Chapter One When I turned twelve, my pa guessed it was time I learned a trade. Not wanting to disappoint, I told a stretcher and said I was all for it. That?¦s when the bargaining started. ?§How about apprenticing with a cooper??¨ he suggested. The thought of making wood barrels all the rest of my born days left me kind of squirmy. True, there?¦s nothing so handsome as a well-made butter churn or molasses barrel or milk bucket, but I hated slivers. Having Ma take a needle to one stuck in the meaty part of my hand made me carry on worse than a colicky baby. And since coopers are forever working in wood, well . . . So after pretending to build up some steam thinking about it, I shook my head no, all regretful-like. ?§Wouldn?¦t seem to be much of a future in it,?¨ I reckoned. Telling Pa I was scared to death of slivers would never have worked, but bringing up the future nearly always bought me some breathing room. ?§All right,?¨ Pa allowed, still sounding fresh about our talk. ?§How about blacksmithing??¨ ?§Wouldn?¦t you think I?¦m kind of scrawny for it??¨ ?§It?¦d put some meat on your bones,?¨ he pointed out. On goes my thinking hat again as I ground away, real serious-like, on the prospects of being a blacksmith. Of course, I already knew that blacksmithing wouldn?¦t do either. Aside from my being a runt, which would make it hard to handle the bellows and pound the horseshoes and such, I?¦m awful jittery about getting burnt. And what blacksmith can do his job without a ripping hot fire? ?§Wouldn?¦t there be some dark days ahead for blacksmiths??¨ I asked. ?§What with the coming of railroads and all??¨ The year was already 1849, after all, and the railroads had big plans, though I hadn?¦t heard any talk about their doing away with blacksmithing. Lucky for me, Pa considered the smithy in the nearest town?X that?¦d be Stavely?¦s Landing, on the Mississippi?Xto be a rude and balky brute, which made it one possibility he was willing to let slip away without a fight. ?§Hmm,?¨ Pa said, turning thoughtful and sizing me up with one eye, kind of squinty-like. ?§What would you say to working in a livery stable? There?¦s steady work there.?¨ Well, taking care of horses and fancy carriages and such would be pretty quality, all right, but I figure Pa?¦s up to something with this one. Everybody knows how bad horsehair gives my nose the dithers. ?§?¦Fraid they wouldn?¦t have me,?¨ I sighed. ?§Not the way I?¦d always be sneezing and spooking the livestock.?¨ ?§Couldn?¦t have that,?¨ Pa agreed, smiling despite himself. ?§Say, maybe you?¦d like to set your sights on becoming a preacher? Your Uncle Clayton went that route, you know.?¨ We were talking about Pa?¦s favorite brother, the one where my middle name sprang from and who?¦d baptized me in the river. I?¦d heard the story of my dunking many a time, ?¦cause my uncle got carried away with his preachifying and held me under a might long, till I was blue. ?¦Course, they got me working again, but my near miss of heaven left my family feeling I had a leg up when it came to talking with higher powers. So real careful-like, I asked, ?§Didn?¦t he get swallowed up by the wilderness??¨ ?§We don?¦t know any such thing at all,?¨ Pa snorted. ?§He could show anytime.?¨ ?§Sorry, Pa,?¨ I said, doing my level best to sound overlooked and dejected, ?§but I?¦m afraid I ain?¦t heard no trumpets calling. Not yet, anyway.?¨ ?§Now listen here,?¨ Pa grumbled, bearing down. ?§Is there anything you?¦d be willing to try??¨ ?§Oh, most everything,?¨ I volunteered, hoping I sounded helpful. ?§Could have fooled me.?¨ ?§Wouldn?¦t want me to jump into something without considering it real careful, would you??¨ ?§I?¦m beginning to think maybe I wouldn?¦t mind that at all.?¨ Pa wagged his head in wonder. ?§You?¦re twelve now, ain?¦t ya??¨ Then a knowing smile ruffled his mustache and I braced myself for the worst. ?§Say, how about this: maybe we could get you work as a cabin boy on a steamer.?¨ Well, there weren?¦t many boys along the Mississippi, Ohio, or Missouri rivers who wouldn?¦t have given all his marbles along with a first-rate mumblety-peg?x knife for such a chance as that. So I had to take her slow. First off, I grinned at Pa, on account of it was expected. ?§Yes sir,?¨ Pa pressed on, probably thinking he was on the trail of something promising at last. ?§You?¦d start out low, but it wouldn?¦t be long before you moved up to mud clerking or maybe cubbing for a pilot. After that, who knows??¨ I nodded at the grandeur of it all, but pretty soon I frowned a tiny bit, as if a troublesome thought had crept up on me. As of yet, I didn?¦t know what thatt thought might be, but I hoped it would come to me quick. I was deathly afraid of drowning in the Mississippi, though it goes without saying that I couldn?¦t tell PPPPPa such a thing; squawking never got me anywhere with that man. Obstacles only made him more set in his ways. He didn?¦t have a mean bone in him, but he didn?¦t have any that were known to bend either. To change his mind, I had to come at him sort of sideways. So while Pa went on about how he hadn?¦t been selling wood to steamboats for going on ten years without knowing himself the names of some captains, I got busy sweating over how to tackle this one. You see, my pa?¦s own pa had spent all his years yanking out tree stumps and starting up farms clear across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, which didn?¦t leave time nor money for setting his sons up in a trade. Naturally, that meant my own pa was bound and determined to see things turn out different for me. Finally, I couldn?¦t bear his enthusiasms a minute longer and called out real desperate, ?§Wouldn?¦t be much of a future, would there??¨ ?§No future??¨ he cried, digging a finger in his ear like he couldn?¦t believe what he was hearing. ?§Why, not even the railroads can put a dent in the future of this river and the steamers it carries. The whole West?¦s being settled, and it?¦s the rivers getting it done. Without ?¦em there wouldn?¦t be no civilization beyond the Alleghenies. There wouldn?¦t be nothing out here but a few smelly trappers and warbling Indians and . . . ?¨ He began to wind down about then, maybe noticing how I looked sort of glum. Finally he stopped talking altogether and took a minute off to gaze up at the sky before muttering to himself, the way he does when our mule won?¦t haul nothing. ?§You seem to think the future?¦s a mighty dark place,?¨ he concluded. ?§Why is that, son? Most anybody else you talk to is usually pretty high on her.?¨ ?§Just a feeling that slides over me,?¨ I mumbled. ?§Let me remind you of one little thing,?¨ Pa went on. ?§You?¦re going to be living the rest of your life in the future, so you better get on speaking terms with it.?¨ ?§Yes sir.?¨ ?§So what troubles you about steamboating??¨ ?§Well,?¨ I wheezed, taking the plunge without knowing what was going to pop out of my mouth, ?§the way this river changes its course so often, who?¦s to say it?¦ll keep going where we need it to??¨ That pretty much did it?Xsealed my fate, so to speak. Pa smoldered for most of a minute, looking like he was about to blow cinders out his top any second. Finally he did, speaking up loud enough for our neighbors a half-mile distant to catch what was on his mind. ?§Here?¦s what?¦s happening: You?¦ve got a great-uncle, name of Seth, who?¦s down in St. Louis. He used to be a trapper on the Missouri but has turned to tanning in his dotage. Fact is, I hear tell he?¦s the best tanner there is west of the Mississippi. When it comes to treating furs, he knows himself some secrets. Picked ?¦em up from the Indians, I shouldn?¦t be surprised. We?¦re going to put you on a steamer with a letter of introduction and see if he?¦ll take you on.?¨ Hearing that left me feeling buried alive, with Pa?¦s every word landing like another shovelful of dirt atop me. When it comes right down to it, twelve-year-olds didn?¦t have much bargaining power, not with the likes of my pa. So it looked like I was doomed to learn a trade that didn?¦t have any future at all. What with beaver hats going out of fashion, the fur business was keeling over as we spoke. Beavers themselves were getting trapped out, as was pretty much every other living thing with the misfortune to wear fur and have four legs. Most all the river men said it. What?¦s more, it wasn?¦t just horsehair that made me sneeze?Xmost any kind of fur would do. But when I tried to point out that working with hides might rip my nose apart, Pa claimed that us Crabtrees were made of sterner stuff than I knew. And on top of that, getting from Stavely?¦s Landing to St. Louis would require riding one hundred and sixty-odd miles down the Mississippi on a steamer, which meant I could fall overboard and drown any second. I imagined I?¦d be turning a hundred and sixty-plus shades of green by the time I got there, if I got there. The only good thing about the whole undertaking was a chance to see St. Louis. The bad part of that was this: if St. Louis was only half as amazing as everyone claimed, I?¦d still probably be knocked blind by the sights. Excerpted from Crows and Cards by Joseph Helgerson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
