were fraught with peril, and Hyatt must beware of the angry Saturn. Mars
was also an interfering factor. Rat must never go below a certain bend
in the river during a waning moon, or in the summer time, and must shun
women with protruding teeth. (An obvious allusion to Hyatt ’s friend,
Malindy Taylor, whom Wattles admired from afar.)
In a vision in Wattles’s crystal, while Rat Hyatt was under
consideration, there appeared a tall skeleton, with a helmet and a fiery
spear. It wore a breast plate on which was inscribed “_Sent from God_.”
The bony arms waved the spear, and the crystal was suffused with red.
The interpretation was that Hyatt would be wanted in the near future.
In another crystal vision, a slowly moving figure, with a sorrow
stricken mien, and a halo above its head, approached a water’s edge and
contemplated men who drew a net. When the meshes came upon the sand the
figure stooped, took from them one of the fish, and cast it back into
the sea. A darkness then came upon the face of the waters.
Wattles divined that this signified something in connection with Hyatt,
and that “the fish was no good.”
As I finished reading the horoscopes the tom cat Scorpio returned
through the hole in the door and crawled under the stove with a chipmunk
he had caught in the woods.
“That crystal was at one time in India,” explained Wattles, as he placed
the horoscopes between the leaves of a big book. “The Buddhists used it,
and it was stolen by a desecrater of a temple, who fled to Italy. There
it was used by a great astrologer and magician for over fifty years.
From Italy it went to England and into the possession of the world
renowned Zadkiel. After that it went to New York by inheritance. I
bought it from a man in Cincinnati for two dollars. He did not know what
it was, but I did, for it was fully described in some books I have. I
believe it to be the celebrated Lady Blessington crystal that was
exhibited in London before all the nobility in 1850. I will show you how
it works.”
He placed the crystal on the window ledge, and into a little pan,
between it and the light, he poured some gray powder from a wide mouthed
bottle. He lighted the powder and a pale yellow smoke ascended. He then
covered his head and half of the globe with a black cloth, as one would
do in focussing a camera. In this way all light was excluded except that
which passed through the smoke and crystal into the darkened space under
the cloth.
“I am not expecting to see any visions now,” he continued, “but for all
that there may be one there.” He was silent for some time and then asked
me to look.
I carefully adjusted the cloth and gazed upon the luminous orb. Owing to
the wreaths of smoke on the other side of the globe, there were weird
filmy changes in the field of light. A dark indistinct form seemed to
wander in the dim depths of the crystal. The movement ceased near the
center.
I told Wattles what had happened, and asked him to interpret it, but he
made no reply. I withdrew the cloth and found that the mysterious
apparition had been produced by the blurred magnification of the
silhouette of a blue bottle fly that was crawling about on the light
side of the crystal.
Wattles said, in a regretful, kindly tone, that the influences were not
quite right for the visions. He had found by the test that I was a
skeptic, and, when looked into by unbelievers, the crystal remained
clouded and never “visualized.” I accepted the explanation humbly.
“Now,” said he, “I want you to see my observatory.” He took a long
marine spy glass from behind the books on the shelf and we ascended a
rickety ladder to a trap door in the roof, by means of which we reached
an enclosed platform over the house.
“By get’n’ up here I command a better horizon than I would from the
ground,” he explained, as he adjusted the spy glass into the top of some
revolving frame work. From the low seat near it he could inspect the
heavens to his heart’s content. Through the glass I scrutinized a flock
of turbulent crows around some tree tops beyond the river a mile or so
away, and it appeared to be an excellent instrument of its kind.
In this humble eyrie I could fancy Wattles communing with the stars on
quiet nights, listening to their spiritual voices, gazing with
apprehension upon the hovering malefics, and searching the immutable
heavens for the missing orb of his horoscope.
Like the Chaldeans of old upon their lonely watch towers in the dawn of
history, he contemplated the bejewelled scroll, and beheld the endless
processions of mighty planets that, in his belief, cycled through
infinity to fashion minute destinies on the distant speck of earth. The
flying shuttling spheres were weaving the mottled fabrics of the fates
of men, and, among them was the frail and ill-starred web of Wattles.
After all, was he of less consideration than all the others who assume
the creation of the universe to be a vast design for the final glory of
humanity?
We descended from the platform, and Wattles conducted me to his
“labertory,” a small room at the rear of the house.
Several large kettles were scattered about, and, on a low platform was a
large alembic. A big stove stood near the chimney. Stacked along the
shelves were baskets of dried leaves, flowers and berries, piles of
various herbs, bundles of wild cherry and wahoo bark, and bags of flag
and snake roots.
The tom cat Scorpio had followed us and he sniffed suspiciously around a
barrel in the corner, in which there were probably mouse nests.
“This is where I make them celebrated Wahoo Bitters,” Wattles announced
proudly, as he pointed to a row of filled bottles on one of the shelves.
“I got the formula from Waukena, the old Injun squaw that used to live
up in Whippoorwill Bayou. All the Injuns used to take it when they got
sick, but they didn’t ’ave such improved ways of makin’ it as I got.
They used to drop red hot stones in with the things its made of, and I
think that killed part o’ the edge the bitters ought to have on ’em when
they’re done. They didn’t know how to combine certain chemical
diffusions and decant ’em off the way I do. I sell a good deal o’ them
bitters around ’ere. Posey keeps ’em at the store an’ there’s lots of
other places where they have ’em in the stores.”
We left the “labertory” and I heard the sound of a swift scrape along
the floor. I inferred that Scorpio had made a seizure.
Wattles kindly asked me to have some lunch with him. It was more of a
“feed” than a repast. Late in the afternoon I finished my rather
prolonged but interesting visit.
Wattles wanted to show me his garden, and we walked out into the
clearing along the edge of a deep ravine back of the house. Some of the
vegetables in the garden had struggled hard for existence.
“Look at them beets!” he exclaimed ruefully. “I planted ’em under
exactly proper lunar aspects and I ain’t got a damn beet in the patch.”
He promised to leave my horoscope at Posey’s store in about a week. I
thanked him for his many courtesies and departed. I noticed that he did
not invite me to make him another visit.
It happened that nearly six months elapsed before I was in that part of
the country again. I inquired at the store for my horoscope and found
that it had been left according to agreement. It was a thrilling
document and I found much amusement in it.
I had a chat with Posey out on the platform, and he told me that my
astrological friend had got into all kinds of trouble.
“That feller was a pippin,” he declared; “the slickest that ever lived
around ’ere, an’ we’ve had some pretty good ones. He was foregathered by
the officers for makin’ queer half dollars up to his place an’ the devil
was to pay. The coins was finished up so fine you c’d hardly tell ’em.
He shipped ’em out with the herbs ’e sent to some feller away off, an’
it was a long time before they traced ’em. He had a little furnace in
the cellar under ’is house that ’e went down into through a trap door in
the floor, an’ they was a tunnel from the cellar out to the side of the
ravine back of the house that ’e’d dug to git away by if anybody ever
come after ’im.
[Illustration:
THE SHERIFF
]
“That Wahoo Bitters fluid ’e made was hot stuff. It was about
three-quarters bad alcohol. You c’d take three er four fair sized doses
an’ you’d want to go out an’ throw stones at yer folks. Ev’rybody was
buyin’ it. Old Swan Peterson took it reg’lar an’ half the time ’e didn’t
know ’is name. I used to leave Bill in charge o’ the store when I went
off duck shoot’n. He slep’ upstairs, an’ would always ’ave a spell o’
sickness while I was away, an’ ’e’d come down in the night an’ drink up
the stock. He’d git a skinfull an’ sometimes he’d stay corned three
days. They wasn’t no money in that an’ I had to quit carryin’ it. All
the owls in the woods up and down the river hoot ‘Wahoo-Wahoo’ an’ that
always advertised ’is dope, but I guess ’e made more money in ’is little
furnace than ’e did out o’ Wahoo.
“Them dizzy dreams ’e wrote about us fellers made me think ’e was looney
fer awhile, an’ that the moon ’ad addled ’im when ’e was roostin’ up
among them sticks on top of ’is coop at night, but you bet there wasn’t
nuth’n looney about ’im. He had a wise head, all except git’n away with
it.”
Posey’s story was rather lengthy and involved, but it seemed that a
quiet and thorough investigation of the affairs of the versatile Wattles
had been made by a government detective. His place was visited one day
during his absence. The small furnace, some moulds, and other
counterfeiter’s paraphernalia were discovered, and several hundred
excellent imitations of Uncle Sam’s legal tender and Pullman porter tips
were found hidden under rubbish that concealed the entrance to the
underground exit from the cellar. The opening in the ravine was well
protected from observation by vegetation.
Two secret service men, accompanied by the sheriff, had come quietly up
the river in a boat late one night. One of the party stole up the path
along the bayou, one approached through the ravine, and the other
remained with the boat at the entrance to the bayou.
Wattles heard suspicious sounds and his lights went out. He crept
noiselessly through his secret exit, and at its end he saw the missing
evil star of his horoscope. It was on the vest of the officer who
awaited him at the mouth of the tunnel.
With the three malefics who came in the boat, poor Wattles, ever a child
of misfortune, and the accursed of the heavenly spheres, went forth to
meet the vengeance of the law, and the scarred tom cat Scorpio was alone
with the visions in the crystal.
[Illustration: THE END]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 232, changed “Sic Semper Tyranus” to “Sic Semper Tyrannis”.
2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
3. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as
printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's Tales of a Vanishing River, by Earl Howell Reed