Fevre Dream Page 0,96

back?" Marsh asked.

"Most all the crew, some passengers. Ain't but a few."

"We ain't goin' to wait for no others," Marsh said. "The fewer folks on board, the better. You go hunt up Framm or Albright, I don't care which one, and get them on up to the pilot house, and take us out. Right now, you hear? I'm goin' to find Mister Jeffers. After you get a pilot up there, you meet me in the clerk's office. Don't tell anybody what's goin' on."

Between his thick black whiskers, a small grin could be seen. "What we gone do, buy this steamboat back cheap, maybe?"

"No," said Abner Marsh. "No, we're goin' to kill a man. And not Joshua neither. Now get on! Meet me in the clerk's office."

Jonathon Jeffers wasn't in his office, however, so Marsh had to go round to the head clerk's cabin, and pound until a sleepy-looking Jeffers opened the door, still in his nightshirt. "Cap'n Marsh," he said, stifling a yawn. "Cap'n York said you'd sold out. I didn't think it made much sense, but you weren't around so I didn't know what to think. Come in."

"Tell me what happened last night," Marsh said when he was safely inside the clerk's cabin.

Jeffers yawned again. "Pardon, Cap'n," he said. "I haven't had much sleep." He went to the basin perched atop his chest of drawers and splashed some water on his face, fumbled for his spectacles, and came back over to Marsh, looking more like himself. "Well, let me think a minute. We were at the St. Charles, where I said we'd be. We figured to stay there all night so Cap'n York and you could have your private dinner." His eyebrow arched sardonically. "Jack Ely was with me, and Karl Framm, and Whitey and a few of his strikers, and... well, there was a whole bunch of us. Mister Framm's cub had come along too. Mister Albright dined with us, but went up to bed after dinner, while the rest of us stayed up drinking and talking. We had rooms and everything, but no sooner had we gone to bed... must have been two or three in the morning... when Raymond Ortega and Simon and that Sour Billy Tipton character came to bring us back to the steamer. They said York wanted us straightaway." Jeffers shrugged. "So we came, and Cap'n York met everyone in the grand saloon and said he'd bought you out, and we were leaving some time in the morning. Some of us were sent out to find those still in New Orleans, and notify the passengers. Most of the crew is here now, I believe. I got the freight all signed in, and decided to get some sleep. Now, what's really happening?"

Marsh snorted. "I ain't got time, and you wouldn't believe it anyhow. You see anything strange in that saloon last night?"

"No," Jeffers said. One eyebrow went up. "Should I have?"

"Maybe," said Marsh.

"Everything was all cleared away from dinner," Jeffers said. "That was odd, come to think on it, with the waiters all gone ashore."

"Sour Billy cleaned it up, I reckon," Marsh said, "but it don't matter. Was Julian there?"

"Yes, him and a few others I'd never met before. Cap'n York had me assign them cabins. That Damon Julian is a strange one. He stayed real close to Cap'n York. Polite enough, though, and nice-looking except for that scar."

"You gave 'em cabins, you say?"

"Yes," said Jeffers. "Cap'n York said Julian was to have your cabin, but I wouldn't go along with that, not with all your property in there.

I insisted he take one of the passenger staterooms along the saloon, until I'd had a chance to talk to you. Julian said that would be fine, so there wasn't really any trouble."

Abner Marsh grinned. "Good," he said. "And Sour Billy, where's he?"

"He got the cabin right next to Julian," said Jeffers, "but I doubt that he's in it. Last I saw he was wandering around the main cabin, acting like he owned the boat and playing with that little knife of his. We had a bit of a run-in. You wouldn't believe what he was doing-he was chucking his knife into one of your fancy colonnades as if it were an old dead tree. I told him to stop or I'd have Hairy Mike chuck him over the side, and he did, but he stared at me belligerently. He's trouble, that one."

"He's still in the main cabin, you think?"

"Well, I've been asleep, but he was