Fevre Dream Page 0,20

use my lard."

The pilot glanced his way, grinning ear to ear. "Lard, cap'n? Oh, I knew you was a sly one!" He barked a command down the speaking tube to the engine room.

The two steamers were running head to head. Marsh's grip on his stick was all sweat. Down below, probably, the deckhands were arguing with some damn foreigners, who'd gone and perched on those lard barrels and had to be dislodged before the lard could be dragged off to the stokers. Marsh was burning with impatience, hot as his lard would be. Good lard was expensive, but it came in handy on a steamer. The cook could use it, and it burned damned hot, and that was what they needed now, a good hot head of high-pressure steam they couldn't get from wood alone.

When the lard got chucked in, there was no doubt in the pilot house. Long high columns of white steam came a-hissing up out of the 'scape-pipes, and smoke rolled from the high chimneys, and the Fevre Dream snorted fire and shook just a mite, and then she was sparkling, chunkachunkachunka fast as a train wheel, the stroke pounding the deck. She went flying right on out ahead of the Southerner, and when she was safely clear of her Kitch eased her right in front of the other steamer's bow, leaving them to ride her waves. All those worthless berthless pilots were chuckling and passing around smokes and yapping about what a heller of a boat this Fevre Dream was, while the Southerner receded behind them and Abner Marsh grinned like a fool.

They were a full ten minutes ahead of the Southerner when they put into Cairo, where the broad Ohio's clear waters merged with the muddy Mississippi. By then Abner Marsh had almost forgot about that little incident with Joshua York.

Chapter Five

Julian Plantation, Louisiana, July 1857

SOUR Billy Tipton was out front, chucking his knife at the big dead tree that fronted the gravel path, when the riders approached. It was morning but already hot as hell, and Sour Billy was working himself up a good sweat and thinking of going down for a swim when he finished up his knife-throwing. Then he saw the riders emerge from the woods where the old road crooked around. He went over to the dead tree and pulled loose his knife and slid it back into its sheath behind his back, all thoughts of swimming forgotten.

The riders came on real slow, but bold as brass, riding straight up in broad daylight like they belonged here. They couldn't be from these parts, Sour Billy figured; what neighbors they had all knew that Damon Julian didn't like no one coming onto his land without his leave. When they were still too far away to make out good, he wondered if maybe they weren't some of Montreuil's Creole friends come to make trouble. If so, they were going to regret it.

Then he saw why they were riding so slow, and Sour Billy relaxed. Two niggers in chains were stumbling along behind the two men on horseback. He crossed his arms and leaned against the tree, waiting for them to reach him.

Sure enough, they reined up. One of the men on horseback looked at the house, with its peeling paint and half-rotted front steps, spat out a wad of tobacco juice, and turned to Sour Billy. "This the Julian plantation?" he said. He was a big red-faced man with a wart on his nose, dressed in smelly leathers and a slouchy felt hat.

"Sure is," Sour Billy replied. But he was looking past the horseman and his companion, a lean pink-cheeked youth who was probably the other's son. He went walking over to the two haggard-looking niggers, downcast and miserable in their chains, and Sour Billy smiled. "Why," he said, "if it ain't Lily and Sam. Never thought you two be dropping by again. Must be two years since you went and run off. Mister Julian will be real pleased to know that you come back."

Sam, a big powerful-looking buck, raised his head and stared at Sour Billy, but there was no defiance in his eyes. Only fear. "We come on 'em up to Arkansas, my boy and me," the red-faced man said. "Tried to claim they was free niggers, but they didn't fool me for a minute, no sir."

Sour Billy looked at the slave catchers and nodded. "Go on."

"They was awful stubborn, these two. Couldn't get 'em to tell us where they