by Don Marquis
CHAPTER III
A SCHOONER, A SKIPPER, AND A SKULL
It was a few days later, when a goodly number of the late Uncle Tom'seasily negotiable securities had been converted into cash, and the cashdeposited in the bank, that Cleggett bought the Jasper B.
He discovered her near the town of Fairport, Long Island, oneafternoon. The vessel lay in one of the canals which reach inward fromthe Great South Bay. She looked as if she might have been there forsome time. Evidently, at one period, the Jasper B. had played a partin some catch-coin scheme of summer entertainment; a scheme that hadfailed. Little trace of it remained except a rotting wooden platform,roofless and built close to the canal, and a gangway arrangement fromthis platform to the deck of the vessel.
The Jasper B. had seen better days; even a landsman could tell that.But from the blunt bows to the weather-scarred stern, on which the namewas faintly discernible, the hulk had an air about it, the air ofsomething that has lived; it was eloquent of a varied and interestingpast.
And, to complete the picture, there sat on her deck a gnarled and brownold man. He smoked a short pipe which was partially hidden in a tangleof beard that had once been yellowish red but was now streaked withdirty white; he fished earnestly without apparent result, and from timeto time he spat into the water. Cleggett's nimble fancy at once putrings into his ears and dowered him with a history.
Cleggett noticed, as he walked aboard the vessel, that she seemed to bejammed not merely against, but into the bank of the canal. She wasnearer the shore than he had ever seen a vessel of any sort. Someweeds grew in soil that had lodged upon the deck; in a couple of placesthey sprang as high as the rail. Weeds grew on shore; in fact, itwould have taken a better nautical authority than Cleggett to telloffhand just exactly where the land ended and the Jasper B. began. Sheseemed to be possessed of an odd stability; although the tide wasreceding the Jasper B. was not perceptibly agitated by the motion ofthe water. Of anchor, or mooring chains or cables of any sort, therewas no sign.
The brown old man--he was brown not only as to the portions of his skinvisible through his hair and whiskers, but also as to coat and trousersand worn boots and cap and pipe and flannel shirt--turned around asCleggett stepped aboard, and stared at the invader with a shaggy-browedintensity that was embarrassing.
It occurred to Cleggett that the old man might own the vessel and makea home of her.
"I beg your pardon if I am intruding," ventured Cleggett, politely,"but do you live here?"
The brown old man made an indeterminate motion of his head, withoutotherwise replying at once. Then he took a cake of dark, hard-lookingtobacco from the starboard pocket of his trousers and a clasp knifefrom the port side. He shaved off a fresh pipeful, rolled it in hispalms, knocked the old ash from his pipe, refilled and relighted it,all with the utmost deliberation. Then he cut another small piece oftobacco from the "plug" and popped it into his mouth. Cleggettperceived with surprise that he smoked and chewed tobacco at the sametime. As he thus refreshed himself he glanced from time to time atCleggett as if unfavorably impressed. Finally he closed his knife witha click and suddenly piped out in a high, shrill voice:
"No! Do you?"
"I--er--do I what?" It had taken the old man so long to answer thatCleggett had forgotten his own question, and the shrill fierceness ofthe voice was disconcerting.
He regarded Cleggett contemptuously, spat on the deck, and thendemanded truculently:
"D'ye want to buy any seed potatoes?"
"Why--er, no," said Cleggett.
"Humph!" said the brown one, with the air of meaning that it was onlyto be expected of an idiot like Cleggett that he would NOT want to buyany seed potatoes. But after a further embarrassing silence herelented enough to give Cleggett another chance.
"You want some seed corn!" he announced rather than asked.
"No. I------"
"Tomato plants!" shrilled the brown one, as if daring him to deny it.
"No."
He turned his back on Cleggett, as if he had lost interest, and beganto wind up his fishing line on a squeaky reel.
"Who owns this boat?" Cleggett touched him on the elbow.
"Thinkin' of buyin' her?"
"Perhaps. Who owns her?"
"What would you do with her?"
"I might fix her up and sail her. Who owns her?"
"She'll take a sight o' fixin'."
"No doubt. Who did you say owned her?"
The old man, who had finished with the rusty reel, deigned to look atCleggett again.
"Dunno as I said."
"But who DOES own her?"
"She's stuck fast in the mud and her rudder's gone."
"I see you know a lot about ships," said Cleggett, deferentially,giving up the attempt to find out who owned her. "I picked you out foran old sailor the minute I saw you." He thought he detected a kindliergleam in the old man's eye as that person listened to these words.
"The' ain't a stick in her," said the ancient fisherman. "She's got nowheel and she's got no nothin'. She used to be used as a kind of abarroom and dancin' platform till the fellow that used her for suchwent out o' business."
He paused, and then added:
"What might your name be?"
"Cleggett."
He appeared to reflect on the name. But he said:
"If you was to ask me, I'd say her timbers is sound."
"Tell me," said Cleggett, "was she a deep-water ship? Could a shiplike her sail around the world, for instance? I can tell that you knowall about ships."
Something like a grin of gratified vanity began to show on the brownone's features. He leaned back against the rail and looked at Cleggettwith the dawn of approval in his eyes.
"My name's Abernethy," he suddenly volunteered. "Isaiah Abernethy.The fellow that owns her is Goldberg. Abraham Goldberg. Real estateman."
"Cleggett began to get an insight into Mr. Abernethy's peculiar ideasconcerning conversation. A native spirit of independence prevented Mr.Abernethy from dealing with an interlocutor's remarks in the sequencethat seemed to be desired by the interlocutor. He took a selection ofutterances into his mind, rolled them over together, and replied inaccordance with some esoteric system of his own.
"Where is Mr. Goldberg's office?" asked Cleggett.
"You've come to the proper party to get set right about ships," saidMr. Abernethy, complacently. "Either you was sent to me by someone thatknows I'm the proper party to set you right about ships, or else yougot an eye in your own head that can recognize a man that comes of aseafarin' fambly."
"You ARE an old sailor, then? Maybe you are an old skipper? Perhapsyou're one of the retired Long Island sea captains we're always hearingso much about?"
"So fur as sailin' her around the world is concerned," said Mr.Abernethy, glancing over the hulk, "if she was fixed up she could besailed anywheres--anywheres!"
"What would you call her--a schooner?"
"This here Goldberg," said Mr. Abernethy, "has his office over townright accost from the railroad depot."
And with that he put his fishing pole over his shoulder and prepared toleave--a tall, strong-looking old man with long legs and knotty wrists,who moved across the deck with surprising spryness. At the gangplank hesang out without turning his head:
"As far as my bein' a skipper's concerned, they's no law agin' callin'me Cap'n Abernethy if you want to. I come of a seafarin' fambly."
He crossed the platform; when he had gone thirty yards further hestopped, turned around, and shouted:
"Is she a schooner, hey? You want to know is she a schooner? If youwas askin' me, she ain't NOTHIN' now. But if you was to ask me again Imight say she COULD be schooner-rigged. Lots of boats ISschooner-rigged."
There are affinities between atom and atom, between man and woman,between man and man. There are also affinities between men andthings-if you choose to call a ship, which has a spirit of its own,merely a thing. There must have been this affinity betwe
en Cleggettand the Jasper B. Only an unusual person would have thought of buyingher. But Cleggett loved her at first sight.
Within an hour after he had first seen her he was in Mr. AbrahamGoldberg's office.
As he was concluding his purchase--Mr. Goldberg having phonedCleggett's bankers--he was surprised to discover that he was buyingabout half an acre of Long Island real estate along with her. For thatmatter he had thought it a little odd in the first place when he hadbeen directed to a real estate agent as the owner of the craft. But ashe knew very little about business, and nothing at all about ships, heassumed that perhaps it was quite the usual thing for real estatedealers to buy and sell ships abutting on the coast of Long Island.
"I had only intended to buy the vessel," said Cleggett. "I don't knowthat I'll be able to use the land."
Mr. Goldberg looked at Cleggett with a slight start, as if he were notsure that he had heard aright, and opened his mouth as if to saysomething. But nothing came of it--not just then, at least. When thelast signature had been written, and Clegget's check had been folded byMr. Goldberg's plump, bejeweled fingers and put into Mr. Goldberg'spocketbook, Mr. Goldberg remarked:
"You say you can't use the ship?"
"No; the land. I'm surprised to find that the land goes with the ship."
"Why, it doesn't," said Mr. Goldberg. "It's the ship that goes withthe land. She was on the land when I bought the plot, and I just lefther there. Nobody's paid any attention to her for years."
The words "on the land" grated on Cleggett.
"You mean on the water, don't you?"
"In the mud, then," suggested Mr. Goldberg.
"But she'll sail all right," said Cleggett.
"I suppose if she was decorated up with sails and things she'd sail.Figuring on sailing her anywhere in particular?"
Subtly irritated, Cleggett answered: "Oh, no, no! Not anywhere inparticular!"
"Going to live on her this summer?--Outdoor sleeping room, and allthat?"
"I'm thinking of it."
"You could turn her into a house boat easy enough. I had a friend whoturned an old barge like that into a house boat and had a lot of funwith her."
"Barge?" Cleggett rose and buttoned his coat; the conversation wassomehow growing more and more distasteful to him. "You wouldn't callthe Jasper B. a BARGE, would you?"
"Well, you wouldn't call her a YACHT, would you?" said Mr. Goldberg.
"Perhaps not," admitted Cleggett, "perhaps not. She's more like a barkthan a yacht."
"A bark? I dunno. Always thought a bark was bigger. A scow's moreher size, ain't it?"
"Scow?" Cleggett frowned. The Jasper B. a scow! "You mean aschooner, don't you?"
"Schooner?" Mr. Goldberg grinned good-naturedly at his departingcustomer. "A kind of a schooner-scow, huh?"
"No, sir, a schooner!" said Cleggett, reddening, and turning in thedoorway. "Understand me, Mr. Goldberg, a schooner, sir! A schooner!"
And standing with a frown on his face until every vestige of the smilehad died from Mr. Goldberg's lips, Cleggett repeated once more: "Aschooner, Mr. Goldberg!"
"Yes, sir--there's no doubt of it--a schooner, Mr. Cleggett," said Mr.Goldberg, turning pale and backing away from the door.
The ordinary man inspects a house or a horse first and buys it, orfails to buy it, afterward; but genius scorns conventions; Cleggett wasnot an ordinary man; he often moved straight towards his object byinspiration; great poets and great adventurers share this faculty;Cleggett paid for the Jasper B. first and went back to inspect hispurchase later.
The vessel lay about two miles from the center of Fairport. He couldget within half a mile of it by trolley. Nevertheless, when he reachedthe Jasper B. again after leaving Mr. Goldberg it was getting alongtowards dusk.
He first entered the cabin. It was of a good size and divided intoseveral compartments. But it was in a state of dilapidation andlittered with a jumble of odds and ends which looked like the ruins ofa barroom. As he turned to ascend to the deck again, after possiblyfive minutes, intending to take a look at the forecastle next, he heardthe sound of a motor.
Looking out of the cabin he saw a taxicab approaching the boat from thedirection of Fairport. It was a large machine, but it was overloadedwith seven or eight men. It stopped within twenty yards of the vessel,and two men got out, one of them evidently a person who imposed somesort of leadership on the rest of the party. This was a tall fellow,with a slouching gait and round shoulders. And yet, to judge from hismovements, he was both quick and powerful. The other was a short,stout man with a commonplace, broad red face and flaxen hair. The twostood for a moment in colloquy in the road that led from Fairportproper to the bayside, passing near the Jasper B., and Cleggett heardthe shorter of the two men say:
"I'm sure I saw somebody aboard of her."
"How long ago, Heinrich?" asked the tall man.
"An hour or so," said Heinrich.
"It was old man Abernethy; he's harmless," said the tall fellow. "He'sthe only person that's been aboard her in years."
"There was someone else," persisted Heinrich. "Someone who was talkingto Abernethy."
The tall man mumbled something about having been a fool not to buy herbefore this; Cleggett did not catch all of the remark. Then the tallfellow said:
"We'll go aboard, Heinrich, and take a look around."
With that they advanced towards the vessel. Cleggett stepped on deckfrom the cabin companionway, and both men stopped short at the sight ofhim, Heinrich obviously a trifle confused, but the other one in no wiseabashed. He made no attempt, this tall fellow, to give the situation acasual turn. What he did was to stand and stare at Cleggett, candidly,and with more than a touch of insolence, as if trying to beat downCleggett's gaze.
Cleggett, staring in his turn, perceived that the tall man, ungainly ashe was, affected a bizarre individualism in the matter of dress. Hisclothing cried out, rather than suggested, that it was expensive. Hisfeet were cased in button shoes with fancy tops; his waistcoat, cut inthe extreme of style, revealed that little strip of white which falselyadvertises a second waistcoat beneath, but in his case the strip wastoo broad. There were diamonds on the fingers of both powerful hands.But the thing that grated particularly upon Cleggett was the characterof the man's scarfpin. It was by far the largest ornament of the sortthat Cleggett had ever seen; he was near enough to the fellow to makeout that it had been carved from a piece of solid ivory in the likenessof a skull. In the eyeholes of the skull two opals flamed with an evillevin. The man suggested to Cleggett, at first glance, a bartender whohad come into money, or a drayman who had been promoted to an importantoffice in a labor union and was spending the most of a considerablesalary on his person. And yet his face, more closely observed, somehowgave the lie to his clothes, for it was not lacking in the signs ofintelligence. In spite of his taste, or rather lack of taste, therewas no hint of weakness in his physiognomy. His features were harsh,bold, predatory; a slightly yellowish tinge about the temples and cheekbones, suggestive of the ivory ornament, proclaimed a bilioustemperament.
Cleggett, both puzzled and nettled by the man's persistent gaze,advanced towards him across the deck of the Jasper B. and down thegangplank, hand on hip, and called out sharply:
"Well, my friend, you will know me the next time you see me!"
The tall man turned without a word and walked back to the taxicab, theoccupants of which had watched this singular duel of looks in silence.In the act of getting into the machine he face about again and said,with a lift of the lip that showed two long, protruding canine teeth ofan almost saffron hue:
"I WILL know you again."
He spoke with a kind of cold hostility that gave his words all theeffect of a threat. Cleggett felt the blood leap faster through hisveins; he tingled with a fierce, illogical desire to strike the fellowon the mouth; his soul stirred with a premonition of conflict, and thedesire for it. And yet, on the surface of things at least, the man hadbeen nothing
more than rude; as Cleggett watched the machine make offtowards an isolated road house on the bayside he wondered at the quickintensity of his own antipathy. Unconsciously he flexed his wrist inhis characteristic gesture. Scarcely knowing that he spoke, hemurmured:
"That man gets on my nerves."
That man was destined to do something more than get on Cleggett'snerves before the adventures of the Jasper B. were ended.