Thieves Of Mercy

make no sense to have Mike kilt off, an this the first book we done.” He stood, made an expansive gesture. “Hell, Cap’n, when this here book goes like hotcakes, I reckon me an you’ll be writin two, three of ’em a year, minny- mum! Can’t kill the damned golden goose right off.”

“Very well.” It was pointless to argue. On artistic grounds, Bowater could generally sway Sullivan to his way of thinking, but this was a commercial consideration, and Mike was intransigent. “Let’s see what we have.”

Sullivan sat again. Bowater picked up the manuscript and read. The fight scene, the very end of their opus.

Mike’s ol pard Larry took a lucky stab at Mike with his big ol bowie nife and he cut him a good one, right acrost the arm, and Mike bled jest like a pigll do when his throtes cut.

“Tere warnt no call to do that,” Mike sed an he dropt his nife an put his hand over where he was cut. “Warnt no call at all,” he sed an now he was getin some angry an he hit Larry right square in the jaw an hit him so hard ol Larry fell right down flat an dropped his nife to.

“Yer my meat now, Mississippi Mike,” Larry sed and gabbed up a nife but he grabed Mississippi Mike’s nife by accident and Mike picked up Larrys nife. They went at her like a couple of ol bucks in ruttin season and next thing Mike cuts Larry a good one.

Jest then Mike’s ma fell right out of her chair. “Oh, Mike, they done poisoned me, I knows it!” she called and then she died, right then and there.

“Poisoned? What all’s goin on here?” Mike demanded.

“Reckon Im done fer now, Mike,” Larry said, “Same as you. On account of that nifes got poison on her. Same poison done fer yer ma.”

Mississippi Mike jest nodded his worried hed but he didnt say nothin on account of he knew there warnt no poison could kill him.

Bowater nodded his approval as he read. “This is excellent, Sullivan,” he said and looked up at Mike’s beaming face. “You just wrote this?” “Wrote her up last night. I’m awful careful now about who I

lets see that. Keep her under lock and key when I ain’t actually in my cabin. I don’t know how them actor sons of bitches got their hands on her, but I got my ideas.” He leaned closer, said in a stage whisper, “I reckon it’s that little weasel Guthrie, down ta the engine room. He’s got it in fer me, has fer a long damn time. I jest got plumb full up of his lazy damned careless ways and I started tellin him what’s what and he don’t care fer it. Damn engineers. Damn the whole breed of cat.”

Bowater raised the glass of brandy that Sullivan had provided. “I’ll second that.” Finally, he and Mississippi Mike had found common ground.

If there was one good thing about Spence Guthrie, the nervous, rodentlike malcontent in the Page’s engine room, it was that he made Hieronymus Taylor seem like a reasonable and cooperative individual.

No sooner had Bowater and Sullivan come aboard than Guthrie had started in: the coal’s no good, the new firemen didn’t know their business, the condenser’s shot and no spare parts to be had. “Whole damn walking beam’s shifting around, the bearings’s so worn. I been with whores didn’t move as much as that fucking walking beam.” All in that shrill voice, on and on, until even Bowater wanted to strangle him.

Not even Mississippi Mike Sullivan deserved Spence Guthrie.

They had got under way around noon, after listening to Guthrie explain why the boilers would probably blow up and kill them all, jest because some goddamn people think a damned army riverboat’s their own private yacht, jest run her up and down the damn river hows’ever they please, an never mind about the engine room, they’ll do jest fine on their own, thank you please, jest there to serve the lords and masters in the ruttin pilothouse anyhow…

Later, after their literary salon, during which they finalized the climactic end of Mississippi Mike, Melancholy Prince of the River, Sullivan relieved Tarbox in the wheelhouse for the evening watch and Bowater found a dark place on the fantail and sat. He watched the moonlit banks and the scattered lights on shore slip past, listened to the slap of the paddle-wheel buckets, the creak of the walking beam overhead, let his mind go away, far and away.

He wondered where Wendy was. The news he was getting from Norfolk was not good. With McClellan on the Peninsula, Norfolk could not stand for long. The shipyard would be lost, and Wendy, if she did not escape, would be in enemy-held territory. She would be behind the lines, and he would not see her again until the war was over, and he no longer believed that it would be over soon.

So Wendy Atkins was yet another thing that the Yankees had taken from him.

“No, no,” he said out loud. She would not allow herself to be trapped that way. She would get out, somehow, before the Yankees arrived. She and that aunt of hers, who seemed a resourceful woman. Off to Culpepper, where the Yankees could not reach her. There would be a letter, any day, he was certain. When he returned to Memphis there would be a letter.

He went to bed, woke to the sound of the anchor chain rattling out the hawsepipe. He stood and scratched, splashed water on his face, dressed, and stumbled out on deck. The sky was just taking on the suggestion of dawn. The earthworks of Fort Pillow loomed over the starboard side, hulking and black, and if Bowater had not seen it several times already he would never have been able to differentiate fort from shoreline.

He could make out a few other boats anchored around, but the majority of the River Defense Fleet was gathered downriver at the little town of Fulton.

One of the Page’s deckhands rounded the corner of the boiler deck. He stopped when he saw Bowater, jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Sullivan wants ya, ta the larboard gangway. Cap’n,” he growled and then left.

What, no tea and biscuits in bed? Bowater thought. Reckon that’s what passes for a courteous summons in the river-rat vernacular.

He hit himself on the forehead with the heel of his palm several times, berating himself for even thinking the word reckon and trying to drive the vial colloquialism from his mind. That done, he settled his cap on his head, ran fingers through his goatee, and walked around the boiler deck to the steps forward. He took the ladder cautiously down to the main deck and walked around to the larboard gangway.

Mississippi Mike was already there, with four of his crew, the General Page’s gig floating alongside. Sullivan held a haversack. It looked like a lady’s reticule in his big hand.

“You ready fer a little scoutin, Cap’n?” Sullivan asked, smiling wide.

“I reck-” Bowater closed his eyes, let his irritation settle. “I imagine so.”

“Good, good. Let’s get under way.”

Wordless, the four river men climbed down into the boat and took up the oars. Sullivan climbed into the stern sheets. Bowater followed. Doc arrived at the gangway with two steaming bowls of burgoo and two mugs of coffee. He snarled as he handed them over.

“Thankee, Doc! Shove off!” Sullivan said. The men pushed off, the oars came down. Sullivan worked the tiller with his knee and handed Bowater a bowl and mug. “Reckon we’ll have our breakfast under way, Cap’n, if’n that’s agreeable to you.”

“Thank you.” Bowater took the bowl, looked at the sloppy mess, wondered if Doc’s resentment ran so deep that he might adulterate the mush in some way. But Sullivan was already shoveling it in, and Bowater, as a career navy man, was no stranger to horrid food.

Anyway, what the hell could he do to it that would make it worse than it is in its natural state? Bowater wondered as he took a spoonful.

It was a lovely morning, quiet and calm, with the promise of a perfect blue sky revealed by the growing light. The quiet dip of the oars was the least intrusive of sounds, and Bowater could hear the rustle of animals along the shore, the shrill and musical cry of birds. Little islands of fog hung over the water in isolated patches of gray. Thankfully, Sullivan kept his mouth shut, and Samuel was able to enjoy the slow, steady pull upriver to where the Yankees lay.

Bowater was just letting his mind drift away on the beauty of the place, so serene it seemed otherworldly, when Sullivan said, “Jest around this here bend, an we’ll see the first of them Yankees.”

Bowater was brought back to unpleasant reality. Far from taking an idyllic pull through a newfound Eden, they were rowing right under the guns of a powerful enemy.

That thought raised a few questions.