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that tender light
                      
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
    “Byron wrote of a woman, of course, but the words seem to fit our boat as well, do they not? Look at her, Abner! What do you think?”
    Abner Marsh didn’t quite know what to think; your average steamboatman didn’t go around spouting poetry, and he didn’t know what to say to one who did. “Very interesting, Joshua,” was all he managed.
    “What shall we name her?” York asked, his eyes still fixed on the boat, and a slight smile on his face. “Does the poem suggest anything?”
    Marsh frowned. “We’re not going to name her after any gimp Britisher, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said gruffly.
    “No,” said York, “I wasn’t suggesting that. I had in mind something like
Dark Lady,
or—”
    “I had somethin’ in mind myself,” Marsh said. “We’re Fevre River Packets, after all, and this boat is all I ever dreamed come true.” He lifted his hickory stick and pointed at the wheelhouse. “We’ll put it right there, big blue and silver letters, real fancy.
Fevre Dream.
”He smiled. “
Fevre Dream
against the
Eclipse,
they’ll talk about that race till all of us are dead.”
    For a moment, something strange and haunted moved in Joshua York’s gray eyes. Then it was gone as swiftly as it had come.
“Fevre Dream,”
he said. “Don’t you think that choice a bit . . . oh, ominous? It suggests sickness to me, fever and death and twisted visions. Dreams that . . . dreams that should not be dreamed, Abner.”
    Marsh frowned. “I don’t know about that. I like it.”
    “Will people ride in a boat with such a name? Steamboats have been known to carry typhoid and yellow fever. Do we wish to remind them of such things?”
    “They rode my
Sweet Fevre,
”Marsh said. “They ride the
War Eagle,
and the
Ghost,
even boats named after Red Indians. They’d ride her.”
    The gaunt, pale one named Simon said something then, in a voice that rasped like a rusty saw and a language strange to Marsh, though it was not the one Smith and Brown babbled in. York heard him and his face took on a thoughtful cast, though it still seemed troubled.
“Fevre Dream,”
he said again. “I had hoped for a—a healthier name, but Simon has made a point to me. Have your way then, Abner. The
Fevre Dream
she is.”
    “Good,” Marsh said.
    York nodded absently. “Let us meet tomorrow for dinner at the Galt House. At eight. We can make plans for our voyage to St. Louis, discuss crew and provisioning, if that is agreeable to you.”
    Marsh voiced a gruff assent, and York and his companions went off toward their boat, vanishing into the mists. Long after they had gone Marsh stood in the boatyards, staring at the still, silent steamer.
“Fevre Dream,”
he said loudly, just to test the taste of the words on his tongue. But oddly, for the first time, the name seemed wrong in his ears, fraught with connotations he did not like. He shivered, unaccountably cold for a moment, then snorted and set off for bed.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Aboard the Steamer
Fevre Dream,
Ohio River,
July 1857
    The
Fevre Dream
left New Albany by dark, on a sultry night early in July. In all his years on the river, Abner Marsh had never felt so alive as he did that day. He spent the morning attending to last minute details in Louisville and New Albany; hiring a barber and lunching with the men from the boatyards and posting a handful of letters. In the heat of the afternoon, he settled into his cabin, made a last check round the steamer to make certain everything was right, and greeted some of the cabin passengers as they arrived. Supper was a rushed affair, and then he was off to the main deck to check the engineer and the strikers checking the boilers, and to supervise the mate as he supervised the loading of the last of the cargo. The sun beat down relentlessly and the air hung thick and still, so the roustabouts gleamed with sweat as they carried crates and bales and