Thieves Of Mercy

over. The river men picked up their chairs, and resumed their meal.

“Did you git the sum bitch?” Sullivan asked.

“Yeah, I got him.”

“Come here,” Sullivan said and he led Tarbox over to Samuel Bowater. “Captain Bowater,” Sullivan said in a formal tone, “I’d like you to meet my first officer. This here’s Buford Tarbox, and he’s a hell of a river man when he ain’t bein a dumb-ass, shootin up rats in front of guests.”

“Honored to meet ya,” Tarbox said, sticking out his hand, and Bowater shook, too stunned by it all to do anything else. “Pleased to meet you,” he replied.

“Captain Bowater and his men is takin passage up to Memphis with us. They are the crew of the ironclad Tennessee,” Sullivan explained.

“The ironclad Tennessee, is that a fact?” Tarbox said with something like a half grin appearing through his thatch of beard.

“That is a fact,” Sullivan said. “Now show these boys some goddamn courtesy and get em somthin to eat, you hear? And don’t shoot nothin else.” Sullivan touched his hat to Bowater and disappeared. When he was gone, Tarbox shouted, “Hey, Doc, get these here fancy navy gen’lmen some grub!”

Tarbox picked up his chair and resumed his place at the table, while the one called Doc, wearing a stained apron, rose from his seat, conveying with every move, every nuance of expression, how much he resented the task.

Ten minutes later, pails of food were set on the tables occupied by Bowater’s men, and Doc went back to eating, without ever saying a word to any of the navy men, or even making eye contact. Bowater’s men were too hungry to care. They tore into the food in a manner that made the riverboat men look civilized.

The sky was coal-tar black when they finally got under way, approaching midnight, and the frenetic energy of soon-to-beembattled Vicksburg had slowed considerably. One by one the lamps that had lit the waterfront were extinguished, dark and quiet settled over the docks, the hiss of steam engines and the squeal of hoisting gear died away, the rumble of carts on cobblestone, and the shouting of motivated men tapered off and disappeared.

By 11 P.M. the loudest place on the waterfront was the big saloon on the main deck level of the General Page, where the crew of the riverboat had finished supper and moved on to whiskey, which made the otherwise taciturn men quite vocal, shouting, bragging, lying. The General Pages drank, smoked, chewed, and played cards. They ignored the blue-water men, who resented it, especially as it meant that none of the copious amount of whiskey flowing to starboard was finding its way to port.

The Page was a side-wheel steamer, one hundred and eighty feet on deck, around six hundred and fifty tons, not much different from hundreds of other riverboats that ran on the western rivers, hauling passengers, cotton, and mixed freight. Her twin paddle wheels were driven by a massive walking beam engine, a single cylinder driving a diamond-shaped rocking arm, the “walking beam,” that in turn rotated the paddle-wheel shaft. The engine was a huge affair, the walking beam mounted on top of a thirty-foot-high A-frame that went right through the hurricane deck, the uppermost deck, on which the wheelhouse sat.

Her conversion to a man-of-war had not been extensive. A heavy iron ram was bolted to her stem, just under the water. A metal shield that looked more like a cowcatcher than anything else was mounted on her bow and backed up with compressed bales of cotton. That offered some protection to the men working the ten-pound Parrott rifle mounted forward. On her stern she carried a thirty-two-pound smoothbore cannon, used to discourage pursuit. Unlike the crowded men-of-war to which Bowater was accustomed, there was a lot of room left over for the crew.

Bowater stood at the salon door and looked out at the few lights still burning in the city. What the hell is the wait? he wondered. They had had steam up for hours; he could not understand why they remained tied to the dock. Unless Mississippi Mike Sullivan didn’t think his men were drunk enough yet.

He heard steps from forward and Sullivan’s hulking frame materialized out of the dark. “Captain Bowater!” The big hand swung around and smacked Bowater on the shoulder. “You ready to get under way?”

“And have been for several hours.”

“I know, I know, damned irritatin. You ain’t a river rat? Ain’t spent much time on the Old Miss?”

“No, my experience with the river is limited.”

“Well… it’s all tides and currents, that’s what’s holdin us up. Tides, currents… whole different world on the river.” He pushed past Bowater, into the thick fog of tobacco smoke in the salon. “All right, you sons of bitches, let’s get this bucket under way! Come on, go!”

The riverboat men, who looked as if they would never obey any authority, obeyed Mississippi Mike. They leaped to it, pushed their way out of the salon, ran to stations. Within half a minute, only Bowater’s sailors were left in the big space, the smoke hanging like the ghost of the men who had been there.

“Captain, you come up to the wheelhouse with me. Man such as yourself got to be where the action is!”

A part of Bowater did not care to be in the wheelhouse with Sullivan, but the other part was flattered to be asked. And he reasoned that he should take any opportunity to learn more about the operation of shallow-draft, side-wheeled vessels on a river-so unlike anything his previous experience or training had prepared him for.

“Very well, Captain Sullivan, I thank you.” He followed Sullivan up the ladder to the wheelhouse, a boxy structure with windows on three sides sitting on top of the hurricane deck. Leaning on the wheel, which was five feet tall, was one of the river men. He was smoking a cheroot and digging at his nails with a bowie knife. He acknowledged Sullivan with a nod of his head.

Sullivan seemed to build momentum, like a beer wagon careening downhill. “Stop prettifying yourself and grab that wheel, Baxter, we got us a barge to pick up.” He stepped out of the wheelhouse door, bellowed, “Let ’em go! Let all them damned fasts go!” He rushed back into the wheelhouse, shouted, “Let’s get them buckets turning!” He grabbed the bell rope, gave a jingle and rang two bells, and a moment later the paddle wheels began their slow turn in reverse. He was shouting orders at Baxter, two feet away, when the answering ring came from the engine room below.

The General Page backed out into the river as Sullivan raced from side to side of the wheelhouse, stepping out on the deck, now to starboard, now to port, shouting into the dark, keeping up a running commentary. He was a tornado, exhausting just to watch, grinning wide with the sheer joy of having the riverboat moving under him.

Baxter, by contrast, said nothing, stared straight ahead through the glass, puffed the cheroot. He seemed not even to notice Sullivan, and the constant stream of instructions that Sullivan poured on him seemed to have no effect on his steering whatsoever.

In that way the side-wheeler swung away from the dock and turned her bow downstream.

“Ooowee, we goin now, Cap’n Bowater, we surely are!” Sullivan pulled a cigar from the pocket of his sack coat, stuck it in his mouth in a gesture that reminded Bowater very much of Hieronymus Taylor. Sullivan was grinning. Bowater could not remember the last adult he’d met who greeted life with such pure exuberance as Mississippi Mike Sullivan. There was something enviable about it.

“What brought you down to Vicksburg, Captain?” Bowater asked.

“Cracked bearin on the starboard paddle shaft,” Sullivan said, still moving from side to side across the front of the wheelhouse, his eyes everywhere. “Been up around Fort Pillow since… hell…”

“March,” Baxter supplied.

“March. Waitin for our chance to get at them damned Yankee gunboats, them turtles. I’m gonna be mighty angry if they whipped them Yankees while we was down here. All right, Baxter, here we go.”

Sullivan rang one bell, slow ahead. Bowater peered out the window, trying to see what Sullivan saw, but it was all black waterfront to him.

“Hard a’port,” Sullivan said. He rang slow astern. “Hell, Cap’n Bowater, we’re doin all kinda good for the navy tonight,” he continued, eyes fixed on the shore. “Bringin the crew of the Tennessee upriver. Gettin this here coal barge for what’s left of the Confederate Navy fleet, up there at Memphis.”

“Navy fleet?” Bowater asked. “Not the River Defense Fleet?”

“That’s right.”

“Well…” Bowater paused while Sullivan raced out onto the hurricane deck, then raced back into the wheelhouse. “I didn’t realize there were any naval forces left up there.”

“Oh, hell, yes, Cap’n. A few. And of course the Tennessee ,