TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2

Subject: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Mbo
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 10:55 AM

(sorry folks, the excitement is picking up, unfortunetly my browser takes FOREVER to open big threads, so...Pt.II)

--Mbo

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: SDShad
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 11:22 AM

Good idea, Mbo. Let's include a blue clicky thing to take people back to the original thread if they want to catch up.

Chris

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: MMario
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 11:25 AM

okay, enough chit-chat! I wanna see where all of this is leading to, besides nahleens

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 11:51 AM

Let it be known I have entrusted the gambler role to Spaw, although it might be better if one of you stalwarts like MMario or Leej take it over as counterpoint to the Capn. And, BTW, Spaw has not answered. So it is open. But he is not bad, and he is really helping Miss Sarah out of bankruptcy and misfortune, although she is just now finding out about it, by salvaging that medallion which, unbeknownst to her is all that remains of her family fortune; AND, he has discovered that she is really not the Judge's daughter, in fact, that that was a ruse set up during a hot and dangerous period of the War, but the Judge has now proven an alcoholic wastrel who lost all his fortunes gambling on whippets. In fact, based on certain information he has uncovered, the Gambler and Miss Sarah are blood kin -- in fact half-siblings! -- who were brought into this world as a spin-off of the wild-oats period of Catspaughs youth. How d'ye like them apples! And the medallion is worth millions and really does trace all the way back to the mysterious Knights Templar of Malta, and seems to have mystic powers of protection and true love, as well...

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Mbo
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 11:52 AM

As Slick rose from his slumber. He was greeted by the morning sun, and the typical high Southern humidity. He sighed. His mind had been wandering all over last night. And while wondering, he had a epiphany...one true moment of clarity. He saw a twisted knot of roads, all converging at his feet, and each one leading in a different direction, as he took a step forward, the earth seemed to move under him...before his eyes, all the crooked paths and lanes disappeared...and only one remained....a perfectly straight path, leading off in the distance towards The Golden Light of Happiness. It was then that Slick began to doubt his motives of the past, and the things he had done. He began to fear the vengeance-driven creature he had become. Miss Barky had opened up a whole new world to him, one of goodness, instead of the dark machinations he had known for so long. He wondered, should he put on his old brown shoes? Put on a brand new shirt? Get up early for work at a decent job, and try to make a humble living?

Such were the thoughts of his mind. In the fresh light of the morning, he decided forthwith that he would change, reform, repent. In fact, he even had set his mind on heading to a bank at the next port, and to try to release the medallion from the bank in South Dakota. Then his mind could be free....and begin to channel his energy into a new devotion...

--Slick Philly Matt

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 12:06 PM

What?? Three goddamn medallions? I say the one the Gambler has locked in his cabin is the real one and the one Slick thinks is safe in a bank in South Dakota is the same one, which came to the Trapper through a series of violent coincidences, beginning with the James Gang knocking off a bank is S. Dakota. And the one around the actor's neck is paste and pot-metal, used in a presentation of Julius Caesar which met uncommon weak audience reception in the small town of Hannibal, Missouri...

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Peter T.
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 01:08 PM

[Ah, Amos, the secret is not to foreclose on other people's stories too early. In other words, why the hell should we believe your explanation of what is going on? Like the river, the story is winding its own way along, as the various tributaries enter and exit!!!! Only Captain Catspaugh perhaps knows where this is going, and he is strangely infatuated with that Fontaine woman, and who knows if they are the same medallions, and what of the half-amulet that Robert E. Leej is carrying around his neck? Has anyone asked him about that, eh? ]

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 01:12 PM

A strange feeling of compulsion descended on Miss Sara Belle Fontaine, as she left the Mojo woman and gambler. Clutching the cobalt glass bottle close to her heaving bosom, she concentrated on controlling her pace. All the hounds of hell seemed to be bearing down on her; she wanted so much to break out in a mad and wild dash for the railing, panic urging her to drown herself in the waters below.

Suddenly, the Mojo's kestrel pulled her up short, flapping its wings near her face, gracefully clutching the brass railing next to her. Gazing intently at her, the kestrel seemed to communicate inside the deep recesses of her mind....Calm, my pet, stay calm and follow me.

Following the wondrous bird's lead, she went to her cabin, still in the clutches of an irressistible urge. She donned her finest gown, smoothed her hair into some semblance of gentility, then carefully left the cabin, finding herself suddenly standing outside the elegantly faded ballroom.

Glancing inside, she saw Capt. Catspaugh; the Gambler, who for some reason she felt safe nearby; the dissipated Actor, sniffing at a lace hankey, no doubt soaked in laudanum, tucked into his cuff; the young man and lovely young woman who had been snooping around, he now wearing a worried look of consternation. Sara Belle gasped when she saw the old gentlman, namesake of the very boat she stood on, with a fresh white bandage round his arm, realisation dawning that it must've been him she'd shot the night before; her eyes welled up with tears. And, there, with a look of recognition she knew nothing about, stood the Trapper, the one she'd heard had her medallion in the beginning. What was that stange look of compassion on his face. Was it for her? Among all the others (sorry if I've missed someone..whew!), there stood the Mojo woman. The kestrel made a small chirrup in Miss Sara Belle's ear and she followed the instinct which led her to the woman's side.

Oh, kind woohmawn, Ah just, ohhh, I don't know what, ohh, Ah am sooo sorry Mistah Hansell, Ah never meant to harm you, and Capt. Catspaugh you've been so kind. Madam Mojo, oh, can ya'll please help me? Ah don' know what is true anymoah! Thet, thet young man, she pointed an accusing finger in his direction has something which belongs to me and I want it back! Although...Ah seem to recall HE had one, too!she said as she swung to face the gambler.

Just at that point, she caught a flash of light glinting off of something the Actor was wearing. Rushing over to him, in a blind fury of frustration and rage of years, she grabbed at the shiny medallion hanging around his neck, screaming You, you scoundrel! This is mine! Ah shoulda knoahn it was you all along, you and your fancy airs! My daddy shoulda never trusted you!

Suddenly the chain broke, the baubles falling to floor and shattering, as the paste and glass they were. Miss Sara Belle, late of Baton Rouge, sank to the floor, sobbing in wild abandon, crying for her daddy to come help her.

(End of Act Umpteenth. Curtain close.)

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 01:19 PM

(Take it back and have it magically reconstituted if you want to, Peter. I am such a cliquey person I never thought to question the scenario Amos set out! And my favourite bumper sticker is "Question Aauthority!" Go figure. Anyway, run with it my guid mawn....)

Haing added a little corn starch, the plot thickens.

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Peter T.
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 01:28 PM

Wrenching the curtain back open (of course), Cassius de Mornay, his cloak draped judiciously so that he could kneel down in the pose that had been emblazoned on CORDELIA candyboxes throughout the midWest, plunged down, as if to comfort the sobbing figure, but in reality covering her mouth with his outstretched hands. Loudly he cried: "UNTRUE, ALL UNTRUE, wretched woman!!!" He bent down closely and whispered: "In your shelllike ear, Sara, you do not know how close you are to death. I warn you, for your own sake, do not continue in this vein. There are those here who do not mean you well. I can say no more. The trumpery medallion bears no relation to the true." He drew himself up to his full height (immortalized in a painting of Macbeth now hanging in Murphy's Bar in Santa Fe): and spoke, thrillingly: "She lies!!!!But in the name of her MOTHER I forgive her!!!!!" And left the room.

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Peter T.
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 01:33 PM

[I assume one can't take anything back, kat, the river rolls on.... Unless of course Captain Catspaugh crashes this boat.]

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: MMario
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 01:36 PM

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: JenEllen
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 02:13 PM

Running to Sara Belle's side, the mojo woman kneels to comfort her. de Mornay takes a step toward the crouched pair and the woman looks up with the fires of hell behind her eyes.
"Do you want that step to be the last one you ever make, SUH?"
The woman's eyes and the falcon's peircing shriek send him back to the corner of the room.
"I have watched over this child since her birth. Her mother's birth, and her mother's before her. The medallion will return to it's righful place in the hands of a Fontaine woman."

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Peter T.
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 03:08 PM

De Mornay smiled. "Nothing further from my mind, weird sister. What does the bard say in his immortal, and singularly appropriate Shrew? "My falcon now is sharp and passing empty -- but till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged." He turned, and since his last exit from the room had obviously not been spectacular enough, he gave it the full treatment, the equivalent of which had only been seen once before, when, in the fury of a passing tornado in the Kansas Territory, he had been wooing a somewhat willowy Rosalind, who was suddenly bodily taken up by the winds, and with him desperately clutching her nether parts, the two of them were hurtled into the streets of what was left of Topeka. So well was this received, that he and she were brought back to great acclaim the following evening to recreate the event, using a borrowed wind machine.
And this time CASSIUS DE MORNAY LEFT THE ROOM!!!

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: MMario
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 03:21 PM

*from down below a voice is heard as the boat gathers speed*

Down the Mississippi steamed the 'Albert Hansell'
commanded by that pilot, Muddy Catspaugh Bill
The owners gave him orders, on the strict Q. T.
To try and beat the record of the 'Robert E. Lee'
Just feed up your fires, let the old smoke roll
Burn up all your cargo if you run out of coal
If we don't beat that record, Billy told the mate
"Send my mail in care of Peter to the Golden Gate

Catspaugh Bill steaming down the Mississippi
Catspaugh Bill a mighty man was he
Catspaugh Bill steaming down the Mississippi
going to beat the record of the "Robert E. Lee"

Up then stepped a gambling man from Louisville
who tried to get a bet against the 'Alebert Hansell'
Billy flashed a roll, that shurely was a bear
The boiler it exploded, threw them up in the air
The gambler said to Billy as they left the wreck
"I don't know where we're going, but we're neck in neck"
Says Bill to the gambler "I'll tell you what I'll do
I will bet another thousand I'll go higher then you"

Catspaugh Bill, he tore up the Mississippi
Catspaugh Bill, the tide it made him swear
Catspaugh Bill, he tore up the Mississippi
the explosion of the boiler got him up in the air

*gee whilliker's that boilers getting HOT *

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Caitrin
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 04:15 PM

My, my, my...things shore have gotten right interestin' 'round here. I didn' know I was in fer so much excitement when I signed on as a barmaid.
Actors, society ladies, mojo women...I never knew there was so much entertainment 'round here! Looks like someone's bound to end up dead 'fore all this is ovah.

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: MMario
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 04:19 PM

*as the boat continues to build headway, an ominous creaking & groaning comes from the boilers....*

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: catspaw49
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 04:32 PM

(Geeziz.........I'll be back later and try to assimilate all this.....its comin' together though....damn guys, this one is a killer)

Spaw

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: TTCM (retired)
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 04:36 PM

....100 megaton NITROUS OXIDE and AMONIA TORPEDO COMING AT ''YOUR SHIP''....



When it hits.....whatever you do, don't strike a match.




TTCM
--demonstrating compassion for fellow Mudcatters--

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Barky
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 06:39 PM

(Um... TTCM: I don't think they had torpedoes back then... this was the 1800's, you know...)

And so awakens Miss Montesquieu, who was known to be a deep and late sleeper. She stretched long and hard, then gave a big ol' yawn. "Hmm." She said. "What a loveleh dream. Ah dreamt that Ah was dihnen with th' mos' enthralin' man. Hm... he was hansom', too. OH!

With a start, Miss Montesquieu realised that it was all true, and that she HAD in fact dined with Slick, and that someone HAD gotten shot. All of a sudden everything rushed back to her. She remembered going off hand in hand with Slick to investigate the gunshot. Then she remembered fainting. Then she remembered what she had seen to cause her to faint...

~Miss Montesquieu

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 06:41 PM

Leej stood at the stern rail watching the dark wake that the steamboat was leaving in the muddy Mississippi water. It was a very hot day, but a light breeze had sprung up aft and was bathing him in droplets of the fine mist that was being thrown up by the paddlewheel. A sweet essence was on the breeze, as well, and Leej recognized it as the scent of Magnolia blossoms. He savored the glass of cool whiskey pilfered from one of the contraband casks in the hull.

At the limit of his vision, Leej studied a dark plume of smoke that stood out against the clear sky. He also began to imagine that he could hear the thrum of engines at a slightly higher pitch than that of the Hansell. At the same time that his eyes detected a glint of sunlight on distant glass, his ears took in the brief wooop of a steam whistle. It had to be the Maid of Ohio, and no more than six miles astern.

He heard a footstep on the deck behind him and turned to see the Captain gazing at the distant apparition. Catspaugh stood gazing intently for several seconds, then disappeared. As Leej drained the dregs from his tumbler, he felt the mighty vibration of the engines increase in pitch, and saw the mist fountain from the paddle wheel elevate several feet. Leej grinned. "Hot DAMN!!!"

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: TTCM (retired)
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 06:43 PM

..flick...flick...flick...

KA-BOOOOOOOOOM!

..and what a stink!..

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 06:44 PM

Oh, and in the regrettable but unforgettable words of the Yankee Scoundrel David Farragut "Damn the torpedoes! FULL SPEED AHEAD!"

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: TTCM (retired)
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 06:48 PM

oh...and Barky, we are certified members of the Temporal Police, and space-time continuums don't apply to us.


Here....(tossing you a gas mask.)

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Barky
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 06:58 PM

Thanks... needed that, TTCM, someone tooted (and it wasn't me)

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 07:39 PM

Cap'n Spaw sir, are ye right? Dave the ancient mariner cutlass and Colt .44 pistol in hand rushes to his Captains side.

What is it Pirates or other bastards of their ilk? we hit something? I'll skewer the first man that moves against ye or these fine ladies.

Aye, your backs covered sir. I'll shoot the first bastard that comes over the side and makes his move against these ladies too... Beggin yer pardon fer me strong words ladies..Just like the old days.. Blushing with shame the ancient mariner stands fast. Ready Aye Ready not the first time facing these perils of the river as the many scars attest..

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Caitrin
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 11:12 PM

Are the Temporal Police anything like Heinlein's Time Corps, Conscience M'dear? Run into any separate timelines yet? : )

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Barky
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 12:22 AM

*HEY! Don't tell me that our precious Steamboat story is sinking into the mists! I'm enjoying this!*

~Miss Montesquieu

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 12:23 AM

"At Cold Harbor we knew that we'd been beat." Leej dipped the tip of the cigar in his brandy, then drew deeply on it. " That was my last battle. My first was Mill Springs, and I was clean and well fed, brave and immortal. Death was a novel concept, and it held my admiration. It was there that my brother fell. He did not die bravely.We were mounted, and I had asked him for chewing tobacco. In the act of leaning toward me, he was struck from his horse by a minie ball. As he fell, he looked at me in shock and surprise, yet with an incredulous half-smile as if I were in part responsible but he held no grudge. I dismounted and knelt over him. He found my hand and pressed into my palm a plug of burley tobacco. That was Henry's glorious death."

But by the time of Cold Harbor I was well acquainted with Death. Which is not to say I feared him less, only that we had attained a level of comfortable intimacy. I detested him with all my heart. He reciprocated by laying all about me low with his sickle, and leaving me untouched. We had thought, at War's beginning, that we could whip the Yankee and send him running, and that would end it. Well, we did whip him. And he did run. But there were always more to whip. And by Cold Harbor, he would no longer run, but stand and die. And die in the thousands they did, on that field. Five thousand, they say, fell to our grapeshot and ball in less than one hour there. I can still see the ranks of dim specters looming through the thick smoke, coming without end, falling in rows as our ranks poured shot into them."

And when the smoke had cleared, you might have walked 300 yards stepping on the bodies of the fallen, never touching the earth. Some had approached our rampart as close as 20 feet. Among those in this grim vanguard lay a young fellow who called incessantly for water. I went to him at last with a canteen, and held his head up to drink. He had pinned a paper upon his breast, bearing his name, and that of his State and Company. Most of his comrades who lay around him had done likewise, so that someone at home would learn of their fate. This boy had fallen from a stomach wound, and in falling had more grievously injured himself by dropping upon the blade of his own bayonet. He implored me to take it from his chest. This I did, afterward holding my hands tight upon the wound, and I told him I must keep my hands there to prevent him instantly bleeding to death. At that moment, a mood of peace seemed to come over him. 'I am prepared, sir,' he said, and bade me take my hands away.

That night I saddled my mount, riding unchallenged through the picket lines. I changed my uniform for a workman's clothes, and at long last reached my home." Leej took another sip of the brandy, turning to smile at the young woman who sang, accompanied by a young man on piano, Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair. " At Cold Harbor, I knew that the victor would not be those who could hold or take the ground, those who were right or wrong, those who were cowardly or brave. The Great Victory would go to those who would spill the most blood, and I knew we would lose, for the enemy had more blood to spill."

A deep throbbing note reverberated across the river and through the Tavern of the Hansell. Leej leaped to his feet, running through the door to the starboard rail. The Maid of Ohio was now clearly in view. She was no longer following them in the main channel, but had veered well outside on this great bend in the river, hoping to use the faster current there to close on the Hansell." That man is taking a great chance! The water there is quite shallow. Perhaps he knows something that we do not." The pilot of the Maid was seen on her bow, dropping the line on first one side then the other. Again the distant riverboat sounded a low tone. " Ha!" said Leej," he's cocky! Wasting steam on taunting us. Catspaugh had better have something up his sleeve,though, I think."

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Barky
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 12:54 AM

Miss Montesquieu finished her beautiful rendition of "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair", and launched into another tune, "Struttin' With Some Barbeque". But what was it that gave her the tension in her voice? Could it possibly be the memory of her fainting at what she saw? Or could it simply be the memory of what she had seen? Only the Shadow knows....

~Miss Montesquieu

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 10:27 AM

With a sidelong glance (borrowed from the murder scene in Richard III), Cassius de Mornay entered the wheelhouse, where Captain Catspaugh was delightedly surveying the morning air, the Maid of Orleans pressing, and the ominous shuddering sounds of his own powerful boat hurtling along. "I hesitate to interpose myself at such a time, old friend, but there are some truths that will not wait." Captain Catspaugh turned from his task. An astonished look came over him. "Yes, CP, it is I. Charles Fountain, you remember, now of course the crumpled Cassius de Mornay." Captain Catspaugh smiled, but said not a word. "I repeat, I would not trespass upon your task, if I did not have information of surpassing importance. The Captain looked somewhat sceptical, and said: "Is this some more of your usual bombasisms, Charlie?"
Cassius de Mornay (we revert to his favoured sobriquet) went to the window. "Tangled web, CP, tangled web. The period, or shall I say the dissolution of all hangs in the balance. Imprimis, there is a plot afoot to blow us all to kingdom come. While Robert E. Leej is a thespian of life, it requires the eye of one who has drowned innumerable figures in butts of malmsey wine to note that some of the barrels you smuggled abord last night were not whiskey at all, but a somewhat less generically explosive but more specifically explosive substance when concentrated. And what is this all in aid of?" His face darkened.

"Let me be as brief as I can. It is a story of terrible national deception and international intrigue. You will recall that night where our paths crossed the first time, and where I first became aware that graver forces were at work."

Captain Catspaugh shuddered at the terrible memory.

"Yes, CP, which of us can forget. You, the young stagehand, and I the understudy in that ridiculous comedy, minor figures indeed, but nevertheless witnesses to that darkest of all theatrical moments, that night in Ford's Theatre!"

The sun glowed on the burnished river. Noise everywhere. Silence between the two men.

"What says Shakespeare: 'Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen: when I, and you and all of us fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.' And what you and I saw that night, which you took your way, and I took mine. When in the confusion, that terrible scene, the actor whose name has forever sullied our profession, took to the stage in his damned theatricality, thus always with actors, sic semper....; AND MEANTIME, as others raced forward, and I stood paralysed backstage, and I saw that shadowy figure that you and I wrestled to the ground, and then we in turn were beaten about the heads by his confederates, and then they fled. And how we ran after them through a city beginning to convulse in grief. And how you and I have for so many years cursed our lack of strength in that vain attempt."

Again, sunshine everywhere, the river beautiful, the Maid of Orleans speeding nearby, shuddering noise everywhere.

"But what I did not show you then, Captain (he moved unconsciously into more formal speech), was something I was able to wrestle free from that fiend and his co-conspirators that horrific night of darkness, in the heat of the struggle. Evidence, evidence, my oldest friend, evidence that all the forces of doom crowding upon this ship are determined to eradicate from human memory, evidence of a cabal of destruction, fomentor of murder, rapine, under cover of war and peace. The killers of Matthew Fontaine, Robert E. Leej's brother, and many another. The vowed death of all those who had begun to suspect. The vow taken and sealed with one symbol, one mark, one seal of membership, one......." and here he paused, to good effect, and pulled out from his waistcoat a bloodstained "medallion!!!!!!!!!"

Subject: MR=Music Related
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 04:36 PM

Miss Sara Belle Fontaine's representative steps in to his own tune:

Thanks to Ben Sussman and André Pleuss for the authorship of this wonderful ditty.

The Ballad of J. D. Law

On the banks of the Mississippi
adventure is in store
as you hear the noble tale
of a certain J.D. Law

He took himself a mission
when he got his law degree
to work for truth and justice
and fight iniquity

Riverboat Lawyer (Riverboat Lawyer)
out to help the nation
Riverboat Lawyer (Riverboat Lawyer)
needed transportation...

So he found himself a loyal friend
and a mighty river boat
He christened it "Habeas Corpus"
and set himself afloat

From the lands of the sky-blue waters
to the swamps of the Creole State
He sails to find injustice
no problem is too great

Riverboat Lawyer (Riverboat Lawyer)
Sailing through the land
Riverboat Lawyer (Riverboat Lawyer)
With a law book in his hand

He's passed the bar in every state
along that Old Man River
He'll work for the truest verdict
that Justice can deliver

On the banks of the Mississippi
adventure is in store
And now you know the story
of the famous J.D. Law

The Riverboat Lawyer Fun Page was written and programmed by Daniel Goldstein and Dennis O'Brien

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Bradypus
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 06:19 PM

Engine Room to Bridge ... It's the engines, Cap'n. They cannae take any more ...

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Apr 00 - 06:57 PM

Slick Philly had always loved "Struttin' With Some Barbeque." As he hammered out the final chords, his hands began to shake....he suddenly felt the urge to play something wistful...a song immediately came to him, one that would sound well with Miss Barky and he duetting on. he drew himself up and started to play and sing...."Shine on, Shine on harvest moon, up in the sky...."

--Slick Philly Matt

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: JenEllen
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 04:19 AM

The mojo woman reaches the deck in time to see de Mornay heading to the bridge.
She turns to head below, and spies another steamboat heading towards the Albert Hansell. The Hansell give a groan and a shake as black smoke billows fromn her pipes.
The mojo woman cringes as she feels a slight pain in her ass, and realizes it's just the "conscience" acting up again. Nothing to be bothered with now, there is work to be done.
She heads for the stairs in a cloud of swirling velvet......

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 10:48 AM

Hi Gang........Sorry folks, but my 3-D life and yet another of our past kids in trouble has occupied Karen and I for the past two days. I'll try to be back this evening and see if we can continue on down the river. To add insult to injury, tomorrow starts two friggin' months of jury duty. I don't understand how everybody else can get out of that crap and I can't. Anyway, we're heading out for the jail and are going to try to round up some of the primary family for this kid today. Carry on mates.

Spaw

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 02:44 PM

Captain Catspaugh held firm to the shuddering wheel.

"This is all very well, Charles or Cassius, but what are we to do? As you may have observed, I am in another life or death run for the river at this very instant!"

De Mornay put the medallion back into his vest. "'Like as the waves make to the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.' Captain, it is unclear what forces are aligned on what side, and how long we have before all which we inherit shall dissolve in pyrotechnic splendour. To begin with, I defer to whatever might be your relation to Miss Fontaine, whom I have allowed to slander me in the aid of the greater good. She has stumbled into this vast web out of her true faith in her father, and that sudden recognition of her grandfather's phrenology, Matthew's skull; not to mention the pilfering of his medallion by that young red-haired philanderer. The moment that trapper linked the medallion to her, she became a terrible target. That her grandfather was able to enter the cabal, and received his own medallion, for the sole purpose of revealing them to the world, alas prematurely revealed through the machinations of a woman whose name my lips cannot touch. These, I believe, she is unaware of -- though one should beware of the seeming naivete of a Southern woman in full regalia. And I suspect, though am unsure, that your colleague Robert E. Leej is with us." Captain Catspaugh turned back to his wheel. "It is for you or someone to work this out, Cassius, or whomever. I have a boat to steer."

Cassius de Mornay shrugged his shoulders, and prepared to depart, lofting his cloak to his shoulders. "What says the swan: 'A man whom both the waters and the wind, in that vast tennis-court, have made the ball for them to play upon.' I too, am but a sweller of this progress, Captain, CP, but we will see...." And he took his leave.

Captain Catspaugh sternly shook his head, then smiled something that to a neutral observer might be almost his own mysterious smile, and turned his attention fully to the river ahead. The boilers huffed and whined. He was just about to put his mouth to the hailer, when he felt a sting, like a bee sting, upon the back of his neck. He slapped at this early mosquito, early for the time of day; and then his hand seemed to wave of its own accord. Strange that. And then he began to feel a terrible sleepiness come over him, which left him enough awareness to lunge for the whistle, which blew towards all the quarters of the heavens. And then he slumped, insensible, to the floor!! The wheel, freed from his hands, spun uncontrollably!!!! The Albert Hansell was adrift!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: GUEST,Barky at the place where she can swim NEKKY!
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 03:52 PM

Miss Montesquieu sang "Shine on Harvest Moon" with Slick beautifully, each verse switching the harmonies. When the song was through, she beckoned to Slick. "I have something very important to tell you," she said. "Come with me."

~Barky

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Mbo
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 05:26 PM

Slick readily rose from the piano bench. "I would follow you to the ends of the earth, Miss Barky. Oh course I will go with you."

--Slick Philly Matt

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 06:13 PM

Ahoy there call for a doctor the Captains Down... Dave grabs the wheel and turns the bow of the Albert Hansell back into the main channel. Close call that.. Anybody see what happened? Damn it somebody get a bloody doctor if there's one aboard... easy now mates put the skipper on the daybed.. Dave's eye's rapidly searching around for the danger his hands automatically checking his Colt .44 and spare loaded cylinder.. his cutlass eased in the sheath...

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Amos
Date: 02 Apr 00 - 08:19 PM

Peter T, ye have some explaining to write!

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Barky
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 12:54 AM

Miss Montesquieu took Slick by the hand, and led him to the now empty fore-deck. She sat him down on one of the benches that were ever so convieniently placed there.
"Ye remember when Ah fainted lahst naht?"
"Of course, Miss Barky."
"Well, Ah figure Ah should give an expluhnashon..."
"Aw, nah, M...."
"No, Ah figuh Ah should tell ya why I did faint. Ya see, what Ah saw, and Ah still shudda' thinkin' about it. Ya see, Ah saw... Oh Gawd...."

Miss Montesquieu broke down in tears before she could finish her sentance, which was unfortunate for Slick. He had been hanging on her words, interested in the terrible sight she had seen the previous night.

"Please tell me, Miss Barky! I would like to know!"
"Yes. Please fohgive me. Ah am not mahself this mohnin'. As Ah was sayin', Ah saw a man, lurkin' in the shadows, and HE HAD TH' REAL MEDALLION!

~Miss Montesquieu

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Mbo
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 01:06 AM

Slick face turned pale as he listened to Miss Barky's words...how did she know about the medallion? This troubled him, and compounded with the news he had received earlier...when stopped by the bank in Memphis, to try and contact the bank in South Dakota in which he had left the Medallion, he had been told the bank had been robbed several weeks ago, and all money and collateral had been lost. So now the medallion was out there somewhere....and now Miss Barky new of it..and what exactly did she mean by "the real medallion"? This was all too confusing for Slick....

--Slick Philly Matt

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: GUEST, Another conscience....
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 01:09 AM

Classic example!

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 01:26 AM

Leej was standing at the rail, watching the Maid of Ohio make up more ground. She had succeeded in rounding the bend outside the main channel without encountering sawyers or sand bars, and was angling back to the channel, now only 1/2 mile behind the Hansell. Catspaugh was at full speed as well, but his boat was pitching now from bow to stern. "We've too much cargo in the bow," Leej thought to himself." We should move some of those kegs and crates aft and get her nose up." He had turned toward the wheelhouse, intent on speaking with the Captain, when he felt the boat go into a hard turn that sent him against the rail. "What the...!" he said, but then, just as suddenly, the Hansell had corrected course. He ran up the steps to the wheelhouse to see the chief mate Dave at the wheel, and the Captain,unconscious, being lifted from the deck by several crewmen. "What's happened to him?" said Leej. Dave replied " I don't know. I was talking to the engine room when she went hard a-port.He was there on the deck when I ran up to take the helm. He may have fainted." Leej felt for the pulse in the Captain's throat." He has a weak pulse...get Benoit in Berth 19, he's a physician. Let's take the Captain to his cabin... but, wait...here on his collar, some blood....and a puncture wound! Davey, let's keep two men at the helm. Something wicked is afoot!"

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Barky
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 08:20 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Barky
Date: 03 Apr 00 - 09:55 PM

Gee... I wonder what's going to happen. Oh well, seems people have lost interest. *Sigh* Well, I suppose it's typical of people this day and age....

~Miss Monte... I mean.... Barky

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: MMario
Date: 04 Apr 00 - 07:59 AM

Barky - 3D intrudes a lot....some one will wrap this up, soon, I imagine...if not, you get to do whatever you want with it!

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 04 Apr 00 - 08:15 AM

Get a message ashore and have the Pinkerton agency send their best man down to the next port. All officers to carry sidearms...Double the watch until we secure.. Keep your eyes sharp and your mind on the job lads...

Subject: RE: TAVERN STEAMBOAT:The Albert Hansell Pt.2
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 04 Apr 00 - 08:33 AM

[cruelly, as the Albert Hansell,like the thread seems to be running out of steam] Isn't that an ironclad monitor dead ahead just coming into view in the mist, all power gone and the wheel not responding..???
JUMP FOR IT!!
RtS [spoilsport]