Dance on the Wind (29 page)

Three nights had Zane’s crew tarried there in Louisville while their steersman bartered himself more cargo, itself a bit of a problem to begin with, seeing how little of the deck a man could walk upon, crammed to the gunnels as it was with crates, kegs, and oaken barrels bound for the mouth of the Mississippi. It ultimately turned out they had taken on a load of oiled hemp destined for use on great oceangoing vessels—huge coils of coarse twenty-four-strand rope, each one a hundred feet long and looped into a bundle it took three stevedores to burden on board. There the coils were lashed down atop the rest of the cargo.

“That rope’s just about the only thing Ebenezer could’ve figured out for us to haul pitched up there on top of everything else,” Ovatt had declared yesterday as they’d secured the last coil.

Reuben Root spat into the water alongside as twilight sank around them. “Could’ve done ’thout it at all, to my way of thinking. Jest lookee the way we’re a’setting in the water now.”

“We’ll ride just fine,” Kingsbury said. “Got plenty of room left to draw water up the sides.”

“Which is just what we’re gonna do we hit them Falls,” Root replied with a sneer.

Kingsbury waved his arm for them all to follow him off the boat, saying, “Just pack that squeeze-box of your’n in some waxed paper and lock it up high—you won’t have a lick of trouble, Reuben.”

“Don’t none of you realize that extra cargo I just bought me after three days of haggling will make this trip all the sweeter for every one of us?” Zane asked them as they joined him on the wharf nearer the Kangaroo where they had moved the boat earlier in the day to begin their on-loading. There the broadhorn would remain moored until dawn.

All four carried belt weapons that night as they put
solid land under their feet. Zane had assigned each of them a four-hour watch, keeping a fire burning in the sandbox there close by the stern rudder, something to warm their hands and coffee over too.

Bass glanced over the others as they put away their pistols, then said, “You didn’t gimme a watch, Mr. Zane.”

With something of a smile Ebenezer turned to Titus in the swelling darkness of that autumn evening. “These here men’re my crew, Titus Bass. They hired on for work such as this.”

“Back at the start you said you needed me through the Falls.”

“I did say that, and your help is much appreciated.”

“Then you count me like one of the rest—if I’m to work through to the other side of the Falls.”

Kingsbury nodded. “Boy’s got him a point, Ebenezer.”

“You’re up to taking a watch, are you?” Zane asked.

But before Bass could answer, Ovatt declared, “It’s lonely work. Out here by yourself. Just you and the river and any others what wanna raise some devilment with our load.”

“That’s right,” Root added. “The whole town knows we’re setting off come morning. Lonely and cold out here—’specially since’t Mincemeat gonna be inside ’thout you tonight.”

Bass turned back to Zane, steadfast. “I’ll take the watch you gimme. First, last, or middle. I figure to pull my share of the work for ’llowing me come downriver with you. All you done for me since we got here.”

Zane said, “I’ll see ’bout sending Mincemeat out to visit you.”

Wagging his head, Bass replied, “Treat me just like the rest of ’em here. I got work to do—don’t want a woman around.”

“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” Kingsbury exclaimed. “Did you hear that? Titus sure got serious about work, going and turning down a woman coming out to keep him warm—”

“Maybeso the rest of you learn something from Titus
Bass here,” the pilot declared. “When you’re working, you keep your mind on work.”

Bass said, “Yessir. That’s what I was saying.”

“All right, son. With you added on, that shorts the watches to three hours apiece. Titus takes this first watch.” Ebenezer drew his two big-bored belt weapons out of his greasy red waist sash and handed them over, butt first, to the youth. “Here. Keep these handy. Rest of us be right up the slope at the inn. Any trouble, just call out or shoot. We’ll huff down here straightaway.”

His eyes got big as coffee saucers when the pistols came into his skinny hands, in awe at their sheer weight. All Titus did was bob his head as the four turned to go.

“You want supper brung out?” Ovatt asked.

“I’ll wait.”

“When he finishes, he can have his ale and stew,” Zane declared as the four slogged up the slope toward the Kangaroo in the cold. “And Mincemeat too.”

Bass thought he had struggled with loneliness before—those first nights in the forest. Believed he had battled cold too. But nothing like this: the dampness penetrated him to the bone despite the coffee and the fire he hunkered over, flames flutting in that tin sandbox he fed with more and more kindling. But, then, cold and lonely always seemed to go hand in hand, he brooded. Never had he been lonely on a summer night.

How easily he thought back to Amy then. Her memory still a bright thing he could feel inside his breast despite the miles and all the days. How sweet her mouth had tasted last summer, so unlike Abigail’s—her mouth strong with the whiskey and the tobacco. But it was not to be, he decided again, surprised that he still was making peace with that.

Had his father come searching for him? Had they finally given up? Would his folks ask of him all the way upriver to Cincinnati? Perhaps even this far downriver to Louisville, he convinced himself. Maybe not. Maybe his pap already figured it was for the best, ridding himself of a son not wanting to become a farmer. So much the better—and now they would go on with their lives.

But what of his mother? Strong as she was, he nonetheless
worried most for her. She had always been the one to quietly set herself against her husband when it mattered: she who hid supper for Titus; she who had seen to it the new shirt and biscuits were set out where Titus could get his hands on them that dark morning of farewell. Such was the real remorse he felt, about his only regret, leaving the way he had without explaining to her. Sure even now that she would have understood.

There wasn’t a star he could make out in the sky overhead. Clouds thickened like coal-blackened cotton bolls, reminding him how his hands hurt, rubbed raw and cut, whenever they had to pick what little cotton they had taken to growing on a small patch of ground by the smokehouse. Better was the flax the family planted, woven with wool to make a strong cloth that would turn the weather without being as heavy as pure wool. Between that mixed cloth his mother had woven and the animal skins she’d tanned for coats, britches, and moccasins—a body could count on staying reasonably warm, no matter what the weather.

In such deep thought his watch passed, and it was with reluctance that Titus turned over the two horse pistols to Ebenezer, who came to relieve him three hours later.

“Likely there’s some stew left, but if not, they’ll get you a pullet or two and a loaf of that black bread. There’s plenty of beans to fill you up. But stay away from the spruce beer this night, Titus,” Zane had warned as he settled onto a crate to start his watch. “I need your head clear come morning.”

So until that dawn he had filled himself with nothing more than Abigail Thresher, as hungry as he was for her, having done his best to pay no heed to the taunts of the other three boatmen when they warned him the whore would have nothing more to do with him once Ebenezer Zane had gone, taking his fat river pilot’s purse with him.

“She said she likes me,” Titus had protested.

“Playing with your diddle ain’t the only thing Mincemeat gets paid for,” Root explained, always the one out to pop another man’s bubble. “She gets paid for saying what she’s told to say.”

“Ebenezer told her to tell me that?”

Kingsbury only shrugged. “Who knows?”

“She’s just a whore,” Ovatt said. “There’ll be others on the ride down. Why, if’n you was floating along with us, you could count on tasting some fine girls we reach Natchez-Under-the-Hill.”

“And all them sweet Creole girls down to Nawlins,” Kingsbury added with a smack of his lips.

“I ain’t got me any need to go south,” Titus argued with a doleful wag of his head. “West is where away I’m bound.”

“St. Lou?” Heman Ovatt asked.

“One of these days soon,” Bass answered.

Kingsbury said, “A man goes west—you’ll need money to give yourself a stake. That’s fur country out’n St. Louie. Ain’t white man country west of there. You’ll need fixin’s.”

“I’ll get me some work.”

“What the hell can a farm boy like you do to make a man hire you for pay?” Root inquired.

“I can find work,” Titus snapped quickly, wincing at the pain he’d felt with their talk about Abigail.

“Yes, you can,” Kingsbury replied quietly, holding a flat hand against Root’s chest to quickly silence the other boatman. “No doubt you’ll find work here in Louisville real soon.”

Titus had drowned himself in her flesh that last night, at least every time he awoke enough in rolling over against her, placing the woman’s hands on his flesh to harden it to stone once again. If in the end it was true that Mincemeat was feeling nothing more than any working girl who got paid to do what she was told, then—Titus decided—he’d sure as hell make sure Ebenezer Zane got his money’s worth out of that last night in Louisville.

As good as it felt with her at the moment, as excited as she could get him with her body, it was afterward that got him to thinking. Like he was doing now in this damp, fragrant tavern as they finished their coffee near the fireplace as if soaking up all this warmth for what ordeal was yet to come, waiting for Ebenezer to tell them it was time to push away.

And he wondered what it was that made a man want to stay on with a woman after they were through coupling. It had to be something more than just a man’s knowing he could climb atop that woman again whenever he wanted. There must surely be something else he had yet to learn of this mysterious tangle of things between a man and a woman—more than he had learned at the threshold from the pretty Amy Whistler, and now from that full-growed woman what could please a man no end and was called Mincemeat.

What made some men stay on and on with a woman, while at the same time urging him to move on from both of those he had known so far?

“It h’ain’t getting any better out there, Ebenezer,” Root grumbled from the open doorway where the cold air gusted. Beyond Reuben was a gray streaked with white slashes.

“Best us be going,” Zane said with resignation.

“We could stay over, sit it out,” Ovatt declared.

Ebenezer turned to them slowly, hitching up his belt, and smiled inside that hairy face. “We got everything tied down and we’re ready to put off. Nothing’s holding us no more. I want out of Louisville and put the Falls behind us.”

Kingsbury started, “Maybe Ovatt’s right, Ebene—”

“Any of you’s free to stay what wants to,” Zane interrupted, though his voice remained quiet and calm. He turned to the youngest among them. “Even you, Titus. No reason for you to get on that boat now. We’ll do just fine ’thout you.”

“Said you needed me.”

Zane shook his head. “Weather like this, it don’t matter much anymore. Best you stay.”

“I made a promise,” Titus said, sensing the curiosity of the other men nettling him. “You an’ me made us a bargain. I aim to keep up my end of it.”

Zane regarded him briefly, then took a step forward, slapping a hand down on Bass’s shoulder. “Good man.” Looking at the rest of them, he explained, “Any of the rest of you decide to stay, Titus here can take your place.”

For a moment they looked at one another, almost furtively,
perhaps waiting for one of their number to stave in. Then before any of them could, Zane suddenly emboldened them with his words.

“Good for you, men. Like I always been proud of you—taking on this river, no matter what face it showed us. And now Heman’s got him a new man to help with the gouger when the water gets rough.”

Ovatt nodded at Bass. Titus swallowed, for the first time in his life feeling as if he was a part of something bigger than himself. One of these reckless men who would once again pit themselves against the icy river.

That was when Ebenezer held up a clenched fist at waist level, speaking not a word in explanation. Kingsbury immediately set his clenched fist atop Zane’s, then Ovatt’s atop his. When Root had added his to the top of the stack, they turned their eyes to Bass. Eagerly Titus slipped between the muscle-knotted shoulders of Zane and Kingsbury to join that small circle and made his short-fingered hand into a fist that looked so outsized by all the others.

With that fifth hand atop the rest, Zane declared, “This is the shaft that water and wind may bend but will never be broken as long as we stay together as one.”

“Let’s go to the Mississippi!” Kingsbury roared.

As the four men yelped and cheered, turning aside to sweep up their blankets and oiled coats, Titus stood for but a moment in that spot, somehow still sensing the power of those clenched, veined fists his had joined, no matter how briefly, feeling as if the others had just vowed to prop him up, support him, watch over him like one of their own. A short, strong staff carved of man’s will and camaraderie. In that moment all doubts took to the wing, freeing with them all remorse in leaving the Kangaroo and the woman behind.

Once more his life appeared black-and-white, without shades of indecisive gray. Just as it had when he’d determined to leave home behind, Titus sensed the certainty of what lay downriver. The sureness that he was being pulled on by what lay out there.

“You’ll stay with Heman,” Ebenezer ordered as the four of them pounded up the cleated gangplank, clambered over the gunnel, and began to scramble off in different
directions as the sleet spat at them in gusty sheets out of a leaden sky.

Bass turned to find Root still onshore and leaning into his work, lunging against the thick rope that held the flatboat’s bow fast to the wharf. With the knot eventually loosened, he heaved the rope toward Ovatt, who began to coil it up near his feet as Root trudged back through the icy mud toward the last rope securing the stern. With that second knot freed, he flung the loose end of the rope to Zane while making sure the loop was still secured around one of the wharf’s stanchions. When Root had crawled on board and was dragging the cleated gangplank atop some of the crates, Zane dropped the free end of the rope and released them from the wharf. The thick hemp flopped to the surface of the ice-flecked water like a huge oiled snake suddenly dropping from a great height. Kingsbury began to haul in the rope as the pilot whirled about to seize up the long arm of his rudder.