Fevre Dream Page 0,11

breath away, Marsh thought as they stood there.

Smith was gibbling and Brown was gabbling back at him, but Joshua York just looked. For the longest time he looked, and then he nodded. "We have created something beautiful, Abner," he said.

Marsh smiled.

"I had not expected to find her so close to finished," York said.

"This is New Albany," said Marsh. "That's why I came here, instead of one of the boatyards in St. Louis. They been buildin' steamboats here since I was a boy, built twenty-two of 'em just last year, probably have almost that many this year. I knew they could do the job for us. You should have been here. I came in with one of those little chests of gold, and I dumped it all over the superintendent's desk, and I says to him, I says, 'I want a steamer built, and I want it built quick, and I want it to be the fastest and prettiest and best damn heller of a boat that you ever damn built, you hear? Now you get me some engineers, your best, I don't care if you got to drag 'em out of some cathouse over to Louisville, you get 'em to me tonight, so we can begin. And you get me the best damn carpenters and painters and boilermakers and all the damn rest, cause if I get anything but the best, you're goin' to be a mighty sorry man.' " Marsh laughed. "You should of seen him, didn't know whether to look at that gold or lissen to me, both scared him half to death. But he did us right, that he did." He nodded toward the boat. "Course, she's not finished. Trim needs to be painted, goin' do it up mostly in blue and silver, to go with all that silver you wanted in the saloon. And we're still waitin' on some of the fancy furniture and mirrors you ordered from Philadelphia, and such things. But mostly she's done, Joshua, mostly she's ready. Come, I'll show you."

Workmen had abandoned a lantern atop a pile of lumber near the stern of the boat. Marsh struck a match on his leg, lit the lantern, and thrust it imperiously at Brown. "Here, you, carry this," he said brusquely. He went clomping heavily up a long board onto the main deck, the others trailing behind. "Careful what you touch," he said, "some of the paint's still wet."

The lowest, or main, deck was full of machinery. The lantern burned with a clear, steady light, but Brown kept moving it around, so the shadows of the hulking machines seemed to shift and jump ominously, as if they were things alive. "Here, hold that still," Marsh commanded. He turned to York and began to point, his stick jabbing like a long hickory finger toward the boilers, great metal cylinders that ran along either side of the forepart of the deck. "Eighteen boilers," Marsh said proudly, "three more than the Eclipse. Thirty-eight-inch diameters, twenty-eight-foot long, each of 'em." His stick waggled. "Furnaces are all done up with firebrick and sheet iron, got 'em up on brackets clear of the deck, cuts down on the chance of fires." He traced the path of the steam lines overhead, running from the boilers back to the engines, and they all turned toward the stern. "We got thirty-six-inch cylinders, high pressure, and we got ourselves an eleven-foot stroke, same as the Eclipse. This boat is goin' chew up that old river something terrible, I tell you."

Brown gabbled, Smith gibbled, and Joshua York smiled.

"Come on up," Marsh said. "Your friends don't seem too interested in the engines, but they ought to like it just fine upstairs."

The staircase was wide and ornate, polished oak with graceful fluted banisters. It began up near the bow, its width hiding the boilers and engines from those boarding, then broke in two and curled gracefully to either side to open on the second, or boiler, deck. They walked along the starboard side, with Marsh and his stick and Brown and the lantern leading the way, their boots clacking on the hardwood deck of the promenade as they marveled at the fine gothic detail of the pillars and the guard rails, all the painstakingly shaped wood, carved with flowers and curlicues and acorns. Stateroom doors and windows ran fore and aft in a long, long row; the doors were dark walnut, the windows stained glass. "Staterooms aren't furnished yet," Marsh said, opening a door and leading them into