The night slipped quietly behind them. Gray light ran thin along the water, touching the edges of the deck and the soft wake that trailed behind the wheelhouse. The packet moved steady north, its chimneys breathing a slow rhythm, smoke curling flat over the river before the wind carried it away.

Eli had been awake an hour or more. Sleep never held long on moving water. He stood by the rail with a tin cup, steam rising from the coffee he had coaxed from the galley fire. The brew was bitter, strong enough to pass for medicine, and it suited him fine.

Behind him, the ship’s narrow corridor carried the soft sounds of morning: boots on planks, the creak of rope, the low murmur of men greeting the day. The dining room lamps still burned, trimmed low. A few passengers lingered there: a clerk with his papers spread wide, a woman traveling with a small trunk, a drover counting coin into a worn leather purse. The cook had not come up yet, but someone had set out a tray with bread, dried fruit, and the kind of oranges that keep a man’s teeth from rotting when the miles grow long.

Caleb joined him, collar open, hat in hand. He looked rested but quiet, the weight of the past days still finding its place.

“Smells like home,” he said, nodding toward the tin cup.

Eli passed it over. “If home’s a miner’s shack with a weak fire and a stronger will, maybe.”

Caleb drank, made a face, and handed it back. “You’re not wrong.”

For a while they stood without talking. The sun was still low, a dull coin behind the mist. Along the eastern bank, cottonwoods leaned over the water, their reflections long and crooked. Somewhere far downriver a steamer’s whistle echoed, a sound that faded slow as breath.

When they finally stepped inside, the air held the mix of lamp oil and river damp. Eli filled another cup from the pot near the stove, nodded to the few souls awake, and took a corner table facing the door. Caleb fetched a plate with a heel of bread and a handful of raisins.

A deckhand came through, rough from sleep, wiping his hands on a rag. He nodded at Eli. “Morning. Captain says we’ll make the next stop by late afternoon, Helena maybe. Fog’s lifting, but she’s still got a temper.”

Eli nodded back. “River’s like most folks. Calm till she isn’t.”

The man grinned and went on about his work.

Outside, the paddlewheel kept its patient churn, and the light began to warm the mist to gold. The day would wake soon, along with whatever waited in the next port, but for now the world held still, all sound and slow motion.

Eli let the moment rest, watching the reflections slide by the windowpane. He did not trust peace, not this close behind trouble, but he would take it while it lasted.

A few minutes later, another traveler stepped through from the corridor, a slim man in a brown coat, the kind worn by office clerks and land agents. He carried a folio under one arm and looked around the room with a mild, measuring eye. Seeing two empty chairs, he approached with a polite incline of his head.

“Morning, gentlemen. Name’s Lyle Paxton. Cattle buyer’s clerk out of St. Louis. Mind if I sit?”

Eli motioned to the chair. “Suit yourself.”

Paxton sat, setting his folio carefully on the table. “Appreciate it. Hard to find a quiet seat on these runs. Every other table’s a card game waiting to start.”

Caleb gave a small grin. “You’ll find no gamblers here. Not since Vicksburg.”

Paxton raised an eyebrow but let the comment pass. “I’m bound for Kansas City by rail once we make the next connection. There’s good business starting to move up that way. Drives from Texas meeting the new line. Always need men who can keep order and stay awake longer than the whiskey lasts.”

Eli studied him, not suspicious, just taking his measure. “You hiring or looking?”

“A bit of both,” Paxton said with an easy shrug. “The outfit I work with pays fair, feeds better, and believes in finishing a job clean. I’ll be putting together a list before we hit Missouri. Never know when the right men might be sitting across the table.”

Eli’s mouth turned slightly at one corner. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

Paxton nodded, content to leave the line there. He sipped his coffee, grimaced, and smiled anyway. “Strong enough to shave with. That’s a good sign. Means the cook knows what he’s doing.”

The three men shared a short laugh, the first of the morning, quiet and genuine. Then Paxton gathered his papers and excused himself, promising to talk again before the day was done.

The packet rolled on through the hours. The sun burned away the mist, and the water took on the deep color of steel. Towns came and went, small landings with names barely painted on the docks. Men loaded freight, waved, and disappeared behind the green of the banks.

By late afternoon the air grew heavy again, the heat softening into a gold haze. The river widened, and in the distance church steeples and rooftops began to rise above the trees. Helena stood on its bluff like a town waiting for company, smoke from a dozen chimneys drifting over the ridge.

Eli leaned against the rail beside Caleb as the packet slowed to half power. The sound of the paddlewheel deepened, and the current pulled against the hull. Crewmen called to one another, coiling rope, setting out the gangplank.

“Looks like we made it,” Caleb said quietly.

Eli nodded. “For now.”

The boat gave a slow, hollow sigh as it came alongside the dock. The shore smelled of sawdust, river mud, and the faint trace of coal smoke. As they waited for the line to be thrown, Eli caught a glimpse of movement on the bluff above, someone watching, just still enough to vanish when he looked again.

The bell rang once, and the gangplank dropped.

Helena waited.

—•—

The bell’s echo thinned out across the water and was swallowed by the slow churn of the wheel. The boat held against the current, steady but alive beneath their boots. The smell of the river was stronger here, a mix of wet earth and smoke, sharp with tar from the dock pilings.

Eli and Caleb stayed by the rail while most of the passengers began to gather their things. A deckhand shouted for freight hands, and the thud of crates sounded from below. The heat of the day was breaking, the sky washing from gold into rose and gray.

From their height above the dock they could see Helena easing into its evening. A horse team rattled past the main street, wagons stacked with lumber and cotton bales. The church bell up on the bluff gave two slow tolls, and the sound drifted down like a voice carried by the wind.

Caleb leaned on the rail, eyes following the movement of people below. “You ever notice how towns along this river all look half built and half burned at the same time?”

Eli nodded. “That’s because most of them are. War took what fire didn’t.”

“Helena looks better than Vicksburg, though.”

“For now,” Eli said.

A match flared near the forward stack. The man who lit it cupped the flame against the wind, then drew slow on his cigarette. The bowler hat caught a trace of the light before the smoke covered it.

Caleb saw him, too. “There’s your watcher again.”

Eli’s eyes stayed on the man, calm and steady. “He’s patient.”

“Maybe he’s just curious.”

“Curiosity that carries a pistol on his belt.”

The man exhaled and leaned his shoulders against the rail, a figure content to wait. He watched the men on deck, but not openly. Just a faint turn of the head when voices rose, or when the gangplank creaked with the shift of freight.

The sun dropped lower, and the lamps on the dock were lit one by one. The glass globes shone in the gathering dusk, their light trembling over the river’s skin.

Eli turned slightly, speaking low. “We’ll wait until the line clears. Let the crowd go first.”

Caleb nodded. “Give him time to make his move?”

“Give him time to think we aren’t watching.”

They stayed where they were, silent as the water itself. The last passengers filed down the plank, among them Paxton, his folio tucked close, greeting a heavyset man who waited beside a wagon. The two spoke briefly, then began checking a ledger as the freight was unloaded.

The bowler-hatted man finally moved, tossing his cigarette overboard and stepping closer to the rail. His voice came even, neither threat nor greeting. “Vicksburg seems smaller now that we’ve left it behind.”

Eli looked at him fully for the first time since the dock in that city. “Maybe that’s distance talking.”

“Maybe,” the man said. “Or maybe some places just shrink when their business is done.”

“Yours done?”

The man’s mouth curved faintly, a smile that held no answer. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

He tipped his hat and walked toward the stern without hurry. The shadow took him before the lamplight reached that far.

Caleb watched him go. “You think he’s following us?”

“I think he hasn’t decided yet.”

The river lapped against the hull, soft and regular. Crewmen shouted again, calling for the last rope to be loosed, and the gangplank thudded as freight carts rolled away.

Eli took one last look at the bluff above the town, at the smoke rising where the sun had gone, then said quietly, “Let’s go see what Helena has for us.”

They gathered their gear and stepped toward the plank, the smell of land and wood smoke drawing closer with every stride.

—•—

The gangplank shuddered as it hit the dock, a hollow thump that rolled through the planks underfoot. The smell of land came first: tar, wet rope, wood smoke, and the faint sharpness of mule sweat. Beyond the lamps of the landing stretched a scatter of warehouses and sheds, each with their paint half worn off and their signs hanging crooked.

Helena breathed like a town still deciding what it wanted to be. Once the Union’s forward post, now half rebuilt, its wharves still bore the scars of cannon fire. Fresh lumber lay stacked where old timbers showed blackened edges, and along the upper ridge, new roofs gleamed beside houses that had lost their chimneys.

Paxton stood near a wagon on the edge of the freight yard, his folio under his arm, speaking with a heavy man in a light canvas coat. The man had a thick neck, sun-darkened skin, and the posture of someone used to giving orders without raising his voice.

Paxton waved as Eli and Caleb came off the gangplank. “There they are. Mr. Warren, Mr. Thorne—this is Jonah Pratt, the buyer I work under.”

Pratt tipped his hat. “Gentlemen.” His eyes ran over them with quick, practiced measure. “Paxton says you’re both trail-hardened and quiet sorts. That true?”

Eli set his rifle case down beside him. “We do our work and leave the talking to others.”

“That’ll do,” Pratt said. “We’re heading west by rail in two days, Kansas City connection. Could use a few men who won’t rattle when the road gets long. If you’re interested, there’s coin in it and steady work when we reach the yard.”

Eli looked at Caleb. Caleb gave a small nod. “We’ll think on it,” Eli said. “Where can we find you?”

“Riverfront Hotel,” Pratt answered. “Second floor, room marked with a brass tag. Paxton can tell you which one.”

Paxton smiled. “Stop in tomorrow morning if you decide. The captain’s giving me till noon to fill our list.”

Eli shook Pratt’s hand, then Paxton’s. “We’ll see you then.”

The two men moved off toward their wagon, and Eli and Caleb crossed the dock toward the town’s main street. The light was almost gone, leaving a copper wash along the water. Lamps burned in the upper windows of warehouses and along the boardwalk, throwing long stripes of gold across the mud.

Helena in that hour was alive but not loud. River traffic had quieted, yet the town still worked by lamplight. Wagons rolled from the levee with loads of cotton and timber. Mule drivers called low to their teams. The rattle of chains and the ring of hammer on metal came from a smithy somewhere up the hill.

They passed a line of riverfront saloons, their names painted in red and black letters: The Levee House, The Iron Pike, Widow Barker’s. Piano music drifted from one doorway, half drowned by the rise of men’s voices. Across the street, a preacher stood on an apple crate reading aloud from a worn Bible while a drunk laughed at him from the gutter.

Eli kept walking. “Same kind of town every mile of this river,” he said. “Part trade, part trouble.”

Caleb nodded. “At least they’re building again. You can smell the sawdust.”

They turned up Cherry Street, where the air cooled a little and the lamps stood farther apart. Here, the storefronts leaned close together: a tailor, a dry-goods shop, a small post office with the door propped open for the night breeze. A dog barked once and went quiet.

Halfway up the block they found a narrow brick hotel with a hanging sign that read Madison House. The window shutters were open, and the yellow light from the front room showed clean floors and polished wood counters that caught the lamplight.

Inside, the clerk looked up from a ledger. He was a thin man with wire spectacles and a starched collar, his voice low and even. “Evening, gentlemen. Looking for a room?”

Eli nodded. “Two beds, one night.”

“That’ll be seventy-five cents. Bathhouse out back, supper’s done but there’s coffee and bread left if you’d like it.”

Eli paid, signed their names, and took the brass key. The room they were given faced the river, small but clean, with a washstand, a kerosene lamp, and curtains that moved slightly with the night breeze.

Caleb sat on the edge of the bed, stretching his legs. “Feels good to have a floor that doesn’t sway.”

Eli stood at the window, looking down toward the levee where the lamps flickered. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Think that watcher of ours is still down there?”

“I’d bet on it.”

A freight whistle blew somewhere upriver, long and lonely. The sound carried across the rooftops and faded into the hills. Helena was settling in for the night, but it was the kind of town that never slept entirely.

Eli let the curtain fall and turned down the lamp. “Get what rest you can,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow we see where this road starts to bend.”

The river kept its slow murmur below, constant as breath.

—•—

Dawn came slow through a pale haze. Helena stirred early, river bells calling the first freight crews back to the docks. The streets still shone from a night rain, and the air carried the cool of the water before the sun rose to burn it off.

Eli and Caleb crossed toward the Riverfront Hotel after breakfast. The place was larger than the Madison House, built of red brick with tall shutters and a balcony that overlooked the levee. Wagons rolled past, wheels clattering in the ruts, and the faint clang of a blacksmith’s hammer carried up from the yard below.

Inside, the dining room was half full with merchants and travelers. At a corner table sat Paxton, his folio open beside a plate of eggs gone cold. Across from him, Jonah Pratt read a folded sheet of figures, his hat on the chair beside him.

Eli paused at the door a moment. Two tables over, the man in the bowler hat stirred his coffee with quiet precision, his coat collar turned up against the morning chill. He looked up once, met Eli’s eyes, and gave the smallest of nods.

Paxton saw Eli and waved them over. The moment passed. When Eli looked again, the bowler-hatted man had risen and was settling his bill at the counter. His voice was calm, the words low.

“Change for Pittsburgh, if it can be arranged. There’s work waiting north of the rivers.”

The clerk nodded and handed him a folded ticket. A moment later, he was gone into the mist outside, leaving the faint smell of smoke and cheap tobacco behind him.

Eli took the seat across from Paxton. Pratt folded his paper and set it aside. “You’ve had the night to think. You ready to work?”

Eli nodded once. “We are.”

Pratt reached into his vest and took out a leather purse. “Then we’ll call it settled. Forty dollars a month, found and fed, from here to Abilene. Ten dollars advance to start you proper. You’ll report to me on the Kansas City line before sundown tomorrow.”

Eli took the offered coins and weighed them in his hand. “That’ll see us to the train.”

Pratt gave a curt nod. “Good. Paxton will handle the papers.”

Paxton slid two simple contracts across the table, written in a clerk’s careful hand. Eli read his through before he signed. The pay was fair, the terms plain: no gambling, no drink on the trail, pay issued at railhead delivery. Caleb signed beside him.

Pratt looked at both men. “We move out at dawn day after tomorrow. Bring your rifles and your sense. I can supply the rest.”

Eli stood, folding the contract and slipping it into his coat. “You’ll have both.”

They left the Riverfront behind and stepped out into the rising day. The river glimmered pale gold between the warehouses. Freight calls echoed from the docks, mingling with the distant sound of a church bell high on the bluff.

Caleb glanced over his shoulder. “Think we’ll see him again? The man in the bowler?”

Eli kept his eyes ahead. “Not today.”

He looked once more at the river, then at the hills beyond it. The water ran north, wide and endless, carrying with it the noise of towns and the quiet of those who’d already moved on.

Their road was set. The drive would begin soon.