“It’s an entertainment to me, that one,” he said. “I’ve pointed it out to any number of our boys, and each of them sees something different in it.”
“Beg pardon, sir, but that’s natural enough.”
He set the pole aside and took me by the shoulder. “Listen closely, Oliver. Belief is like a river—: you can channel it any way you like. Channel it as easily as water.” He watched me a moment. “Do you follow?”
He’d lost me utterly. “Yes, sir. Belief is like a river.”
“That’s right, boy.” He grinned. “Belief in anything is a kind of madness—; and there’s nobody so gullible as a cracker.” He made a face. “Look at poor Asa Trist.”
I grinned back at him. “Yes, sir.”
We hushed for a time, our eyes on the firmament.
“Well?” he said finally.
“Sir?”
“What do you see in it?”
I looked up at the stars. “A ladder,” I said.
He laughed loudly at this. “A ladder! Truly?”
“Yes, sir. Isn’t that what you called it?”
He laughed again. “That’s right, Oliver. Herod’s Ladder. And you’ll climb that ladder yet, boy. Just you wait.”
THE PLAN WAS THIS—: to collect Bosun at an out-of-the-way landing (little more than a damp tongue of earth jutting east from Louisiana) and keep on down-river to the old Trist estate. Bosun was an enormous man, with hands the size of shovel-tips—; we’d sold him twice already for a mint. I spent the better part of the journey asking myself what he’d do when he found himself headed south yet again, rather than north, as arranged—; but the Redeemer was absolutely free of care. It had been years, he said— years—since he’d had cause to work the river. I wanted desperately to ask him what the cause was that particular day, but I sensed it had something to do with my future, and kept my wonderment to myself. We rode the last few miles in silence.
“By gum!” the Redeemer said suddenly. “If this ain’t just the way to run the river!”
I nodded and fussed with the collar-buttons of my coat. I’d drifted off for a time, but my sleep had been troubled. The nearer we drew to our rendezvous, the more the thought of Bosun began to harry me. When we’d last met, seven months before, I’d all but promised him Cincinnati.
“I’m pleased it brings back bygones for you, sir,” I muttered. “I’d much prefer the state-room of the old Vesuvius. Or even the Hyapatia Lee.”
“That’s the dandy in you, Oliver,” the Redeemer said fondly. He was managing the raft entirely by himself, darting from one corner of the platform to the other. “Look lively, now!” he whispered. “There she is! To starboard!”
I couldn’t have found that landing to save myself from drowning, even in perfect daylight—; and yet in the next instant it emerged, dark and undeniable, from the gray vagueness around us. Bosun was there as well, not ten paces off, panting and cursing and grappling with the tie-line, pulling us in hand over hand—; the next thing I knew we were off again, the weight of his gargantuan body adding a good two inches to our draft. As the landing fell away, Bosun looked about him as I feared he would and, ignoring the Redeemer altogether, said in a dubious voice—:
“This gone carry me to Cincy, marse?”
There was no sound for a time but the Redeemer’s steady working of the pole. “Bosun,” I said at last, with a rush of self-importance. “I should introduce you to the pilot of this run. You have the privilege of sharing this flat-boat with none other than—”
“I don’t mind a damn if it be Ezekiel himself,” Bosun said. I noticed now that he was naked to the waist, that his lips were slick with blood, and that his left arm hung lifelessly from his shoulder.
“Why we headed down this river?” he said very slowly.
“There’s a keel-boat waiting two miles on,” the Redeemer put in, busy with the pole. “We’ll part ways in less than an hour, Mr. Bosun.”
Perhaps it was the exotic sound of being called “Mr.” by a white man, but Bosun took a sharp, shallow breath, gave a loud guffaw, and turned toward the Redeemer. “Two mile on?” he said.
“At Druthers Crick,” said the Redeemer, nodding. “Step a bit to port, Mr. Bosun, if you please.”
Again Bosun let his great laugh loose. “You artful courteous, marse!” he said to the Redeemer. I could see now that his arm was pulled clear of its socket. He jerked his head toward me. “You ought to give this niggra of yours some finishing.”
“Mr. Delamare is not my negro,” the Redeemer said, stopping in mid-pull. “He is a free man, Mr. Bosun—; as free as you or I.”
Bosun took a little step to one side, as if to get out of the way of something rushing past—; when he spoke his voice was tentative as a child’s.
“As you or I?” he murmured.
“That’s right,” the Redeemer said, his voice as mild as Bosun’s. “The hour of your emancipation, Mr. Bosun, has arrived. The hour to put your indentured self behind you.” He gave a courtly bow. “Mr. Delamare and I humbly recommend that you savor it.”
For a minute, perhaps longer, Bosun gave no answer. I’d begun to wonder whether he’d understood the Redeemer’s little oratory when I saw that he was trembling throughout his great body, gasping with slow, hard heaves of his tremendous shoulders. The raft spun and drifted at the current’s pleasure—; we were out in the black middle of the river.
“What gone come of this?” Bosun said at last. “What gone follow?”
“I suggest you choose a name,” the Redeemer said.
Bosun gave his head a shake, as though a fly had landed on his brow. “A name?”
The Redeemer passed the pole to me now and stepped over to Bosun. “That’s right,” he said. “The name you carry was given to you by your first master, Benjamin Thomkins Grady, that you might come to him when he called. He imagined that by giving you that name, he himself, and no other, had called you into being. The name your mother chose to call you was the name of a play-thing, the name of a house-pet, just as Grady’s name was a name for a champion ox. The name you yourself choose, contrary-wise, will be the name of a new-born child.” He smiled. “And whether you answer to it, sir, will be nobody’s business but your own.”
That said, the Redeemer stretched up his arm and touched Bosun gently on the mouth. Bosun bowed his head to receive this touch, bashful and not a little bewildered, like Mary before the archangel Gabriel. His expression shuttled back and forth between exultation and dismay, as though he’d been found guilty, through no fault of his own, of some especially noble crime.
“Tell me your name, pilgrim,” the Redeemer said softly. “Tell it to me and I’ll baptize you here and now.”
A measure of silence passed — I know not how long — then Bosun raised his head. “I should be called ‘Simon,’ after Simon from the desert,” he said, his voice full of wonder at itself.
If that was not the sound of religion, the sound of spirit given voice, then I have never heard it in my life. Nothing earthly was real to Bosun at that moment—: not the Redeemer, not the raft we rode on, not the river at our feet. There was only his own body, the fact of all that it had suffered, and the new name hovering before him in the air. Of his own accord Bosun sank onto his knees.
“I baptize you Simon Morelle,” the Redeemer intoned, splashing a palmful of water over him. “Stand up, Simon, and be counted!”
Bosun got to his feet and ran a fist across his eyes. “Simon Morelle,” he repeated, as if to get the fit of it.