Crows & Cards

A NOVEL

Joseph Helgerson

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN STEREOTYPE EDITION

WRITTEN WITH DILIGENCE
BY
MR. JOSEPH HELGERSON;

TO WHICH ARE ADDED

FINE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
MR. PETER DESÉVE.

ALSO INCLUDED IS

D
ICTIONARIUM
A
MERICANNICUM;
BEING THE WORDS HEREIN MOST ARCANE AND ALIEN AND THEIR DEFINITIONS

PUBLISHED BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, BOSTON NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT
2009

T
EXT COPYRIGHT
© 2009
BY
J
OSEPH
H
ELGERSON
I
LLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT
© 2009
BY
P
ETER DE
S
ÈVE

A
LL RIGHTS RESERVED.
F
OR INFORMATION ABOUT PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE SELECTIONS
FROM THIS BOOK, WRITE TO
P
ERMISSIONS,
H
OUGHTON
M
IFFLIN
C
OMPANY,
215 P
ARK
A
VENUE
S
OUTH,
N
EW
Y
ORK,
N
EW
Y
ORK
10003.

WWW.HMHBOOKS.COM

T
HE TEXT OF THIS BOOK IS SET IN
B
ODONI
B
OOK.
T
HE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE WAX CRAYON.

G
LOSSARY WOODCUTS ARE FROM
1800 W
OODCUTS BY
T
HOMAS
B
EWICK AND HIS
S
CHOOL,
PUBLISHED BY
D
OVER
P
UBLICATIONS.

L
IBRARY OF
C
ONGRESS
C
ATALOGING-IN-
P
UBLICATION
D
ATA

H
ELGERSON,
J
OSEPH.
C
ROWS AND CARDS / BY
J
OSEPH
H
ELGERSON.
P. CM.
S
UMMARY:
I
N
1849, Z
EB'S PARENTS SHIP HIM OFF TO
S
T.
L
OUIS TO BECOME AN APPRENTICE
TANNER, BUT THE NAIVE TWELVE-YEAR-OLD REBELS, CASTING HIS LOT WITH A CHEATING RIVERBOAT
GAMBLER, WHILE A SLAVE AND AN
I
NDIAN MEDICINE MAN TRY TO GET
Z
EB BACK ON
THE RIGHT PATH.
I
NCLUDES HISTORICAL NOTES, GLOSSARY, AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL
REFERENCES.

ISBN
978-0-618-88395-0

[1. A
PPRENTICES
—F
ICTION.
2. G
AMBLING
—F
ICTION.
3. S
LAVERY
—F
ICTION.
4.
S
HAMANS
—F
ICTION.
5. I
NDIANS OF
N
ORTH
A
MERICA
—M
ISSOURI
—F
ICTION.
6. C
ONDUCT
OF LIFE
—F
ICTION.
7. S
T.
L
OUIS
(M
O.
)—H
ISTORY
—20
TH CENTURY
—F
ICTION.
8.
H
UMOROUS STORIES.]
I. T
ITLE.

PZ7.H37408W
ES
2008
[F
IC
]—
DC
22

2008013308

M
ANUFACTURED IN THE
U
NITED
S
TATES OF
A
MERICA
QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

F
OR THE
M
ONDAY
M
ORNING
L
IBRARY
C
LUB
AND THE LIBRARIANS WHO HELPED US.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Kate O'Sullivan for asking hard questions, George Rabasa for insights on writing, Tim Johnson for discussing dictionaries, Helen Kay Stefan for help with tin ears, Mike Stinocher for first driving me to St. Louis, Earl Brown for dog talk, Justin O'Connell for sharing his love of language, and Crow Dan for taking me under his wing.

Also, I'd like to thank the people and organizations that helped free up time to write this story with an artist grant. Funding was provided in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and private funders.

CHAPTER ONE

W
HEN
I
TURNED TWELVE,
my pa guessed it was time I learned a trade. Not wanting to disappoint, I told a stretcher and said I was all for it. That's when the bargaining started.

"How about apprenticing with a cooper?" he suggested.

The thought of making wood barrels all the rest of my born days left me kind of squirmy. True, there's nothing so handsome as a well-made butter churn or molasses barrel or milk bucket, but I hated slivers. Having Ma take a needle to one stuck in the meaty part of my hand made me carry on worse than a colicky baby. And since coopers are forever working in wood, well ... So after pretending to build up some steam thinking about it, I shook my head no, all regretful-like.

"Wouldn't seem to be much of a future in it," I reckoned.

Telling Pa I was scared to death of slivers would never have worked, but bringing up the future nearly always bought me some breathing room.

"All right," Pa allowed, still sounding fresh about our talk. "How about blacksmithing?"

"Wouldn't you think I'm kind of scrawny for it?"

"It'd put some meat on your bones," he pointed out.

On goes my thinking hat again as I ground away, real serious-like, on the prospects of being a blacksmith. Of course, I already knew that blacksmithing wouldn't do either. Aside from my being a runt, which would make it hard to handle the bellows and pound the horseshoes and such, I'm awful jittery about getting burnt. And what blacksmith can do his job without a ripping hot fire?

"Wouldn't there be some dark days ahead for blacksmiths?" I asked. "What with the coming of railroads and all?"

The year was already 1849, after all, and the railroads had big plans, though I hadn't heard any talk about their doing away with blacksmithing. Lucky for me, Pa considered the smithy in the nearest town—that'd be Stavely's Landing, on the Mississippi—to be a rude and balky brute, which made it one possibility he was willing to let slip away without a fight.

"Hmm," Pa said, turning thoughtful and sizing me up with one eye, kind of squinty-like. "What would you say to working in a livery stable? There's steady work there."

Well, taking care of horses and fancy carriages and such would be pretty quality, all right, but I figure Pa's up to something with this one. Everybody knows how bad horsehair gives my nose the dithers.

"'Fraid they wouldn't have me," I sighed. "Not the way I'd always be sneezing and spooking the livestock."

"Couldn't have that," Pa agreed, smiling despite himself. "Say, maybe you'd like to set your sights on becoming a preacher? Your Uncle Clayton went that route, you know."

We were talking about Pa's favorite brother, the one where my middle name sprang from and who'd baptized me in the river. I'd heard the story of my dunking many a time, 'cause my uncle got carried away with his preachifying and held me under a might long, till I was blue. Course, they got me working again, but my near miss of heaven left my family feeling I had a leg up when it came to talking with higher powers. So real careful-like, I asked, "Didn't he get swallowed up by the wilderness?"

"We don't know any such thing at all," Pa snorted. "He could show anytime."

"Sorry, Pa," I said, doing my level best to sound overlooked and dejected, "but I'm afraid I ain't heard no trumpets calling. Not yet, anyway."

"Now listen here," Pa grumbled, bearing down. "Is there anything you'd be willing to try?"

"Oh, most everything," I volunteered, hoping I sounded helpful.

"Could have fooled me."

"Wouldn't want me to jump into something without considering it real careful, would you?"

"I'm beginning to think maybe I wouldn't mind that at all." Pa wagged his head in wonder. "You're twelve now, ain't ya?" Then a knowing smile ruffled his mustache and I braced myself for the worst. "Say, how about this: maybe we could get you work as a cabin boy on a steamer."

Well, there weren't many boys along the Mississippi, Ohio, or Missouri rivers who wouldn't have given all their marbles along with a first-rate mumblety-peg
^*
knife for such a chance as that. So I had to take her slow. First off, I grinned at Pa, on account of it was expected.

"Yes sir," Pa pressed on, probably thinking he was on the trail of something promising at last. "You'd start out low, but it wouldn't be long before you moved up to mud clerking or maybe cubbing for a pilot. After that, who knows?"

I nodded at the grandeur of it all, but pretty soon I frowned a tiny bit, as if a troublesome thought had crept up on me. As of yet, I didn't know what that thought might be, but I hoped it would come to me quick. I was deathly afraid of drowning in the Mississippi, though it goes without saying that I couldn't tell Pa such a thing; squawking never got me anywhere with that man. Obstacles only made him more set in his ways. He didn't have a mean bone in him, but he didn't have any that were known to bend either. To change his mind, I had to come at him sort of sideways.

So while Pa went on about how he hadn't been selling wood to steamboats for going on ten years without knowing himself the names of some captains, I got busy sweating over how to tackle this one. You see, my pa's own pa had spent all his years yanking out tree stumps and starting up farms clear across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, which didn't leave time nor money for setting his sons up in a trade. Naturally, that meant my own pa was bound and determined to see things turn out different for me. Finally, I couldn't bear his enthusiasms a minute longer and called out real desperate, "Wouldn't be much of a future, would there?"

"No future?" he cried, digging a finger in his ear like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Why, not even the railroads can put a dent in the future of this river and the steamers it carries. The whole West's being settled, and it's the rivers getting it done. Without 'em there wouldn't be no civilization beyond the Alleghenies. There wouldn't be nothing out here but a few smelly trappers and warbling Indians and..."

He began to wind down about then, maybe noticing how I looked sort of glum. Finally he stopped talking altogether and took a minute off to gaze up at the sky before muttering to himself, the way he does when our mule won't haul nothing.

"You seem to think the future's a mighty dark place," he concluded. "Why is that, son? Most anybody else you talk to is usually pretty high on her."

"Just a feeling that slides over me," I mumbled.

"Let me remind you of one little thing," Pa went on. "You're going to be living the rest of your life in the future, so you better get on speaking terms with it."

"Yes sir."

"So what troubles you about steamboating?"

"Well," I wheezed, taking the plunge without knowing what was going to pop out of my mouth, "the way this river changes its course so often, who's to say it'll keep going where we need it to?"