ANOTHER RESCUE
As the moments wore on, Skippy felt meaner than ever. He tried to force
himself to accept Big Joe’s point of view, but it was difficult and more
than once he wished he had not encouraged his good friend in this
dubious enterprise.
They chugged into the bay and out of the awakening river traffic. Dawn
had broken through and glimmerings of dancing light peeped over the
horizon. An hour more and they would be in sight of Watson’s Channel.
“We’ll not be goin’ straight for the Channel, we’ll not,” called Big Joe
as if anticipating Skippy’s fears. “We’ll be layin’ quite like below
here a ways ’till the _Minnehaha_ gets in the Channel. ’Tis a funny
name, hey kid?”
“Mm,” Skippy answered. “It’s a Indian name, Big Joe—I think it means
sumpin’ like Laughing—Laughing sumpin’.”
Big Joe’s mirth knew no bounds.
“Sure and just about now _Minnie_ ain’t laughin’, she ain’t,” he said.
“’Tis us.”
“Not me,” Skippy said gloomily. “I won’t laugh ... not till after.”
An hour later they were chugging noisily toward Watson’s Channel. The
sun was glorious and the water glistened under its warm spring rays.
Gulls frolicked about in the foaming spray and Skippy tried hard to
believe there was nothing but peace in his busy mind.
After a time they heard a distant sound, faint at first but growing
louder within a few minutes. Tully grinned at Skippy’s questioning face
and nodded as the piercing note of a siren cut the silent sunlit air.
“Sure, and I wonder what that might be?” he said with mock-seriousness.
“Sounds like distress I’d be sayin’, I would.”
“Stop kiddin’, Big Joe,” Skippy pleaded. “You mean you think it’s
_them_?”
“Well now I wouldn’ be s’prised,” the big fellow answered. Then
seriously, he said: “We’ll be gettin’ there, kid! Don’t be lookin’ as if
they was drownin’ or somethin’. Sure they could keep afloat for hours so
they could, and look at the tide besides.”
Skippy glanced at the quietly rolling swell and felt somewhat reassured.
But the voice of the siren jarred him and he was glad to see that Big
Joe looked serious and determined. He hadn’t liked that note of raillery
in his friend’s voice.
But despite Skippy’s fears Tully answered the siren call with all the
haste of a good Samaritan. One might have supposed that he gloried in
the duties of heroic service. And when he reached the Channel and they
sighted the distressed launch, he opened wide his throttle until the old
hull shook to the vibrations of the engine.
Skippy clenched his slim, brown fingers and sat tense in his seat while
a spray rained into the boat. Big Joe coughed significantly and drove
his ramshackle craft straight for the disabled cruiser.
“Now ain’t she the sweet lookin’ baby,” he observed as if he had never
seen the launch before.
Skippy said nothing but grimly watched the three men who awaited their
coming. Crosley he recognized at once, but the man standing alongside of
him was a stranger. The third occupant of the _Minnehaha_ was Marty
Skinner. Skippy remembered him from his father’s trial and from the
night Skinner had ordered him off the _Apollyon_ without a hearing.
“You see him?” he asked Big Joe between clenched teeth.
“’Tis all the better,” Big Joe seemed to say in his bland smile.
He brought the kicker up alongside the _Minnehaha_ and laid a life
preserver over the coaming of his boat to prevent its scratching the
gleaming hull of the launch. Skippy scrambled to the rescue and held the
kicker as the ill-assorted pair rocked and rubbed in the heavy swell.
“Sure I don’t want to be scratchin’ her,” said Tully with a fine
assumption of humble respect for the launch. “I was tellin’ the kid
here, she’s some baby, hey? What’s bein’ the matter; power give out did
she? ’Tis too bad, so ’tis.”
Skippy kept his eyes on space, but he had the feeling that Big Joe and
he were being scrutinized with unfriendly stares.
Crosley sniffed the air contemptuously before he spoke.
“She’s pumping oil to beat the band,” he said. “We don’t seem to be
getting any compression either. We can’t get a kick out of her. Been
flopping around for an hour.”
“Sure maybe ye be needin’ new rings,” said Tully. “Guess ye been pushin’
her too hard, hey?”
He glanced into the cockpit and with a fine show of rueful astonishment,
beheld the disastrous results of his own handiwork. She was indeed
pumping oil. The engine head was covered with it, and it was streaming
down the side over the carburetor. Three or four spark plugs had been
taken out and lay on a locker in little puddles of oozy muck.
“If ’t was only one cylinder now, I’d be sayin’ ye had a busted ring, or
even a cracked piston,” Tully said blandly. “But shiverin’ swordfish if
it don’t look like the whole six o’ thim, don’t it? Ye can’t do nothin’
here. Looks like ye was racin’ her a lot.” His detestable device had
worked so well that he seemed moved to offer gratuitous suggestions. “I
knowed a guy was stuck on the bar over by Inland Beach and he kept
racin’ his motor, and somehow—I dunno just how—she sucked in a lot o’
beach sand and it sanded down his cylinder wall good an’ plenty, so it
did.”
Skinner’s lips were drawn in a thin line above his pointed chin.
“Does that mean we’ll have to be towed back, Crosley?” he asked his host
petulantly.
“Afraid so, Marty,” answered Crosley. “I can’t imagine how a fine engine
like mine could break down so soon.”
“Sure and if that ain’t just like some guys,” said Tully glibly.
“They’re fine’s a fiddle one day and the next—they’re done for, ain’t it
so?”
Crosley nodded indifferently.
“Could you tow us in?” he asked as if the question were distasteful. His
aversion to the uncouth, but amiable river man was too obvious to escape
Skippy’s sensitive eyes.
If Tully was aware of it too, he did not betray it. His face looked
grave and thoughtful.
“Trouble is I’m due at the Hook,” he said hesitantly. “Have an all day’s
job towin’ a barge. I’m late as ’tis. And if I ain’t there in twinty
minutes I lose the job, so I do. ’Tis the first good payin’ job I’ve had
in a long....”
Crosley waved his hand in entreaty.
“We’ll see that you’re paid for the loss of your day’s job, man. How
much would you get for it, eh?”
Tully moved his large head and shrugged his powerful shoulders.
“Seventy-five bucks is what they’re goin’ to pay me,” he said modestly.
Crosley gasped audibly.
“That’s a lot of money, but....”
“It’s a hold up!” snapped Skinner between his tightly drawn lips.
“Sure and it’s what they’re payin’ me, boss,” said Big Joe with a look
of hurt pride. “I ain’t askin’ ye’ for a cent, I’m not considerin’ I may
lose my customer for future jobs. ’Tis not only I’m losin’ that
seventy-five bucks, ’tis....”
“All right,” Crosley sniffed angrily. “You’re taking advantage of us. I
don’t believe you can earn seventy-five dollars for a day’s work. But
you have us at a disadvantage—the Lord knows who else we could get to
our rescue in this unfrequented channel.”
“So and that’s all the thanks I get,” said Tully. “Comin’ way out o’ me
way....”
“All right,” Skinner interposed. “Give it to him, Crosley. I know who
this fellow is. We’re at his mercy. But I’ll remember this, Tully—you’re
occupying the mud banks at Brown’s Basin. You and this boy, Dare, may
want some consideration when you people have to get out of the Basin.
And I’ll remember who’s living on the _Minnie M. Baxter_!”
“You oughta!” Skippy shouted angrily, rising to his feet. “Your cheatin’
boss what’s dead put it there, that’s what, an’ my father’ll never see
the sun on the river again on account of it too! So try an’ take it
away.”
Skinner’s cold dignity seemed unruffled. He averted his gaze while
Crosley counted out seventy-five dollars to Big Joe Tully. Skippy stood
by, his heart full of hate, and at that moment he thought that he could
cheerfully see the _Minnehaha_ sink to the bottom of the Channel while
Skinner begged to be saved.
While leisurely chugging back toward the Basin that afternoon he and
Tully talked it over seriously.
“Well, and we got seventy-five bucks aisy money out o’ the tightwads,”
Tully chuckled in conclusion.
“Seventy-five bucks an’ the promise of trouble from Skinner, Big Joe,”
Skippy reminded him with a note of apprehension in his voice.
Tully’s face darkened.
“I hate Skinner for sayin’ what he did, so I do,” he said ominously.
“Sufferin’ swordfish if he do be makin’ ye scared and drivin’ ye outa
the only home ye got—well, he better be lettin’ ye ’lone. _Me_, I don’t
care much where I live, but _you_ ... I’ll be fixin’ him if he....”
“Don’t say it, Big Joe!” Skippy pleaded earnestly. “It scares me, ’cause
that’s just what Pop said the night he went to see old Mr. Flint on the
_Apollyon_! It’s sorta——”
“And ’tis all right, kid, so ’tis.” Tully smiled. “Now ye be forgettin’
it.”
Skippy tried to; certainly he had forgotten that he himself had wished
Marty Skinner a like fate only that morning.