River

Gregor

The frame of the pile driver mechanism is, I believe, complete. It has a frame shaped roughly like a pyramid, supporting the wood leads between which the enormously heavy drop hammer will be lifted into place by men using a pulley system with ropes. When the hammer is released, it will drop directly onto the wooden pile in the water which is also guided by the wood leads, driving it a bit further into the wet soil underneath the river. It is a laborious process, each pile needing many repetitions of this hammering in order to be driven deeply enough to securely support the later dock construction. We should be ready to begin practicing with lifting and releasing the hammer in the next day or two. I am worried that we might not have enough men to handle the ropes. I have been keeping my eye out for others that might agree to be hired for the purpose.

When I have finished with my work for the day, I am getting ready to leave the crew to work for a couple more hours getting the pulleys and ropes secured in place, when Wolk has news for me.

“Darling, one of the flatboats which arrived today and is being unloaded now, has as workers the two men who attempted to rob your friends on the Trace earlier this year with Mason.”

Is that so? “Show me,” I tell him. Wolk points to the flatboat, detaching a bit of his cloudy matter from his main wolf form to form a line indicating directly to my eyes which men he means.

Sure enough, I recognize them from the Trace. “David and Ben, right?” I ask Wolk. He nods confirmation.

“What are they planning?”

“They will assist in the offloading of their flatboat, then plan to stay in town for a day or two before starting their journey back north on the Trace.”

“Have they been in contact with Mason?”

“Not since the day you saw them all together.”

“Do they seem to have any inclination to participate in such crimes again?”

He waits a moment, evaluating their thoughts. “Definitely not Ben. He never wanted to do it in the first place. David would be ambivalent if the opportunity presented itself.”

Hmmm. This bears more thinking about. I linger at the dock project longer than I had planned, contemplating and watching. “I think I will approach them tomorrow and offer them both jobs working my pulley ropes. I need more workers, and this way I could keep an eye on them. Who knows if they can be helpful when Mason shows up again.”

Samuel Duncan

Is it wrong to feel like my brother’s unending monologue about the wonders of his intended bride is getting a little old? Yes, she is a lovely girl, and yes, he is head over heels in love. But my goodness there are other things going on in the world too, aren’t there?

Well, not for him, obviously. I’m glad for him. But I am unable to relate to his contemplation of her desirable characteristics.

That sort of beauty is not for me. Her delicate coloring, her slender arms, her modesty, her mother-of-pearl complexion, all the attributes that he praises, I can admire but only in a theoretical sense. These considerations do not rouse in me any sort of passion, or longing, or any of the heady emotions that they seem to cause in Stephen.

For those feelings, I find myself drawn Under-the-hill. To the docks, where the young men toil, their strength on display as they work in their shirtsleeves, occasionally even without a shirt at all. It is their power, their masculinity, their musculature, that appeal to me. So different from what Stephen longs for.

I cannot confess this to him, so I simply agree with him when he waxes eloquent about her loveliness.

Then, when I can, I steal away, down the hill, where I can feel something akin to his longing, but with entirely different objects.

I find myself spending more time there, telling him that I am going to the taverns for cards or drinking, all occupations normal for a man of my age. Sometimes he will join me, and Thomas if he is in town. Never Gregor, as he is determined to spend every evening with his new wife.

Stephen probably assumes that I am frequenting the brothels as well, but ladies of the evening do not draw me in.

He is working at the club tonight, the Natchez Dancing Assemblies, which he manages in rotation with some of the other men in town. After I finish dinner there, with my uncles Samuel and Henry Postlethwaite, I say my goodbyes. But instead of going home to our rooms over the medical office, I go down the hill.

There are some new faces in the Kentucky Tavern tonight, no doubt from the flatboats that arrived from the north, docking here while being offloaded before being refilled and sent on south to New Orleans. The Kaintucks who do this work always pour into the taverns Under-the-hill once their work is done, to enjoy a day or two of revelry before carrying on with their work. Or starting their journey walking back up the Trace if Natchez was the final destination for their boat.

The current of the Mississippi river is too strong for the flatboats to go back north, and they are simply dismantled at the end of their journey. Even the keelboats cannot fight it, and must be laboriously oared and even pulled by hand back upstream. This is the whole reason for Gregor’s enthusiastic launching of the steamboat project. He is convinced that they will be able to ply the waters of the Mississippi River, both north and south. He is so sure that he is adding on to the dock in preparation for the arrival of the steamboat later this year.

I order myself a drink at the bar, then look around the tavern to see if there are any card games that I might join. I see an empty spot at a table where it looks like a game is just starting. I approach, and ask if I may join.

“Sure,” the young man closest to me says, indicating the chair next to him. “I’m David, this here is Ben.” He looks over at the other fellow at the table. “And …”

“Stu,” says the third, a grizzled fellow, handling the cards.

“Pleased to meet you all,” I tell them. “I’m Samuel.” I get out my money.

“Ben and I just got back to Natchez today,” David continues. He seems a chatty fellow. “We’ll take a few days before heading back up the Trace.” There is something about them that seems familiar to me, but I have met so many people since I arrived in Natchez that I just assume that I’ve probably seen them before around town.

Ben remains silent, but I sense his eyes on me. As mine are on him.

Ben

I’m sure that it’s him. David doesn’t seem to recognize him, but I do. The moment that I look up at him, sideways from my chair as he stands next to our table, I recognize that jawline. It must have been the same angle that I saw him from, months ago, on the Trace as I grabbed the bridle of his horse so that Mason could rob him. Before that other fellow burst in on his horse in the rain and unraveled the whole scheme. Until then, I had gotten enough of a look at the man here sitting down at our table, that I would recognize him anywhere.

I’ve thought of him sometimes since that day on the Trace. There was something about him that has just stayed with me. We exchanged no words, of course, but he responded to my threatening presence at his side with more amazement than fear. I recall that his eyes even met mine, as I held his horse’s bridle while Mason demanded his wallet, with an expression containing a strange mixture of disbelief and excitement. I felt myself responding to his glance, wishing the circumstances of our meeting were different, wishing that I was not opposing him but rather actually meeting him. And then of course it ended almost immediately when the man named Gregor arrived on his rearing horse. But I have never forgotten that intriguing look in his eyes.

David clearly doesn’t remember this fellow at all, and apparently he doesn’t recognize me. Samuel, he says his name is. Even though I am confident that he doesn’t know that David and I were the ones who were foiled in our first and only attempt at robbery, I can see him glancing my way, over and over again. I don’t think it is because he is trying to place me, or remembering my little crime. I think it is because he is admiring me. As I am admiring him.

We spend the evening in this way, enjoying our card games, sometimes losing, sometimes winning, but always glancing sideways at each other, our eyes then darting away as soon as noticed. Our companions are clearly none the wiser. But I know that something is growing here.

Yes, growing it is, I think, shifting slightly in my seat to ease the pressure.