How much more proof does man need? Repent. Repent.”

  Nicholas passed the man and continued down the hill.

  “Bad things are coming,” the man shouted after him. “Mark my words.”

  Strangely shaken by the bizarre exchange, Roosevelt returned to the New Orleans, quickly finished his sandwich and milk, then crept into bed. Hours passed before he found the release of sleep. It would be nearly two months before he knew what the strange man had meant.

  Two DAYS LATER, New Orleans bid farewell to Cincinnati, bound for Louisville, Kentucky. At this time the Ohio River was untamed. It featured many stretches with white water and small falls. Luckily, Jack had navigated a variety of Hatboats and barges down this part of the river. He stood at the wheel and steered toward the correct channel. Like a kayak through rapids, the steamboat threaded past menacing rocks as the river’s rushing current hurtled it through the narrow channel at twice the speed she was capable of reaching on her own.

  In the ladies’ cabin, Lydia calmly knitted while her servants nervously clutched railings, the rough ride throwing them about the cabin. Everyone sighed with relief when the steamboat finally found calm water again.

  The maelstrom passed, and New Orleans reached Louisville under a pale harvest moon.

  “Well,” Jack said, as they pulled in front of the city. “We made it.”

  Then he released the steam valve. A shriek filled the air. The citizens of Louisville climbed from their beds at the unnatural sound. Wearing nightclothes and carrying candles, they sleepily made their way toward the river and stared at the bizarre beast that had arrived in the middle of the night.

  “Looks like you woke the entire town,” said Baker.

  “Mr. Roosevelt likes to make a grand entrance,” Jack said.

  Just below Louisville the following day, Roosevelt, Jack, and the mayor of Louisville stood staring at the falls of the Ohio River just outside town.

  “I’ve seen your vessel,” the mayor said, “and I concur with Mr. Jack. She draws too much to safely navigate the falls. I’d wait until the water rises.”

  “When is that?” Roosevelt asked.

  “The first week in December,” the mayor said.

  “Winter rains and snow raise the water level?” Jack asked.

  “Exactly,” the mayor said.

  “That’s nearly two months from now,” Roosevelt said. “What do we do until then?”

  “The crew of New Orleans will be our guests,” the mayor said.

  So that is what they did.

  From the start of the voyage, a romance between Maggie Markum, Mrs. Roosevelt’s maid, and Nicholas Baker had been blooming. The pair found time for stolen kisses and furtive groping while aboard the ship. More serious physical pursuits took place during their daily walks in the country. They were madly in love, and it would have been hard for the rest on the boat not to notice.

  Their love affair was not the only event that took place while New Orleans was tied up at Louisville.

  The first baby born on a riverboat, Henry Latrobe Roosevelt, arrived at sunrise.

  The next few weeks in Louisville passed with cleaning and maintenance. New Orleans’s slate-blue paint was touched up and the brightwork was polished. The sails, as yet unused, were unfurled and check
ed for tears or moth damage, then refolded and stowed on the masts. Andrew Jack studied the measurements on a sheet of paper, then tossed a stick into the middle of the falls and watched its rate of travel. It was late November, and a light chill frosted the air.

  “We can make it,” he said at last, “but we’ll need to traverse at full speed so we have steering control.”

  Nicholas Roosevelt nodded. A few days earlier, he had received a letter from his partners in the Ohio Steamboat Navigation Company. They’d expressed concern about the delay—the monopoly was in jeopardy. New Orleans needed to get under way. Once they had passed the falls, it would be smooth sailing.

  Or at least that’s what Roosevelt thought.

  Nicholas sat inside the dining room, spooning a deer stew into his mouth. Dabbing a cloth napkin at his lips, he then sipped from a tin cup filled with steaming coffee.

  “The river is fullest in about two hours,” he said. “I’ll have a deckhand take you by wagon to the bottom of the falls, where you’ll meet up with us.”

  “Is this for our safety?” Lydia asked.

  “Yes,” Nicholas said.

  “Then the boat might overturn?” Lydia asked.

  “The chance is slim,” Nicholas admitted, “but it might.”

  “Then you would be killed and I’d be alone with a new baby,” Lydia said.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Nicholas said.

  “I know it’s not,” Lydia said defiantly. “We’re going with you. All or none.”

  So it was settled. New Orleans left the dock in early afternoon.

  “I’ll run upstream about a mile,” Jack said, “then turn down and run her full-out.”

  Roosevelt stood outside the door to the pilothouse as New Orleans pulled into the current. Jack’s face was a mask of tension and concern. A thin trickle of sweat ran down his neck, no mean feat with the temperature outside in the forty-degree area.

  The steamboat was strangely quiet. The deckhands had secured themselves in the forward cabin. The women huddled together in the aft cabin, lining the windows to watch. Baby Roosevelt lay in a bassinet braced against a bulkhead, sound asleep.

  “I’m going to turn now,” Jack said.

  He spun the wheel. New Orleans turned slowly in an arc and faced downstream. Then Jack pulled the whistle, rang the bell for full steam, and said a prayer.

  Atop the rock outcropping on the south side of the falls, Milo Pfieffer and his best friend Simon Grants were pouring red paint into the water from a bucket they had stolen from the hardware store. The thin stream of tinted water widened as it neared the top of the falls, then spread across the water as it fell, finally completely tinting the discharge a light pink for a mile downstream.

  “Okay,” Milo said, “you go watch now.”

  “What’s that?” Simon said, as he heard a noise coming from upstream.

  “Ditch the paint,” Milo said, “there’s grown-ups coming.”

  Simon stashed the stolen paint, then turned to the crowd that was slowly advancing on the falls. Thirty of Louisville’s finest citizens left the dock before New Orleans. They planned to watch the steamboat shoot the falls or break up trying.

  “What’s happening?” Simon asked.

  “There’s a steamboat going to try and shoot the falls,” a man answered.

  Milo ran upstream until he spotted New Orleans racing downstream. He stared in awe. The slate blue of the hull seemed to blend with the blue of the river water. Sparks and smoke poured from the stack and trailed to the rear like a signal fire run amok. The twin paddle wheels chopped at the river, flinging sheets of water high in the air. No one was visible on deck save for the big black dog atop the bow sniffing the air. In fact, the vessel looked like a ghost ship. Suddenly, the steam whistle shrieked, and Milo watched as New Orleans entered the middle channel of the falls.

  “Back left wheel,” Jack shouted, “full starboard.”

  New Orleans leaped sideways.

  “Full on both wheels,” Jack said a second later.

  Spray washed through the open windows in the aft cabin, wetting Lydia’s and Maggie’s faces. To each side of the vessel were rocks and churning waters. They braced themselves as New Orleans took a sharp turn from left to right. In the pilothouse, Nicholas Roosevelt peered downstream.

  “Looking good,” he shouted over the roar of the water.

  Engineer Baker poked his head into the pilothouse. “How much longer?”

  “Two, maybe three minutes,” Jack said.

  “Good,” Baker said. “I’ll rupture a boiler if it’s much longer.”

  “Twenty yards ahead is a series of boulders we need to avoid,” Jack said.

  “What’s the sequence?” Roosevelt shouted.

  “Hard left, right half, left half, then full to the right and hug that side of the river until we’re in the clear,” Jack said.

  “Here they go,” Milo shouted as New Orleans lined up to tackle the last rapids.

  “He had better get her over to the left,” Simon added.

  The mayor of Louisville crested the rocks. He panted from the exertion of the climb. Stopping to catch his breath, he pulled the stub of a cigar from his vest pocket and crammed it in the comer of his mouth before speaking.

  “Hard to believe,” he said. “They just might make it after all.”

  Inside the pilothouse, the mood was tense but optimistic. Eighty percent of the falls had been navigated already. All that remained was a small series of rocky outcropping at the outflow. Then they would be in the clear.

  “We’re almost through,” Jack said.

  “The river narrows a bit right ahead,” Roosevelt noted.

  “And the current becomes stronger,” Jack noted. “I’ll need to steer at the rocks to the right, then let the current swing the bow around. Once she’s straight, give her full steam. We should pop right out the other side.”

  “Should?” Roosevelt asked.

  “We will,” Jack said.

  Inside the aft cabin, Lydia Roosevelt, Maggie Markum, and the heavyset German cook, Hilda Gottshak, were huddled together alongside the widows on the starboard side. Henry the baby was awake, and Lydia held him up to see.

  “Looks like we’re headed right for the wall,” Lydia said, pulling the baby closer.

  Gottshak hugged her Bible. “I pray the rest of this trip goes smoothly.”

  “Pray the engines keep running,” Lydia said to her.

  At that instant, the current grabbed hold of the bow and swung the vessel around.

  “Bully of a job,” Nicholas said, as they cleared the last of the falls. “Maxwell will bring you a snifter of brandy.”

  “The river is smooth from here to the Mississippi,” Jack noted.

  “How long until we reach Henderson?” Roosevelt asked.

  “Barring any problems, we’ll be there tomorrow afternoon,” Jack said.

  “QUIET,” LUCY BLACKWELL said, “or you will scare it away.”

  Blackwell was Lydia Roosevelt’s best friend. She was also the wife of artist John James Audubon, who would become famous for his sketches, drawings, and paintings of birds. Lydia Roosevelt was the daughter of Benjamin Latrobe, surveyor general of the United States. Nicholas had known the Latrobe family before Lydia was born, and he had watched her grow into womanhood. Though there was more than a twenty-year age difference between the two of them, Lydia was a happy wife.

  “Carolina Parrot,” Lucy said.

  “Beautiful,” said Lydia.

  Half a mile away, in the Audubons’ store in Henderson, Kentucky, Nicholas sat in front of a checkerboard. He glanced over at Audubon, then made his move.

  “We are 150 miles below Louisville,” Roosevelt said. “So far, so good.”

  Audubon studied Roosevelt’s move. Reaching onto the table, he removed a deerskin pouch of tobacco and filled his pipe. Tamping down the tobacco, he lit it with a nearby candle. “From here downstream,” Audubon said, “the river widens and the current slows.”
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br />   “So you think we’ll make New Orleans?” Roosevelt asked.

  “Sure,” Audubon said. “I made it to the Gulf of Mexico once in a canoe.”

  Roosevelt nodded and watched as Audubon made his jump.

  “Did a painting of a pelican there,” he finished, “with a fish hanging from his bill.”

  ON DECEMBER 16, New Orleans left Henderson and continued downstream.

  Inside a buffalo-skin tepee near present-day East Prairie, Missouri, a Sioux Indian chief drew in smoke from a long pipe, then handed it to his Shawnee visitor.

  “General Harrison defeated the Shawnee at Tippecanoe?” the Sioux chief asked.

  “Yes,” the Shawnee messenger noted. “The white men attacked the morning after the harvest moon. Chief Tecumseh rallied his braves, but the white men attacked and burned Prophet’s Town. The tribe has retreated from Indiana.”

  The Sioux took the proffered pipe and again inhaled the smoke. “I had a vision yesterday. The white man has harnessed the earth’s power for his own evil purposes. He has rallied the beasts to his cause, as well as controlling the comet in the heavens.”

  “One of the reasons I came,” the Shawnee explained, “is that our braves witnessed a Penelore on the river above here. It might try to enter the Father of Waters.”

  “A Fire Canoe?” the Sioux chief asked. “Must be part of the burning star.”

  The Shawnee exhaled smoke from his lungs before answering. The Sioux had powerful tobacco, and his head was spinning. “Smoke trails from the center of the canoe like from the middle of a thousand tepees. And it roars like a wounded bear.”

  “Where did you see this beast last?” the Sioux said.

  “It was still at the city by the falls when I left,” the Shawnee said.

  “Once it comes down my river,” the Sioux chief said, “we will kill it.”

  Then the chief rolled over onto a pile of buffalo robes and closed his eyes. He would seek the answer from the spirits. The Shawnee opened the flap of the tepee and stepped out into the bright light reflected off the early snow.