A History of the Future (23 page)

In the meantime, Evan’s all upset about handing over his gold. He goes, “What if while we’re split up they capture you and take you in custody with all our money?”

I’m like, “I don’t know. If that happens, you better run like hell and hide out and maybe try to get back home.”

Evan’s like, “I’m not ready to go back home. But if I still had my share of the gold, then I could buy a boat of my own and make a getaway.”

I’m like, “Hey, lookit, before you did anything you have to try to bust me out of jail.”

He goes, “I don’t even know where the jail is.”

“Well, I guess you could ask somebody, huh?”

“What! And risk getting captured busting you out? No way . . .”

I grab him by his shirt and drag him around the corner to a little alley between two buildings. I draw out the pistol and press it into his hand.

“Here, you take this,” I say. “If I get captured, use it to bust me out. And if they come after you, use it to save yourself.”

He just gawks at it in his hand like it’s the most amazing object he ever saw.

“Put it away, goddammit,” I tell him. “Tuck it in your pants and wear your shirt over it like I do.”

He does. Then he’s like, “It’s still loaded, right?”

“Of course it is,” I go. “So don’t take it out or mess around with it unless you’re in a serious jam, okay?”

He’s like, “Okay.”

“You trust me a little more with the money now?”

He’s like, “I guess so.”

I’m like, “You go get a room over there at the Niagara. You’ve got enough silver for that, I’m sure. Take a quiet dinner by yourself and don’t talk to any strangers. No girls either. Not tonight. You meet me at nine o’clock in the morning at that meals place over there and I will have a boat ready for us to sail away on.”

He goes, “What about food and stuff for the boat?”

“I’ll take care of that.”

“Don’t forget maps,” he says, and finally hands over all his share of the gold coins.

I was glad he mentioned maps because it hadn’t occurred to me. But I didn’t tell him that. I just go, “Of course.”

So that’s where we split up. I went down to the docks intent on finding a boat. There were about a dozen separate boatyards in that harbor aside from the public docks and slips. These were businesses that repaired boats, ones that built new ones, and others that outfitted them. I looked around at a lot of boats, trying to get an idea of what was on offer. The ones for sale all had signs on them saying, “Inquire at So-and-So’s office,” with no prices posted. I figured you had to go in and bargain over it. While poking around I kept my questions to a minimum so as not to show how little I knew about boats. I learned a lot just looking around.

There were many very pretty boats, some of them grand. Who doesn’t like sailboats? I began to look for how they were rigged to get a clue whether two men could handle them. Many were old-times boats, built just for the pleasure of sailing around to nowhere in particular for no good reason. They had hulls made out of plastic that you’d have a hard time fixing if anything happened to them, and they had complicated riggings and they didn’t have much room for cargoes. They were designed for a sleek look that didn’t have much practical value in these times. The idea began to form in my mind that we should have a boat that you could carry a lot of stuff on, like McCoy’s canal boat, but with sails, that we could go into business once we got somewhere far away enough to feel safe and where we could transport freight from one town to another. I went into several offices of the boatyard managers and inquired about boats and even started bargaining to get the feel. I’d make them pitch an opening price, even when they tried to goad me to make an offer first. We established that all prices were hard money and I did the arithmetic in my head.

It was getting to be evening when I found the boat for us. It was a broad-beamed, twenty-eight-foot long, nearly flat-bottomed cargo scow, all wood with leeboards instead of a keel or centerboard, what they called junk-type sails, light canvas with battens all through, easy for reefing in high winds, with a big sail forward and smaller in the rear, the stern, I learned to say, what Mr. Fourier, the boatyard owner, called a ketch rig. The hull was painted dark green with red trim. There was room below for four to sleep and a galley with an alcohol stove and a table bolted to the floor. The toilet was a little room with a steel basin that you had to take on deck and dump over the side. In the old times, Fourier said, they had machines that sucked all the nasty stuff out of a storage tank when you got into port, but nowadays it was just over the side with it. I was getting more and more interested in this boat. She was boxy and homely and looked pretty simple to run and I fell in love with her. Her name on the transom was
Pearl,
but I decided to rename her
Kerry McKinney
in honor of that girl I loved in Starkville who died of the cholera just before I left home.

Then Fourier and I got down to the haggle in his office, which was a nice room with maps and stuffed fish on the walls and big windows where you could see the evening sun hanging above the jetty. He seemed skeptical at first but eventually he understood that I meant business.

“What do you intend to do with her?” he asks.

I’m like, “Why, sail the great inland sea and carry some cargoes and have a life on the water.”

“It’s not such an easy life,” he says.

“I can always sell her if I get sick of it,” I say.

“I guess you can at that,” he goes. “Well, a hunnert fifty-five will do it.”

He meant ounces of silver. I jawed him down finally to a hundred forty.

“Will gold do?” I say.

His eyes bugged out. “If that’s alls you got,” he goes, twiddling his beard and chuckling.

Because of spending that time around Randall McCoy doing trade, I knew what the conversion was. We settled for six ounces. That left us with three half-ounce plus three tenth-of-an-ounce gold coins and a good bit of silver. We’d still be rich.

Fourier’s like, “Mind if I ask how a young dude such as yourself come into such a treasure?”

“My dad was a gold bug in the old times,” I say. “One of those ones that didn’t trust paper money.”

The others in the room all glanced at Robert Earle, who immediately said, “Well, that’s bullshit, of course.”

“It was just something I heard you talk about once long ago,” Daniel said, “the year the banks shut down.”

Anyway, Fourier says, “You’re a rich boy, then?”

I’m like, “Well, since you asked.”

He goes, “You look like a damn picker.”

I try not to appear insulted. Or nervous. I’m like, “It’s hard traveling these days.”

He’s like, “I assume you rode to Buffalo in comfort.”

I’m like, “Indeed I did, sir. And I aim to sell my horse here. Are you interested, by any chance, in a fine seven-year-old mare?” I’m bluffing of course.

“Nope,” he says and spits into a mug on the desk. “But you might try Arnold Fluke over to Genesee Street.”

I’m like, “Would you write that down along with a bill of sale for the
Pearl
?”

“Yessir,” Fourier says. “And for a change of clothes I recommend Salter’s Dry Goods right up there on Front Street.”

“Why, thank you,” I go. “I’ll stop there on my way to the hotel.”

He’s like, “Which one are you at?”

“The Eagle,” I tell him, foolishly, and immediately regret it. Suddenly this conversation is making me nauseous, despite the fact that I haven’t eaten anything since early morn, east of Lockport. I’m trying my damndest to sound breezy and cheerful after a long day of tribulations. “Is she ready to go, as is, the
Pearl
?” I ask. “I’d like to set sail tomorrow, late morning, let’s say.”

“She’s shipshape,” he says. “Turnkey, so to speak.”

He’s got a big framed map of the lake on the wall. I drift over to look at it and ask him where I can get some maps like it. He corrects me, “Charts, you mean?”

“Of course,” I go. “Charts.”

“I sell charts,” he says. “The Great Lakes series will run you two ounces of silver.”

I don’t aim to bargain over it. I just want to get the hell out of there. I’m like, “I’ll take the set. I’d like to study them in my room tonight.” So he pulls a bunch of these charts from a big flat file and ties them up in a roll with twine, then hands me the bill of sale for the boat and everything. We settle up. I give him a bunch of our gold. I’ve got plenty of coins left on me. I notice him hearing it all jingle in my pocket. I turn to leave, finally.

Fourier goes, “You plan to set sail by your lonely?”

“My cousin is meeting me here tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, where’s he from?”

I glance up at the map on the wall again. I can see the towns near the shore of Lake Erie. I go, “Down in Hamburg.” It’s a few miles south of Buffalo.

“You don’t say? I’m from Hamburg,” Fourier goes. “What’s his name, your cousin?”

“Uh, Perry Talisker,” I say. It just popped into my head, the name of that river rat we call the Hermit. I just figured nobody would know him, hundreds of miles from Union Grove.

“Don’t know any Taliskers,” he says. “You sure he’s from Hamburg, New York? It’s not much of a town anymore.”

I’m still fixed on the map. I go, “Perry, he just manages some family property there. He’s learning to farm.”

“What sort of farm?”

“Fruit,” I go. It was a wild guess based on what we saw in the vicinity coming west. Fourier takes it in, though. I can’t wait to get out of there. “The family’s actually from . . . East Aurora.” That’s another town I spot on the map.

“It used to be a rich town in the old times,” he says. “Doctors and lawyers. Is he a rich boy, too, your cousin?”

I turn around and look him straight in the eye and say, “I was taught it’s not polite to brag about such things. Especially now when times are so difficult for so many.”

“It ain’t bragging if it’s true,” he says, tugging his whiskers again.

I’m like, “We’ve got enough to buy a boat and go into business, sir, and that’s what we aim to do. It was a pleasure trading with you. She’s a fine boat. I’m going to rename her after a sweetheart of mine back home that died of the cholera just three months ago. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go purchase some provisions for tomorrow before the shops close on Front Street.”

“They’re open till nine in the evening,” he says. “People come here from miles around to trade on Friday night. You’ll be all right.”

“Sweet,” I say. “And thank you. I’ll be back here around nine, ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“With your cousin?”

“Yessir, with my cousin.”

“What about that farm, then?”

“The farm?” I say, caught off guard.

“Yeah. Who’s going to manage that farm?”

“Oh, his brother Jerry is taking over that position,” I say.