“Beauty, ain’t she? Wrestled a whorehouse bouncer for her.” “Very nice. She fits in well. Thematically.”
“There, ya see, that’s it.” Sullivan took a chair facing Bowater. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“What’s… it?”
“Well, you. You’re a man of letters, I can see that. Can toss around a word like
“I am a graduate of the Naval Academy,” Bowater confirmed.
“Sure. But that don’t mean you ain’t an educated man, a man of letters, fellow who knows his way around a book.”
“Well…”
Sullivan did not let him continue. His enthusiasm was building in a way that Bowater now recognized. “See, here’s the thing, Cap’n. This war’s gonna be the end of them Mississippi Mike books. Jest too damned hard to git anything to New York City nowadays. And besides, them fellas in New York, they don’t know a walking beam from a flying cow chip. Their hearts ain’t in it. Mine is. I want to write these here books myself, see? But I ain’t a man of letters. I’m a hard drinkin, hard fightin river rat, but I don’t know nothin about writin up a book.”
“You forgot ‘most dangerous son of a gun riverboat man on the Western Waters.’ ”
“Yeah, that too. But I ain’t a scribbler, see?”
Bowater could see where this was going. “But Captain Sullivan, I was under the impression that these books were no more than a retelling of actual events in your life. Why not just write them down as they happen?”
“Hell yes, sure, I could do that. But there has to be a real story, see? Can’t just be a bunch of crazy things happenin. It needs a… what do you call it…”
“Plot?”
“Exactly! See, that’s what I’m talkin about. We need a big story, and then all the amazin things I get into, well, they all fit into the story, like planks on a hull. Understand?”
Bowater nodded. Sullivan, like any real raconteur, had an instinctual understanding of storytelling and narrative structure. But somehow it was now “we” who needed the plot.
“This sort of thing isn’t really in my line,” Bowater said.
“Oh, I understand. I didn’t reckon you could write a whole book, not as good as this fella been writin my stories. I just thought maybe you could give me a hand, a few ideas, maybe.”
“Hmm.” Bowater ran the fingers of his right hand gingerly through his goatee, over the stubble of two days’ growth on his cheeks. “All right. Perhaps I can help.”
Sullivan nodded, sat up, like a big dog anticipating a treat. “Good, good. We need some kind of plot, you know, so as all this stuff makes sense.”
“All right, I’m thinking… Bowater looked off to the middle distance, trying to keep his eyes from the nude’s breasts. He assumed a thoughtful expression. “Let’s say… Is your father still alive? In the books, I mean?”
Sullivan frowned. “Yeah. Ain’t really been no mention of my pa.”
“Good, good. Perfect. Let’s say… Mississippi Mike’s father is a riverboat pilot. Best on the Mississippi, except for Mike. It’s where Mike learned the trade.”
Mike Sullivan was nodding.
“He runs one of the biggest stern-wheelers on the river. Great boat. Now, one day, his father dies…”
Sullivan was nodding harder.
“Now, say the first mate is Mississippi Mike’s uncle, his father’s brother, and he gets the captaincy now. Everyone thinks that Mike’s father died naturally, but Mike knows different. Mike knows it was his uncle, done murdered his pa.” Bowater found himself slipping into the vernacular.
“That’s good!” Sullivan said. “But how do I-how does this
Mike Sullivan know that?” “Well… I guess he would figure it out somehow. Or…” “What?” “What if… yes, that’s good! What if Mike’s father’s ghost
were to show up, tell him the truth?” Sullivan’s eyebrows came together. “His pa’s ghost?” “Yes, his ghost. Oh, readers love to see ghosts in books.” “They do, huh? All right, so this ghost shows up, tells Mike
what happened.”
“How about if Mike’s sable pard sees the ghost first? Say his sable pard is on anchor watch, and the ghost shows up, and his pard knows it’s Mike’s pa?”
Sullivan nodded. “Them darkies is scared to death of ghosts.” “Exactly! That’s what would make the scene so effective.” Sullivan smiled wide. “I like it, Captain Bowater, goddamn me
if I don’t! So then… what? Mike goes after his dirty rotten uncle,
beats him with fists like boulders?” “No, no… Mike’s too smart for that. He has to make sure.” Sullivan looked serious now, overcome by the weight of their
artistic endeavors. “All right, how does he do that?” Bowater shook his head. “That’s all. I can’t come up with any more right now. One can’t force the creative process.”
“No… one can’t,” Sullivan agreed. He stood and crossed to a small table where a bottle of whiskey and a few glasses stood on a silver tray. “Like a wet there, Captain? Celebrate our partnership?”
Bowater glanced at the clock on the wall: 8:36 A.M. But the rules of civilization, he was finding, did not seem to apply on the Father of Waters.
“Love one, Mississippi Mike. Love one.”
SEVEN
GIDEON WELLES, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, TO FLAG OFFICER L. M. GOLDSBOROUGH, UNITED STATES NAVY
Wendy Atkins had a disconnected, free-floating feeling, like one of those hot air balloons that
had slipped its tether, drifting along with the currents in the air, unable to direct or even predict in what direction she would be blown.
She wanted more than anything to grab Aunt Molly by the collar, to pull her into a private room, shut the door, make her answer the thousand questions that the last few hours had created. Her connection to the navy, the reasons she might be in danger, the very idea of wheedling from the Yankees the place where they would land troops.
Put all together, the disparate bits of information seemed to form a picture of what Molly was, although it was not a picture that Wendy could believe.
But Wendy did not have the chance to ask, or even to express surprise at the developments or question Molly’s judgment or inquire as to their immediate future, because things were still unwinding too fast for her to pause. She had got no further than to stammer, “Should I… shall I…” when Molly said, “You must stay with me, dear. If we are separated now we will never find one another. It is always that way, for all the careful plans one lays. So stick by me, and I’ll tell you the part to play.”
And that was it. Twenty minutes later they were seated in a dark coach, side by side, and facing a professionally detached Lieutenant Batchelor as they rattled north out of Norfolk.
They rode for a long time in silence, Molly staring out the window at the lights and the crowds in the streets, until at last the insanity of the town gave way to the dark of the country, and only the blue moonlight illuminated the low marshy land and the hard-packed, dusty road. And only then did Molly speak.
“This sort of thing…” she said, and for the first time Wendy heard a note of defeat in her voice, and it made her wonder what conclusions she had reached during her long silence. “This sort of thing is so very dependent on time. Lots of time, one needs lots of time, and that is what we do not have.”
She sighed, and with that sigh seemed to expel the gloom, and she seemed much brighter when she turned to Lieutenant Batchelor and said, “Now, Lieutenant, you must tell me everything that you know about the situation in Hampton Roads.”
