Fevre Dream (23 page)

Abner Marsh blinked, and there across the table from him was an animal, a tall handsome animal in burgundy, and there was nothing the least bit human about it, and the lines of its face were the lines of terror, and its eyes—its eyes were red, not black at all,
red,
and lit from within, and
red,
burning, thirsting,
red
.

Joshua York released the infant’s stump. A sudden pent-up wash of blood spurted feebly out across the table. An instant later a sound like a terrible wet
crunch
filled the saloon.

And Abner Marsh, still half-dazed, slid the long kitchen knife out of his boot and came out of his seat screaming, raving, slashing. Sour Billy tried to grab him from behind, but Marsh was too strong, too wild. He brushed Billy aside, and flung himself across the dinner table at Damon Julian. Julian broke away from Joshua York’s eyes just in time, and pulled back slightly. The knife missed his eye by a fraction of an inch, and left a long open gash down the right side of his face. Blood welled out of the wound, and Julian made a snarling sound deep in his throat.

Then someone seized Marsh from behind and dragged him off the table and
flung
him backward across the grand saloon, lifted him and flung him, all three hundred pounds of him, like he was a small child. It hurt something fierce when he landed, but somehow Marsh managed to roll over and get back to his feet.

It was Joshua had thrown him, he saw, and Joshua who was standing closest to him now, Joshua with pale hands trembling and gray eyes full of fear. “Run, Abner,” he said. “Get off the steamer.
Run.
”Behind him the others had all risen from the table. White faces, eyes intent and staring, hands pale and hard and grasping. Katherine was smiling, smiling at him the way she’d smiled when she’d caught him coming from Joshua’s cabin. Old Simon was shaking. Even Smith and Brown were drifting toward him, slowly, ringing him in, and their eyes were not friendly, and their lips were wet. They were all moving, all of them, and Damon Julian came gliding around the table, almost soundless, the blood drying on his cheek, the gash closing almost as Marsh watched. Abner Marsh looked down at his hands, and discovered that he had lost the knife. He backed up, step by step, until his back was up against a mirrored stateroom door.

“
Run,
Abner,” Joshua York repeated.

Marsh fumbled and opened the door and backed into the cabin behind him, and he saw Joshua turn his back and stand between the cabin and the others, Julian and Katherine and all the rest, the night folks, the vampires. And that was the last thing he saw, before he broke and ran.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Aboard the Steamer
Fevre Dream,
Mississippi River,
August 1857

When the sun rose over New Orleans the next morning, a swollen yellow eye that turned the river mists to crimson and promised a scorching day, Abner Marsh was waiting on the levee.

He had run a long way the night before, plunging through the gaslit streets of the Vieux Carré like a madman, smashing into strollers, stumbling and panting, running as he had never run in all his years, until finally he realized, belatedly, that no one was pursuing him. Then Marsh had found a dim, smoky grog shop, and put down three quick whiskeys to stop his shaking hands. And finally, close to dawn, he had started back toward the
Fevre Dream
. Never in his life had Abner Marsh been angrier or more ashamed. They had run him off his own damn steamboat, stuck a knife to his neck, slaughtered a goddamn
baby
right in front of him, on his own table. No one got away with treating Abner Marsh like that, he thought; not white men nor coloreds nor Red Indians nor any goddamn vampires. Damon Julian was going to be mighty regretful, he swore to himself. Day had come now, and the hunters would become the prey.

The landing was already humming with activity when Marsh approached. Another big side-wheeler had put in beside the
Fevre Dream
and was unloading, peddlers were selling fruits and frozen creams from wheeled carts, one or two hotel omnibuses had put in an appearance. And the
Fevre Dream
had her steam up, Marsh saw with surprise and alarm. Dark smoke was curling upward from her chimneys, and down below a ragtag group of roustabouts was loading up the last of the freight. He quickened his pace, and accosted one of them. He shouted, “You there! Hold on!”

The rouster was a huge, thickly built black man with a shiny bald head and one missing ear. He turned at Marsh’s shout, a barrel on his right shoulder. “Yessuh, Cap’n.”

“What’s goin’ on here?” Marsh demanded. “Why’s the steam up? I didn’t give no orders.”

The rouster frowned. “I just loads ’em up, Cap’n. Don’t know nuthin’, suh.”

Marsh swore and moved past him. Hairy Mike Dunne came swaggering across the stage, his iron billet in hand. “Mike,” called Marsh.

Hairy Mike frowned, a fierce look of concentration on his dark face. “Mornin’, Cap’n. You really sell this here boat?”

“What?”

“Cap’n York, he says you sold you half to him, says you ain’t acomin’ with us. I got back a couple hours past midnight, me an’ some of them boys, an’ York he says you’n’ him figgered two cap’n were one too many, an’ he bought you out. An’ he tole Whitey to get the steam up, he did, and here we is. That the truth o’ it, Cap’n?”

Marsh scowled. The roustabouts were gathering round curiously, so he grabbed Hairy Mike by the arm and drew him across the stage onto the main deck. “I ain’t got no time for no long stories,” he said when the two of them were reasonably apart from everybody else. “So don’t pester me with no questions, you hear? Just do like I tell you.”

Hairy Mike nodded. “Trouble, Cap’n?” he said, whacking his iron club into a big, meaty palm.

“How many is 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 there last I saw, sort of dozing in a chair.”

“Get dressed,” Abner Marsh told him. “Quicklike. And meet me down by your office.”

“Certainly, Cap’n,” Jeffers said, puzzled.

“And bring your sword cane,” Marsh told him as he went out the door.

Less than ten minutes later, he and Jeffers and Hairy Mike Dunne were together in the clerk’s office. “Sit down and keep quiet and lissen,” Marsh said. “This is goin’ to sound crazy, but you two have known me for years and you damn well know I ain’t no half-wit and I don’t go around telling stories like Mister Framm. This is the goddamn truth, I swear it, may the goddamn boiler blow up underneath me if I’m lyin’.”

Abner Marsh took a deep breath and plunged into the story. He told them everything, in one long rush of a speech, stopping only once, when the wild scream of the steamer’s whistle interrupted him and the deck began to vibrate.

“Pullin’ out,” said Hairy Mike, “Goin’ upstream, like you ast.”

“Good,” said Marsh, and he went on with the story while the
Fevre Dream
backed clear of the New Orleans levee, reversed her great paddles, and started back up the Mississippi beneath a hot clean sun.

When Marsh was finished, Jonathon Jeffers looked thoughtful. “Well,” he said, “fascinating. Perhaps we should have called in the police.”

Hairy Mike Dunne snorted. “You know bettuh. On the river, you handle you own trouble.” He hefted his billet.

Abner Marsh agreed with him. “This here is my steamboat, and I ain’t callin’ in no outsiders, Mister Jeffers.” That was the way of the river; it was less bother to club a troublemaker and toss him over the side, or leave the paddles to chew him up. The old devil river kept its secrets. “Specially ain’t callin’ in no New Orleans police. They ain’t goin’ to care about no colored slave baby, and we ain’t even got a body. They’re a bunch of scoundrels anyway, and they wouldn’t believe us. And if they did, then what? They’d come in with pistols and clubs, worse than useless against Julian and his bunch.”

“So we’re to handle it ourselves,” Jeffers said. “How?”

“I round up the boys an’ we kills ’em all,” said Hairy Mike amiably.

“No,” said Abner Marsh. “Joshua can control the others, I figure. He done it before. He tried to do right, to stop what went on last night, only Julian was too much for him. We just got to get rid of Julian before dark.”

“Ain’t gone be hard,” offered Hairy Mike.

Abner Marsh scowled. “I ain’t so sure of that,” he said. “This ain’t like the stories. They ain’t helpless by day. They’re only sleepin’. And if you wake ’em up, they’re awful strong and awful fast and they ain’t never easy to hurt. This has to be done right. I reckon the three of us can handle it, no sense gettin’ others involved. If anything goes wrong, we’ll get everybody off this steamer well before dark, and put in someplace upriver where nobody can interfere, where none of the night folks can get away if it comes to havin’ to kill more’n just Julian. Don’t think it will, though.” Marsh looked at Jeffers. “You got the duplicate key to that cabin you put Julian in?”

“In my safe,” the clerk said, pointing towards the black iron strongbox with his sword cane.

“Good,” said Marsh. “Mike, how hard can you hit with that thing of yours?”

Hairy Mike smiled and thwacked the iron billet into his palm. It made a satisfactorily loud sound. “How hard you want me to hit, Cap’n?”

“I want you to crush his goddamn head in,” Marsh said. “And you got to do it right off, with one swing. Ain’t goin’ to be time for no second try. You just break his nose for him and a second later he’s goin’ to be up tearin’ out your throat.”

“One hit,” said Hairy Mike. “Jest one.”

Abner Marsh nodded, confident that the huge mate was true to his word. “Only one more problem, then. Sour Billy. He’s Julian’s little watchdog. Maybe he’s dozing in some chair, but I wager he’ll wake up quick enough if he sees us goin’ for Julian’s door. So he ain’t goin’ to see us. Those boiler deck cabins got two doors. If Billy is in the saloon, we go in from the promenade. If he’s outside, we go in from the saloon. Before we do anything, we make sure we know where Billy is. That’s your job, Mister Jeffers. You’re goin’ to find Mister Sour Billy Tipton for us, and tell us where he is, and then you’re to make sure he don’t go wanderin’. If he hears a ruckus or heads for Julian’s cabin, I want you to take that sword cane of yours and stick it clean through his sour little belly, you hear?”

“Understood,” the clerk said grimly. He adjusted his spectacles.

Abner Marsh paused a moment and looked hard at his two allies: the slim dandy of a clerk in his gold specs and button gaiters, his mouth tight, his hair as neatly slicked back as ever, and beside him the huge mate with his rough clothing and his rough face and his rough ways, his green eyes hard and spoiling for a fight. They were a strange pair but a most formidable one, Abner Marsh thought. He snorted, satisfied. “Well, what are we waitin’ for?” he asked. “Mister Jeffers, you go find where Sour Billy is at.”

The clerk rose and brushed himself off. “Certainly,” he said.

He was back in under five minutes. “He’s in the main cabin, sitting to breakfast. The whistle must have wakened him. He’s eating eggs and boiled beefcakes and drinking plenty of coffee, and he’s sitting where he can see the door to Julian’s cabin.”

“Good,” Marsh said. “Mister Jeffers, why don’t you go break fast yourself?”

Jeffers smiled. “I do believe I have a sudden appetite.”

“The keys first, though.”

Jeffers nodded and bent to his safe. Keys in hand, Marsh gave the clerk a good ten minutes to find his way back to the grand saloon before he stood and took a deep breath. His heart was thumping. “C’mon,” he said to Hairy Mike Dunne, opening the door to the world outside.

The day was bright and hot, which Marsh took for a good omen. The
Fevre Dream
was surging up the river easy as you please, her wake a churning double line of white-flecked foam. She must be doing eighteen miles an hour, Marsh thought, riding smooth as a Creole’s manners. He found himself wondering what her time to Natchez would be, and all of a sudden he wanted to be up in her pilot house more than anything, looking out on the river he loved so well. Abner Marsh swallowed and blinked back tears, feeling sick and unmanly.

“Cap’n?” Hairy Mike said uncertainly.

Abner Marsh cussed. “It’s nothin’,” he said. “It’s just . . . goddamn it all . . . c’mon.” He stomped off, the key to Damon Julian’s cabin clenched tightly in a huge red hand. His knuckles were turning white.

Outside the cabin, Marsh paused to look around. The promenade was mostly empty. A lady was standing by the railing a good ways aft of them, and about a dozen doors forward there was a fellow in a white shirt and a slouchy hat sitting with his chair tilted back against a stateroom door, but neither of them seemed much interested in Marsh and Hairy Mike. Marsh slid the key carefully into the hole. “You ’member what I told you,” he whispered to the mate. “Quick and quiet. One hit.”