the rudder into the current, moving them closer and closer to the Kentucky shore once again.
“Yonder’s Indiana,” Ovatt said, his voice strangely muted now in the absence of that thunder. “Place called Clarksville over there right about so. It sits at the bottom of the Falls—just about the last village of any size ’tween Louisville and St. Louie. Wish you could see it, but for the clouds.”
Titus could see very little of the Indiana shore, upstream or down. “Clarksville.”
“Named for George Rogers Clark. You hear of him?”
Wagging his head, Titus said, “No, I ain’t.”
“Hero of Vincennes. He kept the Northwest out of enemy hands many a year ago,” Ovatt explained in a reverent voice. “I see’d him once. Sure of it.”
“You seen Clark?”
“He was a old man then. Thin as a broom handle, all wored down with age. But every day he come to the river, folks said. An’ he’d wave to us what was going down. Clark’s the one opened this country—held back the enemy, and pushed back the Injuns across the Wabash.”
“What’s that?”
“Wabash? A river comes into the Ohio from the north. We’ll reach it soon enough. But for now, looks to be Ebenezer is about to put over to the Kentucky side and let you off.”
With a start Titus whirled about, finding the pilot indeed easing the flatboat ever closer to the south bank. His heart pounding, his mouth gone dry, and his throat feeling like he had daubed with tannic acid, Titus started to scramble over the crates and kegs and great coils of oiled hemp smelling fragrant in the moist, icy air. Root and Kingsbury were at the port gunnel, both with loops of rope over their shoulders by the time Titus clambered his way to midship. As Zane eased the stern of his cumbersome craft crosswise to the current, slipping them toward a muddy section of land, Reuben and Hames freed the ropes securing the small two-man skiff at the side of the flatboat and let it drop into the icy river with a splash. Leaping on board with their heavy coils of hawser rope, the pair quickly paddled toward shore. Beaching the skiff among the leafless brush, they slogged about in the frozen mud up to their ankles to knot their mooring ropes around a couple of trees with roots exposed by the relentless Ohio.
“Gimme a hand here!” Ovatt cried out at the capstan, where he began to turn the wheel with one of the short, stout, removable poles, walking round and round in that cramped area left free of deck cargo clutter. Already the flatboat was beginning to jolt and shudder as the ropes snapped, went taut with a creak, and the timbers groaned, Ebenezer’s Kentuckyboat bouncing against the current as she was drawn toward the bank.
“You heard the man, Titus!” Zane shouted. “Get up there and put your back into it so we can set you off on that shore.”
“Eb—Ebenezer?”
For a moment Zane watched Heman Ovatt and the others over the youth’s shoulder, then peered into the lad’s face. “What is it, Titus Bass? You of a sudden got something agin hard work?”
“No … no, sir! You won’t think ill of me if’n I go an’ break our bargain, will you?”
“Goddammit, boy!” Ovatt growled menacingly as he struggled against the capstan. “Get over here help me out!”
“Keep your back into it, Heman! Titus got something to say to me!” Ebenezer hollered. Then, squinting sternly at Bass with one eye, the pilot replied, “So you ain’t a man of your word, that it?”
“Nothing of the kind. I—”
Ebenezer interrupted, “Just how you figure on breaking our bargain? I brung you downriver like I said I would, and you rode with us through the Falls. Sounds to me we’re square.”
“But I didn’t do nothing to help us—”
“Nothing nobody could do. Allays just river an’ me”—then Zane’s eyes flickered to the sleeting heavens—“an’ God too what brung us through. It don’t matter none that I didn’t work you for your passage. But that ain’t breaking your bargain. You get on up there and help Heman haul us in to shore.”
His tongue felt pasty inside his mouth, his heart hammering and breath coming short and hard.
With sweaty palms Titus said, “I wanna stay.”
“Stay?”
Root and Kingsbury slogged down the muddy bank clutching the ends of their ropes, both of them intent on trying to overhear the talk. Ovatt continued to grunt, pushing round and round a step at a time there at the capstan among the ice-coated cargo lashed near the bow.
“Wanna stay on down the river with you fellas.”
“You know where we’re heading?”
“Natchez you said. On to Norleans.”
Zane wagged his head thoughtfully. “I dunno. Got me half a year’s earnings here.”
Bass said quickly, “I wanna go with you. See what’s there.”
“Thought you was wanting to go to St. Lou.”
He tried out a smile on Zane. “I figure it’ll still be there come next year. Plenty of time for me.”
“I was young as you once,” the wrinkled river pilot replied. “Seemed there was all the time in the world back then.”
For a moment Titus looked around him at the other three boatmen, then said, “You consider taking me?”
“Figure to hire on, are you?”
“A man don’t ride for free,” Root grumbled.
Bass nodded. “Reuben’s right. I don’t ’spect to ride for free.”
A grin grew within that great black tangle of hair Zane called his head. “I’ll work you, Titus Bass. I’ll work you hard.”
Bass gulped, asking, “That the hardest piece of river we go through to get to Norleans?”
Zane tilted his head back and roared with laughter, so deep and hearty was it that he showed his tonsils. “Just about, son.”
“Then I figure to ride the river with you fellas.”
Leaning forward, he held out his hand to the youth. “Good to have you with us, Titus Bass.” He straightened and hollered at the two on shore, “Loose that hemp, boys!”
“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” Kingsbury yelled in exasperation from the bank. “What in the goddamned hell?”
Zane waved his free arm, gesturing his crew in. “We’re bound for the Mississip with a new man!”
Grumbling, Root and Kingsbury freed the double-fist-sized knots from their moorings, then pushed off, paddling furiously, heading out into the channel to catch the flatboat while Ovatt hurriedly coiled in the hundred or so feet of loose hawsers across the wind-whipped surface of the Ohio.
Coming alongside, Reuben and Hames tied off the skiff to a pair of check-poles along the flatboat’s gunnel and clambered aboard.
Root asked of Zane, “This here green man you’re fixing to hire on—ain’t we gonna get him started right, Ebenezer?”
“How you mean—
“Have the boy here scour and grease the anchor?”
Ebenezer chuckled. “You can sure be one mean son of a bitch, Reuben. No, sir. I never did cotton to pulling such pranks on a feller what sets foot on my flatboat for his first trip downriver.”
“Not even a li’l fun?” Root whined, disappointment now where glee had been.
“What you figure to have Titus Bass do to make fun for you, Reuben?” Kingsbury asked.
He turned to Hames, saying, “I was figuring on him cooning the steering oar.”
With a lusty guffaw Zane shook his bushy head like a lion’s mane. “No, Reuben—less’n you’re willing to coon it yourself.”
“Shit! I ain’t no green hand like him—”
“Hap that you remember I never made you do nothing of the kind when you was a green hand?” Zane snapped. “You hap to think back on that?”
Sullen, Root nodded.
Having watched and listened in confusion, Titus finally asked, “What’s cooning the steering oar?”
All four of the boatmen roared in great peals of laughter.
