“Good,” Marsh said.
York nodded absently. “Let us meet tomorrow for dinner at the Galt House. At eight. We can make plans for our voyage to St. Louis, discuss crew and provisioning, if that is agreeable to you.”
Marsh voiced a gruff assent, and York and his companions went off toward their boat, vanishing into the mists. Long after they had gone Marsh stood in the boatyards, staring at the still, silent steamer. “Fevre Dream,” he said loudly, just to test the taste of the words on his tongue. But oddly, for the first time, the name seemed wrong in his ears, fraught with connotations he did not like. He shivered, unaccountably cold for a moment, then snorted and set off for bed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream, Ohio River, July 1857
The Fevre Dream left New Albany by dark, on a sultry night early in July. In all his years on the river, Abner Marsh had never felt so alive as he did that day. He spent the morning attending to last minute details in Louisville and New Albany; hiring a barber and lunching with the men from the boatyards and posting a handful of letters. In the heat of the afternoon, he settled into his cabin, made a last check round the steamer to make certain everything was right, and greeted some of the cabin passengers as they arrived. Supper was a rushed affair, and then he was off to the main deck to check the engineer and the strikers checking the boilers, and to supervise the mate as he supervised the loading of the last of the cargo. The sun beat down relentlessly and the air hung thick and still, so the roustabouts gleamed with sweat as they carried crates and bales and barrels up the narrow loading planks, the mate cussing at them all the while.