3stalwarts (87 page)

Dan looked round for Wilson and the Jew; but they were not in sight. As he drank, he lost interest in them, and thought of Molly instead, in her red dress. With the surge of talk about him, the laughter, the stamp of men’s feet, the clinking at the bar, he felt the push of the canal behind him… .

There was a lift to the floor when he got to his feet and went over to the bar for another glass. But the act of walking gave him a feeling of increased strength, and he leaned his elbow on the bar and glanced round him. It was pleasant for him to stand there, not to feel nervous when a man jostled him.

“Beg pardon,” said a man when his heel slipped and he lurched against Dan.

“Surely,” said Dan, making to steady him with his hand. He was getting a gauge of his own strength. “I’d like to see Klore now,” he said to himself, thinking of what Molly had told him. “I’d like to see him now.”

Down the room someone was stamping on the floor. “Song! Song!”

A man lurched to his feet and a tumbler smashed.

“Abel Marsters going to sing.”

Dan’s glass came sliding back, and he gazed over the rim at a tall boater who was standing by himself beside the great round stove, and pulling his moustache away from his mouth. Then he lifted his chin a trifle and half closed his eyes and took one hand in the other. He had a fine, moving tenor.

“Drop a tear for big-foot Sal, The best damn cook on the Erie Canal; She aimed for Heaven but she went to Hell-Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.

The missioner said she died in sin; Hennery said it was too much gin: There weren’t no bar where she hadn’t been, From Albany to Buffalo.”

The heave, the pull, the plod of the towpath, the people, the men about Dan; all were in the song, all joining the refrain: —

“Low bridge! Everybody down! Low bridge! We’re coming to a town!

You’ll always know your neighbor, you’ll always know your pal, If you’ve ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

“Low bridge! …”

The long drag, the meadows, the marshes, the woods and the hills and the rivers, and the canal going through, with the boats, slowly, slowly, one step after another, slow, slow, and the mules’ ears flop, and the snake whips crack, and the dust in your throat, and …

… “we’re coming to a town.”

And here they were, after the long week’s plodding at three miles an hour, on Sunday night, letting off energy to ease themselves.

Then, as Dan watched, a light sprang to the eyes of an old Irishman, red still in his hair, sitting alone in the corner; and, looking toward the door, he saw the white head of Benjamin Rae over the crowd, and the swaggering shoulders of Julius Wilson, and William Wampy with his fiddle. A cry of “William! William Wampy!” and William was hoisted to a table, and the Irishman called for a jig.

Dimly through the swaying smoke Dan saw William seat himself, and tables and chairs rasped over the floor to clear a space. The lantern over him shed yellow light on his bald head and mild brown eyes as he cuddled the fiddle and talked it into tune. Then his hand and the bow awoke, his shoulders swayed to the left, came up, held still, and the bow flashed… . And the old man who had called for a jig was doing it, earnestly, concentrating on his feet, for a moment, till the fiddle gave them the rhythm; and the “Irishman’s Shanty” was in full swing… . The great Jew slapping his hands on his knees in time. Julius grinning and shouting “Hye!” Men shuffling their feet… . Another Irishman on the floor, a young man, springing like a buck deer, a shrill cry from the old man, and an old step of his feet, forgotten, a double tap, a roar of delight… . William Wampy shaking the sweat from his face, mild-eyed… . The barkeeps snatching a moment’s rest… . Dan looked on, the blood pounding in his head, singing like the fiddle, an itch in his feet… .

The tune stops. William Wampy tears open his shirt, bends over, another rush of notes, quick, shrill— “Jamesville on a Drunk,” high laughter, men dance together… .

Dan stood at the bar, near the end, staring, half seeing the faces come and go, some old, some young, bearded, smooth, laughing, or serious in liquor … and then a face materialized in front of him— a black beard, and pale grey eyes, with white spots made by the lamps beside the pupils —that held him stiff against the bar. He was conscious of his right foot feeling its way from the rail to join his left upon the floor, and he braced himself. Still the faces swept by, back and forth, dimly now behind Jotham Klore’s; but the fiddle had a rowdy shrillness in his ears.

Jotham Klore was saying something; Dan could see the words coming through his beard, but they sounded vague, without syllables. Suddenly his face stung where Klore had hit him with his open hand, and then the other side. Dan hit out. His balance wavered, he caught it, but the action brought courage to his fists. He struck again, saw Klore’s head snap in toward his chest, and hit his ear, and knew that he had landed twice. Then Klore was close to him, and dull pain entered his stomach, but he found he could hit and land as often as he liked. The pain continued; it did not hurt as badly as he had thought, but for some strange reason it made him drowsy, and shook something in his head… .

He was aware of Wilson grabbing Klore’s collar, of a roar of voices, and Wilson had vanished. Over a mass of faces he saw the great hands and white head of the Jew coming toward him. But Klore was in again, his teeth showing in his beard, and a bit of blood at his mouth gumming the hair. He pounded back, but the purchase was leaving his toes, and the hands came in against his stomach, one two, one two. The faces behind Klore swept in; he saw the Jew’s hands reach forward; but the beat and hammer in his head carried him back. … A man grabbed his shoulders, he felt his legs dragging on the floor, the lights swam in the smoke, the roar closed in upon him… . The feet of one of the keeps vaulting over him, a big cool man, using a bung starter… . The cold, the darkness, and faintly the voice of the fiddle, a soothing tune, “The Little Stack of Barley.” …

“Sick?”

The sound of water lapping against the piles. He was looking down along a tall man’s side. The black water of the canal, and over it a plank as thin as a thread, and boards under his back. The deck of the boat… .

“Feel better pretty quick.”

He was rolled on his stomach, head over the side, a sharp slap over the kidneys and a pain in his stomach… . The water, the black water… .

“That sort of evens us up.”

The voice was familiar. He recognized dimly. He had heard it always in the dark.

“Got a taste of the canal,” said the voice. “You’ll feel better now.”

He struggled to sit up and saw a man bending over him, back to the faint light of the moon; a wide hat— Gentleman Joe. Suddenly the man cocked his head alertly.

“Working for Wilson?”

Dan managed to nod.

“It’s his boat. I’ve got to cut out of here.”

The man moved down the plank and disappeared into the shadows along the warehouses.

Dan sat with his back to the rudder post, the sweep curving out over his head. He felt sore and still sick; but it was not as bad as he had thought it would be. He wasn’t afraid. He had tasted the canal; he had become part of it.

He heard a faint whistling moving along the docks, and a man came opposite the Xerxes and paused long enough for Dan to recognize the fat man, Henderson, and then moved on.

Dan got to his feet and went down to the cabin and felt his way to his bunk.

Utica Weighlock

When he woke, Benjamin Rae’s hand was on his shoulder, shaking him.

“Hustle up, Dan. We’re loading in half an hour.”

He helped Dan sit up.

“Belly sore?” The Jew grinned.

“Yeanh.”

“Klore sure set out to rangdangle you. What happened to you?”

“I haven’t much of a notion.”

“I don’t blame you.”

He passed out through the curtains.

Dan heaved his feet to the floor; his shoes were still on. The bunks swam dizzily from right to left, and he grabbed his head. But in a moment things came steady.

Through the curtain he could hear the others eating, blowing on the coffee and gulping it.

“Come on out if you want to eat,” Wilson called.

Dan stepped into the cabin a bit unsteadily. It was still dark, and a lamp was giving a feeble light over the table. Wilson looked up.

“Who brought you back, Dan?”

“Why, I sort of come to on the boat,” said Dan.

“Fill him some coffee, William. You took a lot round the stomach-something hot’ll help unlimber you.”

“It won’t hurt you,” said Benjamin Rae. “The best fighter never really fit until he’d got licked once or twicet.”

The coffee eased Dan considerably, and cleared his head, but he still felt sore when he went on deck.

A heavy fog misted the Basin; and when Benjamin Rae went down the plank after the mules his broad shoulders were swallowed up in it before he had passed the bow.

“You get the towline ashore,” said Wilson.

In a few minutes Dan heard the Jew returning, the sharp thump of hoofs on the dock, and then the heads of the mules came out of the fog. He hooked the towline to the evener and the mules relaxed their off hips and let their ears flop back against their necks.

There was a roll of wood on wood, and two men appeared rolling barrels across the dock. Another man with a short barrel track jumped into the pit, and the barrels began rolling down. Wilson stood on the edge of the pit, watching, occasionally blowing into his hands.

“We’ll be first out of Utica at the weighlock,” the Jew said to Dan. “But if there’s an upstream line we’ll have to wait for them to come through.”

Wilson signed the bill of lading and Dan tossed off the tie-ropes. The loading hands jumped back to the dock, grabbed poles, and pushed the Xerxes out into the current. Wilson passed the towline over the bow standard, so that it would clear boats against the dock, and Ben Rae shortened it at the eveners to avoid the deep sag.

They went ahead. Some of the boats were coming to life, with sounds of crockery in the cabins and smell of smoke from the stoves. But the Xerxes seemed the only boat astir. Ahead of her a black tunnel loomed in the fog. And then boats began issuing on the other side of the canal, the teams’ nodding heads visible an instant as they passed.

Lanterns bobbed ahead, crossing and recrossing the tunnel. As they came closer, Dan saw the weighlock, a boat lying in it, heard a muffled voice calling, “Seventy-one, -two, -three, seventy-three-nine eighty-five.”

From a lighted office on the other side of the narrow roofed slip a voice answered, “Seventy-three tons, nine hundred.”

The boat lay in an empty trough on a ribbed rack, with arms fore and aft extending under the office. At the last words the tender slammed down a lever, water came sucking in, and the boat rose to canal level. The gates opened, the mules took up the slack, and the boat slid through.

Beyond the door, the toll-taker spoke to the captain: “Class of freight?”

“Merchandise. Misc.”

The upper lock gates closed, the lower opened, and the tender bawled, “Next!”

Already a boat was sliding in. A man on the bow with a pole to keep it from fending the side. The mules passed on a narrow runway.

“By grab, come slower, Marcy. You’re always running in too fast. You’ll take off them gates some day.”

The tender snatched up a pole and pushed back against the bow of the boat, which was moving with a dangerous momentum. It came up against the upper gates with a heavy thud.

“Gorl!” breathed the tender, running to close the lower gates. “By Cripus,” he cried to the driver, “the next time you come in like that, I’ll be danged if I’ll let you drive into this lock! What do you think it is, a rubber extension?”

The driver spat into the lock and sat down.

“Oh, go pull up your pants, Buscerk.”

Inside the office the toll-taker was making change. “What you got, general merchandise, George?” The captain of the line boat which had passed snorted.

“Swiss! They’ve brought the hull damn works with ‘em. Ploughs! You ort to see ‘em. Regular teaspoon trinkets! Every dang little thing. Pitchforks. They’ve set up a clock in the cabin with a funny set of works. Dangdest racket. And their talk! High jabber, high jabber, jabber-jabber, jabber-jabber-jabber. God! I don’t get no rest at all. Jabber! There ain’t no sense into it. Jabber this. Yes, mam, it’s a mule. No, boy, it’s a calf. Jabber that. No, mam, mules don’t have any. Jabber! Jesus!”

He stamped out after the line boat.

The muffled voice was calling again: “Fifty-one, -two, fifty-two, even.”

“Sold!” cried the clerk, under his oil lamp. “Boat number, name, and cargo.”

“Number 1793. Freedom’s Flower. Albany. Four bales of ‘baccer. Printing press for Rochester, special valuation. All the rest is merchandise for St. Louis. Boots and shoes from Lowell, Mass. Two crates of hats. Haberdashery to clothe the pioneer.” He chuckled.

Already another boat was coming in.

“How many boats out there?” the Jew shouted across at the tender, pointing his thumb at the misty entrance to the lock, where the headlights of the boats made feeble smears.

“Expect about forty. Next!”

But the boat was coming in already, deftly, under the guidance of a one-armed man. “Whoa!” he yelled as the bows came into the gates and the boat slid in without a rub and drifted to a stop, dead centre.

“That’s Jason Jukes. Handiest man with a boat I ever see.”

“Hullo, Ben!” His quick smile showed a flash of gold teeth. “Number 3991. Tammany Hall, Rome. Carrying rope.”

He went inside, reappeared, and the mist swallowed him and the faint light of his boat on the far side.

Sitting side by side on the runway, the crew of the Xerxes watched the boats come in. The fog formed drops on their faces and ran down their necks. Boat after boat. Manufactured goods. “Stoves,” said Wilson. “Fancy furniture; did you ever see such articles?”

“That’s forty-three of them,” cried the lock-tender. “Next!”

He waited a second.

“Next!”

He waved his arm at Wilson.

“East-bound boats! Hurry up, there.”

Wilson leaped up and ran back and jumped aboard. “Geddup!” said the Jew to the mules. “Whoa!” cried Wilson, and the mules stopped. The Jew jumped aboard on one side as Wilson jumped off on the other and stepped into the office. “Number 1613,” he said. “Xerxes short-hauling the Michigan Six Day. Ashes to Schenectady. Fifty bar’l.”