Part 1 (1/2)

THE.

GOLEM.

EDWARD LEE.

For Dave Boulter-Rest in peace.

PROLOGUE.

August 1880.

”You look like you've seen a ghost, lad,” Captain Michael McQuinn said at the boat's broad wheel. He'd made the comment to his first mate, a work-weathered Bohemian named Poelzig who now stared listlessly out a starboard window in the small wheel house. All around them stretched the perfectly flat Chesapeake Bay.

”A ghost,” muttered Poelzig. He dragged a callused hand across his forehead. ”Didn't sleep much last night, Captain, nor did the wife. You?”

”Ah, I slept like a baby,” McQuinn insisted in his Irish accent. He patted his hip flask with a smile. ”Ain't nothin' to be restless about. We're both immigrants welcomed to this fine land, ay? Promised freedom and good, honest work. We ought to be grateful at all times...”

This much was true. McQuinn was an Irish Catholic, and Poelzig, a Jew from somewhere in Europe. Austria? Who can tell after all them b.l.o.o.d.y wars? McQuinn thought. Poelzig and his wife, Nanya, had fled Jewish persecution, while McQuinn had fled Dublin's tax collectors and more than one irate husband. But from what he could see thus far, America honored its promises.

Yes, that much was true, but what wasn't true was Captain McQuinn's remark about sleeping like a baby. He'd done anything but. They'd been on the bay two weeks now, starting in Baltimore Harbor, delivering goods first up the Patuxent River to Sandsgate, then across and up the Nantic.o.ke, and next up the Wicomico to Salisbury. It seemed that with each off-loading of cargo at each port town, McQuinn felt more and more peculiar, and each night he slept less and less.

Poelzig was still tiredly staring off into s.p.a.ce. ”My G.o.d, last night I dreamt...”

McQuinn snapped his gaze to his sullen colleague. ”Ya dreamt what, man?”

Poelzig shook his head. He was probably forty but right now looked eighty.

Gads! McQuinn didn't like it when he had to demonstrate his authority. Most of these river runs went like clockwork. So what was wrong now? ”Somethin's been addlin' you since we left Baltimore,” he snapped, ”and more so after every stop. You and your missus ain't no good to me if ya ain't got your minds on your work. So. What is it? What's wrong?”

The otherwise confident first mate now seemed at a loss for words. He pointed behind him while keeping his eyes on McQuinn.

”What? The cargo house? Poelzig, we only have one more stop, then the route is done.”

Poelzig's accent cracked. ”The destination, sir, is what I and Nanya are troubled by.”

For the Lord's sake! McQuinn s.n.a.t.c.hed up the manifest orders and read the destination aloud: ”Lowensport, Mary land, eleven miles east, northeast on the Brewer River. What's rubbin' ya the wrong way 'bout goin' there, man? It's just a mill-town's what I hear.”

Poelzig cleared his throat. ”More than that, sir.”

”I scarcely heard'a the Brewer River 'fore this run, but the harbormaster tell me it's a deep trough all the way up'n free of snags. And don't forget, the Wegener's as tough a steamboat as they come. For G.o.d's sake, we ain't gonna sink.”

Poelzig's somber face didn't change. ”Lowensport itself's what I mean, sir.”

McQuinn squinted, leaning forward. ”Ain't you and your missus Jews?”

”We are, Captain, and proud of it.”

”Well I don't know nothin' 'bout your faith, and precious little 'bout my own if you want the truth, and I don't got nothin' against any man fer what he believes.” McQuinn emphasized his next words. ”But the harbor-master tell me somethin' else, Poelzig. He tell me this little place called Lowensport was settled by Jews. Your people, Poelzig!”

”Not...our people, sir,” Poelzig whispered sharply.

Can't figure none'a this, McQuinn thought. Best to just forget it. Why would two Jews have the frights over a town full of folks who believed the same thing? It'd be like me bein' leery of steppin' into Ma.s.s.

He lined his sight back on the bay, spotted the wide mouth of a river, then checked his maps. ”What ever it is that's got your ire up, ya can stow it for now, man, 'cause here's the Brewer River. Bet we're up to six knots an hour now, and goin' upriver'll likely only knock us back to three, so we should be dockin' in Lowensport not more than two hours after sundown. We'll spend the night there.”

Poelzig suddenly tensed when he shot a gaze forward and saw the river's wide mouth. Then he went lax with a forlorn despair. ”Captain, I and my wife implore you. We cannot spend the night in Lowensport. Please, sir. Let's anchor here and finish the route tomorrow, in daylight.”

Now McQuinn was getting mad. ”We'd get back to Baltimore a day late, man! Are ya bonkers?”

”Please, sir. I and my wife cannot go there at night,” Poelzig rea.s.serted. ”Because if you must, then I and Nanya will have to swim ash.o.r.e now, and walk back to Baltimore, leaving the rest of the route to you by yourself.”

McQuinn offered his first mate a chiseled stare. Was Poelzig threatening McQuinn with the outrageous implication? I'm the captain of this boat and no first mate is directing my course, d.a.m.n it! But the harder he glared at Poelzig, the more forlorn the man became. ”Poelzig. Are you tryin' to countermand my authority on this boat?”

”Not at all, sir. And you've been as fine a man as ever let me work for him,” Poelzig said rather dolefully. ”I am pleadin' with you, though. Let's not spend the night in Lowensport. Please.”

McQuinn took a big sip off his flask, thinking. I'm so mad I could throw the bloke and his pretty wife overboard right now, but... But what? McQuinn let his temper idle, and then it occurred to him, Poelzig's worked himself to the bone for me for months and never once has he asked for anything...

”All right,” McQuinn agreed. ”I'll give you your way. I'll take us upriver a mile or two, then drop anchor. But I want that bin full, are ya hearin' me?”

Poelzig smiled for the first time since the trip started. ”I hear you very well, Captain, and you have I and my wife's fondest thanks.” And then he rushed out the back door and began to shout the news to Nanya in their own arcane language.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, McQuinn thought.

After anchoring, McQuinn halfheartedly raked for oysters off the stern while Poelzig lowered the crab traps and his wife methodically chopped the last of the wood for the tender. When McQuinn looked down the length of the boat, he felt the same pride he had on the day he'd taken it over. The Wegener was the last of its kind as far as shallow-draft riverboats went: a 100-foot-long stern-wheeler that burned wood under its boiler instead of coal. Coal in some parts was too hard to come by. Sure, the coal-burners would move faster but their furnaces cost double. Wood-burners like the Wegener, however, could take plenty of freight up more narrow rivers, and when fuel ran short you merely dropped the brow, went ash.o.r.e, and cut more. McQuinn had never seen such hardwood forests as those along the Chesapeake. Forward of the wood-tender, the furnace, and the great paddle wheel was the freight house on First Deck, and the quarters on Top Deck. There was no belowdeck for there was no hull; the boat was essentially a great rectangular platform that floated atop the water, which made it ideal for poorly charted rivers with unknown true depths and sandbars. McQuinn had never run aground, ever, not even at low tide; neither had he ever damaged the paddle wheel over snags. He loved navigating the water, and after so many years now, he could choose his own routes for much more pay than the younger captains who'd survived the War.

McQuinn tended the oyster rake-not much luck tonight-and alternately glanced over his shoulder with each great thunk of the ax. Can't figure these Europeans out, he puzzled. The man let his wife chop wood, but he had to admit it was much more pleasing to watch her wield the ax than Poelzig himself. Nanya was a unique woman, indeed, a head-turner if McQuinn ever saw one but proportioned so uncommonly.

Mother Mary, he thought, looking at her now. While he and Poelzig wore typical canvas overalls, long-sleeved cotton s.h.i.+rts, and Jefferson boots, Nanya wore identical boots, which came up just past the ankles, and a heavy cotton smock-nothing more. Her hard face remained pretty for its angles, and her roughly cut off-blonde hair looked appealing even in its unkemptness. Her body, though, was another thing. She stood tall or taller than most men-a large-framed woman, but with nary a pinch of fat on her. Instead, her body seemed sculpted from pale marble, her muscles so toned from ceaseless labor that she was likely as strong as McQuinn or Poelzig themselves. The word statuesque came to mind.

Thunk...thunk...thunk, went the ax in perfect rhythm, and each swipe caused the most precious jiggle of Nanya's unbridled and quite ample bosom.

McQuinn didn't feel he was l.u.s.ting after another man's wife but instead admiring the bonnie physique. The woman raised and lowered the ax in a machinelike synchronicity, and with each drop of the blade-thunk!-he could actually feel the vibration through the boat's great platform. Lord, he thought next. The sun sank just behind her, silhouetting that coltish body through the baggy smock.

Thunk...thunk...thunk...

McQuinn had half a flask in him now, and he saw no harm in a complimentary comment. ”Poelzig, my good man, I hope ya don't mind me pointin' out that that is one sure-fire woman you've got for a wife.”

”Yes, it is quite true, sir,” Poelzig said. He had his back to McQuinn as he tossed each log wedge into the tender.

McQuinn chuckled. ”But I also got to say that if an Irishman was to let it be known he allowed his wife to chop wood, why, that same Irishman would be thrashed in the square.”

Poelzig gave an odd chuckle himself. ”But you see, sir, I would be thrashed worse for not allowing Nanya to chop wood.”

McQuinn didn't understand. ”Thrashed by who?”

Poelzig pointed. ”By Nanya. She can fell a tree or cut a cord faster than near any man. Strong, she is. Limber. Her father-a useless cad-beat her every day as a child, until one day, when she was older, she beat him to within an inch of his sorry life.”