Yes, Aggie, I’d say to him. You’ve offended me. Come to bed.
“A Made Man.”
THE NEW VIRGIL BALL was seven years in the making, Virgil says. But it took a single trip to Memphis to destroy him.
Seven years, to the day, after helping the Redeemer with his boots — and four after my first night with Clementine — I was steaming up the great brown muck-a-puddle on board the Vesuvius, the third steam-boat ever to clear the whole run of the river and still the most gaudy of the old “floating palaces.” I was a made man now, dandified and whiskered. If the nature of the wares I traded in disquieted me now and then, the fruits of my position quickly put my mind at ease. I was a courier of other people’s goods—; no more than that. The fleet of barges I managed might have carried barrels of beer, or barleycorn, or even pocket Bibles. I’d never once had to raise my voice, let alone fire my pistol. The Trade watched over me like a mother hen. I had no faith, as such, in my sooth-saying eye—; but I couldn’t deny that the Redeemer had made good use of it. The proof was all around me. Slowly, steadily, like a wine-stain working its way through wool, belief was colonizing me.
As the stream of flat-boats, rafts, and tar-bottomed pirogues slid by, I’d doff my hat, if I happened to be on deck, with all gentlemanly sympathies. Occasionally I’d catch sight of the odd colleague or share-holder in the Trade—: the greeting might be a slight nod, or — if the boat passed close by — a bar or two of “City of the Sun,” a shanty-town hymn that the Redeemer favored. It was easy at such moments, standing in the sun and the wind on the open deck, to think of myself as Fortune’s darling. I was the Redeemer’s darling, after all.
Only once did anyone catch me at my game—: a well-fed Calvinist from New England, round as a river-buoy, who passed the hours pacing the deck and swilling great jarfuls of quinine-water. Just below Island 30, less than an hour from my port of call, he cornered me against the starboard rail, his face a veritable milk-jug of fraternity—:
“Allow me to congratulate you, sirrah, on the architecture of your waist-coat!”
I stopped in mid-whistle and returned his bow—; the raft I’d been signaling passed quietly down-stream. “My waist-coat?” I replied.
“Yours and none other,” said the man. “A properly detailed waistcoat, to a man of refinement, is as a draught of cool water on a summer’s day.” He squinted at my belly. “Dibbern & Alexander, Jackson Square?”
“Chez Restoux, Paris,” I said, regarding him coolly. The quality of my wardrobe had done its share, in recent years, to offset the particulars of my face—; but I was unused, even now, to being addressed by strangers. Most people avoided me as they had always done, albeit with more civility. This plump little Yankee, however — who introduced himself as Barker — seemed to find my lack of politeness scenic.
“Glorious day to be on the river,” he chirruped.
“Quite,” I said, staring out at the dung-colored water.
“I deduce from your manner, Mr. Ball, that you’ve spent enough time on the Mississippi to be inoculated to its charms.”
I shrugged. “Twelve years this September.”
“Twelve! That’s long enough, by God.” Barker rested his elbows on the railing. “I’ll bet you’ve seen your share of devilment along this old creek.”
“Devilment?” I said, smiling at his choice of phrase.
“Which poet was it, Mr. Ball, who wrote—: ‘Skirt if you can its ebon tongue, its languid, fluvial curls. .’?”
“I know nothing about poetry,” I lied. In fact I had a volume of Blake in my pocket at that very moment.
Barker rolled his eyes at me. “I’m sure you remember — it was set to music — quite a popular ditty, in its day—” He stopped in mid-sentence and rapped me fiercely on the chest—: “What tune were you whistling just now?”
I looked at him sharply. “Tune?”
He nodded. “You were torturing it to death against the rail.”
“Some old gospel or other,” I answered as casually as possible. “The name of it escapes me, I’m afraid.”
He took me passionately by the arm. “You must sing it for me, Mr. Ball!”
“I have no voice for singing, Mr. Barker,” I said curtly. “You’ve said as much yourself. I’ve only just now tortured—”
“Blast you!” he cried out before I could finish. “No matter! I remember it now.” Climbing three steps up the port stairs, so that our faces were level with one another, he began to croon, in a reedy but not unpleasant voice, tapping a lively accompaniment on the rail—:
Be-hold, the Lord of E-gypt comes riding on a cloud,
The i-dols all shall trem-ble, the pha-raohs cry a — loud—;
Five ci-ties down in E-gypt shall talk in Canaan’s tongue,
The first of these is Mem-phis, the City of the Sun!
He paused to catch his breath. “Shall I push on?”
He was a step above me now, staring down at me with the same moist-eyed glee he’d previously directed at the river. He was about to begin the second verse when I caught hold of him by his sleeve—:
“You sing charmingly, Mr. Barker—; but that song is a melancholy one to me.” I fixed my dead eye on him as balefully as I could. “A matter of the heart.”
He gave an impish little laugh. “But you were just now whistling it yourself!”
“It’s the words, sir, since you press me.” I took hold of his elbow and led him down into the bar, away from the river, out of public view. “As to the tune, it’s not so very different from ‘Bringing In the Sheep.’ ”
Barker let out a gasp. “Great Josh! I suppose it isn’t!”
We chose a table with a clear view of the river, and Barker sat down with his back to me, content, it seemed, to brood upon its evening majesty. Here was a chance to slip quietly away—: Barker seemed to have forgotten me completely. Instead I found myself sipping quinine-water mixed with bourbon. My mind was a puddle of confusion.
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Barker?” I asked. “Are you perhaps a waistcoat-merchant?”
“Hardly that,” said Barker unperturbedly. He turned and looked me frankly in the eye. “I’m a ferreter by trade, Mr. Ball. I ferret things out.”
Another long moment passed, during which the cogs of my brain came grudgingly into rotation. “You’re a Pinkerton,” I said at last.
“Not in the general sense!” Barker said cheerily. “You might say I’m a specialist of sorts.” He lowered his voice. “The nigger question, actually.”
“Runaways, you mean?” The urge to bolt was full upon me now.
“Correct, sirrah! That’s it exactly. Runaways.” Barker’s round head bobbed like the buoy it so resembled. “Runaways are my purview.” He tittered. “I shouldn’t tell you that, of course.”
I set my bourbon-and-quinine down carefully. If this man was a bounty-hunter, as he claimed, then he was the most wretched bounty-hunter ever born. One met with no shortage of naturals, jackasses, and madmen on the Mississippi—; the possibility could not be ruled out, however, that he was speaking to me in some manner of code. I racked my addled brain for a reply.
“My dear fellow,” Barker said after a time, “don’t look so stuffed and gutted! Have you never met a nigger-man before?”
“Not of your caliber,” I answered, truthfully enough.