Old Josh Miner of St. Louis, Missouri

(Steamboats, along the Mississippi, 1906)


“We owned them back then, like horses, worked them like horses too but we had to feed them like cows also,” said old Josh Miner of St. Louis, Missouri, “they were our property,” he remembered, and reminded the captain of the steamboat, “they were the only ones that loved the river more than us, more than us captains and deckhands on those old steamboats going up and down this Mississippi, way back when, yes sir, those niggers, they loved the river more than any other folk I ever knew.
“They worked like horses, and they sang like birds, they did, I reckon they even had a soul, and we paid them all of seven dollars, ef-in we felt up to it. And if one happened to fall over the railing for some snotty-ass attitude, aint nobody made any such inquiry on whatever happened to-um.”
Old Josh Miner sat in the Captains presence (in the pilot-house), sat on a wooden stool behind him, as he navigated down the Mississippi, it was 1906, and he was reminiscing of the old days.
“Yup,” the captain said, “it isn’t like that anymore, old timer!”
He was now a slender, rather small fellow, at eighty-eight years old.
The Captain, Wilkins, of New Orleans, was almost always quite and reserved, but when Old Josh Miner came aboard, similar to other retired Captains—as they often did likewise, for conversations and free rides, frequently did, once Miner started speaking Wilkins, he’d become alive and eager. He knew Old Captain Miner; he was hard-boiled about people and the Mississippi River, with his icy-blue eyes, always acting as if he was sore for getting old, too old to pilot a riverboat down the river any longer, there he sat behind the captain, “Well,” said Captain Wilkins, “life sure isn’t consistent, it’s like the river, not in agreement with anybody.”

The old man watched the black deckhands running about the boat, fixing this and that. It had been hot all day on the narrow-deck riverboat, below and even hotter in the cabin, fiery red hot, and it was seemingly hard work for him to keep up a conversation with his companion, the broad-shouldered Captain Wilkins, rocking side to side with the boat and its steering wheel.
The boat came to a landing, one just before St. Louis, Missouri, where Josh Miner would get off. It was mostly mud under wooden boards, a river levee, a little levee town enmeshed on this parcel of wasteland—further down, only somewhat smaller than a hamlet, the old Captain watched supplies being taken off the boat for the levee folk, with his thick lips hanging open, while he listened to the black folk singing as they trotted up and own the landing-stage, as often he heard them singing in the old days—in his younger days, as he was a known as a harmless lunatic, who got a pilot’s license and knew the river perhaps better than most of the captains of his day.
“All right!” shouted Captain Wilkins voice, “let’s get moving we got to get on down to St. Louis...!”
Captain Miner liked the deep throats of the black men, humming the old songs, they held the tone strong, all thick lipped, “…black spirituality,” he called it. It seemed all the black men sang in unison, with the music, with one another, with the laboring, humming, with the river itself; and you could hear it far-off down the river.

Josh Miner lived in St. Louis, with his grandchildren, he looked in the river, he saw his aging face, and he saw the red-face of the captain, and a mate swearing below the pilot-house, cursing a few of the black men, telling them to shut their mouths and keep on working, work faster.
“The man’s harmless,” said Wilkins, “but he got a big mouth,” he explained to Miner.
Miner stood up straight and tall to get a good look at the mate.
The body of the young man, the mate, quivered as he shouted at the black men singing. Then all the niggers on the lower deck and those carrying the supplies to the levee folk went silent.
And the old man screamed at the mate, “Let them black throats sing, or I’ll have your hide!”
The mate grew strangely exited, and screamed back, “Ah, they’re just niggers!”
“He dont love the river,” said the old man to Captain Wilkins; the captain had been lost in the music himself, even the banjo had stopped playing.
As the boat labored down river, the old man went to meet the mate, there had been something between him and the mate now, something of which of they were both semi-conscious of.
Now the evening sun had come out, and the Captain said, “What happened to that mate, the loud mouth?” to Old Captain Miner. He hadn’t seen him in a while (and the music of the black men had started back up again, as did the banjo.)

Josh Miner told the Captain, in no light tone of voice, “The young man’s elbow leaned on the railing too far out, and he done slipped back yonder some place in the river, I hope he’s a good swimmer!”
And the captain looked at Josh Miner, the old man’s face, likened to his father’s who was a river captain before him, and his grandfather’s who had been a river captain in Josh Miner’s day. He turned around gripped his shoulder tightly, “I understand, old timer…”he said. And the empty night filled with eyes and ghosts as often it did, and a storm was over head—brewing, and stories flooded the old man’s mind, and the captain said, “I’ll have another good story to tell my grandchildren when I’m your age.”