Thieves Of Mercy

There was not a bit of animosity in the air. Quite the opposite. The atmosphere was, if anything, congenial.

“Here, Captain, come on over here,” Hieronymus Taylor called from across the room. He was seated at a round table with Spence Guthrie, the Page’s chief engineer, and First Mate Buford Tarbox. Being as the Page was a man-of-war, Tarbox probably should have had the title first lieutenant, or executive officer, but Bowater could not bring himself to think of the man in that way.

Bowater pushed his way through the men, trying not to limp, trying not to look surprised. One of the riverboat men at a nearby table stood and pushed his chair up to Taylor ’s table so that Bowater could sit.

“Thank you,” Bowater said, sitting carefully. Doc, still clad in his filthy apron, appeared out of nowhere and set a plate of fried eggs and bacon down in front of him. Bowater nodded his thanks. He picked up the fork and slipped it under the table, and with the tail of his frock coat he scrubbed it as hard as he could.

“Captain, good day to you,” Tarbox said, scraping a lucifer on the table and sparking up a cheroot. “We had us a pretty good run overnight, considerin we was draggin that barge you commandeered. Be right up with Greenville by the middle of the forenoon watch.”

“Indeed.” Bowater tried the eggs. Not bad. He was very hungry.

“These gentlemen been telling me about the paucity of supplies to be found in Memphis,” Taylor said. “It don’t look too encouraging, I got to say.”

Bowater nodded, his teeth working on a piece of bacon. Behind him, the salon door opened and Mike Sullivan’s voice roared through the cabin. “Whoa, you dirty dogs! Y’all get on deck, a clean sweep fore and aft! Y’ain’t on a goddamned yachting holiday!” There was good humor in his voice, and his men leaped up, and Bowater’s men leaped up too, and tumbled out on deck, and Bowater wondered when they had begun taking their orders from Sullivan.

He had the sudden, disturbing thought that perhaps the fight had not really happened, that it had been a dream, or something worse.

“Captain Bowater!” Bowater swiveled to see Sullivan stepping up to their table. “How’s the hand this morning?” He was grinning wide.

“The hand is fine, thank you, Captain,” Bowater said, with coolness and just enough courtesy to avoid the taint of rudeness. He wished there were a way to discreetly slip his hand-which was decidedly not fine, and looked it- under the table, but it was too late for that.

“And how are you this morning, Captain?” Bowater asked, looking Sullivan up and down, looking for some sign of damage done in the brawl, but he could see nothing. He would have liked to think that the force needed to smash his hand as badly as it was would be enough to break Sullivan’s jaw, but apparently not. If there was a bruise, it was hidden beneath thick beard.

“Goddamn it,” Sullivan roared, “but there is nothing like an all-hands-in brawl to clear the air, ain’t that a fact?”

The other river rats, Taylor, Guthrie, and Tarbox, all nodded. Sullivan slammed a big hand down on Bowater’s shoulder. “Glad we got that over with, Captain. Like pulling a tooth, it hurts for a bit, but damned if it ain’t a relief after. Puts the hands in a good mood, like the fine weather that comes in on the tail of a storm.” He put a hand on his jaw, worked it back and forth. “Be a relief when I recover from that mighty wallop you gave me.”

Sullivan grabbed up one of the empty chairs, spun it around so it was back to the edge of the table and sat down, his arms, as big as most men’s legs, resting on the back. Bowater noticed for the first time that he was holding several slim, paper-bound books.

“Gentlemen.” Sullivan looked to Bowater, then Taylor. “Didn’t get a chance to show y’all these here.”

Sullivan tossed the books on the table. Taylor made no move to pick one up, so Bowater did. He looked at the cover. He was not sure what to make of it.

“It’s one of those dime novels, isn’t it?” Bowater asked. “I’ve heard of these, never seen one.”

“Never seen one?” Mike asked with theatrical incredulity. “Where the hell you been livin, brother?”

“In civilization. The English call them ‘penny dreadfuls,’ do they not?”

“Devil take the rutting English, this here’s good ol’ American lit-rit-ur.”

Bowater read the title: The Further Adventures of Mississippi Mike Sullivan, Riverboat Man! The cover was a pen-and-ink drawing. A fellow who looked passably like the Mississippi Mike seated beside him, though trimmer, his beard more under control, was knocking a savage-looking seaman back with an uppercut to the jaw. Behind him, a black man with a slouch hat on his head and a gun in each hand fired away at cutlass-bearing cutthroats. The caption underneath read, “Mississippi Mike dispatched the Captain of the River Pirates while his sable pard held the crew back with pistols blazing.”

Samuel Bowater burst out laughing. It was a spontaneous reaction, a pure expression of his regard for this unique form of “lit-rit-ur.”

“It’s somethin, ain’t it?” Mike was grinning ear to ear, not in the least put off by Bowater’s reaction. “Now you see why the name Mississippi Mike’s so goddamned famous all up and down this here river.”

Tarbox was reading one of the books, running his finger left to right and mouthing the words. Taylor had picked up another, was thumbing through it. “You write this yourself, Sullivan?”

“Hell, no! As if I got time. I’m too busy doin amazin things to write about ’em. No, I jest put down some descriptions of my adventures, like I done with them river pirates, and I send ’em off to New York City. Publisher’s got some Jewish fella, he writes it up all pretty, and next thing, folks all over the country’s readin about Mississippi Mike.”

Bowater looked up and caught Taylor ’s eye. A shared sense of amusement passed between them, a mutual understanding such as they rarely experienced. Bowater knew that Taylor would find the penny dreadful as ludicrous as he did.

“This here war must be a great inconvenience to your literary aspirations,” Taylor drawled.

“It ain’t makin things easy, I can tell ya,” Mike said. “And they’s gonna be some damned disappointed readers, if they don’t get the further adventures of Mississippi Mike.”

Bowater opened the book to the first page.

The name of Mississippi Mike Sullivan is known along every watery mile of the river after which he is called. From the docks of New Orleans to the granaries of St. Paul, Minnesota, the people on the river know Mike as the hardest driving, hardest drinking, most dangerous son of a gun riverboat man on the Western Waters. Everywhere, men know to stay on his good side, or stay out of his way. It was a lesson the river pirates learned the hard way, but they learned it well.

Bowater grinned. This just gets better and better.

“So this… contretemps… with the river pirates, this was a thing that happened to you. And your”-Bowater referred back to the cover- “your ‘sable pard’?”

“You’re damn right it was. Sons of bitches tried to rob me. Taught ’ em good. Oh, sure, there’s some stuff in there’s stretched a bit. And the ‘sable pard’ stuff, that makes them abolition kangaroos in New York get all excited, shows ’em we know how to treat darkies down here. But mostly it’s all true.”

Bowater nodded. He flipped to the middle of the book.

Mississippi Mike slipped silently into the river, and parting the waters with broad strokes of his powerful arms, closed silently with the unsuspecting pirates’ paddle wheeler. He took a firm grasp of the anchor chain, hauled himself out of the water, until, catlike, he eased himself over the rail. He paused, alert to any possible danger. All was silent. The guard on the main deck had not seen him.

“Come on now, Sullivan.” Bowater looked up. “When was the last time you moved ‘catlike’?” “Never mind about that, it don’t make no difference. Captain Bowater, might I have a private word with you?” Bowater leaned back, alert to any possible danger. “I suppose,” he said.

“I’m obliged, surely am.” He stood and Bowater stood and Mike led him out on the side deck and forward to the master’s cabin. Sullivan held the door open, and Bowater stepped into the mahogany and red velvet lined sitting room. Scattered around the space were worn, velvet-upholstered chairs and various spittoons, the brown splotches evidence of poor marksmanship. In Rio de Janeiro, on his first cruise after the Navy School, Bowater had been talked into visiting a brothel with his shipmates. Sullivan’s cabin was very reminiscent of that place.

From the hurricane deck, eight bells rang out. End of the morning watch, 8:00 A.M. Footsteps thudded on the deck overhead, muffled voices called out. Sullivan gestured toward a chair. Bowater sat, his eyes drawn to the painting on the wall. A reclining nude. Like the French nudes from the Romantic movement, Bowater thought, as interpreted by some randy hack.