Rivers West (10 page)

As I watched, I counted aloud: “Three, four, five…six, seven…eight.” And there were more. At least ten of those long boxes, and nobody needed to tell me what they contained, for I had seen such before. Each box contained at least a dozen rifles. Perhaps more.

There was a light tap on the door, and Butlin came in. Handing him the glass, I indicated the wagon with its tarp, now pulling away. Another was pulling up, and it was unloaded in exactly the same way.

“Well?” I said.

He glanced at me. “Rifles?”

“Of course. There must have been at least a hundred on that first wagon.”

“So we can guess, a modest estimate, no less than two hundred rifles aboard—and probably more. That's a lot of firepower.”

“Did you find Macaire?” I asked.

“Nope,” answered Butlin. “He's not around. At least not yet.”

We were silent. The second wagon had discharged its cargo and moved away. Now there was only the usual activity around the hull of the dragon boat.

“What are you going to do?” Butlin asked.

There was nothing I could do. Tabitha Majoribanks would not have me aboard, and I certainly would not serve under Macklem. Whatever was to happen would happen soon, for their boat would likely pull out for the West in a day or two.

“Nothing,” I said, “but hunt a job.”

Butlin dropped into a chair and stared thoughtfully out the window. “That's a fine girl,” he muttered, “a fine, proud girl.”

Something inside me cringed. I felt a shame come over me. Yes, she was all of that. I remembered the set of her shoulders, the look of her back as she walked away from me. But I knew she had no use for me, and although she was a fine, proud girl, she also had a fine, devil of a temper.

I said as much. Butlin chuckled. “Would you have it otherwise? If you're going to have steam in the kettle, you've got to have fire in the stove.”

Through my telescope, I saw a man walk up the gangway, pausing at the rail. It was Colonel Macklem. My fists clenched.

But fists were not the proper weapon for him. If a man was to tackle Macklem, he must do it with a calm mind, for I knew that man was thinking. He was thinking all the time.

And every thought was of how to kill you, how to make you suffer.

Chapter 11

A
T THE BOAT yard I had no trouble. Boats were building. Men were needed. Timbers were cut in a sawmill, but many needed added shaping, and I was a better than fair hand with ax or adze.

I was hired on the spot.

That afternoon, John Dill, my boss, walked over to where I was working and kicked the chips I'd cut from a timber in facing it. The chips were almost uniform in size, and the timber as smooth as if polished.

“You're good,” he said quietly. “Have you built boats?”

“I am a shipwright,” I told him. “I have built three schooners, a barkentine, and several brigs, along with a number of fishing craft.”

“I thought so.” He watched me work for a time. “Have you built bridges?”

“Several…and barns, as well.”

“We've a steamer to build. One hundred and twenty-five feet overall, main deck, cabin deck and a texas.”

I leaned on my ax. “You will build it here?”

“I shall. If you'll have the job, it is yours.”

“You mean I shall be in charge?”

“I've watched you work. You'll do it. I want the job done by a man who loves his work, who loves the wood he works with and the tools he uses.”

It was what I wanted. It was what I had come west to do. Now it was here. One hundred and twenty-five feet would make a handsome craft, and once I'd put one in the water I could write my own ticket.

Why did I hesitate?

“Let me give you my answer tomorrow. I must think of what must be done and what I have to do.”

“Well enough. You know where my office is. Come along when you've made up your mind.”

For a moment longer I waited, thinking, and then once more I went to work, liking the clean, neat strokes of the adze, the way the chips broke away. This was what I had started to do in life, to build, to build boats that would carry the commerce of this wild land, go up its farthest rivers.

When I finished my day, it was dark. I stacked my tools and turned away from the river toward the hotel. If I was going to stay in Pittsburgh, I must find new, less expensive quarters.

There was the faint scuff of feet on the street ahead of me. I stood very still. I'd had a bit of trouble on the previous day, and hoped for no more.

Hands chest high, whether to block a punch or lead one, I continued my walk.

“John Daniel?”

It was Macaire.

“Macaire! We need to talk,” I said.

“Aye,” he answered. “Come sail with us. You can ship aboard us in any capacity you like. Or you can come as a passenger, as a free trader.”

“You speak for yourself, Macaire. Neither Macklem nor Miss Majoribanks would allow it.”

“If I speak for you, they'll take you. Will y'come, lad?”

“I cannot. Your Miss Majoribanks thinks I am common stuff—and dislikes me into the bargain. As for Macklem, he's a very dangerous man. We'd kill each other within the week.”

“Ah, you don't know him, lad. He's a canny one. He's a way about him, smooth as a French tailor, and he'd say naught against you. In fact, and this will surprise you, lad, he suggested it.”

“Macklem?”

“Aye. Your name was up. I don't know if it was Tabitha who mentioned it, or whether 'twas Macklem himself, but your name was up. She said you'd been companions all the way down, and he come out with it, quick and easy. ‘Have him aboard,' he says, ‘in any capacity he wishes.' The words I speak were his own.”

I considered that. Now why should he have me aboard? Obviously, to be watched, and then done away with when the chance presented itself.

“No,” I said. “I will not come, Macaire. You're a good man, and I would stand beside you in this trouble, for there's trouble acoming, whether she believes it or not.”

We were walking alone on the street. “She kens the lot,” said Macaire. “She knows better the trouble than any of us. You know too little of the lass, John Daniel. She knows what's ahead, and well she knows it.”

“But—”

“Lad, her father was a canny man. He had those who knew writing to him from all about. The lass knows more than the both of us.”

I could only stare at him. “You cannot mean that.”

“Aye. Mean it I do. And well I mean it. Do not underrate her, lad. She's got a canny head on her pretty shoulders, a canny head. She's like her pa…only more, lad, more.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. At the tavern door, I said, “Come for a dram.”

“No. I should be at her side.”

He left me then, and I walked inside and went aloft to my room. When I lighted the candle, Butlin was there, resting easy in my chair.

“How did it go, then?” he asked.

“Well enough.” And then I told him of the chance to build the steamboat.

“From John Dill himself, is it? Aye, he's a knowing man. You'll find no better anywhere about. He's been up the Mississippi, and he's sailed on the lakes.”

“Aye?”

“He helped to build the
Accommodation
some ten years back, at Montreal. He worked on the
Swiftsure
and tried to buy a piece of the
Walk-in-the-Water
before building began. He knows boats, and he believes in steam.”

The names were familiar to me. All were Great Lakes steamers, and there'd been a time when I thought of going down to Sackett's Harbor to work on the American steamer
Ontario
.

“Well,” he said at last, “you have what you wanted. It is surely your chance, and with a good man, a solid man. If you do this one well you'll have a future, lad, for he has the name of seeking out good men and keeping them by him.”

Then I told him about Macaire and what he had said of Miss Majoribanks. He did not seem surprised. I said as much.

“Talon,” he said, “I have known of Miss Majoribanks for more than two years, and Macaire is right. There's no shrewder person in the country than her.”

“But she's just a girl!”

He chuckled. “Oh, sure! That's all she is, a girl. But she has a head on her shoulders that is older and wiser than many a man twice her age. You forget she grew up at her father's knee, helping with the business, often making decisions, handling the writing. Believe me, her pen is known to a hundred men west of here, and they'd die for her.

“You can tell her little about Torville that she does not already know.”

Peeling off my shirt, I bathed in the basin, dumped the water out of the window, and filled the basin again from the white pitcher. It was cold, but it felt good on my arms and chest. When I had dried off, I put on a fresh shirt.

Butlin had been watching me, and when I had the shirt on, he shook his head. “You're strong,” he said. “I have seen some mighty men in my time, but never one with muscles like you have.”

I shrugged. “My family runs to muscle. And when a man lifts heavy timbers morning until night, he'll become strong or he'll not last.”

I looked around at him and said: “Did you ever lift a twelve-by-twelve that's ten feet long and green timber? You'll not find too many who can do it once, but I've lifted them, balanced them, carried them, and fitted them in place. Not once but a dozen to twenty in a fair day's work, along with smaller stuff.”

Later, at table in the common room below, I said, “If we do the steamer, I'll be needing help. Will you work with me?”

“Thanks…but no.”

“It will be no timbers as big as those I've mentioned,” I said.

“It is not that,” he said, “but the lass.”

“Miss Majoribanks?” I could not call her Tabitha.

“She will need help. She knows what it is she faces, but she will not quit. She will find her brother, alive or dead, and if dead, she'll find where the body lies. You can be sure of it.”

I shifted uneasily. The food was being put before us, but suddenly I was not hungry.

“What are you to her?” I asked.

“I am nothing. But they have asked me to go.”

He left me then. I felt relief that he would be going with them.

Suddenly I realized that it had been some time since I had seen Jambe-de-Bois. I had seen nothing of him, in fact, since the morning before.

I inquired of the desk clerk about Jambe-de-Bois, but he had seen nothing of him either. I went upstairs to my room.

Glancing from the window, I saw lights on the deck of the steamer.

Undressed, I got into bed, clasped my hands behind my head, and considered building the steamboat and the problems it would entail. Yet through the thoughts of building, costs, time, and materials, her face kept appearing, laughing, angry, contemptuous, cool…but always her face.

Disgusted, I sat up. What was the matter with me? Why should my thoughts continually revert to
her
?

Suddenly, there was a tap on my door—the faintest of taps, almost as if it wished not to be heard.

Chapter 12

M
Y HAND REACHED for the pistol that lay on the table. A moment of listening, and the tap came again.

It was very late. Sliding quickly from bed, I drew on my pants, tucking the gun behind my belt, and I stepped to the door.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Macklem,” a voice answered.

Right hand on my gun, I opened the door with my left and took a quick step back, drawing the gun as I did so.

Macklem stood there, filling the door. He stepped into the room, lithe as a cat. Noticing my pistol, he chuckled. “Afraid?” he said.

“Careful,” I replied quietly, “just careful.”

“You have talked to Miss Majoribanks,” he said, “and I gather there was some disagreement.”

“Of a sort,” I said, committing myself to nothing.

He drew back a chair and sat down. “Can we have a light?”

“The candle is there,” I pointed with the muzzle of the gun, “if you wish it lit, then light it.”

He did so. The match flared briefly, the wick caught, the flame lifted up.

“You do not trust me,” he said, as if sorrowed by the fact.

I chuckled. “Not even a bit.”

He waved a hand. “No matter. Regardless of that, we need you.”

“We?”

“All of us. Miss Majoribanks, Macaire, Mrs. Higgs, and I. We are going west, into unknown country, Indian country. You have had experience with Indians. Macaire says you understand rough country, that you've dealt with Indians. I've come to ask you to join us.”

He smiled at me.

“Also,” he added, “Miss Majoribanks would feel safer if you were along.”

“Did she say that?”

“No,” he admitted, “but I sense it. Whether you know it or not, she believes in you. She trusts you.”

I grunted.

“I do not joke. We have far to go, and beyond St. Louis, who knows what awaits us.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I have an excellent offer to build a steamboat here. It is what I came west to do.”

He was silent for a few moments. “You are a Canadian?” he asked suddenly. “From Quebec?”

“I am.”

He hesitated again, as if uncertain how to proceed. “We need a man of your skills,” he said. “On such a trip there is much danger and often a need for repairs. Miss Majoribanks wishes to go up some of the unknown rivers, and there will be no boat yards there, nor any skilled workmen.”

“I would have thought,” I said, “that the men you have with you there would have various skills.”

“There's also the matter of companionship,” he suggested. “You are obviously a man of intelligence, of breeding. You work with your hands, but you're cut from a higher class.”