Chapter 8: EMBARKATION
Jess and Jay Dee both hesitated at stepping onto the rickety-looking dock that snaked out over a saltgrass marsh to disappear into thick skeins of mist floating above the black water. Of the three ethereal figures now far ahead of them, one turned and came back.
"Come on... it's perfectly safe," Celia laughed.
Though skeptical, the two obediently followed until the mist abruptly lifted to reveal a shack perched on stilts on one side of the end of the dock. Moored along the other side was a grey hulk with twin funnels dribbling plumes of white smoke. A string of lanterns illuminated men shuttling bundles and boxes from the dock to the interior of the vessel. Others were using hand trucks to move stacks of cordwood.
Celia motioned to Jess and Jay Dee to follow her up a ramp into the one-room hovel, where they found Rosalie and Uncle Jack already seated at a rough-hewn table with a craggy individual of indeterminate age. A bottle of evil-looking greenish-yellow liquid sat on the table along with seven unmatched and none too clean glasses. The only other furnishings of the room were a cast iron pot-bellied stove, not in use, a cubbyholed chart rack, a tall inclined chart table, and a handful of extra straightback chairs.
"Jess... Jay Dee. Meet Bruce Baldwin, captain of the good ship Jolie Rouge," Rosalie invited.
Standing up, the man still had to crane his head upwards as he leaned forward to shake hands. "Booger Baldwin, at yer service." At a hair or two over five feet, he sported merry blue eyes in a ruddy face and a great mass of curly gray hair with a matching beard. For all his short stature, Captain Baldwin was extremely muscular—his grip was enough to bring tears to their eyes. "Grab a pew, boys, an' be so kind as to render yer opinion on this vile brew. Miz Rosie here finds it palatable enough." Judging by the alcoholic content of every breath exuded, the captain was also finding the beverage tasty.
"Uh... I ain't..." Jess was pretty sure the murky yellow liquid was rum of some doubtful provenance. He didn't much care for rum, himself, and he didn't think it was anything young Jay Dee needed to imbibe, either.
"Oh, go ahead. Locally distilled, aged thirty days... guaranteed to blow yer pipes an' kill body lice."
"Well... maybe half a glass... an' just a taste for the kid." Jess jerked a thumb at Jay Dee, who rolled his eyes.
Captain Baldwin poured three full glasses for the late arrivals before topping off his own and that of Uncle Jack and Rosalie. Jess held his breath, waiting for Rosalie to voice an objection to her daughter being offered hard liquor. Instead, she held out her glass in a toast.
"To a profitable voyage and the continued good health of all those I hold dear... including my newest wards."
Wards? Since when? An' what does she mean by profit? Financial... or personal?
"Celia... why don't you and Uncle Jack take Jess and Jay Dee aboard and show them to their quarters. It's too late for the nickel tour and you don't want to get in the way of the dockmen. Don't look so glum, Jess—I'll be along shortly to say goodbye."
Thus dismissed, the two did as told, following the girl's lead across the gangplank to the main deck and up a spiral iron companionway to the one above. Passing through an enclosed saloon they entered a passageway with eight standard compartment doors ranging on either side. Apparently the Jolie Rouge wasn't set up to carry more than eight to sixteen passengers.
Opening the door to the last stateroom on the starboard side, Uncle Jack stood aside to let Jess and Jay Dee pass.
"Mother hopes you don't mind sharing," Celia said. "There are other passengers this trip, but none going as far as you."
An' what happens to them? They gonna fall overboard along the way? Jess wondered.
The stateroom, though far from sumptuous, was more than adequate for two grown men, with a single bunk on either side and storage lockers above and below. Across from the passageway entrance, a glass door gave out onto a promenade with safety railings. In addition, a large window promised an excellent daylight view once they were underway. Under the window and attached to the bulkhead was a narrow writing desk. A small straightback chair sported a lanyard with which to secure it in the event of heavy seas. A lantern depended from the overhead and a second one mounted in a holder above the desk. Their luggage had already been brought up along with some unfamiliar pieces they hadn't started out with.
"I'll help you unpack, if you wish," Celia offered as Uncle Jack departed on other business.
"Sure... thanks," Jay Dee replied before Jess could comment on the impropriety of a young lady alone with two men on an otherwise deserted deck.
They'd just finished stowing their gear when Rosalie came in.
"Celia... I imagine you and Jay Dee would like to make your goodbyes in private, as would I. Why don't you two step out to the saloon while Jess and I have a word."
No arm twisting was required and in moments the older couple were alone.
"I can't begin to thank you enough for everythin' you done for us, Rosalie," Jess ventured, realizing they were standing uncomfortably close together... and that somehow without his noticing the overhead light had been turned off. Her face was luminescent in the faint illumination issuing from the desk lamp turned to its lowest setting. Jess started to panic as inappropriate thoughts immediately translated to inappropriate physical responses.
"I don't know why..."
Stepping forward, Rosalie extended a hand to stroke his cheek with a feather-soft touch. "Does there have to be a why? Because I wanted to. Because my Orí directed me to assist you in any way possible, and so I have done."
Before Jess could ask, Rosalie explained that Orí was her personal god, the equivalent of a Christian guardian angel.
"But..."
"No buts. Before I go I must tell you this, Jess Harper. In all the years since Mister Mount, I have never been so attracted to any man as I've been to you. If I weren't old enough to be your mother..."
Jess' jaw dropped. "Are you kiddin'? Celia's what... only eighteen?"
Rosalie's tinkling laugh was music to his ears.
"Seventeen. She was my bonus baby. Her father was just the last of many husbands. I have sons your age. Not all the children under my roof are orphans... some are grandchildren."
Jess contemplated this astonishing revelation for all of sixty seconds before deciding, in this surreal moment out of time, their age difference was of no consequence.
"Miss Rosalie... can I kiss you goodbye?"
"I would be terribly disappointed if you didn't."
Later, in the darkness of their stateroom, neither Jess nor Jay Dee were able to sleep. A wizened old Cajun who turned out to be both steward and cook brought them pitchers of water for drinking and for washing. The room also had a tiny washstand and shaving mirror anchored in a corner. Indicating that if they needed anything they had only to summon him from his lair at the end of the passageway and he would see to it, the man left. They would be casting off at precisely two o'clock and should be safely through the Bolivar channel by the time breakfast was served.
The room was dark except for lambent moonlight glancing off the window glass. Neither of them had thought to pull down the spring-rolled shades.
"Hope you didn't get too stuck on that Celia," Jess finally commented, apropos of nothing. "Probably a good thing we couldn't stay any longer..."
Jay Dee grunted. "Wouldn't have done me any good anyway. She's going into the convent in the fall."
"I hear them convent schools are pretty good..."
"Not school, Jess... convent. As in, the convent... she's going to be a nun."
"You sure?"
"She is."
"Her momma ain't gonna like that."
"Miz Rosalie knows... and she approves."
"Oh." Then, "What a waste."
"Tell me about it. But you know what? I got to kiss her before she left."
"Good for you." Jess decided he didn't need to relate his own goodbye experience. It was a private moment and one he'd treasure forever.
"We're not coming back this way, are we?" Jay Dee asked.
"Don't think so... why?"
"You do know Captain Booger's a smuggler, don't you?"
"Say whaaaaat?" Jess sat up too quickly, smacking his head on the overhead bin. "You're kidding!"
"Celia told me. The official cargo, in case we're intercepted by customs agents, is sugar and salt."
"What's the unofficial cargo?"
"Rum. Crates of the stuff. I thought you would've guessed."
Thursday, October 23rd... Jess and Jay Dee were awakened by the boilers firing up and the paddlewheel beginning its rotation as the boat backed away from the dock. Voices floated down from above and up from below as instructions were issued and confirmed. If other passengers had come aboard, they'd been awfully quiet about it. Perhaps they'd already been aboard and retired to their own staterooms before the Mount party had even arrived. In any event, the transit from marsh to open water was so smooth they both fell back asleep and didn't wake up again until the steward knocked on their door the next morning.
Breakfast was available in the saloon to both crew and passengers—no rush as not everyone could attend at the same time, some of the crewmembers still being on duty. Food service would continue until everyone onboard had been fed.
Jess turned a little pale as they entered the saloon and had a look around. Wide glass windows fronted three sides of the room—nothing to be seen beyond the rain-drizzled glass but gray: gray waves, gray skies and, in the near distance, a darker strip of gray representing the coastline of the Bolivar Peninsula.
Seven other men were already seated, some just finishing up and others just starting to tuck in. If there were any women on board, they were keeping to their quarters. As for the diners, it was difficult to distinguish passengers from crew as they were all dressed pretty much alike in work clothes, aside from two fairly prosperous-looking gents.
The fare was presented boarding-house style—big bowls and platters of the usual and customary breakfast grub, passed around hand to hand... scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, sausages and bacon, biscuits. Nothing to compare with cookery ala Maison Mount but fresh, hot and filling. Every few minutes the cook/steward bustled in with replenishments and more coffee.
Jess ate sparingly and immediately returned to their stateroom. Jay Dee wanted to explore. He had a passing familiarity with boats—pleasure sailcraft mostly, and the screw-driven mail packets that plied the California coast, but this was his first experience with a paddlewheeler. Asking the attendant if there was a spare sou'wester he could borrow, he was directed to a rack on the wall and told to pick any one that fit. Descending to the main deck, he struck up a conversation with a deckhand who took him back to the engine room where muscle-bound stokers ceaselessly fed wood into fireboxes and the engineer monitored temperature and pressure gauges of the twin boilers. It was hotter than six kinds of hell back there.
On the way out he encountered Captain Baldwin (just call me 'Booger') on his après breakfast inspection rounds.
"Gimme a few minutes ta check on my crew then come up ta the wheelhouse. Nicer view up there."
View of what, Jay Dee thought, but he hung around and trailed the captain with the interesting name above to the wheelhouse.
Cap'n Booger was happy to impart whatever knowledge his audience seemed interested in wanting to hear. Jolie Rouge was a sternwheel steamboat, seventy feet long with a sixteen and a half foot beam. She drew four feet of water, light, with a scant three feet of freeboard. The entire main deck, constituting the cargo hold, was enclosed with barely eighteen inches of walkaround giving outside access to the stern. No hand rails, merely a rope tacked to the bulwark. The promenade deck contained eight passenger staterooms (which could be used for cargo in a pinch), the saloon which doubled as a mess hall, a minuscule sundeck, the galley, the cook/steward's quarters and supply locker. Up top were the captain's quarters, a wardroom for the crew, and their dormitory-style sleeping facilities. The glassed-in wheelhouse itself was elevated, affording a three-hundred-sixty degree view.
Cap'n Booger claimed that despite the Jolie Rouge's somewhat shabby appearance, she was sound as a twenty-dollar gold piece. As part owner, he was meticulous about maintenance... and the well-being of his crew. Her less than spiffy exterior was intentional—a clever ploy to avoid unwanted attention from customs agents and pirates.
Jay Dee had questions aplenty... Did they sail at night? Not if they could avoid it—the preference was to pull into a protective cove or inlet and tie up. Sure, it took longer to get to where they were going, but infinitely safer. Motoring this close to the shoreline, there was always a danger of reefs and shoals, which is why the captain kept a man topside with a spyglass. You couldn't always count on the accuracy of charts.
How long would it take them to get to Pensacola? Ten days minimum, depending on weather conditions and how many stops they made along the way to discharge or take on passengers, offload goods at settlements, and take on wood and potable water as needed. Best count on fourteen days. With calm seas they could average seventy-five miles per day without stops. The rougher the seas, the lower the average.
Would they have to sail all the way around the massive Mississippi delta region or were there any shortcuts through the thousands of barrier islands? Cap'n Booger admitted slyly that, yes indeed, he had imprinted in his head a good many cut-throughs that didn't appear on any maritime charts.
How many crew were normally onboard at any given time? Usually ten to twelve but they were a tad short this run, with only eight. They might be able to pick up an able seaman or two at one of the settlements.
Jay Dee had been saving back a question that was burning a hole in the back of his head. Cap'n Booger was being so affable that he judged now might be an opportune time to put it out there...