The Sea Hunters II: More True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks

I Penelore 1811–1814

“Good Lord,” Nicholas Roosevelt said.

A giant comet was hurtling through space on an elliptical orbit back to the sun. The diameter of the orb was estimated to be more than 400 miles, with a gaseous tail stretching back nearly 100 million miles. The comet moved slowly and steadily through its orbit — an orbit that required more than three thousand years to complete. The comet had last been seen on earth during the reign of Ramses II.

The date was October 25, 1811. The time, 10:38 p.m.

Roosevelt was medium height, about five feet six inches, and medium weight, around 150 pounds. His hair was brown, not favoring blond or drifting toward black, but a single shade like a varnished walnut log. His eyes, which twinkled when he became excited, were green and flecked with gold dots. In general, his appearance was average. What set Roosevelt apart from his fellowman was an undefined and indescribable demeanor, a zest for life that oozed from him like sap from a tree. Call it confidence, attitude, or ego — whatever it was, Roosevelt had it in spades.

Standing on the steamboat New Orleans, Lydia Roosevelt stared overhead in awe.

Lydia was dressed in a high-necked dress with a hoopskirt accented by a white straw hat interwoven with wildflowers. Her attire was out of place given her rough surroundings. She was graced with a face that was one of extremes. Her eyes were large, her mouth surrounded by puffy lips, and her nose slightly wider than usual. She was young and filled with life. Her chest was heavy and wide, her hips broad but without fat, her legs thick but shapely. She was not a delicate miniature rose but instead a robust sunflower in bloom. Lydia was eight months pregnant with her second child. The Roosevelts’ first child, a daughter named Rosetta, was three. The Roosevelts had been married five years. Nicholas was forty-three, Lydia twenty.

For nearly an hour, the crew of New Orleans watched as the massive orb crossed from east to west like God’s own exclamation point. The crew watched the spectacle in bemused amazement as the comet moved soundlessly through space. Even Tiger, the Roosevelts’ Newfoundland dog, was strangely quiet.

“One more strange occurrence,” Lydia said, as the comet faded from view. “First, northern lights and rivers out of their banks, then squirrels and pigeons. Now this.”

Lydia was referring to a recent rash of strange events.

The spring floods of 1811 had been worse than usual. After the water finally retreated, sickness from the stagnant water left behind had gripped the land. Shortly thereafter, the aurora borealis became visible farther to the south than usual. To compound the odd turn of events, the strange flickering lights were visible for months. Then even more strange phenomena: On the day New Orleans left Pittsburgh, the crew had witnessed thousands of squirrels, an undulating wave of fur, traveling south as if being chased by a coordinated pack of dogs. The squirrels seemed hell-bent on escaping something, and the sight had been mildly disturbing to all aboard.

Then, a few days later, the crew witnessed another bizarre incident.

While everyone on New Orleans was asleep, the leading edge of a flock of passenger pigeons crossed over the river. The flock flew from north to south, a mass of birds stretching some 250 miles from Lake Erie into Virginia. The next morning when the crew woke, the decks of the New Orleans were spotted with droppings, and the sky overhead was still dark.

“What do you make of it?” Roosevelt asked Andrew Jack, the pilot.

“Sometimes these migrations can take days to pass,” Jack said.

Lydia waddled down the walkway and now stood outside the door as well.

“I don’t like that sound,” she said. “Like the beating of tiny drums.”

“A few more minutes and we’ll be under way,” said Jack. “Once we’re a few miles downstream, we should be out of the migration path.”

That night, after they tied up alongshore, Roosevelt supervised the deckhands as they washed New Orleans from stem to stern. Tomorrow they would stop for a few days in Henderson, Kentucky, to visit friends. Roosevelt wanted New Orleans to look her best. Even with all the strange events, his enthusiasm was undiminished.

Nicholas Roosevelt was a constant source of optimism.

New Orleans’s itinerary was Pittsburgh to New Orleans — a trip never before attempted by a steamship. The trip was part of a well-funded and well-planned play for Roosevelt and his partners. Their goal was to secure a patent on western steamboat traffic. At the time of the voyage, laws pertaining to steamships were still in their infancy. In New York State, Robert Fulton’s company had managed to patent steamboat travel on the Hudson River, creating, at least for a time, an extremely lucrative monopoly. Now Fulton, along with partners Robert Livingston and Nicholas Roosevelt, wanted to do the same on the Mississippi River. The planning for his trip had been meticulous and detailed. First, the trip needed to be successfully completed. If the boat sank, no investor would want to ante up. Second, the trip needed to be completed quickly, to prove to investors the economic benefit of steam over paddle.

Robert Fulton, the inventor of the world’s first functional steamboat, had designed New Orleans, while Robert Livingston, a wealthy New York businessman who was a confidant of Thomas Jefferson, had provided the funding. Roosevelt, himself no slouch when it came to powerful contacts, was a descendant of the Dutch settler who had purchased Manhattan Island from the natives, as well as a close friend of John Adams. The previous year, Nicholas and Lydia had made a test journey down the river on a flatboat, stopping to visit influential people along the way.

Nothing was left to chance, but there are some things that cannot be predicted.

New Orleans was 116 feet in length with a 20-foot beam. Constructed of yellow pine — not Roosevelt’s first choice, but the only wood available within their rushed timetable — the vessel featured a rounded belly like that of a trout.

The middle section of New Orleans’s deck was open, housing the 160-horsepower steam engine, copper boilers, and walking beam that transferred power to the pair of side-wheel paddles. Having the machinery in the open gave the ship an unfinished appearance. Two masts with wrapped sails were stationed to each side of the open engine pit. From the stem mast flew the flag of the United States, a red, white, and blue cloth featuring seventeen stars and seventeen stripes. A pair of rectangular cabins, men’s forward and women’s aft, sat on the deck to each side of the engine pit. In the forward cabin was an iron cooking stove, and atop the ladies’ cabin were a table and chairs covered by an awning. In the stem, constantly diminishing piles of firewood gave the boat a rough edge. All in all, New Orleans was a crude but functional-looking affair.

The morning after the comet passed, New Orleans continued downriver. By ten that morning, the ship was fifty miles from Cincinnati and steaming at eight miles per hour. This was the third day since leaving Pittsburgh, and the crew was finding a routine. Andrew Jack, the pilot who was guiding the newfangled steamship downriver, was tall, nearly six feet five inches in his work boots. Lean, with long narrow feet, he came across as a bit of a stork. His cheekbones were pronounced and his jaw square and defined. Jack had sandy-colored hair combed to the left. Bushy eyebrows topped pale gray eyes that looked far into the distance. He was twenty-three years old.

Belowdecks was the domain of Nicholas Baker, a dark-haired man who stood five feet nine inches and weighed 150 pounds. Baker had a face that was square and sturdy and without contrasts. His appearance might be called plain, save for his bright smile and warm eyes. With help from the six Cajun and Kaintuck deckhands, Baker tended to the engines and kept the boiler’s fires stoked and the steam at a steady 60 pounds.

At least New Orleans was blessed with an experienced crew.

Painted an unusual sky-blue, the vessel steamed around the port bend in the Ohio River above Cincinnati. The pile of firewood on the rear deck was less than four feet by four feet, barely enough to make the city docks, since New Orleans burned fuel at the rate of six cords a day. A single cord of wood measures four feet high by four feet wide by eight feet long. When the steamboat was fully stocked with a full day of fuel, she looked like a lumber barge on her way to the mill.

“Sweep up the scraps of bark,” Roosevelt said to one of the Cajun deckhands, “and straighten the rear deck.”

“Yes, sir,” the man drawled.

“We need the boat to look her best,” Roosevelt said as he walked forward, “for as of this instant she’s the most famous ship in the Western Territories.”

At that instant, the shriek of the steam whistle ripped through the air.

“Cincinnati dead ahead,” Jack shouted from the pilothouse door.

As soon as New Orleans was tied fast to the dock, a crowd of citizens went to the waterfront to view the oddity up close. Nicholas Roosevelt was in rare form, and the bizarre events of the journey so far seemed behind them. With a showman’s zeal, he led groups aboard the steamboat.

“Come one, come all,” he shouted, “see the future of travel firsthand.”

As the crowds filtered aboard, Engineer Baker explained the workings of the steam engine while Captain Jack demonstrated the steering from the pilothouse. Roosevelt even allowed the guests to tour the cabins and dining room. Other than the grumbling of a spoilsport, who claimed the vessel would never make it upstream against the current, the visit was proving successful.

It was dark and growing cold by the time the last guests left.

A chill wind blew from the east. The pregnant Lydia was tired and cold. She was resting in the dining room with a blanket around her legs. Her feet were propped up on a chair. Nicholas chased the last of the guests off New Orleans, then pulled the gangplank back aboard. Entering the dining room, he walked over to his wife.

“We couldn’t fire the cookstove because of all the people aboard,” Lydia said, “so we’re having cold roast beef sandwiches for dinner.”

Nicholas nodded wearily.

“The cook did have a chance to slip ashore and buy milk, however,” Lydia said, “so you can have a cold glass of milk with your sandwich.”

Nicholas pushed the clasp on his gold pocket watch, and the top popped open. Staring at the roman numerals inside, he could see it was nearly 7 P.M. “I need to go ashore for pipe tobacco. The store closes soon. Do you need anything?”

Lydia smiled. “If there’s a pickle barrel, a few dills would be good.”

“The baby, my dear?” Roosevelt asked.

“Yes,” Lydia agreed, “it seems he craves sour.”

“Be right back,” Roosevelt said.

“I’ll be waiting with your sandwich,” Lydia shouted after her retreating husband.

Nicholas leapt the short distance to the receiving pier, then hurried up the cobblestone street to the store. Cincinnati was a frontier town. No streetlights lined the avenue, and what scant illumination was available came from candles and fuel oil lamps inside the shops lining the road. Half of the shops were closed for the night, and the cobblestones were a patchwork of light. Finding the mercantile, Nicholas entered, made his purchases, then started back for the boat.

Roosevelt was bone-tired. The excitement of the last few days, combined with the fact that he had yet to eat dinner, was dragging him to the edge of exhaustion. He walked with his head down as he descended the hill to the river.

Roosevelt did not see the approaching man until he was already upon him.

“The end is near,” the man shouted, as Roosevelt nearly bumped into him.

Nicholas raised his eyes and took in the stranger. The man was bedraggled and badly in need of a bath. His hair was long, halfway down his back, and matted. His face was deeply tanned, as if he lived outdoors. What few remaining teeth he had were stained from chewing tobacco. It was his eyes that Roosevelt focused on. They burned with an intensity of conviction or madness.

“Back away, my good man,” Roosevelt said, as the man edged closer.

“The squirrels, the birds, a fiery comet,” the man muttered. “How much more proof does man need? Repent. Repent.”

Nicholas passed the man and continued down the hill.

“Bad things are coming,” the man shouted after him. “Mark my words.”

Strangely shaken by the bizarre exchange, Roosevelt returned to the New Orleans, quickly finished his sandwich and milk, then crept into bed. Hours passed before he found the release of sleep. It would be nearly two months before he knew what the strange man had meant.

Two days later, New Orleans bid farewell to Cincinnati, bound for Louisville, Kentucky. At this time the Ohio River was untamed. It featured many stretches with white water and small falls. Luckily, Jack had navigated a variety of Hatboats and barges down this part of the river. He stood at the wheel and steered toward the correct channel. Like a kayak through rapids, the steamboat threaded past menacing rocks as the river’s rushing current hurtled it through the narrow channel at twice the speed she was capable of reaching on her own.

In the ladies’ cabin, Lydia calmly knitted while her servants nervously clutched railings, the rough ride throwing them about the cabin. Everyone sighed with relief when the steamboat finally found calm water again.

The maelstrom passed, and New Orleans reached Louisville under a pale harvest moon.

“Well,” Jack said, as they pulled in front of the city. “We made it.”

Then he released the steam valve. A shriek filled the air. The citizens of Louisville climbed from their beds at the unnatural sound. Wearing nightclothes and carrying candles, they sleepily made their way toward the river and stared at the bizarre beast that had arrived in the middle of the night.

“Looks like you woke the entire town,” said Baker.

“Mr. Roosevelt likes to make a grand entrance,” Jack said.

Just below Louisville the following day, Roosevelt, Jack, and the mayor of Louisville stood staring at the falls of the Ohio River just outside town.

“I’ve seen your vessel,” the mayor said, “and I concur with Mr. Jack. She draws too much to safely navigate the falls. I’d wait until the water rises.”

“When is that?” Roosevelt asked.

“The first week in December,” the mayor said.

“Winter rains and snow raise the water level?” Jack asked.

“Exactly,” the mayor said.

“That’s nearly two months from now,” Roosevelt said. “What do we do until then?”

“The crew of New Orleans will be our guests,” the mayor said.

So that is what they did.

From the start of the voyage, a romance between Maggie Markum, Mrs. Roosevelt’s maid, and Nicholas Baker had been blooming. The pair found time for stolen kisses and furtive groping while aboard the ship. More serious physical pursuits took place during their daily walks in the country. They were madly in love, and it would have been hard for the rest on the boat not to notice.

Their love affair was not the only event that took place while New Orleans was tied up at Louisville.

The first baby born on a riverboat, Henry Latrobe Roosevelt, arrived at sunrise.

The next few weeks in Louisville passed with cleaning and maintenance. New Orleans’s slate-blue paint was touched up and the brightwork was polished. The sails, as yet unused, were unfurled and checked for tears or moth damage, then refolded and stowed on the masts. Andrew Jack studied the measurements on a sheet of paper, then tossed a stick into the middle of the falls and watched its rate of travel. It was late November, and a light chill frosted the air.

“We can make it,” he said at last, “but we’ll need to traverse at full speed so we have steering control.”

Nicholas Roosevelt nodded. A few days earlier, he had received a letter from his partners in the Ohio Steamboat Navigation Company. They’d expressed concern about the delay — the monopoly was in jeopardy. New Orleans needed to get under way. Once they had passed the falls, it would be smooth sailing.

Or at least that’s what Roosevelt thought.

Nicholas sat inside the dining room, spooning a deer stew into his mouth. Dabbing a cloth napkin at his lips, he then sipped from a tin cup filled with steaming coffee.

“The river is fullest in about two hours,” he said. “I’ll have a deckhand take you by wagon to the bottom of the falls, where you’ll meet up with us.”

“Is this for our safety?” Lydia asked.

“Yes,” Nicholas said.

“Then the boat might overturn?” Lydia asked.

“The chance is slim,” Nicholas admitted, “but it might.”

“Then you would be killed and I’d be alone with a new baby,” Lydia said.

“That’s not going to happen,” Nicholas said.

“I know it’s not,” Lydia said defiantly. “We’re going with you. All or none.”

So it was settled. New Orleans left the dock in early afternoon.

“I’ll run upstream about a mile,” Jack said, “then turn down and run her full-out.”

Roosevelt stood outside the door to the pilothouse as New Orleans pulled into the current. Jack’s face was a mask of tension and concern. A thin trickle of sweat ran down his neck, no mean feat with the temperature outside in the forty-degree area.

The steamboat was strangely quiet. The deckhands had secured themselves in the forward cabin. The women huddled together in the aft cabin, lining the windows to watch. Baby Roosevelt lay in a bassinet braced against a bulkhead, sound asleep.

“I’m going to turn now,” Jack said.

He spun the wheel. New Orleans turned slowly in an arc and faced downstream. Then Jack pulled the whistle, rang the bell for full steam, and said a prayer.

Atop the rock outcropping on the south side of the falls, Milo Pfieffer and his best friend Simon Grants were pouring red paint into the water from a bucket they had stolen from the hardware store. The thin stream of tinted water widened as it neared the top of the falls, then spread across the water as it fell, finally completely tinting the discharge a light pink for a mile downstream.

“Okay,” Milo said, “you go watch now.”

“What’s that?” Simon said, as he heard a noise coming from upstream.

“Ditch the paint,” Milo said, “there’s grown-ups coming.”

Simon stashed the stolen paint, then turned to the crowd that was slowly advancing on the falls. Thirty of Louisville’s finest citizens left the dock before New Orleans. They planned to watch the steamboat shoot the falls or break up trying.

“What’s happening?” Simon asked.

“There’s a steamboat going to try and shoot the falls,” a man answered.

Milo ran upstream until he spotted New Orleans racing downstream. He stared in awe. The slate blue of the hull seemed to blend with the blue of the river water. Sparks and smoke poured from the stack and trailed to the rear like a signal fire run amok. The twin paddle wheels chopped at the river, flinging sheets of water high in the air. No one was visible on deck save for the big black dog atop the bow sniffing the air. In fact, the vessel looked like a ghost ship. Suddenly, the steam whistle shrieked, and Milo watched as New Orleans entered the middle channel of the falls.

“Back left wheel,” Jack shouted, “full starboard.”

New Orleans leaped sideways.

“Full on both wheels,” Jack said a second later.

Spray washed through the open windows in the aft cabin, wetting Lydia’s and Maggie’s faces. To each side of the vessel were rocks and churning waters. They braced themselves as New Orleans took a sharp turn from left to right. In the pilothouse, Nicholas Roosevelt peered downstream.

“Looking good,” he shouted over the roar of the water.

Engineer Baker poked his head into the pilothouse. “How much longer?”

“Two, maybe three minutes,” Jack said.

“Good,” Baker said. “I’ll rupture a boiler if it’s much longer.”

“Twenty yards ahead is a series of boulders we need to avoid,” Jack said.

“What’s the sequence?” Roosevelt shouted.

“Hard left, right half, left half, then full to the right and hug that side of the river until we’re in the clear,” Jack said.

“Here they go,” Milo shouted as New Orleans lined up to tackle the last rapids.

“He had better get her over to the left,” Simon added.

The mayor of Louisville crested the rocks. He panted from the exertion of the climb. Stopping to catch his breath, he pulled the stub of a cigar from his vest pocket and crammed it in the comer of his mouth before speaking.

“Hard to believe,” he said. “They just might make it after all.”

Inside the pilothouse, the mood was tense but optimistic. Eighty percent of the falls had been navigated already. All that remained was a small series of rocky outcropping at the outflow. Then they would be in the clear.

“We’re almost through,” Jack said.

“The river narrows a bit right ahead,” Roosevelt noted.

“And the current becomes stronger,” Jack noted. “I’ll need to steer at the rocks to the right, then let the current swing the bow around. Once she’s straight, give her full steam. We should pop right out the other side.”

“Should?” Roosevelt asked.

“We will,” Jack said.

Inside the aft cabin, Lydia Roosevelt, Maggie Markum, and the heavyset German cook, Hilda Gottshak, were huddled together alongside the widows on the starboard side. Henry the baby was awake, and Lydia held him up to see.

“Looks like we’re headed right for the wall,” Lydia said, pulling the baby closer.

Gottshak hugged her Bible. “I pray the rest of this trip goes smoothly.”

“Pray the engines keep running,” Lydia said to her.

At that instant, the current grabbed hold of the bow and swung the vessel around.

“Bully of a job,” Nicholas said, as they cleared the last of the falls. “Maxwell will bring you a snifter of brandy.”

“The river is smooth from here to the Mississippi,” Jack noted.

“How long until we reach Henderson?” Roosevelt asked.

“Barring any problems, we’ll be there tomorrow afternoon,” Jack said.

“Quiet,” Lucy Blackwell said, “or you will scare it away.”

Blackwell was Lydia Roosevelt’s best friend. She was also the wife of artist John James Audubon, who would become famous for his sketches, drawings, and paintings of birds. Lydia Roosevelt was the daughter of Benjamin Latrobe, surveyor general of the United States. Nicholas had known the Latrobe family before Lydia was born, and he had watched her grow into womanhood. Though there was more than a twenty-year age difference between the two of them, Lydia was a happy wife.

“Carolina Parrot,” Lucy said.

“Beautiful,” said Lydia.

Half a mile away, in the Audubons’ store in Henderson, Kentucky, Nicholas sat in front of a checkerboard. He glanced over at Audubon, then made his move.

“We are 150 miles below Louisville,” Roosevelt said. “So far, so good.”

Audubon studied Roosevelt’s move. Reaching onto the table, he removed a deerskin pouch of tobacco and filled his pipe. Tamping down the tobacco, he lit it with a nearby candle. “From here downstream,” Audubon said, “the river widens and the current slows.”

“So you think we’ll make New Orleans?” Roosevelt asked.

“Sure,” Audubon said. “I made it to the Gulf of Mexico once in a canoe.”

Roosevelt nodded and watched as Audubon made his jump.

“Did a painting of a pelican there,” he finished, “with a fish hanging from his bill.”

On December 16, New Orleans left Henderson and continued downstream.

Inside a buffalo-skin tepee near present-day East Prairie, Missouri, a Sioux Indian chief drew in smoke from a long pipe, then handed it to his Shawnee visitor.

“General Harrison defeated the Shawnee at Tippecanoe?” the Sioux chief asked.

“Yes,” the Shawnee messenger noted. “The white men attacked the morning after the harvest moon. Chief Tecumseh rallied his braves, but the white men attacked and burned Prophet’s Town. The tribe has retreated from Indiana.”

The Sioux took the proffered pipe and again inhaled the smoke. “I had a vision yesterday. The white man has harnessed the earth’s power for his own evil purposes. He has rallied the beasts to his cause, as well as controlling the comet in the heavens.”

“One of the reasons I came,” the Shawnee explained, “is that our braves witnessed a Penelore on the river above here. It might try to enter the Father of Waters.”

“A Fire Canoe?” the Sioux chief asked. “Must be part of the burning star.”

The Shawnee exhaled smoke from his lungs before answering. The Sioux had powerful tobacco, and his head was spinning. “Smoke trails from the center of the canoe like from the middle of a thousand tepees. And it roars like a wounded bear.”

“Where did you see this beast last?” the Sioux said.

“It was still at the city by the falls when I left,” the Shawnee said.

“Once it comes down my river,” the Sioux chief said, “we will kill it.”

Then the chief rolled over onto a pile of buffalo robes and closed his eyes. He would seek the answer from the spirits. The Shawnee opened the flap of the tepee and stepped out into the bright light reflected off the early snow.

Deep inside the earth below New Madrid, Missouri, all was not well. The layers forming the first thousand feet of overburden were twitching like an enraged lion. Molten earth, heated by the immense temperatures below ground, mixed with water from the thousands of springs and dozens of tributaries along the Mississippi River. This superheated, black, slippery liquid worked as a lubricant on the plates of the earth that were held in place under great tension. Earth had given fair notice of the wrath it was about to unleash. The birds and animals had sensed the danger. A great burp from the earth was building. And the burp would soon erupt.

New Orleans was steaming right toward the inevitable eruption.

The Ohio River current ran faster nearing the Mississippi River, and New Orleans was steaming smoothly. In a few moments, the ship would arrive at the confluence of the two rivers, hours ahead of schedule. The mood aboard the steamboat was one of happy contentment. The deckhands went about their duties with gusto. Markum had already cleaned the cabins and was hanging the sheets from a clothesline stretched between them. Andrew Jack was taking a short nap on the bow while Nicholas steered. When Roosevelt sent word that they were at the confluence, he would go to the pilothouse to direct the passage.

Hilda Gottshak was putting the finishing touches on a dozen meat pies for lunch.

“What’s wrong, boy?” Lydia asked Tiger.

The Newfoundland had started whining. Lydia checked and found no obvious injuries. Tiger kept up the low, relentless howl. Lydia chose to ignore the animal, hoping he would quiet down on his own.

In the comer of the pilothouse, Roosevelt was figuring the profits New Orleans could generate. From the start he’d envisioned the steamboat running from Natchez, Mississippi, to New Orleans. That route would ensure the vessel a ready supply of cargo — bales of cotton and a fair amount of passenger traffic. Roosevelt and his partner, Robert Fulton, figured to pay off the construction costs in eighteen months. Nothing Roosevelt had learned on the journey had made him alter this opinion. Folding up his charts, he slipped them back into his leather satchel.

The smell of the meat pies piqued his appetite. Roosevelt figured that once Jack resumed control of the helm, he would wander into the kitchen and see what Helga had to tide him over until lunch.

He was sure the worst was over, and his appetite had returned with a vengeance.

At the sight of the mighty river, Jack took the wheel from Roosevelt. As he made a sweeping turn into the muddy waters flowing from the north, the Roosevelt baby awoke screaming. At almost the same time, Tiger began to howl as if his tail were caught in a bear trap. To compound matters, the river was rougher than usual, and the boat was suddenly rocking to and fro. Stepping out the pilothouse door, Jack stared at the sky above. A flock of wrens darted back and forth as if their leader had no idea of their intended flight direction. Along the shoreline, the trees began to shake as if responding to an unseen gale.

Though it was not yet noon, the sky to the west was an unearthly orange color.

“I don’t like this,” Jack shouted, “there’s some—”

But he never finished the sentence.

Deep below ground, where the sun will never reach and the cool of a light breeze will never be felt, the temperature was six hundred degrees Fahrenheit. A river of wet, molten earth one hundred feet in diameter roared toward a just-opened fissure. Slipping into the opening, the wet slop acted like Vaseline on glass. The plates of the earth, at this point just barely held in place, slipped like a skater on clear ice.

The earth snapped and stung at the surface.

“Good Lord, what is happen—” Nicholas Roosevelt started to say.

He was standing in the kitchen, trying to talk Helga out of a slab of cheese. Staring out the window for a second, he watched as a geyser of brown water shot eighty feet in the air. Then the water arced over the decks of New Orleans, as dozens of fish, turtles, salamanders, and snakes rained down. Then a rumbling was felt through the decks in the hull.

Back in the pilothouse, Jack struggled to keep the steamboat on course.

On the shore, undulating waves swept across the earth like someone shaking a bedspread. The trees along the bank swayed back and forth until their branches intertwined and locked in place. Then they snapped like breadsticks in a vise. Branches were turned into spears and shot across the water like a gauntlet of arrows. Fissures dotted the ground along the river. Streams of water ran into the low-lying areas. Then, seconds later, the ground belched as torrents of shale rock, dirt, and water blasted in the air.

“The river is out of its banks,” Jack shouted.

Engineer Baker walked into the pilothouse.

From deep beneath the river’s former channel, the blackened trunks of decomposing trees that had become waterlogged and sunk into the mud now shot up into the air with a smell akin to that of putrefied flesh. Baker watched a family of black bears hiding high atop a cottonwood tree, trying to escape the devastation. Suddenly the tree shattered as if a bomb had exploded at the base. He watched as the bears fell to the ground. They began to run west as fast as they could shuffle.

At that instant, Roosevelt burst into the pilothouse.

“It’s either an earthquake,” he said quickly, “or the end of the world.”

“I think the former,” Jack said. “I felt one in Spanish California a few years ago.”

“How long did it last?” Roosevelt asked.

“That one was small,” Jack said. “Only lasted ten minutes or so.”

“I’m going to check on my wife,” Roosevelt said, as he turned to leave.

“Could you ask Miss Markum to come in here?” Baker asked.

“I will,” Roosevelt said, as he sprinted away.

Just then, the earth twitched, and the river began to flow backwards from south to north.

Markum poked her head inside the pilothouse door, her face white with fear.

“If we make it out of this alive — will you marry me?” Baker asked.

“Yes,” Markum said without hesitation, clutching Baker around the waist.

Deep below the river, the liquid was squeezed from between the plates, and the grinding together of coarse rock stopped. The first shock had ended, but there was much more to come.

Jack spun the wheel completely to its stop as the Mississippi River changed direction again and returned to a north-to-south flow. Gazing through the window of the pilothouse, he saw that the boat was traversing a farmer’s field. Fifty feet off the right side of the boat’s hull was the upper story of a large red barn. Several milk cows and a lone horse were huddled on the upper loft, avoiding the rushing water. No trace of a farm-house could be seen.

When Roosevelt came into the pilothouse, Jack was intent on staring off the right side of the bow far in the distance. There was an opening in the ground ahead that was swallowing up most of the river flow. As the land on the far side of the opening came into view, he could see puddles of water and acres of mud where the riverbed used to lie.

New Orleans was less than a hundred yards from the chasm and was being sucked closer. With only seconds to spare, Baker managed to get the beams reset for reverse running. Inch by inch, the steamboat began to back away from the tempest in the water. Twenty minutes later, New Orleans was nearly a mile upstream. Scanning the unearthly landscape, Jack found a tributary that had eroded a straight path through what had once been the river bend. Slipping the boat into the current, he steered past the void and then into the main channel once again.

Crouched in the thick brush of Wolf Island, the Indian braves were as frozen as petrified wood. They had paddled their canoes out to the island before the first shock of the earthquake. When the worst of the tremors struck, their resolve was only strengthened. The Penelore was wreaking havoc across their land, and it needed to be killed. Straining to hear, the chief caught a faint unknown sound coming from upstream. With a series of hand signals, he motioned for his braves to climb into their canoes for the attack.

Lydia rushed to the pilothouse and stuck her head in the door. “The baby has started to cry, and Tiger is whining up a storm.”

Roosevelt turned to Jack. “That’s the signal another shock is coming. Keep to the main channel to give yourself as much leeway as possible.”

Jack pointed through the pilothouse front window. “An island coming up.”

Roosevelt scanned through The Navigator, the chart book of the river written by Zadoc Cramer. “A lot of this has changed since the earthquake,” he said, “but if I had to guess, I’d say it was Wolf Island.”

“Which side is the best channel?” asked Jack.

“The left channel has the deepest water.”

“The left channel it is.”

“How long before the next shock?” Roosevelt asked Lydia.

“Judging by Tiger’s howls, not long.”

A ghastly sound reached the ears of the Sioux braves hidden on Wolf Island. The grinding of metal, the hissing of steam, the thumping of the walking beam. The great beast grew larger as it neared. The beast was blue like the sky — but this was nothing that came from the heavens. An ugly, pointed nose gave way to two waterwheels halfway down the trunk of the beast. Just behind them were a pair of black tubes where the smoke from the fires of hell spewed forth.

A few white men walked on the decks — dark lords of this evil creature.

First they would kill the white men. Then they would run the beast onto land and put the fire to her skin. When the Penelore was twenty yards upstream, their leader gave the signal, and the braves rose as one. With a war cry, they ran for the water.

The Mississippi River running underground added more much-needed lubricant to the jumble of opposing plates. Once again the earth let loose in a spasm. This tremor would last longer.

At the same instant that the Sioux braves were sprinting to the water, the ground nearby opened up as if it had been pierced by a thousand spears. Funnel-shaped holes in the earth spewed hot jets of water, and the jets formed an arc nearly one hundred feet overhead. Larger craters opened up in the ground, then spewed forth all manners of woody material: trees, branches, coal. It was a bizarre sight.

“Indians approaching from the island!” Roosevelt shouted.

Jack glanced toward Wolf Island and saw a group of braves carrying canoes racing toward the water. Wearing full head-dress, they carried bows on their backs.

Then, all at once, the downstream end of the island collapsed into the water.

The screams from the Sioux braves filled the air. Scalded by the hot water shooting from the ground, they let go of their canoes and stumbled into the cool water for relief. Twenty of them managed to launch a few canoes unscathed and began paddling into the river with every ounce of their strength, determined to destroy the monster they believed was the cause of the tempest.

They began to close the gap, gaining on New Orleans.

“Pour on the steam!” Roosevelt shouted to Baker. “They mean to have our scalps.”

Baker and his stokers began throwing wood in the firebox like madmen, building up to a full head of steam. Slowly, New Orleans began increasing speed. But the Indians were gaining. Putting their backs into it, they could paddle their canoes at a rapid pace.

One canoe slowed as its occupants dropped their paddles, took up their bows, and shot a flight of arrows at the riverboat. Several arrows struck the rear cabin, giving it the look of a porcupine. Tiger ignored the threat and stood on the stem, barking at the attackers.

The first canoe was only twenty feet behind the stern now. Roosevelt and three of his crew loaded their flintlock muskets and prepared to fire point-blank when the Indians came alongside.

The boarding assault never came. Baker had the steam pressure wavering at the red line, and New Orleans began to pull away, black smoke pouring from her funnel. Seeing the frustrated Indians falling behind, he couldn’t resist adding to Tiger’s barking with a series of shrieks through the steam whistle.

Soon the Penelore had disappeared around the next bend, and there was no way for the Sioux to catch the beast.

The series of unforeseen dangers past, Jack glanced to the river ahead. The sun looked like a smoking copper plate framed by a purplish haze of atmosphere. Jack glanced at the shoreline ahead. The earthen hills alongside the great river were tumbling down like sand castles in a tsunami. Large chunks of peaty soil floated on the water, along with downed trees, part of a house, and what looked like a floating casket wrested free from the earth.

“The channel’s shifting,” Roosevelt said easily. “I’d steer to starboard now.”

New Orleans would be miles downstream before the quaking stopped. Amazingly, she made it through the holocaust with minimal damage.

In Mississippi you can sweat even in January. Particularly if you are dressed in a wool band uniform left over from the Revolutionary War and are carrying a tuba. Cletus Fayette and the rest of the makeshift band hurried toward the waterfront.

A tuba, a single large drum, and a fiddle — not really a band, more of a trio.

Word of the dramatic voyage of New Orleans had reached Natchez three days before. The mayor had wasted no time assembling a suitable welcome. Along with the band, Titus Baird, the mayor, was planning to give Roosevelt the key to the city. Two city councilmen were pressed into service for the obligatory speeches. Several of the local girls had been rounded up to present flowers to the brave women aboard. A banquet would follow in the evening.

Nearly a hundred citizens stood on the hill and glanced upriver for sign of the steamboat.

“Yes,” Nicholas said, “we’ll be in Natchez at least a week.”

“I’ll bank the fires, then. The boilers need a break.”

“Fine,” Roosevelt said, “we should have sufficient steam to reach the dock.”

Nicholas climbed from the engine pit and glanced at the scenery. The virgin forest of the upper Ohio River, the falls near Louisville, the terrible cataclysm of weeks of earthquakes and aftershocks were still a vivid memory. His ship and crew had survived the trials with courage and conviction. He and Lydia had grown closer, and Engineer Baker still planned to marry Maggie Markum when they reached New Orleans. Andrew Jack had started to exhibit a hidden sense of humor.

New Orleans rounded the last bend, and Roosevelt glanced toward Natchez.

Baird signaled for the band to begin playing as soon as the steamboat came into sight. The band kept repeating the only song they knew, a crude rendition of “God Save the Queen,” but, for some reason, the steamboat stayed away.

Mayor Baird watched as the ship began a turn to make its way to the dock, then began to drift with the downstream current.

“I don’t have enough steam to make the dock,” Jack said.

Nicholas Roosevelt could only laugh. The steamboat had successfully navigated a thousand miles of toil and trouble. With salvation only yards away, they had run out of steam. The situation was so ludicrous it was humorous. Baker walked into the pilothouse. He was already dressed in a clean white shirt, and his hands and face looked freshly washed. The grimace on his face was barely hidden.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said quietly.

Cletus Fayette’s head was spinning. A man could play a tuba only so long before he needed a break and a cigar. Fayette had reached his limit.

“We need to take a break, Mayor Baird,” he shouted.

“Okay, Cletus,” Baird said, “but hurry up. Smoke is coming from the stacks again.”

Fifteen minutes later, New Orleans was tied to the dock in Natchez. The weary crew walked down the gangplank and made their way through the reception committee to a local hotel and a hero’s welcome. The remainder of the journey would be a cakewalk.

In the dead of winter, the trees in the forests surrounding Natchez were devoid of leaves. From the bluff outside town, Nicholas Baker looked north. He could see where the river made a giant loop before passing the city and flowing downstream. A stiff wind blew west, bringing the smell of fields in Alabama being cleared with fire.

“I made arrangements with a preacher in town,” Baker said eagerly. “We can be married this afternoon — if you still want me, that is.”

“Of course,” Markum said, “but what brought this on?”

“I just don’t want to wait any longer,” Baker said.

“Have you told the Roosevelts?” Markum asked.

“No,” Baker admitted, “but I thought we could both tell them right now.”

“Now?” Markum said.

“Yes, now,” Jack said, “if you want them at the service.”

A little over an hour later, on the deck of New Orleans, moored just off Natchez, Nicholas Baker stood next to Nicholas Roosevelt. Lydia Roosevelt, holding Henry the baby, wrapped in a clean white blanket, stood next to Maggie.

“Do you, Maggie Markum,” the preacher said solemnly, “take Nicholas Baker to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

A yes and a kiss sealed the deal.

The first marriage on a steamboat turned out to be brief.

A few days later, the first cargo of cotton was loaded aboard New Orleans. Once the bales were secured on deck and the wood for the boiler secured in the hold, there was little else to do. They left for New Orleans on the seventh day of January 1812.

Dawn came like a lamb on January 12, 1812. A clear sky greeted Nicholas Roosevelt as he sat alone on top of the aft cabin. The air was dry, with only occasional small gusts of wind that rippled the placid surface of the river. After all that had transpired, it seemed odd that New Orleans would arrive so calmly in the city for which she was named. Nicholas stared to the west. A flock of pelicans, three dozen in all, flew overhead from west to east. The flock was headed for Lake Pontchartrain, some three miles distant. The city of New Orleans was only two miles farther.

“What are you- thinking?” Lydia said, as she climbed up onto the roof.

Nicholas smiled and sat quietly for a moment before answering.

“I was wondering what will happen to this old girl in the future,” he added.

“New Orleans has faced down the devil,” Lydia said. “She’ll be on this river long after we’re gone, dear.”

“I hope so,” Roosevelt said.

“After all she’s been through,” Lydia said, “it would really take a lot to hurt her.”

Just then Andrew Jack shouted, “New Orleans!”

But Lydia Roosevelt would be proved wrong. New Orleans sank thirty months later. After numerous weekly profitable journeys between Natchez and New Orleans and her brief service transporting men and supplies downriver for Andrew Jackson’s army during the Battle of New Orleans, the evening of July 14, 1814, found her on the west side of the Mississippi across from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at a place called Clay’s Landing.

John Clay had the wood cut, stacked, and waiting as usual. Ten cords in total; ten dollars would be his payment. Clay waited out of the rain under a nearby tree as New Orleans pulled close to the dock leading from shore. He watched as a deckhand tossed a line over one of the poles set deep in the Mississippi River mud. Then he waited until he saw the captain poke his head out of the pilothouse.

“John,” the captain shouted. “Got my wood?”

“All cut and stacked.” Clay started from under the tree just as a bolt of lightning struck another tree thirty yards upstream. His hair shot out from his scalp at the static electricity, and he huddled back under the tree.

The captain nodded to the deckhands milling around on the deck. “We still have three hours of daylight left. Let’s get the wood loaded on board.” Then he turned to Clay.

“Come into my cabin,” the captain said, “and I’ll pay for the wood.”

Clay followed the captain to his cabin and waited as he counted out the French gold dauphins. After placing the coins in a leather pouch, John pulled the drawstring tight, then slid the rawhide rope around his head.

“Want a drink?” the captain asked.

“I’m a little chilled,” Clay admitted.

So they had a drink and waited together while the wood was loaded.

A short time later, Clay stepped onto the dock and the captain, who followed, stared up at the sky.

“We get your wood on board tonight, we can get an early start in the morning.”

“Makes sense,” Clay said, as he started up the dock. “The river will be choked with debris from the big rain.”

“Good night,” the captain shouted after the retreating woodsman.

“Watch for the falling water,” Clay shouted back.

But the captain was already inside, and he never heard the warning.

Before the Mississippi River was controlled by dikes and spillways, the water level could quickly drop by feet following a big rain. As the rain-swollen tributaries spilled into the river and the highest point of depth was reached, the water would then race downstream, actually sucking the level lower. After a half-day or so, the level would usually return to normal. The next morning, at first light, the captain ordered New Orleans put into reverse to back away from the dock — but she was hung fast on a sunken stump. A few back-and-forth motions and the bottom of her hull was holed.

A passenger on board wrote of the sad event in the Louisiana Gazette of July 26, 1814:

So ended the saga of the first steamboat on the western rivers.

II Where Did It Go? 1986, 1995

I can’t recall when I read my first book about steamboats on the Mississippi River, though I suspect it was when I had to give a book report on Tom Sawyer in the fifth grade. When my parents went to town on Saturday night, they always parked me at the old Alhambra Public Library. It was there my imagination took hold and I dreamed about floating down the great river with Tom, Huck Finn, and their pals.

For reasons unknown to me, I have always felt a deep attraction to the South. It must sound strange for someone who has no relatives, ancestors, or roots south of the Mason-Dixon line. I arrived in the world in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up in Southern California. My father came from Germany, and my mother’s grandfathers were farmers in Iowa who fought in the Union army.

Still, I have to have chicory in my coffee. I insist on grits, redeye gravy, and biscuits for breakfast, and pecan pie for dessert. Maybe we as a people are as much about who we were or who we want to be. It’s food for thought, anyway.

There is no more visible symbol of the South than a paddle-wheel steamboat, tooting its whistle as it comes round the bend. Except for a few excursion boats, the image of steamboats belching black smoke, paddle wheels churning the muddy water, and the decks piled high with cotton bales is but a dim memory of the past, like steam locomotives, rumble seats, and running boards.

There are many famous steamboats in American history. One can’t help but know about the classic race between the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee. Then there was Robert Fulton’s Clermont, the first steamboat in America to go into passenger service on the Hudson River. Another was the Yellowstone, the first steamboat to journey far up the Missouri River before heading down the Mississippi to the Gulf, where it evacuated the new president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, and his Congress ahead of the advancing armies of Santa Anna. The first session in the new republic’s history was actually held on the Yellowstone. The boat then went on to transport a wounded Sam Houston from the battle of San Jacinto to New Orleans for medical care.

I have tried very hard to dig out the final chapter of the Yellowstone, but with no success. She was heard of passing through the locks on the Ohio River in 1838. From there she was most likely sold and her name changed, and she may have ended up a derelict tied to a tree along the riverbank, her incredible history ignored and forgotten.

But there was one steamboat whose history no fiction writer could have matched. The saga of the New Orleans’s voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers past the rapids and through the New Madrid earthquake, her escape from hostile Indians, the baby born on board, the comet that streaked above her, all seemed too unbelievable to be true. Yet it was chronicled and her final end described in detail.

During the summer of 1986, unable to resist hunting for such a fabulous boat (any vessel that sails the inland waterways is always called a boat, never a ship), I began researching into a newspaper account of her loss. A passenger on board the morning she hung up on a snag and sank reported the event for a local newspaper. What is most important is that he mentioned almost the exact spot where she came to grief:

Clay’s Landing on the west bank of the Mississippi, a short distance above Baton Rouge.

With optimism beating in my heart — my brain too used to failure to be confident — I launched a search for Clay’s Landing.

That proved to be tougher than it sounded.

In the meantime, I came across a delightful book by Mary Helen Samoset titled New Orleans. I quickly began correspondence with Mrs. Samoset and found her to be a wealth of information about the vessel.

I learned that the owners of the boat salvaged her engines and most of her hardware. Engines were expensive and complicated pieces of machinery for their time. Boilers, however, were seldom salvaged, since prolonged use generally wore them beyond the value of the costly repairs that were usually needed. Any piece of equipment, such as an anchor, a steering mechanism, a helm, or hardware, was removed. These were placed in a new vessel, also called New Orleans.

This removal of equipment would not leave much for our magnetometer to detect, but we thought there still might be enough iron to detect, and there was always hope that part of the hull might still be visible above the mud and could be picked up on our sidescan sonar.

I began to wonder why no one had ever looked for such a historic ship before.

Fortunately, I was contacted by Keith Sliman, who at the time worked for Seven Seas Dive Shop in Baton Rouge. Keith generously volunteered his time to probe the real-estate records in the Louisiana state capital in Baton Rouge and find the missing part of the puzzle. It wasn’t easy. Though ownership of the shore on both sides of the river was reasonably well documented, most records didn’t go back to 1814. Until now, no one had found a document recording Clay’s Landing. At first it looked as though that part of the west riverbank had been owned by a Dr. Doussan and was now called Anchorage Landing. This item of information did not look encouraging until Keith dug up a deed of transfer of the property from John Clay to Dr. Doussan, which included an 1820 plat map of the site.

Thanks to Keith, we thought we were rounding third and heading for home. Craig Dirgo and I flew down to Louisiana to examine the shoreline and try to get an exact fix on Clay’s Landing. Baton Rouge, though a fine capital city, is like the surface of Mars, thanks to the humidity in August. Why is it every time I head south it’s August? I never seem to get it through my head to go in the spring, before the bugs and heat are bad.

I am often asked how NUMA schedules shipwreck searches. We use a scientific formula that consists of who is available to go, when necessary permits are in hand, and what the tide and weather conditions are. The main factor, however, centers around whether I have the time to go between writing books.

After landing at the Baton Rouge airport, renting a car, and checking into our motel, we drove to the site above West Baton Rouge across from the state capital on the west side of the Mississippi.

It was not an auspicious beginning.

On what was once the site of Clay’s Landing, where the famed New Orleans had snagged and sank, was a huge tank facility owned by the Placid Oil Company. On one side of the levee stood the tanks and pumping houses. On the other side, along the bank and out into the water, were the oil-loading platforms, pipelines, and tank barges, all built of steel. With more metal scattered about than what is found in a hundred-acre scrap yard, distinguishing what remained of New Orleans with our trusty Schoenstedt gradiometer would be next to impossible.

Though we hadn’t planned on conducting an extensive survey on this first exploratory peek at the area, Craig and I decided to give it a try.

That afternoon and most of the next day, we walked a systematic grid across the property we defined as having been Clay’s Landing. Other than a few buried pipelines, which are fairly easy to identify because of the narrow readings that stretch in a straight line, we found little of interest. By inspecting the ground in minute detail, we got a pretty good idea of the scope of our task in locating any remains of the steamboat.

Since Sheriff Bergeron and his West Baton Rouge sheriff’s department had been so generous with their assistance back in 1981, when Walt Schob and I found the site of the Confederate ironclad Arkansas, we asked for their help once again. And they came through again, lending us their aluminum river search boat, which had been beautifully crafted and welded by a trustee who was in jail for murder. A deputy came along as pilot.

We began soon after sunrise. Once Clay’s Landing was established from the riverside, we began sweeping back and forth. By nine that morning, it was already hot. The Mississippi was as flat as a mirror, and the only wind we enjoyed came from the movement of the boat. For the next few hours we swept, beginning two hundred yards out and working toward the shore. We received no readings of more than a few gamma, certainly no more than what a hammer lying in the mud would record. Closer to shore, we received a strangely consistent mag reading that made no sense to us at the time.

While I ran the gradiometer, Craig killed time perusing the boat’s logbook. It made interesting reading, since the little craft was primarily used for retrieving bodies from the river. There wasn’t any finesse to it. A large grappling hook on a line was tossed from the stem, and the deputies trolled until they snagged something.

“How do you know if you have a body or a big fish on the line?” Craig asked the deputy.

“A waterlogged body creates a lot of drag,” the deputy replied. “It slows down the outboard motor real good.”

Craig held the stainless-steel hook in his hands and examined it. “What do most of the bodies look like when you find them?”

“They can be real ripe,” the deputy answered casually. “The skin can slide off like a tangerine.”

Craig’s face wrinkled as he quickly replaced the hook in its holder and wiped his hands with a rag.

“Sometimes they’re gassy and explode like a flesh bomb when they reach the surface,” the deputy continued matter-of-factly. “But mostly they’ve been chewed up by fish and turtles. Sometimes boats go over them, outboard props ripping them up. Once I just hooked a head and part of the shoulders and chest. I ain’t got no idea where the rest of the body went.”

Craig stared at the grappling hook he’d been handling.

I couldn’t resist.

“Lunchtime,” I announced. “Want a raw beef and gooey cheese or tainted tuna sandwich?”

Craig shook his head. “Maybe later,” he said, finally taking his eyes off the hook.

It was four o’clock when we called it quits. We could not mag close to shore because the steel barges blew the gradiometer off scale. We had gotten no magnetic signature that indicated we had found New Orleans. On top of that, we had run out of water two hours earlier.

As we began to cruise back to the boat ramp where the deputy had left the trailer, Craig turned to me and asked, “You sweating?”

I checked and found my skin dry. Strange, I thought, since the atmosphere was like a steam bath. “No,” I answered.

“I noticed I’d stopped a half hour ago. I don’t think that’s good.”

“We’re dehydrated.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

By the time we reached the ramp and had helped the deputy load the boat on the trailer, the inside of our mouths felt as if they had been filled with talcum powder. Our faces were sunburned, and our eyes had the vacant look of men dying of thirst in the desert. Climbing into the superheated car that had been left in the sun only made things worse. We were about to stop at a house to ask the owner if we could drink from a garden hose when I gasped and pointed to a Circle K convenience store on the next corner.

“There!”

Craig hurtled the car into the parking lot. We jumped out and ran inside almost before it stopped moving. This being 1989, there was no such thing as cold bottled water as there is today. The only water for sale then was distilled in plastic gallon jugs. We snatched the biggest cups we could find and filled them to the rim at the soda fountain. Downing them in seconds, we again held them under the spigots for seconds. We had become almost completely dehydrated.

“Hey,” the clerk yelled at us, “you can’t do that.”

Craig, a reasonably large man, scowled at him. “When we’re done, charge what you will. We’re dying here.”

The clerk nodded and backed off. He’d probably assumed, judging by our bedraggled appearance, that we couldn’t pay. When we’d finished at last, Craig handed him a ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change, and buy the next thirsty travelers a drink.”

After a cool shower in our air-conditioned rooms, we met for dinner and discussed the day. Nature and man had thrown every obstacle in our path. We hadn’t really expected to find New Orleans the first time out. That rarely happens. But we had not expected such a tough project in searching for a ship we knew we could pinpoint within a rectangle the size of a football field.

It was time to head for the old corral and do some homework.

We now went back to the basics and overlaid old charts with new ones. The shoreline since the building of the levee seemed vague. From what we could conclude, the bank had receded over the years. But how far?

Then, a few months later, we received a report from the Army Corps of Engineers that came within a hair of halting the search in its tracks. In 1971, during a project to strengthen the levee, they’d laid an articulated concrete mattress along the bottom of the levee just below the waterline. The mattress contained iron rebar inside and hinges made of steel. This is what had given us our continuous mag reading near the west bank. It appeared that the mattress had been laid directly over what was once Clay’s Landing.

This dilemma, combined with the steel barges, docks, and pipelines along the shore, made it impossible to detect any remains of New Orleans. With a sinking heart, I put the search data in the file marked “Improbable” and turned my thoughts to other lost ships.

Three years later, I was at a cocktail party when I was introduced to a fan of my books. I hate myself for not remembering his name, but we never made contact again. He was an older gentleman with a bald head rimmed with white hair, and deep-blue eyes behind rimless spectacles.

During the course of the conversation, he mentioned that he lived in West Baton Rouge parish. I mentioned our work there on the Arkansas and New Orleans, and we talked a bit about the history of the Mississippi. He had been diving in the river off and on for many years, a feat most divers from Louisiana or Mississippi don’t care to experience. He regaled me with stories of being dragged more than a mile underwater by the four-knot current and of suddenly meeting up with an eight-foot-long, five-hundred-pound catfish in the murky water. He also talked about a strange phenomenon: once you reach a depth of eighty feet, the water visibility suddenly turns from two feet to a hundred feet.

At his urging, I described my search for New Orleans in more detail, narrating our failure to find her.

He looked at me and smiled. “You didn’t look in the right place.”

I hesitated, wondering what he had in mind. “We had Clay’s Landing pegged to within a hundred yards,” I argued.

“Not the right direction.”

“Where would you have us look?”

He leaned back, sipped from his scotch and water, and peered over his glasses. “Certainly not up and down the bank.”

“Where else could it be?” I asked, my interest mushrooming.

“Out in the river. Since I was a boy, the west bank has receded anywhere from two to three hundred yards. Clay’s Landing must be way out in the river.”

I digested that for a few seconds as the revelation began to build and flood inside my mind. “Then it’s beyond the concrete mattresses.”

“Way beyond.”

Suddenly the siren’s call of New Orleans began to sound again. Thanks to this chance encounter with a stranger at a Telluride cocktail party, we’d been given a second chance at finding the first steamboat on the river.

In August of 1995, we tried again. Why do we always go south in August? After excavating a wreck off Galveston that we hoped would be the Republic of Texas Navy ship Invincible but were unable to positively identify, Ralph Wilbanks, Wes Hall, Craig Dirgo, my son Dirk Cussler, and I headed to Baton Rouge with Diversity and all the equipment in tow. After arriving and losing a small wad of hard-earned cash on a riverboat casino, we turned in for the night. High rollers that we are, our combined losses came to all of thirty dollars. It might have been more, but I think Ralph actually made a couple of bucks. Interestingly, under Louisiana law, the riverboat cannot dock along the shore but must move along rails attached to the keel in the water. I guess that by using that ploy, the esteemed state legislators can claim that the evils of gambling do not touch sacred Louisiana soil.

Before launching the search, Ralph and I interviewed several of West Baton Rouge parish’s senior citizens. They all agreed that during their lifetimes the river had eaten away the west bank, and the present shoreline was three hundred yards west. The next morning, we found a ramp beneath the bridge spanning the Mississippi River and launched Diversity.

We began mowing the lawn of the search grid, beginning almost in the center of the Mississippi and working toward the west bank. We ran very tight lines, using both the magnetometer and the sidescan sonar. The day went slowly. Thanks to Ralph and his big ice chest, Craig and I did not become dehydrated again.

Six hours later, we had covered the entire search grid three times. Except for a few minor hits, the mag had recorded nothing worth pursuing. The sonar had found a target at about the right distance from shore, but it was a good two hundred yards downriver from the southern boundary of what had been Clay’s property.

Because we were running out of time, and everyone had commitments back home, we decided to return and investigate the target another time. And since none of us was experienced at diving in a muddy river with a four-knot current, we thought it best to line up and work with local divers who were more knowledgeable about the local conditions.

We were in an optimistic mood now that we had a target in the general area. Sadly, we abruptly met with another disappointment.

As we were pulling in the mag and sonar sensors, we watched, stricken, as a huge Army Corps of Engineers dredge came down the river, its buckets digging deep into the mud of the river and depositing it into barges. Though it missed our target by a good hundred yards, we could not help but wonder if this had been the ultimate fate of New Orleans.

I once suffered the same discouragement when we arrived hours too late to save the remains of the famous Union ironclad Carondelet. A great dredge had gone over the site and ripped it to shreds the day before we launched our search — a hundred and ten years after she had sunk in the Ohio River.

Chances are that the famous old New Orleans is gone. But she left a fabulous legacy, and who knows, maybe there is a tiny chance our one-and-only target might just be it. The odds are against us, but hope springs eternal, and someday we’ll return and check it out.