The barkeeper, a keg-shaped man about forty with close-cut black hair and a Vandyke beard, a damp bar towel over his shoul der and a stained apron on, introduced himself with a kind of distracted patter: “I’m Henry Slavin and this is my place and you can apply to me a drink, a meal, a bed, a chippie, or any combination, what’ll it be, boys?”
We asked first for someplace to stable our animals and he said they maintained a boarding barn on the other side of the trestle. It was “self-serve.” They couldn’t afford to keep a man out there and couldn’t vouch for security and suggested that some member of our party might put up in there with the animals. The diligent Brother Minor volunteered if we would bring him something to eat and a bottle of anything potable. So we helped Minor get the tack off and settle the animals. The stalls lacked fresh bedding and Minor took it upon himself to rake them out, since the management didn’t. Elam tossed down a bale of stalky hay from the lofts above.
We couldn’t turn up any oats or other grain. But to our surprise there was a faucet on an iron pipe with running water, and when we returned to the tavern, Slavin explained that the “boss” of the city, or what remained of the city, Mr. Dan Curry, had installed a waterworks the previous year near the old Rensselaer Bridge ramp, with a great undershot wheel that used the river current itself to lift water to Commercial Row and a few streets beyond. Curry was regarded as a hero because of it. It had required the digging of a half-acre reservoir pond on what had historically been Cornelius Place. They hoped someday to resume water service “up the hill” to the former heart of the city, Center Square, now largely uninhabited, and the area around the capitol, but that day was still somewhat over the horizon. Curry also ran a fire department, policed the docks, operated the justice court, deported “pickers” (vagabonds) downriver, and collected substantial taxes in connection with these ventures. For practical purposes, he was mayor, but disdained the title, Slavin said. Brother Elam volunteered that Slavin was talking to the new mayor of Union Grove, up in Washington County. Joseph told Elam to shut up. Slavin cocked a knowing grin at me and said, “I hope you’re thriving, sir, like our Mr. Curry is.”
“It’s not a paid position,” I said.
“Neither is Mr. Curry’s,” Slavin said with a wink. “But he manages pretty smartly all the same. Now, how do you boys propose to pay for your rooms and meals? Paper dollars or real money?”
“Silver coin good enough?” Joseph said.
“We take that here. Two bits each, bed and a meal. One dollar for the horses. Drinks are extra, of course.”
Joseph took out a leather drawstring purse and dropped a handful of old quarters and half-dollars on the wooden bar, where they rang musically. Slavin looked impressed. Whatever the other failures of the U.S. government were, it had managed to print an excess of dollars which, combined with the collapse of trade and communication, had severely eroded the currency’s value. People always liked silver better, if it was offered. Gold, on the other hand, was rarely seen. People tended to hoard it.
In a little while, Slavin’s kitchen produced a chowder that he said was made from a locally caught sturgeon “the size of a Nile crocodile,” stewed with plenty of butter and cream, green onions, and firm new potatoes. The portions were substantial, befitting a place that served hardworking men. We sent Seth out with a crock of the stuff to Minor in the stable, along with several slabs of buttered corn bread, a big hunk of what they called Duanesberg cheddar, and a quart bottle of pale ale Slavin swore he brewed himself.
We asked Slavin if he’d heard anything of the Elizabeth and its crew. He snorted saying boats were coming and going all the time and he had no idea, but I might inquire in the morning at Dan Curry’s office at the waterworks; his people seemed to track every last corncob that passed in and out of the port.
Finally, we were advised to “double up,” two to a bed because the other rooms were let out to the girls quarter-hourly, and by the way, Slavin said, were we interested in some of that action, for an additional two bits each? We declined. Joseph and I paired up, and Seth and Elam together, and soon we went to the rooms above.
Thirty-one
Joseph and I lay side by side on a rank mattress in the close dank room. I had been ruminating sleeplessly about the young widow and child whom I had perhaps rashly agreed to let move into my house, worrying what people would think, worrying about her getting into my things, worrying about being so far from home, just worrying, anxious in the storm-lashed darkness.
“You awake?” I said. Joseph’s breathing had not seemed the regular pattern of a man asleep. The rain had not even succeeded in cooling off the jungly night air.
“Yessir, I am,” Joseph said.
“Do you remember air-conditioning?”
“Yessir, I do.” He gave a mordant little laugh. “If it’s not raining out tomorrow night, I say it’s back to camping for us in the fresh air.”
“I’m with you on that. Should we pay a call on this Boss Curry tomorrow?”
“Not right off,” Joseph said. “I smell something.”
“What?”
“Just a feeling. I say we comb the docks and the boathouses first.”
“What feeling?” I said.
“Some kind of trap,” he said. “We saw situations like this in the Holy Land, when things were not what they seemed to be.”
“Do you think this Curry has done something to Bullock’s crew?”
“I think they may be in his custody.”
“Hostages?”
“Yessir.”
As I paused to reflect on this, a vicious thunderbolt, like a gunshot, crackled across the rooftop and reverberated against the concrete slabs of the old ruined highway above.
“Like a ransom situation?”
“Yessir.”
“But nobody sent any message to Bullock demanding money for his crew,” I said.
“How do we know that?”
His question caught me up short.
“Leastwise, Bullock didn’t mention any,” I said.
“Why risk sending a messenger all the way up there,” Joseph said, “when sooner or later Mr. Bullock would surely send someone down here to inquire, which he has now done, namely us.”
“Then I suppose we can’t be too careful.”
“Exactly so.”
“I see,” I said, trying to take measure of what I didn’t see. “I hardly recognize this city. It’s frightening how much has changed here in just a few years.”
“Everything’s gone to the devil all over our poor country. Believe me. We’ve seen a lot.”
“Why did you leave Pennsylvania, Joseph?”
For an awkward interval, we lay silently there in the moist darkness. I wondered if he had heard me.
“Well, sir,” he said finally, “race trouble, to be honest.”
“What do you mean?”
“A lot of people cut loose when Washington got hit, you know. They left there with nothing but the clothes on their backs and some firearms. You had civil disorders in Philadelphia and Baltimore, refugees fleeing, what you folks call pickers, bandit gangs. Pennsylvania became a desperate place. After a while, it was like cowboys and Indians.”
“What happened?”
“There was no getting along.”
“Did you fight?”
“Yessir. Over two years we lost twelve of our number.”
“Why did you stay as long as you did?”
“It was mighty good land. Some of the best I ever seen. But, obviously, we decided to move on.”
“I’ve got a boy out there somewhere,” I said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know, exactly. He set out two years ago with Reverend Holder’s boy. We haven’t heard from them since.”