Fevre Dream Page 0,154

this ain't never become the town it might have, with folks like you goin' on about the Fevre River. They must think we're all sick up here. Why didn't you call it right? It's named the Galena River now."

Abner Marsh snorted. "Changing the goddamn name of the goddamn river, I never heard of such goddamned foolishness. Far as I'm concerned it's the Fevre River and it's goin' to stay the Fevre River no matter what the hell the goddamned mayor says." He scowled. "Or you neither. Hell, the way they're lettin' it silt up pretty soon it's goin' to be the goddamned Galena Creek!"

"Such language. I'd think a man who reads poetry would be able to keep a civil tongue in his head."

"Never mind about my goddamned tongue," Marsh said. "And don't go yapping that poetry around town neither, you hear? I knew a man who liked those poems, that's the only reason I got them books. You just stop buttin' your nose in and keep my steamboats clean of dust."

"Certainly. Will you be making a model of that other boat, do you think? The Fevre Dream?"

Marsh settled into a big overstuffed chair and frowned. "No," he said. "No, I ain't. That's one boat I just want to forget about. So you just get to dusting and stop pesterin' me with your damned fool questions." He picked up a newspaper and began to read about the Natchez and Leathers's latest boast. His housekeeper made a clucking noise and finally commenced to dusting.

His house had a high round turret facing south. At evening, Marsh would often go up there, with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, sometimes a piece of pie. He didn't eat like he used to, not since the war. Food just didn't seem to taste the same. He was still a big man, but he had lost at least a hundred pounds since his days with Joshua and the Fevre Dream. His flesh hung loose on him everywhere, like he'd bought it a couple sizes too large, expecting it to shrink. He had big droopy jowls, too. "Makes me even uglier than I used to be," he would growl when he glanced in a mirror.

Sitting by his turret window, Marsh could see the river. He spent a lot of nights there, reading, drinking, and looking out on the water. The river was pretty in the moonlight, flowing past him, on and on, like it had flowed before he was born, like it would flow after he was dead and buried. Seeing it made Marsh feel peaceful, and he treasured that feeling. Most of the time he just felt weary or melancholy. He had read one poem by Keats that said there wasn't nothing as sad as a beautiful thing dying, and it seemed to Marsh sometimes that every goddamned beatiful thing in the world was withering away. Marsh was lonely, too. He had been on the river so many years that he had no real friends left in Galena. He never had visitors, never talked to anyone but his damned annoying housekeeper. She vexed him considerably, but Marsh didn't really mind; it was about all he had left to keep his blood hot. Sometimes he thought his life was over, and that made him so angry he turned red. He still had so many goddamned things he'd never done, so much unfinished business... but there was no denying that he was getting old. He used to carry that old hickory walking stick to gesture with, and be fashionable. Now he had an expensive gold-handled cane to help him walk better. And he had wrinkles around his eyes and even between his warts, and a funny kind of brown spot on the back of his left hand. He'd look at it sometimes and wonder how it had got there. He'd never noticed. Then he would cuss and pick up a newspaper or a book.

Marsh was sitting in his parlor, reading a book by Mister Dickens about his travels on the river and through America, when his housekeeper brought in the letter to him. He grunted with surprise, and slammed down the Dickens book, muttering under his breath, "Goddamn fool of a Britisher, like to chuck him in the goddamn river." He took the letter and ripped it open, letting the envelope flutter to the floor. Getting a letter was pretty rare by itself, but this one was queerer still; it had been addressed to Fevre River