Chapter 9

I sold every one of my shotguns at Rock Island. They were much more popular than the rifles. Even an Indian band pooled their resources and bought one of the shotguns. That was the kind of thing that was going to kill the nomadic life of the Indians. Once they learned how much easier it would be to obtain food with the shotgun, they would be buying powder, shot, and caps. That meant that they would locate near a trading post and not want to wander very far away.

We didn't pick up much freight for the run back to St. Louis, but we did get a few passengers. Not all of them wanted to go that far down river, a few just wanted the experience of riding a few miles on a river boat. Capt. Johnson was more than happy to accommodate them as long as they had the money for a fare.

Helen was now beginning to show a swollen belly, so she stayed close to the cabin, except for meals. But it would not be long before her sisters were delivering her meals to the cabin because she would be embarrassed to be seen in public. Hopefully, that would not happen before we reached St. Louis.

The run to St. Louis was uneventful, so Anna was able to spend more time with the crew. Both she and they loved that. Helen's baby was getting some attention even before it was borne. One of the crewmen had started a betting pool on what day the baby would be born and what gender it would be. Most of the men were betting on a boy; I suppose that was because they thought that a boy would be appropriate to balance up my family. I was amused by the whole thing, since I did not care which way it turned out—I was going to love it just as much, no matter whether it was a boy or a girl. Helen was aghast when she heard of the betting pool, but I convinced her that it was harmless fun for the men, so she relaxed.

We tied up at St. Louis and Capt. Johnson began rounding up another load of freight for Kansas City. Several boats had arrived with freight that had been shipped from New Orleans, but those boats did not want to venture onto the Missouri River, so the freight was available for other boats headed for Kansas City. It didn't take long to arrange a decent load, so we were ready to depart in nine days after arriving in St. Louis. The agents Capt. Johnson always dealt with knew his likes and dislikes and the capabilities of the Lively Louise, so very little time was frittered away on paperwork.

We were loaded and on our way to Kansas City with no wasted time. The Missouri River between St. Louis and Kansas City was rife with pirates, so we had to be on our toes all day, every day. On the second day out of St. Louis, about mid-morning, we suddenly came in sight of two large rowboats headed toward us.

Of course, rowboats had just as much right to the river as we did, so we had to wait for them to make the first hostile move. However, this did not keep our cannoneers from loading the cannon with grapeshot. They were ready, just in case. Then, it happened. The fools in one of the boats raised their muskets and began to aim at us. That was all that was needed for the cannoneers to give them a dose of grapeshot.

The aim was a little less than perfect, so a lot of the shot hit the water a glancing blow, similar to the angle at which one throws a stone to make it skip over the water. The result was that the shot bounced when it hit the water just to this side of the pirates' boat. This meant that the balls hit the boat on a rising trajectory and caved in the side of the boat. Of course, the flimsy wood did little to slow or deflect the shot and it continued on into the boat, tearing into the closely gathered bodies of the pirates. Most of the pirates were torn to pieces, just as their boat was.

The pirates in the other boat saw what happened and tried to escape. The cannoneers were having none of that and quickly reloaded with another round of grape. This shot was a little better aimed, though that was something of a technical nicety, since the result with this boat was so nearly the same as with the other one. The shot tore through the side of the boat and into the men. It looked like a great red shower and splash as the blood flew in every direction. Somebody may have survived from that boat or the first one, but we did not see any evidence of that as we slowly steamed passed, looking for survivors in the water.

Capt. Johnson never stopped, but kept on going. He was afraid there might be others around just looking for a chance to take a shot at us. He said that he would have stopped to pick up a wounded survivor, but that would have been the only reason. We steamed away from the encounter, leaving two red splotches in the water and broken pieces of wood. The turtles were already feeding on the parts of bodies floating by.

This battle happened so fast that very few of the passengers saw it. I am sure that the few that did would make sure to spread the story through every saloon they visited for the next month. Hopefully, this would help to discourage some of the pirates and keep them off our backs. I expected that it would, simply since the story would grow as it was repeated—no good story long stuck to the simple facts of the case.

Maybe we were already getting a reputation of not being someone to mess with, because we did not see any more pirates in our journey to Kansas City.

We were still several months away from starting our trip up the Missouri River to the fur rendezvous, but there was no time to make a run to New Orleans. Therefore, Capt. Johnson had to pick a destination or else sit at the wharf in Kansas City, and no self-respecting river boat captain wanted to waste money that way! However, there was time to make a run to Cairo and back, so that was what he decided to do.

There was not much freight to be found for this trip, but there were a number of passengers who would like to travel up the Ohio River, so they were happy to find a boat that would take them as far as Cairo. At Cairo, the passengers could catch a ride on a boat headed toward Cincinnati or Pittsburgh. Therefore, we stayed tied up for only six days until we had enough passengers to make the trip worthwhile.

The run to St. Louis was rare in that we saw no pirates. Did our reputation proceed us? We had no way of knowing, but I suspect that it did. Anyway, it was a comfortable trip made in near-record time, so all of the passengers and crew were happy. We spent two days in St. Louis and had a full load of passengers, though little freight.

We were three days out of St. Louis when we ran into our first pirate ambush. The Mississippi River is too wide along here for pirates to be able to shoot at river boats from the banks, so they had to attack from their own boats. Furthermore, no human-powered boat could catch a steam boat in a stern chase on this part of the river, so all we had to worry about was an attack from the front.

I can't be sure what they had in mind, but we were approached by a single sailing boat with around 10 men aboard. As usual, we did not at first know that they were pirates, but the cannoneers were on the alert, just in case. The cannon was loaded with its usual charge of grapeshot—all it needed was to have the fuse inserted in the touch hole to be ready to fire.

The pirates got very close before making their intentions apparent, so the cannon was really too close for grapeshot to be at its maximum usefulness. However, the most practical way to change from grape to cannister was to fire off the round, so the cannoneers did that. The cannon was still aimed at the sailboat, so the round hit them in the side of the boat before it ever had a chance to break apart into separate balls. It was like striking the wooden boat's side with a very large single cannon ball. A gaping hole was torn in the side of the boat just behind the bow and the round continued to travel almost the full length of the boat before it exited through the other side near the stern. The shot missed the mast, so it was not slowed much as it tore through the boat and the men gathered there.

The combination of the boat's forward momentum and the river's current caused the boat to fill with water in only a few seconds and down it went! We would have picked up any pirates floundering in the water, but we never saw any. We could only assume that they fed the fish and the turtles. It all happened so fast that the cannoneers never did get to load their round of cannister. They wound up reloading with another round of grapeshot.