Authors: Shirl Henke
Clint finally replied, “I’ll accept your wager, ma’am, if you’ll allow me to exclude my weapons and cigar case from the bet.”
Delilah nodded woodenly. She had done what no professional ever did. What Uncle Horace had warned her not ever to do—let her
emotions interfere with business.
Clint moved back to the table but did not take a seat. Delilah had not realized he was quite so tall. He picked up the deck
and riffled it contemplatively. Then he handed it to Ike Bauer, who was watching from the sidelines. “Would you shuffle the
cards?” When Bauer nodded, he looked over at Mrs. Raymond’s protector. “If that’s all right with you?” he inquired.
With a disgusted look at his niece, Horace agreed, eager to terminate the distasteful business. Bauer shuffled, then laid
the deck on the table and stepped back. Clint nodded to Delilah. “Ladies first.”
She drew a three of hearts and sighed with relief. This was one game she would be happy to lose. She had been a fool to taunt
the hometown favorite into making the bet.
The room grew deathly silent when Clint flipped over a deuce. The crowd groaned.
But Delilah’s whisper-thin voice echoed over the noise. “You may send the clothes to the boat in the morning, Mr. Daniels.”
Her face burned and she could not bear to look at any of the people surrounding her, least of all Clinton Daniels. Delilah
knew she had humiliated him. He represented the life she hated, but the man had nothing to do with her past. A hard lump formed
at the back of her throat. She turned away, staring out one of the side windows, recently installed to turn the open hurricane
deck into an enclosed salon. The winking lights from the city above the levee seemed to mock her.
Suddenly her attention was pulled back to the table by a soft thump.
Clint’s hat dropped onto the pile of cash in the center of the table. Next came his coat, his waistcoat and a handful of shirt
studs. An alarmed Delilah looked at his face with something akin to terror. “My God, Daniels, send the clothes tomorrow…or don’t send them at all—I was just making a bad joke.”
Clint shrugged off his shirt, revealing a muscular chest flecked with gold hair narrowing to his waistband. Smiling, he said,
“I don’t think so, ma’am. Remember? You never leave a table without collecting your winnin’s…no markers.”
The stillness remained palpable as he continued to undress. But everyone’s hostile eyes fixed on her.
Delilah could not seem to stop staring at the cunning pattern of his chest hair until he bent down and yanked off his hand-tooled
leather boots and socks. When he straightened up and reached for the top button of his fly, her face was flame red. She bit
her lip to keep from gasping aloud. But she could not force her gaze away from his hand as he deftly unfastened his trousers
and shucked them down his long legs. Calm as could be, he peeled off the last item, silk unmentionables which almost floated
onto the pile of clothing littering the money-covered table.
Finally, he was newborn-naked, the most striking specimen of masculine beauty Delilah could ever have imagined.
Like a
Greek statue
. Sinking her teeth into her lip with renewed vigor, she forced herself to look away from his coolly detached gaze. He was
completely unconcerned about his nudity in a room full of people—in front of her. And why not? The rotter knew how humiliated
she felt. He knew, too, that she had been fascinated looking at his body.
He casually slipped into the shoulder sling of his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson, picked up the small Colt Derringer that had
been tucked in his waistcoat, then held up a cigar. “Do you mind?” he asked.
She shook her head in a daze. He fired up the stogie, then picked up his wallet, knife and cigar case. Clinton Daniels strolled
out the door in an easy, long-legged gait, completely at his leisure, leaving pandemonium in his wake as the room exploded
with furious whispers and muffled curses.
“Unnatural bitch!”
“I never seen anything so goddamned vicious in my life.”
“Poor bastard was lucky to get outt a here with a full set of balls.”
“Damn, not even Red Riley would do something this nasty!”
“Bullshit! That wasn’t our deal.”
Big Red Riley wasted little time meeting with Delilah and Horace to conclude the arrangement he had made with them the week
before. The morning after the card game, he was seated at the large poker table in the salon of
The River
Nymph
, glaring at his co-conspirators.
Hell, I built this damned
gambling hall!
As his face turned puce with rage, Delilah thought that it clashed horribly with his bright red hair. The nickname “Big” was
either a sop to the man’s inflated ego or an allusion to his undeniable power on the St. Louis riverfront. It certainly had
not the remotest connection to his size. The scrawny little creature was at least two inches shorter than her own five feet
seven. Adding to the “charm” of his weasely, narrow face was a boil on his oversized nose, an ugly thing that looked ready
to erupt. She fervently hoped it would not do so before he could be removed from the premises.
“Please, Mr. Riley, be rational,” Delilah cajoled softly, pushing the large stack of currency across the table. “You must
admit—”
“I ain’t admitting nothin’. Look, after losing this boat to that goddamned card hawk Daniels, I don’t intend to lose it a
second time, least of all ta a female!” He punctuated the declaration with a thump of his fist on the oak table in front of
him. “I looked high ’n low for somebody like you ta lure that bastard into a game. Get the
Nymph
back. My sources said you was top shelf. Never been this far west before. Nobody’d recognize you. I paid to bring you here,
and by God, I offered you the sweetest deal any ringer could ask for—”
“Mr. Riley—”
“Mr. Riley, my ass! I put up the ten thousand dollars for your stake. Alls you had ta do was sucker Daniels into putting up
the
Nymph
, win the game and give me back my stake money and the boat deed. You got lots of cash winnings for yourself.”
Delilah’s impatience with the little man’s pigheadedness was reflected in her voice. “As of this moment we have a new arrangement.
The sum in front of you is exactly thirty-five thousand dollars, your ten-thousand-dollar stake, plus a twenty-five-thousand-dollar
profit. Take it!”
“You double-dealing bitch!” Riley had not even seen the old man move, but he was keenly aware of the muzzle of Horace’s .45-caliber
Colt pocket revolver jammed into his right nostril.
The old man’s voice was surprisingly deep and strong. “Sir, you have a mouth as filthy as the floor of a stockyard. I grow
tired of subjecting my niece to it. An English friend of mine is of the opinion that shooting an Irishman in the head is as
feckless as shooting an elephant in the rump. While the target is large, the area of vulnerability is so minuscule that it
is difficult to injure the beast. Would you care to put his theory to the test?”
Riley very cautiously shook his head, no mean feat with a gun barrel stuffed up one sinus cavity.
“Then,” continued Horace, “I can count on your exercising a modicum of civility?” Although the king of the St. Louis levee
was as uncertain of the meaning of
modicum
as he had been of
minuscule,
it seemed wise to agree.
“Now,” Horace continued, “before you pocket your money, you will sign this note indicating that your loan of ten thousand
dollars has been returned, along with twenty-five thousand dollars interest. All dealings between you and Mrs. Raymond are
concluded.”
Red looked at the paper, unable to swallow his rage. “I didn’t ask you to sign nothin’,” he said petulantly.
“No,” Horace agreed, “but then, you are intellectually deficient. Be a good fellow and sign, Mr. Riley.”
“Yeah, I’ll sign, but this don’t change shit, old man. I converted the
Nymph
into the classiest floating gamblin’ hell and cathouse on the levee and I’m gonna get her back.”
Delilah climbed to the wheelhouse, watching her uncle escort Riley down the gangplank and off
The River Nymph,
then turned her attention south along the cobblestone levee. As far as she could see there were steamboats, scores of them,
so many that their tall black smokestacks formed what appeared to be a forest of denuded tree trunks. Not a particularly appealing
vista. Although it was almost noon on a weekday, the levee was not especially busy.
She drew her cloak more tightly about herself. It was only February. She knew that in another few weeks the last traces of
ice would be gone. The levee would start to swarm with freight wagons and hand carts, furiously loading the boats for their
summer runs on the Mississippi and the Missouri. Then the scene would compare with a large litter of greedy piglets vying
for their mama’s teats.
“St. Louis, the Sow of the West!” Delilah laughed. She was still young, and now she was finally free. She and Uncle Horace
were the owners of a fine steamboat and had, counting their own savings, a bit over twenty-five thousand dollars in capital.
As of this morning they were in the freight business—no more corpse-eyed cardsharps, no more smirking simpletons intent on
her breasts rather than her hands.
She took a deep breath, and even in the chill air she could smell that peculiar blend of decay and fecundity that was the
river. That was life. She slapped the
Nymph
’s wheel. “Damn all of them to hell, I
will
keep you.”
Clint Daniels pushed his half-eaten breakfast away and poured another cup of coffee. He opened the humidor on his desk and
absently selected a cigar, clipped the tip, lit up and leaned back in the big leather chair. He rolled the smoke around in
his mouth, then blew a large blue-white cloud toward the ceiling, watching cat-green eyes and burnished hair materialize in
the haze. Suddenly it registered on him that he was smoking, something he made it a rule never to do until after supper.
“Damn.” He put the cigar in the large brass ashtray and slid it across the desk next to his empty breakfast plate.
There was a soft knock at the door, but before he could respond, Banjo came bursting in. Clint sighed. Banjo could not seem
to grasp the concept that knocking on a door did not automatically confer upon the knocker the right to enter. Daniels had
tried to explain the idea of waiting for a response, but to no avail. A man might as well try to convince a loyal hound not
to drag home dead things.
“Well, you pegged it, boss. Big Red had hisself a visit with the widda this mornin’.” Banjo grinned, revealing several missing
teeth.
“On the
Nymph
?” Clint asked his pear-shaped informant.
“Yup, but get this: that feller with the widda tossed his ass off the boat. Old Red’s face was redder ’n his hair. Rat Turner
was waitin’ at the end of the gangplank fer his boss. He started to reach fer his gun, but the old guy—just as cool as ya
please—shook his head and grinned like a skull. Pointin’ a gun at Red. Shit, the old feller looked like one of them stiffs
up at Hackameyer’s funeral parlor. ’Nough ta give ya the creeps. Hell, Rat turned into a statue. Bet he was driz-zlin’ down
his laig.”
“From what the boys picked up this morning, I figured she was some sort of ringer Riley had imported, but if you’re right,
the lady may have reshaped the deal.” Daniels grinned.
“Sharp, shrewd, vicious, bottom-dealing, beautiful little bitch,” Clint murmured to himself. “Red wanted to get back the boat,
but it would appear the widow, with an assist from her dear uncle Horace, has decided to keep it. Why, I wonder? And just
what will his majesty, the king of the St. Louis levee, do to avenge himself on our delectable double-crosser? This should
prove very interesting.” A smile spread across his face.
Banjo grunted, “That little bastard’s mean ’nough to burn the
Nymph
to the waterline outa spite. I’ll put the boys to watch in’ real careful. I know you want her.”
“Make no mistake about that, Banjo. I want her…and I intend to have her.”
That
afternoon Delilah and Horace moved their belongings from their hotel rooms to cabins on the
Nymph.
Not only would they save money, but they would be able to keep some sort of watch over their new property in spite of their
business excursions along the waterfront. When they returned in the early evening, they were greeted by the young bartender
who took the first shift until Banjo arrived. But all of them knew that Daniels’s friend would not be in to spell Todd Spearman.
Nor was there any reason for either employee to be there. Customers who usually trickled in by this time had yet to arrive.
As Horace was stowing their trunks and bags in two of the cabins behind the salon, Delilah spoke with the young man. “I’m
afraid that your services as bartender will no longer be required. We’ll be tearing out the card room and bar, making it into
a hurricane deck again, to carry extra cargo. My uncle and I are going into the upriver freighting business.”
Young Todd Spearman’s usually smiling face fell. “But, ma’am, it’s off season now, and jobs ain’t easy to come by. Won’t you
at least need somebody to fetch and carry fer you and your uncle? He don’t look too sturdy…” Just then the feeble one,
having unloaded his and his niece’s trunks, entered the salon. Todd flushed and tried to stammer out an apology. “I didn’t
mean anythin’, sir.”
Horace held up his hand. “You are quite right, young man. While there may remain a week or two of breath in these decaying
lungs, I’m not —too sturdy.— And we do require a stout lad to keep the fire going, quite literally, and to keep the interior
of this vessel clean. We are also in need of someone to man the galley. I assume that cooking is not one of your many skills?”
“Naw, sir. My aunt, she says that if the meat warn’t dead, it’d get up and run from me. But I can read and do figures, and
I bet I can get my aunt to come cook fer you. She’s cookin’ in a fancy house now and don’t much care fer it.”
Horace smiled at Delilah. “So, young man, you are literate and possessed of math skills and an aunt who can cook. You have
just earned a berth on
The River Nymph.
”
The next morning Todd’s aunt, Luellen Colter, arrived to take command of the kitchen, her nephew and, for that matter, the
boat itself. Each day, she rousted her sleepy nephew to fire up her stove. She made coffee and took it in small pots to the
cabins of her employers—“the Lady” and “the Gentleman.” That was how she had come to think of them, no matter that they had
been gamblers. They were quality and a more decent pair Luellen had never met.
Each morning after breakfast, Delilah and Horace headed off on their rounds of the waterfront emporiums and mercantiles,
attempting to learn the intricacies of the Missouri River freighting business. There was so much to find out and so little
time. Fortunately, it took only a few days for them to locate the man whom everyone on the riverfront considered to be the
most informative instructor and honest businessman in the city, Mr. Joseph Krammer, owner of Krammer Mercantile and Provisioning,
located on Broadway.
After they had introduced themselves to the short, stocky man with the round face and smiling blue eyes, Horace departed on
another mission, leaving his niece to begin shopping for trade goods. While Herr Krammer went to measure out a length of cotton
cloth for an elderly woman, Delilah began wandering through the farm supply section.
Finishing with his sale, Mr. Krammer approached her, shaking his head. “
Nein,
Frau Raymond, these stuffs are not the thing for the Fort Benton trade. Farmers, they are fewthere. Miners many. Custer and
his troopers are making safe for them the far western lands. Picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, some light mining machinery and
the dynamite, ya, those are what you want the most to buy. And strong tents, warm coats and pants and boots you will need.
Miners must eat too. Take basic foodstuffs. And they work up a great thirst digging in the ground, so whiskey you will sell
them. Only a small amount of farm implements to sell on the way will you need.”
He gave a great booming laugh. “Ya, miners’ greed for gold will bring you gold. Please, good lady, come this way and I will
show you your cargo.”
In a few days, Delilah and Horace fashioned a deal with Krammer. Their poker winnings would supply them with a handsome freight
load for the Benton trade, but they also required a warehouse in which to store the goods. If they had that, they could free
up space in his mercantile, and in return he would give them a 5 percent rebate. That would help with the expense of renting
the storage area for their cargo until spring. But the cost of storage and the teamsters to haul the goods was more than Delilah
had to spare.
Herr Krammer came up with a solution. He had faith in their venture and would advance them credit for the bulk of the goods,
so they would have cash for their other expenses. He even knew of a sound, relatively inexpensive warehouse on Biddle Street.
Compared to others closer to the levee, it was a bargain.
Nonetheless, Delilah had misgivings that she shared with Herr Krammer. If they spent their entire nest egg this way, in spite
of his generous terms, they would have little left to hire a crew or see to their own basic living expenses until the spring
thaw. She asked the German if it would be possible to obtain a bank loan.
The beefy man chewed on one corner of his thick gray mustache and stroked his ruddy jowls. “Such a thing is difficult, Frau
Raymond, but impossible
nein.”
Encouraged, Delilah laid out her plan. “I could use the
Nymph
as collateral for a substantial loan.”
Krammer shook his head. “Perhaps. But since the great levee fire of ’forty-nine that destroyed so many boats, steamboats are
not so good collateral at most banks. Local banks have long memories and short pursestrings. Also they will tell you that,
since you will carry the cargo up the dangerous Missouri, good surety any steamboat is not.”
Chewing meditatively on his mustache as if it were a cud, the merchant continued. “And if you could get a loan, never must
you do it here in St. Louis.
Nein.
Many here there are that will sell your note to a third party even before it is due. That I know.” He shook his head. “To
St. Charles you and your uncle must go. Take the train. With the Consolidated Planters Bank you might do business. Hard bargainers
they are, and you will not get as big a loan as here perhaps. But you can make them sign an agreement not to sell your note
before it is due.”
Big Red Riley was not scheduled for a long life. From a tin of Miner’s Delight he took a large pinch of snuff and packed it
against his lower gum on the left side of his mouth. Then, he shook a tailor-made cigarette from a pack of Elegant Gents,
fired it up and inhaled like a hog sucking slop. Next came a deep gulp from his glass of Who Shot John whiskey, as he surveyed
his domain. He leaned back in his oversized chair behind an oversized desk and looked about his office. Its garishness expressed
his idea of opulent luxury and refined taste.
When the expected knock came, Riley barked,“Drag it in.”
The door opened, and Leo “the Leopard” Lewinsky slipped into the office, his head bobbing like a rooster hunting for grasshoppers.
“How do, Mr. Riley, sir.”
Red stared at Leo with what he meant to be lordly gravity. Lewinsky was one of his brigade of wharf rats who slunk and scurried
through the alleys and side streets of the waterfront gathering information useful to him. Indeed, the Leopard was one of
his favorites. He was very ugly. The little man’s neck and lower face were mottled by a pattern of purplish liver spots.
Lewinsky possessed yet another quality that Big Redprized in his employees. He was short, some two inches less than Red’s
own five foot, five inches. Riley was not aware of a contemptuous axiom along the riverfront: Any man had a chance at landing
a spot on Red’s payroll if he was willing to saw off his legs and go on stumps. It also was said that a dwarf was a shoo-in
for a high-paying job, and a midget could expect to be appointed second-in-command of Red’s entire operation.
Riley was not well-liked.
“Well?” Red asked impatiently.
“The woman and her uncle took the morning train to St. Charles. Yesterday, they looked at the old Hauser warehouse up on Biddle.”
Leo shifted his weight and rubbed his spotted face.
Riley took another drag on his Elegant Gent. “All right. They have to be going to Consolidated Planters for a loan, which
means they wrapped up all their cash in cargo and warehouse space. Son of a bitch! Using my boat for collateral!” The little
Irishman pounded his desk in a rage. He took another drag on the Gent
.
“Where’d they get the freight goods?”
“Looks like Krammer gave ’em credit fer most of it.” Leo shifted his weight again, thankful that he wasn’t old Joe Krammer.
Big Red stubbed out his cigarette and let loose a string of obscenities that was neither imaginative nor colorful. “Well,
that Kraut’s business career is just about at an end. He’d better get his tin bill ready, ’cause he’s gonna be pickin’ shit
with the chickens. And Leopard, pass the word. Any steamboat men that take a berth on the
Nymph
will never work the levee again. That smart-assed heifer and her bag-o-bones uncle might have a boat and a cargo, but they
ain’t goin’ to have a crew to move ’em. Not while Red Riley is king of the St. Louis levee.”
When Delilah and Horace alighted from the train the following evening, she felt frustrated and angry. “Talking with those
bankers was like being back in Pittsburgh.”
Horace nodded, remembering the crooked game in that city, one of the few times his brilliant young player had lost at cards.
“Consolidated Planters certainly gave us a smaller loan than we’d hoped.”
“
Smaller
is an understatement,” she said as he hailed a hack and they climbed in for the ride back to the levee. “Only ten thousand
dollars on a boat that the banker admitted was worth between forty-two thousand and forty-five.”
“Even that wouldn’t have been too bad if not for his insistence that half the loan be used as a surety bond payable to the
bank should the
Nymph
be destroyed on the trip. He certainly made a point of explaining the risk of using steamboats as collateral, even when they’re
moored up at the levee.”
“Yes,” Delilah replied stiffly. “Not only the disastrous fire of eighteen forty-nine that Herr Krammer told us about, but the
eighteen fifty-six ice flow down the Mississippi that crushed over twenty boats. Was he making that up, do you think?” she
asked, chewing her lip.
After spitting a wad of tobacco from the side of his perch, their driver turned around and interjected, “Warn’t no tall tale,
ma’am. I seed the big crash up in ’fifty-six. Boats smashed like kindlin’ wood, yessir.”
“I thank you for that verification, good sir,” Horace said. Then, patting his niece’s hand, he averred, “The jovial, pink-faced
little banker indeed ran a perfectly legal shell game on us.”
“And smiled when he shook our hands, as if he was doing us a favor!” she added indignantly. By the time they reached the levee
and alighted from the hack, she decided that riffling cards was perhaps not as despicable a trade as banking.
The next morning she and Horace did considerable damage to Lou’s breakfast of fried ham, biscuits and cream gravy before heading
up the levee to Eagle Boat Stores. The mercantile doubled as the meeting place for the steamboat elite—captains, pilots, engineers
and mates. Here they would begin their search for a crew.
Passing by a wooden rendition of a mermaid located onthe sidewalk, Horace and Delilah entered the large, shabby emporium.
“Are you certain you wouldn’t prefer that I handle this?” her uncle asked her.
In spite of a sudden wave of trepidation that swept over her, Delilah shook her head. “No. If I’m going upriver with these
men, I can’t be afraid of them.”
They waited for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the dim light. Just inside to the right, they could see a short counter,
and across from it three empty tables. The rear of the building was filled with stacks of boat tackle and hardware. Horace
seated his niece and then walked to the counter and rang the bell on it.
A clerk in a leather apron appeared from behind a pile of oak spars. At the same time, two men whose faces bore the mark of
wind and water emerged from the backroom, eyeing Horace and Delilah with open hostility.
“Good day, sir,” Horace said to the clerk. “My niece and I are interested in hiring experienced men to take our boat up the
Missouri.”
Before he could say more, one of the steamboat men interrupted. “Your boat the
Nymph
?”
Horace replied, “Indeed, it is.”
His companion gave the older man a long look but did not say a word. Then he headed for Delilah’s table, with Horace right
behind. He did not look friendly. The clerk and the first steamboat man grinned nastily, watching their friend give Delilah
a hostile perusal.
Refusing to be cowed, she in turn studied him. He was tall, thin and balding, but his beard was thick and well trimmed. He
wore a black, rumpled suit and a wrinkled blue shirt with no collar. When he pulled out a chair and sat without waiting for
an invitation, she nodded to Horace, who understood that he was to back off…for now.
“You be thet gamblin’ female whut cleaned out Clint Daniels?”
“I won a poker game, fair and square,” she stated calmly. “
The River Nymph
came as part of the pot.”
“Wall, missy, ye’ll be gettin’ no crew on this waterfront. Red Riley’s got the word out on ye. There be them thet’ll heed
the little fart. Then, there be them thet be Mr. Daniels’s friends. We don’t give a skinny rat’s arse fer what Riley says,
but Clint be a decent man. Helped out many a down-and-outer on this levee. None a’ us goin’ to work fer a female thet made
’im strip buck-arsed nekked ’cause he lost a hand a’ cards. Ye take Tucker’s word fer it. Thet boat of yers ain’t leavin’
this levee unless ye gets yerself a crew of gypshun galley slaves. Good day t’ye.” The river man got up and stomped back to
the counter.