Smith was gibbling and Brown was gabbling back at him, but Joshua York just looked. For the longest time he looked, and then he nodded. “We have created something beautiful, Abner,” he said.

Marsh smiled.

“I had not expected to find her so close to finished,” York said.

“This is New Albany,” said Marsh. “That’s why I came here, instead of one of the boatyards in St. Louis. They been buildin’ steamboats here since I was a boy, built twenty-two of ’em just last year, probably have almost that many this year. I knew they could do the job for us. You should have been here. I came in with one of those little chests of gold, and I dumped it all over the superintendent’s desk, and I says to him, I says, ‘I want a steamer built, and I want it built quick, and I want it to be the fastest and prettiest and best damn heller of a boat that you ever damn built, you hear? Now you get me some engineers, your best, I don’t care if you got to drag ’em out of some cathouse over to Louisville, you get ’em to me tonight, so we can begin. And you get me the best damn carpenters and painters and boilermakers and all the damn rest, cause if I get anything but the best, you’re goin’ to be a mighty sorry man.’ ” Marsh laughed. “You should of seen him, didn’t know whether to look at that gold or lissen to me, both scared him half to death. But he did us right, that he did.” He nodded toward the boat. “Course, she’s not finished. Trim needs to be painted, goin’ do it up mostly in blue and silver, to go with all that silver you wanted in the saloon. And we’re still waitin’ on some of the fancy furniture and mirrors you ordered from Philadelphia, and such things. But mostly she’s done, Joshua, mostly she’s ready. Come, I’ll show you.”

Workmen had abandoned a lantern atop a pile of lumber near the stern of the boat. Marsh struck a match on his leg, lit the lantern, and thrust it imperiously at Brown. “Here, you, carry this,” he said brusquely. He went clomping heavily up a long board onto the main deck, the others trailing behind. “Careful what you touch,” he said, “some of the paint’s still wet.”