Sweet Miss Steak 

Haute Cuisine- Pittsburgh to New Orleans 1872

Well, the Daisy Belle purchase fell through.  She knew that she appeared to be a loose woman appearing in the hotel bar by herself, and many bars still did not allow single women into those rooms to begin with, so she tried to exercise caution in her demeanor.   Daisy had hoped that her age had excused the suspicion of her intentions there, but she longed to be sociable and collect new ideas from other folks for the Daisy Belle.  She was rarely excited to this degree and it was even more rare for her to show her excitement.  

Her visible excitement had begun to work against her. A hotel executive approached her and suggested apologetically that he accompany her by escorting her to her room, making it clear that they were no longer going to allow her to stay in their lounge as a single female and that they had already stretched hotel policy and local ordinances.  However- Henry knew about Daisy’s special skill with camouflage.   He learned it himself at Edinburgh and the secret of the Ghillie developed by gamekeeper and learned by Jägermeister for generations.

Turning as well the firearm fables and fireside tables about the days of the claymore and double soldiers, Scots had many of the same qualities as the Bavarians- both highlanders.  But the lowland farms had better food- even the raiding Iroquois knew this.  For the boat itself you needed three good men- one below with the engine, one on deck to steer and one aloft to watch the water.  The French and the Italians… especially the Africans were better in the galley.  Henry gave his prize riverboat to Daisy in honor of his colleague and patron, Mrs. Lacroix. 

Jock Flemming is a Scotsman- and laughs at Henry dressing the Dart for a party.  Chaska say it is war paint.  Thabo will be leaving on that midnight train to Georgia.  He picked Richmond in the first place after the horse race.  The rich passengers never talked about the war- except when it briefly touched the Ohio.  They raved about the food- the entertainment and fine merchandise available from the best craftsmen in Europe were the rich folk fare on the Sweet Miss.  Passed Vicksburg once during the war- wheat down the Mississippi, then up with a load of cotton.

Hunters Moon aboard the Dart, trophies no longer prizes

Henry loved all the boats on the river.  But Dart was the one Henry…like Chaska and Thabo… called home.  None of them a blue-water sailor.  She was built for speed.  The left bank of the Ohio… just like the Seine and the Rhine…had the fastest racers in the world among art culture design and cuisine.  Noble yachts could outrun most any warship.  But not the Dart.  The Buoys spent summer of 65 to capture her- ship and crew.  And ocean running in foul weather at high speed scared the hell out of all of them.  Perhaps why they loved it: forbidden fruit. 

With her Whitehead torpedoes and brass era deck guns, when Dart came astern in a fog the signal was usually similar.  не стреляй в меня.  Do not shoot me.  Я знаю секреты.  I know secrets.  Dart paid a fair price for the cargo- an offer they could not refuse anyway.  Like Jubal Early script at Gettysburg- an old Landsknecht circumspect.  All the while wishing they were in St. Lousy eating a strawberry part- the price was silence and the prizes always paid.  Sometimes officers paid with their wives aboard the Sweet Miss during the war.  Cunard the target- Vanderbilt the key.

But that is another story.