Gone to Texas (21 page)

Christopher told her the whole story, explaining how in the night they had taken Klesko from Cully's cellar and secreted him aboard the broadhorn. The Scots innkeeper had been their willing accomplice.

"And why didn't you inform me this morning?" asked Rebecca.

Christopher wasn't laughing any longer. "Well, to tell you the truth, Mother, we weren't sure you would approve. I was going to tell you, after we'd gone a few miles."

"A few miles too far to turn back."

"Something like that," he said sheepishly.

Nathaniel helped Klesko to his feet and used a hunting knife to cut the rope which bound the river man at ankles and wrist. They had deemed it the wiser course to leave him in that condition until they were well under way. Nathaniel stepped back, wary, not knowing what to expect from Klesko, now that he was untied. But Klesko just sat there, pulling the gag away from his mouth, and squinting at each of them in turn. His gaze finally came to rest on Nathaniel.

"I've been shanghaied," he said.

"Better than getting hanged, don't you think?"

"Where are we going?"

"We're bound for Texas."

"They got any rivers in Texas?"

"That's what I hear."

Klesko simply nodded.

"But you can go your own way once we reach New Orleans."

"What if I don't want to go to New Orleans?"

"Do you remember anything from last night?"

Klesko scratched his jaw, digging under the tangled mat of his rust-colored beard. "Not much."

"Had too much to drink, didn't you?"

Klesko grunted. "A man cain't never have too much to drink."

"Well, they were going to hang you. You stole another man's pig, and ate it. If you don't want to go to New Orleans, we'll just take you back to Cully's Landing, and your comeuppance."

Klesko looked the frontiersman over, then studied O'Connor and Christopher, and Nathaniel began to think the riverman was going to try all three of them on for size. But Klesko didn't make a move.

"Reckon you folks did me a good turn," he said. "So I'll go along. But only as far as Natchez."

"Fair enough."

Klesko turned his dark gaze on Rebecca. "Who's she?"

"My mother," said Christopher.

"And my daughter," added Nathaniel.

Klesko grunted again. He stood up. Rebecca had to crane her neck to look up at him. She decided he had to stand at least six feet six. He was the biggest man she had ever seen.

"River's no place for a woman," he muttered.

Taking a pole from O'Connor, he went to work.

Chapter 16

They were all quite impressed by the Cumberland—it seemed to them a mighty and magnificent stream—all except Klesko, who laughed at them as they expressed admiration for the river. He told them it didn't hold a candle to the Mississippi, but they couldn't imagine how a river could be any wider or deeper or faster. So they were in for a rude awakening when, eight days later, they reached the Father of Waters.

Christopher was truly amazed. The Mississippi was a mile wide where the Cumberland emptied into her. He assumed this to be an abnormality, but in the days to come he would discover that the river
averaged
a mile width at high water until one got much closer to the Gulf of Mexico, where, strangely enough, she became more narrow.

He had read all about this river during his sojourn at West Point. He had learned that she was over four thousand miles long, the longest river in the world. It discharged three hundred times more water than the Thames River, of which the British were so proud. The area of its drainage basin was so immense that the countries of Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England could be fitted into that space with room to spare.

The Mississippi was notorious for changing its course, cutting through necks of land almost at whim, to the point that geographers now claimed the entire thirteen
hundred miles of the river explored by La Salle a hundred and fifty years ago was today dry land. More than once a town built on the east bank of the Mississippi awoke one morning to find itself on the west side, or a mile away from the river.

It had been known by many names. Indians called it Sasseguola, Tamalisen, Chuagua, Meast Chassipi, depending on the tribe. From the Chippewa's Mescesipi came its current name. The Spaniards knew it as the Río Escondido—the Hidden River—or the River of the Holy Ghost. The French had labeled it the River of the Immaculate Conception on their maps. Then, too, folks called it Old Man River sometimes, or the Devil of Rivers, if they happened to meet with some mishap because of it.

They were not alone on the river—there was tremendous commerce, much of it in keelboats and broadhorns. In the old days the keelboat men had carried cargo down to New Orleans—the goods produced by settlers from Ohio and Kentucky and Tennessee—and poled back up the river with manufactured products in high demand on the frontier: fabrics, furniture, sugar, and other luxuries. In those days, men like Klesko had ruled the river.

In 1807, when Robert Fulton designed the first steamboat, life on the river was drastically changed. Four years later, the paddlewheeler
New Orleans
made her first trip down the Mississippi. In spite of the great earthquake of that year, which occurred during the maiden voyage, and which demolished the river town of New Madrid and completely altered the course of the river, the trip was a tremendous success. In 1814, the
Enterprise
became the first steam-powered vessel to make an
upstream
trip. Several other boats had tried it, and failed because they lacked sufficient power to overcome the mighty currents. Two years later, a radically new steamboat design was made reality with the launching of the
Washington
. This vessel sported two independent steam
engines and had a very shallow draft. The reign of the keelboat was almost over. Nowadays, keelboats were still sometimes used to transport goods downriver. Men like Krueger would sell their pigs and tobacco in New Orleans, and then sell their boats, too, for scrap lumber, before catching the next steamboat bound upriver.

Christopher got a good look at some of these "floating palaces." They were spectacular. Long and trim and gleaming with paint, two tall chimneys with crowns of metal plumes, fancy pilothouse atop the texas deck, a picture or gilded sun rays embellishing the vessel's name on the paddle boxes, all three decks—the texas, the boiler, and the hurricane—adorned with whitewashed ornamental railings and garnished with elegant wood filigree.

Men like Krueger journeyed upriver with their pockets full of money, having sold their goods in New Orleans for top dollar, and the steamboat owners were dedicated to the proposition that such men should part with some, if not all, of that money. In their saloons one could dine on the finest china, with the light from crystal chandeliers gleaming off the best silver service money could buy. (Rumor had it that on some of the steamboats the china was never washed; used once, it was tossed over the side.) One could sample the finest liquors, or try one's luck at the gaming tables. Many were the poor souls who succumbed to such gilded temptations, only to arrive home without two coins to rub together, wiser if poorer, having spent the money needed for seed or flour or curtains on the windows or the wife's new dress.

Christopher got the chance to tour one of the steamboats. While the broadhorn was tied up at the wharf of some sleepy nameless village on the Missouri side of the river, the cry "Steamboat a-comin'!" pierced the sultry summer somnolence of the place. From every home and business establishment emerged the locals, to rush down
the river, coming from every quarter to crowd the wharf, from whence they could watch the show.

And what a show it was! The steamboat's engineers tossed pitch pine into the boiler furnaces to produce dense black smoke, which rose in great pillars from the chimneys. Up on the texas deck the pilot's cub rang the ship's big brass bell for all he was worth, while the pilot tugged on a rope, and steam shrieked as it escaped the gauge cocks. Upon the captain's orders the wheels were thrown into reverse, and the river foamed as the vessel slid neatly into place alongside the dock. As the crowd of spectators cheered, deckhands ran out the gangplanks, down which cavorted a minstrel group, clad in red-and-white jackets and straw hats and playing a merry tune on banjo and accordian and French harp. When the number was over, the captain invited one and all to come aboard and see with their own eyes the splendor of his ship. Christopher and O'Connor and Rebecca seized the opportunity, while Nathaniel stayed aboard the broadhorn with Klesko and Prissy.

Christopher marveled at the opulence of the saloons, with their velvet draperies and velvet-upholstered furnishings, Persian rugs underfoot, brocaded walls adorned with mirrors in ornate gilded frames. The cabins were cocoons of elegance, with soft carpet wall to wall, goosedown pillows and mattresses on the narrow bunks, oil paintings on the walls, and porcelain knobs on the doors.

"If this boat is bound for New Orleans, I think you should book passage on it," Christopher told his mother. "We can afford it."

"We most certainly cannot."

"But, Mother, all the money you got for the thoroughbreds, and your furniture . . . "

"We will need every bit of it once we reach Texas."

"They say that the five hundred miles of river between here and Natchez are the most dangerous of all."

"Steamboats are dangerous, too. Klesko says their boilers are always exploding. A month doesn't go by that one of them doesn't blow up and send all its passengers to the bottom."

"Klesko! He's an old keelboat man, with a keelboat man's prejudices."

"Nonetheless, I refuse to do as you suggest. If the rest of my family is going to New Orleans on a broadhorn, than I will, too."

Christopher didn't waste his breath arguing. He recognized his mother's tone of voice only too well. It meant the discussion was over, and her mind was made up.

To attend to the steamboats, carrying the fuel the packets required, great coal barges and timber rafts plied the river. Christopher lost track of all the boats he saw, from pirogues to paddlewheel steamers. They numbered in the scores during his eleven hundred miles on the Mississippi. Still, the river always seemed serenely empty.

Klesko proved to be worth his weight in gold. He knew the river, knew it like the back of his hand, knew it despite the fact that the river was continually changing, moving its main channel, throwing up new hazards, and disguising them so cleverly one might wonder whether the river had a diabolical mind of its own. But the river couldn't fool Klesko, try as it might. He would gaze at the water up ahead and read the river like a scholar reads a book.

He was happy to share his knowledge with Christopher, who had a young man's eagerness to learn something new. Where someone unversed in the wiles of the river saw only a long slanting line on the sparkling surface, Christopher was taught to identify the line as the telltale mark betraying the presence of a bluff reef, a solid sandbar which could easily "kill" a boat. The head of the reef, where a crossing could be made safely, was
identifiable by locating in the line the place where the water took on a ruffled look. Where the surface was boiling, Christopher learned that a dissolving reef lurked, and the river was in the process of altering its channel. Where the surface was very smooth and covered with radiating circles, a potentially dangerous shoal was fast developing.

"You must know the banks of the river," said Klesko. "They will tell you how to run your boat further downstream. For instance, how high would you judge the western bank yonder to be?"

"How do I know?" asked Christopher. "It's a half mile away, if it's an inch."

Klesko shook his head. "You're a tad young to be needin' spectacles."

"I don't need spectacles! There's nothing wrong with my eyesight."

"Must be something wrong, because you cain't tell how high yonder bank stands above the danged river."

"And you can?"

"Course I can. That's a six-foot bank. Last year about this time it was nine feet high. Now what does that tell you?"

"The river is running high for this time of year."

"Is she rising or falling?"

"Rising. There's a lot of driftwood about."

Klesko nodded. "The river has risen, on account of that rain we had last week. But you'll see driftwood awhile after the river's stopped risin'. She's fallin' now. You can see the high watermark on the bank."

"I can scarcely
see
the bank," said Christopher, thoroughly disgusted, and squinting so hard his eyes hurt.

"Surely you can see that point up ahead. See the cypress on the tip? The water is just over the knees. Make a note of that, boy. That's mighty all-fired important. It tells me there's eight feet of water in the chute down yonder at Cat Island."

"Cat Island?" Christopher saw no island downriver. "Where is that?"

"We'll pass it in the morning."

"You mean to tell me that by looking at those cypress trees you can calculate how much water there is in a chute thirty miles downstream?"

"Now you're gettin' the hang of it," said Klesko, pleased with his pupil's progress. "You don't ordinarily run chutes with the river fallin' unless you're just plain tired of livin'. But we'll have just enough water to do her in the morning."

"I see," said Christopher dubiously.

"Good. You must know the river, boy. You got to learn to read the banks. There'll be half a hundred chutes twixt us and New Orleans, and if the river rises a foot from where it is now we'll be able to run ten of 'em. Rises another foot, and we'll take another ten without breakin' a sweat. But if she falls another foot, there aren't six we'll be able to take, and you've got to know, and be dead certain of your facts, on account of that once you start through a chute there ain't no turnin' back, and if you get caught you might as well start clearin' and plowin' right there, 'cause you could be stuck there till winter."

The river's beauty did not fail to impress Christopher. On both sides the river was hemmed in by unbroken forest, with an occasional opening where some hardy soul had carved out a clearing for his cabin. In the mornings a dense fog often clung to the river like cotton, dissipating slowly as the sun rose. But dusk was his favorite time, when the river turned blood red, then gold in the middle distance, and finally indigo blue at its furthest reaches.