The River Prophet Part 8

"I bet Vicksburg's a hundred mile!" Rasba mused.

"A hundred mile!" the woman said with a guffaw. "Hit's six hundred an'

sixty-three miles from Cairo to Vicksburg, yes, indeed. A hundred mile!

I made hit in ten days, stoppin' along. I ketched it theh."

"You found yo' man?"

"Shucks! Hit wa'n't the man I wanted, hit were my boat--a nice, reg'lar pine an' oak-frame boat. I bet me I chucked him ovehbo'd, an' towed back up to Memphis. Hit were a good $300 bo't, sports built, an' hits on the riveh yet--Dart Mitto's got hit, junkin'. You'll see him down by Arkansaw Old Mouth if yo's trippin' right down."

"I expect to," Rasba replied, doubtfully. Never in his life before had he talked in terms of hundreds of miles, cities, and far rivers,

"Yo'll know that boat; he's went an' painted hit a sickly yeller, like a railroad station. I hate yeller! Gimme a nice light blue or a right bright green."

"Hyar comes anotheh bo't!" one of the men remarked, and all turned to look up the chute, where a little cabin-boat had drifted into sight.

No one was on deck, and it was apparent that the Columbus banks had shunted the craft clear across the river and down the chute, just as Rasba himself had been carried. The shadow of the trees on the west side of the chute fell across the boat and immediately brought the tripper out of the cabin.

A shadow is a warning on wide rivers. It tells of the nearness of a bank, or towhead, or even of a steamboat. In mid-stream there is little need for apprehension, but when the current carries one down into a caving bend and close to overhanging trees or along the edges of short, boiling eddies, it is time to get out and look for snags and jeopardies.

Seeing the group of people on the sandbar, the journeyer, who was a woman, took the sweeps of her boat and began to work over to them.

"Hit handles nice, that bo't!" one of the fishermen said. "Pulls jes'

like a skift. Wonder who that woman is?"

"I've seen her some'rs," the powerful, angular woman, Mrs. Cooke, said after a time. "Them's swell clothes she's got on. She's all alone, too, an' what a lady travels alone down yeah for I don't know. She's purty enough to have a husband, I bet, if she wants one."

"Looks like one of them Pittsburgh er Cincinnati women," Jim Caope declared.

"No." Mrs. Caope shook her head. "She's off'n the riveh. Leastwise, she handles that bo't reg'lar. I cayn't git to see her face, but I seen her some'rs, I bet. I can tell a man by hisns walk half a mile."

In surprise she stared at the boat as it came nearer, and then walked down to the edge of the bar to greet the newcomer.

"Why, I jes' knowed I'd seen yo' somers! How's yer maw?" she greeted.

"Ho law! An' yo's come tripping down Ole Mississip'! I 'clare, now, I'd seen yo', an' I knowed hit, an' hyar yo' be, Nelia Crele. Did yo' git shut of that up-the-bank feller yo' married, Nelia?"

"I'm alone," the girl laughed, her gaze turning to look at the others, who stood watching.

"If yo' git a good man," Mrs. Caope philosophized, "hang on to him.

Don't let him git away. But if yo' git somebody that's s.h.i.+f'less an' no 'count, chuck him ovehbo'd. That's what I b'lieve in. Well, I declare!

Hand me that line an' I'll tie yo' to them stakes. Betteh throw the stern anchor over, fo' this yeah's a shallows, an' the riveh's eddyin', an' if hit don't go up hit'll go down, an'----"

"Theh's a head rise coming out the Ohio," someone said. "Yo' won't need no anchor over the stern!"

"Sho! I'm glad to see yo'!" Mrs. Caope cried, wrapping her arms around the young woman as she stepped down to the sand, and kissing her. "How is yo' maw?"

"Very well, indeed!" Nelia laughed, clinging to the big river woman's hand. "I'm so glad to find someone I know!"

"You'll know us all d'rectly. Hyar's my man, Mr. Caope--real nice feller, too, if I do say hit--an' hyar's Mrs. Dobstan an' her two darters, an' this is Mr. Falteau, who's French and married May, there, an' this feller--say, mister, what is yo' name?"

"Rasba, Elijah Rasba."

"Mr. Rasba, he's a parson, out'n the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy, comin'

down. Miss Nelia Crele, suh. I disremember the name of that feller yo'

married, Nelia."

"It doesn't matter," Nelia turned to the mountain man, her face flus.h.i.+ng. "A preacher down this river?"

"I'm looking for a man," Rasba replied, gazing at her, "the son of a widow woman, and she's afraid for him. She's afraid he'll go wrong."

"And you came clear down here to look for him--a thousand, two thousand miles?" she continued, quickly.

"I had nothing else to do--but that!" he shook his head. "You see, missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!"

He turned and walked away with bowed head. They all watched him with quick comprehension and real sympathy.

CHAPTER XI

Jest Prebol, sore and sick with his bullet wound, but more alarmed on account of having sworn so much while a parson was dressing his injury, could not sleep, and as he thought it over he determined at last to cut loose and drop on down the river and land in somewhere among friends, or where he could find a doctor. But the practised hand of Rasba had apparently left little to do, and it was superst.i.tious dread that worried Prebol.

So the river rat crept out on the sandbar, cast off the lines, and with a pole in one hand, succeeded in pus.h.i.+ng out into the eddy where the shanty-boat drifted into the main current. Prebol, faint and weary with his exertions, fell upon his bunk. There in anguish, delirious at intervals, and weak with misery, he floated down reach, crossing, and bend, without light or signal. In olden days that would have been suicide. Now the river was deserted and no steamers pa.s.sed him up or down. His cabin-boat, but a rectangular shade amidst the river shadows, drifted like a leaf or chip, with no sound except when a coiling jet from the bottom suckled around the corners or rippled along the sides.

The current carried him nearly six miles an hour, but two or three times his boat ran out of the channel and circled around in an eddy, and then dropped on down again. Morning found him in mid-stream, between two wooded banks, as wild as primeval wilderness, apparently. The sun, which rose in a white mist, struck through at last, and the soft light poured in first on one side then on the other as the boat swirled around. Once the squirrels barking in near-by trees awakened the man's dim consciousness, but a few minutes later he was in mid-stream, making a crossing where the river was miles wide.

He pa.s.sed Hickman just before dawn, and toward noon he dropped by New Madrid, and the slumping of high, caving banks pounded in his ears down three miles of changing channel. Then the boat crossed to the other side and he lay there with eyes seared and staring. He discovered a grave stone poised upon the river bank, but he could not tell whether it was fancy or fact that the ominous thing bent toward him and fell with a splash into the river, while a wave tossed his boat on its way. He heard a quavering whine that grew louder until it became a shriek, and then fell away into silence, but his senses were slow in connecting it with one of the Tiptonville cotton gins. He heard a voice, curiously human, and having forgotten the old hay-burner river ferry, worried to think that he should imagine someone was driving a mule team on the Mississippi. For a long time he was in acute terror, because he thought he was blind, and could not see, but to his amazed relief he saw a river light and knew that another night had fallen upon him, so he went to sleep once more.

Voices awakened him. He opened his eyes, and the surroundings were familiar. He smelled iodine, and saw a man looking over a doctor's case.

Leaning against the wall of the cabin-boat was a tall, slender young man with arms folded.

"How's he comin' Doc'?" the young man was saying.

"He'll be all right. How long has he been this way?"

"Don't know, Doc; he come down the riveh an' drifted into this eddy. I see his lips movin', so I jes' towed 'im in an' sent fo' yo'!"

"Just as well, for that wound sure needed dressing. I 'low a horse doctor fixed hit first time," the physician declared. "He'll need some care now, but he's comin' along."

"Oh, we'll look afteh him, Doc! Friend of ourn."

"I'll come in to-morrow. It's written down what to do, and about that medicine. You can read?"

"Howdy," Prebol muttered, feebly.

"He's a comin' back, Doc!" the young man cried, starting up with interest.

"Well, old sport, looks like you'd got mussed up some?" the doctor inquired.