River Queen (26 page)

“But you do believe in God, then?”

“Do you take me for a fool, Rev? Of course I believe in God. Any man with sense knows that the world couldn’t have made itself. Anyway, you got the job, if you want it, Rev. I’ll pay you fifty cents a day to start, and that’s with room and board. But there’s something I gotta explain to you,” he said, frowning. “The owners sail with the
River Queen,
see, so that’s why I have to tell you. There’s this sister, well, there’s two sisters, but this one sister I gotta explain to you about.”

Rev was grinning at him. He looked about fifteen years old. Dallas stopped running on and demanded, “What?”

“I know all about the Ashbys and their problems, Dallas. It’s hot talk on the river, the scandal and all. I thought it was pretty big of you not to gossip about them, and then try to poor-mouth me into taking less money. And I gotta tell you, when I heard about them, and figured out it was the
River
Queen
that lost their engineer, I just knew the Lord was sending me to you. And I promise you won’t be sorry.”

The two stood there talking, but they were interrupted when Lulie showed up. Dallas was pretty well hazy by this time, and his lips were numb, but he managed an introduction. “Lulie, this is Revelation Brown. Don’t cuss in front of him.”

“Glad to know you, Miss Lulie. Are you saved, Spirit-filled, and sanctified?”

Lulie stared at him, mystified. “No, I’m pretty sure not. Is Revelation your real name?”

“Just call me Rev. But, ma’am, saloon girls, they need God just like bartenders and riverboat pilots do,” he said slyly, glancing at Dallas.

“Aw, wet your whistle again, Wev. I mean Rev. More sarsaparilla for Rev and whiskey for me and Lulie,” Dallas called out to Otto.

They stayed for awhile, but slowly Dallas found it harder and harder to pronounce his words. Finally he mumbled, “Got to go, Lulie.” He pushed away from the bar and stood up straight, but his legs suddenly seemed to be made out of rubber. He sagged, and Revelation put his hands underneath Dallas’s arms. “Come on, Dallas. Let me give you a hand.”

“Get me back to the
Queen
, Rev.”

“Yes, sir. Miss Lulie, I’ll come back, and I’ll tell you how to get saved.”

Lulie laughed. “If you’re looking for candidates to preach to, this is the right place. Come back, Dallas, when you’ve sobered up.”

The June air was warm, but Dallas was too drunk to appreciate it. He was disgusted with himself and mumbled all the way back to the ship. He kept tripping over his own feet, but each time Revelation pulled him upright. When they got to the gangplank he tripped on a loose board, stumbled, and went down to his hands and knees. He tried to get up and found he was too dizzy.

Rev reached down, set him up straight, then grabbed him around the lower legs and hoisted him over his shoulder. “Up we go,” he said. Dallas thought,
He must be stronger than he looks.
With interest he watched behind him. The world looked different, but he couldn’t quite work out exactly why.

They got to the main deck and he felt Rev bend his knees a little bit and ease him off his shoulder. His legs almost buckled, and Rev threw Dallas’s left arm around his own shoulders and put one strong arm around his waist. Dallas squinted his eyes, trying to make out the shapes in front of him. He saw three or four person-looking things.

He heard Revelation say, “Good evening, ladies. My name is Revelation Brown, and I’m your new engineer. Would you be so kind as to direct me to Mr. Bronte’s sleeping quarters?”

Dallas focused enough to see Julienne eyeing him with disgust, and Aunt Leah looked somber. “I bet you think I been drinking,” he said, trying to muster some dignity. “Well, I guess I have been, but just a wittle. A little.”

Julienne shook her head. “He has a stateroom up on the Texas deck. Would you like some help? I could ask one of the crewmen.”

“No, ma’am, I think me and Dallas can make it just fine, thank you ma’am.” They started toward the stairs, and Julienne didn’t want to watch in case both the stranger and Dallas came tumbling down them headlong.

She went to the back of the main deck and looked out over the river. Late that evening storm clouds had begun moving in, and the errant breeze on the Mississippi River had transformed into wild rushes of wind from all points of the compass. Julienne and Leah had taken two of their brand-new rocking chairs out to the main deck to watch the storm come in, fanning themselves against the hot southern night, enjoying the occasional odd cool drafts that swept over them.

It was a black night. An eerie quiet lay over the river, the sure prelude to a storm. After awhile Julienne could even hear the soft swish of her aunt’s skirts, and Leah came to stand by her side. “It seems that Mr. Bronte is comfortably ensconced in his new quarters. I would imagine that he’s going to be a little confused when he wakes up in the morning.”

With the money that they were to realize from their haul to New Orleans and back, before they left, each of them had decided on one reasonably-priced thing that they wanted most. Julienne had demanded a hip bath. The Texas deck had two sanitary rooms, but no bathtubs. They were scarce in Natchez and exorbitantly high. Dallas knew that they would be much cheaper in New Orleans, which was why he had sent Caesar and Libby to search for one. And, of course, for the black licorice, which was what Carley had asked for.

Darcy had demanded cash, and though Julienne tried to explain that they wouldn’t know exactly how much they would clear until they finished the haul and returned to Natchez, he kept insisting. Finally she had given him five dollars from her very small emergency fund. He had said that would be a down payment and had sashayed off to see Stephen Moak.

As soon as they got back to Natchez, Roseann had ordered three bolts of muslin: black, gray, and blue, to make all of them new skirts, including Libby. She had never been able to do any of the hard work on the ship; she didn’t know anything about cooking; she couldn’t possibly get down on her knees and scrub; and she simply wasn’t strong enough to wash and iron. But she could sew, and she loved it, so she mended and patched and sewed on buttons for everyone, even the crew.

Surprisingly Aunt Leah had asked for a bed, a chest, and a washbowl and pitcher. When Julienne had questioned her about it, she merely said, “When we are not hauling freight, Mr. Bronte works all day looking for freight, and half the night he works on the engines. When this boat is on the river, Mr. Bronte has to stay at that wheel for hours and hours at a time. When he can rest, he deserves a nice, quiet room. I want him to have the captain’s stateroom, and I don’t want any of you to say anything about it to him.”

Julienne had felt a little ashamed at her thoughtlessness at the time. But she certainly wasn’t now. “So it’s true what everyone said about him,” she said bitterly to her aunt.

“He’s drunk,” Aunt Leah retorted. “He’s not
a
drunk.”

“What’s the difference?”

Leah sighed. “You’ve been so sheltered, maybe you really don’t understand. But when Barry was in the army, I saw what real drunks are. They drink when they wake up and drink until they pass out. They can’t possibly work. They drink instead of eat, they’re usually violent, and for most of them, when they get to a certain point, that poison is so riddled throughout their bodies that it finally kills them. Now we’ve been living on this boat with Dallas Bronte for over a month. Until tonight, have you ever seen him take a drink?”

“No,” Julienne said sulkily.

“No, you haven’t,” Leah said with satisfaction.

“But he’s so arrogant,” Julienne blustered. “Today he tried to tell me how to take care of Carley! How dare he!”

“What did he say?” Leah asked curiously.

“That Jesse had caught her leaving the
Queen
by herself, saying she was going to go dig crawdads for bait, of all things! And Dallas said it was because we—me and mother—haven’t been bringing her up right!”

Softly Leah said, “And he’s exactly right, Julienne.”

“What!” she said with outrage. “How can you say that, Aunt Leah? How can you agree with
him
?”

Again she said, “Because he is right, Julienne. Please calm down and listen to me. I’m not at all surprised that Carley thinks she can just go where she wants, and do what she wants. To her, going to dig for crawdads is no different than going out to the barn to dig for worms. No one ever stopped her from doing that. And no one has explained to her why she can’t do it now.”

Julienne stared at her. As the truth of her aunt’s words began to dawn in her mind, she dropped her head and rubbed her forehead. “She never would stay in her lessons with you. So many times I’ve thought that Carley was growing up so ignorant, so uneducated. But I just passed it off, thinking that you should make her do her lessons.”

“It’s not my place. It’s never been my place. Just like it’s not up to this crew to teach Carley right and wrong and to discipline her. We’re just so blessed that Mr. Macklin and Jesse and Mr. Bronte love that child. You don’t realize how much time they spend with her, and how carefully they look after her.”

Julienne lifted her head and said bleakly, “He was right. Dallas was exactly right. I’ve spent this whole day, since we had that fight, thinking horrible things about him.”

“I wondered why you were in such a foul humor,” Leah said with some amusement. “But then I should’ve known that you crossed Dallas Bronte. Somehow he has a way of locking horns with you and Darcy.”

Julienne turned to her and asked, “Darcy? You know what’s happened to him, don’t you, Aunt Leah? Why he’s been working—and sober—for the last few days?”

She nodded. “He came to me in a blue-faced fit, after he came back from trying to see Stephen Moak in New Orleans. He blurted out this entire—I’ll call it a conversation, though it seemed to me to be fairly one-sided—that he had with Mr. Bronte. Darcy thought that I would excuse him, would pet him, maybe give him some money. But just like I’ve done with you tonight, Julienne, I told Darcy that everything Mr. Bronte had told him was right. That I completely and totally agreed with him.”

“What did Dallas say to him?”

Leah’s mouth twitched. “One of the topics they discussed was that Mr. Bronte was not going to let Darcy eat if he didn’t work.”

“What! But that could never happen!” Julienne said, irritated again. “You know that we wouldn’t let Darcy go without food, as long as we have a morsel!”

“Of course not, and Dallas Bronte is not a fool, he knows that too. It’s just that Mr. Bronte used that as an example to teach Darcy that he was subject to certain rules, just like all the rest of the civilized humans on this earth. In effect, he was teaching Darcy a lesson. And it worked too. I realized that as soon as Darcy came to me, instead of to you or to Roseann. He knew, deep down, that Mr. Bronte was right. And he wanted me to listen, and to tell him the truth, and to reassure him that even when we do bad things our family still loves us. And then the next day he went to work.”

“I didn’t even know until today,” Julienne said in a low voice.

“We haven’t been talking much about it,” Leah said quietly. “We just want Darcy to find his way, without all of us beating him over the head.”

“That’s probably what Dallas threatened to do to him,” Julienne said disdainfully.

“Mm, no, Mr. Bronte didn’t say that at all,” Leah answered with amusement, remembering that Darcy had said Bronte had promised to “beat him to a bloody pulp.”

Julienne let out an exasperated sigh. “All right, Aunt Leah, you’re right, and Dallas is right, and I’m wrong. I’ve been wrong all along about Carley and Darcy. But surely you aren’t defending him getting drunk tonight.”

“No, I can’t defend that,” Leah answered somberly. “But neither can I condemn it. And neither can you. Jesus Christ is the only man who has the right to condemn us for our sins, because only He is sinless. And when they asked Him to stone a woman who had committed a sin, the terrible sin of adultery, He said, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ Are you going to be the one that casts that first stone, Julienne?”

Leah’s words were almost like a physical shock to Julienne. She actually felt slightly nauseous, and the headache that had been threatening her all day flooded in with a vengeance. Forgotten was Carley, forgotten was Darcy. Her thoughts were like big angry roiling red clouds in her mind.

I am that woman,
she thought with a desperation she had never known.
With Dallas, I wanted him so badly, it was almost as if I couldn’t control myself. And he stopped me . . . Dallas Bronte, that I’ve always looked down on, thinking that I was so much better than him, that he was low and common and had no honor. But he’s the one who’s acted unselfishly, and honorably, and with true charity. And I’m the woman who should be stoned.

Sensing her distress, Leah put her arm around Julienne and asked softly, “Julienne? What’s wrong, dearest, are you ill?”

“No, no, Aunt Leah,” she answered, though it was true that she was heartsick. “But would you do something for me?”

“Anything, Julienne.”

“There are some things that I need to tell you, and some things that I need to talk to you about, to ask your advice. But mostly I would like it if you would come back to my room and pray with me.”

“That would make me happy above all things,” Leah said. “No matter what has happened or what is to come, the Lord will save us, will keep us from harm, and will bless us. Always and forever.”