Fevre Dream Page 0,65

wanted yourself a steamboat so much, Mister Cap'n York. God damn you to hell."

"Be silent," York snapped, with such force in his voice that Marsh abruptly closed his mouth. "Lower that stick before you break something waving it around. Lower it, I say." Marsh dropped the walking stick to the carpet. "Good," said Joshua.

"He is like all the rest, Joshua," Valerie said. "He does not understand. He has nothing for you but fear and hate. We can't let him leave here alive."

"Perhaps," Joshua said reluctantly. "I think there is more to him than that, but perhaps I'm wrong. What of it, Abner? Be careful what you say. Speak as if your life hung on every word."

But Abner Marsh was too angry for thought. The fear that had filled him had given way to a fever of rage; he had been lied to, made a part of this, played for a big ugly fool. No man treated Abner Marsh like that, no matter if he wasn't a man at all. York had turned his Fevre Dream, his lady, into some kind of floating nightmare. "I been on this river a long time," Marsh said. "Don't you try to scare me none. When I was on my first steamer, I seen a friend o' mine get his guts cut out in a St. Joe saloon. I grabbed the scoundrel that did it, took the knife off him, and broke his damn back for him. I was at Bad Axe too, and down in bleeding Kansas, so no goddamned bloodsucker is goin' to bluff me. You want to come for me, you come right on. I'm twice your weight, and you're burned up all to hell. I'll twist your damned head off. Maybe I ought to do that anyhow, for what you done."

Silence. Then, astonishingly, Joshua York laughed, long and loud. "Ah, Abner," he said when he had quieted again, "you are a steamboatman. Half-dreamer and half-braggart and all fool. You sit there blind, when you know I can see perfectly well by the light leaking in through the shutters and drapes, and beneath the door. You sit there fat and slow, knowing my strength, my quickness. You ought to know how silently I can move." There was a pause, a creak, and suddenly York's voice came from across the cabin. "Like this." Another silence. "And this." Behind him. "And this." He was back where he had started; Marsh, who had turned his head every which way to follow the voice, felt dizzy. "I could bleed you to death with a hundred soft touches you'd hardly feel. I could creep up on you in the darkness and rip out your throat before you realized I'd stopped talking. And still, despite everything, you sit there looking in the wrong direction, with your beard stuck out, blustering and threatening." Joshua sighed. "You have spirit, Abner Marsh. Poor judgment, but lots of spirit."

"If you're fixin' to try to kill me, come on and get it done," Marsh said. "I'm ready. Maybe I never outrun the Eclipse, but I done most everything else I had a mind to. I'd rather be rottin' in one of those fancy N'Orleans tombs than runnin' a steamer for a pack of vampires."

"Once I asked you if you were a superstitious man, or a religious one," Joshua said. "You denied it. Yet now I hear you talking about vampires like some ignorant immigrant."

"What're you sayin'? You're the one told me..."

"Yes, yes. Coffins full of dirt, soulless creatures that don't show up in mirrors, things that can't cross running water, creatures who can turn into wolves and bats and mists yet cringe before a clove of garlic. You're too intelligent a man to believe such rubbish, Abner. Shrug off your fears and your angers for a moment, and think!"

That brought Abner Marsh up short. The mocking bite of Joshua's tone made it all sound mighty silly, in fact. Maybe York did get all burned up by a little daylight, but that didn't change the fact that he drank holy water and wore silver and showed up in mirrors. "You tellin' me you ain't no vampire now, or what?" Marsh said, lost.

"There are no such things as vampires," Joshua said patiently. "They are like those river stories Karl Framm tells so well. The treasure of the Drennan Whyte. The phantom steamer of Raccourci. The pilot who was so conscientious he got up to stand his watch even after he'd died. Stories, Abner. Idle amusements,