The Way of the Mississippi/Chapter 5

ERALD TOSKIN lifted and carried the inert body of the man out of the river into his cabin, and there managed to put him to bed. He found under his clothes a money belt thick and wet with currency that had long been saturated, and this money he spread out over the oil stove in the kitchen to dry it. There were two automatic pistols of small size, light in weight, but of exceedingly efficient design, and these Toskin took apart and cleaned.

Tired out with his night’s vigil, exhausted by his terror and struggle with his fears, he, too, turned in to sleep, and slept for hours. When night fell, and he awakened, the other man was lying less like a dead man, and breathing deeply, sleeping off the effects of whatever his own weariness had been. He slept all that night, while Toskin spent the evening sitting back in the corner of the cabin, his sketching easel before him, and making notes of the exact scene in that room.

He knew, now, with an artist’s instinct that he had been blessed with what no imagination could have raised up for portrayal—or at least, only a genius could have dreamed. He had seen the river spirits, he had heard their voices, and he had, at the same time, come into his own material for the delineating of the Mississippi in its phase of psychological mystery and its fearfulness of actual living aspects. That white hand coming up out of the dark depths, and hooking over the gunwale, would ever remain as one of his most precious notes for drawing into any picture of terror or strain that he might desire to embellish.

Realism—he should now never lack for the gaunt, livid truth of a man's physical exhaustion, and, he knew, if he ever drew a picture of the Mississippi, it would contain the most careful, exact kind of drawing, but it would also contain the subtlety of atmosphere and the spirit of mystery—no matter how much he would put into any breadth of canvas, or spread of paper, there would lurk in and under and around his subject the shadow that is so much more than substance, the suggestion that is far more than the mere lines and colors.

It had been a small price to pay for what he had gained during that awful night of realities! Through the years his agitation, his fear, his almost lost fight with the cowardice that is every man’s trial would stand with him. When a man has won such a decisive victory over himself, he may count on a thousandfold greater strength—perhaps an utter calm—in whatever emergency may arise to try him. He may even go into the inevitable peril that becomes irresistible attack. He may die, but with unflinching steadfastness since he has been prepared for that by an agony of terror, long since met and overcome.

Toskin still felt the brooding menace of the river night; he was wholly conscious of the possibilities of the dark, of the murder shanty boat, of the unseen; but he was not afraid. He could with quiet observation study his own reactions to the new sounds, the new spirits, the more sensitive feelings; instead of mere glimpses and glances of impressions, he now analyzed the things that gave him these feelings, and when he sketched the simple, attractive interior of the boat, with that white face on the bunk, he added—as a note to jog his memory—a tiny bell, uptilted as though ringing, to show that he was listening to bell-like music out across the river—not really instrumental music, but the ringing tread and the booming march of the vast river flood swinging down reach and bend to its rest in the Gulf of Mexico.

Almost unconsciously he sketched that bell in one corner of the cabin, but afterward, looking at it, he knew that if he never made another sketch of the river—that bell showed how much he understood and how far he had come in knowing whereof he longed to speak.

Swinging a canvas hammock across the cabin, Toskin rolled up in a blanket and went sound to sleep. In the morning something awakened him, and opening his eyes, he found himself looking up into the face of the man he had dragged out of the eddy. In the man's hand was his own butcher knife, and he was merely hesitating to drive the blade into his host's breast.

"Good morning," Toskin greeted the man, looking him in the eyes.

"Where's my money belt?" the fellow demanded.

"It was all wet when I pulled you out of the river," Toskin answered. "I spread the bills on the rack over the stove—where you'll find them."

On the instant the river rat backed away and took a quick glance at the kitchen, where, sure enough, the currency was crinkled up, well dried—several thousand dollars in bills of various denominations. At sight of it, he sprang and rapidly stacked it to pack it in the stained but fairly soft horsehide money belt. He counted it, and he was satisfied with the result. Not a dollar was missing.

In the meanwhile Toskin reached over into a wall pocket and drew out his own automatic, swung to his feet, and as the man looked up, leveled the dark brown muzzle at him.

"You scoundrel—hands up! Kill me for rescuing you, will you?"

"Don't—don't shoot!" The fellow dropped his knife and fell to his knees. "I 'lowed yo'd—yo'd stoled my money! Don't shoot!"

Toskin ordered him to put on the belt, and made him sit down in a chair, while he himself dressed. Murder had been in the very poise of the fellow, and Toskin, somehow, had found river discretion in his short but terrific shanty boat experience. Dressed, he told the man to dress in the clothes which Toskin had carefully dried.

"You were floating down, and came into this eddy," Toskin explained. "I heard you groaning, just before daybreak, and you drifted against my boat. You hung fast, but you'd sank back in, shortly. I dragged you on board, took you in here, and fed you; I let you sleep on my own bed—for thanks you would have stabbed me while I slept! Who are you?"

"Tom-Tom Maiton!" the fellow answered as he cringed.

"A river rat!"

"Yas, suh!"

"And all the good it does to do you a favor is to give you a chance to murder your benefactor?"

"I 'lowed yo'd took my money."

"If I had—you'd murdered the victim if you found that much money on him! You're alive—and you thought I'd robbed you, helpless as you were?"

"I 'lowed yo' had, suh."

"Because you'd done it, you thought I would—that any man would! Where did you learn to mistrust men so much?"

"On ol' Mississip'—all oveh!"

"Well, if you were in my place, what would you do?"

"The job 'd be'n done, long sincet!" Maiton grinned, with a flicker at his own humor. "Yo'd neveh come to, no, suh!"

"I believe you. Now, if I let you go, I suppose you'll stab me the first chance you get—or shoot me?"

Maiton hesitated and stared at the floor, What could he say? He rolled his eyes up at last—they were half bulging in their deep, sunk sockets—they wavered, and a rat-tail grin whipped along his lips as he nodded.

"I expect, suh!"

He was telling the truth, and it was the only way he could repay the man who had saved his life—it was the truth of the moment, however. Toskin was delving deep into the heart thought of the wretch. To him had been given, as to few softpaws on the river, the privilege of getting to know old Mississip' in the snarling moods of its ways, and he knew it—he was grateful for it; nor did he bear any resentment against man now. In fact, he read back into the years of privation, of suffering, of losing fight against odds on the river, of a weak physique struggling to keep alive against the awful law of the survival of the fittest. He had survived—he was surviving now, by the very sincerity of his admissions. He was learning to meet Toskin on Toskin's own terms—for there was no other way.

Unable to look back at Toskin's frank and studious inspection, Maiton rolled his eyes around, and his glance fell on the easel where rested the wide sheet of drawing paper, covered over with the sketch of the bunk, the corner of the cabin, the hanging curtain by the window, and the glaring white face that centered and held his vision.

Maiton's jaw dropped, his eyes crawled put of their sockets like turtle heads, and he staggered to his feet, staring at the picture. It was a wonderful likeness, that hasty sketch! Having looked at it, Maiton's gaze wandered up and down, and around the cabin. He looked at the carlings supporting the matched board, canvas-covered roof; he glanced at the cabin walls, and shrank away from each side in turn; he drew down, his back humping, as he fixed his eyes upon the bunk, blinking again and again.

"This boat—this shanty boat—where all'd yo' get to buy hit, misteh?" he asked.

Toskin stood straighter a little and looked at the fellow with a quick, birdlike glance of amused comprehension. Maiton knew that cabin interior, and he was undergoing tortures in the recognition. The artist knew, now, how well he had drawn the face and figure of the wretched river man, recuperating in almost deathlike sleep on that bunk.

"Where'd yo' git hit?" Maiton pleaded. "Not to—not to Mendova?"

"It's one the city custodian had for sale. It's a dandy, isn't it?" Toskin smiled as he put this question.

"Ah—ah!" Maiton gasped, and then asked, pointing at the picture: "Where all'd yo' see that man—lyin' theh—so?"

For an instant Toskin hesitated, and then reached to a shelf and handed him the newspaper, with the picture of the murdered man in it.

"There's the picture, but you know that's your own face."

"Lawse! Lawsy!" Maiton whimpered. "I knowed hit's my face, but a daid man's on a daid man's bed! An'—an' yo've hearn no voices—seen nobody here, 'ceptin' me—no night flyers have come a-visitin' yo'?"

"Oh, as to that—you see that bell?"

"Yas, suh!"

"I heard it ringing—not a real bell, you know—so I sketched that in in order that I might never forget it."

"Forget the voices of the riveh speerits?" Maiton cried. "You expaict yo'd eveh fo'get 'em, havin' heard 'em wunst? Ho, law—yo's a softpaw—yo' ain' be'n long on the riveh. When 'd yo' git to come a-float?"

"Why, Wednesday—this is Friday morning."

"I knowed hit. This Friday! Why, sho! I lost a day—I lost Thursday.' When 'd yo' pick me up?"

"Just at daybreak, yesterday morning."

"Yas, suh! I remembeh. Lawse! What a neck I got—hit's stiff—sore—near broke yet! You're educated. A feller touched my neck, an' I went numb to my heels, slowlike."

"Hit you on the neck?"

"No, suh! Kind of laid his hand onto hit, an' I couldn't he'p myse'f. I kep' a goin'—a goin', gettin' number an' number! Come daylight when yo' fished me out. Les' look out."

He went on the bow deck and looked around. Toskin stood in the doorway watching him as he looked up the chute, and to the left across the main river.

"Yas, suh, I floated twenty miles, strangeh. Jes' floatin', lyin' on my back all paralyzed, my haid throwed back, down reach 'n' bend, down crossin' an' chute, an'—hit were here yo' drug me out? I 'membeh seein' a light, an' feelin' a shanty boat hull, hookin' my fingehs into the strake crack. Sho! Ol' Mississip' brung me hyar to this bo't—a daid man's bo't! Lawse—Lawsy! Ol' Mississip' had hit in fo' me—he shore did! Yas, suh!"

Staggering, Maiton sank into the old green wicker chair on the deck. He sat there, mumbling and nodding to the wandering of his own thoughts. On him had settled one of the Mississippi River convictions, and he whined with helpless misery and futile wish.

"Stranger—stranger"—he turned to Toskin, one hand reaching suddenly to the back of his neck, as it creaked stiffly—"I lied, strangeh! I'd neveh kill yo'-all—not in Gawd's world—neveh!"

"I thought so." Toskin smiled. "Come in and we'll have a cup of coffee and breakfast—what say?"

"Yas, suh, but—that cabin. Ho, law! Do yo'-all b'lieve in ghosts?"

"Believe in ghosts?" Toskin laughed. "Why, yes—after a fashion. I'd hate a lot not to believe in them, you know. Take a real, nice, good-natured ghost, now, and he's lots of company."

"Sho, sho!" Maiton exclaimed, and then, grinning wryly, stepped lightly the length of the cabin, swinging wide from the bunk, and working in the kitchen to help make the breakfast which both of them needed.

When they had eaten they washed and dried the dishes, put them away and returned into the sitting room. As before, Maiton kept covert eye on the bunk, as though he would be ready should it rise up and fly at him. On the other hand, catching another glimpse of the picture on the easel, he shied at it, too, while Toskin regarded him with the amusement of a man who has become well rid of his own fright.

"You do not like my cabin boat?" Toskin suggested.

"Just so," Maiton admitted, sitting gingerly in the rocking chair to which his host beckoned. "I fear no man—but the devil's own— Law me!"

"The newspapers say that the dead man was a mystery—none knew his name," hinted Toskin.

"No more did I," Maiton said stoutly. "How'd I know him?"

"That is none of my business." Toskin shook his head with sudden discretion. "I believe a man should mind his own business."

"That's more'n many a softpaw gets to know. 'Tis a wise man who knows what isn't his business. What's the idea of that damned picture?"

"I didn't want to forget how you looked lying there."

"An' I looked like a daid man—did I? White's that? What's the meaning of that sign, will you tell me that?"

"Sign? Meaning of what sign?"

"You draw my picture—and it's my daid face into hit!"

"Oh, lots of artists make their portraits dead—or wooden."

"But that thing—I'm a daid man in a daid man's bed!" Maiton's cream-colored complexion turned ash-gray. He quivered as be glared at the portrait, seeing his own profile, the gaunt, deep wrinkles of his own face, and the lifeless relaxation of his figure, right where the murdered man had lain.

As night fell the river rat was shivering with dread. Toskin could laugh at him now. At the same time he was sorry for the man, knowing full well what he was suffering. He could not help but speculate on the visitor's knowledge of the boat's tragedy, but he knew far too much by this time to give voice to hint or inquiry in the matter.

Maiton warmed slowly in the fearless poise of his host.

"You-all know a daid man slept theh—an' you're not afeared, misteh?" Tom Maiton asked.

"I think—don't you—that I would better fear the living more?" Toskin asked in turn, with crisp meaning in his tone.

"Yas, suh! Yas, suh!" Maiton acknowledged. "Two men near laid daid on that bunk—yas, indeedy—"

"Three," Toskin added. "I was closer to dying than you were, when I lifted you on there, and fed you, warmed you with hot clothes—brought yon back from almost complete exhaustion to sleep and rest."

"I know yo' did—now—yas, suh," Maiton acknowledged, shamed. "Listen."

In the darkness without they heard motors, and Maiton stepped to the bow deck to hear better.

"Hit's friends of mine," he whispered to Toskin in the darkness, and raising his voice through his megaphoned hands, he gave an "aloo-hoo" call. An answer returned from the river darkness, and a minute or two later the dark craft approached in the gloom. One of the men turned on a spotlight and sought out the little shanty boat. There was a brief interval of silence and then there was a shrill, low scream

"Hit's the murder boat from Mendova. Hit's their ghosts. Mad Tom's an' t'other daid man. Hard oveh! Hard oveh! Gawd! We didn’t mean nothin’!"