CHAPTER 13 “It has bewitched you.”
Bowie did not like ships. He preferred the elegant Mississippi riverboats, which were little more than floating hotels and gambling salons. Lucinda, by contrast, was cramped, rough-hewn, and plagued with the odor of unwashed bodies. And though this stretch of the Mississippi was wide and smooth, the brig never ceased to rock, making him long for solid ground.
The scenery, too, left much to be desired. The surface of the river was broken only by mudbanks and bulrushes. Along the shores, alligators sunned themselves, sliding in and out of the ooze. The land on either side—flat for as far as the eye could see—was broken only by the occasional barns and huts of sugar plantations.
And it had become all too familiar. Bowie had recently returned from Washingt
