The WRITINGS OF ONE JEREMIAH LEWIS
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
MF Burbaugh on Smashwords
Edited by: ML Strickland
Copyright © 2010 by MF Burbaugh
corrected: Aug 2011
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THE WRITINGS OF ONE JEREMIAH LEWIS
Jeremiah Lewis' First Story: He meets Mr. Smith, a pirate.
"Aye mate! Got a minute to spare an old rummy pirate dog like me? I sees ye be wearing six shooters and chaps and the like, and I sees your horse is loading."
I was watching my horse being loaded aboard the paddle-wheeler. She is a bit skittish, but they are treating her well. The guy addressing me had just come from below deck and I had nothing to do. Being a sometimes writer, I never passed a chance at gleaning some interesting histories from the locals.
I turned to him. "I would be honored to spare you a minute of my time if it won’t cost me money, of which, I assure you, I have little." He reminded me of someone I had read of in a book, but dang if I could remember it, off the top. He was a bit heavy in the middle; clearly, large quantities of rum and food rested there. He had only one leg, with a wooden spike to keep him level. The only thing missing was the parrot and eye patch to evoke the total pirate image.
"Aye mate, I be wanting something, of course. I be going to tell a story, and if ye like it, ye owes me a drink, but if ye don't, then I be apologizing for wasting yer time." He smiled, but the scar across the right side of his face that ran almost ear to the mouth seemed to skew it a bit. "I be done with me work and want to jack the jaw a bit. I won't be saying I tells the whole truth. I will be saying that I tells as I remembers it. Want to hear it?" He looked at me expectantly. Obviously, he had run this routine before.
"Yes sir, my possessions are loaded, so I have little to do until we reach New Orleans. I would be delighted to hear a tale, if it has a little action in it."
"Aye, action stories be me best drinking buddy, if ye know what I mean." He laughed. "It’ll not be taking that long to go from here to N'Orleans."
We moved from the railing and went to sit in a couple of passenger chairs. I had a boy get us some drinks and gave him a few coins. "Hot buttered rum for my friend, and I'll have some fresh lemonade, if they have it." My friend's eyes lit at that.
"That we do, sir, and welcome aboard the Royal Majestic, the finest riverboat ever to sail the Mississip."
"Thank you. Be away now." I turned back to my friend.
"Aye mate; Smith be me name, John Smith. Any other name I might wish to use be getting me a rope, if ye understands me meaning?" He tried again to laugh, as the boy brought the drinks and we both relaxed a bit.
"My name is Jeremiah Lewis,” I told the old salt. “My father swears we are related to the Meriwether Lewis', of Lewis and Clark fame, but he has yet been unable to establish proof of his claim. We own a reasonable ranch out near Dodge City, where we raise cattle for the eastern trade. I went to Saint Louis and sold off a herd, shipped the money home and am now sent to New Orleans to see if a Frenchman needs livestock for something he's trying."
"Now I truly thankee for the drink, so I best be getting to earn it," he said, as the service boy backed away a bit, while clearly trying to stay within earshot. I debated whether to chase him off, but decided to let him stay.
"Well sir, I be born in the gutters of Connecticut. Me mother was a lady of the taverns—she swore she was the best bar lady ever was. I was the unlucky result of one of her successes, she says." He smiled. "Anyways, I be growing to a strapping young buck and the call of the sea grabs me, so I signs on the first tub I can find as a cabin boy, much like that lad there." He nodded to our all-ears bystander and took a sip of his rum. He savored it, not gulping it down as most do. “So, I went to sea, 'cept it was on a three master and the Cap'n been a mean one."
As he got into it, I noticed that we were away from the docks. The ships steam whistle shrieked, letting the world know it was alive. The big stern-wheeler started its slow churning of the water off our rear, as both stacks belched black coal smoke and hot cinders. It was early afternoon, but it was cold, even for January. The Cargo Master declared that it was colder this year than last. I remembered the morning's headlines about some guy being hung for a horse thief, and how people were put out by the freezing weather, that January of 1860. The sun finally came out, but the day was still chilly.
"Well this cap'n got us boys beat for about anything,” he continued, “and if we protested, we was beat more, or keelhauled. You know what that is?" He asked me, and I shook my head.
They ties a rope to your hands, slips one under the bow, and ties it to yer feet. They slips ye over the side and hauls ye under the water and around the keel of the ship. If ye don't drown, the barnacles lays ye open like a thousand knives, and the salt be adding a bit to the pain. Anyone ever been keelhauled be an ugly sight to the eyes, mate, let me tell ye."
Just the thought of it sent shivers through me.
"We sails to Boston and loads, and be heading out to Cuba with cargo of silks from New York and iron-forged stuff from up the state…odds and ends. We was to trade them off for a load of spices, fruits and rum. That year was eighteen and thirty-three, it was."
He stopped and took a sip of his drink. I felt an abrupt turn of the boat; we were ‘hard over,’ I think they call it. I just saw water lapping at the edge of an almost totally submerged sand bar and I guess the boy saw it, too. He said, "Don't worry Mister, our pilot be Master Samuel Langhorne Clemens, one a da best on the Mississip. He knows every sandbar and tree there be."
The name rang a bell. I think I read a piece from him while in Kansas City, a story in the newspaper about the boats of this river. I'd see if I could speak to him later.
The scare was over, and Mister Smith continued, "Well, it been a uneventful trip until we was a day out from Havana. Pirates attacked us in the night. Turns out our Cap'n was not only cruel, but a bleeding coward as well, and we heaves too and drops sail. They takes everything, seems they works under something called a marque, for somebody who don't want the Spanish getting nothing. I was fed up of our Cap'n, so I asks to join the pirates, and, to me surprise, they says yes. I spend five weeks alearnin‘ ’bout boarding a ship and making bombs from wine bottles and planking and grappling and cannons and pistols. Aye mate, a lot to learn to be'n a good pirate.
"About six weeks in, I gets me first taste of action…a little sloop trying to sneak in to Havana at night. We'd heard about it aforehand from the bar runners and was awaitin'." He finished off his rum and I motioned the boy to go refill it.
"Anyways, I be wantin' to do like them stories and swing across the bow, longknife in me teeth and cutlass in me belt, so I ties me a rope to the yardarm like the others and we waits, good and proper, to come up alongside. At the right time, I swings away and am over the little sloop…and that's how I lost me leg." He looked at me with that crooked smile.
"It was shot off by a cannon ball or musket?" I asked.
The boy had been standing by with his rum. He took it up and said, "You be a good boy, son; don't be lettin' them tell ye no different." He savored a sip.
"No sir, don‘t do like I done," he said. "I believe someone cut me rope when I was swung high above the sloop, but they swears it just come undone. I falls upside-down into the rigging and the blade in me mouth gets slapped by a rope. It slices me face open almost to me ear." He ran his hand along the scar reflectively. "Me cutlass falls outta me belt and stabs a pirate in the back, and me leg gets tangled in the rigging, so I be hanging upside-down on one of the lines, with nothing to grab hold of. I was a bit bigger then and couldn't be reaching up to me feet with me hands to haul meself up, you see." He stopped and took another drink.
"So you're hanging upside down and bleeding like a stuck pig. Sounds like a dire predicament," I told him.
"Yes indeed, but gets worse, let me tells ye. I be watching me mates chase the sloop’s crew all over and round them up below me. I’m trying to yell, but the cut on me face hurts bad if I tries to open me mouth, so I keep me hands on it and watches. They heaves to, so the Cap'n's all happy they don't gots to kill none." I saw the boy's eyes getting bigger and bigger as Mr. Smith told his tale.
"What happened?" I had to ask.
"Nothing. The cap'n comes over in his finest silks and accepts the surrender of the sloop. Our crew begins loading the supplies from them to us. The cap'n finally looks up, after I be splattering me blood all over his fine silks and cusses me out. He leaves me hangin' and tells the sloop cap'n if he keeps me and sees I don't get hung, he will let the sloop go and not kill anyone. I guess the cap'n's came to a agreement, and my ship left me hangin' there as it slipped off, over the horizon." He finished his drink, and when the boy came forward, he said no, he was satisfied.
"Next I remembers, I was cut down, but I'd been hangin' too long and they was gonna have to cut off me leg. I remembers them holding me and me screaming what me dear mother told me. Mother always said I was so big I only be good fer butchering. I think I passed out then." He tried another of his smiles.
"What then?" I had to know.
"They kept their promise, fitted me with me wooden leg and let me ashore at Florida, since Havana was blocked. I managed to get back to Boston and became a bartender, plied my trade in many taverns, but kept getting fired for touching more rum than I sold, if ye gets me drift. After me mother died and I had no place left to stay, I received free rides to Saint Louis and caught this boat to N'Orleans to see if I can find me work aboard ship again, where's they don't know me, and that is me story. Worth the drink?" he asked.
I called the boy and gave him some coins. "Get Mr. Smith a bottle of rum and keep the change."
The last I ever saw of Mr. Smith, he was stumping after that boy at a good clip, and so I pass to you his story, for better or worse.
Oh, I never did get to meet Mr. Clemens. More’s the pity.
Author note:
I did verify later that Mr.
Clemens was indeed the author I had thought he was.
Jeremiah Lewis' second story: Little wheels go round and round.
Hello again;
Jeremiah Lewis at your service. We arrived safely in New Orleans and
I found a bunch of grand musicians and lovely ladies in that town,
but nothing I would dare write about in a public book, I assure you.
I did learn a few French words I might want to incorporate in a bar
fight sometime.
My mother caught me up with a few posts she
had received from my fan club back home. That would be my mother, of
course, and my sister Eleann. They pronounce it Elaine--why they
spelled it funny, mother never said, but Aunt Heartier said dad was
drunker than a skunk the night my sis was born, and was responsible
for telling the doctor the spelling. Anyway, mother sent a note from
a wonderful young lass who had found some of my scrap work in the
trash at school. Her name was a bit strange: Bykristenfc--Norwegian
or Hebrew maybe? She seemed enthralled with my storytelling, begged
me to continue and make a book of some of my works. So here we are,
reader--the second tale that I regard as genteel enough to put in
print.
I
decided to stay in New Orleans a while and mosey around, then
possibly head north and west to see parts of this here country and
pick up a few stories for my book. I went to the swamps west of the
city to see a supposed she-witch called Marie Laveau the Third and
her House of Voodoo. I felt a good story must be there. Well, she'd
been written about before, several times locally, and she felt she
was now too good for just any drifter. She wanted me to pay her up
front for a story.
I had to
decline, and traveled on out of the swamps to a little town called
Shreveport. As you may know, this town was developed by a Mr. Shreve,
on land purchased from the Caddo Indians of the area. I wanted to
find one of these natives and see what they thought of the purchase.
Well let me tell you, they thought plenty, but the firewater made a
lot of it unintelligible and the rest unfit for the page.
I
was beginning to fear I would find nothing worth writing on, but a
packet boat arrived from up the Red River with a man on a strange
contraption called a velocipede, or draisienne, or dandy horse. A
certain Karl Drais invented it overseas; I know because I asked. The
young man just called it a bicycle, for the two wheels. He spent the
night at the local inn, where I had the pleasure of speaking with
him, after a wonderful mutton meal from the innkeeper‘s wife. We
sat by a cozy fire to warm our outsides, with drinks to warm our
insides.
I told him my name and what I was interested in, and
he lit up. He was a young boy, nineteen or so, with flaming red hair
and the stubble of youth upon his face. I'd say he stood just about
my six foot even, with green, wide set eyes and almost a hawk’s
beak nose. He had the clear Irish accent, but none of the clipped or
witty speech I had heard from some of his countrymen in Saint Louis.
He spoke an educated English, and when asked, he admitted he had
finished school. He called himself Patrick M. O'Doul. What had caught
my eye as he got off the boat was his legs! Each had to be as big
around as his waist. They were massive, and completely out of
proportion to the rest of him. Here is his story.
"Yes
sir, Mr. Lewis, I work for a man called Kirkpatric McMillan, a
Scottish blacksmith. He hired me in California to take a fantastic
journey, which he would pay for. After he adapted some pedals to his
machine, he asked me to ride it from California to New York City as a
test, and also for some publicity, which he hoped would provide
funding for his work. You know how inventors are."
In
that regard, I had no clue, other than knowing what they
were.
"Well, I debated a long time. He wanted me to take
with me nothing but his bicycle, as he calls it, a bit of canvas and
whatever food I could carry. It sounded so easy. He spent a full
month showing me how to make replacement parts from any type of wood
I could find. Well, I took the job. That was January of Eighteen
Fifty-Eight; dang, two full years at it now! I was supposed to be up
through Wichita to Kansas City and Saint Louis long ago." He sat
staring at the fire a bit and then resumed.
"I left the
Mission San Diego de Alcala in January. I was supposed to follow the
southern trail through El Paso, then swing north to Kansas by winter,
hang over there until spring, then on east and wind up in New York
City around last November. Well, as you see, I am off course and off
schedule." He finished his drink, got a refill from the
innkeeper, and came back and sat down.
"Well you may be
off a bit, but even on horseback, It would take longer than he
allowed,” I told him.
"I know that now, but neither of
us had been east of the mountains overland. He’d come west on a
schooner and I’d been born there. He was planning to sail back and
meet me in New York, but has already departed for Scotland again. I
sent him a post from San Antonio, explaining my predicament."
"So
you actually rode that contraption from there to here?" I was
starting to see why the big legs.
"Yes sir, that is my
job. It has been anything but a simple trip." He smiled and
stared into the fire a few minutes.
"Well I definitely
wish to hear it all. Sounds most interesting, indeed," I told
him.
"I followed the route as planned, from San Diego to
Tijuana to Sonota, but on the way from there to Tucson, in broad
daylight, I was halted by Indians. Their chief was someone called
Mangas Coloradas, and he lead a tribe called The Apaches. They didn’t
scalp me instantly, but were not friendly either. They tied a rope to
me and my bicycle, then forced me to follow at a harrowing pace until
my front wheel shattered on a rock. They almost broke my neck before
they came to a stop. I had to carry the remains of my vehicle from
there south, to their village.
“Some girl there liked my
hair, she played with it a lot. Best I understood from a trader that
passed, I would be pitted in a contest to win her hand. I tried to
explain that I didn't want her hand, to no avail. The gist was, I
must win or die. During this time, I managed to make new parts to fix
the wheel, and the Indians made good sport of my bicycle." He
stopped to take a drink.
"Well, their contest was in
three parts. First test was using the bow. Not to be bragging, but I
had learned to nock an arrow from the locals in San Diego. The
Spanish didn't like us having guns, so I hunted with the local Indian
boys and could provide my own rabbit supper, if need be. This skill
was one of the reasons Mr. McMillan had picked me. Powder, shot, and
long rifle were too heavy to carry, along with the rest of the gear
he had planned.
"Aaa, the contest, I drifted a bit,
sorry," he continued. "Anyway, I figure I came in second in
that test. First place went to the chief‘s son, umm, Cochise, his
name was. Funny, he withdrew after that; guess he didn't want her
either.
"Second was wrestling; well, I had an advantage
there. When I’d started my journey, I had normal, scrawny legs, but
through the agony of weeks of pedaling and running that bicycle, the
hurt went away, and these legs got bigger and harder. Well, let me
tell you, not one Indian could get me off my feet, though three
tried. I beat one, got him down and sat on him, but the other two, I
guess it was a draw." He looked to see if I caught his meaning.
Looking at his legs, I could understand quite easily.
"The
third contest I won easily, the all day run. You stocked your body
with water and you ran in the sun until you couldn't run no more, and
he who ran the farthest, won. Well hell, running and peddling was all
I had been doing. I ran all that day, almost to dark, when they
stopped me. They brought me a horse to ride back, the following day.
Anyway, next thing I knew, I was a husband with a blushing bride who
kept running her fingers through my hair." He smiled with that
remembrance.
"I was forced to remain with them for
several months as they moved south into Mexico, until I could make my
now-pregnant wife understand that I needed to finish my journey. I
promised to return, and they finally let me proceed. So, with much
ado and a few tears from the wife, I departed for the north. Took me
a month to get to Fort Breckinridge, where I had to get the front and
rear hubs repaired on the wheels, and acquire some proper spokes. I
had hit several thunderstorms and the wheels kept warping from the
water. I had no supply of shellac or other finish to apply to them,
and the result was, the metal hubs had cracked."
"Yes
sir, let me assure you, I missed my wife those cold nights in the
desert, I surely did. I headed over to El Paso, where I found a most
lovely senorita who seemed to like my hair also, and we were having a
fun time for a while. Unfortunately, she neglected to tell me she was
married to a Mexican bandito. I think I was shot at, four different
times, running with my bicycle from that town toward the east, but I
was lucky and evaded them all." He grinned at me there.
"I
was going to head from there to Albuquerque, then across to Wichita,
but each time I swung north, some bandito or other was chasing me.
Well, I wound up in San Antonio instead. I was chased out of town
there, as well. There is a musket ball in the frame of the bicycle to
prove it. She didn't tell me her papa was the sheriff."
"I
wound up getting almost to Amarillo, where I thought to get back on
my original track. I near to died there. It was during a dust storm;
I could hardly see my hand before my face when I heard this mighty
roar. Well, come to find out it was a passel of buffalo stampeding in
my direction, so I was at my top speed trying to get away. Those big
fellers are fast! I kept slipping and sliding in their chips, which
were still soft and wet and all." He looked at me.
I'd
seen a few buffalo, even in the Dodge City area, so I nodded. "Yes,
the bison is a majestic animal."
"Well, be that as
it may, they were fast, and I was run over by a few hundred--well,
honestly, a couple -- of ‘em. They trampled the bike and broke me
up pretty good, as well. I couldn't move; but lucky enough, behind
them was a group of wagons and buffalo hunters for the railroad or
something. Anyway, one was a trader and he picked me up, along with
the remains of the bicycle. Can't say I remember a lot about it.
Pret’ soon, I was patched up and pulled together and back in San
Antonio, dodging both the sheriff and his daughter. I fixed the
bicycle and was prepared to be on my way when I saw a fellow drawing
up a map. I got a general direction from that, so I continued east to
find this Shreveport, which I’d missed before. It was up a bit
north. A packet brought me here, and here is where my fortune sits
now." He stared into the fire.
"Yes, quite a
harrowing adventure it was, from the sounds of it." I had
finished my drink and it was well into the night. "So, what are
you going to do next?" I asked.
"Well sir, I think
I'll head me to New Orleans and either catch a boat up river to Saint
Louis, or maybe get a ship to take me up the coast and drop me in New
York City. Either way, I intend to go back to the Indians, find my
wife and take her and my youngin' back to California." He
shrugged his shoulders. "I figure I had enough experience for
one life already."
Well reader, we parted ways there, and
as of this writing, I never saw or heard from him again. I didn’t
hear word of that bicycle invention catching on, but a ranch near
Dodge City would not be ideal for such a contraption anyway. Anyhow,
if you run across an Indian with red hair, ask if his name is O'Doul.
Author note:
It has been a few years since I put down those words, and I’ve since been told that a redesigned ‘bicycle’ contraption is starting to take hold in the eastern cities.
Jeremiah Lewis' Third Story: What hides in the clouds?
Hello reader, I am Jeremiah Lewis, a rancher from near Dodge City. I am traveling and compiling a book, this being the third of my adventures, as I travel by horse from Shreveport to Wichita.
I met a most
interesting couple with a wonderful story to tell of heroism and
daring. I was several days out of Shreveport, I reckon about 20 miles
west of Texarkana. I had been able to see Mt. Pleasant in the
distance, until the squall line came up. It was still chilly in those
late February mornings, but I had started out before dawn. I wanted
to get home. There were rumblings of war, and I did not wish to be
party to any information that might hurt my family or myself.
I
was crossing through mostly-open areas filled with lakes and streams,
occasionally a forest, as I wormed north and westward. It was early
afternoon and the sky had darkened most noticeably. The wind had
shifted and gone cold, was now blowing almost straight from the
north. I figured I was in for a bit of a storm. Just then, I saw
something big, peeking in and out of the clouds and heading toward me
at a fair clip. I didn't know what it was, but it looked like a big
egg with some string and a basket hanging down, a most strange
apparition, I assure you.
As it got closer I saw a long rope
dangling from the basket and, when it was almost upon me and but a
few feet off the ground, I heard both a lady and a gentleman
hollering for me to grab the rope and pull them down.
Well, by
the time I was over my terror and recovered from the shock, they had
gone on past. I turned my horse and we ran down the line together. I
half-hitched the rope to the saddle and began a slow decrease in
speed, as the line tensioned up and my horse strained against this
monster blowing in the wind. She was a good horse and had done her
fair share of cattle roping, but I think that even she was scared.
Once we'd brought the monster to a stop, the man threw a fire pot out
the side, and the big egg slowly collapsed on itself.