3stalwarts

by Unknown

  “Yeanh.”

  “Well, I’ve got to get on. I want to get to Rome tomorrow.”

  “Close after you?”

  “I shook ‘em in Albany,” said the man.

  “You seen a horse trader? Calls himself Henderson?”

  “Yes. He’s the man I got you to get out of Hennessy’s with Spinning.”

  “You better watch for him,” said Dan. “He’s Department of Justice.”

  “I’d guessed it.”

  The man laughed.

  “I don’t have to worry about a fat twerk like him.”

  “He was right behind you in Albany.”

  The man leaned forward and stroked his horse’s neck, and the horse pricked his ears. Dan petted his nose and the horse nuzzled him, blowing clouds of steam against his shirt.

  “He likes you,” said the man suddenly. Then he laughed again. “I can handle a better man than Henderson. There’s no use worrying about him. I’ve got to get on. What’s your name, son?”

  “Dan Harrow.”

  “Harrow,” repeated the man. “I’ll remember that. Thanks for spotting that shoe.”

  He wheeled the horse and went off at a lope. The horse showed no limp.

  “Gol,” Dan said to himself. “See him nurse that horse! He can ride.”

  Hoarfrost was forming on the deck when he got aboard the Sarsey Sal. He looked up the canal once more, but Gentleman Joe and the grey horse had passed from sight. The canal was still.

  In the bunk cuddy, he heard Weaver muttering. Suddenly his voice be-came articulate.

  “Dan!” he called. “Dan, Dan! Come here, quick!”

  Dan ran down. The curtains to the cuddy were pulled back and the brass lamp sent its light directly into the bunks.

  Weaver was lying on his back, stiff under the blankets. His face was still very red. When he saw Dan, he lifted his head for an instant, but immediately it fell back on the pillow, and he glared straight up at the planks above him.

  “There’s something on deck, Dan. What is it on deck?”

  “There ain’t nothing on deck,” Dan said. “I’ve just come down.”

  Dan filled the empty glass with rum. He wondered that Samson had not noticed the stopping of the boat, or heard his meeting with Calash.

  The boater swallowed noisily.

  “Got to keep myself washed out,” he said. “Only way to fool this damn disease. I wish Annie was here. You’re a good lad, Dan.”

  He lay still a moment. Then he tossed his head to one side.

  “I’m queer, Dan. I’m feeling mortal queer.”

  “Kind of bad?”

  “Bad. I want to see a doctor, Dan. You won’t go off leaving me to Utica, will you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re a good lad, Dan. We’ll get there tomorrow?”

  “Yeanh. I guess so.”

  “Fetch me a doctor, Dan. First off.”

  “All right.”

  “You’re an honest lad, Dan. You’ll need money to fetch a doctor. Doctors look at your tongue, but they like the color of your money better. It’s nature, Dan. It don’t mean nothing.”

  “No.”

  “I got quite a lot of money on the boat, Dan. Banks go bust, so I put mine right into the boat. It’s in the beam, Dan. There’s a piece lifts out. I ain’t got any kin, Dan, nor nobody to look out after me, now Annie’s gone. Only you, Dan. You’ll let me see a doctor when we get to Utica?”

  “First off.”

  Weaver closed his eyes, and for a few moments he seemed asleep. Then the lids quivered and jumped up, and he was staring wildly at the roof again.

  “It’s come back onto the deck. It hadn’t ought to be there. Chase it off, Dan. For God’s sake, chase it off. I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t do a thing. It’s back there. Go and look.”

  His voice trailed off into incoherent sentences. “Get on back, Annie. … Pa said for you to get the cows, Joe. … I always did like buttermilk. …”

  Dan got up. The cuddy was hot and stuffy, but Samson could not bear to have a window opened. Dan saw to the fire, his mind on Calash, riding ahead of his pursuer. He would never be caught.

  Samson’s voice followed him.

  “It’s back again. I can hear it. Chase it off, Dan.”

  He went on deck. Sam Henderson was sitting with his back to the rudder post, smoking a cigar. The night lantern shone over his plump shoulders, leaving his face in darkness, except for the faint red glow of the cigar end, which was mirrored in his eyes.

  “Well,” he said, “well, well. Ain’t I seen you before, young man?”

  “Yeanh, Mr. Henderson.”

  “Why, sure, that’s right. I saw you in Boonville and in Rome. You wanted to tell me about a horse I’d lost, which was nice of you, though Spinning didn’t seem to think so. He said this Joe Calash was in the saloon and got out while you was talking to us. But you couldn’t know that.”

  “No.”

  Henderson grunted.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  Dan glanced out to the towpath where a brown horse stood hitched to one of the tie-ropes.

  “Working,” he said.

  “Yeanh? Who owns this boat?”

  “Samson Weaver.”

  Again Henderson grunted.

  “What’s that?” he asked suddenly, staring down between his knees.

  “That’s Samson,” Dan said. “He’s been that way most of the trip up from Albany.”

  “Does he do it a lot?”

  “He’s been that way most of the trip up from Albany,” Dan repeated.

  Under them Samson shouted.

  “Chase it off, Dan! Chase it away!”

  The horse snorted and jerked back on the rope.

  “Whoa!” Henderson shouted. “I don’t blame him, though. I feel that way myself. Poor Samson. He always was a hard drinker. He’s got a weak heart. This cholera must have give him a scare. He always was scared of a disease. It’s funny thing, a big man like him.”

  “Dan!” yelled Samson. “Dan!”

  “Maybe I’d better go down,” Dan said.

  “No,” said Henderson. “Has there been anybody along the towpath tonight?”

  “Not many boats just now,” said Dan.

  “Listen here, young man. I guess I might as well tell you. See this. I’m a Department of Justice man. I’m after this Calash, called Gentleman Joe. I’m kind of suspicious of you, but I ain’t going to do anything if you don’t try to head me wrong. Has there been anybody along the towpath tonight?”

  Dan gazed at the toes of his shoes.

  “Yeanh,” he said, after a moment. “Yeanh. He was coming fast.”

  “Well, I can’t catch him now. I’ll get into Utica in the morning. He ought to be there. Charley Mack, the bank walker, he’ll have heard him go by if he ain’t seen him.”

  “Dan! Dan! Dan!”

  “I better go down, maybe,” said Dan.

  “No,” said Henderson. “I’ll go down. He’s an old friend. He’ll be glad to see me. Poor Samson Weaver.”

  He went down the narrow stairs nimbly for so stout a man.

  There was the sound of a striking match, and the sharp sour smell of brimstone came up to Dan on deck, and a harsh scream. The horse jumped again and wrenched against his fastening. “Easy,” said Dan. “Easy, boy.”

  “It’s only me, Samson,” he heard Henderson saying, quietly. “It’s only Samuel.”

  There was no further sound, until all at once Dan could hear Henderson breathing sharply.

  The stout man came up again. His face was covered with sweat and his round eyes were glassy.

  “He’s took a kind of fit,” he said. “He’s stiff as a cherry post. He must’ve thought I was somebody else. Poor Samson.”

  He took off his hat and wiped his handkerchief over his bald head.

  “I’ve got to get along, young man. If you see anything of this man Calash, write to me. I give you the address.”

  He went down to the horse
and lit a fresh cigar; his hands shook a trifle; but, with the cigar once filling his mouth, he steadied himself and mounted, raised his hand to Dan, and galloped off. The horse seemed eager… .

  Dan sat by himself. The first grey of dawn and the returning driver appeared together, the mules ambling along the towpath at a good pace.

  Dan got up and went down into the cabin. The candle on the stove burned feebly in the grey light, but Dan took it up and went back to the bunks. Samson was lying on his side, his knees drawn up and his head back. His eyes were wide-open, his smooth cheeks a dark, unnatural red.

  Dan put his hand down against his side. Then he went on deck.

  The driver had cast off the tie-ropes and hitched his mules.

  “I took longer than I figured.”

  “Longer than I figured,” said Dan.

  “Well, we’d better get going. How’s the old—?”

  He pointed his thumb at the cabin and twirled it between his eyes.

  “He’s lying quiet,” Dan said.

  “It’s a good thing,” said the driver.

  The mules heaved up into the collars, took up the slack, heaved, and the Sarsey Sal groaned a bit and moved sluggishly ahead, with the dawn wind against its bows, and the water muttering on the rudder.

  Ten-Dollar Corpse

  While they waited outside the weighlock in Utica, Dan searched Sam-son’s clothes for money. He felt that it would take him too long to find the beam which the boater had made his bank. But in the trousers Samson still wore he found four dollars, and in the wallet in his Sunday coat he found five more— enough to see them past the weighlock.

  When the Sarsey Sal had been passed through, and Dan had paid his toll, the driver asked him where he wanted to tie up.

  “Anywhere’ll do,” Dan said. “We’re hauling out for Rome tomorrow.”

  “That’s funny,” said the driver. “A short haul like that. I’d think you’d want to go right on.”

  “Weaver wants to see a doctor.”

  “Yeanh? Well, a doctor’s a good thing when a man’s going to die. He can write the certificate, anyway.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” said Dan.

  “Damndest thing you ever see. A man can’t marry a woman without getting a certificate— unless he takes a cook on to the canal. And then people’ll have to say, ‘My, My!’ He can’t get born respectable without a man writing a document about him. No, sir, the poor lobster can’t even pull in his head to die unless somebody says it’s O. K.”

  “That’s right, at that.”

  “Yeanh. It makes life a tough proposition, all right.— Well, I guess I could take you up to Wheaden’s wharf. It ain’t in use and it’s just above the Six Day. Suit you?”

  “Surely,” said Dan.

  “Ged-dup!” The driver cracked his whip at the mules. “You ain’t got no certificates. I’ll leather the tar out of you.”

  They tied up. Dan went into the cabin to get his coat, and when he left he locked the door after him. Utica again. Though he had been there only once before, the basin had a pleasantly familiar feel.

  He walked with the driver behind the mules as far as the Michigan Six Day office, where he signed a receipt for service rendered.

  “You ain’t the man that paid for this,” remarked the clerk, comparing signatures.

  “That’s all right,” the driver said, contemptuously. “Weaver’s sick. How the hell could he sign?”

  “Then you’d ought to put ‘per— whatever your initials is,’ ” said the clerk. “Anybody’d ought to know that.”

  “Aw, spit over your chin,” said the driver, and he led Dan out, shook hands, and disappeared into the stables.

  Dan idly watched the loading and unloading boats, and the boats passing through, the din of voices like a mist beyond his ears. He wondered what he ought to do. He did not know anybody in Utica to whom to go for advice.

  After a while he started walking up into the city, eyeing shop fronts as he passed. He did not stop until, in one of the poorer quarters, he came to a store with black curtains at the windows, and a neat sign, white letters on black:—

  Lester Cushman Funeral Director

  Dan jerked the bell pull and heard, way back in the house, a single soft bell like the stroke of a clock. In a moment the door was opened, and he was confronted by a tall pale man wearing a sober black coat and black cotton gloves and carrying a clean handkerchief in his right hand.

  “Step in,” said the man, in a cool, soft voice.

  Dan found himself in a dark hall, with stairs leading up from the back and a door on either side. On one of the doors was printed in white letters:—

  Bereavement Parlor

  “Walk into the parlor,” the man in black said quietly. “No, not there, young gentleman,— not yet,— the door across the hall, if you please.”

  He held open the door. Dan walked stiffly into the room, which was fitted out with grey curtains and black haircloth furniture.

  “Sit down,” said the man in black, and he took a chair himself, carefully pulling his coat tails over his knees as he did so. Dan sat down and placed his hat beside his feet and took out his handkerchief to wipe his face.

  “Too bad,” said the man in black, scarcely above a whisper. “High and low, it finds us all; better so, perhaps.”

  “I guess that’s right,” said Dan. “I’d like to see Mr. Cushman.”

  The man in black made a slight, stiff bow.

  “I am Mr. Cushman, at your service, Mister—?”

  “Harrow,” said Dan. “Dan Harrow.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Harrow. I shall do my best for you. I have a very creditable name in this city, I assure you.”

  “I guess that’s right,” said Dan, swallowing.

  “Too bad. Just tell me where and I shall take everything off your hands. Details are hard to mind in a case such as this is.”

  “Yeanh,” said Dan. “That’s what I come to you for.”

  “Yes, yes, Mr. Harrow, and that is what I am here for, to relieve sorrow of its burdens.”

  “I’m afraid,” Dan began.

  “Certainly, certainly, I shall be glad to suit your needs. Something economical, simple, but dignified. Plain pine, perhaps. Pine, stained, looks very well. And is inexpensive, relatively speaking. Not cheap. At such a time we do not want cheapness, do we? I can show you some very nice coffins if you would care to see them— about twenty-five dollars, say, lined nicely in white satin?”

  “No,” said Dan. “It wouldn’t do.”

  Mr. Cushman regarded him for an instant out of cold, fortified eyes.

  “No,” he agreed. “Such things are trying. Sister, might I ask?”

  “No,” said Dan. “It’s a man.”

  “Dear me, a friend. Very hard.”

  “Well, I’ve known him four days,” said Dan, “but he was all right.”

  He looked down at his shoes, his cheeks flushed.

  “Mr. Cushman, I come in to get advice. He’s a boater, name of Samson Weaver, who I hired on to in Albany and he died just outside of Utica. He’s down on the basin on his boat, and he ain’t got any kin, and I ain’t got any money, and I come to see what I ought to do about it, and I thought maybe you could tell me, and I guess that’s the whole of it.”

  Mr. Cushman coughed and took off his gloves.

  “What did he die of?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t say. He was scared of cholera. There’s been a scare.”

  “Sure,” said Mr. Cushman. “I heard about it.”

  Dan gave him the details.

  Mr. Cushman took off his coat and hung it over a chair. His sleeves were rolled up, showing strong forearms, light-colored from indoor work. He unbuttoned a pair of cuffs.

  “Hmmm,” he said. “Hmmm. It sure wasn’t cholera. So you don’t know what to do, eh?”

  “No,” said Dan. “That’s what I come in here for. I can’t pay for no funeral, but I’d ought to get a certificate of death.”

  “That might b
e arranged.”

  He glanced sideways at Dan.

  “You and I might do a dicker on him. He wasn’t a close friend, you say.”

  “No, I wouldn’t say he was; but there wasn’t anything I had against him.”

  “Well, I know a doctor that might want to take him. Sometimes I’ve been able to supply him with a specimen. Suppose I saw to the certificate, et cetera, and took him off your hands, would ten dollars do?”

  “I ain’t got even that much.”

  “Ten dollars paid to you,” said Mr. Cushman.

  “Why, I don’t know that that’s right,” said Dan.

  “Why not? He won’t know anything about it.”

  “I guess that’s right.”

  “He’ll be serving a useful end of science.”

  “Surely.”

  “Then he goes on the books as buried in the public grounds. It’s all very proper when you look at it correctly. Where’s the boat?”

  “Wheaden’s wharf. It’s the Sarsey Sal, a brown one.”

  Mr. Cushman rubbed his hands dryly together.

  “Well, you can look out for me about eight.” …

  Dan stopped in at a waterside bar and had a drink. There were no familiar faces there, so he walked back to the boat. Once in the cabin, he began to worry about Samson Weaver. The boater’s presence was about him, vaguely. The tobacco box, and the charred clay pipe on the shelf with the clock; the clock itself, black marble, a prized possession of Weaver’s, with a small silver horse prancing on the top. Once, at the beginning of the haul from Albany, he had said to Dan, “When I hear the tickin’ it sounds like he was galloping out the time; and when it strikes, then I think he’s crossed a bridge.” But the most bothersome thing was his suit of Sunday clothes. Dan could see one elbow of the coat between the curtain and the wall, a dark green cloth with a red hair stripe, if you looked at it closely.

  A fly buzzed along one of the windowpanes. Dan watched it idly. He wanted something to smooth him down; he looked at the pipe and tobacco, Warnick and Brown Tobacco, made for boaters. He had smoked some once, heavy, sweet, soothing stuff. He got up suddenly and filled the pipe and lighted it. It tasted good. A blue cloud of it floated up to the wall and the fly came buzzing through it to dart for the other side of the cabin.

  But the Sunday coat kept catching Dan’s eye, and little by little the smoke began to lose its flavor.