CHAPTER XII
THE WRECK ON THE RIVER
I made friends with many of these strange travelers, and was attractedespecially by one, a reticent man of perhaps sixty odd years, in Westerngarb, full of beard and with long hair reaching to his shoulders. He hadthe face of an old Teuton war chief I had once seen depicted in a canvasshowing a raid in some European forest in years long before a Christiancivilization was known--a face fierce and eager, aquiline in nose, blueof eye; a figure stalwart, muscular, whose every movement spoke courageand self-confidence. Auberry was his name, and as I talked with him hetold me of days passed with my heroes--Fremont, Carson, Ashley, BillWilliams, Jim Bridger, even the negro ruffian Beckwourth--all men of theborder of whose deeds I had read. Auberry had trapped from the St.Mary's to the sources of the Red, and his tales, told in simple andmatter-of-fact terms, set my very blood atingle. He was bound, as heinformed me, for Laramie; always provided that the Sioux, now grownexceedingly restless over the many wagon-trains pushing up the Platte toall the swiftly-opening West, had not by this time swooped down andclosed all the trails entirely. I wished nothing then so much as thatoccasion might permit me to join him in a journey across the Plains.
Among all these west-bound travelers the savage and the half-civilizedseemed to me to preponderate; this not to say that they were so muchcoarse and crude as they were fierce, absorbed, self-centered. Each mandepended upon himself and needed to do so. The crew on the decks wererelics from keel-boat days, surly and ugly of temper. The captain was anex-pilot of the lower river, taciturn and surly of disposition. Ourpilot had been drunk for a week at the levee of St. Louis and I misdoubtthat all snags and sandbars looked alike to him.
Among the skin-clad trappers, hunters and long-haired plainsmen, I sawbut one woman, and she certainly was fit to bear them company. I shouldsay that she was at least sixty years of age, and nearly six feet inheight, thin, angular, wrinkled and sinewy. She wore a sunbonnet ofenormous projection, dipped snuff vigorously each few moments, and neverallowed from her hands the long squirrel rifle which made a part of herequipage. She was accompanied by her son, a tall, thin, ague-smittenyouth of perhaps seventeen years and of a height about as great as herown. Of the two the mother was evidently the controlling spirit, and inher case all motherly love seemed to have been replaced by a vastcontempt for the inefficiency and general lack of male qualities in heroffspring. When I first saw them she was driving her son before her to aspot where an opening offered near the bow of the boat, in full sight ofall the passengers, of whose attention she was quite oblivious.
"Git up, there, Andy Jackson!" she said. "Stan' up!"
The boy, his long legs braiding under him, and his peaked face stillmore pale, did as he was bid. He had no sooner taken his position thanto my surprise I saw his mother cover him with the long barrel of adragoon revolver.
"Pull your gun, you low-down coward," she commanded, in tones that mighthave been heard half the length of the boat. Reluctantly the boycomplied, his own revolver trembling in his unready hand.
"Now, whut'd you do if a man was to kivver you like I'm a-doin' now?"demanded his mother.
"G-g-g-Gawd, Maw, I dunno! I think I'd j-j-j-jump off in the river,"confessed the boy.
"Shore you would, and good luck if you'd git plumb drownded, youwhite-livered son of misery. Whatever in Gawd A'mighty's world you wasborned for certainly is more'n I can tell--and I your Maw at that, thatorto know if anybody could."
"Madam," I interrupted, astonished at this discourse, "what do you meanby such talk to your son--for I presume he is your son. Why do you abusehim in this way?" I was sorry for the shivering wretch whom she had madethe object of her wrath.
"Shut up, and mind yore own business," answered the virago, swiftlyturning the barrel of her weapon upon me. "Whut business is this here ofyores?"
"None, madam," I bowed, "but I was only curious."
"You keep your own cur'osity to yourself ef you'r goin' to travel inthese parts. That's a mighty good thing for you to learn."
"Very true, madam," said I, gently disengaging the revolver barrel fromthe line of my waist, "but won't you tell me why you do these thingswith your son?"
"It's none of your damned business," she answered, "but I don't mindtellin' you. I'm tryin' to make a man out'n him."
"Ah, and this is part of the drill?"
"Part of it. You, Andrew Jackson, stick yore pistol up agin your headthe way I tol' you. Now snap it, damn you! Keep _on_ a-snappin'! Quitthat jumpin', I tell you! Snap, it till you git through bein' scared ofit. Do it now, or by Gawd, I'll chase you over the side of the boat andfeed you to the catfish, you low-down imertation of a he-thing. Mister,"she turned to me again, "will you please tell me how come me to be themother of a thing like this--me, a woman of ole Missoury; and me acousin of ole Simon Kenton of Kentucky beside?"
"My good woman," said I, somewhat amused by her methods of action andspeech, "do you mind telling me what is your name?"
"Name's Mandy McGovern; and I come from Pike," she answered, almostbefore the words were out of my mouth. "I've been merried three timesand my first two husbands died a-fightin, like gentlemen, indiffikilties with friends. Then along come this Danny Calkins, thattaken up some land nigh to me in the bottoms--low-downest coward of a,man that ever disgraced the sile of yearth--and then I merried _him_."
"Is he dead, too, my dear woman?" I asked.
"Don't you 'dear woman' me--I ain't free to merry agin yit," said she."Naw, he ain't dead, and I ain't deevorced either. I just done left him.Why, every man in Pike has whupped Danny Calkins one time or other. Whena man couldn't git no reputation any other way, he'd come erlong andwhupped my husband. I got right tired of it."
"I should think you might."
"Yes, and me the wife of two real men befo' then. If ever a woman hadhard luck the same is me," she went on. "I had eight chillen by my twohusbands that was real men, and every one of them died, or got killedlike a man, or went West like a man--exceptin' this thing here, the sonof that there Danny Calkins. Why, he's afraid to go coon huntin' atnight for fear the cats'll get him. He don't like to melk a keow forfear she'll kick him. He's afraid to court a gal. He kaint shoot, hekaint chop, he kaint do nothin'. I'm takin' him out West to begin overagain where the plowin's easier; and whiles we go along, I'm givin' hima 'casional dose of immanuel trainin', to see if I can't make him partway intoe a man. I dunno!" Mrs. McGovern dipped snuff vigorously.
Thereafter she looked at me carefully. "Say, mister," said she, "howtall are you?"
"About six feet, I think."
"Hum! That's just about how tall my first husband was. You look somelike him in the face, too. Say, he was the fightin'est man in Pike. Howcome him to get killed was a diffikilty with his brother-in-law, aDutchman that kept a saloon and couldn't talk English. Jim, he went inthere to get a bite to eat and asked this Dutchman what he could set up.Paul--that was the Dutchman's name--he says, 'Well, we got dawg--mallarddawg, and red head dawg, and canvas back dawg--what's the kind of dawgyou like, Chim?'
"My husband thought he was pokin' fun at him, talkin' about eatin'dawg--not knowin' the Dutchman was tryin' to say 'duck,' and couldn't.'I might have a piece of duck,' said Jim, 'bit I ain't eatin' no dawg.'
"'I _said_ dawg,' says Paul, still a-tryin' to say 'duck.'
"'I know you did,' says Jim, and then they clinched. Jim He broke hisknife off, and the Dutchman soaked him with a beer mallet. 'But Mandy,'says Jim to me, jest before he shet his eyes, 'I die content. Thatthere fellow was the sweetest cuttin' man I ever did cut in all mylife--he was jest like a ripe pumpkin.' Say, there was a man for you,was Jim--you look some like him." She dipped snuff again vigorously.
"You compliment me very much, Mrs. McGovern," I said.
"Say," she responded, "I got two thousand head o' hawgs runnin' aroundin the timber down there in Pike."
At the moment I did not see the veiled tenderness of this speech, butthought of nothing better than to tell her that I was going
no furtherup the river than Fort Leavenworth.
"Um-hum!" she said. "Say, mister, mebbe that's yore wife back there inthe kebbin in the middle of the boat?"
"No, indeed. In fact I did not know there was any other lady on the boatbesides yourself. I am not much interested in young ladies, as ithappens."
"You lie," said Mrs. McGovern promptly, "there ain't nothin' in thewhole world you are ez much interested in as young wimmin. I'm a merriedwoman, and I know the signs. If I had a deevorce I might be a leetlejealous o' that gal in there. She's the best lookin' gal I ever did seein all my time. If I was merried to you I dunno but I'd be a leetle bitjealous o' you. Say, I may be a widder almost any day now. Somebody'llshore kill Danny Calkins 'fore long."
"And, according to you, I may be a married man almost any day," Ireplied, smiling.
"But you ain't merried yit."
"No, not yet," I answered.
"Well, if you git a chanct you take a look at that gal back there in thekebbin."
Opportunity did not offer, however, to accept Mrs. McGovern's kindlycounsel, and, occupied with my own somewhat unhappy reflections, Iresigned myself to the monotony of the voyage up the Missouri River. Weplowed along steadily, although laboriously, all night, all the next dayand the next night, passing through regions rich in forest growth,marked here and there by the many clearings of the advancing settlers.We were by this time far above the junction of the Missouri River withthe Mississippi--a point traceable by a long line of discolored waterstained with the erosion of the mountains and plains far up theMissouri. As the boat advanced, hour after hour, finally approaching theprairie country beyond the Missouri forests, I found little in thesurroundings to occupy my mind; and so far as my communings with myselfwere concerned, they offered little satisfaction. A sort of shudderingself-reproach overcame me. I wondered whether or not I was less coarse,less a thing polygamous than these crowding Mormons hurrying out totheir sodden temples in the West, because now (since I have volunteeredin these pages to tell the truth regarding one man's heart), I mustadmit that in the hours of dusk I found myself dreaming not of myfiancee back in old Virginia, but of other women seen more recently. Asto the girl of the masked ball, I admitted that she was becoming afading memory; but this young girl who had thrust through the crowd andbroken up our proceedings the other day--the girl with the white lawngown and the silver gray veil and the tear-stained eyes--in some way, asI was angrily obliged to admit, her face seemed annoyingly to thrustitself again into my consciousness. I sat near a deck lamp. GraceSheraton's letter was in my pocket. I did not draw it out to read itand re-read it. I contented myself with watching the masked shadows onthe shores. I contented myself with dreams, dreams which I stigmatizedas unwarranted and wrong.
We were running that night in the dark, before the rising of the moon, athing which cautious steamboat men would not have ventured, although ourpilot was confident that no harm could come to him. Against assurancesuch as this the dangerous Missouri with its bars and snags purposed apresent revenge. Our whistle awakened the echoes along the shores as weplowed on up the yellow flood, hour after hour. Then, some time towardmidnight, while most of the passengers were attempting some sort ofrest, wrapped in their blankets along the deck, there came a slightshock, a grating slide, and a rasping crash of wood. With a forwardchurning of her paddles which sent water high along the rail, the _RiverBelle_ shuddered and lay still, her engines throbbing and groaning.
In an instant every one on the boat was on his feet and running to theside. I joined the rush to the bows, and leaning over, saw that we werehard aground at the lower end of a sand bar. Imbedded in this bar was along white snag, a tree trunk whose naked arms, thrusting far downstream, had literally impaled us. The upper woodwork of the boat waspierced quite through; and for all that one could tell at the moment,the hull below the line was in all likelihood similarly crushed. We hungand gently swung, apparently at the mercy of the tawny flood of oldMissouri.