Thieves Of Mercy

“I read that thing about ‘inheriting that mantle’ somewhere, don’t recall where, and I always liked it,” Sullivan explained. “Is that all right-you know, borrowin’ from another writer an all?”

“Generally, no, but I think we can let that stand. Go on.”

When Paddy Sullivan died, gentle in his sleep, it was a sad day on the river, and a sadder day for Mississippi Mike. But it was not for two months more, on a foggy morning watch, that Mike would find out the dirty deed that was done his pa.

The Belle of the West was anchored just south of Natchez and waiting for the fog to lift, when Horatio, a free Negro and Mike’s longtime pard, was on the deck watch.

“You seen it? Two times you seen it?” Horatio asked his shipmates, Barney and Mark, who had the watch with him. “That’s right. We seen it twice. And if you don’t believe in ghosts, pard, you best bet you would if you seen this.” Horatio’s eyes was like saucers. “Oh, Lawd, I surely do believe in ghosts, and I surely hope we don’t see one now!” “Look, y’all!” Mark shouted. The three men looked up. Right out of the fog, like a man-shaped cloud, and all shiny, stepped a spirit from another world, a world of the dead!

“Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy! Dat surely is de ghost of ol’ Paddy Sullivan! An don’t it look jest like him!” Horatio held tight to his shotgun, his ebony finger on the trigger, his eyes bulging from their sockets.

“Talk to him, Horatio!” Barney whispered. “No, suh, I ain’t talking to no ghost!” “Go on!” Mark said next, pushing Mike’s sable pard toward the apparition.

Horatio held the gun in front of him and the barrel trembled like a leaf in a breeze. “What you want, Paddy Sullivan?” he shouted in a hoarse voice. “What you coming around here for, scaring decent folk?” Horatio spoke bravely, for even though the Negro race is more afraid of ghosts and such than regular folk, Mike’s old shipmate was no coward. But the ghost would not talk to him, but instead floated free across the deck.

Sullivan looked up. “What do you think?”

“Excellent, Sullivan. Perfect,” Bowater said. He was impressed. It was not nearly as awful as he had imagined it would be, with a few bits that seemed genuinely inspired. He could see his enthusiasm reflected on Mike’s face.

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. You captured the mood of the thing very nicely. But see here, I had another idea, something that might really give the book some bite, you know.”

“Yeah?” Mike took a step closer, a conspiratorial move. “Here’s what I was thinking. How about if Mississippi Mike’s

uncle, along with becoming captain of the Belle of the West …” “Yeah?” “How about if he marries Mike’s mother!” Mike stood up straight, his eyes like saucers. “Marries his

mother?”

“Yes. Just think on it. Wouldn’t that get Mike hot for revenge?”

“Yeah, it would do that…” Mike looked away, trying to absorb the enormity of it. “But… the way I wrote it, Mike’s pa ain’t been dead but two months.”

“I know. Shocking, isn’t it?”

“Shocking? It’s damned indecent is what it is.”

“Of course.” Bowater lowered his voice. “You think people want to read about decency? Why don’t you write a book about a cloistered nun, see how many people buy that?”

“You got a point…”

“Just think about it,” Bowater encouraged. “That’s all I ask.”

“All right…” Mike muttered. He wandered off, his eyes on the deck. His lips were moving, but Bowater could not hear what he was saying, and he guessed-he hoped-he had bought himself a few hours of peace.

As it turned out, the notion that frailty’s name might be woman so rattled Mississippi Mike that Bowater had little discourse with him for the rest of the afternoon and evening, until he was safely ensconced in his cabin with the door bolted. The next morning he stepped onto the side deck carefully, looked fore and aft to see the way clear.

“Captain Bowater!” Mike’s voice was like a thunderclap, and like a thunderclap it came from overhead. Bowater turned and looked up. Mike was standing on top of the wheel box, leaning on the rail, looking down. “Come on up to the wheelhouse! Take your breakfast up here! This is your big day, Captain!”

Bowater trudged wearily, grudgingly, up to the hurricane deck and across to the wheelhouse. Mississippi Mike was outside the wheelhouse, grinning, shouting, flying back and forth. It was not the Mississippi Mike who sheepishly asked Bowater’s advice on writing. It was hard drivin, hard drinkin, most dangerous son of a whore riverboat man on the Western Waters Sullivan, the preliterary Mississippi Mike.

“Good morning, Captain,” Bowater said. His every cell was crying out for coffee, hot and black.

“Coffee, Captain?” Sullivan said, and without waiting for a reply turned to the deckhand polishing the bell and said, “Berry, light along to the galley and get the captain here some coffee!”

Berry took off, returned, and Sullivan had the decency not to speak until Bowater had taken at least two good sips.

“Outskirts of Memphis here, Captain,” Sullivan said, nodding toward the shore. It was a gray morning, overcast and humid. Bowater could see that the shoreline was more crowded than it had been downriver: docks, warehouses, clusters of dilapidated shacks. Riverboats were tied up at various angles to wharves and to the shore itself. He could see wagons moving along like tiny models in a diorama.

Memphis… The voyage had been so wild he had almost lost sight of the destination. Life like the chapters of a book-one ends, move on to the next.

The Adventures of Samuel Bowater, Naval Officer.

Chapter the Thirty-fourth, In which our hero is shed of Mississippi Mike Sullivan at last, and sees his new command for the first time, and comes to understand into what new nightmare he has been plunged…

Bowater stared over the brown water and played with the idea.

“Just a couple miles or so upriver’s the yard where your ship’s a’buildin, Captain. Mr. John T. Shirley’s yard. That fella’s a whirlwind, don’t get in his way. Got a wharf there, we can drop you and your men off right at the shipyard.”

“Oh…” Bowater had not thought that far ahead. “That would be marvelous, Captain Sullivan.”

“Least I can do.”

Bowater was silent for a moment, finished his coffee, felt much restored. “I’ll go and alert my men to be ready to disembark,” he said.

“No, no need, Captain,” Sullivan said, then leaned into the wheelhouse, shouted, “Come right, you stupid son of a whore! Do you see that raft? Are you blind, you dumb bastard?” and from inside the wheelhouse, unseen by Bowater, the helmsman replied, “I see the raft. Shut your mouth, you fat bastard!”

The General Page swung slightly to starboard, and Sullivan grinned as if the helmsman’s reply had been part of some witty repartee. “No need, Captain, I’ll have one of my boys do it,” and with a shout, Sullivan dispatched the put-upon Berry to gather Bowater’s men.

“Nothin like gettin the first sight of a new command, huh, Captain Bowater?” Sullivan said. “I would be honored to share that moment with you.” It wasn’t sincerity in his voice, but something meant to sound like it.

“Yes, indeed…”

They steamed on, the shipping and the buildings, the wharves and the traffic growing thicker as Memphis opened up around them, and the General Page inched her way toward the eastern bank of the Mississippi River.

They were less than two hundred yards off when Sullivan shouted, “Here we are, Baxter, come right, now!”

The General Page swung across the river, her bow pointing at a makeshift shipyard sprawling along a landing near a desultory-looking fort that Bowater had been told was Fort Pickering. A great brown earthen plot of land, scattered with stacks of blond, fresh-cut wood, piles of iron with a patina of rust turning them ruddy brown, carts and men and huffing steam engines. There were two sawmills spitting out clouds of dust,