by L. J. Martin
When we hit the boiler deck men are already swinging hoists out over the barge, cranking on geared winches, bringing half cord loads aboard with each long exertion. Eriksen yells on seeing our approach, "Get to stackin' you loafers." And we do. Fifty cords worth.
While we're stacking wood, from pallet to deck, Slim and Wheezy are stoking the fire bins, and the pressure gauges are beginning to crawl up.
A bell on a stanchion at the bow end of the engine room rings at least ten times, its clapper swung by a line up through the overhead.
“We’re casting off,” Eriksen yells. “Look lively now.”
Our journey is about to begin.
I can hear the deck crew scrambling and see the dock lines being dragged onboard as the speed of the side wheels pick up and they bite water.
When Erikson engages the gears and the steam engine exerts, the noise is deafening. The wheels begin churning up water and the bow swings to midstream. The five men on the crew, begin a song barely heard over the engine and gear noise.
“To the West! To the West!
To the land of the free!
Where the mighty Missouri
Rolls down to the sea!”
I felt a surge of excitement roll through me. Ahead of us is gold, grizzly, wild Indian, wilder country, and the spine of the continent, the Rocky Mountains.
Ian moves aft to calm the stock. They are restive, moving from side to side in their small stalls. I note at least two of them try to rear, but the low ceiling keeps them afoot. The noise has made them fearful and Ian’s going to try and calm them. I join him as the big percheron mares might just break out, should they try.
I can see the whites of their eyes as I approach and their ears go back occasionally. Not a good sign in horse or mule. After a few moments they do calm, but I’d guess it to be a long while before they are truly at ease, if ever during the trip.
“Who’s starting out tonight?” Ian asks.
“You got a coin? You flip, I’ll call.”
He digs in a pocket and comes up with a nickel, flips, and I call tails and lose.
“You sleep for a couple of hours,” he advises. “I bet it’ll be a long twelve.”
I nod, and find my bedroll and a spot as far as I can get from the steaming, rattling, clattering heap that’s the steam engine, while he finds a shovel to clean the stalls, then I try to snooze. But the constant beating of the engine, the stench of burning wood, engine oil, smoke, hissing steam, and clattering gears keeps sleep at bay. That, and the constant vibration of the deck makes my teeth rattle and my ears ring. It seems we’ll experience a continuous earthquake so long as the steam engine beats.
And, to my great surprise, the yowling of cats occasionally rises over all other sounds. Why cats? I remind myself to ask Eriksen when I report for my shift.
I think I haven’t slept a wink, but when I rise up to Eriksen’s shouting in my ear, I realize I must have slept hard.
“This ain’t no bawdy house where you can snooze the night away, Byrne. You got to relieve the boys.”
“I paid for supper upstairs,” I mumble.
“They start serving at five and it’s six now, time to go to work. I guess you can eat double at breakfast. You’ll get lunch in six or so, come midnight.”
I glance around and see that Ian is missing, eating his share and mine I suppose. Damn, my stomach is growling and I’ve got six hours before a meal break.
I report to Eriksen’s station, a small table, more a stand up speaker's lectern, mounted to a post just below the bell, forward. He calls a burly black over and introduces us.
“This is Sam. He’s the boss of the night shift, second engineer, to be technical.”
I’m a little dumbfounded and I can’t help but stammer, “I…I’m to work for a nigra?”
“It’s work for him or don’t work,” he says, and there’s no question he means it.
I shrug. Damn, if it ain’t a strange new world. Sam, I guess is used to the slight, and scowls and looks away, ignoring me. When he looks back I guess I’m looking a little sheepish, so he waves me along and leads me aft, even beyond the stalls, and I help him secure freight that’s been loosened in travel. As we work, he’s stoic, silent as one of the boxes we work over. The man pulls his shirt off as he works, and I’m a little amazed by the size of his chest tapering over a washboard stomach to a narrow waist and his vein lined biceps the size of my thighs. The muscles ripple his back like the wake of the Eagle as he moves. He lifts crates that I’d have to lever with a strong pry board, and does it as if they’re filled with feathers.
We come to several marked DANGER in red paint, and I inquire. “I guess this ain’t cats?”
“Cat’s all be in cages, not cases. That be gunpowder. Three tons of it in them cases. I wouldn’t be lighting my pipe near here.”
“I’d say that's sound advice.” And I’m a little more tender with my tying down and wonder about the sixty feet or so separating the powder from the ship’s fire boxes.
“Three tons?” I ask, a little amazed.
“Should it go they won’t be a piece of dis boat big enough to make markers for our graves…o’course they won’t find chunks of us big enough to bury.”
“Comforting thought,” I say, and he smiles, flashing white teeth, for the first time since we met.
Finally I remember to ask. “What’s with all the cats in cages?”
“You gots to feed ’em an slop out their leavings. Dat be another new-man task.”
“But why cats?”
“Army buys a few at every fort along the way. They gots terrible rat troubles in their stores. And I hears fast as we sell them more, the wolves and coyotes eat ’em up.”
We work a while longer, and I finally comment. “You’ve got a fine job.”
“I be a fine hand, and most the white boys, even if de start out fine, soon drink dem sevs into a stupor. Alcohol don’t touch my tongue. The devil's nectar got my daddy hung by the neck even if ’n it tastes sweet as a woman’s kiss, but I believe I done learned.”
“Any other blacks on board?”
“Yeah, one of the deck hands says he done knows you.”
“The hell you say?”
“Yep, Ray be his name. But he didn’t call you Nolan?”
“Then maybe he doesn’t know me,” I mumble, but I’m sure he does. That’s a shock. Raymond, my childhood fishing partner, my father’s slave, Pearl’s brother. It’s a family reunion, if you can call it that.
Truth is, I’m looking forward to seeing him.
We stay underway for only another hour, then the boat moves alongside the shore line and roustabouts secure her to some sturdy oaks then put out the gangplank so the passengers can stroll the shore and feel hard land underfoot. As soon as those who want to depart do so, Ian leads the animals ashore, two at a time, and stakes them out to graze, saving me dollars.
When the fire boxes and boilers have cooled some, I find out why the blacks and the new hands have the night shift. Sam, me, and another young fella about my age, Duffy, who’s last name is McDuff, begin shoveling the ashes from the fire boxes into buckets. Many chunks of coals still burn bright. We dump them overboard and steam rises from the river where they splash.
When the fire boxes are clean, I learn why the boilers have bolted accesses over two feet in diameter. Duffy opens a valve and the steam roars through an escape pipe to up above the hurricane deck, then it slowly peters out.
I help Duffy unbolt and remove the hatches with only the slightest remnants of escaping pressure and steam, while Sam moves to a scuttlebutt and drains a ladle of water. Duffy hands me a shovel with a cocky grin.
“You the junior man, Nolan. Climb in and shovel the mud into the bucket and pass it out to me.” He hands me a pair of heavy gloves.
I stick my head in, and jerk it back. “Damn, it’s hades in there.”
“Yep, climb on in. We do it damn near every night.”
“How come there’s mud in there?” I ask,
stalling for time.
“They don’t call her the Big Muddy for nothing. It’s river water we boil, and that’s the leavin’. We got to get it out or soon the boiler would fill up.”
“You mean I have to get it out.”
“Yep, I done it for six months since I been aboard.” He gives me an even bigger grin. “Now it’s all your’n. Go in feet first.”
He pulls a stool over and I manage to get my legs in, then trying not to touch my back to the hot rim, slide on in. Every bucket full I hand him I get to stick my head out and breath cool fresh air until he returns from the rail. After the third bucket Sam meets me at the opening with a big ladle full of water. He’s been drinking from that ladle, and most of those I know would never drink from the same glass as a nigra, but I’m proud to at the moment—fact is I shared many a cup and chunk of jerky with Raymond and Pearl—and by God if the water don’t taste just like water.
I count seven buckets full of scum, mud, and rust, before I’m able to follow the bucket out. I do believe I’m going to earn my buck and a half a day. If I haven’t sweated a gallon of water there ain’t a river out over those rails. My clothes will be salt stained from the sweat and I’ll have to wash them in fresh water daily or I’ll soon smell like a goat.
Next stop we make at a town I’ll be looking for a change of shirt and trousers for Ian and me.
The best of the shift so far is lunch. We spoon down all the hot beef stew we can eat, with a fine hard bread and a glass of cool beer which seems contrary to what the captain has preached in front of his passengers.
Now, only another five and a half hours more.
Our last job of the shift is to fire up the boilers again, and by the time the morning sun is beginning to light the sky at our backs, I see we have one hundred twenty pounds on the gauge.
Eriksen reappears, and in moments, the signal bell rings repeatedly. He throws the wheels into gear, the lines are being dragged aboard, and we’re heading for midstream.
We have yet to see a mile of straight river as she weaves and bends, and at times almost oxbows back on herself. Still, Sam tells me by the end of the day shift we could be in Kansas City. The good news is I should be able to find Ian and me a change of clothes, the bad is we won’t be able to graze the stock and the night will come proud having to buy hay and a palm full of grain for each critter. Still, it’s a fine bargain as my percherons weigh two thousand pounds, maybe more, and it costs fifteen dollars a hundred weight for freight. That means I’d have to pay at least three hundred dollars each, were they dead weight. The mules are only nine to twelve hundred pounds, but still the cost would come proud.
Eriksen slaps me on the back. "You did fine, Nolan me lad. They'll be a card game going up on the aft deck. You don't have the coin, I'll loan you four dollars, you pay me back five come payday?"
I give him a tight smile and a shake of the head. "You know how to double your money, Mr. Eriksen?"
He looks interested. "How's that, son."
"Fold it over and stick it back in your pocket."
I get a laugh from him. "Not a sporting man?"
"When I own a gambling house, maybe."
He laughs and slaps me on the back again. "Go get some breakfast. You'll get bored soon enough, then maybe the cards will have a run at you."
"Maybe," I say, and head for the ladder.
Chapter 10
Breakfast is being served and I don’t have time to wash and dry my clothes, so I serve myself from a buffet table laden with fine food—eggs, bacon, ham, biscuits, gravy, fried chicken, flapjacks—and I can see I’m not likely to starve. I load a plate and retire to the deck outside the dining room. I don’t want to offend the few others who’ve appeared for the early serving as I’m sure my stench will overwhelm some tender soul. Breakfast, I understand, will go on for two hours.
I plop down on a spool of line and enjoy the passing fields, now gone fallow and brown with dead foliage, the intermittent forests of hardwoods are almost bare of leaves, and a few grazing cows and horses pick over what's left of the pastures. I’m half way through the mound of food when I glance up and see Raymond pacing my way, two other roustabouts flank him.
He’s within five paces when he glances over and sees me, then cuts his eyes away. When he’s even, I realize he’s going to ignore me.
“Ray!” I call out, but he keeps moving.
“Raymond, hold up there.” I rise and rest my plate on the spool and turn back and see that he’s paused, looking over his shoulder.
“I gots nothin’ to say to you,” he snaps his head back and moves on.
Heat floods my backbone, but I say nothing. I return to my seat and my fork, but he’s spoiled my appetite. Damn, if that wasn’t an uppity thing to do.
I’ll have to think on it, and maybe take up the matter with Pearl.
Damn, if my feelings ain’t hurt a little. Long as I've lived I don’t remember not knowing Ray and I knew Pearl as a baby, still on her mama’s tit.
Then again, I think, shaking my head. It sure as hell is a new time.
I stay there a long while after I’ve returned my crockery to a tray in the dining room, watching the occasional scow or bull boat and even another side wheeler pass. I’m about ready to try and find my bedroll, when I see Madam Allenthorpe, with Pearl a couple of paces behind, heading for the dining room. The famous songstress is resplendent in a Kelly green gown sporting a matching parasol, while it appears she’s found some finery for Miss Pearl. The gray smock is no longer and she’s finely done up in a deck length yellow dress trimmed in lace, with a bit of lace worked into her hair. She has on white gloves, and damn if she doesn’t look as stylish as my daddy told me some of the black ladies—of questionable endeavors—in the quarter at New Orleans were attired.
Madam Allenthorpe pays me no mind, but Pearl sees me as they swing the door aside, and gives me a wave.
“Y’all doin’ just fine?” she yells across the twenty feet separating.
“Fine as frog hair,” I yell back, and she flashes a grin at me and disappears inside.
If that ain’t something. Damn, if Pearly doesn't look like a fine lady.
I decide to take a turn around the deck before going below and getting some rest, and when I reach the aft of the passenger deck, see a group of a half dozen fellas perched on kegs and line spools round a couple of planks spanning two hogshead barrels. I get closer to see a gent in a puff tie and well cut coat dealing faro. One of the four players is Raymond, and one of his fellow roustabouts, and two others are passengers.
I pause and watch a moment until the dealer, a fella with a fine mustache so thin it might have been drawn on with a pen, one gold front tooth, and what looks to be a diamond stick pin in his silk cravat, surveys me up and down.
“You want to join the game, pilgrim?” he asks, his smile tight as the lips of a gopher snake.
“No, sir. Just watching the frivolities.”
“My name is Chance O’Galliger, and I’ll take fine care of you should you sit in.”
“Don’t know the game, sir.”
“It ain’t no hill for a stepper. You’ll learn quick.”
“Thank you, but no thank you. Looks as if it could be an expensive schoolin’.”
“Humph,” he grumbles, and turns his attention back to the game.
Ray never acknowledges my presence and seems intent on the cards. So I wander on.
Throwing a couple of buckets overboard tied to lines, I fish up two gallons or more of water, find a spot amid the crates that’s fairly hidden, and strip down and scrub myself and my clothes as best I can with a bar of lye soap I borrow from Sam. It seems I’m destined for more baths in a week than I’m accustomed to all summer. I’ve brought my bed roll into my hidey hole and can stay wrapped in my moth eaten blanket while I work. I rinse my duds as well as possible and spread them on the crates to dry, and curl up nearby in my bedroll, naked and as obviously so as a politician’s lie. Which I’ve learned they do with most every
opening of their pie hole.
I am still not sleeping well. Finding a loose board in one of the short walls that alternate between openings to the outside on the engine deck, I’ve managed to pry it loose and hide my gold coins and my Sharps. It’s probably as good as consigning them to the purser and the boat’s safe, as if the boat goes down, or blows all to hell, the likelihood of recovering them would be slim to none and slim done rode outta town. I’ll have a better chance, if there's any warning of coming disaster, to recover them from the nearness of the loose board.
When and if I get some time to chat with Pearl I hope to talk her into sewing me a belt to wear under my clothes to conceal my rapidly diminishing riches. That is, if it’s not beneath her newfound position in life. I sleep until lunch time when the clattering of the engine and gears awakens me and I find my clothes dry. I'm wrinkled, and smelling a little of lye, but dry and not smelling like the pig sty back on McTavish Farm.
I see Ian snoring away nearby and don’t bother him. I’ll wake him in time for supper should he not awaken himself, as it’s his night on the job and having missed my meal when I took the position, don’t want the same fate to befall him. Ian is blessed with the ability to sleep anytime and anywhere and I'm jealous of that.
Admiring the passing country and the bite of the huge side wheels in the water, I lean on the rail until I see Pearl and Madam Angel Allenthorpe exit her cabin and head for lunch.
I’ve positioned myself where they have to pass, and Madam Allenthorpe glances over and flashes me a smile. “Why, Mr. Byrne, or is it Mr. McTavish? Pearl has told me so much about you.”
Pearl actually blushes and looks down.
“The bad or the good of it, ma’am?” I ask, and sidle up alongside Pearl with Madam Allenthorpe on the other side of her. I catch a whiff of something Pearl must be wearing…lavender, I think. It’s a lot more pleasant than the animalistic farm-work odor I’m used to from the both of us.
The madam continues, “Why, even under the circumstance of your growing up, she says you were a fine friend and a fair master, as were your pa and ma. However, thank God that whole arrangement is coming to a close.”
