Mississippi Jack: Being an Account of the Further Waterborne Adventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman, Fine Lady, and Lily of the West (53 page)

We arrive at the open grave, and as the pallbearers lower down the coffin, the Preacher gives us the last verse.

I'm going there to meet my mother,
She said she'd greet me when I come.
I'm just a-going over Jordan,
I'm just a-going over home.

The song ends and Chloe reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt and tosses it down onto the coffin, and Preacher Clawson reads, "
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...
"

When the words are said and done, I put my arm around Chloe's shoulders and together we walk away. The Hawkeses begin covering the grave. We don't have roses, so the clods ain't muffled as they fall, but make a sad, hollow, thudding sound.

And later today I lose yet another member of my company.

When I go to breakfast with the rest of my crew, I am greeted with the news that Chee-a-quat is leaving us.

"Nee-ah-hanta is with child and her time is soon," explains Lightfoot. "And we're now headin' into territory where he might not be welcome. Chickasaw land, if you get my drift. He will take three of the horses, one for himself and two as presents for our father. It will bring him much honor."

Nodding, I sigh, then say, "Well, that is as it should be. But we will miss his presence, if not his conversation. Jim, we'll not be weighing anchor just yet. Stand by." I go below to collect some things.

Chee-a-quat prepares to leave with very little ceremony, just some manly grasping of upper arms and thumping of chests with his Shawnee brother, but I won't let it go at that.

"Chee-a-quat, hold for a moment," I say, as he seems about to hook a leg over the rail and go. He pauses and looks at me. "For our brave and noble warrior Chee-a-quat,
we give this pistol and money in return for his valiant service." I hand the pistol and a bag of coins to him and he takes them. "There is a necklace in there for Nee-ah-hanta, too. Please send my regards, for she was kind to a stranger when that stranger was in your town."

I sign
thank you
and
good-bye.

And then, for the first time, Chee-a-quat speaks directly to me.

"
Wah-ho-tay,
Wah-chinga-sote-caweena-que-tonk. May you find a brave man for your husband and bear him many strong children. Good-bye, Jah-kee."

The mouth of She-Who-Dances-Like-Crazy-Rabbit drops open at the sound of English coming from the lips of the Shawnee warrior Chee-a-quat. He smiles, nods once more at Lightfoot, and then is over the side, across the sandbar, and into the woods and gone.

Yes, this morning I lost two of my company, and sadly, I find that I will lose two more this afternoon.

She appears on the quarterdeck, dressed for the first time in the buckskins that Lightfoot had gotten for her those weeks ago in the Shawnee village, and I know what that means.

"I'm goin' off with Lightfoot," says Katy Deere. "I talked to the Preacher. He's gonna say the words. My mama was a church lady and she'd have liked to see it done proper with a preacher and all."

I nod, having expected this. "Sit down, Katy, and tell me what you plan to do."

She thinks for a while and then says, "Y'know, Jacky, I really liked bein' on this run down the river with you—seein' new things at every bend in the river, huntin', fishin', pokin' around in pools and streams, explorin', like ... But I know it's comin' to an end and you're gonna go off into those cities and towns and I just don't do good there. I tried it and it don't work."

She pauses and takes a breath. I know this is one of the longest speeches Katy Deere will ever deliver.

"You'll go back to Lightfoot's Shawnee village?"

"No, we're gonna go out West, see what's there. Listenin' to that Injun girl that time, Crow Jane's niece, you remember, the one who'd been on that expedition, about all those things out there—spouts of hot water that shoot a hundred feet in the air, streams full o' fish, deer with horns that curl back over their heads, big,
big
mountains, herds of buffalo so vast y'can't see across 'em, and another ocean over at the other edge. Well, we want to see it. Me and him."

Just a different version of me wanting to get the Bombay Rat, the Cathay Cat, and see the Kangaroo, but the same old thing...

"And when you and me was on that
Bloodhound?
Right, it was awful, but ... up till then, I'd never felt so ... I don't know what..."

I nod at the recollection of that time, when we were both sisters-in-arms against evil.

"And come winter, well, we might go back to my farm and hole up there. He could hunt and trap, and in the spring we'd hire a man and get a crop in. Huh! Don't worry, I know that I'll never get that man Lightfoot to ever hold a hoe. And I know I'd never be able to hold him on the farm when the weather warms up, so I'd go with him again. Get someone else to tend the crop and bring it in."

She looks out to the west, over the treetops, and fondly I look upon her face in profile, with its high cheekbones, strong nose, and thin lips, knowing I'll soon not be seeing it. "Or maybe we'll go down into Mexico to winter over. Hell, you've given us enough money to get by for a coupl'a winters."

"Money you earned ten times over, Katy. How many times have you saved my life? Once, twice, at least three."

"Lightfoot don't think you'll have any more trouble in gettin' to the city—the Beams is dead, the Indians is peaceable around here. So since we've got the ponies, we figured this was a good spot to go."

She rises and so do I.

"I'll miss you, Katy Deere."

"Me, too, Jacky. Miss you."

Katy's things are packed and thrown across the back of the packhorse and secured, along with some provisions we have raided from Crow Jane's stores. Her bow is slung from the pommel of the horse she will ride. I make up another posy crown and I reflect that the Reverend's been real busy lately.

"Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of Almighty God to join in Holy Matrimony Katherine Deere and Lightfoot ... er, Lightfoot, do you have a last name?"

"Back when I was a young'un, it was Bumpus."

"Ah. Very well ... and Lightfoot Bumpus. If any here among you..."

Crow Jane whips up a fine bridal luncheon and we toast the bride and groom, both of them in their buckskins, seated at the head of the long table. The only thing to show that a wedding has happened is the posy crown that I braided up for her. I am getting quite good at that.

I give each of them a pistol, with powder and ball, and a bag of coins, which is their final share of the spoils of this journey. Of Lightfoot I ask, "Will she ride beside you or behind?"

He thinks for a moment, and then says, "Beside Wah-chinga, just the way you'd want it."

"I'm glad, Lightfoot. Thank you for everything you've done. Fare thee well."

Katy goes down the gangplank and gets on her horse.

"
Wah-ho-tay,
Wah-chinga. It was good knowin' you," says Lightfoot, and he, too, goes off
the Belle
and mounts up.

"
Wah-ho-tay
Lightfoot."

When I have said good-bye to dear friends in the past, they have usually been of the seagoing class, and as there are only so many ports of call in this world, there was always the chance that I would meet up with them again, sometime—and that possibility would dull the pain of parting. After all, didn't I see Davy Jones and Hugh the Grand again? And sometimes Jaimy Fletcher?

Yes, but when I think of the vastness of this American continent, with its forests and rivers and hills and mountains and prairies that roll on forever, I know that I will never see this girl again.

"Fare thee well, Katy Deere."

She nods and we lock eyes for a moment, and then she and Lightfoot turn their horses and are gone.

The
Belle of the Golden West
gets under way once again, this time with a much diminished crew—we now have only myself, Higgins, Jim and Clementine, Reverend Clawson, the Hawkes boys and their wives Honeysuckle Rose and Tupelo Honey, Crow Jane, Solomon, young Daniel Prescott, and a very much saddened Chloe Abyssinia Cantrell.

We are fairly close to New Orleans now, and we settle back into our usual routines to pass the time on the last part of our long journey. Jim takes the tiller, with Clementine beside him, and I perch on my chair at my table under the canopy.

I notice that Solomon sits up forward on the cabin top, near, but not too near, to Chloe, who has forsaken our cabin to sit out in the air. Grief or not, it's just too damned hot down there. He has the guitar and plays some of the happy, spirited songs he knows, like "Hop High, Ladies," and "Sourwood Mountain," and "Sail Away, Ladies," and it seems to have a good effect on her spirits—I even saw her crack a wan smile, once.

Later, I take a lesson on guitar from Solomon, and as we toil away over a difficult fingering, I ask him, "Solly, you told me once that you didn't have a last name. Is that true?"

"Yes ... uh ... Jacky, most slaves take their owner's last name ... or are forced to take 'em. I don't want to do that."

I knew it took an effort to say my name without the "Miss," but he did it.

"
Hmmm.
Well, you are a free man now, so you are equally free to choose a last name. Tell me, Solomon No-Name, what will you be known as from now on?"

He puts up the guitar for a while and thinks. Then he says, "Since I am to be a free man, I will take the name
Freeman.
" He pauses again, plainly mulling this over. "Yes, I like the sound of that.
Solomon J. Freeman.
And the
J,
Miss Faber, stands for
Jack!
"

We go on with the lesson.

Last night I was so exhausted by all the events in what was probably the most horrific day of my life that I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. But not tonight, oh no, not tonight, for tonight he comes, as I knew he would—old Pap Beam with a rope in his hand and a tomahawk in his head, grinning at me through the blood that runs down over his face and reachin' out for me...

I wake up just when I'm into the babbling-pleas-for-mercy stage of the nightmare and not yet into full-scale howling, and I rise up on my elbow and collect my scattered wits. And then I hear Chloe weeping in her bunk across the room.

"Come over here, Chloe," I softly say. "We could both do with a bit of comfort."

And she does.

We first noticed it as a worrisome bank of low black clouds lying off on the southern horizon, when we were about a day's travel outside of New Orleans. With increasing worry, we watched it grow higher and higher.

"We'd best batten down for a blow, Jim. Get everything below that's likely to be carried away," I say. "It'd sure be nice if we'd find a nice quiet cove to anchor in."

"Sure would, Missy," says Jim. "I ain't never seen clouds that dark before."

But we found no such luck. The banks of the river remained straight and featureless, with nothing even suggesting shelter, and unlike Jim, I
have
seen clouds this black before—last summer in the Caribbean, on the
Emerald.
We were lucky; we managed to get her into safe harbor at St. Maarten before the storm was upon us. I hope we'll be lucky again, but I worry, for I well remember the fury of a hurricane.

My table and canopy are taken down to be stowed below. Windows are closed and tightened down, and everything breakable is taken off shelves and secured. I have Crow Jane make up the big meal of the day at noon, for there probably
won't be any cooking tonight. We all eat together at the big tavern table, mostly in silence.

There is a strange, oppressive stillness in the air. It is dead calm, and seabirds, gulls and such, are overhead, flying inland.

We have done all we can. Now we wait.

In the early evening, the storm hits. It starts as a sudden strong breeze, and within minutes it is a howling gale. Minutes after that, a full-blown hurricane. Like a dog on a leash, the
Belle
thrashes about on its anchor line, and I am glad we secured the boat with backup lines tied to trees on the shore, should the anchor drag.

We all sit at the tavern table throughout the long night and try to give one another cheer, as sleep would be impossible in this maelstrom. There is only the light of a single candle set in the middle of the table, for we don't want to take a chance with a lamp, which might overturn and spread fire in the hold.

We try a few songs, hymns mostly, and Reverend Clawson offers up a prayer for our deliverance, to which we all add a fervent
amen.
We fall silent after an especially fierce squall that sets the
Belle
rocking in a very alarming way. Young Daniel sits by my side, and I can feel him shudder. I reach over and take his hand and hold it.

"Tell me a story, Missy," he whispers. "Please."

I have to smile, thinking of other stories I have told in other places in other times. "All right, Daniel," I say, and collect my thoughts. Then I begin.

"
Any old port in a storm. That's what I was thinking as I wove my little boat through the ships in the crowded harbor...
"

***

At about midnight, the wind suddenly lessened and then died out completely. Many heads, which had been resting on arms, popped up to listen.

"Is it over?" wondered Honeysuckle Rose. "Lord, I hope so. This has been the worst night of my life."

"Maybe not," I say. "I was in St. Maarten down in the Caribbean last year when a hurricane struck the island, and the wind died down all of a sudden just like this, so we went out and saw that the storm was swirling all around us. People told us it was the eye of the hurricane and we'd better get back inside or we'd be sorry. And they were right—the storm came back, fiercer than ever. But maybe..."

And then again, maybe not. It starts as a low whistle, then a long whine, and then it slams into us again, twice as hard and from the exact opposite direction—where before the wind was trying to drive us into the bank, now it's trying to force us to the middle of the river.