The wooders had been loading all the while that Pound and I argued. A new man in the never-ending procession staggered into the storage room every five seconds, each one balancing on each shoulder logs measuring about four feet in length and a foot in diameter.
Having secured Pound’s agreement to run down the hook-nosed man, I lent my help to the effort. Two narrow planks had been leaned from the main deck to the dock, and I raced down the outbound plank and into the wood-yard. I loaded a log onto my shoulder, swayed under its weight, then added another to my opposite one. Then I lurched toward the ship and managed to make it up the inbound gangway and into the woodshed.
There I dumped my load and leaned against the stack of logs, panting and trying to pick a jagged splinter out of my palm. A broad-shouldered German came up behind me, two logs wrapped in each massive forearm, and yelled for me to get out of his way. I did so an instant before his logs crashed down where I’d been standing. I followed him back to the wood-yard, vowing to stay behind him in line this time.
With about four dozen men from the crew and the deck comprising the hauling brigade, the storage room quickly filled with fuel. After I had made a couple of trips, the captain yelled that every man needed to bring aboard only one more load and we’d be full up. I lugged my share and then climbed the three flights of stairs back to the forecastle, sweat dripping from my brow.
Martha and Nanny Mae were still among the crowd on the top deck taking in the scene when I returned, and my sister glanced over with curiosity.
“Ah, Miss Bell,” I said as I regained my breath, “I think you’re in for a treat. I was down below helping with the wooding and I overheard Captain Pound say he’s determined to show us how fast this tub of his can go.”
“Is that so?”
“Apparently he and the captain of the ship that was at the yard just before us have a wager with each other. Who can go the farthest before nightfall? Captain Pound has five dollars on the War Eagle, and once he described his maximum speed, I told him I’d throw my own fiver into the pot. Don’t think it will take us long to run down that sorry barge.”
“I wonder whether that’s wise,” murmured Nanny Mae. A few other cabin passengers had overheard our exchange, though none but the old woman seemed concerned about the prospect of a race.
“Wise or not, it’s the course Pound is set upon.”
Soon we saw two mates weighing the anchor. The smoke escaping from the War Eagle’s stacks high above us, which had been thin white wisps while we were docked at the yard, started streaming out. The great wheel at the back of the ship groaned as it lurched into motion, and we pulled away from the pier.
All this was familiar from our prior departures from shore. But this time, the dull whine of the wheel did not settle into a consistent tone as we reached the river’s center channel; instead, it continued to escalate in pitch, higher and higher. We ploughed down the river. The wind began whipping past, lifting off the top hats of two gentlemen standing near me, who were forced to race to corral them before they blew into the waters below.
All around us, the cabin passengers exchanged glances of exhilaration—some part of the human animal is irresistibly drawn to speed—tinged with fear. The latter emotion was understandable too, as no one aboard could be ignorant of the great toll, daily reported in the newspapers, caused by steamboats blowing apart at excessive speeds. Indeed, as we rounded a bend in the river, we came upon the wreck of a steamer lying in the shallows near the eastern shore, only its pilot house and a portion of its forecastle visible above the lapping waters. We gave it a wide berth and shot past. If any of the gentlemen on the forecastle reconsidered their enthusiasm for the race at the sight of the wreck, they did not voice it aloud.
The throb of the engines became a part of us. The deck boards began to wobble and then to rattle. We came upon a large flock of swans bobbing in the river, and they barely had time to scatter to the winds before we rushed through their grounds. We shot past a small island in the river so fast it was hard to believe the island was not sprinting upstream in opposition to us.
How well did Captain Pound and his engineer know the precise upper limits of the steam gauge? That was the question occupying our minds.
We rounded one bend in the river and then another, and still we had not caught sight of the Vicksburg. I felt my eyes misting over and saw, looking skyward, a vapor of steam pouring out of the stacks and drifting down to the deck. The raging inferno in the boilers below was producing so much steam that not all of it could be directed toward the wheel. There was an undercurrent of sweetness in the mist, like a forest glade right after dawn, and I realized the firemen must be flinging extra resin onto the blaze to increase its heat.
With the pop of a small explosion, a spark shot out of one of the stacks and blew skyward. And then another. A whoop of excitement arose from the passengers as pieces of black soot fell to the deck.
“Surely this is too fast, Mr. Speed,” said my sister, yelling to be heard over the cacophony of the engines and the wheel and the belching stacks. “Shouldn’t you tell the captain to blanket his fires?”
“He’s got confidence in the old girl, and so do I,” I shouted back.
There was a look of real fear in Martha’s eyes, but it wouldn’t be long now. We would overtake the Vicksburg at any minute. As soon as we did, I would instruct Pound to cut in front of her and dampen his engines in order to guide the smaller ship to shore. Then I’d be able to detain the hook-nosed man and learn his mysterious game.
At that moment, we rounded another turn in the great river and saw our quarry ahead. A great cheer went up, and looking down over the railing, I saw the main lined with deck passengers in full thrall. They were cheering on Pound with unrestrained glee, the quest for speed unleavened, in their case, by any concern about the ship blowing apart. The deck knew the thrill of speed and little else.
We closed the gap on the Vicksburg quickly, but when we were still some two hundred yards distant, our progress slowed precipitously. Looking at the Vicksburg’s single stack, now belching smoke, I realized that her firemen had suddenly doubled their own efforts. Belatedly apprised of the race in which he had been entered, the Vicksburg’s captain was doing his best to win it. I admired the spirit of the man, but I felt confident it would come to naught.
Indeed, soon we were one hundred fifty yards from the stern of the Vicksburg, then one hundred, then seventy-five. We could see that ship’s passengers lining her decks and staring back at us, their monomaniacal pursuer. I scanned them eagerly for renewed sight of the hook-nosed man. Then I spotted him at the far end of the top deck, his spyglass to his eye again. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn it was trained directly on me.
A new obstacle arose in the middle of the river, and it approached fast. The river had been running beside a high limestone ridge, the tremendous rocks frowning down upon us like the battlements of some old castle. Suddenly the ridge made a sharp turn and cut across the river. As we hurtled toward the point of intersection, I saw there was an imposing limestone column directly in the center of the river, about fifty feet tall and the same around, with the river waters rushing past it on either side.
“What’s that?” I shouted.
Nanny Mae, who was standing beside Martha now and clutching her arm, nodded grimly. “The Grand Tower,” she said. “I don’t know . . .”
The Vicksburg entered the rapids produced by the Grand Tower ten seconds ahead of us. The smaller ship was light and sat high on the waters. In an instant, she had been flung free of the falls, catapulted downriver like a bird riding a sudden gust of wind at its back.
Just before we reached the rapids ourselves, a great groan arose from deep within the bowels of the War Eagle, and the ship shuddered as if Pound had belatedly reconsidered his speed. But it was too late. As large and powerful as she was, the War Eagle was not agile. As we came abreast of the tower, we scraped loudly against the river bottom. Pound must have increased his thrust in an attempt to get past the shallows, but the effect was that the ship shot through the gap and was hit broadside by the current rushing around the other side of the tower. The helmsman struggled for control, but the vessel was pushed by the surging waters into a low, long stretch of sand bordering the river bank.
With a decisive jolt that shook the great boat, our downriver journey came to a sudden halt. I was flung face first toward the deck. The race, I realized an instant before my nose collided with the boards, had been lost.