Fevre Dream Page 0,28
his face that Abner Marsh found disquieting.
Jeffers was not the only one to ask questions. Hairy Mike came to Marsh, too, and said that the roustabouts and stokers were spreading some funny talk about York and his four guests, and did Marsh want him to do anything about it?
"What kind of talk?"
Hairy Mike shrugged eloquently. "Bout him only comin' out at night. Bout those queer friends o' his, too. You know Tom, who stokes the middle larboard? He been tellin' this story-says that night we left Louisville, well, you 'member how thick the skeeters were, well, Tom says he saw that old Simon down on the main deck, jest kind o' looking around, and a skeeter landed on his hand, and he went and swatted it with his other hand. Squashed it. But you know how full up skeeters git sometimes, so when you squash 'em they jest bust with the blood. Tom says that happen'd with the skeeter on the back of Simon's hand, so it smeared up all bloody when he got it. Only then, Tom tells it, that Simon jest kind of stared at his hand for the longest while, then lifted it up, and damned if he didn't lick it clean."
Abner Marsh scowled. "You tell your boy Tom that he better stop telling such stories, or he's goin' to be stokin' the middle larboard on somebody else's steamer." Hairy Mike nodded, brought his iron billet into his other hand with a meaty thwack, and turned to go. But Marsh stopped him. "No," he said. "Wait. You tell him not to go spreadin' no stories. But if he sees anything else funny, he should come to you, or to me. Tell him we'll give him a half-dollar."
"He'll lie for the half-dollar."
"Well, forget the half-dollar then, but you tell him the rest of it."
The more Abner thought about Tom's story, the more it bothered him. He was just as glad that Joshua York was going to install Simon as bartender, where he'd be out in public and a man could keep an eye on him. Marsh had never liked morticians, and Simon still reminded him of one something ungodly, when he didn't remind him of one of their patrons, that is. He only hoped that Simon didn't go licking up no mosquitoes while he was serving drinks to the cabin passengers. That kind of thing could ruin a boat's reputation awful fast.
Marsh soon put the incident out of his mind, and plunged back into business. On the night before their scheduled departure, however, something else bothered him. He had called on Joshua York in his cabin to go over a few details of their trip. York was sitting at his desk, with his slim ivory-handled knife in hand, slicing an article out of a newspaper. He and Marsh chatted briefly for a few minutes about the business at hand, and Marsh was about to take his leave when he noticed a copy of the Democrat on York's desk. "They were supposed to run one of our advertisements today," Marsh said, reaching for the paper. "You finished with this, Joshua?"
York dismissed the paper with a wave of his hand. "Take it if you'd like, "he said.
Abner Marsh carried the paper under his arm to the main cabin, and paged through it while Simon made him a drink. He was annoyed. He couldn't locate their advertisement. Of course, it might not be an omission; York had sliced out a story on the page that backed up the shipping news, so there was a hole just in the prime place. Marsh drained his glass, folded up the paper, and went forward to the clerk's office.
"You got the latest number of the Democrat?" Marsh asked Jeffers. "I think that damn Blair left out my advertisement."
"It's there yonder," Jeffers replied, "but he didn't. Look on the shipping page."
And sure enough, there it was, a box smack in the middle of a column of similar boxes:
FEVRE RIVER PACKET COMPANY
The splendid fleet steamer Fevre Dream will leave for New Orleans, Louisiana, and all intermediate points and landings, on Thursday, making the best time and manned by all experienced officers and crew. For freight or passage, apply on board or at the company office at the foot of Pine St.
-Abner Marsh, presdn't
Marsh inspected the advertisement, nodded, and flipped back a page, to see what Joshua York had cut out. The item looked to be a reprint lifted from some downriver paper, about some old no-count woodyard