Kiger had begun shaking his head before Adam finished talking. Then his face limbered in a mirthless, soundless laugh. “Naw!” he said, straightening up, lifting his sharp-edged nose. “Naw, that waun’t the ‘greement! That waun’t the ‘greement!. . .I got to go by the ‘greement.”
Adam snorted. Kiger was wall-eyed about it! They had old man Peter primed, he would guess, and they didn’t have Mr. John! But Kiger’s excitement, he observed, was increasing. What could it be? He called to John Hightower again. “How long you reckon it’ll be ‘fore Mr. Peter’ll git back?”
“Oh, he’s liable to be back here inside half an hour,” Mr. John opined, in his slightly nasal voice. “I don’t think he’s goin’ to find much up there to hold ‘im.” Now he gave his attention to his pole. He pulled in a small catfish, talking to himself and shaking his head, as he threw it back. He raised his voice again. “Why don’t you all wait around? It’s over a mile up there by the river and you’d have a hard time finding him.”
This seemed to Adam, unbearable dawdling at a crucial moment. “Thank ye, thank ye!” He shrugged and looked back at Kiger impatiently. “Let’s go!” he said.
Kiger didn’t move or speak. But looked down at the paddle across his knees reflectively.
“Tain’t no tellin’ when he’ll git back here!” Adam urged.
Mr. John spoke again. “You all might miss him—him moving along in the swamp and you on the river.”
“That’s right!” Kiger said and his voice rang out. He added more quietly, “Just whut I ‘uz thinkin’! We’ll save time and trouble by waitin’.” They were now close to Mr. John’s tree. He backed water with his paddle, in obvious relief, even raising a jocular note. “All it takes is a little patience, Brother Atwell, a little patience!”
Adam shrugged. “I reckon you wantin’ to try out some of them worms you dug?” he said, with short humor.
Kiger raised his voice. “Mr. Jawn, ain’t there a good bream hole here, near the cut?”
“Yeah,” said Mr. John. “Yessiree! At the end of it. There by that big tupelo that leans so far out.”
Fishing! It seemed casual, but the tightness behind Adam’s jaws was growing. He didn’t like any part of this, not a damned bit! Too many things happening, he couldn’t account for. And he didn’t have a friend in the whole lot. It was certain now that the letters were a bluff. If they were like Kiger claimed they were, there was no real reason why Mr. John couldn’t read them out. As well as old man Peter! But, what was it? Adam wiped his face with a sweaty palm. What were they heading for? Unconsciously, he crouched forward on his seat as Kiger backed the boat away and let it swing into the current.
He must get another look at Kiger, he told himself and reached out and picked up the bait bucket. He could make use of it, too, he thought, as he held it up and twisted around. “Ye goin’ to try your night crawlers here?” he said, continuing to hold up the bait.
Kiger dropped his gaze and had to take three strokes before he could answer him. “Yeah,” he said. “Yessiree!” he repeated, somehow echoing Mr. John’s tone of voice. “Tie ‘er up to that tupelo when we gits there and let’s fish out in the stream.”
Adam set the bucket down in the space between them and turned back. The pulse in Kiger’s long lean neck had been plainly visible. He’s damned near panting, Adam told himself. And I’m so thick I can’t figure out why. His face tightened in a squint. But I’d better! And quick! Adam had loosed the laces in his shoes, while he was under the bluff, thinking that if he had to dive in and swim for it, he would be ready. He fumbled again with them now, leaning forward on his seat, searching the bank of the river ahead, as they approached the cut between the island and the mainland.
Suddenly, he broke out into a cold sweat. This was it! The cut he had seen in his dream! It hadn’t been Hannah’s Island after all. This was where he had been shaken out of the green boat! Automatically he slipped forward to his knees and put out his hands to the gunwales, as he stared. But, what the hell! Would Kiger try it? Kiger sure had enough sense to know that it wouldn’t drown him to shake him out of a boat!
The cut was coming on them fast. He spotted the leaning tupelo to their right, fifty yards away. But Kiger was going to try it! He could feel it in the jerk of his stroke. So! Adam wiped his loosening mouth. “Oh, little coon, little coon” he intoned under his breath. “Hell!” he grunted. The boat paddle, the heavy paddle! Kiger meant to hit him over the head, when he came back up and reached for the boat. A paralyzing lick on the head, and he would do his own drowning!
Adam’s awkwardness and tension were suddenly gone. He felt balanced and limber, like a well-oiled sewing machine, ready for action—the bobbin already threaded. So Kiger had finally worked himself up to this! Adam felt shocked and a little saddened. He knew Kiger for a proudful fool, but he had not known that he, Adam, taxed him so much!
They were at the tree. Adam came to his feet. But instead of tying to it, when he took hold of the bough, he casually slid the anchor over the side, saying to Kiger, “There’s a clay root down below us here, hit’ll hang on. We kin swing further out in the stream this-a way.” He released the tree and started to turn around. He meant to sit facing Kiger to thwart any plan for shaking him out.
But, before Adam could move his feet or turn his head, the big shake came, with great violence. At the same time, or almost so, Kiger shouted, “Hornets! Hornets!”
Still in his twist, Adam hit the water backwards. He was not there of his own choosing, but he knew what he meant to do. In the turgid, muddy stream, too turgid for thought, he yanked himself down the boat’s chain to the anchor, hung behind the clay root. And, locking his legs around the root, he pulled down with the whole force of his body on the chain. Almost without pause—as if it were all one continuous motion—the bow of the punt came under the water toward him, submerging the boat.
He heard Kiger’s splashing plunge into the water, on the surface above him. Then he loosed the chain. When Adam’s head popped up on the surface, he saw that Kiger was below him, in the current of the cut, trying to fight his way toward the bank.
He immediately resubmerged and swam under water toward him. He came up, almost within arms length. Kiger reached out for him.
This he had expected. And again he sank, moving backward, then whirling under water. He shot bottomward beneath Kiger, pulling him under by a foot as he passed by. Kiger had on his shoes.
Adam popped up again, this time behind Kiger. Yes, little coon! He said prayerfully, as he gulped in air. One stroke put him in reach. He had seen a coon do it to a dog, swimming out after him, many times! He slapped Kiger’s head under the water and circled him to do it again. He was there waiting when the head reappeared and he slapped it under again, backing out of reach of Kiger’s long arms in the same motion.
They were out of the cut now and in the middle of the main stream. Already, Kiger was blown and gagging. Adam slapped his head under one more time for good measure. Then he quickly moved in on him, from behind, under water. His legs locked around Kiger’s knees and his arms pinning Kiger’s, Adam rode him bottomward.
The river swung and bounced and turned them end over end in the current, far below the surface. But Adam clung to this man, like a leech. Clung to him, until all struggle was gone out of him.
His own heart hammering his chest loose at each blow and his throat breaking open, Adam finally fought his way back to the surface, still holding on to his quarry. On top, Adam lay over on his back and caught his breath for awhile, only his nose above the surface. He towed a limber Kiger below him, towed him, he now realized, by the neckband of his collarless white shirt.
Adam raised his head and saw a sand bar down river from them, to the left. He was exhausted, but he managed to kick his way, dragging Kiger along behind and below him, into line with the bar. In a little while he could stand up on the sand, though he had scarcely the strength left to do so.
He crawled into shallow water on one hand and his knees
, still dragging Kiger behind him. He got his limp heavy baggage far enough up the strand to keep the current from washing it away, then he collapsed, on his back in the shallows.
But Adam rested briefly. It might well be that he had won only the first round here! Coming to his feet, he looked about him up and down the river. He discovered that their overturned boat, evidently loosed from the root by his pulling, and dragging its anchor had drifted along behind them. It was scarcely more than a hundred yards away, out in the stream.
Adam pulled Kiger’s body to dry sand. He put an ear to Kiger’s ribs and listened tensely for a moment, then rapidly Adam stripped off his own overalls and shirt and waded back into the stream. The water at this point was not very deep. Coming near the boat, he dived to the sandy bottom, swung the anchor onto his shoulder. And with this weight to hold him down, he walked back toward the bar. It took him three dives and walks to get the boat to dry land. He pulled it out of the water at a trot and dropped it, upside down, near the shrunken figure in tight-wet black britches and Sunday shirt.
Adam squatted by the body again and put his ear to a shoulder blade. Quickly he hauled Kiger up by the armpits and stretched him across the bottom of the punt, turning him face downward. Squatting astride the buttocks, Adam began alternately to pull up on and press down on his back. After a while Kiger’s mouth opened and let out water. In time he started breathing and showed other signs of life.
Adam ceased his labors and stood over him to watch for awhile. Then he hauled him off the boat and went through his pockets. From Kiger’s hip pocket, he took a long black soggy billfold, thinking, this was enough to sink him! He unfolded and opened it sufficiently to see that letters were in it, and money, then he laid it on the bottom of the punt. He frisked Kiger about the ribs, then tore open his shirt. He thought he had felt it when he was hugging him. Kiger had an armpit holster strapped to him. Adam took it off him and pulled the short-barreled thirty-two revolver out of its sheath and broke it open. There were five rounds in it. He shook his head and looked down at his man.
Kiger was enough restored by now to be vomiting violently. Adam shrugged again, but did not speak. Nor did Kiger try to speak.
Then Adam turned the punt over and pulled it back into the river. He began a search of the bar and swamp edge for something with which to propel it. It would not take much of a paddle, since they would be going downstream. He finally decided on a light dry ash pole. Then he put his clothes back on and picked up the gear which he had taken from Kiger.
He approached him, still holding these things in his hands, and leaned over him, examining his face and throat, as he might a mule’s, to see if he could travel. Finally, he said tonelessly, “Git up and see kin you walk! We goin’ down the river.”
Kiger lifted his head limberly and walled fear-strained eyes at him. Then he collapsed to the ground again. Adam remained motionless over him. After a preliminary trial or two, Kiger crawled to his knees mutely and staggered up to his feet.
Adam pointed toward the green punt, moored alongside the bar. He said, “You sit on the far middle board! We want the weight spread. I’m going to have to pole it. And I want you where you’ll be in reach of my paddle, in case you git any crazy notions in your head!” His sarcasm seemed lost on Kiger, but he shook the gun-weighted holster in his hand. “In case you want to know: I’ve got your gun, too!”
Kiger moved alongside the boat to the designated seat, but he paused there. He swallowed with a heave and his slender frame swayed as if he were going to collapse, as he turned to Adam. He spoke feebly, in a sick sandy voice. “You don’t’ have to tell me, ‘course—but, where you takin’ me to?”
Adam gazed at him with calculation, thinking: It’s a good question! “Git in!” he said, “You’ll know when we git there.”
Kiger got in the boat. And Adam pushed it off the sand, out into deep water, crawling aboard the back seat and scrambling into it. A good question, he repeated to himself, as he pushed the punt forward with the ash pole on the sand bottom. He would take it up with the coon.
22.
ADAM BROUGHT MARSE home by the middle of the following afternoon. He had found him waiting at his place when he got back there late in the day. Mrs. Hightower was taking her afternoon nap when they got to the house. Marse might have remembered that she would be, if so much hadn’t happened since he had left, though it wouldn’t have made any difference. Marse woke her up, tapping on the shutters of her back porch window and calling out, “Mamma, Mamma! We need to talk to you!”
He had called a second time before her alarmed half-awake voice came through the closed blinds to them on the porch where he and Adam were standing. “What is it?What is it? . . Marse?” she cried. “What on earth is the matter?”
Marse batted his eyes soberly at Adam in front of him, and took a deep breath. “Lean over to the window, please ‘um,” he said, bringing his mouth close to a crack in the slats and pausing.
“What is it, Marse?” Her voice was nearer and alert now. “Why are you so late?”
Marse gave Adam the same sober glance again and, ignoring his mother’s question, put his mouth to the blinds. He said, with positive and equal emphasis on each word, “Something serious has happened. There’s been a drowning.”
“Oh, no!” Mrs. Hightower gasped, in anguish, “not Adam?”
“No’m.” Marse and Adam said at the same time. Then Marse continued. “It was this Kiger Steele. The one they call High-pockets around here.” He paused for the acknowledgment and resumed. “He was with Adam, in a boat, fishing. And jumped out of it. Committed suicide, it seems like. There, just above Hightower’s old ferry. . . .I stayed on, because Adam didn’t have time to bring me to town. We been dragging the river for his body, but haven’t found it yet. It’s real strange! Here’s Adam. Let him tell you the rest of it!”
Mrs. Hightower cracked the blinds. “Why, this is terrible!” she said, though her voice now was more self possessed. “Adam, my Heavens! What was the matter? I—I”—she caught her breath—“I’m bewildered!”
Adam leaned nearer the shutters. “Yessum,” he said, with terse stuttering. “H-hit’s got me sort of in the same fix!” He shook his head, and looking up met Marse’s gaze soberly, then turned back to the blinds. “I don’t know. I reckon he took leave of his senses.”
“My Heavens above!” Mrs. Hightower repeated.
Adam took a more matter-of-fact tone. “We wuz fishin’ along—and had bin for two-three hours—not even talkin’, when it happened.”
“Why, that’s incredible!” Mrs. Hightower’s voice came nearer the blinds. “Didn’t he say something?”
“Well ‘um, yessum. I-in a way.” Adam lifted his voice. “I had said a time or two: ‘Brother Kiger’—we call each other that sometime because we in the same lodge—‘Brother Kiger, you mighty quiet here today!’ Sort of ridin’ ‘im, you know. And he didn’t have no come-back, at all. He just turned it off with a shake of his head.”
Adam put a hand on his knee, pausing to consider. “I—I reckon there wuz ‘bout another hour of sun, when it happen. I waun’t watching ‘im. I’d just had a bite and had my eye on my cork. I heard ‘im say, ‘Adam, I’m in bad trouble’—he said he was in trouble with some white mens.
“Then I look up at him and I sees that he’s real wall-eyed. I said quick, ‘Man alive! Whut’s the matter there, Kiger?’
“But he waun’t payin’ me no mind. He went on talkin’. ‘I tried, I tried,’ he said. ‘Look like I kain’t settle hit no other way. I’ll just settle it this way—’ And with that, he pick up a loose railroad angle plate there in the boat, with a piece of chain through it. And he grab hit to ‘im and jump in!” Adam paused for a moment, as if to listen for her response, then added. “I jump up from the other end of the boat, but I ‘uz so took by surprise, I scarcely got up good ‘fore he ‘uz gone!”
He straightened up. He and Marse, one on either side of the blinds, stood looking at each other in sober mutual acknowle
dgment, while their words sank in. Stood, a tall mulatto man whose still, liquid eyes shared a responsibility with recognition, and a small, like standing, white boy, whose freckles and unruly toplock of red hair could not hide his face’s commitment to a grave conjoining purpose.
Finally, Mrs. Hightower spoke again, her voice edged with anxiety. “Why, Adam, this thing is appalling!” She sighed and resumed, in a hesitant conjectural manner, “Do you think it may have been the same white men who sent him to you before?”
Adam and Marse had continued to look at each other, while she spoke. Now Adam looked away, bending over again to the blinds. “H-he never said enough for me to know,” he said.
“But who else could it be?”
Adam shook his head. “I—I just don’t know, ma’am,” he insisted.
“Oh, I know you, Adam!” Mrs. Hightower protested. “You would never name a white man in anything.” After another pause she added uncertainly, “Something ought to be done, but I hardly know what. Maybe the sheriff should be called in, or the coroner. Anyhow, you ought to tell Mr. Littleton about it.”
Adam and Marse faced each other, still solemn, only their eyes brightening a little, as they listened. Adam said, “Yessum. That wuz whut I thought. Mr. Littleton might know whut ought to be done.”
“Yes,” she said more positively, “go tell him now—this is Saturday and the bank will still be open.”
“All right ‘um,” Adam said at the window. Then, as if asking a special favor, “W-would ye mind Marse going along with me?”
“Marse!” she was clearly astonished. “Marse?” But after a considerable pause, she replied, in a modulated tone of responsibility that was not without pride, “Why yes, Adam. Sure, Marse can go with you, if you want him!”
They started for the steps, but Adam turned back. “Mrs. Hightower, please ‘um, would ye mind telephoning Mr. Littleton to sort of let him know you sont us on down there to ‘im?”
This is Adam (Lightwood History Collection Book 4) Page 25