Fevre Dream (34 page)

When they returned for Joshua, he was already out of the boat. “I’ll help,” he said. “It’s heavy.” He was leaning against the side of the yawl.

Marsh nodded to Toby, and the three of them pushed the boat clear out of the river. It was hard. Abner Marsh put all his strength into it. The mud along the bank fought against him with wet, clutching fingers. Without Joshua, they might never have done it. But finally they got it over the embankment into the field, and flipping it over was easy. Marsh grabbed Valerie under the arms again and dragged her under the boat. “You get under here too, Joshua,” he said, turning. Toby had Karl Framm and was ministering to him, forcing a handful of river water between the pilot’s pale lips. Joshua was nowhere to be seen. Marsh scowled and went around the yawl. His pants, soaked and heavy with mud, clung to his legs. “Joshua,” he roared, “where the hell you got yourself . . .”

Joshua York had collapsed on the river bank, his red, burned hand clawing at the mud. “God
damn,
”Marsh roared.
“Toby!”

Toby came running, and together they pulled York into the shade. His eyes were closed. Marsh fetched out the bottle and forced some down his throat. “Drink it, Joshua, drink it. Goddamn you anyway.” Finally York began to swallow. He didn’t stop swallowing until the bottle was empty. Abner Marsh held it in his hand, frowning. He turned it upside down. A last drop of Joshua York’s private liquor ran out and fell on Marsh’s mud-caked boot. “Hell,” said Marsh. He flung the empty bottle into the river. “Stay with ’em, Toby,” he said. “I’m goin’ to fetch some help. Must be somebody round here.”

“Yessuh, Cap’n Marsh,” Toby replied.

Marsh started off across the field. The sugar cane had all been harvested. The fields were wide and empty, but off over a rise Marsh saw a thin trail of smoke. He walked toward it, hoping it was a house and not another goddamned pile of burning bagasse. He hoped in vain, but a few minutes past the fire he saw a bunch of slaves working in the fields, and called out to them, breaking into a run. They took him to the plantation house, where he told the overseer his sad story about the boiler explosion that had sunk their steamboat and killed everyone aboard, except for a few who’d gotten away in the sounding yawl. The man nodded and brought down the planter. “Got a couple folks burned bad,” Marsh told him. “We got to be quick about it.” A couple of minutes later, they’d hitched a pair of horses to a wagon and were off across the fields.

When they arrived at the overturned yawl, Karl Framm was standing up, looking dazed and weak. Abner Marsh jumped down from the wagon and gestured. “Get movin’,” he said to the men who’d come with him, “we got them what was burned under there. Got to get ’em inside.” He turned to Framm. “Are you all right, Mister Framm?”

Framm grinned weakly. “I been better, Cap’n,” he said, “but I been a hell of a lot worse, too.”

Two men were carrying Joshua York to the wagon. His white suit was stained with mud and wine, and he did not move. The third man, the planter’s youngest son, came crawling out from under the yawl and wiped his hands on his pants, frowning. He looked a little sick. “Cap’n Marsh,” he said, “That woman you got under there is burned to death.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Gray Plantation, Louisiana,
October 1857

Two of the houseboys lifted Joshua York from the back of the wagon, and carried him inside and up the wide, curving staircase to a bedroom. “A dark one!” Abner Marsh yelled up at them. “And pull the goddamned curtains, you hear me? I don’t want no goddamned sunlight in there.” He turned to his companions briefly, while the planter and his sons and a couple more slaves went back outside to see to Valerie’s corpse. Framm had thrown an arm around Toby’s shoulders to keep himself erect. “You get some damn food into you, Mister Framm,” Marsh said.

The pilot nodded.

“And remember what happened. We was on the
Eli Reynolds,
and her boiler blew. Killed everybody, it did, except us. She sunk clean out of sight, a long ways upriver, where there’s no bottom. That’s all you know, you hear? Let me tell the rest.”

“That’s more’n I know,” Framm said. “How the hell did I get here?”

“Never you mind about that. Just listen to what I told you.” Marsh turned and stomped up the stairs while Toby helped Framm to a chair.

They had laid Joshua York on a wide canopied bed, and were undressing him when Marsh came in. Joshua’s face and hands were the worst, seared horribly, but even beneath his clothing his pale white skin had reddened a bit. He moved feebly as they pulled off his boots, and moaned. “Lawd, this man burned up
bad,
”one of the slaves said, shaking his head.

Marsh scowled and went to the windows, which were thrown wide. He pulled them shut and closed the shutters. “Fetch me a blanket or something,” he ordered, “to hang across here. Too damn much light. And close them drapes round the bed, too.” His tone was the bellow of a steamer captain, and brooked no argument.

Only when the room was black as Marsh could make it, and a gaunt haggard black woman had come up to tend to York’s burns with herbs and healing salves and cold towels, did Abner Marsh leave. Downstairs, the planter—a bluff, stone-faced, lantern-jawed man who introduced himself as Aaron Gray—and two of his sons were sitting to table with Karl Framm. The scent of food made Marsh realize how long it had been since he’d eaten. He felt ravenous. “Do join us, Cap’n,” Gray said, and Marsh gladly pulled out a chair and let them pile up fried chicken and cornbread and sweet peas and taters on his plate.

Joshua had been right about the questions, Marsh reflected as he wolfed down his food. The Grays asked a hundred of them, and Marsh answered as best he could, when his mouth wasn’t full of food. Framm excused himself just as Marsh was taking seconds—the pilot was still looking poorly—and let himself be led to a bed. The more questions Marsh answered, the less comfortable he got. He wasn’t a natural-born liar like some rivermen he knew, and that became more obvious with every damned word he uttered. Somehow, though, he made it through the meal, although Marsh fancied that Gray and his eldest boy were both looking at him kind of queer by the time he had done with dessert.

“Your nigger is fine,” the second son said as they left the table, “and Robert has gone off to bring back Doctor Moore to attend to the other two. Sally will take care of ’em in the meanwhile. No sense you frettin’, Cap’n. Maybe you’d like to rest up, too. You’ve been through a lot, losin’ your steamboat and all those friends of yours.”

“Yeah,” said Abner Marsh. No sooner had the suggestion been made than Marsh felt incredibly weary. He hadn’t slept in something like thirty hours now. “I’d appreciate that,” he said.

“Show him to a room, Jim,” the planter said. “And Cap’n, Robert will pay a call on the undertaker, too. For that unfortunate woman. Most tragic, most. What did you say her name was?”

“Valerie,” Marsh said. For the life of him, he couldn’t recall what last name she’d been using. “Valerie York,” he improvised.

“She’ll get a good Christian burial,” Gray said, “unless you want to take her to her family, perhaps?”

“No,” said Marsh, “no.”

“Fine. Jim, take Cap’n Marsh upstairs. Put him near that poor burned-up friend of his.”

“Yessuh, Daddy.”

Marsh hardly bothered glancing at the room they gave him. He slept like a log.

When he woke, it was dark.

Marsh sat up in bed stiffly. The rowing had taken its toll. His joints creaked when he moved, he had a terrible cramp in his shoulders, and his arms felt like somebody had beaten on them with a big oak club. He groaned and edged slowly to the side of the mattress, lowering his bare feet to the floor. Every step sent pains through him as he went to the window and opened it wide to let some cool night air into the room. Outside was a small stone balcony, and beyond it a fringe of China trees and the fields, desolate and empty in the moonlight. In the distance Marsh could make out the dim glow of the bagasse, still sending up its veil of smoke. Beyond it, only a faint glimmering from here, was the river.

Marsh shivered, closed the window and went back to bed. It was chilly in the room now, so he pulled the blankets over himself and rolled onto his side. The moonlight etched darks and shadows everywhere, and the furniture, all strange to him, became stranger still in the faint light. He could not sleep. He found himself thinking of Damon Julian and the
Fevre Dream,
and worrying about whether the steamer was still where he’d left her. He thought of Valerie as well. He had gotten a good look at her when they’d pulled her out from under the yawl, and she hadn’t been a pretty sight. You’d never have thought that she’d been beautiful, pale and graceful and sensual, with those great violet eyes. Abner Marsh felt sorry for her, and thought that was strange of him, seeing as how it was only last night around this time that he’d tried to kill her with that buffalo gun of his. The world was an awful queer place, he thought, when so goddamned much could change in a day.

Finally he slept again.

“Abner,”
came the whisper, disturbing his dreams.
“Abner,”
came the voice, calling,
“let me in.”

Abner Marsh sat up suddenly. Joshua York was standing on his balcony, rapping on the glass of his window with a pale, scarred hand.

“Hold on,” Marsh said. It was still black outside and the house was quiet. Joshua smiled as Marsh climbed out of bed and padded toward him. His face was lined with cracks and fissures, husks of dying skin. Marsh opened the doors to the balcony, and Joshua stepped through, wearing his sad white suit, all stained and rumpled now. It wasn’t until he was in the room that Abner Marsh remembered the empty bottle he’d tossed into the river. He stepped back suddenly. “Joshua, you ain’t . . . you ain’t
thirstin’,
are you?”

“No,” said Joshua York. His gray cloak moved and curled in the wind that rustled through the open balcony doors. “I did not want to break the lock, or the glass. Do not be afraid, Abner.”

“You’re better,” Marsh said, looking at him. York’s lips were still cracked, his eyes were sunk in deep purple-black pits, but he was much improved. At noon he’d looked like death.

“Yes,” Joshua said. “Abner, I’ve come to take my leave.”

“What?” Marsh was flabbergasted. “You can’t leave.”

“I must, Abner. They saw me, whoever owns this plantation. I have a vague memory of being treated by a doctor. Tomorrow I will be healed. What will they think then?”

“What will they think when they go to bring you breakfast and you ain’t there?” Marsh said.

“No doubt they will be puzzled, but it will be easier to account for nonetheless. You can be as shocked as they are, Abner. Tell them that I must have wandered off in a fever. I will never be found.”

“Valerie is dead,” Marsh said.

“Yes,” said Joshua. “There is a wagon outside with a coffin in it. I guessed it was for her.” He sighed and shook his head. “I failed her. I have failed all my people. We should never have taken her.”

“She made her choice,” Marsh said. “At least she got free of
him
.”

“Free,” Joshua York said bitterly. “Is this the freedom I bring my people? A poor gift. For a time, before Damon Julian came into my life, I dared to dream that Valerie and I might be lovers someday. Not in the fashion of my own people, inflamed by blood, but with a passion born of tenderness, and affection, and mutual desire. We talked of that.” His mouth twisted in self-reproach. “She believed in me. I killed her.”

“Like hell,” Marsh said. “At the end, she said she loved you. She didn’t have to come with us. She wanted to. We all got to choose, you said. I think she picked right. She was an awful pretty lady.”

Joshua York shuddered. “She walks in beauty, like the night,” he said very quietly, staring down at his clenched fist. “Sometimes I question whether there is an hour for my race, Abner. The nights are full of blood and terror, but the days are merciless.”

“Where are you goin’?” Marsh asked.

Joshua looked grim. “Back.”

Marsh scowled. “You can’t.”

“I have no other choice.”

“You just
escaped
from there,” Marsh said hotly. “After all we went through to get loose, you can’t just up and go back. Wait. Hide in the woods or something, go to some town. I’ll get loose of here and we’ll join up, make some plans for getting that steamboat back.”

“Again?” Joshua shook his head. “There is a story I never told you, Abner. It happened a long time ago, during my first months in England, when the red thirst still came upon me regularly, driving me out in search of blood. One night I had fought it, and lost, and I hunted through the midnight streets. I came upon a couple, a man and a woman hurrying somewhere. My habit was to shun such prey, to take only those who walked alone, for safety’s sake. But the thirst was on me badly, and even from a distance I could see that the woman was very beautiful. She drew me like a flame draws the moth, and I came. I attacked from darkness, and got my hands around the man’s neck, and ripped away half his throat, I thought. Then I shoved him aside and he fell. He was a huge man. I took the woman in my arms, and bent my teeth to her neck, ever so gently. My eyes held her still, entranced her. I had just tasted the first hot, sweet flow of blood when I was seized from behind and torn from her embrace. It was the man, her companion. I had not killed him after all. His neck was thick with muscle and fat, and while I had ripped it open so it dripped blood, he was still on his feet. He never said a word. He only put up his fists as a prizefighter might, and hit me square in the face. He was quite strong. The blow stunned me, and opened a gash above my eye. I was already distracted. Being pulled from your victim like that is a sickening feeling, dizzy, disorienting. The man hit me again, and I lashed out backhanded at him. He went down heavily, long gashes across his cheek, one of his eyes half-torn from his skull. I turned back to the woman, pressed my mouth to the open wound. And then he was on me again. I tore his arm loose of me and all but ripped it from its socket, and I broke one of his legs for good measure, with a kick. He went down. This time I watched. Painstakingly, he got up again, raised his fists, moved toward me. Twice more I knocked him down, and twice more he rose. Finally I broke his neck, and he died, and then I killed his woman.

“Afterward, I could not put him from my mind. He must have known that I was not entirely human. He must have realized, strong as he was, that he was no match for my strength, my speed, my thirst. I was distracted by my own fever, and the beauty of his companion, and I missed my kill. He might have been spared. He could have run. He could have called out for help. He could have taken a moment and found a weapon. But he did not. He saw his lady in my arms, saw me bleeding her, and all he could think of was to get up and come at me with those big, foolish fists of his. When I had time to reflect, I found myself admiring his strength, his mad courage, the love he must have had for that woman.

“But Abner, for all that, he was
stupid
. He saved neither his lady nor himself.

“You remind me of that man, Abner. Julian has taken your
Fevre Dream
from you, and all you can think of is getting her back, so you get up and cock your fists and come straight on, and Julian knocks you down again. One day you will not get up, if you continue these attacks. Abner, give it up!”

“What the hell you sayin’?” Marsh demanded in an angry voice. “It’s Julian and his vampires got to worry now. That goddamn steamer ain’t goin’ no place without a pilot.”

“I can pilot her,” said Joshua York.

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

Marsh felt sick with anger and betrayal.
“Why?”
he demanded. “Joshua, you ain’t like them!”

“I will be, unless I return,” York said gravely. “Unless I have my potion, the thirst will come on me, all the fiercer for the years I have held it at bay. And then I will kill, and drink, and be as Julian is. The next time I entered a bedroom by night, it would not be to talk.”

“Go back then! Fetch your damned drink! But don’t move that damned steamer, not until I can get there.”

“With armed men. With sharpened stakes and hate in your hearts. To kill. I will not permit that.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“The side of my people.”

“Julian’s side,” spat Marsh.

“No,” said Joshua York. He sighed. “Listen, Abner, and try to understand. Julian is the bloodmaster. He controls them, all of them. Some of them are like him, corrupt, evil. Katherine, Raymond, others, they follow him willingly. But not all of them. You saw Valerie, you heard her in the yawl today. I am not alone. Our races are not so very different. All of us have good and evil in us, and all of us dream. Yet if you attack the steamer, if you move against Julian, they will defend him, no matter what their private hopes may be. Centuries of enmity and fear will drive them. A river of blood flows between day and night, and it cannot be crossed easily. Those who hesitate, if any, will be compelled.

“If you come, Abner, you and your people, there will be death. And not Julian’s alone. The others will guard him, and they will perish, and your people as well.”

“Sometimes you got to take that risk,” Marsh said. “And those who help Julian deserve to die.”