The Way of the Mississippi/Chapter 2

HE river spirits are talking to-night," Denton Rillard remarked to the young lady on the stern of the the sacred concert boat Whispering Shoals. "I wish I could understand what they are saying!"

"You—you mean that?" she exclaimed with an odd little break in her voice, and he felt her shiver through the telegraphy of her hand on his elbow.

"Why not?" he answered lightly. "You—a river girl—don’t you believe in such things?"

"I was just wondering about you-all," she evaded. "I've been—I've been looking out there myself!"

No two people ever see all the same things tripping down the Mississippi, it is said. Yet there is no doubt that it frequently happens there are many witnesses to a strange phenomenon. These two, Rillard—a sportsman out of the Ohio—and Dona Voane, a river girl, were on a quite common footing for he had said, at least indicated, the coming to his ears of the low, undulating whisperings where keenest of ears must have felt only silence if they were without reverence, or at least belief.

It was black night, but the darkness was shaded; the river itself was shimmering dusky gray while the trees on the banks were blacker, and the sky was faintly pale. A sound suddenly rained upon them from the sky. It was a flock of wild geese migrating southward, and their a-lonking, their trembling, tinkling-bell voices, fell to the Bottoms in a shower that passed by in a minute or two. Probably a score of birds were in the invisible flock—great, beautiful creatures, lettering the heights, perhaps above the clouds and riding the skies to the light of the stars.

From within the huge craft there sounded human music that seemed far away, and the deck beneath the feet of the two began to throb and spring to the dancing in the great cabin. A whiff of pungent wood smoke caught their nostrils as a current of air came swirling over the roof and around them. The long, heavy stern line which led out to the bank, against which the bow of the hull pressed, strained as a water wave heaved through the dead eddy and raised them.

"You’re cold?" he asked quickly. "Permit me—"

"Not cold! Not cold!" she whispered. "Listen!"

A splash miles away, where some bank was lumping off before the wear of the current, a little suckling gurgling, as jets of river current disputed the way, a faint whinnying, as muskrats discoursed down the bank—a number of diverse and readily recognized noises broke the silence that brooded; but she shivered, and he shivered, to the urge of another whole series of voices that were not, perhaps, of the vibrant air.

They drew nearer together, perhaps quite unconsciously; his right arm slipped around her waist under the wrap that was over her shoulders. She did not resist him, when he discovered what he had done, and dared reach with his other arm to draw her to him. No whispering river voices disturbed them in that sudden, unexpected moment. She gave him such a kiss as a river girl knows how to give, possibly no better or more to it than other kisses, but the environment was a bit thrilling, a bit overcoming—

Then, as things happen on the Mississippi in the particular eddies of the river people, a door in the cabin was thrown wide open, and one of those lamps with concave mirror reflectors threw a great rectangle of light right out to where the two were standing. They stood revealed like a love scene, and instantly a man charged along the bright flare, cursing hoarsely.

"Mad Tom—my God!" the girl choked.

No frail man, this one, who had listened with her in the cool of the night white they sat a set or two of the dances on the boat! With one hand Rillard gently set the girl to one side into the darkness of the door's shadow, and stepping back one stride he caught the slender Mad Tom in his stride, and with a tremendous heave lifted him up and headlong over the stern bumper out over the water.

There, for an instant, Mad Tom sprawled in mid-air, like a speared bullfrog, and then, still froglike, he straightened out to his full length, with his hands arrowed above his head, curved, and dived beautifully, as any river rat would instinctively do, with hardly a splash—a veritable otter plunge into the eddy.

Except for the girl's low, terrorized gasp, not a word or sound had been raised. When, a minute later, some one working in the galley came into the corridor store room and found the door wide open, she closed it and left the two again on the stern deck. The girl, in the meanwhile, had dragged Rillard into the shadow, and was whispering in his ears:

"It's Mad Tom! Oh—he'll kill you now! He's bad—that man!"

"Won't he drown?" Rillard asked, wonderingly and with dread.

"Drown! Drown, that scoundrel! He swam the Mississippi a hundred times! He'll swim a hundred yards underwater. You can't drown him. Oh, you can't kill him!"

She broke into a panic of soundless sobbings and shudderings. Rillard, who had come down the Mississippi for no such adventure as this, took her in his arms and sought to comfort her.

"Don't stay, go away—go home!" she gasped. "When he comes you'll not know it—and the first you'll know, you'll be daid—daid!"

"But what ails him?" he asked, still stupidly undivining.

"It's me!" she said fiercely. "He's hounded me down the Missouri from the Yellowstone—and I hate him! Oh, I despise him—and I'm afraid—afraid! "

"Well, I'm not," Rillard said quietly. "We'll go in and dance, won't we?"

"Half his pirate crew are on board. They'd murder you—shoot you down like a dog if they knew. They'd be'n out here, hunting you, if they'd known! He'll be ashore—he'll whistle them out, and they'll—"

"No, he won't!" Rillard interrupted her. "When I lifted him I thumbed his neck. Did you see him throw his head back? That's when he felt it, after he'd straightened for his dive. He may never come up—or he may float an hour!"

"You—you—"

"Ju-jued 'im!" Rillard chuckled shortly. "Suppose—if he doesn't come back?"

"Oh, I'll be glad—I'll be glad! He told me, now that we're down on the lower river, he'd have me!"

"The lower river?"

"It's below the jumping-off place that's why—that's why I came out here oh, I wanted—I had to have some one to help me! The mission boat's down below he'd sworn to take me there to marry me! But—but you—you—"

"I fixed him?"

"I hope he's daid!"

"I don't!" he gasped. "I never killed a man—'

"Mad Tom's killed a sight of men! I feared 'im! I feared 'im!"

"Well, let's go dance, then—"

"You've a gun?"

"Oh, yes—a twelve gauge—"

"You've no—no pocket gun?"

"No!"

"Wait!" she whispered, and left him. In two minutes she returned, to reach a belt around his waist, and buckle it on. It was quite three inches wide, folded over and sewed leather, and on his right aide, where it fitted like bark on a tree, was a flat, open-top holster of the quick-draw man. In the holster was a heavy revolver.

"Why—what—" he said.

"Daddy's!" she replied. "Before somebody killed him! We're trippin' down alone, mamma an' I! Wear hit, strangeh! If he's daid, that Mad Tom, yo'll likely not be mistrusted. But if he ain't—an' there's no real killin' that kind, not by drownin', there ain't!"

"My dear, I—you see, I'm—"

"A softpaw. Suttinly!" She understood. "Yo' don't know. But, strangeh, when you come a-mixin' up into these yeah riveh things—Lawse, Lawse! I knowed those riveh spirits was a-talkin' somethin big! Hit's jes' begun, I know hit is. An' those wild geese coming down the sky wind, talkin' while they come! Hit all means somethin'—yes, indeed! Betteh get up the bank, suh; you've had fair warnin' an' now's yo' chance!"

"Things don't happen that way," he exclaimed in amazed disbelief. "It's nothing but a little scrap!"

"A little scrap down thisaway—sho! Lots die in them, softpaw! How come hit you drapped into this eddy to-night? How come hit you came down the bar, and saw me? How come hit you laughed a-dancing? They all saw you, strangeh, standing tall an' handsome—proud and high-spirited. Yes, indeed. There's a many prettier than I be, but—but hyar we be an' old Mississip's done been talking to us! The spirits are laughing—times are picking up down the reaches and bends."

Her voice was low, sweet, gentle and full of the same kind of music he recognized in the song of the wild geese—he wondered what unpoetic scoundrel first called their voice "honking"? She was jeering him, while she told him the things that made him wonder at himself. His own conscience, too, was taunting him. There appeared before his vision a young woman's face, her eyes flaming, her cheeks white with anger, her lips excoriating him for his faithlessness to her. But here he was, as this river girl was reminding him, all tangled up in the meshes of a river scandal.

"I—didn't mean anything," he gasped with sudden realization. "I—I—"

"Shucks! " she exclaimed. "Come a night like this, and old Mississip's ha'nts a-talking—why, any one is plumb sure to be sentimental. I'd forget and you'd forget—yes, indeedy. I wouldn't think anything. But not Mad Tom! Ho, law— he's bad, that man! Murder was in his heart, because I was here with you, and not with him. I'm just warning you—"

"And—and I haven't hurt your feelings?" he asked.

"Not at all!" she answered, dryly. "It's just the way of old Mississippi—that's all!"

"It's enough."

"Yes, indeedy—you'll think so if Mad Tom ain't daid!"

"And you're—you're just a river girl?"

"That's a heap to be, strangeh—a riveh girl! I've been up the bank—I spent five years in particular Hades, being educated. I know my books, if that's what you mean. But it seems like—seems as though I hadn't stepped on our shanty boat deck when things began to happen. Hit's ol' Mississip'!"

"Why don't you leave it?"

"As to that, I love it! It's born in me, bred in me—I left it with my feet a-dragging, and I stepped light—yes, indeed, coming back! But you—Mad Tom 'll hound you down if he's daid, and he'll hound you down if he's alive!"

"I think I'll go down to New Orleans," he said decisively.

"Don't say I didn't warn you." She shrugged her shoulders. "When you go through that door, step quick! Mad Tom may be there on the bank, waiting to get a shot at you—and remember, suh, you've a gun of your own now!"

"And for that I'm a thousand times obliged to you. I'm sorry if—"

"That's all right—if you hadn't done what you did, I just 'lowed I'd have to do hit myse'f. No man takes me to the mission boat to be married till I'm ready. No, indeedy! Lawse, I was just mad myself, wishing he'd know—know—strangeh! I'd kiss you again if—if—"

"I wish I could tell you what it meant to me—"

"I 'low I understand; you've a girl back home, I bet, and—"

"How'd you know?"

"Sho!" She laughed lightly. "You called me Corilla—and my name is Dona Voane. Now, let's go in and dance again—and listen for a whistle up the bank."

It was supper time, and as they entered, the music ceased while the couples sorted themselves out for the eating. Planks laid along carpenters' horses served for tables, and every one sat on boxes, or chairs, or folding stools, while steaming coffee was poured into a great variety of cups, from plain tin to nicked Chinese and Japanese ware. Roast coon, roast duck, roast pork, and a dozen kinds of hot bread, sweet and spud potatoes—there was plenty to eat, and great appetites waited to enjoy what was had.

There was a hush, however, when Rillard sat down with Dona Voane, and with courtesy, brought to her plate the things she desired to eat. Some of the men grinned, but some glared about with sudden quickness of observation. It was sensational, this moment.

"Say, Pete, where's Tom-Tom Maiton?" a shrill, feminine voice startled the sudden quiet.

"Jes' what I was wondering," Pete Davlo replied with a grin.

All the spectators turned to gaze at Rillard, the sport, and Dona, who were apparently quite oblivious to the interest taken in them. Their indifference was just a little too obvious.

"Where's Mad Tom?" a whisper rippled around the big kitchen-dining room. "Who's seen Mad Tom—Tom Maiton?"

Two men scrambled up, and with covert glances at Rillard went around the table ends, through the concert-dance hall, and in the quiet their quick footsteps sounded loudly as they drummed up the landing stage to go along the bank to their boat. They were pals of Mad Tom.

They returned a few minutes later, having been heard whistling and calling around. Their faces were dark with anger and suspicion. 5ne of them stopped, and looking steadily at Dona, demanded:

"Say, Dona, did you-all see him?"

"Who?" She looked up quickly. "Who'd I see?"

"Tom-Tom Maiton?"

"Why, yes; he was here. I saw him prancin' around, same's always. Stepping light and throwing himself, just like he thought he was somebody."

"’Course—'course!" the man exclaimed, startled by the tone. "We all saw him, but where'd he go?"

"I don't know, Jim Taken, unless he was scairt out!"

"Wha—what! Mad Tom scairt of anybody! Why, that man—"

"I beg your pardon," Rillard interrupted rising to his feet, "there's your chair over there, and yours, Mr. Man, is right yonder! The ladies are sure missing your company!"

The two river men, standing together, opened their mouths and their eyes. Then, with sudden clicking of teeth and squinting of eyes, they dropped their hands, but Rillard was before them. He drew the big-mouthed revolver which Dona had handed him, and with a careless flourish beckoned the two once more to the seats where they belonged.

"Go talk to your own friends, you men," Rillard suggested softly. "Mad Tom has gone swimming, and if he comes back, you tell him for me that after this he'd better mind his own business, and all his pack of river rats. Is that perfectly plain?"

"Gone swimmin'—gone a-swimmin'! Mad Tom's daid?" Jim gasped. "Lawse, strangeh! I—we meant no 'fense, suh!"

"That's all right, boys; we're all friends; there's no need of being mean or having trouble. I'm a softpaw. I believe you call it, but where I came from no man ever talks to a lady, or looks at a lady, the way you looked at Miss Voane. Just tell her you're sorry, and it 'll be all right."

"No 'fense. Mi—Miss Dona!" Jim blinked, wetting his lips. "I shore didn't 'low to—to make yo' mad, no, indeedy'!"

"All right, Jim; Mr. Rillard's a good friend of mine, and we're both of us plumb peaceable, and so don't try no tricks, for you know. I'm no softpaw; an', Jim, jes' about gettin' started bad an' mean myse'f."

"Yes'm." He blinked, and the two went to their seats.

Instantly every one began to eat, rattling dishes and talking in short, shrill gasps. The amazing things they had seen and heard made them talk of everything else but the clash between the softpaw and Mad Tom's two mates, Jim Taken and Date Imsal. With smiling eyes Rillard had bluffed them, called them, and ordered them around as he might have sent a pair of dogs to lie down.

No one really believed he could get away with any such talk as that, but he had done it, and the two pirates were gulping down their unchewed food, handing it in with both knife and fork, while the women by their side nibbled and flushed with embarrrassment that their companions should find themselves in such a predicament of helplessness. . Rillard was fairly unconscious of his position in the river society. He was less perturbed by the enmity of the pirate shanty boaters, whose undersize physiques and cringing bearing under his own stern frown and daring mislead him somewhat as to their desperation, than he was by another phase of his conduct which, the more he thought about it, the less he admired himself—and especially the worse off he became as a matter of conscience.

The young woman, Dona Voane, sitting beside him, had done herself less than her desertsdesserts [sic] when she said there were many prettier than she. She was of medium height; wavy, light brown hair was massed upon her head—and it was a wonderfully well-rounded head, her brows being broad and high, and her eyes full of lambent colors that changed with her every mood; among them all she was very dainty and tactful in her table manners, and her voice, despite a dialect that she often exaggerated in order to overcome her distinct enunciation and her clearness of tone—she was hiding all the time the education and the training she had had up the bank, somewhere.

Rillard knew that she was what she seemed, and that she was a great deal more than what she tried to claim to be. Yet none of these attributes explained his own inexplicable behavior now that he was tripping down old Mississip', enjoying its splendors, but becoming more and more entangled in its surface affairs. He recalled his remarks on the whispering river voices, and the music of the passing flight of wild geese still rang in his ears—but he was suffocated nearly by the fact that he had taken this young woman in his arms and kissed her.

"And I'm respectable—I'm married—good Lord!" he choked to himself, and, on the other hand, he had not deceived Dona; in fact, he had called her Corilla as of the habit of his honorable intentions.

It seemed to him as though the night were full of chuckles, and the people were all laughing at him—as indeed Dona was laughing at him, as well as regarding him with amused admiration. He knew she was regarding him with a gentle ridicule, for her bearing was one of teasing. He could hardly believe the things he knew were true, but that weight of a beautiful, heavy revolver on his hip was undeniable.

He had plunged pell-mell into the feuds and fancies of river living.