A Twist of Fate
Part Two (A)
June 1867
Dean kept look out while his little brother slowly and carefully wiggled a stiff piece of wire into the padlock attached to the front door of Hayden Bros Freight Depot.
‘How’s it goin’ Sammy?’ Dean asked after a while. He turned his head slightly and watched his little brother, the tip of the boy’s tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated.
Sam sucked in a quiet breath of air. ‘S’okay. I remember this. Dad teachin’ us how to do it. I think I nearly got it. I-’ he broke off with a pleased sound as the padlock fell open.
With a final furtive glance around the darkened dockyards, Dean pulled the warehouse door open and shepherded his little brother inside. In the morning, someone was going to catch hell for ‘forgetting’ to lock the warehouse, but when nothing was missing, Dean figured they’d just breathe a sigh of relief and forget about it.
The warehouse was packed tight with bags of flour, bags of soy beans, boxes of apples and barrels of cider. Dean found a secluded place behind a mountain of piled produce and created a makeshift bed out of sacks of flour and empty hessian bags. Sammy was asleep within minutes, the stress of the day finally catching up with him, but Dean lay awake for ages, going over the plan in his head.
It had been a little after eleven pm when they’d made their way out of the Reaper’s locked wood shed and broken into the main house. The dogs had barely raised a whimper as the boys had tiptoed into the kitchen. Dean had gathered together a selection of bread, cheese and scraps of pork from the larder and wrapped the whole lot in a large piece of cheese cloth, before filling a metal flask with water. They’d helped themselves to a couple of bedrolls, then Sammy had hugged the dogs goodbye and they’d slipped like ghosts into the empty darkness of the night and headed down to the docks.
The plan was to stow away on a steam boat and make their way to New York City. Once there, they’d find work and look for their Dad. Dean had no idea how far away New York City was, no idea at all how long it would take to get there, but he was determined to do it. There was no way they could stay in Kansas City, not after what Sammy had done to the deputy mayor, and it was Dean’s job to protect his little brother. One way or another they were going to make it to New York. And if Dean couldn’t find Dad, well, they’d just have to make their fortune by themselves. New York was a thriving city of opportunity, or so Dean had heard: a place where a young man who was willing to work hard could do well for himself. If they didn’t find Dad, Dean would continue to make good on the promise he’d made his father. He’d take of Sammy, no matter what.
-X-
Clattering, shouting, noise and confusion jerked Dean wide awake, right on dawn.
‘Have a good look ‘round,’ a gruff voice demanded, ‘we need to know what’s been stolen.’
‘Dean!’ Sammy whispered, his eyes wide with fear.
Dean hushed him and maneuvered them so that the hessian sacks hid them from view. They stayed still and silent until the dock men had decided that nothing was missing, and then they snuck out of the warehouse and into the dockyard.
The sights and sounds of the busy waterfront district had Sammy entranced. The clamorous hustle and bustle along the banks of the Missouri, and up and down the city’s earthen streets, reflected the commerce so important to the livelihood of the town and its outlying regions. Sam stared about in awe, listening to the steamboat whistles, the lapping of the water and the churning of the paddles, as the great boats waited for their cargo. On the river banks, horses nickered, mules brayed, oxen bellowed, and teamsters shouted orders to their teams. Saddles creaked and chains rattled as horses in harness shook themselves and there was a constant clip clop of hooves, of men shouting greetings and advice to one another, and of boots and shoes thumping and pounding along the gangplanks and out onto the steamboats, as the dock workers loaded great bundles of cloth, crates, barrels, and a wide assortment of goods onto the boats.
Dean dragged Sam out of the midst of the hubbub and into a quiet area out of the way. They breakfasted on bread, cheese and water and then Dean went and re-filled their water bottle, going to the edge of the river and dipping the flask beneath its fast moving surface. The boys washed up and tidied themselves by the side of the river and then Dean bade Sammy stay out of the way and went and lurked among the dock workers, listening for information. He soon learned that if he wanted to go to New York, he would have to go to St Louis first. There were a dozen or so steamboats moored at the waterfront and it didn’t take him long to find out which of these would be docking at St Louis. He inspected the St Louis bound boats carefully and selected his target. He fetched Sam from his hiding place and the boys sat and watched, then picked their moment carefully and snuck onto the boat through a freight hatch.
The main deck looked a little like a large open shed. The forward section housed the boilers and engines, and below deck, where the boys had entered, were the holds for extra freight. Here, anything and everything could be found: pigs, cooped chickens, household goods, sacks, bales, boxes, barrels, stacked cordwood for the roaring fireboxes under the boilers-and the poorest of passengers. Deck passengers made the trip living in their own wagons, or sleeping on the planks. It was the cheapest passage possible and Dean was confident that a couple of kids would blend easily among the mess of unwashed humanity and livestock which mingled below deck.
Dean had learned that the journey to St Louis would take six to nine days because although it was only 336 miles by river from Kansas City to St Louis, the Missouri River was a powerful and dangerous stretch of water, with treacherous, shifting currents, low water points, submerged tree branches, snags and sandbars. This meant the boat had to anchor at night because not even the most foolhardy pilot would attempt to navigate the Missouri in the dark.
The first few days aboard the S.S. Amanda were a joy for the Winchester brothers. There were children and animals for Sammy to play with, there was a fascinating working steamboat to explore and there was an ever changing parade of scenery to watch from the main deck. The brothers saw wagon trains pass by, settlers huts, river bank towns in all shapes and sizes, a couple of black bears, elks, wild turkeys and on one memorable occasion a platoon of cavalrymen rode by. More memorable still was the day when a squadron of Indian braves paddled alongside the Amanda in their canoes.
Sammy smiled and waved at them and was promptly cuffed on the back of the head by a deck hand.
‘You lookin’ to get scalped, boy?’ the deck hand demanded, ‘they’re treacherous them Injins. Grateful to trade with ya one day, blood thirsty and lookin’ to kill ya the next.’
‘Them Injins call our boats ‘fire canoes’,’ one of the passengers commented, ‘because they eat wood and water and puff out smoke.’
Dean subtly pulled Sammy away from the conversation before somebody started to wonder who the kid’s Pa was and maybe thought to ask to see his ticket. There were no strangers in Sammy’s world, only friends he hadn’t met yet. For a runaway, it was a dangerous attitude, one that could get them into a world of trouble if they weren’t careful.
The boys’ favorite activity, though, was figuring out how the boat worked. Dean spent many a happy hour exploring the Amanda, although he stayed clear of the Cabin deck with its long central saloon and individual state rooms, unless he was looking to steal food, and he never ventured near the texas (officers’ cabins) or the pilothouse either. In truth, there wasn’t much of a mechanical nature to see in the pilothouse, although it might have been fun to get right up close to the billowing crowned chimneys. Steamboat pilots didn’t use navigational equipment to steer their vessels, they used their own uncanny sixth sense and their hard won knowledge of the river’s twists, turns, moods and depths.
Dean’s favorite place on the boat was the boiler room, where firemen, all of them Negroes, fed wood into the roaring fireboxes which powered the engines. If he was quick he could usually avoid detection by the engineers and sneak into the boiler room to observe the workings of the engine. The firemen usually spotted him, but mostly they just smiled and winked and let him hide himself away and watch. The boiler room held four boilers and Dean imagined that it had a lot in common with Hell. Not only was the area dominated by the fireboxes’ violent, spitting, orange flames, but each stroke of the steam engine discharged water and heat from the boiler into the atmosphere, which meant that the air was not only hot, but steamy and humid too.
Each boiler consumed tons of fuel and thousands of gallons of fresh water every hour and much of the firemen’s time was spent force pumping water into the boiler against a sizeable amount of built up back pressure. This was a job for two men. To do this, they inserted long poles into the head of the pump and pushed up and down, working the pistons which drew water up from beneath the boat and injected it into the boiler. It was hard, laborious, sweaty work, and sometimes, when the river was low, they had to stop the boat and tie up while the engineers and firemen worked feverishly to clean all the mud from the pump, pipes and, boilers. Dean was fascinated. Engines, he decided, were awesome. Sam was less enthusiastic about the boiler room, but because he couldn’t be left alone without deciding to talk to people, Dean frequently made Sam come with him when he stowed away to watch the engines. Fortunately a preacher man on the boat had given Sam a bible and Sam would sit quietly and read it while Dean happily watched injectors, steam jets, suction jets, combining jets, combination tubes, pistons and overflow valves.
With no parents and no money Dean and Sam were forced to resort to theft if they wanted to eat. Sometimes this meant stealing from other passengers, sometimes it meant getting into the cargo and sometimes it meant venturing up onto the Cabin deck and stealing the food meant for the rich folk.
On the fifth day of their river boat journey, Dean snuck up onto the Cabin deck in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, slipped into the kitchen, and quickly shoved some bread and cheese up inside his shirt. He paused at the door, looked right, and then left, before creeping quietly towards the stairs. He’d gone barely half a dozen steps when a large hand snagged him by the wrist and hauled him back into the kitchen, before shoving him up against the wall with a thud.
‘Well, well, well,’ said a sneering member of the Cabin crew, ‘what do we have here?’
He reached up underneath Dean’s shirt and pulled out the bread and cheese, placing it on the side with a sigh.
‘Right, lad,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and speak to your Pa, shall we?’
Dean said nothing. The crew member stared at him intently and Dean did his best to meet the man’s gaze impassively. Whatever he was looking for, the crew member seemed to find it in Dean’s face, for he nodded suddenly and released his hold on the boy.
‘I see,’ he said, ‘a stowaway. By rights I could have you whipped, then handed over to the sheriff in the next town we dock at. Would you like that?’
Dean shook his head. A whipping he could handle, but being handed over to the sheriff and leaving Sammy on the boat? Or having Sammy handed over to the sheriff too? That he couldn’t handle.
The man leered at him.
‘Then maybe we could come to an arrangement.’ He palmed his crotch with one hand and pushed Dean to his knees with the other.
-X-
Dean made it as far as the main deck before the urge to vomit overwhelmed him. He lurched to the side of the boat and hurled violently into the water, retching and spitting and hurling again as the taste…oh God the taste…flooded his mouth once more. Dean wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and looked around cautiously. Most people were still sleeping, although a few were starting to rouse. A woman nursing a baby was looking at him with pity, but no-one else was paying him any mind, just going about their early morning tasks in a half-lidded daze. Dean slipped quietly across the main deck, walking purposefully, not wanting to give the woman with the baby a chance to ask him whether she should fetch his Ma for him. He headed straight for Sammy, needing to check on him, to make sure he was alright. Kneeling next to his little brother’s bedroll, he reached out a tentative hand and smoothed the sleeping boy’s wayward hair. The touch soothed and comforted him, yet at the same time it magnified his feeling of shame and he withdrew his hand, feeling almost as though Sam would be sullied by his touch. Sam stirred slightly, moving instinctively towards his brother, seeking out the lost connection, and Dean stood up and backed away. He couldn’t face Sammy yet, his emotions were too raw. Sam would take one look at his face and bug him endlessly until he told him what was wrong. And Dean was never…never…going to tell Sam what was wrong.
Dean’s feet moved abruptly, choosing his path for him. He wasn’t really surprised when they walked him straight into the hell pit of the boiler room. The rhythm of the engines soothed him, and even though they were still and silent now, their proximity was still relaxing. Dean curled up in his usual dark corner and stared at the engines. He imagined the way the valves opened and closed, envisioned the long, thick pistons thrusting back and forth, and suddenly he was on his feet again, bent at the waist, shoulders heaving, shaking and vomiting.
‘You okay, kid?’
Dean raised his head. It was one of the firemen; the oldest and surliest of the eight Negroes who inhabited the below deck area. He didn’t suffer fools gladly this man, and he had a smart mouth on him too; Dean had often found himself sniggering at the man’s whip fast retorts and sarcastic comments.
‘Yeah. Sorry.’ he said.
The man nodded.
‘Good. Then I’m gonna go get you a rag an’ you can clean this mess up.’
He vanished into the darkness only to return a moment later with a dirty rag, which he tried to hand to Dean.
‘You simple, boy?’ he demanded when Dean just stared at him.
In truth, Dean was struggling to control his shaking. Last time a man had been this close to him-not so very long ago-he had been pushed to his knees and….
Dean threw up again.
The man sighed.
‘You been on the hooch, boy?’
Dean shook his head.
‘Look,’ the man leaned over, ‘it ain’t that hard. You just gotta drop the rag down an’ let it soak up all the…’ his eyes bulged as he got a good look at the watery vomit on the floor. It was liberally laced with a creamy white fluid and the man’s own stomach almost rebelled when he realized what that fluid was and how it must’ve gotten into the kid’s stomach.
‘Ah shit, kid,’ he muttered, his voice surprisingly raw.
And that was it. The man knew. He knew and he understood what the cabin crew member had done to Dean; what he’d made Dean do.
Dean broke down. Wrecked, guttural sobs flooded from his very core, pushing their way up his throat and choking out of him with visceral intensity. Time was meaningless until a tentative arm snaked itself across his shoulders. A reluctant hand patted his back ineffectually and yet somehow it helped. Dean hauled himself back from the brink with a final stuttering sob and then wiped his face on his sleeve.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered, unable to look the man in the face.
He stared at the floor and realized that the man had placed the rag he’d been holding over the puddle of his vomit, hiding it from view.
Dean felt a hand on his chin and he tensed, but all the man did was raise his head and force Dean to meet his eyes.
‘What’s your name, kid?’
‘Dean.’ He probably should’ve lied, but he was too wrung out.
The man released his hold on Dean and held out his hand.
‘Pleased to meet you, Dean. I’m Rufus. You wanna sit for a while?’
Dean shook the offered hand, then nodded and Rufus led the way to the back of the boiler room where he had his bedroll and a few bits and pieces set up.
‘The young’uns all sleep on the other side,’ Rufus said, ‘I sleep way over here cuz I’m an ornery sonovabitch an’ I don’t generally like company. Take a seat.’
Dean lowered himself to the floor and leaned back against the wall. Rufus sat down next to him.
‘You wanna talk about it?’ Rufus asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Good. I ain’t much with feelin’s an’ shit. I will say this though. It ain’t your fault, Dean. You ain’t the one who should be feelin’ ashamed.’
Dean didn’t respond. He wished he could believe Rufus, but his sense of humiliation was fierce and didn’t know how to just stop feeling ashamed. Dean covered his face with his hands.
‘You hear me boy?’ Rufus demanded, and for a moment Dean was so strongly reminded of his Dad that a ‘yessir’ popped out of his mouth on pure reflex.
Rufus snorted. ‘Sir. That’s a new’un.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I, eh, I seen you hidin’ down here watching the engines, your lil’ brother too. Seen you on the deck a coupla times. Ain’t never seen your folks.’
Dean tensed again and Rufus had his answer.
‘Stowaways, huh? That’s what…whoever…has over you?’
Dean risked a glance at his companion and when he saw nothing but compassion on the man’s face he nodded.
Rufus sighed. ‘You think the sonovabitch is gonna come after you again?’
Dean nodded. ‘He said…tonight. Just after dusk.’
‘He’s gonna come an’ get you?’
Dean shook his head.
‘I gotta go to him.’
Rufus swore under his breath.
‘You gonna go?’
Dean swallowed; then nodded.
‘I don’t wanna put Sammy in any danger. We should be in St Louis soon, right? It’s only a couple more days. I…I can deal.’
Rufus shook his head and muttered a few choice words.
He reached into his duffle and pulled out a bottle.
‘See this? Finest moonshine in the tri state area.’
He rummaged in his duffel again and came up with a smaller bottle, into which he poured a small measure of the clear liquid.
‘I’m prob’ly gonna go to Hell for givin’ you this…but…this here’s for medicinal purposes. Take a coupla nips beforehand to calm your nerves. Take a coupla nips afterwards to…well…’ Rufus handed the small bottle to Dean and then fixed him with a baleful glare. ‘I catch you makin’ a habit o’ the hooch, it ain’t gonna be pretty.’
‘Yessir,’ Dean responded with a grin.
Rufus chuckled sadly and ruffled his hair.
-X-
It didn’t take a genius to see that there was something really off with Dean, and Sammy Winchester was very far from stupid. So he hovered over his brother like a broody hen, questioned everything, and was generally clingy and on the verge of a major tantrum the whole day. There was no way that Dean was going to be able to sneak off to-Dean pulled a face-pay for his steamboat passage, without Sam noticing. So Dean did the only thing possible. He pulled his brother aside and lied to him.
‘I’m meeting a girl, Sammy. I’ll only be gone half an hour. Please don’t mess this up for me. Please Sammy!’
True to his word, Dean was only gone for half an hour, but when he returned, he looked pale and shaken and his eyes were frighteningly blank.
‘Are you alright?’ Sam asked.
‘Yeah. Fine.’ Dean said dully.
Sam observed his brother silently for a moment.
‘So I guess you won’t be meeting up with girls anymore?’
‘Huh? What makes you say that?’
‘Well…you don’t look very happy right now.’
‘Right. Nearly got caught, that’s all. It’s all good Sammy.’
Sam very nearly called bullshit, but his brother’s eyes were pleading with him to let it go, so he did, with a sigh. Dean relaxed and smiled gratefully.
‘C’mon,’ he said, ‘There’s something I gotta do. Come with me.’
Wild hell hounds couldn’t have torn Sam away from Dean at that point, although he wasn’t terribly happy when he realized that they were heading for the boiler room. Again. It was different down here at night, though. The boat was anchored, so the engines were quiet, and it was a lot cooler and less steamy than usual too. But that wasn’t the biggest difference. The biggest difference was the party atmosphere. The firemen, who all labored so silently and strenuously during the day, really kicked things up at night. Someone was playing a banjo, the hooch was flowing, there was a lot of tobacco being chewed, and a lot of friendly arguing and laughing too. It all came to a halt when Dean and Sam appeared.
‘Hi,’ Dean said, ‘I’m just here to see Rufus.’
Rufus appeared from behind him.
‘Dean?’
Dean looked at Rufus, back towards the seven young guys who’d been laughing and chatting together and then back at Rufus emerging from the dark.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘ornery sonovabitch.’
The other firemen all held their breath and Dean wondered for a minute if he’d overstepped. Then Rufus burst out laughing and slapped him on the back.
‘What happened to ‘yessir’?’ he asked, ‘Come with me, son. Kiddo,’ he looked at Sammy, ‘you stay here with the boys for a minute.’
‘You okay?’ Rufus asked when they had retreated to the privacy of his sleeping area.
Dean nodded and held the little bottle out to Rufus.
‘It helped a bit. Can I have a refill?’
Rufus acquiesced and then said sternly, ‘It’s strictly medicinal, you understand? You go an’ start makin’ a habit out of it-’
‘You’ll kick my ass,’ Dean finished, ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Well alright then.’
They went back to the party and found Sammy ensconced in the middle of the guys. They were all of them, Sammy included, sporting cuts on their hands.
‘What the devil is goin’ on?’ Rufus barked.
Sammy looked up at him with his big puppy dog eyes.
‘I just wanted to see if we all had the same color blood,’ he said.
Dean gaped at him.
‘What? Why?’
Sammy frowned at him, like it should be obvious.
‘Well, cuz we’ve got different colored skin, and different colored eyes and different colored hair. I just wanted to see if anything on the inside was a different color.’
‘Oh,’ Dean said sarcastically, ‘Want me to peel back your flesh so you can check if y’all have got the same color bones?’
Sammy huffed irritably at him. ‘I just think it’s really cool,’ he said, ‘that God made us come in so many different colors on the outside, but inside we’re all the same.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Rufus.
‘Your Ma and Pa know you’re down here?’ one of the other firemen asked.
‘They’re stowaways, Solomon,’ Rufus told him, before either Dean or Sam could respond.
Solomon laughed.
‘Runaways, hey?’ He punched Sam lightly on the arm, ‘Where you running to, Sammy?’
‘New York City.’
Solomon laughed again.
‘What’s so funny?’ Dean demanded.
‘Us,’ he indicated the group, ‘a bunch of colored guys,’ he clarified, ‘helping to smuggle a coupla white boys across the Mason-Dixon line. It’s like,’ he tilted his head to one side, ‘It’s like a reverse underground railroad!’
‘It’s a steamboat, not a steam train,’ Sammy said helpfully.
Solomon laughed again. ‘I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout a actual railroad with a actual steam train,’ he said, ‘I’m talkin’ ‘bout the underground railroad. It’s a…a…’
‘Metaphor,’ supplied Rufus.
‘Right,’ Solomon nodded, ‘See white folks who was abolitionists, they would volunteer their homes to be safe houses. They was all connected in a network. All the safe houses had hidden entries, usually through the cellar, so that colored folk could get in an’ out without anybody noticin’. An’ all the safe houses had hidden passages that led to hidden rooms so that colored folk could hide there, outta sight, durin’ the day.’
‘Hidden passages?’ Sam breathed, transfixed by Solomon’s story, ‘That’s so cool!’
Solomon grinned at him.
‘Runaway slaves would travel by night from one safe house to the next on their way north. So…the safe houses was kinda like train depots. The runaways would travel by foot or they’d be hidden inside wagons, but mostly they was by foot. An’ they’d hide in a safe house during the day. An’ that’s the underground railroad. Nothin’ to do with steam trains.’
‘So uh, were any of you slaves?’ Dean asked tentatively.
‘All of us.’
‘Any of you ever run away?’
Solomon shrugged. ‘Most of us was freed durin’ the war. Emancipation Proclamation and all that.’
Dean looked at Rufus, the question obvious in his eyes.
‘Ran away a coupla times,’ he said with forced nonchalance, ‘and I got the scars on my back to prove it. Second time I ran away I joined the union army.’
‘You were a soldier?’
Rufus nodded. ‘4th Regiment, Infantry, United States Colored Troops. Saw action in Virginia and North Carolina. In ’65 I even got to see the surrender of General Johnston an’ his army. That was sweet.’
He met Dean’s enraptured gaze.
‘Course, despite all their pretty talk they couldn’t have a colored man leading the regiment so all our officers were white. And for a while there, we were paid a lot less than the enlisted white men,’ he glanced at Sam, ‘despite the fact that our blood was just as red as theirs whenever we all got shot or stabbed.’
Sam’s eyes widened. ‘That’s not fair!’ he complained.
Solomon laughed again. ‘I like this boy.’
‘Bastards won’t give me my pension either,’ Rufus muttered, ‘assholes tol’ me I got plenty years labor in me yet and there ain’t no reason a strong colored man should expect to sit on his ass and let the government keep ‘im. Course they sing a different tune if you’re white.’
‘That’s so unfair!’ Sammy raged, and no-one could mistake the cold fury in the little boy’s voice.
‘Life isn’t fair, Sammy,’ Dean said quietly. ‘When are you gonna get that?’
‘You know what ain’t fair?’ Rufus interrupted, ‘I dragged my sorry ass all the way over here to socialize with you folk and no-one’s offered me a drink yet. C’mon Eddie, get that banjo playin’ again.’
Eddie dutifully started strumming away on his banjo, a couple of the other guys started singing and Solomon passed Rufus a bottle of moonshine, which he promptly complained about, labeling it the worst hooch he’d ever tasted.
‘Bet if I put a match to it, it’d flame yellow,’ he grouched.
He disappeared back to his bedroll, returning promptly with his own bottle of the distilled beverage.
‘Now this? This is the good stuff,’ he said, ‘burns blue, tested it myself.’
He then proceeded to lecture everyone on the traits of good moonshine and from what Dean could tell, he really knew his stuff.
‘What?’ he said off Dean’s stunned expression, ‘You think I’m a heathen?’
It wasn’t long before Sammy fell asleep. Dean covered him with a blanket and sat back, enjoying the company. He was just starting to think that he should probably carry his little brother back upstairs to his own bedroll and turn in for the night himself, when the clomping of boots on wooden rungs had him flattening himself into the shadows against the wall.
‘Boys,’ said one of the engineers, as he entered the room. The firemen all got to their feet, keeping the sleeping Sam hidden behind them.
‘Whassup, Boss?’ Solomon said.
The engineer cracked his knuckles and grinned gleefully.
‘Got a race lined up, lads. When we leave New Haven tomorrow, we’ll be racing the Magellan. First in to St Louis wins-and big bets’ve been laid, lads! We win, and there’s a bonus in it for all of you!’
‘You’ve gotta be kiddin’!’ Rufus growled, ‘You know the number three boiler’s only been patch repaired!’ and then as an afterthought he added, ‘Sir.’
The engineer glowered at Rufus.
‘There’s big money riding on this. The captain’s not gonna call this off anymore than he was gonna stop for three days to let us replace the boiler. We’re just gonna have to make it work. Y’all hear me?’
‘Yessir,’ the men responded.
The engineer disappeared back up onto the deck and Rufus drew a deep breath.
‘Goddamn stupid sonovabitch,’ he muttered, before turning back to the others.
‘We better get some rest. Cuz we’re gonna have our work cut out for us tomorrow, tryin’ to make sure this thing don’t go up like the Sultana.’
‘Dean?’
Dean stepped forward out of the shadows when Rufus called his name.
‘Take Sammy up to bed,’ he said. ‘And tomorrow, you stay outta the boiler room. Tomorrow, you don’t come nowhere near the boiler room. You stay on deck, close to the rails, and as far away from the engines as you can get, you hear me boy?’
Dean nodded.
‘And if…if we blow, you take your little brother and you get off this boat. Can you swim?’
Dean nodded again.
‘Then you swim, as far away as possible, as fast as possible.’
‘No way,’ Dean said shakily, ‘Not before I make sure you’re okay.’
Rufus rounded on him fast. ‘I see you do anything other than look out for yourself and Sammy, and I will put you over my knee! I can take care of myself Dean. Now go on, get.’
Dean woke Sammy up and dragged the sleepy boy back up on deck. Sam soon fell back asleep, but Dean lay awake for hours, his mind churning. Today he’d been forced to do the most sickening, disgusting thing ever-twice-and he was horrified and humiliated more than he’d thought humanly possible. But that paled into insignificance when he considered the possibility that tomorrow, the Amanda may be blown sky high. And his new friends would be right at the epicenter of the blast.
Part Two (B)
June 1867
Dean kept look out while his little brother slowly and carefully wiggled a stiff piece of wire into the padlock attached to the front door of Hayden Bros Freight Depot.
‘How’s it goin’ Sammy?’ Dean asked after a while. He turned his head slightly and watched his little brother, the tip of the boy’s tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated.
Sam sucked in a quiet breath of air. ‘S’okay. I remember this. Dad teachin’ us how to do it. I think I nearly got it. I-’ he broke off with a pleased sound as the padlock fell open.
With a final furtive glance around the darkened dockyards, Dean pulled the warehouse door open and shepherded his little brother inside. In the morning, someone was going to catch hell for ‘forgetting’ to lock the warehouse, but when nothing was missing, Dean figured they’d just breathe a sigh of relief and forget about it.
The warehouse was packed tight with bags of flour, bags of soy beans, boxes of apples and barrels of cider. Dean found a secluded place behind a mountain of piled produce and created a makeshift bed out of sacks of flour and empty hessian bags. Sammy was asleep within minutes, the stress of the day finally catching up with him, but Dean lay awake for ages, going over the plan in his head.
It had been a little after eleven pm when they’d made their way out of the Reaper’s locked wood shed and broken into the main house. The dogs had barely raised a whimper as the boys had tiptoed into the kitchen. Dean had gathered together a selection of bread, cheese and scraps of pork from the larder and wrapped the whole lot in a large piece of cheese cloth, before filling a metal flask with water. They’d helped themselves to a couple of bedrolls, then Sammy had hugged the dogs goodbye and they’d slipped like ghosts into the empty darkness of the night and headed down to the docks.
The plan was to stow away on a steam boat and make their way to New York City. Once there, they’d find work and look for their Dad. Dean had no idea how far away New York City was, no idea at all how long it would take to get there, but he was determined to do it. There was no way they could stay in Kansas City, not after what Sammy had done to the deputy mayor, and it was Dean’s job to protect his little brother. One way or another they were going to make it to New York. And if Dean couldn’t find Dad, well, they’d just have to make their fortune by themselves. New York was a thriving city of opportunity, or so Dean had heard: a place where a young man who was willing to work hard could do well for himself. If they didn’t find Dad, Dean would continue to make good on the promise he’d made his father. He’d take of Sammy, no matter what.
-X-
Clattering, shouting, noise and confusion jerked Dean wide awake, right on dawn.
‘Have a good look ‘round,’ a gruff voice demanded, ‘we need to know what’s been stolen.’
‘Dean!’ Sammy whispered, his eyes wide with fear.
Dean hushed him and maneuvered them so that the hessian sacks hid them from view. They stayed still and silent until the dock men had decided that nothing was missing, and then they snuck out of the warehouse and into the dockyard.
The sights and sounds of the busy waterfront district had Sammy entranced. The clamorous hustle and bustle along the banks of the Missouri, and up and down the city’s earthen streets, reflected the commerce so important to the livelihood of the town and its outlying regions. Sam stared about in awe, listening to the steamboat whistles, the lapping of the water and the churning of the paddles, as the great boats waited for their cargo. On the river banks, horses nickered, mules brayed, oxen bellowed, and teamsters shouted orders to their teams. Saddles creaked and chains rattled as horses in harness shook themselves and there was a constant clip clop of hooves, of men shouting greetings and advice to one another, and of boots and shoes thumping and pounding along the gangplanks and out onto the steamboats, as the dock workers loaded great bundles of cloth, crates, barrels, and a wide assortment of goods onto the boats.
Dean dragged Sam out of the midst of the hubbub and into a quiet area out of the way. They breakfasted on bread, cheese and water and then Dean went and re-filled their water bottle, going to the edge of the river and dipping the flask beneath its fast moving surface. The boys washed up and tidied themselves by the side of the river and then Dean bade Sammy stay out of the way and went and lurked among the dock workers, listening for information. He soon learned that if he wanted to go to New York, he would have to go to St Louis first. There were a dozen or so steamboats moored at the waterfront and it didn’t take him long to find out which of these would be docking at St Louis. He inspected the St Louis bound boats carefully and selected his target. He fetched Sam from his hiding place and the boys sat and watched, then picked their moment carefully and snuck onto the boat through a freight hatch.
The main deck looked a little like a large open shed. The forward section housed the boilers and engines, and below deck, where the boys had entered, were the holds for extra freight. Here, anything and everything could be found: pigs, cooped chickens, household goods, sacks, bales, boxes, barrels, stacked cordwood for the roaring fireboxes under the boilers-and the poorest of passengers. Deck passengers made the trip living in their own wagons, or sleeping on the planks. It was the cheapest passage possible and Dean was confident that a couple of kids would blend easily among the mess of unwashed humanity and livestock which mingled below deck.
Dean had learned that the journey to St Louis would take six to nine days because although it was only 336 miles by river from Kansas City to St Louis, the Missouri River was a powerful and dangerous stretch of water, with treacherous, shifting currents, low water points, submerged tree branches, snags and sandbars. This meant the boat had to anchor at night because not even the most foolhardy pilot would attempt to navigate the Missouri in the dark.
The first few days aboard the S.S. Amanda were a joy for the Winchester brothers. There were children and animals for Sammy to play with, there was a fascinating working steamboat to explore and there was an ever changing parade of scenery to watch from the main deck. The brothers saw wagon trains pass by, settlers huts, river bank towns in all shapes and sizes, a couple of black bears, elks, wild turkeys and on one memorable occasion a platoon of cavalrymen rode by. More memorable still was the day when a squadron of Indian braves paddled alongside the Amanda in their canoes.
Sammy smiled and waved at them and was promptly cuffed on the back of the head by a deck hand.
‘You lookin’ to get scalped, boy?’ the deck hand demanded, ‘they’re treacherous them Injins. Grateful to trade with ya one day, blood thirsty and lookin’ to kill ya the next.’
‘Them Injins call our boats ‘fire canoes’,’ one of the passengers commented, ‘because they eat wood and water and puff out smoke.’
Dean subtly pulled Sammy away from the conversation before somebody started to wonder who the kid’s Pa was and maybe thought to ask to see his ticket. There were no strangers in Sammy’s world, only friends he hadn’t met yet. For a runaway, it was a dangerous attitude, one that could get them into a world of trouble if they weren’t careful.
The boys’ favorite activity, though, was figuring out how the boat worked. Dean spent many a happy hour exploring the Amanda, although he stayed clear of the Cabin deck with its long central saloon and individual state rooms, unless he was looking to steal food, and he never ventured near the texas (officers’ cabins) or the pilothouse either. In truth, there wasn’t much of a mechanical nature to see in the pilothouse, although it might have been fun to get right up close to the billowing crowned chimneys. Steamboat pilots didn’t use navigational equipment to steer their vessels, they used their own uncanny sixth sense and their hard won knowledge of the river’s twists, turns, moods and depths.
Dean’s favorite place on the boat was the boiler room, where firemen, all of them Negroes, fed wood into the roaring fireboxes which powered the engines. If he was quick he could usually avoid detection by the engineers and sneak into the boiler room to observe the workings of the engine. The firemen usually spotted him, but mostly they just smiled and winked and let him hide himself away and watch. The boiler room held four boilers and Dean imagined that it had a lot in common with Hell. Not only was the area dominated by the fireboxes’ violent, spitting, orange flames, but each stroke of the steam engine discharged water and heat from the boiler into the atmosphere, which meant that the air was not only hot, but steamy and humid too.
Each boiler consumed tons of fuel and thousands of gallons of fresh water every hour and much of the firemen’s time was spent force pumping water into the boiler against a sizeable amount of built up back pressure. This was a job for two men. To do this, they inserted long poles into the head of the pump and pushed up and down, working the pistons which drew water up from beneath the boat and injected it into the boiler. It was hard, laborious, sweaty work, and sometimes, when the river was low, they had to stop the boat and tie up while the engineers and firemen worked feverishly to clean all the mud from the pump, pipes and, boilers. Dean was fascinated. Engines, he decided, were awesome. Sam was less enthusiastic about the boiler room, but because he couldn’t be left alone without deciding to talk to people, Dean frequently made Sam come with him when he stowed away to watch the engines. Fortunately a preacher man on the boat had given Sam a bible and Sam would sit quietly and read it while Dean happily watched injectors, steam jets, suction jets, combining jets, combination tubes, pistons and overflow valves.
With no parents and no money Dean and Sam were forced to resort to theft if they wanted to eat. Sometimes this meant stealing from other passengers, sometimes it meant getting into the cargo and sometimes it meant venturing up onto the Cabin deck and stealing the food meant for the rich folk.
On the fifth day of their river boat journey, Dean snuck up onto the Cabin deck in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, slipped into the kitchen, and quickly shoved some bread and cheese up inside his shirt. He paused at the door, looked right, and then left, before creeping quietly towards the stairs. He’d gone barely half a dozen steps when a large hand snagged him by the wrist and hauled him back into the kitchen, before shoving him up against the wall with a thud.
‘Well, well, well,’ said a sneering member of the Cabin crew, ‘what do we have here?’
He reached up underneath Dean’s shirt and pulled out the bread and cheese, placing it on the side with a sigh.
‘Right, lad,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and speak to your Pa, shall we?’
Dean said nothing. The crew member stared at him intently and Dean did his best to meet the man’s gaze impassively. Whatever he was looking for, the crew member seemed to find it in Dean’s face, for he nodded suddenly and released his hold on the boy.
‘I see,’ he said, ‘a stowaway. By rights I could have you whipped, then handed over to the sheriff in the next town we dock at. Would you like that?’
Dean shook his head. A whipping he could handle, but being handed over to the sheriff and leaving Sammy on the boat? Or having Sammy handed over to the sheriff too? That he couldn’t handle.
The man leered at him.
‘Then maybe we could come to an arrangement.’ He palmed his crotch with one hand and pushed Dean to his knees with the other.
-X-
Dean made it as far as the main deck before the urge to vomit overwhelmed him. He lurched to the side of the boat and hurled violently into the water, retching and spitting and hurling again as the taste…oh God the taste…flooded his mouth once more. Dean wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and looked around cautiously. Most people were still sleeping, although a few were starting to rouse. A woman nursing a baby was looking at him with pity, but no-one else was paying him any mind, just going about their early morning tasks in a half-lidded daze. Dean slipped quietly across the main deck, walking purposefully, not wanting to give the woman with the baby a chance to ask him whether she should fetch his Ma for him. He headed straight for Sammy, needing to check on him, to make sure he was alright. Kneeling next to his little brother’s bedroll, he reached out a tentative hand and smoothed the sleeping boy’s wayward hair. The touch soothed and comforted him, yet at the same time it magnified his feeling of shame and he withdrew his hand, feeling almost as though Sam would be sullied by his touch. Sam stirred slightly, moving instinctively towards his brother, seeking out the lost connection, and Dean stood up and backed away. He couldn’t face Sammy yet, his emotions were too raw. Sam would take one look at his face and bug him endlessly until he told him what was wrong. And Dean was never…never…going to tell Sam what was wrong.
Dean’s feet moved abruptly, choosing his path for him. He wasn’t really surprised when they walked him straight into the hell pit of the boiler room. The rhythm of the engines soothed him, and even though they were still and silent now, their proximity was still relaxing. Dean curled up in his usual dark corner and stared at the engines. He imagined the way the valves opened and closed, envisioned the long, thick pistons thrusting back and forth, and suddenly he was on his feet again, bent at the waist, shoulders heaving, shaking and vomiting.
‘You okay, kid?’
Dean raised his head. It was one of the firemen; the oldest and surliest of the eight Negroes who inhabited the below deck area. He didn’t suffer fools gladly this man, and he had a smart mouth on him too; Dean had often found himself sniggering at the man’s whip fast retorts and sarcastic comments.
‘Yeah. Sorry.’ he said.
The man nodded.
‘Good. Then I’m gonna go get you a rag an’ you can clean this mess up.’
He vanished into the darkness only to return a moment later with a dirty rag, which he tried to hand to Dean.
‘You simple, boy?’ he demanded when Dean just stared at him.
In truth, Dean was struggling to control his shaking. Last time a man had been this close to him-not so very long ago-he had been pushed to his knees and….
Dean threw up again.
The man sighed.
‘You been on the hooch, boy?’
Dean shook his head.
‘Look,’ the man leaned over, ‘it ain’t that hard. You just gotta drop the rag down an’ let it soak up all the…’ his eyes bulged as he got a good look at the watery vomit on the floor. It was liberally laced with a creamy white fluid and the man’s own stomach almost rebelled when he realized what that fluid was and how it must’ve gotten into the kid’s stomach.
‘Ah shit, kid,’ he muttered, his voice surprisingly raw.
And that was it. The man knew. He knew and he understood what the cabin crew member had done to Dean; what he’d made Dean do.
Dean broke down. Wrecked, guttural sobs flooded from his very core, pushing their way up his throat and choking out of him with visceral intensity. Time was meaningless until a tentative arm snaked itself across his shoulders. A reluctant hand patted his back ineffectually and yet somehow it helped. Dean hauled himself back from the brink with a final stuttering sob and then wiped his face on his sleeve.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered, unable to look the man in the face.
He stared at the floor and realized that the man had placed the rag he’d been holding over the puddle of his vomit, hiding it from view.
Dean felt a hand on his chin and he tensed, but all the man did was raise his head and force Dean to meet his eyes.
‘What’s your name, kid?’
‘Dean.’ He probably should’ve lied, but he was too wrung out.
The man released his hold on Dean and held out his hand.
‘Pleased to meet you, Dean. I’m Rufus. You wanna sit for a while?’
Dean shook the offered hand, then nodded and Rufus led the way to the back of the boiler room where he had his bedroll and a few bits and pieces set up.
‘The young’uns all sleep on the other side,’ Rufus said, ‘I sleep way over here cuz I’m an ornery sonovabitch an’ I don’t generally like company. Take a seat.’
Dean lowered himself to the floor and leaned back against the wall. Rufus sat down next to him.
‘You wanna talk about it?’ Rufus asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Good. I ain’t much with feelin’s an’ shit. I will say this though. It ain’t your fault, Dean. You ain’t the one who should be feelin’ ashamed.’
Dean didn’t respond. He wished he could believe Rufus, but his sense of humiliation was fierce and didn’t know how to just stop feeling ashamed. Dean covered his face with his hands.
‘You hear me boy?’ Rufus demanded, and for a moment Dean was so strongly reminded of his Dad that a ‘yessir’ popped out of his mouth on pure reflex.
Rufus snorted. ‘Sir. That’s a new’un.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I, eh, I seen you hidin’ down here watching the engines, your lil’ brother too. Seen you on the deck a coupla times. Ain’t never seen your folks.’
Dean tensed again and Rufus had his answer.
‘Stowaways, huh? That’s what…whoever…has over you?’
Dean risked a glance at his companion and when he saw nothing but compassion on the man’s face he nodded.
Rufus sighed. ‘You think the sonovabitch is gonna come after you again?’
Dean nodded. ‘He said…tonight. Just after dusk.’
‘He’s gonna come an’ get you?’
Dean shook his head.
‘I gotta go to him.’
Rufus swore under his breath.
‘You gonna go?’
Dean swallowed; then nodded.
‘I don’t wanna put Sammy in any danger. We should be in St Louis soon, right? It’s only a couple more days. I…I can deal.’
Rufus shook his head and muttered a few choice words.
He reached into his duffle and pulled out a bottle.
‘See this? Finest moonshine in the tri state area.’
He rummaged in his duffel again and came up with a smaller bottle, into which he poured a small measure of the clear liquid.
‘I’m prob’ly gonna go to Hell for givin’ you this…but…this here’s for medicinal purposes. Take a coupla nips beforehand to calm your nerves. Take a coupla nips afterwards to…well…’ Rufus handed the small bottle to Dean and then fixed him with a baleful glare. ‘I catch you makin’ a habit o’ the hooch, it ain’t gonna be pretty.’
‘Yessir,’ Dean responded with a grin.
Rufus chuckled sadly and ruffled his hair.
-X-
It didn’t take a genius to see that there was something really off with Dean, and Sammy Winchester was very far from stupid. So he hovered over his brother like a broody hen, questioned everything, and was generally clingy and on the verge of a major tantrum the whole day. There was no way that Dean was going to be able to sneak off to-Dean pulled a face-pay for his steamboat passage, without Sam noticing. So Dean did the only thing possible. He pulled his brother aside and lied to him.
‘I’m meeting a girl, Sammy. I’ll only be gone half an hour. Please don’t mess this up for me. Please Sammy!’
True to his word, Dean was only gone for half an hour, but when he returned, he looked pale and shaken and his eyes were frighteningly blank.
‘Are you alright?’ Sam asked.
‘Yeah. Fine.’ Dean said dully.
Sam observed his brother silently for a moment.
‘So I guess you won’t be meeting up with girls anymore?’
‘Huh? What makes you say that?’
‘Well…you don’t look very happy right now.’
‘Right. Nearly got caught, that’s all. It’s all good Sammy.’
Sam very nearly called bullshit, but his brother’s eyes were pleading with him to let it go, so he did, with a sigh. Dean relaxed and smiled gratefully.
‘C’mon,’ he said, ‘There’s something I gotta do. Come with me.’
Wild hell hounds couldn’t have torn Sam away from Dean at that point, although he wasn’t terribly happy when he realized that they were heading for the boiler room. Again. It was different down here at night, though. The boat was anchored, so the engines were quiet, and it was a lot cooler and less steamy than usual too. But that wasn’t the biggest difference. The biggest difference was the party atmosphere. The firemen, who all labored so silently and strenuously during the day, really kicked things up at night. Someone was playing a banjo, the hooch was flowing, there was a lot of tobacco being chewed, and a lot of friendly arguing and laughing too. It all came to a halt when Dean and Sam appeared.
‘Hi,’ Dean said, ‘I’m just here to see Rufus.’
Rufus appeared from behind him.
‘Dean?’
Dean looked at Rufus, back towards the seven young guys who’d been laughing and chatting together and then back at Rufus emerging from the dark.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘ornery sonovabitch.’
The other firemen all held their breath and Dean wondered for a minute if he’d overstepped. Then Rufus burst out laughing and slapped him on the back.
‘What happened to ‘yessir’?’ he asked, ‘Come with me, son. Kiddo,’ he looked at Sammy, ‘you stay here with the boys for a minute.’
‘You okay?’ Rufus asked when they had retreated to the privacy of his sleeping area.
Dean nodded and held the little bottle out to Rufus.
‘It helped a bit. Can I have a refill?’
Rufus acquiesced and then said sternly, ‘It’s strictly medicinal, you understand? You go an’ start makin’ a habit out of it-’
‘You’ll kick my ass,’ Dean finished, ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Well alright then.’
They went back to the party and found Sammy ensconced in the middle of the guys. They were all of them, Sammy included, sporting cuts on their hands.
‘What the devil is goin’ on?’ Rufus barked.
Sammy looked up at him with his big puppy dog eyes.
‘I just wanted to see if we all had the same color blood,’ he said.
Dean gaped at him.
‘What? Why?’
Sammy frowned at him, like it should be obvious.
‘Well, cuz we’ve got different colored skin, and different colored eyes and different colored hair. I just wanted to see if anything on the inside was a different color.’
‘Oh,’ Dean said sarcastically, ‘Want me to peel back your flesh so you can check if y’all have got the same color bones?’
Sammy huffed irritably at him. ‘I just think it’s really cool,’ he said, ‘that God made us come in so many different colors on the outside, but inside we’re all the same.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Rufus.
‘Your Ma and Pa know you’re down here?’ one of the other firemen asked.
‘They’re stowaways, Solomon,’ Rufus told him, before either Dean or Sam could respond.
Solomon laughed.
‘Runaways, hey?’ He punched Sam lightly on the arm, ‘Where you running to, Sammy?’
‘New York City.’
Solomon laughed again.
‘What’s so funny?’ Dean demanded.
‘Us,’ he indicated the group, ‘a bunch of colored guys,’ he clarified, ‘helping to smuggle a coupla white boys across the Mason-Dixon line. It’s like,’ he tilted his head to one side, ‘It’s like a reverse underground railroad!’
‘It’s a steamboat, not a steam train,’ Sammy said helpfully.
Solomon laughed again. ‘I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout a actual railroad with a actual steam train,’ he said, ‘I’m talkin’ ‘bout the underground railroad. It’s a…a…’
‘Metaphor,’ supplied Rufus.
‘Right,’ Solomon nodded, ‘See white folks who was abolitionists, they would volunteer their homes to be safe houses. They was all connected in a network. All the safe houses had hidden entries, usually through the cellar, so that colored folk could get in an’ out without anybody noticin’. An’ all the safe houses had hidden passages that led to hidden rooms so that colored folk could hide there, outta sight, durin’ the day.’
‘Hidden passages?’ Sam breathed, transfixed by Solomon’s story, ‘That’s so cool!’
Solomon grinned at him.
‘Runaway slaves would travel by night from one safe house to the next on their way north. So…the safe houses was kinda like train depots. The runaways would travel by foot or they’d be hidden inside wagons, but mostly they was by foot. An’ they’d hide in a safe house during the day. An’ that’s the underground railroad. Nothin’ to do with steam trains.’
‘So uh, were any of you slaves?’ Dean asked tentatively.
‘All of us.’
‘Any of you ever run away?’
Solomon shrugged. ‘Most of us was freed durin’ the war. Emancipation Proclamation and all that.’
Dean looked at Rufus, the question obvious in his eyes.
‘Ran away a coupla times,’ he said with forced nonchalance, ‘and I got the scars on my back to prove it. Second time I ran away I joined the union army.’
‘You were a soldier?’
Rufus nodded. ‘4th Regiment, Infantry, United States Colored Troops. Saw action in Virginia and North Carolina. In ’65 I even got to see the surrender of General Johnston an’ his army. That was sweet.’
He met Dean’s enraptured gaze.
‘Course, despite all their pretty talk they couldn’t have a colored man leading the regiment so all our officers were white. And for a while there, we were paid a lot less than the enlisted white men,’ he glanced at Sam, ‘despite the fact that our blood was just as red as theirs whenever we all got shot or stabbed.’
Sam’s eyes widened. ‘That’s not fair!’ he complained.
Solomon laughed again. ‘I like this boy.’
‘Bastards won’t give me my pension either,’ Rufus muttered, ‘assholes tol’ me I got plenty years labor in me yet and there ain’t no reason a strong colored man should expect to sit on his ass and let the government keep ‘im. Course they sing a different tune if you’re white.’
‘That’s so unfair!’ Sammy raged, and no-one could mistake the cold fury in the little boy’s voice.
‘Life isn’t fair, Sammy,’ Dean said quietly. ‘When are you gonna get that?’
‘You know what ain’t fair?’ Rufus interrupted, ‘I dragged my sorry ass all the way over here to socialize with you folk and no-one’s offered me a drink yet. C’mon Eddie, get that banjo playin’ again.’
Eddie dutifully started strumming away on his banjo, a couple of the other guys started singing and Solomon passed Rufus a bottle of moonshine, which he promptly complained about, labeling it the worst hooch he’d ever tasted.
‘Bet if I put a match to it, it’d flame yellow,’ he grouched.
He disappeared back to his bedroll, returning promptly with his own bottle of the distilled beverage.
‘Now this? This is the good stuff,’ he said, ‘burns blue, tested it myself.’
He then proceeded to lecture everyone on the traits of good moonshine and from what Dean could tell, he really knew his stuff.
‘What?’ he said off Dean’s stunned expression, ‘You think I’m a heathen?’
It wasn’t long before Sammy fell asleep. Dean covered him with a blanket and sat back, enjoying the company. He was just starting to think that he should probably carry his little brother back upstairs to his own bedroll and turn in for the night himself, when the clomping of boots on wooden rungs had him flattening himself into the shadows against the wall.
‘Boys,’ said one of the engineers, as he entered the room. The firemen all got to their feet, keeping the sleeping Sam hidden behind them.
‘Whassup, Boss?’ Solomon said.
The engineer cracked his knuckles and grinned gleefully.
‘Got a race lined up, lads. When we leave New Haven tomorrow, we’ll be racing the Magellan. First in to St Louis wins-and big bets’ve been laid, lads! We win, and there’s a bonus in it for all of you!’
‘You’ve gotta be kiddin’!’ Rufus growled, ‘You know the number three boiler’s only been patch repaired!’ and then as an afterthought he added, ‘Sir.’
The engineer glowered at Rufus.
‘There’s big money riding on this. The captain’s not gonna call this off anymore than he was gonna stop for three days to let us replace the boiler. We’re just gonna have to make it work. Y’all hear me?’
‘Yessir,’ the men responded.
The engineer disappeared back up onto the deck and Rufus drew a deep breath.
‘Goddamn stupid sonovabitch,’ he muttered, before turning back to the others.
‘We better get some rest. Cuz we’re gonna have our work cut out for us tomorrow, tryin’ to make sure this thing don’t go up like the Sultana.’
‘Dean?’
Dean stepped forward out of the shadows when Rufus called his name.
‘Take Sammy up to bed,’ he said. ‘And tomorrow, you stay outta the boiler room. Tomorrow, you don’t come nowhere near the boiler room. You stay on deck, close to the rails, and as far away from the engines as you can get, you hear me boy?’
Dean nodded.
‘And if…if we blow, you take your little brother and you get off this boat. Can you swim?’
Dean nodded again.
‘Then you swim, as far away as possible, as fast as possible.’
‘No way,’ Dean said shakily, ‘Not before I make sure you’re okay.’
Rufus rounded on him fast. ‘I see you do anything other than look out for yourself and Sammy, and I will put you over my knee! I can take care of myself Dean. Now go on, get.’
Dean woke Sammy up and dragged the sleepy boy back up on deck. Sam soon fell back asleep, but Dean lay awake for hours, his mind churning. Today he’d been forced to do the most sickening, disgusting thing ever-twice-and he was horrified and humiliated more than he’d thought humanly possible. But that paled into insignificance when he considered the possibility that tomorrow, the Amanda may be blown sky high. And his new friends would be right at the epicenter of the blast.
Part Two (B)