The Expeditions by Karl Iagnemma

an almanac. Without looking at Reverend Stone he said, “Ninety cents. Specie, if you please. I apologize for the lack of washing water.”
    “Your establishment is filthy.”
    The man looked up with an expression of cautious disbelief. He laid the book over a knee. “I aim to clean the rooms regular. It ain’t no one else but me.”
    “Then you might consider taking on assistance. Your rooms are filthy. Your patrons are inconsiderate—I was kept awake much of the night by their carryings-on.”
    The proprietor stared at Reverend Stone as if probing for a hint of levity. “I can’t always vouch for other folks’ decency. And I can’t afford to turn folks away on account of their inconsideracy—I’d be worse off even than I am, if I did.”
    “You should be less concerned with money if it means forfeiting your respectability.”
    “I wish respectability filled my stomach. It don’t.”
    “That logic might someday cost you dearly.”
    The man offered a wan smile. “I’m waiting on the day I can afford to improve my logic. I would like that mightily.”
    The door creaked open and a woman in a red pelisse and pink poke bonnet stepped into the parlor, followed by a man in a dusty teamster’s coat. She arched her eyebrows at the proprietor as they passed through the room. Reverend Stone listened to their footsteps rise on the staircase, the man’s mutterings answered by a girlish giggle. With a mortified start the minister realized he was in a house of low repute.
    “It’s a hard location for a hotel, what with all the competition. I can’t afford to turn away paying customers. I pray you can sympathize.”
    Reverend Stone fumbled ninety cents from his trouser pocket and laid the coins on a lamp stand. He supposed he was a laughable sight: a minister in the parlor of a grimy bordello, complaining about the quality of his night’s sleep. He said, “I will leave you to your reading.”
    The proprietor took up the almanac and stared miserably at its pages. “I thank you for that. Have a grand time in Buffalo.”
             
    The
Lake Zephyr
was an elegant side-wheel steamer with a long, low bow and slender smokestack, a wheel-box painted with yellow stars. Faded burgundy streamers wound around its railings. An American flag hung limply from the bowsprit. Reverend Stone purchased a steerage ticket to Detroit via Ashtabula and Cleveland for four dollars, then walked to the pier end, watching herring gulls wheel about the hurricane deck. It was nine o’clock; the steamer would depart at three-fifteen. He felt pleasantly bemused at the prospect of empty hours in a strange city. The
Lake Zephyr,
he noted, smelled faintly of yeast.
    He strolled to the frontage road and hired a carriage, told the driver to stop at an apothecary then run a scenic course up to the falls. The buggy jerked forward. At the druggist’s Reverend Stone purchased five tins of medication, then hurried back to the carriage and placed two tablets beneath his tongue and slumped against the cracked leather upholstery. He considered stopping at a meetinghouse to inquire about the Baptists’ progress in Buffalo, then decided he would rather remain ignorant. Shopfronts and drays and merry yellow omnibuses swam before his eyes.
    Some time later he noticed a thrum rising around the horses’ hoofbeats. The carriage stopped, and the sound enveloped him like thunder. He stepped from the buggy into a moist breeze and started toward the crowded prospect. He recalled a description of the falls, from a newspaper report of a marriage tour to Buffalo: an infinitude of water, the earth’s purest display of His awesome hand. Reverend Stone quickened his pace. The thrum swelled to a roar.
    From the prospect, the falls curved away in a great arc, wisps of spray peeling from the cascade as it sluiced downward, the water the color of an old woman’s hair. Far below, mist billowed over shadowy black rocks. From a distance the water appeared barely to