The Portrait of Jirjohn Cobb, page 4
“And still another thing that three of us, at least, are in agreement on,” put in the lineman coolly, “is that you were a damned fool, Sheriff, in the face of the confounded fool accident Mex here had just caused our three smaller boats 10 minutes before, in insisting on staying on and on here, thinking that the rat-faced fellow might come back—with some cock-and-bull yarn, as you put it—when you could have taken us all off in your police launch. Which launch, by God, we still had—at least for the 20 minutes or so after that rat-face left.”
“I had—not we,” corrected the Sheriff coldly. “And don’t git so goddanged critical, my man. For ef’n I had t’uk you all off immedjit in that launch, ’twould-a only b’en to hand you all over to the Sheriff at Griffin’s Landing Stage, before I t’uk the train thar at Griffinstown, f’r full investygation and checking up, by wires, on all of you.” He paused. “But what’s done is done. No one could foresee the accydent that was to happen to my launch. And gettin’ back, once mo’ again, to the fellow with the rat-face and the scar, he was a grave-robber—ef ever the good Lord made one! But which don’t mean, however, that none o’ you ain’t the same.”
No one said anything to this for the reason, perhaps, that there was nothing that could be said to a skeptical man like the Sheriff. And, as the Mexican sat, looking markedly sheepish, the derby-hatted, wallpaper-shirted traveler spoke, again, toward the lineman.
“And did you, Mr.—Mr. Jones,” he asked, “catch the look on his face—the rat-faced fellow, I mean—as he just was about to step off? I mean—just before he stooped down and pulled that cord that reversed his engine—and jerked him and his boat back into the stream?”
“Did I!” echoed the lineman. “I’ll tell the world I did!” He shook his head. “Dumfounded his mug was. Absolutely flabbergasted!” He spoke towards the Sheriff. “That fellow’s green launch had a backpull as powerful as the one on Mex’s yellow launch!”
“Right is right,” the Sheriff agreed wonderingly. “With that craft he could have—if he’d wanted—have pulled my red launch off.”
“Except that,” commented the lineman, with an involuntary grin, “that little withdrawal was accomplished, 10 minutes later, in one of the most beautiful demonstrations of the principle of old Archimedes that I’ve ever seen in my long ‘alleged’ career—with guy lines and poles!”
“Well I don’t claim,” said the Sheriff, scratching his head, “to know who Archymedys was, but I never seed anything like it in my life! Here, my launch beached tight and snug on the up-end of the island—halfway up, if she’s a inch. And all of us halfway down the island here—and too fur away too, when ever’thing happened, to do anything, even ef we could-a—when up comes that big tree—hundred feet long, that tree, ef she was a foot!—she must have toppled off some undercut river bank—why, the way she shot up on th’ nose of the island—the top of her, an’way—pivoted around on that nubbin where that branch was broke off—”
“Technically the fulcrum,” explicated the lineman dryly. “Your heavy and perfectly beached police boat, Sheriff, was the World; and Big River here—Archimedes!”
“Well, all I know,” grunted the Sheriff, “is that she swung—that goddanged tree!—at least the 90 feet or so of her that was still back in the water—like—like a pumphandle in hell; and long befo’ that current whipped her off again, and she was gone—goddang her!—that 10-foot front end of her, laying beyant the nubbin’, jest swep’ that boat o’ mine off like she was a—a red aigshell, no less.”
“Boat and tree,” declared the man who had admitted to having started across country in a stage costume, “were actually racing past the island—one each side—before I even had grasped what had happened!”
“Racing is right,” the lineman returned. “And leaving,” he added dryly, but in the direction of the Sheriff, “four estimable east-west river-crossers stranded—till somebody comes out from shore and gets ’em!”
“Oh yeah?” retorted the Sheriff angrily. “Not in a pig’s eye—nor a dozen pigs’ eyes! After what he done.” And he jerked his hand bitterly toward the Mexican. “Christ-a-mighty! Never did I think, when I got here this morning, and carefully set that fog-piercing waterflare atop that vault, that anybody’d ever come abo’d this island so dang dumb as to toss that flare plumb into the river without even so much as ask—”
“Bot,” the Mexican almost wailed, “I knew eet to be w’at eet woz—a flare that coo’d pierce any fog—and would breeng help—”
“Not jest any fog,” the Sheriff corrected him coldly. “Fact is, them thar flares is really knowed mo’ as ‘heavymist piercers’ than as fog-piercers. Fur when visibility draps to what’s knowed around these parts as W-25, them flares—nor any other kinds o’ flares—hain’t no more value than—than lighted matches. And when visibility gits to v-zero, even ’lectrical so-called fog-piercin’ lights are he’pless fur to git through. But v-zero ain’t the limits of fog, nohow! v-zero’s o’ny a p’int on the scale. The fog that’s ’round us right now is as fur down under v-zero as ’twas above v-zero back around—say—qua’ter to 10—or thar’bouts. So that flare you sot off ain’t no hund’ed-p’cent fog-piercing light by no means—nor is they any sich thing. Sence—but go on with yo’re tale. Let’s hear you square yo’rese’f again—same’s you did in the matter o’ yankin’ off the boats?”
The Mexican actually winced. “Well—well, I knew eet to be a flare—for use on water—to breeng help—eef needed. An’ our boats—they were all now gone! So, queeck, I toss flare into reever—”
“And thereby ended, fur all time to come,” pronounced the Sheriff grimly, “the chances of anybody whatsoever coming out, and checking up, and gittin’ us off o’ hyar. A v-minus fog, this’n, sure’s yo’re—” He gazed back of his shoulder at the impenetrable curtain. “Yes—v-minus—and how!—and they ain’t anything could ever find this island now. Nor could a fire as big as a barn git through it—even ef they was a single stick of wood on this island to burn—which they ain’t. Or even ef they was a town, so fur’s that goes, to see it burn—ef fog they wa’nt none at all! So—”
“Wait, wait, Sheriff,” the lineman begged. “Illuminate that piece of geometry, will you? How do you mean that a flare on this island couldn’t be seen by a town—even if there was no fog? How about your Shelby’s Bluff alone? For—”
The Sheriff smiled dourly and superiorly. “I’ll tell you why. And in sho’t order. In the fu’st place, on account of the bend—such as ’tis—here in Big River, Shelby’s Bluff is the only town—at least on that side—from which a straight line can be drawed to this island without nothing jutting into that line. At least, a line short enough fur a human eye to look along. And as fur’s the other towns on the other side o’ the river go—well, the other side’s plumb gone, as you all know—walked off and away, towns included! No eye can find that other side now—even when they ain’t no fog. Again, since Shelby’s Bluff happens to be on Snake Inlet—and not actually on the river at all—and, to boot, lays back o’ Mortimer’s Oak Grove when viewed from here—the island therefore cain’t be seed from it at all. Except, that is, from one lone p’int in it: the belfry of the Baptist Chu’ch. And it’s to that vital p’int that Mex, here, has gone and sent a wrong message. A message that’s marked ‘finish’ for anybody coming out and getting us off. Even ef anybody could in this fog—which they couldn’t.” He turned on the Mexican. “Next time, Mex, that you toss into a river a flare laid off somewhar’ by a po-leece officer, jest ask him fu’st what special arrangements was made as to when and how that flare was to be used.”
“And how,” queried the lineman, “since after all, we’re thee unarmed men—crossing a river which we certainly have a right to do!—turning into a safety island which we also have a right to do—was the flare to be used? I saw the canister, of course—even recognized it as a floating flare—but didn’t touch it.”
“An’ at least showed good sence,” the Sheriff acquiesced grudgingly. And, a bit mollified, reached into the pocket of his heavy shirt and withdrew the folded typed band of white paper that had been tied about that precious flare—at least before these three men had come on the island. And which had been put on it by Sam Turner, Shelby’s Bluff’s hardware man, that morning. And rising halfway from his rock, the Sheriff extended it grumpily to the lineman, as one at least seeking condolences from somebody—anybody. And waited silently, even re-reading it vicariously through the lineman’s own eyes—a thing the Sheriff was able to do by virtue of the fact that he had already read it twice—and mentally recorded its succinct instructions. In his mind’s eye, indeed, the Sheriff could actually see the typed words, which ran:
Dear Luke:
Jist found out, whilst you was on yor way over, that we’ve only 1 instad of 3, of these patinted flars in stack. So I immedately called Mayor Barkley, but he said you’d already went. So I told him. So under the condishuns there-4 he says I’m to tell you you are to cast this one on the water after—but only after—you’ve done completly cleared Bleekers Island and are safely on your way downstreem to Griffins Landing Stage. And by that word ‘clear,’ Luke, the Mayor means exackly the same what you and him had agreed it to mean this morning before I looked into my stock here and found I was short on flars: that all’s “okay” and hunkiedory as to the speshul matter you stopped off about; that yor safe off the danged island and heading for Griffins Stage; and that you got with you any trespasser or trespassers you may possible have found fooling around there—if you did. Also, the Mayor says, sames before, yor to look tords Shelby’s Bluff after you cast yor flare, for Old Man Bromly, soons you pull out, will assend into the church belfry and will stick continisly there watching for yor signal, and will acknowelej it by three flashes—two short ones and one long—from the fog-piercing light. If the long flash comes fust, Luke, it means news has come, by yor neece, that yor sister is wuss. If the long flash comes last, news has arriv that she’s better. If it comes atween the shart ones, it means there haint no news at all and so you’d better head right on towards Griffinstown as yor doing. I’m leaving this with Maria to give you as I got to hop the 8:30 myself for Jiggsburg to close on them 20 newfangled harrows.
Sam Turner
And morosely the Sheriff sat, as the lineman silently read.
CHAPTER IV
THE SHERIFF CONSIDERS AN EXPERIMENT IN CRIMINOLOGY
At length the lineman, having obviously reached the end of Sam Turner’s note, looked up. Showed, in fact, he had read it completely, by rising halfway off his boulder, and extending it—across the stone island marker—back into the Sheriff’s outstretched hand.
“And Mexico there,” the lineman said dryly, “had to toss your lone flare into the water for you?”
“Yes,—and signal that I cleared ‘okay’—when, b’God, I hain’t cleared at all!”
Even the lineman looked pained by the contretemps which Latin emotionality had caused.
“The Mayor,” he told the other two, assuming the spokesmanship, “instructed Sheriff Brister here to throw that flare into the river only when he had cleared the island—cleared it as it were of trespassers, like ourselves!—and was safely heading for Griffin’s Landing Stage. But Mex—”
He broke off whatever he was going to say, perhaps because the Mexican looked like a beaten dog.
Instead, he spoke towards the Sheriff:
“And they got the signal, too! For even I could see the three diffusions of red light pouring through that pea-soup mist, no less than 15 seconds after that damnably blinding red flame from your flare, floating lickety-hell down river there, died away. You must have a powerful fog-piercing light in your church belfry, Sheriff?”
“Not a great deal mo’ pow’ful,” explained the Sheriff, “than that thar flare that got sot off hyar. Fur ‘power’ ain’t the key at all to piercing fogs—or heavy mists, as them w-25, an’ up, fogs really is, to my mind. The key to piercin’ a low-grade fog lays in the fact that the source of true f. p. light is full o’ short rays on’y—rays what can slither right in and out o’ the molycules o’ water suspended in the air. That flare we had could project them rays because—at least as I onderstand it—it’s made up of acetyline powder what ignites with water—magnesium powder for berilliancy—and strontium, a chemycal that gives off red—and infry-red—rays. Our lamp home does it in a diff’ent way, that’s all—working from a pair o’ specially filled arc carbons—and a pow’ful reflector what can be swung about so as to give signals.”
“A long flash,” the lineman queried, “being made by a slow rotation of the reflector; and—”
“Right. And a sho’t one by a quick swing. The length of a flash fo’ any indivydial p’int cotching it, dependin’ on the time that that wide perjected beam is a-passing acrost and past that p’int. Anyway, that’s the way our limp wuks, and a durned good sho’t ray thrower ’tis too—and we have a man always, on misty days, to signal any boat that passes—ef, that is, she calls fur it by blowing her whistle—that good old Shelby’s Bluff is on her port—or starboard as the case may be.”
“Or, in other words,” the lineman put in, “ ’ware Bleeker’s—up ahead?”
But the Sheriff shook his head. “No, the reg’lar channel lays outside o’ Bleeker’s, and them river pilots knows the channel like they knows their own right shoe. We signal on’y to make passengers ask whar the cur’ous flashes is coming from and the answers they git put Shelby’s Bluff on their tongues. Jest now and then, mebbe, when asked to by Boggtown up river, we send a speshul signal to tell a boat to put in thar for freight.” He sighed. “However, all shippins’s laid up now at the diffe’nt landing stages—’count the flood. And on us-all has descended the honor—” The Sheriff was ironical “—of participatin’ in what’s doubtless the last signaling that tu’k place in this Valley—or will take place. For from my knowledge o’ fogs, I’d say that that last interchange of signals we made—thanks solely to Mex here!—was jest about the last that could a-b’en effected—sence even short rays cain’t get through pure pea-soup!” He paused. “But interchange she was, all right, all right! No mistake ’bout that. And now, goddang it to’ hell, we’ve got the sweet signal that my clear-off signal has been duly received an’ recorded!—and, with this same pea-soup squatting plumb atop us now, we couldn’t send back anything to prove I’m still here—even if we had a ton of strontium powder and magnesium—the which we ain’t. And nary boat available—even to make good my signal on! Of all the—” The Sheriff lapsed momentarily into helpless silence. “Still more, I ain’t even, so far as that goes, cleared this island of all an’ any trespassers it might have on it—as my signal implies!—for here’s three o’ you trespassers squatting right atop it as big as dear life. For you are trespassers, you know,” he added, “when you cain’t give the true facts o’ why you wanted to cross this river at dangerous flood. Which none o’ you have.”
“We say we have,” said the lineman, an ugly tone in his voice, “but there’s some birds in the world who can’t be convinced that even the moon is made of green cheese. However, speaking of truth—and facts—has it struck you, Brister, that we haven’t any of the facts—nor even a fraction of ’em—as to why we’d even be supposed to be illicitly on this island? Moreover, if the rising water worries you so much, Sheriff—as you implied a while back over yonder—why don’t you buckle on one of those three life belts, and strike out for one or the other of the downriver shores?”
“Why?” retorted the Sheriff. “Becaze, Mr. Smart-Talker—from ev’dently somewhar’s inland—this old river—when she rises—always reaches some p’int where she begins to fall! That p’int may lay in the next thutty minutes—” He turned his head and glanced out. A beautifully rounded rock that had entirely escaped submergence at the time the pointed rock had vanished, was now gone—entirely covered with water. So the river was even higher. “No,” he said, bringing his gaze back, “we hain’t reached that p’int yet—but you never can tell. It all depends on how the rains in the No’th is going—and when they stop.” And pausing a bare second he added combatively: “No, my fine buckoes—and that goes for all three of you, in case one in particler of you is looking for me to get the hell out of here inside one of them belts—I’m not going out into the waters until them waters come right up over this island—and well over kneetops, to boot. I’ve seen this old river, in my day, rise and rise—and I’ve seen her fall and fall and fall. And if she’s schedooled to start fallin’—well then, to drift fifty—hundred—miles downstream, trying to catch a chance to paddle off into some stillwater and come out on land that’ll only be swamp anyway, is bein’ a prime damn fool!”
The Mexican nodded sagely. “The Sheriff he ees right,” he said—though to no one in particular. “A man he be beeg fool to strike out—not knowing w’ere he go’n lan’. No never can tell w’en a river she begeen to fall.”
The man in the “rube” getup who still, though he had not yet cracked a single joke or a smile on this island appeared more to be playing out the part he had said he left behind him in Boston, than waiting on Big River for a turn in a flood, now spoke. His unusually correct speech made his habiliments seem all the more ridiculous, “Mr. Sheriff,” he said plaintively, “it is plain to all of us here that you think one of us came here to try and rob that body. Or—or to look at it. Or to do something, God knows what, in connection with it. But it hasn’t seemed to have struck you that even if one of us did then in all probability the other two didn’t. For you know yourself it is against the laws of math’matics that all of us could be lying.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” the Sheriff retorted angrily. “Well, I don’t know nothing about mathymatics—so I don’t quite get that argiment. Fact is, each and every one o’ ye could have come out here on pu’pose. And all I’m shore of is that, if you did come out here to try to git to that body yander—” And he tossed his head angrily toward the vault—“that, sence I seen you come in different boats—and at different times—yo’re here unbeknownst to each other. Yo’re no mob—and that’s all I know.”
