That does it, as it is a direct challenge to his manhood.
"I will have a drink of that bottle, as is my right as Captain of this here boat," he says, firmly.
"Very well," I sigh. "If you insist, but I shall bear no responsibility for what results. Is that understood, Mr. Fink?"
He nods and licks his thick lips, not a pretty sight. The little sniff of whiskey he has had so far has merely whetted his appetite, as I knew it would.
"Very well. Higgins, will you bring up another glass?"
Higgins goes below and comes back with the glass, places it on the tray, pours in the liquid, and hands the glass to Fink, who promptly upends it.
"Ah," he says with great satisfaction, "give me another."
"Sip, Mr. Fink. You must sip it like you would sip the finest of liqueurs," say I, in warning. At my nod, Higgins refills his glass.
"Sip, hell," says Fink. "This is how a man sips the finest lee-koors." And again he drops the opium-laced whiskey down his throat. "Candy," he says. "It tastes like candy. Give me another."
"Others have said that, Mr. Fink," I say, noticing that Fink is starting to sway a bit on his feet. "But I fear for the consequences, I do." I nod again at Higgins and the glass is refilled, and again downed in one swallow.
Mike Fink places the glass back on the tray with what seems like extreme concentration. He then turns and gazes out over the water. He lifts his arm and points at something I know only he can see.
"Swans," he says. "White swans. Look at that ... I ain't never seen swans on the river before ... and there's women ridin' 'em like they was horses, with their legs wrapped 'round them birds' necks ... nekkid women..."
Then Mr. Fink sinks down to the deck and keels over, a smile of wonder on his sleeping face.
"Quick!" I say, jumping up. "We've got to move fast. Jim! Steer over to the bank!"
Everybody leaps into action. Jim puts the tiller over and we turn toward the shore. Higgins dives below and brings up the coil of rope. Katy runs over and crouches next to the aft anchor. I watch for the proper place to do what we're going to do, and as I watch, I take off my shoes, dress, vest, and stockings. Higgins slips the rope under Fink's arms and ties it at his back and then stands ready at the side, holding the end of the line.
"There!" I shout, pointing at a stretch of open beach where a tree with overhanging branches is growing. "Jim! Take 'er in! Katy! Drop the anchor!"
It is done. The anchor catches and holds, and the boat swings in to the shore.
I leap over the side into the shallow water, which is a mite colder than I thought it would be. I fall over but my feet find the bottom and I can stand. I reach up and hold out my hand as Higgins tosses me the end of the rope to which Mr. Fink is tethered, and I half walk, half swim to the shore. When I am there, I take the rope up to that overhanging tree and wrap it around the trunk, taking up the slack so it is taut.
"All right, Katy!" I shout, and I see her let slide the anchor rope around the butt to which it is wound.
The boat, pulled by the current, moves forward, and though I can't see him, I know that Fink's bulk is being pulled back toward the stern. In a moment I see his head appear over the edge, then his shoulders, the rope under his armpits, and then the rest of him plunges into the water.
Please don't wake up, Mike! I'm thinking as I pull him to shore, fearful that the shock of the water might restore him to consciousness. This was the only way we could do this, him being so huge and heavy and all.
"Hold the anchor!" I cry, and Katy ties it off and the boat stops moving. There is another splash as a shirtless Jim Tanner jumps into the water, as planned, to come help me drag my burden to the shore.
My fears are groundless—Fink doesn't wake up, but snores peacefully on as he is hauled to shore.
"Damn, he weighs a ton." I grunt as we pull him out of the water so that only his feet remain submerged. "But that's good enough. Let's go." Jim unties the rope from both tree and Fink and we start off.
Fink stirs and we freeze, but he only smiles and says, "Swans..."
Jim and I swim back to the boat and are pulled aboard. Jim goes to the steering oar and the anchor is hauled and taken aboard and we are under way again.
"I wish you the joy of your new command, Miss," says Higgins, smiling. "I shall lay out some dry clothes."
Still dripping, I jump up onto the cabin top and plant a wet foot on each side of the centerline, the better to feel the action of my boat.
Oh, how good it feels!
Chapter 19
We arise this morning at dawn as masters of our own fate—or masters of our own boat, anyway. We breakfast on biscuits, maple syrup, and bacon, and then head back out into the current to continue our journey.
Yesterday, after we had parted company with the redoubtable Mr. Fink, we continued on our way with much singing and revelry and bragging about what clever scammers we were, but it turned out to be not quite as easy as we had supposed—the current had picked up some, likely the result of a heavy rain upriver, and we were pitched about in a most unseaman-like way. I know that Jim was mortified at not being able to keep the boat's head up when we got spun around several times. We brought up two of the long oars—sweeps, as Mr. Fink had called them—and fixed them in their oarlocks and went to work, with Katy and me on one and Higgins on the other, and we were able to keep her bow to the west till evening, when, exhausted, we pulled in to the shore as night was falling.
Higgins whipped us up a good dinner from the provisions he had bought back in Kennerdell—some bacon, salt pork, a kind of dried beef called jerky, and even a good smoked ham. And a halfway decent bottle of wine made, it was said, from the fruit of the wild grapevines we had seen growing along the shore. "Fox grapes," Katy announced. "Ain't good fer nuthin' 'less you add pounds and pounds o' sugar to 'em." So we were rewarded for our labors and our good cheer was restored.
As we sat watching the evening sun go down in a glorious sunset, I got up and poured a libation of fox-grape wine over the bow, then said, "I christen thee the Belle of the Golden West! Long may you sail! Or float ... or drift ... or whatever..."
"Hear, hear," cheered my crew, raising their glasses.
Today, however, the water flows smoothly and the winds stay calm, and we are able to ship the sweeps and rely only on the steering oar. I set up a watch rotation such that every one of us four would become skilled at the handling of it. Under Jim's now-expert tutelage, we all do attain a measure of proficiency, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it for a living, as it takes a certain amount of brute strength to move the thing. There were several times when my feet were lifted from the deck in my efforts to make the damned oar behave.
It is plain that we shall have to hire more crew when we get to the mighty Ohio. How we will pay them, I don't know, but I'll worry about that later. Maybe we'll pick up some paying passengers in Pittsburgh. Going to have to get some good maps there, too, so's I can gauge distances and figure out what to charge my customers. By the mile, I think, and the money up front.
***
In the afternoon, as things are going smoothly, I sit with Higgins and we discuss the events of the past day.
"You do not think he will cry bloody murder when he gets up and finds his bearings but not his boat?" asks Higgins. "While it has been my pleasure to serve you these past years, still I would prefer not to be hanged by some unwashed, illiterate American mob for flatboat theft in this benighted wilderness. I had fancied a rather more elegant end to my days—something more in the line of a peaceful death after an honored life, followed by a stately but tasteful funeral featuring endless ranks of weeping but well-dressed mourners covering the casket containing my mortal remains with mounds of perfect yellow roses."
"Very poetic, Higgins," I say, "and I hope all that comes to pass for you, but not all too quickly, for I need you here by my side and not reclining elegantly dead in some vault in Westminster Abbey."
"Westminster Abbey," muses Higgins. "I do like the sound of that."
"Anyway," I say, breaking into his self-elegy, "when Mr. Fink wakes up, he will think that he fell overboard during a drunken stupor and he'll consider himself lucky to be alive. I'm sure he is right now making up a tall tale to fit the occasion. Shall I give it a shot? Very well: Thar I was, throwed overboard by the biggest wave ever seen east of the monster waves of Bor-nee-oh, tossed down to the bottom o' the river whar I sucked up enough mud to chink all the log houses from Ohio to Saint Louis. I come back up to the surface and spit up all the dirt inta one big pile and that pile become Mount—"
Higgins laughs, then says, "All right, Miss, very well composed. I think Mr. Fink himself would be pleased."
"Besides, Higgins, do I not have in my possession a Bill of Sale for this boat, signed by Mr. Fink, himself? Any court in the land would surely honor it." I had taken the piece of paper upon which Mike Fink had so laboriously penned his signature and I had written the Bill of Sale for the boat above it, all legal-like. The price was fifty dollars, the amount I had already paid him, which I think was fair. Serves him right, too, 'cause he shouldn't have been so greedy. Mr. Fink has found to his sorrow that it's not a good idea to try to cheat an old Cheapside hand.
"Yes, you have shown me the paper. I think Ezra Pickering, while aghast at the speciousness of the whole thing, would nevertheless be proud."
"So you see, Higgins," say I, "there is absolutely nothing to worry about. And, furthermore, if you think I feel guilty because of this, think again. Think how he cheated us on the fare he was charging us to Pittsburgh. And if you really think that Mike Fink came by this boat in any way honestly, well, I've got some stock in an under the English Channel tunnel company I'd like to sell you."
"Very well, Miss," replies a jocular Higgins, "I shall pass on the stock, put legal concerns out of my mind, and concentrate my thoughts on dinner. If you'll excuse me."
I go up to sit for a while with Katy and watch the shore slip by, all deep and dense and green. The cleared farms are growing fewer and farther between, as are the tiny towns. I wonder if there are any Indians lurking just beyond the edge of the forest?
Katy and I are both delighted to shed our dresses now that Mr. Fink has left our company—it's back to undershirt and drawers without stockings, just as we were dressed in the hold of the Bloodhound. Higgins expresses some concern that our attire might keep poor Jim in a state of constant excitement, but I reply that he'll have to get used to it, as the rivers are long and the work will be hard and dresses get in the way. I promise, however, to sew us up some heavier canvas trousers as soon as we can get the cloth. Meanwhile, randy Jim should keep his mind on his nautical studies and not on us. Boys, I swear...
We neither see nor catch anything edible, and so I go back to the spot on the cabin top right up in front of Jim, at his steering oar, and flop down on my back. Lolling about in the sun, I decide to call this spot the quarterdeck. I think on that: the quarterdeck of the Belle of the Golden West, Lieutenant J. M. Faber, Commanding.