193CHAPTER XXVII
Carline ascended into the world again. It was a painful ascent, and when he looked around him, he recognized the interior of his motorboat cabin, heard and felt the throbbing of his motor, and discovered aches and pains that made his extremities tingle. He sat up, but the blackness that seemed to rise around him caused him to fall hastily back upon the stateroom bunk.
He remembered his discovery of his own firearms on the shanty-boat, and fear assailed him. He remembered his folly in crying out that those were his guns. He might have known he had fallen among thieves. He cursed himself, and dread of what might yet follow his indiscretion made him whimper with terror. A most disgusting odour of whiskey was in his nostrils, and his throat was like a corrugated iron pipe partly filled with soot.
The door of the tiny stateroom was closed, but the two ports were open to let the air in. It occurred to him that he might be a captive, and would be held for ransom. Perhaps the pirates would bleed him for $50,000; perhaps they would take all his fortune! He began to cry and sob. They might cut his throat, and not give him any chance of escape. He had heard of men having had their throats cut down the river.
He tried to sit up again, and succeeded without undue faintness. He could not wait, but must know his fate immediately. He found the door was unlocked, and when he slipped out into the cabin, he found that there was only one man on board, the steersman, who was sitting in the engine pit, and steering with the rail wheel instead of the bow-cabin one.194
He peered out, and found that it was Terabon, who discovered him and hailed him, cheerily:
“How are you feeling?”
“Tough—my head!”
“You’re lucky to be alive!” Terabon said. “You got in with a crew of river pirates, but they let me have you. Did they leave you anything?”
“Leave me anything!” Carline repeated, feeling in his pockets. “I’ve got my watch, and here’s––”
He opened up his change pocketbook. There were six or seven dollars in change and two or three wadded bills. When he looked for his main supply, however, there was a difference. The money was all gone. He was stripped to the last dollar in his money belt and of his hidden resources.
“They did me!” he choked. “They got all I had!”
“They didn’t kill you,” Terabon said. “You’re lucky. How did they bang you and knock you out?”
“Why, I found they had my guns on board––”
“And you accused them?”
“No! I just said they were mine, I was surprised!”
“Then?”
“My light went out.”
“When did they get your guns?”
“I woke up, up there, and you were gone. My guns and pocket money were gone, too. I thought––”
“You thought I’d robbed you?”
“Ye––Well, I didn’t know!”
“This is a devil of a river, old man!” said Terabon. “I guess you travelled with the real thing out of New Madrid––”
“Doss, Renald Doss. He said he was a sportsman––”
“Oh, he is, all right, he’s a familiar type here on the river. He’s the kind of a sport who hunts men, Up-the-Bankers195and game of that kind. He’s a very successful hunter, too––”
“He said we’d hunt wild geese. We went up Obion River, and had lots of fun, and he said he’d help—he’d help––”
“Find your wife?”
“Yes, sir.”
Carline was abject. Terabon, however, was caught wordless. This man was the husband of the woman for whose sake he had ventured among the desperate river rats, and now he realized that he had succeeded in the task she had set him. Looking back, he was surprised at the ease of its accomplishment, but he was under no illusions regarding the jeopardy he had run. He had trusted to his aloofness, his place as a newspaper man, and his frankness, to rescue Carline, and he had brought him away.
“You’re all righ now,” Terabon suggested. “I guess you’ve had your lesson.”
“A whole book full of them!” Carline cried. “I owe you something—an apology, and my thanks! Where are we going?”
“I was taking you down to a Memphis hospital, or to Mendova––”
“I don’t need any hospital. I’m broke; I must get some money. We’ll go to Mendova. I know some people there. I’ve heard it was a great old town, too! I always wanted to see it.”
Terabon looked at him; Carline had learned nothing. For a minute remorse and comprehension had flickered in his mind, now he looked ahead to a good time in Mendova, to sight-seeing, sporting around, genial friends, and all the rest. Argument would do no good, and Terabon retreated from his position as friend and helper to that of an observer and a recorder of facts.196Whatever pity he might feel, he could not help but perceive that there was no use trying to help fools.
It was just dusk when they ran into Mendova. The city lights sparkled as they turned in the eddy and ran up to the shanty-boat town. They dropped an anchor into the deep water and held the boat off the bank by the stern while they ran a line up to a six-inch willow to keep the bow to the bank. The springy, ten-foot gangplank bridged the gap to the shore.
More than thirty shanty-boats and gasolene cruisers were moored along that bank, and from nearly every one peered sharp eyes, taking a look at the newcomers.
“Hello, Terabon!” someone hailed, and the newspaper man turned, surprised. One never does get over that feeling of astonishment when, fifteen hundred miles or so from home, a familiar voice calls one’s name in greeting.
“Hello!” Terabon replied, heartily, and then shook hands with a market hunter he had met for an hour’s gossip in the eddy at St. Louis. “Any luck, Bill? How’s Frank?”
“Averaging fine,” was the answer. “Frank’s up town. Going clear down after all, eh?”
“Probably.”
“Any birds on Yankee Bar?”
“I saw some geese there—hunters stopped in, too. How is the flight?”
“We’re near the tail of it; mostly they’ve all gone down. We’re going to drive for it, and put out our decoys down around Big Island and below.”
“Then I’ll likely see you down there.”
“Sure thing; here’s Frank.”
Terabon shook hands with the two, introduced Carline, and then the hunters cast off and steered away down the stream. They had come more than a thousand197miles with the migrating ducks and geese, intercepting them at resting or feeding places. That touch and go impressed Terabon as much as anything he had ever experienced.
He went up town with Carline, who found a cotton broker, a timber merchant, and others who knew him. It was easy to draw a check, have it cashed, and Carline once more had ready money. Nothing would do but they must go around to Palura’s to see Mendova’s great attraction for travellers.
Palura supplied entertainment and excitement for the whole community, and this happened to be one of his nights of special effort. Personally, Palura was in a temper. Captain Dalkard, of the Mendova Police, had been caught between the Citizens’ Committee and Palura’s frequenters. There were 100 citizens in the committee, and Palura’s frequenters were unnamed, but familiar enough in local affairs.
The cotton broker thought it was a good joke, and he explained the whole situation to Terabon and Carline for their entertainment.
“Dalkard called in Policeman Laddam and told him to stand in front of Palura’s, and tell people to watch out. You see, there’s been a lot of complaints about people being short changed, having their pockets picked, and getting doped there, and some people think it doesn’t do the town any good. Some think we got to have Palura’s for the sake of the town’s business. I’m neutral, but I like to watch the fun. We’ll go down there and look in to-night.”
They had dinner, and about 9 o’clock they went around to Palura’s. It was an old market building made over into a pleasure resort, and it filled 300 feet front on Jimpson Street and 160 feet on the flanking side streets. A bright electric sign covered the front198with a flare of yellow lights and there was one entrance, under the sign.
As Terabon, Carline, and the cotton broker came along, they saw a tall, broad-shouldered, smooth-shaven policeman in uniform standing where the lights showed him up.
“Watch your pocketbooks!” the policeman called softly to the patrons. “Watch your change; pickpockets, short-changers, and card-stackers work the unwary here! Keep sober—look out for knock-out drops!”
He said it over and over again, in a purring, jeering tone, and Terabon noticed that he was poised and tense. In the shadows on both sides of the policeman Terabon detected figures lurking and he was thrilled by the evident fact that one brave policeman had been sent alone into that deadly peril to confront a desperate gang of crooks, and that the lone policeman gloried to be there.
The cotton broker, neutral that he was, whispered as they disregarded the warnings: “Laddam cleaned up Front Street in six months; the mob has all come up here, and this is their last stand. It’ll hurt business if they close this joint up, because the town’ll be dead, but I wish Palura’d kind of ease down a bit. He’s getting rough.”
Little hallways and corridors led into dark recesses on either side of the building, and faint lights of different colours showed the way to certain things. Terabon saw a wonderfully beautiful woman, in furs, with sparkling diamonds, and of inimitable grace waiting in a little half-curtained cubby hole; he heard a man ask for “Pete,” and caught the word “game” twice. The sounds were muffled, and a sense of repression and expectancy permeated the whole establishment.
They entered a reception room, with little tables199around the sides, music blaring and blatant, a wide dancing floor, and a scurrying throng. All kinds were there: spectators who were sight-seeing; participants who were sporting around; men, women, and scoundrels; thugs and their prospective victims; people of supposed allurement; and sports of insipid, silly pose and tricked-up conspicuousness.
Terabon’s gaze swept the throng. Noise and merriment were increasing. Liquor was working on the patrons. The life of Mendova was stirring to blaring music. The big hall was bare, rough, and gaunt. Dusty flags and cobwebs dangled from the rafters and hog-chain braces. A few hard, white lights cast a blinding glare straight down on the heads of the dancers and drinkers and onlookers.
Business was brisk, and shouts of “Want the waiter!” indicated the insistence with which trade was encouraged and even insisted upon. No sooner had Terabon and his companions seated themselves than a burly flat-face with a stained white apron came and inflicted his determined gaze upon them. He sniffed when Terabon ordered plain soda.
“We got a man’s drink.”
“I’m on the water wagon for awhile,” Terabon smiled, and the waiter nodded, sympathetically. A tip of a quarter mollified his air of surly expectancy completely, and as he put the glasses down he said:
“The Boss is sick the way he’s bein’ treated. They ain’t goin’ to git away wit’ stickin’ a bull in front of his door like he was a crook.”
Terabon heard a woman at a near-by table making her protest against the policeman out in front. No other topic was more than mentioned, and the buzz and burr of voices vied with the sound of the band till it ended. Then there was a hush.200
“Palura!” a whisper rippled in all directions.
Terabon saw a man about 5 feet 10 inches tall, compactly built, square shouldered, and just a trifle pursy at the waist line, approaching along the dancing floor. He was light on his small feet, his shoulders worked with feline grace, but his face was a face as hard as limestone and of about the same colour—bluish gray. His eyes were the colour of ice, with a greenish tinge. Smooth-shaven cheeks, close-cropped hair, wing-like ears, and a little round head were details of a figure that might have been heroic—for his jaw was square, his nose large, and his forehead straight and broad.
Everyone knew he was going out to throw the policeman, Laddam, into the street. The policeman had not hurt business a pennyworth as yet, but Palura felt the insult. Palura knew the consequences of failing to meet the challenge.
“Give ’im hell!” someone called.
Palura turned and nodded, and a little yelping cheer went up, which ceased instantly. Terabon, observing details, saw that Palura’s coat sagged on the near side—in the shape of an automatic pistol. He saw, too, that the man’s left sleeve sagged round and hard—a slingshot or black-jack.
There was no delay; Palura went straight through to his purpose. He disappeared in the dark and narrow entrance way and not a sound was audible except the scuffling of feet.
“Palura’s killed four men,” the cotton broker whispered to Terabon, under his breath.
What seemed an age passed. The lights flickered. Terabon looked about in alarm lest that gang––
A crash outside brought all to their feet, and the whole crowd fell back against the walls. Out of the corridor surged a mass of men, and among them stalked201a stalwart giant of a man draped with the remnants of a policeman’s uniform. He had in his right hand a club which he was swinging about him, and every six feet a man dropped upon the floor.
Terabon saw Palura writhing, twisting, and working his way among the fighting mass. He heard a sharp bark:
“Back, boys!”
Four or five men stumbled back and two rolled out of the way of the feet of the policeman. It flashed to Terabon what had been done. They had succeeded in getting the policeman into the huge den of vice, where he could not legally be without a warrant, where Palura could kill him and escape once more on the specious plea of self-defence. Terabon saw the grin of perfect hate on Palura’s face as both his hands came up with automatics in them—a two-handed gunman with his prey.
This would teach the policemen of Mendova to mind their own business! Suddenly Policeman Laddam threw his night stick backhanded at the infamous scoundrel, and Palura dodged, but not quite quickly nor quite far enough. The club whacked noisily against his right elbow and Palura uttered a cry of pain as one pistol fell to the floor.
Then Laddam snatched out his own automatic, a 45-calibre gun, three pounds or more in weight, and began to shoot, calmly, deliberately, and with the artistic appreciation of doing a good job thoroughly.
His first bullet drove Palura straight up, erect; his next carried the bully back three steps; his next whirled him around in a sagging spiral, and the fourth dropped the dive keeper like a bag of loose potatoes.
Laddam looked around curiously. He had never been there before. Lined up on all sides of him were202the waiters, bouncers, men of prey, their faces ghastly, and three or four of them sick. The silent throng around the walls stared at the scene from the partial shadows; no one seemed even to be breathing. Then Palura made a horrible gulping sound, and writhed as he gave up his last gasp of life.
“Now then!” Laddam looked about him, and his voice was the low roar of a man at his kill. “You men pick them up, pack them outside there, and up to headquarters. March!”
As one man, the men who had been Palura’s marched. They gathered up the remains of Palura and the men with broken skulls, and carried them out into the street. The crowd followed, men and women both. But outside, the hundreds scurried away in all directions, men afraid and women choking with horror. Terabon’s friend the cotton broker fled with the rest, Carline disappeared, but Terabon went to headquarters, writing in his pocket notebook the details of this rare and wonderful tragedy.
Policeman Laddam had single-handed charged and captured the last citadel of Mendova vice, and the other policemen, when they looked at him, wore expressions of wonder and bewilderment. They knew the Committee of 100 would make him their next chief and a man under whom it would be a credit to be a cop.
Terabon, just before dawn, returned toward Mousa Slough. As he did so, from a dull corner a whisper greeted him:
“Say, Terabon, is it straight, Palura killed up?”
“Sure thing!”
“Then Mendova’s sure gone to hell!” Hilt Despard the river pirate cried. “Say, Terabon, there’s a lady down by the slough wants to get to talk to you.”203
“Who––?”
“She just dropped in to-night, Nelia Crele! She’s into her boat down at the head of the sandbar, facing the switch willows. There’s a little gasolene sternwheeler next below her boat.”
“She’s dropped in? All right, boys, much obliged!”
They separated.
But when Terabon searched along the slough for Nelia’s boat he did not find it, and to his amazed anger he found that the gasolene boat in which he had arrived was also gone, as well as his own skiff and all his outfit.
“Darn this river!” he choked. “But that’s a great story I sent of the killing of Palura!”
204CHAPTER XXVIII
Nelia Crele had laughed in her heart at Elijah Rasba as he sat there listening to her reading. She knew what she was doing to the mountain parson! She played with his feelings, touched strings of his heart that had never been touched before, teased his eyes with a picture of feminine grace, stirred his mind with the sense of a woman who was bright and who knew so much that he had never known. At the same time, there was no malice in it—just the delight in making a strong man discover a strength beyond his own, and in humbling a masculine pride by the sheer superiority of a woman who had neglected no opportunity to satisfy a hunger to know.
She knew the power of a single impression and a clear, quick getaway. She left him dazed by the fortune which heaped upon him literary classics in a dozen forms—fiction, essays, history, poetry, short stories, criticism, fable, and the like; she laughed at her own quick liking for the serious-minded, self-deprecatory, old-young man whose big innocent eyes displayed a soul enamoured by the spirited intelligence of an experienced and rather disillusioned young woman who had fled from him partly because she did know what a sting it would give him.
So with light heart and singing tongue she floated away on the river, not without a qualm at leaving those books with Rasba; she loved them too much, but the sacrifice was so necessary—for his work! The river needed him as a missionary. He could help ease the way of the old sinners, and perhaps by and by he would reform her, and paint her again with goodness where she was weather-beaten.205
It is easy to go wrong on the Mississippi—just as easy, or easier, than elsewhere in the world. The student of astronomy, gazing into the vast spaces of the skies, feels his own insignificance increasing, while the magnitude of the constellations grows upon him. What can it matter what such a trifling thing, such a mere atom, as himself does when he is to the worlds of less size than the smallest of living organisms in a drop of water?
Nelia Crele looked around as she left the eddy and saw that her houseboat was but a trifle upon a surface containing hundreds of square miles. A human being opposite her on the bank was less in proportion than a fly on the cabin window pane. Then what could it matter what she did? Why shouldn’t she be reckless, abandoned, and live in the gaiety of ages?
She had read thousands of pages of all kinds with no guide posts or moral landmarks. A picture of dangerous delights had come into her imagination. Having read and understood so much, she had not failed to discover the inevitable Nemesis on the trail of wrongdoing, as well as the inevitableness of reward for steadfastness in virtues—but she wondered doubtfully what virtue really was, whether she was not absolved from many rigid commandments by the failure of the world to keep faith with her and reward her for her own patience and atone for her own sufferings.
It was easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one’s affair but her own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced newspaper man whose ambitions pleased her fancy and whose innocence delighted her own mood.
He was down the river somewhere, and when she206landed in at Mendova in the late twilight she saw his skiff swinging from the stern of a motorboat. Having made fast near it, she quickly learned that he had gone up town, and that someone had heard him say that he was going to Palura’s.
Palura’s! Nelia had heard the fascination of that den’s ill-fame. She laughed to herself when she thought that Terabon would excuse his going there on the ground of its being right in his line of work, that he must see that place because otherwise he would not know how to describe it.
“If I can catch him there!” she thought to herself.
She went to Palura’s, and Old Mississippi seemed to favour her. She found another woman who knew the ropes there and who was glad to help her play the game. From a distance Nelia Crele discovered that Terabon was with Carline, her own husband. She dismissed him with a shrug of her shoulders, and told her companion to take care of him.
Nelia, having plagued the soul of the River Prophet, Rasba, now with equal zest turned to seize Terabon, careless of where the game ended if only she could begin it and carry it on to her own music and in her own measure.
They had it all determined: Carline was to be wedged away with his friend, a cotton broker that Daisy—Nelia’s newfound accomplice—knew, and Terabon was to be tempted to “do the Palace,” and he was to be caught unaware, by Nelia, who wanted to dance with him, dine with him under bright lights, and drink dangerous drinks with him. She knew him sober and industrious, good and faithful, a decent, reputable working man—she wanted to see him waked up and boisterous, careless for her sake and because of her desires.
She just felt wicked, wanted to be wicked, and didn’t207care how wicked she might be. She counted, however, without the bonds which the Mississippi River seems at times to cast around its favourites—the Spirit of the river which looks after his own.
She had not even seen Policeman Laddam standing at the main entrance of the notorious resort, for Daisy had taken her through another door. She went to the exclusive “Third,” and from there emerged onto the dancing floor just as Palura ostentatiously went forth to drive Laddam away, or to kill him.
Daisy checked her, for the minute or two of suspense, and then the whole scene, the tragedy, was enacted before her gaze. She was not frightened; she was not even excited; the thing was so astonishing that she did not quite grasp its full import till she saw Palura stumbling back, shot again and again. Daisy caught her arm and clutched it in dumb panic, and when the policeman calmly bent the cohorts of the dead man to his will and carried away his victims, Daisy dragged Nelia away.
Then Daisy disappeared and Nelia was left to her own devices.
She was vexed and disappointed. She knew nothing of the war in Mendova. Politics had never engaged her attention, and the significance of the artistic killing of Palura did not appear to her mind. She was simply possessed by an indignant feminine impatience to think that Terabon had escaped, and she was angry when she had only that glimpse of him, as with his notebook in hand he raced his pencil across the blank pages, jotting down the details and the hasty, essential impressions as he caught them.
She heard the exodus. She heard women sobbing and men gasping as they swore and fled. She gathered up her own cloak and left with reluctant footsteps.208
She realized that she had arrived there just one day too late to “do” Palura’s. The fugitives, as they scurried by, reminded her of some description which she had read of the Sack of Rome; or was it the Fall of Babylon? Their sins were being visited upon the wicked, and Nelia Crele, since she had not sinned, could not thrill with quite the same terror and despair of the wretches who had sinned in spite of their consciences, instead of through ignorance or wantonness. She took her departure not quite able to understand why there had been so much furore because one man had been killed.
She was among the last to leave the accursed place, and she saw the flight of the ones who had delayed, perhaps to loot, perhaps having just awakened to the fact of the tragedy. She turned toward Mousa Slough, and her little shanty-boat seemed very cool and bare that late evening. The bookshelves were all empty, and she was just a little too tired to sleep, just a little too stung by reaction to be happy, and rather too much out of temper to be able to think straight and clearly on the disappointment.
Mendova had been familiar in her ears since childhood; she had heard stories of its wildness, its gayeties, its recklessness. Impression had been made upon impression, so that when she had found herself nearing the place of her dreams, she was in the mood to enter into its wildest and gayest activities; she had expected to, and she had known in her own mind that when she met Terabon she would be irresistible.
At last she shuddered. She seemed to hear a voice, the river’s voice, declare that this thing had happened to prevent her seeking to betray herself and Terabon, not to mention that other matter which did not affect her thought in the least, her husband’s honour.209
The idea of her husband’s honour made the thing absurd to her. There was no such thing as that honour. She had plotted to get Carline out of the way now that she heard he was clear of the pirates. On second thought, she was sorry that she had been so hasty in returning to the boat, wishing that she had followed up Terabon.
She walked out onto the bow deck, and standing in the dark, with her door closed, looked up and down the slough. A dozen boats were in sight. She heard a number of men and women talking in near-by boats, and the few words she heard indicated that the river people had a pretty morsel of gossip in the killing of Palura.
She heard men rustling through the weeds and switch willows of the boatmen’s pathway, and she hailed; she was now a true river woman, though she did not know it.
“Say, boys, do you know if Terabon and Carline landed here to-night?”
“We just landed in,” one answered. “I don’t know.”
“Going up town?”
“Yes––”
“I want to know about them––”
“Hit’s Nelia Crele!” one exclaimed.
“That’s right. Hello, boys—Despard—Jet—Cope!”
“Sure! When’d you land?”
“Late this evening; I was up to Palura’s when––”
“That ain’t no place fo’ a lady.”
She laughed aloud, as she added, “I was there when Palura was killed by the policeman.”
“Palura killed a policeman!” Despard said. “He’s killed––”
“No, Palura was killed by a policeman. Shot him dead right on the dance-hall floor.”210
The pirates choked. The thing was unbelievable. They came down to the boat and she described the affair briefly, and they demanded details.
They felt that it would vitally affect Mendova. They whispered among themselves as to what it meant. They learned that a policeman had been stationed in front of the notorious resort and that that policeman had done the shooting during a fight with waiters and bouncers and with Palura himself.
“We hadn’t better get to go up town,” Jet whimpered. “Hit don’t sound right!”
They argued and debated, and finally went on their way, having promised Nelia that they would see and tell Terabon, on the quiet, that she had come into the slough, and that she wanted to see him.
She waited for some time, hoping that Terabon would come, but finally went to sleep. She was tired, and excitement had deserted her. She slept more soundly than in some time.
Once she partly awakened, and thought that some drift log had bumped into her boat; then she felt a gentle undulation, as of the waves of a passing steamer, but she was too sleepy to contemplate that phenomenon in a rather narrow water channel around a bend from the main current.
It was not till she had slept long and well that she began to dream vividly. She was impatient with dreams; they were always full of disappointment.
Daylight came, and sunshine penetrated the window under which she slept. The bright rays fell upon her closed eyes and stung her cheeks. She awakened with difficulty, and looked around wonderingly. She saw the sunlight move along the wall and then drift back again. She felt the boat teetering and swaggering. She looked out of the window and saw a distant wood211across the familiar, glassy yellow surface of the Mississippi. With a low whisper of dismay she started out to look around, and found that she was really adrift in mid-river.
On the opposite side of the boat she saw the blank side of a boat against her cabin window. As she stood there, she heard or felt a motion on the boat alongside. Someone stepped, or rather jumped heavily, onto the bow deck of her boat and flung the cabin door open.
She sprang to get her pistol, and stood ready, as the figure of a man stumbled drunkenly into her presence.
212CHAPTER XXIX
Parson Elijah Rasba, the River Prophet, could not think what he would say to these river people who had determined to have a sermon for their Sabbath entertainment. Neither his Bible nor his hurried glances from book to book which Nelia Crele had given him brought any suggestion which seemed feasible. His father had always declared that a sermon, to be effective, “must have one bullet fired straight.”
What bullet would reach the souls of these river people who sang ribald songs, danced to lively music, and lived clear of all laws except the one they called “The Law,” a deadly, large-calibre revolver or automatic pistol?
“I ’low I just got to talk to them like folks,” he decided at last, and with that comforting decision went to sleep.
The first thing, after dawn, when he looked out upon the river in all the glory of sunshine and soft atmosphere and young birds, he heard a hail:
“Eh, Prophet! What time yo’ all goin’ to hold the meeting?”
“Round 10 or 11 o’clock,” he replied.
Rasba went to one of the boats for breakfast, and he was surprised when Mamie Caope asked him to invoke a blessing on their humble meal of hot-bread, sorghum, fried pork chops, oatmeal, fried spuds, percolator coffee, condensed cream, nine-inch perch caught that morning, and some odds and ends of what she called “leavings.”
Then the women all went over on his big mission boat and cleaned things up, declaring that men folks didn’t213know how to keep their own faces clean, let alone houseboats. They scrubbed and mopped and re-arranged, and every time Rasba appeared they splashed so much that he was obliged to escape.
When at last he was allowed to return he found the boat all cleaned up like a honey-comb. He found that the gambling apparatus had been taken away, except the heavy crap table, which was made over into a pulpit, and that chairs and benches had been arranged into seats for a congregation. A store-boat man climbed to the boat’s roof at 10:30, with a Texas steer’s horn nearly three feet long, and began to blow.
The blast reverberated across the river, and echoed back from the shore opposite; it rolled through the woods and along the sandbars; and the Prophet, listening, recalled the tales of trumpets which he had read in the Bible. At intervals of ten minutes old Jodun filled his great lungs, pursed his lips, and swelled his cheeks to wind his great horn, and the summons carried for miles. People appeared up the bank, swamp angels from the timber brakes who strolled over to see what the river people were up to, and skiffs sculled over to bring them to the river meeting. The long bend opposite, and up and down stream, where no sign of life had been, suddenly disgorged skiffs and little motorboats of people whose floating homes were hidden in tiny bays, or covered by neutral colours against their backgrounds.
The women hid Rasba away, like a bridegroom, to wait the moment of his appearance, and when at last he was permitted to walk out into the pulpit he nearly broke down with emotion. There were more than a hundred men and women, with a few children, waiting eagerly for him. He was a good old fellow; he meant all right; he’d taken care of Jest Prebol, who had214deserved to be shot; he was pretty ignorant of river ways, but he wanted to learn about them; he hadn’t hurt their feelings, for he minded his own business, saying not a word about their good times, even if he wouldn’t dance himself. They could do no better than let him know that they hadn’t any hard feelings against him, even if he was a parson, for he didn’t let on that they were sinners. Anyway, they wanted to hear him hit it up!
“I came down here to find a son whose mother was worrited about him,” Rasba began at the beginning. “I ’lowed likely if I could find Jock it’d please his mammy, an’ perhaps make her a little happier. And Jock ’lowed he’d better go back, and stand trial, even if it was a hanging matter.
“You see, I didn’t expect you’d get to learn very much from me, and I haven’t been disappointed. I’m the one that’s learning, and when I think what you’ve done for me, and when I see what Old Mississip’ does, friendlying for all of us, tripping us along––”
They understood. He looked at the boat, at them, and through the wide-open windows at the sun-rippled water.
“Now for religion. Seems like I’m impudent, telling you kindly souls about being good to one another, having no hard, mean feelings against anybody, and living like you ought to live. We’re all sinners! Time and again hit’s ag’in the grain to do what’s right, and if we taste a taste of white liquor, or if hit’s stained with burnt sugar to make hit red, why––”
“Sho!” someone grinned. “Parson Rasba knows!”
The preacher joined the laughter.
“Yas, suh!” he admitted, more gravely, “I know. I ’lowed, one time, that I’d git to know this yeah happiness that comes of liquor, an’ I shore took one awful215gulp. Three nights an’ three days I neveh slept a wink, an’ me settin’ theh by the fireplace, waitin’ to be lit up an’ jubulutin’, but hit didn’t come. I’ve be’n happier, jes’ a-settin’ an’ lookin’ at that old riveh, hearin’ the wild geese flocking by!
“That old riveh—Lawse! If the Mississippi brings you fish and game; if it gives you sheltered eddies to anchor in, and good banks or sandbars to tie against; if this great river out here does all that for you, what do you reckon the Father of that river, of all the world, of all the skies would do, He being so much friendlier and powerfuller?
“Hit’s easy to forget the good that’s done to you. Lots an’ lots of times, I bet you’ve not even thought of the good you’ve had from the river, from the sunshine, from the winds, plenty to eat and warm of nights on your boats and in your cabins. It’s easy to remember the little evil things, the punishments that are visited upon us for our sins or because we’re ignorant and don’t know; but reckon up the happiness you have, the times you are blessed with riches of comfort and pleasure, and you’ll find yourself so much happier than you are sad that you’ll know how well you are cared for.
“I cayn’t preach no reg’lar sermon, with text-tes and singing and all that. Seems like I jes’ want to talk along rambling like, and tell you how happy you are all, for I don’t reckon you’re much wickeder than you are friendly on the average. I keep a-hearing about murdering and stealing and whiskey boating and such things. They’re signs of the world’s sinfulness. We talk a heap about such things; they’re real, of course, and we cayn’t escape them. At the same time, look at me!
“I came down here, sorry with myse’f, and you make216me glad, not asking if I’d done meanness or if I’d betrayed my friends. You ’lowed I was jes’ a man, same’s you. I couldn’t tell you how to be good, because I wasn’t no great shakes myse’f, and the worse I was the better you got. Buck an’ Jock gives me this boat for a mission boat; I’m ignorant, an’ a woman gives me––”
He choked up. What the woman had given him was too immeasurable and too wonderful for mere words to express his gratitude.
“I’m just one of those shoutin’, ignorant mountain parsons. I could out-whoop most of them up yonder. But down yeah, Old Mississip’ don’t let a man shout out. When yo’ play dance music, hit’s softer and sweeter than some of those awful mountain hymns in which we condemn lost souls to the fire. Course, the wicked goes to hell, but somehow I cayn’t git up much enthusiasm about that down yeah. What makes my heart rejoice is that there’s so much goodness around that I bet ’most anybody’s got a right smart chanct to get shut of slippin’ down the claybanks into hell.”
“Jest Prebol?” someone asked, seeing Prebol’s face in the window of the little red shanty-boat moored close by, where he, too, could listen.
“Jest Prebol’s been my guide down the riveh,” the Prophet retorted. “I can say that I only wish I could be as good a pilot for poor souls and sinners toward heaven as Jest is a river pilot for a wandering old mountain parson on the Mississippi––”
“Hi-i-i!” a score of voices laughed, and someone shouted, “So row me down the Jordan!”
They all knew the old religious song which fitted so nicely into the conditions on the Mississippi. Somebody called to someone else, and the musicians in the congregation slipped away to return with their violins,217banjos, accordions, guitars, and other familiar instruments. Before the preacher knew it, he had more music in the church than he had ever heard in a church before—and they knew what to play and what to sing.
The sermon became a jubilee, and he would talk along awhile till something he said struck a tuneful suggestion, and the singing would begin again; and when at last he brought the service to an end, he was astonished to find that he had preached and they had sung for more than two hours.
Then there was scurrying about, and from all sides the calm airs of the sunny Sabbath were permeated with the odours of roasts and fried things, coffee and sauces. A score wanted Rasba to dine out, but Mrs. Caope claimed first and personal acquaintance, and her claim was acknowledged. The people from far boats and tents returned to their own homes. Two or three boats of the fleet, in a hurry to make some place down stream, dropped out in mid-afternoon, and the little shanty-boat town was already breaking up, having lasted but a day, but one which would long be remembered and talked about. It was more interesting than murder, for murders were common, and the circumstances and place were so remarkable that even a burning steamboat would have had less attention and discussion.
The following morning Mrs. Caope offered Rasba $55 for his old poplar boat, and he accepted it gladly. She said she had a speculation in mind, and before nightfall she had sold it for $75 to two men who were going pearling up the St. Francis, and who thought that a boat a parson had tripped down in would bring them good luck.
The dancers of Saturday night, the congregation of Sunday, on Monday afternoon were scattered. Mrs.218Caope’s and another boat dropped off the river to visit friends, and mid-afternoon found Parson Rasba and Prebol alone again, drawing down toward Mendova.
Prebol knew that town, and he told Rasba about it. He promised that they would see something of it, but they could not make it that evening, so they landed in Sandbar Reach for the night. Just after dawn, while the rising sun was flashing through the tree tops from east to west, a motorboat driving up stream hailed as it passed.
“Ai-i-i, Prebol! Palura’s killed up!”
Prebol shouted out for details, and the passer-by, slowing down, gave a few more:
“Had trouble with the police, an’ they shot him daid into his own dance floor—and Mendova’s no good no more!”
“Now what the boys goin’ to do when they make a haul?” Prebol demanded in great disgust of Parson Rasba. “Fust the planters shot up whiskey boats; then the towns went dry, an’ now they closed up Palura’s an’ shot him daid. Wouldn’t hit make yo’ sick, Parson! They ain’t no fun left nowheres for good sports.”
Rasba could not make any comment. He was far from sure of his understanding. He felt as though his own life had been sheltered, remote from these wild doings of murders and shanty-boat-fleet dances and a congregation assembling in a gambling boat handed to him for a mission! He could not quite get his bearings, but the books blessed him with their viewpoints, as numerous as the points of the compass. He could not turn a page or a chapter without finding something that gave him a different outlook or a novel idea.
They landed in late on Monday at Mendova bar, just above the wharf. Up the slough were many shanty-boats,219and gaunt dogs and floppy buzzards fed along the bar and down the wharf.
Groups of men and women were scattered along both the slough and the river banks, talking earnestly and seriously. Rasba, bound up town to buy supplies, heard the name of Palura on many lips; the policemen on their beats waltzed their heavy sticks about in debonair skilfulness; and stooped, rat-like men passing by, touched their hats nervously to the august bluecoats.
When Rasba returned to the boat, he found a man waiting for him.
“My name is Lester Terabon,” the man said. “I landed in Saturday, and went up town. When I returned, my skiff and outfit were all gone—somebody stole them.”
“Sho!” Rasba exclaimed. “I’ve heard of you. You write for newspapers?”
“Yes, sir, and I’m some chump, being caught that way.”
“They meant to rob you?” Rasba asked.
“Why, of––I don’t know!” Terabon saw a new outlook on the question.
“Did they go down?”
“Yes, sir, I heard so. I don’t care about my boat, typewriter, and duffle; what bothers me is my notebooks. Months of work are in them. If I could get them back!”
“What can I do for you?”
“I don’t know—I’m going down stream; it’s down below, somewhere.”
“I need someone to help me,” Rasba said. “I’ve a wounded man here who has a doctor with him. If he goes up to the hospital or stays with us, I’ll be glad to have you for your help and company.”
“I’m in luck.” Terabon laughed with relief.220
Just that way the Mississippi River’s narrow channel brought the River Prophet and the river reporter together. Terabon went up town and bought some clothes, some writing paper, a big blank notebook, and a bottle of fountain-pen ink. With that outfit he returned on board, and a delivery car brought down his share of things to eat.
The doctor said Prebol ought to go into the hospital for at least a week, and Terabon found Prebol’s pirate friends, hidden up the slough on their boat, not venturing to go out except at night. They took the little red shanty-boat up the slough, and Prebol went to the hospital.
Rasba, frankly curious about the man who wrote for newspapers for a living, listened to accounts of an odd and entertaining occupation. He asked about the Palura shooting which everyone was talking about, and when Terabon described it as he had witnessed it, Rasba shook his head.
“Now they’ll close up that big market of sin?” he asked. “They’ve all scattered around.”
“Yes, and they scattered with my skiff, too, and probably robbed Carline of his boat––”
“Carline! You know him?”
“I came down with him from Yankee Bar, and we went up to Palura’s together. I lost him in the shuffle, when the big cop killed Palura.”
“And Mrs. Carline, Nelia Crele?” Rasba demanded.
“Why—I—they said she’d landed in. She’s gone, too––”
“You know her?”
“Why, yes—I––”
“So do I. Those books,” he waved his hand toward the loaded shelves, “she gave them all to me for my mission boat!”221
Terabon stared. He went to the shelves and looked at the volumes. In each one he found the little bookmark which she had used in cataloguing them:
Nelia Carline,A Loved Book.No. 87
A jealous pang seized him, in spite of his reportorial knowledge that jealousy is vanity for a literary person.
“I ’low we mout ’s well drop out,” Rasba suggested. “Missy Crele’s down below some’rs. Her boat floated out to’d mornin’, one of the boys said.”