Read Online Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin - Free Book Online Page A

shrug. “She can do better, but Mister Daly said you weren’t in no hurry, so we’re just lazing along.”
    “Put in at Paducah when we get there,” Marsh ordered. “Got a couple passengers to set off and some freight to discharge.” He spent a few minutes chatting with the pilot and finally went on back down to the boiler deck.
    The main cabin had been set up for dinner. Bright noon sunlight was pouring from the skylights in a cascade of colors, and beneath it a long row of tables ran the length of the cabin. The waiters were setting silverware and china; crystal glasses gleamed brilliantly in the light. From the kitchen, Marsh caught hints of the most marvelous, mouth-watering smells. He paused and found himself a menu, glanced over it and decided he was still hungry. Besides, York wasn’t about yet, and it was only fitting that one of the captains join the cabin passengers and other officers for dinner.
    The dinner, Marsh thought, was excellent. Marsh put away a big plate of roast lamb in parsley sauce, a small pigeon, lots of Irish potatoes and green corn and beets, and two pieces of Toby’s famous pecan pie. By the time dinner was over, he was feeling quite amiable. He even gave the preacher permission to give a little lecture on bringing Christianity to the Indians, though he didn’t normally hold with no bible-thumping on his boats. Had to keep the passengers amused somehow, Marsh figured, and even the prettiest scenery got boring after a while.
    Early in the afternoon, the
Fevre Dream
put into Paducah, which lay on the Kentucky side of the river, where the Tennessee emptied into the Ohio. It was their third stop on the run, but the first lengthy one. They’d put in briefly at Rossborough during the night, to drop off three passengers, and they’d taken on wood and a small amount of freight at Evansville while Marsh had been asleep. But they had to discharge twelve tons of bar iron at Paducah, as well as some flour and sugar and books, and there was supposed to be some forty or fifty tons of lumber waiting there to be loaded. Paducah was a big lumbering town, with log rafts all the time coming down the Tennessee, clogging up the river and getting in the way of the steamboats. Like most steamboatmen, Marsh didn’t have much use for rafters. Half the time they didn’t show no lights at night, and they got run over by some unlucky steamer, and then they had the gumption to cuss and yell and throw things.
    Fortunately, there were no rafts about when they put into Paducah and tied up. Marsh took one look at the cargo waiting on the riverfront—which included several towering stacks of crates and some bales of tobacco—and decided that it would be easy to get some more freight onto the main deck. It would be a shame, he decided, to steam away from Paducah and leave all this custom to some other boat.
    Already the
Fevre Dream
was secure to the wharf, and swarms of roustabouts were laying down planks and starting to unload. Hairy Mike moved out among them, yelling “Quick now, you ain’t no cabin passenger out for no stroll,” and “You drop that, boy, and I’m gone drop this here iron right longside you head,” and other such things. The stage came down with a
whunk,
and a few Paducah passengers began to disembark.
    Marsh made up his mind. He went to the clerk’s office, where he found Jonathon Jeffers working over some bills of lading. “You got to do those now, Mister Jeffers?” he asked.
    “Hardly, Cap’n Marsh,” Jeffers replied. He removed his spectacles and wiped them on a neckerchief. “These are for Cairo.”
    “Good,” Marsh said. “Come on with me. Going to go ashore and find out who owns all that freight settin’ out there in the sun, and where it’s bound to. Figure it’s got to be going St. Louis way, some of it, and maybe we can make ourself some money.”
    “Excellent,” Jeffers replied. He got off his stool, straightened his neat black coat, checked to make sure the big iron