Fevre Dream Page 0,39

were a fine lot, and every goddamned one of them seemed to be a colonel. Sometimes they showed up on the landing, and then you had to invite them aboard your steamboat for cigars and drinks, no matter how they behaved.

But they were a curiously blind bunch. From their great houses on the bluffs, the nabobs looked out over the shining majesty of the river, but somehow they couldn't see the things that were right underneath them.

For beneath the mansions, between the river and the bluffs, was another city: Natchez-under-the-hill. No marble columns stood there, and there were precious few flowers either. The streets were mud and dust. Brothels clustered round the steamer landing and lined Silver Street, or what was left of it. Much of the street had caved into the river twenty years ago, and the walks that remained were half-sunken and lined with tawdry women and dangerous, cold-eyed, foppish young men. Main Street was all saloons and billiard rooms and gambling halls, and each night the city below the city steamed and seethed. Brawls and brags and blood, crooked poker and Spanish burials, whores who'd do most anything and men who'd grin at you and take your purse and slit your throat in the bargain, that was Natchez-under-the-hill. Whiskey and flesh and cards, red lights and raucous song and watered gin, that was the way of it by the river. Steamboatmen loved and hated Natchez-under-the-hill and its milling population of cheap women and cutthroats and gamblers and free blacks and mulattoes, even though the older men swore that the city under the bluffs today wasn't nothing near as wild as it had been forty years back, or even before the tornado that God had sent to clean it out in 1840. Marsh didn't know about that; it was wild enough for him and he'd spent several memorable nights there, years ago. But this time he had a bad feeling about it.

Briefly Marsh entertained a notion to pass it by, to climb on up to the pilot house and tell Albright to keep on going. But they had passengers to land, freight to unload, and the crew would be looking forward to a night in fabled Natchez, so Marsh did nothing for all his misgivings. The Fevre Dream steamed in, and was made fast for the night. They quieted her down, damped her steam and let the fires die in her guts, and then her crew spilled from her like blood from an open wound. A few of them paused on the landing to buy frozen creams or fruit from the black peddlers with their carts, but most streamed right down Silver Street toward the hot bright lights.

Abner Marsh lingered on the texas porch until the stars began to peer out. Song came drifting over the water from the windows of the brothels, but it did not lighten his mood. At last Joshua York opened his cabin door and stepped out into the night. "You goin' ashore, Joshua?" Marsh asked him.

York smiled coolly. "Yes, Abner."

"How long will you be gone this time?"

Joshua York gave an elegant shrug. "I cannot say. I will return as soon as I can. Wait for me."

"I'd sooner go with you, Joshua," Marsh said. "That's Natchez out there. Natchez-under-the-hill. It's a rough place. We might be waitin' here a month, while you lay in some gutter with your throat cut. Let me come with you, show you around. I'm a riverman. You ain't.

"No," York said. "I have business ashore, Abner."

"We're partners, ain't we? Your business is my business, where the Fevre Dream is concerned."

"I have concerns beyond our steamboat, friend. Some things you cannot help me with. Some things I must do alone."

"Simon goes with you, don't he?"

"At times. That is different, Abner. Simon and I share... certain interests that you and I do not."

"You mentioned enemies once, Joshua. If that's what you're about, takin' care of those who wronged you, then tell me. I'll help."

Joshua York shook his head. "No, Abner. My enemies might not be your enemies."

"Let me decide that, Joshua. You been fair with me so far. Trust me to be fair with you."

"I cannot," York replied, sorrowfully. "Abner, we have a bargain. Ask me no questions. Please. Now, if you would, let me pass."

Abner Marsh nodded and moved aside, and Joshua York swept by him and started down the stairs. "Joshua," Marsh called out when York was almost to the bottom. The other turned. "Be careful, Joshua," Marsh said. "Natchez