into the docks and landings and preach if we felt the urge. The need to witness was in me and I considered it my repentance to weep and tell the people my sins and calamities, with Samuel standing like the God of Judgment behind me. And after I finished even those who had jeered and hissed me would straighten up when my brother lumbered forward to take my perch from me and deliver the moral. It was rare that any coin would sail into our hats, rarer less than the souls we turned to goodness; but what little off-chance money we did receive we gave an equal share to Captain Finch.
Lean as our provisions were, the captain was a good man, a teacher, and some miles below the falls at Louisville, not far from where Preacher-father and I were cast from our boat long before, and having dropped our pilot and proceeded downriver, the captain took Samuel and me both up by the scruff and made us look to a high, sloping bank of limestone marked with a great cave. About the cave, nailed to the trunks of a pair of trees in early bloom, were signs variously reading: WILSON’S LIKKER VALT, BILLYARDS, CARDS, & HOUSE OF ENTERTAINMENT . Cargo-laden boats like ours were docked below the mouth of the cave, and it was to them that Captain Finch pointed, saying, Those boats are manned by dead hands.
It looks a fine place, I said, thinking more of rows and bawds than the captain’s words.
Captain Finch took a-hold of my nape and said, Boats land and the crews drunked, whored, and by the next day, killed. The cavers float down to New Orleans and sell the goods off, the bastards. Yes, it’s a damned fine business.
He withdrew his hands from my neck and went to fiddling with his belted knife. And I didn’t know why then that Samuel took quiet and looked afraid, only understanding later, in the night, when he told me that he worried if his brother Reuben might have met that kind of fate. I said that from the sound of him, he’d have bored the pirates’ eyes from their skulls and painted their cave with gore, then writ a treatise about the process. Samuel laughed, but in the day, slowly passing Wilson’s cave, we heard other laughter issuing within and the voices of barkers shouting to us, Come down, fellows! Don’t float off now! Cheapest drink, ripest teats, fairest cards in the country! Don’t float now! Come!
Captain Finch gave me a whap of his blade to drive the point home further, then raised his knife up between us so that the blade must have shined with the sun and struck the dim-eyed cave-lurkers with its brilliance, and hollered back at them, You want this scalp and money you’ll have to come and get it, you cunt-lapping dogs! I hope the river rises twenty feet tonight and drowns your sorry asses! Then he turned to each of us, saying, They’re good robbers but worthless on the river. I see their boats wrecked all along the way. Ain’t that right, you rotten sons of scabby bitches!
Samuel’s voice cracked a bit when he shouted along, Fuck to your souls and see you in Hell!
Right-o, said Finch, sheathing his blade and clapping him on the shoulder. That’s the spirit, my boy!
Christ Comes as a Thief
And the spirit which came over me in the following days was one for preying. I’d grown sorely tired of seeing the merchants, stuffed into their waistcoats, stroll along the wharves and spit whatever change they so desired. Whereas our fellow crewmen were content with the occasional combat, I wanted my violence as I would later in life—swift, secret, by surprise. And to lift some coin from those hated purses had no small allure. My hunger grew more sharp, the ache of work more sore, and the thought of setting fear in the heart of some fool—not of Hell, not of God, but of me—became too sweet not to bring unto fruition. I could’ve lived on our provisions, on the fruits of our more honest labors, but I needed to right the balance of sorrow. So I sat one evening on the deck with my brother, our packs for pillows, fingers caked
Lean as our provisions were, the captain was a good man, a teacher, and some miles below the falls at Louisville, not far from where Preacher-father and I were cast from our boat long before, and having dropped our pilot and proceeded downriver, the captain took Samuel and me both up by the scruff and made us look to a high, sloping bank of limestone marked with a great cave. About the cave, nailed to the trunks of a pair of trees in early bloom, were signs variously reading: WILSON’S LIKKER VALT, BILLYARDS, CARDS, & HOUSE OF ENTERTAINMENT . Cargo-laden boats like ours were docked below the mouth of the cave, and it was to them that Captain Finch pointed, saying, Those boats are manned by dead hands.
It looks a fine place, I said, thinking more of rows and bawds than the captain’s words.
Captain Finch took a-hold of my nape and said, Boats land and the crews drunked, whored, and by the next day, killed. The cavers float down to New Orleans and sell the goods off, the bastards. Yes, it’s a damned fine business.
He withdrew his hands from my neck and went to fiddling with his belted knife. And I didn’t know why then that Samuel took quiet and looked afraid, only understanding later, in the night, when he told me that he worried if his brother Reuben might have met that kind of fate. I said that from the sound of him, he’d have bored the pirates’ eyes from their skulls and painted their cave with gore, then writ a treatise about the process. Samuel laughed, but in the day, slowly passing Wilson’s cave, we heard other laughter issuing within and the voices of barkers shouting to us, Come down, fellows! Don’t float off now! Cheapest drink, ripest teats, fairest cards in the country! Don’t float now! Come!
Captain Finch gave me a whap of his blade to drive the point home further, then raised his knife up between us so that the blade must have shined with the sun and struck the dim-eyed cave-lurkers with its brilliance, and hollered back at them, You want this scalp and money you’ll have to come and get it, you cunt-lapping dogs! I hope the river rises twenty feet tonight and drowns your sorry asses! Then he turned to each of us, saying, They’re good robbers but worthless on the river. I see their boats wrecked all along the way. Ain’t that right, you rotten sons of scabby bitches!
Samuel’s voice cracked a bit when he shouted along, Fuck to your souls and see you in Hell!
Right-o, said Finch, sheathing his blade and clapping him on the shoulder. That’s the spirit, my boy!
Christ Comes as a Thief
And the spirit which came over me in the following days was one for preying. I’d grown sorely tired of seeing the merchants, stuffed into their waistcoats, stroll along the wharves and spit whatever change they so desired. Whereas our fellow crewmen were content with the occasional combat, I wanted my violence as I would later in life—swift, secret, by surprise. And to lift some coin from those hated purses had no small allure. My hunger grew more sharp, the ache of work more sore, and the thought of setting fear in the heart of some fool—not of Hell, not of God, but of me—became too sweet not to bring unto fruition. I could’ve lived on our provisions, on the fruits of our more honest labors, but I needed to right the balance of sorrow. So I sat one evening on the deck with my brother, our packs for pillows, fingers caked
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