Hairy Mike nodded.
“I got to get to Joshua first, though,” Marsh said. He really was feeling sick, he thought: nauseated, feverish, weary. He had to go lie down for a couple hours. “Can’t let him get up.” He licked his lips, which were dry as sandpaper. “You go talk to Jeffers, tell him how it come out, and one of you come and fetch me before sunset. Well before, you hear? Give me at least an hour to go on up and speak to Joshua. I’ll wake him up and tell him, and then when it gets dark he’ll know how to handle the other night folks. And you . . . you have one of your boys keep a sharp eye on Sour Billy . . . we’re goin’ to have to deal with him, too.”
Hairy Mike smiled. “Let the river deal with him.”
“Maybe we will,” said Marsh. “Maybe. I’m going to go rest now, but make sure I’m up before dark. Don’t you go let it get dark on me, you understand?”
“Yep.”
So Abner Marsh climbed wearily up to the texas, feeling sicker and more tired with every step. Standing at the door of his own cabin, he felt a sudden stab of fear—what if one of them should be inside after all, despite what Mister Jeffers had said? But when he threw the door open and let the light come pouring into the room, it was empty. Marsh staggered in, drew the curtains back and opened the window to let in as much light and air as possible, locked the door, and sat heavily on the bed to remove his sweat-soaked clothing. He didn’t even bother with a nightshirt. The cabin was stifling, but Marsh was too exhausted to notice. Sleep took him almost at once.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream,
Mississippi River,
August 1857
The sharp, insistent rapping on his cabin door finally summoned Abner Marsh back from his deep, dreamless sleep. He stirred groggily and sat up in bed. “A minute!” he shouted. He lumbered over to his basin like a big naked bear just out of hibernation, and none too happy about it. It wasn’t until Marsh had splashed some water on his face that he remembered. “Goddamn it all to hell!” he swore angrily, staring at the gray shadows gathering in every corner of the small dim cabin. Beyond the window, the sky was dark and purple. “Goddamn,” he repeated, pulling on a pair of clean trousers. He stomped over and yanked open the door. “What the hell is the meaning of lettin’ me sleep so long?” Marsh shouted at Jonathon Jeffers. “I told Hairy Mike to wake me a whole goddamn hour before sunset, damnit.”
“It is an hour before sunset,” Jeffers said. “It clouded up, that’s why it looks so dark. Mister Albright says we’re going to get another thunderstorm.” The clerk stepped into Marsh’s cabin and shut the door behind him. “I brought you this,” he said, handing over a hickory walking stick. “I found it in the main cabin, Cap’n.”
Marsh took the stick, mollified. “I lost it last night,” he said. “Had other things on my mind.” He leaned the stick up against the wall and glanced out the window again, frowning. Beyond the river, the whole western horizon was a mass of threatening clouds moving their way, like a vast wall of darkness about to collapse on them. The setting sun was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t like it one bit. “I better get on up to Joshua,” he said, pulling out a shirt and commencing the business of getting dressed.
Jeffers leaned on his sword cane. “Shall I accompany you?” he asked.
“I ought to talk to Joshua by myself,” Marsh said, tying his tie with an eye on the mirror. “I don’t relish it though. Why don’t you come on up and wait outside. Maybe Joshua will want to call you in and talk about what we’re goin’ to do.” Left unspoken was the other reason that Marsh wanted the clerk close at hand—maybe he’d want to call him in, if Joshua York didn’t take kindly to the news of Damon Julian’s demise.
“Fine,” said Jeffers.
Marsh shrugged into his captain’s coat and snatched up his stick. “Let’s go then, Mister Jeffers. It’s too damn dark already.”
The Fevre Dream was steaming along briskly, her flags snapping and swirling in a strong wind, dark smoke pouring from her chimneys. Under the scant light of the strange purple sky, the waters of the Mississippi looked almost black. Marsh grimaced and strode forward briskly to Joshua York’s cabin, Jeffers at his side. This time he did not hesitate at the door; he raised his stick and knocked. On the third knock he called out, “Joshua, let me in. We got to talk.” On the fifth knock the door opened, moving slowly inward to reveal a soft still blackness. “Wait for me,” Marsh said to Jeffers. He stepped into the cabin and closed the door. “Don’t get mad now, Joshua,” he said to the dark, with a tight feeling in his gut. “I wouldn’t bother you, but this is important and it’s almost night anyhow.” There was no reply, though Marsh heard the sound of breathing. “Goddamnit,” he said, “why do we always have to talk in the dark, Joshua? It makes me damn uncomfortable.” He frowned. “Light a candle, will you?”
“No.” The voice was curt, low, liquid. And it was not Joshua’s.
Abner Marsh took a step backward. “Oh Jesus God, no,” he said, and there was a rustling sound even as his shaking hand found the door behind him and threw it open. He opened it wide and by now his eyes had accustomed themselves to the darkness, and even the purplish glow of the storm-laden sky was enough to give brief form to the shadows within the captain’s cabin. He saw Joshua York sprawled on his bed, pale and naked, his eyes closed, one arm hanging down to the floor, and on his wrist was something that looked like a terrible dark bruise, or a crust of dried blood. And he saw Damon Julian moving toward him, swift as death, smiling. “We killed you,” Marsh roared, disbelieving, and he stumbled backward out of the cabin, tripped, and fell practically at Jonathon Jeffers’ feet.
Julian stopped in the doorway. A thin dark line—hardly more than a cat scratch—ran down his cheek where Marsh had opened a yawning gash the night before. Otherwise he was unmarked. He had taken off his jacket and vest, and his ruffled silk shirt was without stain or blemish. “Come in, Captain,” Julian said quietly. “Don’t run away. Come in and talk.”
“You’re dead. Mike bashed your goddamn head to pieces,” Marsh said, choking on his own words. He did not look at Julian’s eyes. It was still day, he thought, he was safe outside, beyond Julian’s reach until the sun went down, so long as he did not look in those eyes, so long as he did not go back into that cabin.
“Dead?” Julian smiled. “Ah. The other cabin. Poor Jean. He wanted so to believe Joshua, and see what you have done to him. Smashed his head in, did you say?”
Abner Marsh climbed to his feet. “You changed cabins,” he said hoarsely. “You damn devil. You made him sleep in your bed.”
“Joshua and I had so much to discuss,” Julian replied. He made a beckoning gesture. “Now come, Captain, I am tired of waiting. Come and let us drink together.”
“Burn in hell!” Marsh said. “Maybe we missed you this morning, but you ain’t got away yet. Mister Jeffers, run on down and get Hairy Mike and his boys. A dozen of them ought to do, I reckon.”
“No,” said Damon Julian, “you won’t do that.”
Marsh waved his stick threateningly. “Oh yes, I will. You goin’ to stop me?”
Julian glanced up at the sky; a deep violet now, shot through with black, a vast bruised and overcast twilight. “Yes,” he said, and he stepped out into the light.
Abner Marsh felt the cold, clammy hand of terror close around his heart. He raised his walking stick and said, “Stay away!” in a voice gone suddenly shrill. He stepped backward. Damon Julian smiled and came on. It wasn’t light enough, Marsh thought with sick despair.
And then there was a whisper of metal on wood, and Jonathon Jeffers stepped smoothly in front of him, his sword cane unsheathed, the sharp steel circling dangerously. “Go for help, Cap’n,” Jeffers said quietly. He pushed up his spectacles with his free hand. “I’ll keep Mister Julian occupied.” Lightly, with a fencer’s practiced speed, Jeffers darted forward at Julian, slashing. His blade was a rapier, double-edged and wickedly pointed. Damon Julian reeled back barely in time, his smile fa
ding from his lips as the clerk’s slash passed inches in front of his face.
“Step aside,” Julian said darkly.
Jonathon Jeffers said nothing. He was in a fencer’s stance, advancing slowly on the balls of his feet, crowding Julian back toward the door of the captain’s cabin. He thrust suddenly, but Julian was too fast, sliding backward out of the reach of the sword. Jeffers made an impatient tsk. Damon Julian set one foot back inside the cabin, and answered with a laugh that was almost a snarl. His white hands rose and opened. Jeffers thrust again.
And Julian lunged, hands extended.
Abner Marsh saw it all. Jeffers’ thrust was true, and Julian made no effort to avoid it. The rapier entered him just above the groin. Julian’s pale face twisted, and a grunt of pain escaped him, but he came on. Jeffers ran him clean through even as Julian ran up the blade, and before the startled clerk had time to pull back, Julian had wrapped his hands around Jeffers’ throat. Jeffers made a horrible choking sound, and his eyes bulged, and as he tried to wrench free his gold-rimmed spectacles spun off and fell to the deck.
Marsh leaped forward and smashed Julian with his stick, raining blows around his head and shoulders. Transfixed by the sword, Julian hardly seemed to feel it. He twisted savagely, and there was a noise like wood snapping. Jeffers went limp.
Abner Marsh whipped his stick around in one final blow, with all his strength in it, and caught Damon Julian square in the center of his forehead, staggering him briefly. When Julian opened his hands, Jeffers fell like a rag doll, his head twisted around grotesquely so it almost seemed it was on backwards.
Abner Marsh retreated hurriedly.
Julian touched his brow, as if gauging the effects of Marsh’s blow. There was no blood, Marsh saw dismally. Strong as he was, he was no Hairy Mike Dunne, and hickory was not iron. Damon Julian kicked loose Jeffers’ death-grip from the handle of the sword cane. Wincing, he drew the blood-slick blade awkwardly out of his own body. His shirt and trousers were damp and red, and stuck to him when he moved. He spun the blade off to one side, almost casually, and it whipped round and round like a top as it sailed off over the river, before vanishing into the dark moving water.
Julian staggered forward again, leaving bloody footsteps behind him on the deck. But he came.
Marsh retreated before him. There was no killing him, he thought in a blind sick panic; there is nothing to be done. Joshua and his dreams, Hairy Mike and his iron billet, Mister Jeffers and his sword, none of them could take the measure of this Damon Julian. Marsh scrambled down the short stairway to the hurricane deck, and began to run. Panting, he hurried aft, to the companionway leading down from the hurricane deck to the promenade, where he’d find people and safety. It was nearly dark, he saw. He took three thunderous steps downstairs, then gripped the handrail tightly and reeled, trying to check himself.
Sour Billy Tipton and four of them were climbing toward him.
Abner Marsh turned and ascended. Rush forward and ring the bell, he thought wildly, ring the bell for help . . . but Julian had come down from the texas deck now, and cut him off. For a moment Marsh stood, dead with despair. He had no escape, he was trapped between Julian and the others, unarmed except for his useless goddamned stick, and it didn’t matter, nothing hurt them anyway, fighting was useless, he might as well give in. Julian wore a thin, cruel smile as he advanced. In his mind Marsh saw that pale face descending on his own, teeth bared, those eyes bright with fever and thirst, red and ancient and invincible. If he’d had tears Marsh might have wept. He found he could not move his legs from where they were rooted, and even his stick seemed far too heavy.
Then, far up the river, another side-wheeler came round a bend, and Abner Marsh would never have noticed, but the pilot did, and the steam whistle of the Fevre Dream called out to tell the other steamer that she’d take the larboard when they passed. The shrill wail of the great whistle stirred Marsh from his paralysis, and he looked up and saw the far-off lights of the descending boat and the fires belching from the tops of her tall chimneys, and the near-black sky that loomed above it, and the lightning dim in the distance lighting up the clouds from within, and the river, the river black and endless, the river that was his home and his trade and his friend and his worst enemy and fickle, brutal, loving consort to his ladies. It flowed on like it always flowed, and it didn’t know nothing nor care nothing about Damon Julian and all his kind, they were nothing to it, they would be gone and forgotten and the old devil river would still be rolling and cutting new channels and drowning towns and crops and raising up others and crushing steamboats in its teeth so it could spit out splinters.
Abner Marsh moved to where the tops of the great paddleboxes loomed above the deck. Julian came following him. “Captain,” he called, his voice twisted but still seductive. Marsh ignored it. He pulled himself up on top of the paddlebox with a strength born of urgency, a strength he didn’t know he had. Beneath his feet the great side-wheel turned. He could feel it shaking through the wood, could hear the chunka-chunka. He moved aft, carefully, not wanting to fall in the wrong place, where the wheels would suck him under and smash him up. He looked down. The light was almost gone, and the water seemed black, but where the Fevre Dream had gone it was boiling and churning. The glow from the steamer’s furnaces touched it with red, so it looked like boiling blood. Abner Marsh stared down at it and froze. More blood, he thought, more goddamn blood, can’t get away from it, can’t get away nohow. The pounding of the steamer’s stroke was thunder in his ears.
Sour Billy Tipton vaulted up on top of the paddlebox and moved warily toward him. “Mister Julian wants you, fat man,” he said. “Come along now, you gone as far as you can go.” He took out his little knife and smiled. Sour Billy Tipton had a truly frightening smile.
“It ain’t blood,” Marsh said loudly, “it’s just the goddamn river.” Still clutching his stick, he took a deep breath, and threw himself off the steamer. Sour Billy’s curses were ringing in his ears when he hit the water.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream,
Mississippi River,
August 1857
Raymond and Armand were supporting Damon Julian between them when Sour Billy leaped down from the paddlebox. Julian looked like he’d slaughtered a pig; his clothing was soaked through with blood. “You allowed him to escape, Billy,” he said coldly. His tone made Sour Billy nervous.
“He’s finished,” Billy insisted. “Them paddles will suck him under and smash him, or he’ll drown. You ought to of seen the splash he made when he hit the water, that big belly of his first. Ain’t goin’ to have to look at his warts no more.” As he spoke, Sour Billy was looking around, and he didn’t like what he saw, not one bit; Julian all bloody, a red smeary trail leading down the texas stairs and halfway down the hurricane deck, and that dandy of a clerk hanging off the end of the texas porch, more blood coming out of his mouth.
“If you fail me, Billy, you will never be as we are,” Julian said. “I hope he is dead, for your sake. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Billy. “Mister Julian, what happened?”
“They attacked me, Billy. They attacked us. According to the good captain, they killed Jean. Bashed his goddamn head to pieces, I believe that was the phrase.” He smiled. “Marsh and his wretch of a clerk and someone named Mike were responsible.”
“Hairy Mike Dunne,” said Raymond Ortega. “He is the mate of the Fevre Dream, Damon. Large, stupid, and uncouth. It is his job to shout at the darkies and beat them.”
“Ah,” Julian said. “Let me go,” he said to Raymond and Armand. “I feel stronger now. I can stand.”
The twilight had deepened. They stood in shadow. “Damon,” warned Vincent, “the watch will change at supper. Crewmen will be coming up to their cabins. We must do something. We must get off this steamer, or they will find us out.” He looked at the blood, the body.
“No,” said Julian. “Billy will clean it up. Won’t you, Billy?”
&n
bsp; “Yes,” said Sour Billy. “I’ll just toss the clerk in after his Cap’n.”
“Do it then, Billy, instead of telling me about it.” Julian’s smile was cold. “And then come to York’s cabin. We will retire there now. I need a change of clothes.”
It took Sour Billy Tipton nearly twenty minutes to remove the evidence of the death on the texas. He worked in haste, all too aware of how easy it would be for someone to come out of his cabin, or up the stairs. The darkness was almost complete by then, however, which helped. He dragged Jeffers’ body down the deck, hauled it up on the paddlebox with some difficulty—the clerk was heavier than Billy ever would have guessed—and shoved it over. The night and the river swallowed it, and the splash wasn’t nearly as big as the one Marsh had made. It was almost lost in the sound of the paddlewheels. Sour Billy had just stripped off his shirt and started cleaning up the blood when he had a stroke of luck—the storm that had been coming all afternoon finally broke. Thunder boomed in his ears, lightning came stabbing down at the river, and the rains began. Clean, cold, pounding rains, smashing down onto the deck, soaking Billy through to his bones, and washing away the blood.
Sour Billy was dripping when he finally entered Joshua York’s cabin, his once-fine shirt a damp ball in his hand. “It’s done,” he said.
Damon Julian was sitting in a deep leather chair. He had changed into some fresh clothing, had a drink in hand, and looked as strong and healthy as ever. Raymond was standing at his side, Armand was in the other chair, Vincent was seated on the desk, Kurt in the desk chair. And Joshua York sat on his bed, staring down at his feet, head sunk, his skin white as chalk dust. He looked like a whipped cur, thought Sour Billy.