Pitt looked at his watch, Two-thirty. Time was sifting away. A few more hours and Moran would be sworn in as President. He said, "Let's keep the show moving."
"Ah hear y'all talkin'," Hogan said as she brought the craft up and over the river in one quick bank that had Giordino feeling his stomach to see if it was still in place.
Eight more miles and they drew another blank after spying a barge moored suspiciously under a marine maintenance repair shed. A quick search by the ground team showed it was a derelict.
They pushed on past the fishing towns of Empire and Buras.
Then suddenly, after dipping around a bend, they saw a sight straight out of the golden years of the river, a spectacular and picturesque vision almost forgotten. Long white hull, wine beam, with a plume of steam drifting over her decks, a sidewheel pandle steamer sat with her flat nose nudged into the west embankment.
"Shades of Mark Twain," said Giordino.
"She's a beauty," Pitt said as he admired the gingerbread carviiigs on the many-storied superstructure.
"The Stonewall Jackson," Griffin explained. "She's been an attraction on the river for seventy years."
The steamer's landing stages were lowered on the bank in front of an old brick fortress constructed in the shape of a pentagon. A sea of parked cars and a crowd of people wandered the parade ground and brick ramparts. In the center of a nearby field a cloud of blue smoke billowed above two opposing lines of men who seemingly stood shooting at each other.
"What's the celebration?" asked Giordino.
"A War Between the States re-enactment," Hogan replied.
"Run that by me again."
"A staging of a historic battle," Pitt explained. "As a hobby, men form brigades and regiments based on actual fighting units from the Civil War. They dress in authentic woven uniforms and shoot blanks out of exact-replica or original guns. I witnessed a re-enactment at Gettysburg, They're quite spectacular, almost like the real thing."
"Too bad we can't stop and watch the action," Griffin said.
"Plaquemines Parish is a storehouse of history," said Hogan.
"The star-shaped structure where they're staging the mock battle is called Fort Jackson. Fort St. Philip, what little is left of it, is directly across the river. This is the area where Admiral Farragut ran the forts and captured New Orleans for the Yankees in 1862."
It required no imagination at all to see and hear in their minds the thundering clashes of cannon fire between Union gunboats and Confederate batteries. But the curve in the river where Admiral Farragut and his fleet forced their passage over a century past was now quiet. The water rolled silently between the scrub-lined shores, having long ago covered the bones of the ships that sank during the battle.