Thieves of Mercy Read online

  There was no fight that he could hear.

  He made his way down the side deck to the first-class passenger’s salon, last night’s battlefield. He reckoned breakfast was out of the question, for him and his men, anyway.

  At last he could hear voices and he paused to gauge their timbre. Loud, boisterous, but not angry. Not the sounds of conflict. He wondered if his own men were collected someplace else on the ship. Aft on the fantail, perhaps.

  Perhaps. But first he had to look in the salon, as much to demonstrate that he was not afraid to show his face in there as to look for his crew. He took a breath, pushed the door open.

  The sight that greeted him was not the one he would have expected. Indeed, it was the one scenario he had not even considered, his men and the riverboat men all eating their breakfast, clustered around the damaged tables and occupying the surviving chairs, or sitting on the deck, backs against the bulkheads. It was not blue-water men to port, riverboat men to starboard, but all of them mixed up, some talking, some eating, some sucking on cheroots. There was not a bit of animosity in the air. Quite the opposite. The atmosphere was, if anything, congenial.

  “Here, Captain, come on over here,” Hieronymus Taylor called from across the room. He was seated at a round table with Spence Guthrie, the Page’s chief engineer, and First Mate Buford Tarbox. Being as the Page was a man-of-war, Tarbox probably should have had the title first lieutenant, or executive officer, but Bowater could not bring himself to think of the man in that way.

  Bowater pushed his way through the men, trying not to limp, trying not to look surprised. One of the riverboat men at a nearby table stood and pushed his chair up to Taylor’s table so that Bowater could sit.

  “Thank you,” Bowater said, sitting carefully. Doc, still clad in his filthy apron, appeared out of nowhere and set a plate of fried eggs and bacon down in front of him. Bowater nodded his thanks. He picked up the fork and slipped it under the table, and with the tail of his frock coat he scrubbed it as hard as he could.

  “Captain, good day to you,” Tarbox said, scraping a lucifer on the table and sparking up a cheroot. “We had us a pretty good run overnight, considerin we was draggin that barge you commandeered. Be right up with Greenville by the middle of the forenoon watch.”

  “Indeed.” Bowater tried the eggs. Not bad. He was very hungry.

  “These gentlemen been telling me about the paucity of supplies to be found in Memphis,” Taylor said. “It don’t look too encouraging, I got to say.”

  Bowater nodded, his teeth working on a piece of bacon. Behind him, the salon door opened and Mike Sullivan’s voice roared through the cabin. “Whoa, you dirty dogs! Y’all get on deck, a clean sweep fore and aft! Y’ain’t on a goddamned yachting holiday!” There was good humor in his voice, and his men leaped up, and Bowater’s men leaped up too, and tumbled out on deck, and Bowater wondered when they had begun taking their orders from Sullivan.

  He had the sudden, disturbing thought that perhaps the fight had not really happened, that it had been a dream, or something worse.

  “Captain Bowater!” Bowater swiveled to see Sullivan stepping up to their table. “How’s the hand this morning?” He was grinning wide.

  “The hand is fine, thank you, Captain,” Bowater said, with coolness and just enough courtesy to avoid the taint of rudeness. He wished there were a way to discreetly slip his hand—which was decidedly not fine, and looked it—under the table, but it was too late for that.

  “And how are you this morning, Captain?” Bowater asked, looking Sullivan up and down, looking for some sign of damage done in the brawl, but he could see nothing. He would have liked to think that the force needed to smash his hand as badly as it was would be enough to break Sullivan’s jaw, but apparently not. If there was a bruise, it was hidden beneath thick beard.

  “Goddamn it,” Sullivan roared, “but there is nothing like an all-hands-in brawl to clear the air, ain’t that a fact?”

  The other river rats, Taylor, Guthrie, and Tarbox, all nodded. Sullivan slammed a big hand down on Bowater’s shoulder. “Glad we got that over with, Captain. Like pulling a tooth, it hurts for a bit, but damned if it ain’t a relief after. Puts the hands in a good mood, like the fine weather that comes in on the tail of a storm.” He put a hand on his jaw, worked it back and forth. “Be a relief when I recover from that mighty wallop you gave me.”

  Sullivan grabbed up one of the empty chairs, spun it around so it was back to the edge of the table and sat down, his arms, as big as most men’s legs, resting on the back. Bowater noticed for the first time that he was holding several slim, paper-bound books.

  “Gentlemen.” Sullivan looked to Bowater, then Taylor. “Didn’t get a chance to show y’all these here.”

  Sullivan tossed the books on the table. Taylor made no move to pick one up, so Bowater did. He looked at the cover. He was not sure what to make of it.

  “It’s one of those dime novels, isn’t it?” Bowater asked. “I’ve heard of these, never seen one.”

  “Never seen one?” Mike asked with theatrical incredulity. “Where the hell you been livin, brother?”

  “In civilization. The English call them ‘penny dreadfuls,’ do they not?”

  “Devil take the rutting English, this here’s good ol’ American lit-rit-ur.”

  Bowater read the title: The Further Adventures of Mississippi Mike Sullivan, Riverboat Man! The cover was a pen-and-ink drawing. A fellow who looked passably like the Mississippi Mike seated beside him, though trimmer, his beard more under control, was knocking a savage-looking seaman back with an uppercut to the jaw. Behind him, a black man with a slouch hat on his head and a gun in each hand fired away at cutlass-bearing cutthroats. The caption underneath read, “Mississippi Mike dispatched the Captain of the River Pirates while his sable pard held the crew back with pistols blazing.”

  Samuel Bowater burst out laughing. It was a spontaneous reaction, a pure expression of his regard for this unique form of “lit-rit-ur.”

  “It’s somethin, ain’t it?” Mike was grinning ear to ear, not in the least put off by Bowater’s reaction. “Now you see why the name Mississippi Mike’s so goddamned famous all up and down this here river.”

  Tarbox was reading one of the books, running his finger left to right and mouthing the words. Taylor had picked up another, was thumbing through it. “You write this yourself, Sullivan?”

  “Hell, no! As if I got time. I’m too busy doin amazin things to write about ’em. No, I jest put down some descriptions of my adventures, like I done with them river pirates, and I send ’em off to New York City. Publisher’s got some Jewish fella, he writes it up all pretty, and next thing, folks all over the country’s readin about Mississippi Mike.”

  Bowater looked up and caught Taylor’s eye. A shared sense of amusement passed between them, a mutual understanding such as they rarely experienced. Bowater knew that Taylor would find the penny dreadful as ludicrous as he did.

  “This here war must be a great inconvenience to your literary aspirations,” Taylor drawled.

  “It ain’t makin things easy, I can tell ya,” Mike said. “And they’s gonna be some damned disappointed readers, if they don’t get the further adventures of Mississippi Mike.”

  Bowater opened the book to the first page.

  The name of Mississippi Mike Sullivan is known along every watery mile of the river after which he is called. From the docks of New Orleans to the granaries of St. Paul, Minnesota, the people on the river know Mike as the hardest driving, hardest drinking, most dangerous son of a gun riverboat man on the Western Waters. Everywhere, men know to stay on his good side, or stay out of his way. It was a lesson the river pirates learned the hard way, but they learned it well.

  Bowater grinned. This just gets better and better.

  “So this…contretemps…with the river pirates, this was a thing that happened to you. And your”—Bowater referred back to the cover—“your ‘sable pard’?”

  “You’re damn ri
ght it was. Sons of bitches tried to rob me. Taught ’em good. Oh, sure, there’s some stuff in there’s stretched a bit. And the ‘sable pard’ stuff, that makes them abolition kangaroos in New York get all excited, shows ’em we know how to treat darkies down here. But mostly it’s all true.”

  Bowater nodded. He flipped to the middle of the book.

  Mississippi Mike slipped silently into the river, and parting the waters with broad strokes of his powerful arms, closed silently with the unsuspecting pirates’ paddle wheeler. He took a firm grasp of the anchor chain, hauled himself out of the water, until, catlike, he eased himself over the rail. He paused, alert to any possible danger. All was silent. The guard on the main deck had not seen him.

  “Come on now, Sullivan.” Bowater looked up. “When was the last time you moved ‘catlike’?”

  “Never mind about that, it don’t make no difference. Captain Bowater, might I have a private word with you?”

  Bowater leaned back, alert to any possible danger. “I suppose,” he said.

  “I’m obliged, surely am.” He stood and Bowater stood and Mike led him out on the side deck and forward to the master’s cabin. Sullivan held the door open, and Bowater stepped into the mahogany and red velvet lined sitting room. Scattered around the space were worn, velvet-upholstered chairs and various spittoons, the brown splotches evidence of poor marksmanship. In Rio de Janeiro, on his first cruise after the Navy School, Bowater had been talked into visiting a brothel with his shipmates. Sullivan’s cabin was very reminiscent of that place.

  From the hurricane deck, eight bells rang out. End of the morning watch, 8:00 A.M. Footsteps thudded on the deck overhead, muffled voices called out. Sullivan gestured toward a chair. Bowater sat, his eyes drawn to the painting on the wall. A reclining nude. Like the French nudes from the Romantic movement, Bowater thought, as interpreted by some randy hack.

  “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 thematically like a preacher spouting scripture. A man of good education.”

  “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

  Telegram

  Washington, May 6, 1862

  The Norwegian corvette Norvier is expected to arrive at Hampton Roads with the Norwegian minister on board. Has she yet arrived? If not, telegraph me when she does, and inform the commander that the Norwegian minister will visit him at Hampton Roads.

  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.”

  Batchelor began his briefing, professional and methodical. He told of Union forces under McClellan overrunning Yorktown behind the retreating Confederates, of Yankee ships moving up the York River, with the James denied to them by the presence of CSS Virginia.