The Crossing

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER X. THE KEEL BOAT

  We were embarked on a strange river, in a strange boat, and bound fora strange city. To us Westerners a halo of romance, of unreality, hungover New Orleans. To us it had an Old World, almost Oriental flavorof mystery and luxury and pleasure, and we imagined it swathed in themoisture of the Delta, built of quaint houses, with courts of shiningorange trees and magnolias, and surrounded by flowering plantations ofunimagined beauty. It was most fitting that such a place should be theseat of dark intrigues against material progress, and this notion lentadded zest to my errand thither. As for Nick, it took no great sagacityon my part to predict that he would forget Suzanne and begin to lookforward to the Creole beauties of the Mysterious City.

  First, there was the fur-laden keel boat in which we travelled, goneforever now from Western navigation. It had its rude square sail to takeadvantage of the river winds, its mast strongly braced to hold the longtow-ropes. But tow-ropes were for the endless up-river journey, whena numerous crew strained day after day along the bank, chanting thevoyageurs’ songs. Now we were light-manned, two half-breeds and twoCanadians to handle the oars in time of peril, and Captain Xavier, whostood aft on the cabin roof, leaning against the heavy beam of the long,curved tiller, watching hawklike for snag and eddy and bar. Within thecabin was a great fireplace of stones, where our cooking was done, andbunks set round for the men in cold weather and rainy. But in these fairnights we chose to sleep on deck.

  Far into the night we sat, Nick and I, our feet dangling over theforward edge of the cabin, looking at the glory of the moon on the vastriver, at the endless forest crown, at the haze which hung like silverdust under the high bluffs on the American side. We slept. We awokeagain as the moon was shrinking abashed before the light that glowedabove these cliffs, and the river was turned from brown to gold and thento burnished copper, the forest to a thousand shades of green from crestto the banks where the river was licking the twisted roots to nakedness.The south wind wafted the sharp wood-smoke from the chimney across ourfaces. In the stern Xavier stood immovable against the tiller, his shortpipe clutched between his teeth, the colors of his new worsted belt madegorgeous by the rising sun.

  “B’jour, Michié,” he said, and added in the English he had picked upfrom the British traders, “the breakfas’ he is ready, and Jean make himgood. Will you have the grace to descen’?”

  We went down the ladder into the cabin, where the odor of the fursmingled with the smell of the cooking. There was a fricassee steamingon the crane, some of Zéron’s bread, brought from St. Louis, and coffeethat Monsieur Gratiot had provided for our use. We took our bowls andcups on deck and sat on the edge of the cabin.

  “By gad,” cried Nick, “it lacks but the one element to make it aparadise.”

  “And what is that?” I demanded.

  “A woman,” said he.

  Xavier, who overheard, gave a delighted laugh.

  “Parbleu, Michié, you have right,” he said, “but Michié Gratiot, he sayno. In Nouvelle Orléans we find some.”

  Nick got to his feet, and if anything he did could have surprised me, Ishould have been surprised when he put his arm coaxingly about Xavier’sneck. Xavier himself was surprised and correspondingly delighted.

  “Tell me, Xavier,” he said, with a look not to be resisted, “do youthink I shall find some beauties there?”

  “Beauties!” exclaimed Xavier, “La Nouvelle Orléans--it is the home ofbeauty, Michié. They promenade themselves on the levee, they look downfrom ze gallerie, mais--”

  “But what, Xavier?”

  “But, mon Dieu, Michié, they are vair’ difficile. They are not likeEnglis’ beauties, there is the father and the mother, and--the convent.”And Xavier, who had a wen under his eye, laid his finger on it.

  “For shame, Xavier,” cried Nick; “and you are balked by such things?”

  Xavier thought this an exceedingly good joke, and he took his pipe outof his mouth to laugh the better.

  “Me? Mais non, Michié. And yet ze Alcalde, he mek me afraid. Once he putme in ze calaboose when I tried to climb ze balcon’.”

  Nick roared.

  “I will show you how, Xavier,” he said; “as to climbing the balconies,there is a convenance in it, as in all else. For instance, one mustbe daring, and discreet, and nimble, and ready to give the law apresentable answer, and lacking that, a piastre. And then the fair onemust be a fair one indeed.”

  “Diable, Michié,” cried Xavier, “you are ze mischief.”

  “Nay,” said Nick, “I learned it all and much more from my cousin, Mr.Ritchie.”

  Xavier stared at me for an instant, and considering that he knew nothingof my character, I thought it extremely impolite of him to laugh.Indeed, he tried to control himself, for some reason standing in awe ofmy appearance, and then he burst out into such loud haw-haws that thecrew poked their heads above the cabin hatch.

  “Michié Reetchie,” said Xavier, and again he burst into laughter thatchoked further speech. He controlled himself and laid his finger on hiswen.

  “You don’t believe it,” said Nick, offended.

  “Michié Reetchie a gallant!” said Xavier.

  “An incurable,” said Nick, “an amazingly clever rogue at device whenthere is a petticoat in it. Davy, do I do you justice?”

  Xavier roared again.

  “Quel maître!” he said.

  “Xavier,” said Nick, gently taking the tiller out of his hand, “I willteach you how to steer a keel boat.”

  “Mon Dieu,” said Xavier, “and who is to pay Michié Gratiot for his fur?The river, she is full of things.”

  “Yes, I know, Xavier, but you will teach me to steer.”

  “Volontiers, Michié, as we go now. But there come a time when I, even I,who am twenty year on her, do not know whether it is right or left. Zerock--he vair’ hard. Ze snag, he grip you like dat,” and Xavier twinedhis strong arms around Nick until he was helpless. “Ze bar--he hol’ youby ze leg. An’ who is to tell you how far he run under ze yellow water,Michié? I, who speak to you, know. But I know not how I know. Ze water,sometime she tell, sometime she say not’ing.”

  “À bas, Xavier!” said Nick, pushing him away, “I will teach you theriver.”

  Xavier laughed, and sat down on the edge of the cabin. Nick took easilyto accomplishments, and he handled the clumsy tiller with a certaintyand distinction that made the boatmen swear in two languages and apatois. A great water-logged giant of the Northern forests loomed aheadof us. Xavier sprang to his feet, but Nick had swung his boat swiftly,smoothly, into the deeper water on the outer side.

  “Saint Jacques, Michié,” cried Xavier, “you mek him better zan Ithought.”

  Fascinated by a new accomplishment, Nick held to the tiller, whileXavier with a trained eye scanned the troubled, yellow-glisteningsurface of the river ahead. The wind died, the sun beat down with amoist and venomous sting, and northeastward above the edge of the bluffa bank of cloud like sulphur smoke was lifted. Gradually Xavier ceasedhis jesting and became quiet.

  “Looks like a hurricane,” said Nick.

  “Mon Dieu,” said Xavier, “you have right, Michié,” and he called inhis rapid patois to the crew, who lounged forward in the cabin’s shade.There came to my mind the memory of that hurricane at Temple Bow longago, a storm that seemed to have brought so much sorrow into my life. Iglanced at Nick, but his face was serene.

  The cloud-bank came on in black and yellow masses, and the saffron lightI recalled so well turned the living green of the forest to a sicklypallor and the yellow river to a tinge scarce to be matched on earth.Xavier had the tiller now, and the men were straining at the oars tosend the boat across the current towards the nearer western shore. Andas my glance took in the scale of things, the miles of bluff frowningabove the bottom, the river that seemed now like a lake of lava gentlyboiling, and the wilderness of the western shore that reached beyond theken of man, I could not but shudder to think of the conflict of nature’sforces in such a pla
ce. A grim stillness reigned over all, broken onlynow and again by a sharp command from Xavier. The men were rowing fortheir lives, the sweat glistening on their red faces.

  “She come,” said Xavier.

  I looked, not to the northeast whence the banks of cloud had risen,but to the southwest, and it seemed as though a little speck was thereagainst the hurrying film of cloud. We were drawing near the forestline, where a little creek made an indentation. I listened, and fromafar came a sound like the strumming of low notes on a guitar, and sad.The terrified scream of a panther broke the silence of the forest, andthen the other distant note grew stronger, and stronger yet, and rose toa high hum like unto no sound on this earth, and mingled with it nowwas a lashing like water falling from a great height. We grounded, andXavier, seizing a great tow-rope, leaped into the shallow water andpassed the bight around a trunk. I cried out to Nick, but my voice wasdrowned. He seized me and flung me under the cabin’s lee, and then abovethe fearful note of the storm came cracklings like gunshots of greattrees snapping at their trunk. We saw the forest wall burst out--how faraway I know not--and the air was filled as with a flock of giant birds,and boughs crashed on the roof of the cabin and tore the water in thedarkness. How long we lay clutching each other in terror on the rockingboat I may not say, but when the veil first lifted there was the riverlike an angry sea, and limitless, the wind in its fury whipping thefoam from the crests and bearing it off into space. And presently, as westared, the note lowered and the wind was gone again, and there was thewater tossing foolishly, and we lay safe amidst the green wreckage ofthe forest as by a miracle.

  It was Nick who moved first. With white face he climbed to the roof ofthe cabin and idly seizing the great limb that lay there tried to moveit. Xavier, who lay on his face on the bank, rose to a sitting postureand crossed himself. Beyond me crowded the four members of the crew,unhurt. Then we heard Xavier’s voice, in French, thanking the BlessedVirgin for our escape.

  Further speech was gone from us, for men do not talk after such amatter. We laid hold of the tree across the cabin and, straining, flungit over into the water. A great drop of rain hit me on the forehead, andthere came a silver-gray downpour that blotted out the scene and droveus down below. And then, from somewhere in the depths of the dark cabin,came a sound to make a man’s blood run cold.

  “What’s that?” I said, clutching Nick.

  “Benjy,” said he; “thank God he did not die of fright.” We lighted acandle, and poking around, found the negro where he had crept into thefarthest corner of a bunk with his face to the wall. And when we touchedhim he gave vent to a yell that was blood-curdling.

  “I’se a bad nigger, Lo’d, yes, I is,” he moaned. “I ain’t fit fo’jedgment, Lo’d.”

  Nick shook him and laughed.

  “Come out of that, Benjy,” he said; “you’ve got another chance.”

  Benjy turned, perforce, the whites of his eyes gleaming in thecandle-light, and stared at us.

  “You ain’t gone yit, Marse,” he said.

  “Gone where?” said Nick.

  “I’se done been tole de quality ‘ll be jedged fust, Marse,” said Benjy.

  Nick hauled him out on the floor. Climbing to the deck, we found thatthe boat was already under way, running southward in the current throughthe misty rain. And gazing shoreward, a sight met my eyes which I shallnever forget. A wide vista, carpeted with wreckage, was cut through theforest to the river’s edge, and the yellow water was strewn for mileswith green boughs. We stared down it, overwhelmed, until we had passedbeyond its line.

  “It is as straight,” said Nick, “as straight as one of her Majesty’salleys I saw cut through the forest at Saint-Cloud.”

  Had I space and time to give a faithful account of this journey itwould be chiefly a tribute to Xavier’s skill, for they who have not putthemselves at the mercy of the Mississippi in a small craft can have noidea of the dangers of such a voyage. Infinite experience, a keen eye,a steady hand, and a nerve of iron are required. Now, when the currentswirled almost to a rapid, we grazed a rock by the width of a ripple;and again, despite the effort of Xavier and the crew, we would tear thelimbs from a huge tree, which, had we hit it fair, would have ripped usfrom bow to stern. Once, indeed, we were fast on a sand-bar, whence (asNick said) Xavier fairly cursed us off. We took care to moor at night,where we could be seen as little as possible from the river, and dividedthe watches lest we should be surprised by Indians. And, as we wentsouthward, our hands and faces became blotched all over by the bites ofmosquitoes and flies, and we smothered ourselves under blankets to getrid of them. At times we fished, and one evening, after we had passedthe expanse of water at the mouth of the Ohio, Nick pulled a hideousthing from the inscrutable yellow depths,--a slimy, scaleless catfish.He came up like a log, and must have weighed seventy pounds. Xavier andhis men and myself made two good meals of him, but Nick would not touchthe meat.

  The great river teemed with life. There were flocks of herons and cranesand water pelicans, and I know not what other birds, and as we slippedunder the banks we often heard the paroquets chattering in the forests.And once, as we drifted into an inlet at sunset, we caught sight of theshaggy head of a bear above the brown water, and leaping down into thecabin I primed the rifle that stood there and shot him. It took theseven of us to drag him on board, and then I cleaned and skinned him asTom had taught me, and showed Jean how to put the caul fat and liverin rows on a skewer and wrap it in the bear’s handkerchief and roast itbefore the fire. Nick found no difficulty in eating this--it was a dishfit for any gourmand.

  We passed the great, red Chickasaw Bluff, which sits facing westwardlooking over the limitless Louisiana forests, where new and wondrousvines and flowers grew, and came to the beautiful Walnut Hills crownedby a Spanish fort. We did not stop there to exchange courtesies, butpressed on to the Grand Gulf, the grave of many a keel boat before andsince. This was by far the most dangerous place on the Mississippi, andXavier was never weary of recounting many perilous escapes there, ortelling how such and such a priceless cargo had sunk in the mud byreason of the lack of skill of particular boatmen he knew of. Andindeed, the Canadian’s face assumed a graver mien after the Walnut Hillswere behind us.

  “You laugh, Michié,” he said to Nick, a little resentfully. “I who speakto you say that there is four foot on each side of ze bateau. Too muchtafia, a little too much excite--” and he made a gesture with his handexpressive of total destruction; “ze tornado, I would sooner have him--”

  “Bah!” said Nick, stroking Xavier’s black beard, “give me the tiller.I will see you through safely, and we will not spare the tafia either.”And he began to sing a song of Xavier’s own:--

  “‘Marianson, dame jolie, Où est allé votre mari?’”

  “Ah, toujours les dames!” said Xavier. “But I tell you, Michié, lediable,--he is at ze bottom of ze Grand Gulf and his mouth open--so.”And he suited the action to the word.

  At night we tied up under the shore within earshot of the mutter of theplace, and twice that night I awoke with clinched hands from a dreamof being spun fiercely against the rock of which Xavier had told,and sucked into the devil’s mouth under the water. Dawn came as I wasfighting the mosquitoes,--a still, sultry dawn with thunder muttering inthe distance.

  We breakfasted in silence, and with the crew standing ready at the oarsand Xavier scanning the wide expanse of waters ahead, seeking for thatunmarked point whence to embark on this perilous journey, we floateddown the stream. The prospect was sufficiently disquieting on thatmurky day. Below us, on the one hand, a rocky bluff reached out intothe river, and on the far side was a timber-clad point round which theMississippi doubled and flowed back on itself. It needed no trained eyeto guess at the perils of the place. On the one side the mighty currentcharged against the bluff and, furious at the obstacle, lashed itselfinto a hundred sucks and whirls, their course marked by the flotsamplundered from the forests above. Woe betide the boat that got into thisdevil’s caldron! And on the other si
de, near the timbered point, ran acounter current marked by forest wreckage flowing up-stream. To venturetoo far on this side was to be grounded or at least to be sent back toembark once more on the trial.

  But where was the channel? We watched Xavier with bated breath. Not oncedid he take his eyes from the swirling water ahead, but gave the tillera touch from time to time, now right, now left, and called in a monotonefor the port or starboard oars. Nearer and nearer we sped, dodging thesnags, until the water boiled around us, and suddenly the boatshot forward as in a mill-race, and we clutched the cabin’s roof.A triumphant gleam was in Xavier’s eyes, for he had hit the channelsquarely. And then, like a monster out of the deep, the scaly, blackback of a great northern pine was flung up beside us and sheered usacross the channel until we were at the very edge of the foam-specked,spinning water. But Xavier saw it, and quick as lightning brought hishelm over and laughed as he heard it crunching along our keel. And sowe came swiftly around the bend and into safety once more. The next daythere was the Petite Gulf, which bothered Xavier very little, and theday after that we came in sight of Natchez on her heights and guided ourboat in amongst the others that lined the shore, scowled at by loungingIndians there, and eyed suspiciously by a hatchet-faced Spaniard in atawdry uniform who represented his Majesty’s customs. Here we stoppedfor a day and a night that Xavier and his crew might get properly drunkon tafia, while Nick and I walked about the town and waited until hisExcellency, the commandant, had finished dinner that we might presentour letters and obtain his passport. Natchez at that date was asufficiently unkempt and evil place of dirty, ramshackle houses andgambling dens, where men of the four nations gamed and quarrelled andfought. We were glad enough to get away the following morning, Xaviersomewhat saddened by the loss of thirty livres of which he had nomemory, and Nick and myself relieved at having the passports in ourpockets. I have mine yet among my papers.

  “Natchez, 29 de Junio, de 1789.

  “Concedo libre y seguro pasaporte a Don Davíd Ritchie para que pase a laNueva Orleans por Agna. Pido y encargo no se le ponga embarazo.”

  A few days more and we were running between low shores which seemed tohold a dark enchantment. The rivers now flowed out of, and not into theMississippi, and Xavier called them bayous, and often it took much skilland foresight on his part not to be shot into the lane they made in thedark forest of an evening. And the forest,--it seemed an impenetrablemystery, a strange tangle of fantastic growths: the live-oak (chênevert), its wide-spreading limbs hung funereally with Spanish moss andtwined in the mistletoe’s death embrace; the dark cypress swamp with theconelike knees above the yellow back-waters; and here and there grew thebridelike magnolia which we had known in Kentucky, wafting its perfumeover the waters, and wondrous flowers and vines and trees with Frenchnames that bring back the scene to me even now with a whiff of romance,bois d’arc, lilac, grande volaille (water-lily). Birds flew hither andthither (the names of every one of which Xavier knew),--the whistlingpapabot, the mournful bittern (garde-soleil), and the night-heron(grosbeck), who stood like a sentinel on the points.

  One night I awoke with the sweat starting from my brow, trying tocollect my senses, and I lay on my blanket listening to such plaintiveand heart-rending cries as I had never known. Human cries they were,cries as of children in distress, and I rose to a sitting posture on thedeck with my hair standing up straight, to discover Nick beside me inthe same position.

  “God have mercy on us,” I heard him mutter, “what’s that? It sounds likethe wail of all the babies since the world began.”

  We listened together, and I can give no notion of the hideousmournfulness of the sound. We lay in a swampy little inlet, and theforest wall made a dark blur against the star-studded sky. There was asplash near the boat that made me clutch my legs, the wails ceased andbegan again with redoubled intensity. Nick and I leaped to our feetand stood staring, horrified, over the gunwale into the black water.Presently there was a laugh behind us, and we saw Xavier resting on hiselbow.

  “What devil-haunted place is this?” demanded Nick.

  “Ha, ha,” said Xavier, shaking with unseemly mirth, “you have neverheard ze alligator sing, Michié?”

  “Alligator!” cried Nick; “there are babies in the water, I tell you.”

  “Ha, ha,” laughed Xavier, flinging off his blanket and searching for hisflint and tinder. He lighted a pine knot, and in the red pulsing flarewe saw what seemed to be a dozen black logs floating on the surface.And then Xavier flung the cresset at them, fire and all. There was alashing, a frightful howl from one of the logs, and the night’s silenceonce more.

  Often after that our slumbers were disturbed, and we would risewith maledictions in our mouths to fling the handiest thing at theserenaders. When we arose in the morning we would often see them by thedozens, basking in the shallows, with their wide mouths flapped openwaiting for their prey. Sometimes we ran upon them in the water, wherethey looked like the rough-bark pine logs from the North, and Nickwould have a shot at them. When he hit one fairly there would be aleviathan-like roar and a churning of the river into suds.

  At length there were signs that we were drifting out of the wilderness,and one morning we came in sight of a rich plantation with its darkorange trees and fields of indigo, with its wide-galleried manor-housein a grove. And as we drifted we heard the negroes chanting at theirwork, the plaintive cadence of the strange song adding to the mysteryof the scene. Here in truth was a new world, a land of peaceful customs,green and moist. The soft-toned bells of it seemed an expression of itslife,--so far removed from our own striving and fighting existence inKentucky. Here and there, between plantations, a belfry could be seenabove the cluster of the little white village planted in the green; andwhen we went ashore amongst these simple French people they treated uswith such gentle civility and kindness that we would fain have lingeredthere. The river had become a vast yellow lake, and often as we driftedof an evening the wail of a slave dance and monotonous beating of atom-tom would float to us over the water.

  At last, late one afternoon, we came in sight of that strange city whichhad filled our thoughts for many days.