Читать книгу The Ark of 1803. A Story of Louisiana Purchase Times онлайн

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Jimmy’s hand trembled and stopped. Lewis steadily drove it to the finishing of the name.

“I wish there wasn’t a still on the whole length of the Ohio river,” Lewis said very quietly. “Come here, Louis Gist, it’s your turn to sign.”

Jimmy Claiborne went back to the fire, sullen, red-faced and silent, and while the incident was soon dismissed by the others he sat looking into the fire or plucking savagely at the feathers of his turkey. He and Louis had caught them that morning, just outside the schoolhouse, in their turkey trap.

Over at the shipyard the treenail hammers sounded, blending their sharp raps with the measured hollow strokes of the mauls. All the men on the creek were working on the ark which young Captain Marion Royce was building to go down to New Orleans with the spring “fresh.”

Jonas Sparks, the veteran shipwright, had come down from Marietta to oversee the work. Even Gaffir Hoyt was working there, and Uncle Amasa Claiborne, half of whose scalp the Indians had taken thirty years before.