The Portrait of Jirjohn Cobb, page 3
“From, I told you once,” the wearer of the wallpaper shirt averred, “a man named Wilbur Compton. And at a place called Breatten’s Bluff. And for $10. And—”
“And ’twas the dam’fooledest boat ever I seed fur to cross a river at broad,” pronounced the Sheriff disgustedly, “let alone f’r to head into a region what’s now all swamps and swamps. You shor’,” he added sarcastically, “did want to git into them swamps mighty bad and git drownded—”
“But,” expostulated the man in the rustic costume, “I didn’t really expect to cross into the lowlands. I aimed to land down river at—at Mason’s Landing Stage myself—and take a train on the same road you speak of to—”
“To Hollywood! as you said onct,” the Sheriff put in. “To git a job in the movies! Of course,” he added, with still more sarcasm, “Hollywood wouldn’t keep till floods soobside—fur it’s kep’ now fur on’y about 40 years! And o’ course you could have got there okay—seein’s the money I found on your pu’sson wasn’t no more than enough to take you halfway. And last but fur from least, my fine mop of—of—p’roxided hair, yo’ve trapped yo’rse’f. Fur there happens to be no Mason’s Landin’ Stage—it’s Griffin’s Landin’ Stage—so—”
The obviously imitation rustic wet his lips embarrassedly. “I—I merely knew there was a landing stage across river and down,” he said dignifiedly. “And—and only gave it the name you just did.”
“I see,” said the Sheriff sardonically. “Well, you mought git a job in the movies, all right, with that there wild coschume yo’re wearing—on’y, you wasn’t wearin’ yo’re ticket to fame on yo’rse’f whilst you was on the way thar—in sho’t, you war’n’t even Hollywood-bound, see, and I know it—and you know it!” He turned to the lineman. “Well, lineman—John Jones, as you tol’ me yo’re name was—with yo’re tongue in yo’re cheek when you give it—whar’d you l’arn to pilot a canoe—standing up—like a Injun?”
“From,” said the lineman coolly, “an Injun. On the Okeekokee River, Canada. The Okeekokee High-Tension Project, in short. Camp, above the rapids; job below; and good old ‘Injun Joe’ to teach me the full technique—and all the tricks. That’s my story—and I won’t stick to it.”
“Won’t stick to it?” the Sheriff demanded. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you don’t believe it! So I’ll simply give you the truth: I learned to ride a canoe at Vassar—during daisy-chain week.”
The Sheriff’s face darkened. “But you still say you got it fur $20 from a man—”
“Right! A man named Jason Cannabar at Otter’s Lake—up river—and back of the bluffs. And hiked it on my own lily-white shoulders the quarter-mile or so necessary to let it down, with a rope sling—and from a precipitous bank—and some 6 feet or so—into the raised river.”
“I know whar Otter’s Lake is,” said the Sheriff. “But I’ll be danged ef I ever heerd o’ any man named Jason Cannabar living thar.”
“Well, cheer up—you may some day—when you get back to civilization.”
“And so,” persisted the Sheriff, “you were sailing, sailing, over the deep blue sea, to git over on the ’tother side—and git lineman work! Didn’t you know there couldn’t be no electrical line work on that side fur weeks and weeks—till the water su’sides?”
“Ouch!” said the lineman. “You have me as Solomon, with his knife, had the mother of that baby! If I say I didn’t know—then I am no lineman! And if I say I did know—then why, oh why did I ever go into such territory? I refuse to answer!”
“Well, I’ll answer fur you,” said the Sheriff gruffly, “but only to hand you a harder one. We’ll say you did go over—to git line work. All right! Then whar are yo’ tools?”
“Oh—tools?” The lineman’s face looked a bit pained. “Well—I pawned the outfit I used on the last job I worked on. And have been traveling light! But having since cleaned up nicely on a pair of galloping dominoes, I figured to put in a new assortment of tools—over there.”
“You did, heh? In that disorg’nized reentry? Passed up good kentry that has the tools fur sale—to get ’em in kentry where thar ain’t no more! That’s—good! Fur two cents I’d put you under arrest. That brand-new canoe you come up in cost $40 ef it cost you a cent—and a bird paying $40 jest to get a job—that cain’t be got—and to work on it with tools—that cain’t be procured—he’s—”
“Well,” said the lineman spiritedly, “if you can’t prove I stole that canoe—then you just watch your step before even technically putting me under arrest. I may sue you all over Shelby’s Bluff.”
“Getting tough, heh?” the Sheriff growled. “Well, I doubt ef you know how to splice a broken telyphone line together. That’s what I think. Yo’re a crook. But wearing a lineman’s outfit so’s to account fur why yo’re here—there—and everywhar. Except that on an island with no wiring—you cain’t explain it! So—”
“Well, I think I’ve explained it,” said the lineman spiritedly, “a damn sight better than Mex here has explained his yanking all our boats off with that yellow launch of his. All, that is, but yours up on the nose of the island there.”
The Sheriff turned the battery of his gaze to the Mexican.
“The man is right—no matter what he is,” he said judicially. “Good God, Mex—or Jose Lopez, as you claim yo’re name is, though don’t think I don’t know that that’s the ‘John Smith’ o’ Mexico!—whar did you ever grow up that you’d toss a standard jack-grapple chain acrost two boats nosed up on shore like—like ‘Jones’ ’ rowboat thar, hitched on’y to its light wooden moorin’ stake—and this—this ‘lineman’s’ canoe hitched to the same ident’cal no-good stake!—with yo’re engyne runnin’?”
“Bot I ’ave said wance,” the Mexican expostulated, “that I deedn’t know that w’en I stop off she slide out back from onder—an’ throw me on my visage. An’—an’ reverse. Nor deed I know that these other two boat they are hook’ only to a l’l wooden stake stock not so goddam’ good in the groun.”
“Well, you’d oughter know,” the Sheriff growled again, “that a jack-grapple chain with its barbs in all di-rections, is gonna drag ever-thing it touches with it—ef’n it has to go itse’f! Why, you wasn’t wipin’ the dirt out o’ yo’re pres—nor was them two, down the island whar I sent ’em—nor me, right whar you was standing—even done letting up our mutual yell, ’fore yo’re boat was tumblin’ down river with them two boats hooked on to it like—like he-dogs trailing a bitch dog in heat. ’Twas downright disgraceful!”
“I no coo’d help,” said the Mexican sullenly. “For w’y, an’way, I wo’d wan’ to lose my own boat?”
The Sheriff surveyed him silently a minute.
“You say, Lopez, you rented that launch from a woman named Moriarity, at the Boggtown Landing Stage—whar the Atlantic Coast and Big River Railroad hits the East Bank and Southern Big River Railroad?”
“Yes. I see lonch at landing stage. I ask quastions. It belong, they say, to she. I find her leev’ back of railroad tracks—joos’, een fack, between railroad tracks an’ airfiel’ where stop each morneeng—so passengers they mebbe can catch morneeng papers, heh?—that beeg New York-Hot Spreengs sleeper plane, an’—”
“Yo’re a mite flatterin’,” said the Sheriff dryly, “to the valoos o’ th’ Boggtown Bugle fur people a-journeyin’ from New York to Hot Springs on that ‘Arthuritic’s Special’—as it’s called in these parts, and called, as I onderstand it, in New York as well. Fact is, that huge sleeper plane, a-leavin’ New York at 1 A.M.—and roostin’ on the Chycago airfield from 4 to 6 A.M. comes down at Boggtown at 8 A.M. not fur to git Boggtown Bugles by no danged sights—but fur to drap all the mail intended fur east bank p’ints all the way cl’ar to Amer’ca’s South, plus mebbe a passenger ’r two who wants to go down river on the railroad, and try our spring in Shelby’s Bluff fur his rheumatiz, and—which is the main reason!—to put in ’nough mo’ of that methalcene fuel what’s taxed like billy-hell in Ill’nois, but ain’t taxed nary a danged cent in the state whar Boggtown’s at—so’s the plane kin take off at 9 sharp, and make Hot Springs—up thar in them Arkansas mountings—by 11. And now le’s hyar no more nonsense ’bout Easterners havin’ to stop to git copies of that rag!” And the Sheriff snorted.
“I—I no geeving nobody no nonsance,” protested the other. “I onlee try to fin’ some axplanation of w’y beeg plane weeth human peoples on it come down on leetle airfield on Beeg Reever where eez fog all night, an’—”
“And now,” bridled the Sheriff, “you’re talkin’ more nonsense. That so-called ‘leetle airfield’ yo’re speakin’ ’bout is—at the present moment—thanks to its bein’ onfenced, and havin’ miles and miles o’ flat onfenced, on’habited terr’tory ’round it—’count o’ probate proceedin’s in the Jafey estate—the plumb biggest spot o’ open level land they is in all Americy or Yurrup. A drunken, crazy and blind pilot—in a fog like this—could mo’ likely hit it—than not hit it! Why—they say that big Cicyero field in Chycago looks like a postage stamp from aloft—while this ’un at Boggtown—thanks to the open land about it—looks like—like half the U.S.A.! And—”
“Bot night fog!” protested the other.
“Night fog my eye!” defended the Sheriff. “Boggtown’s the highest spot on the river. And they ain’t never nary fog there at the hour that plane lands—nor long, long afore. While the fog’s still a-layin’ on the river, and makin’ it—so they say—look like a gray fuzzy snake, it marks the west limits o’ the landin’ space fur a pilot. All of which—plus the huge size o’ that open space—plus the fact that the fieldhouse has got a Barnery landin’ beam projector, is why that Arthuritic’s Special, ’ith them pore cripples, most of ’em, abo’d, does make that stop ev’ry mo’nin’—and at 8. Either, Mex, you don’t know nothin’ ’bout airfields—or you don’t know nothin’ ’bout this part of the kentry at all. Fur—”
“Bot I no say I know anytheeng ’bout theengs ’long Beeg Reever. I—”
“All right,” the Sheriff cut him off. “Well, you found this Moriarity woman near the airfield, whose yaller launch had caught yo’re Spanish eye, and—but go on!”
“Yes. Wall I geev she hondered dollar for use of l’onch—all my saveengs!—but I am to get $95 back when I breeng she back.”
“Well, how was you goin’ to collect yo’re refund ef you was goin’ to cross the rivers?”
The Mexican looked startledly helpless. “I—I—I no was going to stay on other side reever. I—I had to cross—see here—I no t’ief! I no murder. I no onder arrest. I cross all goddam’ reevers in all goddam’ boats so moch I like.”
“Now ca’m down,” the Sheriff ordered curtly. “Raring up ain’t going to get you nothing. Fact is, Lopez, you being genyine so fur’s being a Mex goes—more genyine, to my way o’ thinking, than either of yo’re two companions here—if I could on’y know why you wanted to cross a river at flood—and come straight back again—I might be able to cancel you out from suttin suspicions altogether.”
“Then,” said the Mexican grandiloquently, “I glad tell you why I wan’ go across. Seence you beleeve by me. Fortune-taller, she have tol’ me that eef on my bairthday I see eekalipse of moon from wes’ bank of reever more as mile wide—my life she torn lucky as hell. Well—today she ees my bairthday. I am 30 years ol’. Tonight you know, there is to be eekalipse of moon. And reever she is wide like hell becoze of flood. And I want that I change my life!”
The Sheriff gazed dourly at him. “Well, how could you expect to see an eclipse of the moon—with clouds over the hull valley?”
“Well, the sun she shine this morning fur few min’s so w’y not mebbe the moon she shine for few min’s tonight?”
“At the very minute of eclipse, heh?” The Sheriff shook his head. “Yo’ve given a pretty po’r reason, Lopez, fur crossing this river. And one which, to my mind, don’t hold good water.”
And with but a second’s ponder, the Sheriff, who during many years, had been brought into situation after situation where he had carefully to question many men, returned to the fray—like the bulldog he was.
“And where air you from, Lopez?”
“I work on section gang—Atlanteec Coas’ an’ Beeg Reever Railroad that comes in at Boggtown Landeeng Stage.”
“Not with them hands—minus calluses!—you don’t,” retorted the Sheriff firmly.
“Oh—bot I am time-keeper—not laborer,” the Mexican explained dignifiedly.
“Spics don’t git jobs as timekeepers—white men wouldn’t stand fur it. No, Mex, you may be a marijuana peddler from up Chicago way—but you def’nitly ain’t a no section gang. However, that’s yo’re story—and you’ll be sticking to it.” He turned toward the yellowheaded traveler. “And you, van Harringdale, whar did you come from—’fore you struck that east bank of Big River? Or, to be exack, the railroad line that runs along the east bank? Past Otter’s Lake—and other p’ints?”
“From Boston.”
“From Boston, heh?” the Sheriff commented sourly. “Well, that’s a leetle mor’n I got from you befo’ you riz up awhile back. Boston, heh? Well, you don’t talk like no Boston man to me.”
“No?” replied the other defiantly.
“No,” repeated the Sheriff firmly. And paused. “Well—now you’ve told that much about yo’rese’f, hadn’t you better git down to complete brass tacks and explain why yo’re on Big River?—in what we call, even over there in Shelby’s Bluff, a ‘rube’ coschume—and we ought to know sich things, fur they’s b’en plenty show-boats showing ever’thing from vaudyville to drammer—anyway, hadn’t you better explain now why yo’re on Big River in a ‘rube’ coschume which presum’bly you put on yo’rese’f ’way back in Boston?” There was, now, in spite of the ironic tone to the Sheriff’s query, a note of friendly invitation to—“get down to brass tacks.”
“Okay!” said the other suddenly, thoughtfully. “I will, then. Well, I was playing, night before last, in an amateur comedy—there in Boston—with several fellows dressed like myself—though each of us was allowed to work up his own costume—we didn’t have parts—we were all just part of what’s called the—the—”
“The background,” put in the lineman dryly.
“Yes, that’s right. Well, at the dress rehearsal preceding the performance, I got so many compliments on my costume that—well, one man said it was a—a ‘natural’—that it could be worn anywhere without anybody really suspecting it was a costume—though,” the speaker broke off sneeringly, “Sheriff Brister here has proven different—anyway, another man said that if I went to Hollywood, put the costume on, and went into a casting bureau—I would almost certainly land a—however, to make a long story short, after the dress rehearsal I bought me a ticket and berth to Hollywood—rather, to be exact, as far as Big River here, since, because of the flood, they wouldn’t book people further—and I prepared to come on after our one performance. And after the performance I went home in my costume to change—I only lived a short distance from where we were playing—and, lo and behold, the very house I lived in had burned to the ground. All my stuff, packed and waiting—everything I had in the world—had gone up in smoke. And I looked myself over—and at my ticket to Holly—rather, to the river—and at such money as I had—and I said to myself that since, after all, I had clothing on me that was only, at worst, a—a bit rural, I might as well board my train—as I was; which I did—and, well, you, Sheriff, know the rest. I reached Big River here around 8 this morning—at the place called Boggtown, with its airfield—and which was the terminal of the Atlantic Coast and Big River Railroad that I came on. I didn’t know at all there was a landing stage—with very possibly boats—as Lopez here has described—and so changed cars immediately to the southbound East Bank and Southern Big River Railr—”
“Well then,” put in the Sheriff, “you at least seed Mex here—dismounting there amongst the pass—”
“I no rom’ like passenger,” said the Mexican hastily. “I rom’ een on baggaze car weeth baggaze man—who know me from saction gang—and he hol’ me eenside baggaze car till all passengers she’s leeve depot an’—”
“It seems then, Sheriff,” said the man in the rustic costume a bit wearily, “that the point you bring up is settled. I didn’t see Lopez—and, for the same reason, he didn’t see me.” He paused. “In fact, you’ve got all the facts now. I came only as far south as Breatten’s Bluff. To work out my plans to cross the river. So that, on the other side, I could again resume my journey to Holly—”
“ ’Thout enough money to git there,” the Sheriff finished. “Well, as I said fur Lopez here—a story’s a story!” A bit wearily now, he turned to the lineman. “And you, Jones—whar do you hail from—orig’n’ly?”
“I stand mute, Your L’udship,” said the lineman dryly. “Being not on trial!”
The Sheriff grimaced.
“You don’t none o’ you stack up, to my mind, as up-an’-honest river travelers. Chances are still better than 60-40, I say, that all three o’ you are crooks! And you can consider yo’rese’f lucky—each of you as maybe is—that you didn’t get caught downright redhanded—as you might a b’en if you’d a got here fu’st, and I’d come right down on you—trying to rob that pore dead body yander.”
Came, however, a spirited denial of the charges.
And from the man in the costume of a rustic.
“The only person, Sheriff,” he declared stoutly, “who might have wanted to rob that body was that terrible-looking man with the scar from his ear to—to the corner of his mouth—who shot up to the island here in that green launch—and then backed off again like—like an arrow out of—of hell. That man—that man was a graverobber!”
“A grave-robbing rat—if ever there was such,” acceded the lineman.
“He—he woz a creem’nal, that man,” commented the Mexican excitedly. “I know creem’nals—many ’ave I see—an’ he woz one!”
“Well, at least we’re all in agreement,” said the Sheriff sardonically, “on one thing! Of course he was a graverobber. But seein’ that the jig was up—when he hove out of the light mist—which was all this here fog was at that time—and found four men on this island. But—”
