Memphis, in 1828, was little more than a raw hamlet straggling along
the river. It had a big landing-stage for steamers and a series of
smaller wharves where the arks and keel-boats from upstream could tie
up. There were half a hundred craft of all sorts and sizes hitched
to the mooring-posts when the _Katy Roby_ drew alongside, for nearly
every flatboat crew made a stop of a day or a night at Memphis. It
was the largest town between St. Louis and New Orleans and handled a
considerable commerce with the back country.
The boys worked the boat’s nose in between other broadhorns until they
could get a rope fast, and Allen retired to the shelter amidships to
shave and spruce himself up.
“Reckon I’ll step ashore an’ see what prices they’re offerin’ fer corn
an’ pork,” he remarked, endeavoring to part his hair with the aid of a
piece of broken mirror.
“Yes,” said Abe, “an’ don’t fergit to take note o’ the number o’ purty
gals an’ the color o’ their dresses. Tad an’ me, we’ll stick along here
an’ teach this no-’count Poke some new tricks.”
They cooked supper, and as Allen did not return at dusk, they ate it,
sitting together on the edge of the fore deck. There were numerous
boatmen joking, swearing, and passing the time of day in the craft
about them. Several of the crews were familiar to them from earlier
meetings along the river, and there was much cheerful banter about
Abe’s towering frame. He took it all with his customary grin and gave
them as good as they sent.
“Say, Hoosier,” yelled one jolly-looking, red-bearded keel-boat man,
“how long are them shanks o’ yourn, anyhow?”
“Jest the proper length,” Abe returned. “They’re jest exactly long
enough to reach the ground.”
Gradually the talk and laughter quieted down as darkness fell. By nine
o’clock the river front was quiet except for the gurgle of the high
water sweeping past and an occasional burst of song from roisterers in
the town.
Abe waited patiently until sometime close to midnight. Then he nudged
the drowsy Tad awake and told him to mind the boat while he went ashore
after Allen.
Tad succeeded in propping his eyes open for half an hour, and at the
end of that time he saw a huge, dim shape lurching along the dock. As
it reached the bow of the _Katy Roby_ it became recognizable as Abe,
carrying a limp body over his shoulder.
Tad leaped up, startled.
“What is it--is Allen hurt?” he whispered.
“No,” Abe replied, quietly. “He’s drunk.”
They took off some of his clothes and wrapped him in his blanket. Then
Abe stretched his big arms and spat over the gunwale disgustedly.
“There’s no law to stop a feller from makin’ a fool of himself,” he
remarked. “Only ye’d think plain common sense ought to tell him.” And
with that they went to bed.
Allen made a very unheroic figure next morning. His complexion was a
sort of greenish yellow, and he refused all food with groans.
“What about prices on the cargo?” Abe asked him. “Want to stay an’
unload some?”
Allen shook his head. “Too cheap,” said he. “Let’s hold the stuff
fer New Orleans an’ git thar as soon as we kin.” Whereupon he rolled
over once more and lay in a miserable heap while Abe and Tad made
preparations for departure.
They needed sugar and white flour, and before casting off, Abe made a
hurried trip up into the town to get them.
When he came back his face was grave.
“They say there’s a heap o’ damage from the high water all along below
here,” he told Tad. “We’ll have to watch sharp and help folks out whar
we kin. An’ then I heard another piece o’ news. They say this outlaw
John Murrell is back from up river, an’ him an’ his gang are startin’
to make life miserable fer the planters betwixt here an’ Natchez. The
storekeeper wanted to skeer me, I reckon. He claimed Murrell would sink
a flatboat an’ drown the crew fer a ten-dollar note. But I don’t pay
much heed to that sort o’ talk.
“An’ anyhow, if he wants our ten dollars, let him try it. I’d sort o’
like to see Mr. Murrell fer myself an’ find out if he’s such a terrible
feller.”
Tad was not quite so sure he wanted to test the notorious outlaw’s
mettle, but he agreed that it might be thrilling to get a glimpse of
him.
They got off before the morning was far advanced, and soon overtook
some of the other flatboats which had started before them. Abe took a
keen delight in overhauling them, one after another, and tossing back a
gibe or two at each vessel they passed.
At length there was only one craft left in sight ahead of them--a long,
trimly-built keel-boat, with lines that were almost graceful compared
to those of the _Katy Roby_. She was making good headway, due to the
efforts of a husky bow-oarsman, but Abe’s extra-long sweeps and the
tremendous power he put into his stroke were rapidly eating up the
distance between the two boats.
Just as the bow of the broadhorn drew even with her rival’s
steering-oar, another figure sprang to the fore deck of the keel-boat.
It was the big red-bearded river-man who had asked Abe about the length
of his legs. He swung an arm in vigorous gesture, and his voice roared
out across the water.
“Git down from thar, ye lousy swab,” he cried to the oarsman. “Let
somebody pull that knows a sweep from a shovel.”
The rower hastened to surrender the great, clumsy oars and scramble
down, out of the way. And then indeed began a race! The slenderer lines
of the keel-boat gave her a slight advantage, which Abe had to overcome
by the sheer force of his strokes. During that moment while the oars
were changing hands, the tall Indiana boy quickened the beat of his
swing and succeeded in pulling up till he was a shade ahead of the
other craft. From this point he could watch his rival without turning
his head, while the redbeard was forced to crane his neck in order to
see what Abe was doing.
So they went, side by side, for the best part of a mile, the muddy
water churning in yellow foam behind them. The other four men in the
keel-boat’s crew bellowed constant encouragement to their mate, and one
of them seized the steering-sweep, sculling from side to side to help
them along. Tad saw this maneuver and promptly matched it by doing the
same thing with the _Katy Roby’s_ stern oar.
At the end of ten minutes the furious pace began to tell on the
red-whiskered rower. He was wilting visibly, while Abe, who had been at
it for more than an hour, was still pulling as strongly as ever.
One of the keel-boat men climbed to the fore deck and held a whisky jug
to the lips of his champion. This measure seemed to put new vigor into
him for about ten strokes. Then he stumbled and caught a crab, and the
race was over.
Abe pulled far enough ahead so that there should be no doubt about it,
then waited, resting on his oars.
He was panting hard, but his grin made him look anything but exhausted.
As Tad came forward, he mopped his forehead with his sleeve.
“Son,” said he, between breaths, “don’t ever let the other feller know
you’re as tired as he is. If he thinks you’re still fresh he’ll quit.”
After that they drifted for a while, and toward noon the big keel-boat
dropped down abreast of them again. The ruddy-bearded captain steered
close enough for conversation and grinned sociably as he spoke.
“Whar you from?” he asked.
Abe told him and came back with a similar question.
“We’re bringin’ a load o’ furs down from St. Louis,” answered
the keel-boat skipper. “Ol’ Man Carillon, he’s scairt to ship by
steamboat--’fraid they’ll blow up. So he still sends his furs this way.
More’n a thousand prime beaver skins we’ve got, an’ plenty of other
kinds besides. That’d be a haul worth even John Murrell’s time, eh?
I’ve got two extra men in the crew jest ’count o’ him an’ his gang.”
“They tell me he’s back,” said Abe.
“Sure thing,” replied the other. “He was layin’ low fer a couple o’
months, up river, but this last week he’s been seen ridin’ the roads
on that three-stockin’ boss o’ his--him an’ Bull Whaley an’ Sam Jukes.
That means thar’s some sort o’ devilment a-bilin’.”
“Well,” Abe answered, “jes’ so he stays on horseback an’ don’t come
meddlin’ with river folks, he’ll mebbe keep a whole skin.”
The keel-boat left them some distance astern while Abe was getting
dinner, but later in the day they sighted it again, and for the next
forty-eight hours the two craft were rarely more than a few miles apart.
Allen did not wake up until nearly dark, and even then he had little
stomach for the sizzling hog meat that Abe was frying. Next morning,
however, he was feeling like himself once more, and was even ready to
brag about his experiences ashore in Memphis, if Abe’s cutting sarcasm
had not quieted him.
They went down swiftly on the flood-water, twisting and turning
through new channels, and dashing through chutes where the river had
straightened its course and ran like a mill race. Occasionally they saw
the roofs of submerged cabins, and once or twice, when there seemed a
chance that people might be left in them, they stopped to see if they
could be of any help. In one house, floating with a gable end thrust up
at a crazy angle, they saw the body of a drowned woman caught by the
clothing to a window frame and trailing pitifully in the water. But
aside from that they found no human trace in all the desolate welter of
the river.
On the third day after leaving Memphis they passed the mouth of a great
river--the Arkansas--a raging tide that bore witness to heavy floods in
the back country.
For miles below, the surface of the Mississippi was littered with
gruesome débris. There were limbs of trees, parts of houses, bloated
bodies of farm animals. A huge flock of buzzards circled and settled,
on tilting black wings, and a stench of death filled the air.
Once, when Tad was perched high astern, swinging the steering-oar, he
caught sight of the carcass of a pig a little distance off. And even as
he watched, it was suddenly yanked under, leaving only a gurgling eddy
in the stream.
The St. Louis keel-boat was not far away, and her red-bearded captain
called across to Tad.
“Did ye see that?” he cried. “Big alligator done it. We’ll find lots of
’em below here.”
Sure enough, as they cast off next morning from the high bank topped
with cottonwoods where they had spent the night, a row of gnarled gray
logs below them came alive, turned with a swish of tails, and went
lumbering into the water.
“Don’t reckon we’ll be so keen to go swimmin’, from here down,” Abe
chuckled.
There were other signs that told them they had come into the real
South. Cotton plantations replaced the woods and squatters’ farms on
the higher ground. Broad, stout levees held the river in check for
miles along the steaming bottom lands. The weather was uncomfortably
hot, even in the scanty costumes which the boys wore. They kept out
of the sun as much as possible during the heat of the day, but their
faces, arms, and ankles were burned the color of an Indian’s. Abe, who
had been reading _Othello_, told Allen solemnly that he looked like the
Moor of Venice.
Three days after they passed the Arkansas mouth, they sighted
Vicksburg, a white town nestled in the crook of a bend, with water
above the top of the landings and washing over the lowest street.
Allen was ready for another adventure ashore, but Abe prevailed on him
to wait.
“Ye don’t figger the price o’ pork has gone up much since we left
Memphis, do ye?” said the lanky bow-oarsman scornfully. “After the
spectacle ye made o’ yerself up thar, I should think ye’d want to look
the other way if a town so much as came in sight.”
“That whisky must ha’ had pizen in it,” Allen muttered. But he had very
little more to say until they had left the landing astern.
“Oh, well,” he remarked at length, “we’ll be down to Natchez in another
day or two, an’ I reckon we’ll need some more provisions by then.
Natchez-under-the-Hill!” He pronounced the name of the town with a
certain relish. “The toughest landin’ on the whole river. I sure aim to
see the sights of that place.”
“The toughest sight you’ll see,” said Abe firmly, “will be the flat o’
my hand, unless you behave yourself mighty well from here down.”
The crest of the high water had passed, and the river was gradually
receding as they drifted southward. Along the bluffs on the Mississippi
side they watched a panorama of cotton plantations, half screened by
glossy-leaved magnolias in the gardens of the big white houses.
This was a rich country--a land of fabulous ease and prosperity, it
seemed to the two Hoosiers. Even Tad, who had seen plenty of wealth
in the Eastern cities, was amazed by the glimpses they got of the
luxurious planters’ life.
Once they passed a barge trimly painted in green and white, with
cushions and trailing silks over the stern. It was rowed by four
negroes, and its passengers were a lovely lady in a flowered bonnet, a
big, jolly, fair-haired man, and a little girl with golden curls.
The barge stopped at a private landing where a shining barouche with
two high-headed bay horses was waiting. Other horses, saddled and
held by negro grooms, stood near, and an elegantly dressed gentleman
and lady strolled down to the landing to greet the visitors. The crew
of the flatboat, drifting out of sight, caught a chime of fairy-like
laughter that followed them around the bend.
“Jiminy!” sighed Allen. “This is the section to live in, all right.
Niggers to wait on ye, an’ fine hosses, an’ summer all the year ’round!”
“I dunno,” said Abe, thoughtfully. “It’s grand fer the folks that owns
the niggers, but how about these poor whites, along the bottoms an’
back in the brush? They ain’t as well off as you an’ your Paw, by a
long shot. The South is fine, but it’s no country fer folks that ain’t
born rich.”
There were two more drowsy, uneventful days of drifting, and then
at dusk they came in sight of Natchez. It was the beginning of an
experience that Tad was never to forget as long as he lived.
There was a terrifying beauty over the river that night. A strange
green light had overspread the sky after sunset, and in it every
detail of the bank and the bluff stood out with unearthly clearness.
The air was sultry, with no hint of the breeze that usually ruffled
the water at evening. From a reedy place, shadowed by moss-draped live
oaks, a pair of great white egrets rose and winged silently away to the
northward.
They saw a church spire above the trees at the top of the bluff, and
then, low in the shadow along the waterside, the outlines of shacks and
houses, with a swarm of flatboats moored to the levee. A thin tinkle of
music reached their ears, and as they drew closer it resolved itself
into the squeak of fiddles and the throb of banjos.
They found a place to tie their craft, down at the lower end of the
line, near the steamboat landing, and hardly had they made the ropes
fast when a growl of thunder drowned out the music. A wind sprang up,
blowing from the south, and the sky grew dark with scudding clouds.
A sudden foreboding filled Tad. From that instant he had a dread of
Natchez-under-the-Hill.