by Zane Grey
“Loike swipin’ candy from the baby,” whispered Garry hoarsely. Then he turned the skiff and rowed downstream. Keven rested on his oars. His face felt damp. His breast labored. The turmoil of his veins slowly subsided. He felt a sudden wave of admiration and appreciation of Garry Lord. While he rested and pried into these unfamiliar sensations, the skiff covered water to the long sweeping strokes of the riverman. They turned a bend. Black rose a high wooded hill. The river broadened. Garry kept to the side opposite to that on which the road ran. The cool night breeze brought a faint low roar. Another rapid! This river was indeed a rogue! Keven felt that itch at the roots of his hair. Would Garry run another rapid that night? Still this next one was far away yet.
Keven gazed back up the river, over the fringed shores to the bold mountains which encompassed the town. What was he leaving there? Home—a bad name—an old father to whom he refused to be a burden—to-But he suddenly raised a wall before his consciousness of that which flayed.
The roar of the next rapid grew louder. It began to disturb Keven. Yet if Garry meant to run it Keven would say never a word. The riverman, however, rowed ashore and beached the boat on a sandy bar, under the shade of trees. After Keven stepped out he pulled it well up and made the bowline fast to a root.
“Kev, lez sleep some,” said Garry, tugging at the bedroll. “Wake me early, fer I’ll be dead to the world.”
They spread tarpaulin and blankets on a level grassy plot, and removing coats and shoes they went to bed. Garry was asleep as soon as he stretched out, but Keven felt wakeful. He found he was extremely tired. His body throbbed and burned. Such exertion, not to say excitement, was new and very exhausting to him. It amazed him that he had not collapsed. Perhaps he was not so weak as he had imagined. Nevertheless his sensations were distinctly pleasant. He began to get warm and to rest. His heart ceased its abnormal pounding. Then he attended to outward stimulations. Cold bright, thoughtful stars peered at him through the dark foliage; the branches of the trees rustled; and the river sent up its melancholy sounds—the lap of tiny waves on the sand, the gurgle of gliding current, the mellow roar of the next rapid.
Lying there in the still darkness, Keven felt a drawing power in this strange mountain river. As a boy he had loved it; as a man he realized an affinity in it somehow, if only the freedom and loneliness it embodied. How singular that he was to earn his livelihood now from its swift waters I He marveled at that. There was something inscrutable in the causes which had led to this. A great burden welled up and out of his heart. He had come back to the Rogue. It could never be denied him. What would poverty and privation mean to him? Nothing. He would glory in them.
At last, with the dreamy hum of the falls in his ears, Keven fell asleep. He awakened at the first streaks of dawn, and it took a moment for him to realize where he was. The dark spreading branches above bewildered him. But the gray misty curtain and the murmur of the river stirred him to glad facts. He had to shake Garry hard to awaken him.
“My God, I thought—thet jailer was—proddin’ me,” yawned Garry, sitting up. “Mornin’ soldier boy.”
“Cut that, Garry. Call me anything but that,” replied Keven. “I’m your fishing mate now.”
“Ex-coose me, Kev…. Gosh, I gotta have a drink,” said the riverman, throwing off the blankets. “I fetched a bottle fer this very gol-durned thing. Hev a drink on me. We don’t want to risk buildin’ fire an’ cookin’ breakfast along here.”
“What’s your plan, Garry?”
“We’ll run down an’ stop short of Hell Gate,” replied Lord speculatively. “Them cops will drive along the river lookin’ fer us. They can’t see the river except in certain places, where you bet we won’t be. We’ll camp an’ eat, an’ tomorrow mornin’ early get by the bridge an’ Galice. But sure as hops them cops will be waitin’ at the end of the road. We’ll fool ’em though, fer the Alameda bridge went out this winter. An’ all they can do is watch us run through.”
It was daylight when they rowed out from the shore. A cloud of mist overhung the river like a lowering pall. Under its cover the from the road.
When they reached the rapid, which was in no wise terrifying by day, Garry turned to his partner, while poising his oars: “Take her through, Kev. Let’s see if you’ve forgot.”
“I’m on, Garry,” said Keven, and stood up some distance above the incline, to get his bearings. A cool tickling ran along his spine. But he awakened to Garry’s confidence. It was a slow rapid, necessitating a varied course to avoid rocks. Keven sat down to pull a little to the right, and when he dipped over the incline he had the skiff in hand, half diagonally across the channel, and once below the fall, a few strong tugs with the aid of the current worked her out of line with the first submerged rock. Then he turned straight, stern forward, to take the main volume of water, his eye keen on the next rock. Some rods above it he pulled slantingly to the left and let the current take him by. The rest of the rapid was trivial.
“You ain’t forgot nuthin’,” declared Garry, taking up his oars. “That was apple pie.”
Keven stifled a yell which swelled in his throat. That he could feel so good again—alive—strong—active—bold! He warmed to Garry. They would get along together. They had much in common. The river was a bond.
On they rowed, down the still stretches, where the wild ducks scuttled in great flurry out of the coves, and drifted down the long ripples, and shot the rapids which repeated themselves every mile or so, while the mist lifted, and deep blue patches of sky showed through, and the green wooded slopes. Soon the sun burst through to flood the valley with light. By afternoon the fugitives had reached the constriction of the valley, where the river cut through under cliffs of bronze. Hell Gate was close. They could hear the low thunder of this dammed-up and furious rapid. Garry pointed to a shady bench.
“There we are, Kev,” he said, grinning. “We’ll make camp an’ take it easy. They can’t see us or our smoke. An’ by golly, if they did they’d never get to us, ’cept by runnin’ the river. Ketch them lousy cops tryin’ out the Rogue!”
Ashore Keven found a wonderful covert, yet which opened out to the glancing river, and the mounting wall of ferned and mossy granite. Leisurely he helped at making camp, at the chores around the campfire. Every hour more came back to him—a regurgitation of past and forgotten joys. Could the future possibly hold more for him than pain and drink and degradation? He pondered. And in the late hours of afternoon he lay idly, dreamily, fighting a drowsiness that threatened to drag him into oblivion. A short pink-flushing of the sky heralded the sunset, and then twilight soon settled down. With dusk came the cool of the river. Garry kindled the fire, and Keven had a long unthinking hour lounging before it, listening and feeling. But soon sleep claimed him, and scarcely had he closed his eyes, it seemed, when Garry routed him out.
“Hey, are you dead?” called Garry. “Hop up an’ feed your face. We gotta dig.”
The morning appeared scarcely to have broken, or the banner of mountain mist hung thicker. It was like gray twilight. Before they shoved off Garry said: “Kev, I’ll take her through Hell Gate. You jest watch. The river’s at thet stage when the current is bad. I can’t let it do the work. An’ a stroke of oar from you, thet wasn’t jest right, could sure spill us. I want you to get broke in again before takin’ risks.”
“All right, Garry. But I’ll gamble it’d come to me,” replied Keven.
“Mebbe. But the Rogue is cold as hell this early in the mornin’.”
Garry rowed into the center of the narrowing river. Keven could not see the tips of the cliffs, which were obscured. He turned a corner, whence came a sullen wrestling roar. Garry wheeled the boat to face that threatening sound. Keven had been through here many a time, but in summer, at low water. The river was two feet above that now, and running like a millrace. The channel narrowed to a box, and dimly ahead Keven made out the gate. Passage looked impossible and shook his heart. Then he bent his faculties upon the boatman and the current. They ente
red the box, rode a swelling ridge of water, and shot like a plummet into the gray roaring hell of that sinister gateway. Garry pulled with swift powerful short strokes. They were lifted toward the corner of the wall, where the water climbed in whirling fury. But they fell back with the wave and sped by through the gate. The angry waters spread hissingly. Garry rested on his oars, and when they drifted beyond the roar, he said: “Run it easy. But I ain’t stuck on Hell Gate.”
“Garry, would a saw log or an empty boat hit that corner?” asked Keven.
“Nine times out of ten, I bet,” Garry returned, and took to his oars. “Fall in, kev. Let’s get by the bridge an’ Galice.”
Soon the even powerful strokes propelled them to the bridge, dim in the gray fog, and under it, and beyond to where the river turned out of the gorge into a valley again. Galice appeared a sleeping village, without one column of smoke from its cottage chimneys. Below Galice another thunder of rapids greeted the boatmen.
“S rapids ahead,” said Garry. “She’s a right-angle triangle. A humdinger to shoot sometimes. But apple pie at this stage. We can’t hit mithin’.”
They navigated a series of ripples between shallow islands and bars, to run into a circling pool, which curved to the right and leaped with a bellow into gray darkness under a high black overhanging slope. It would have been frightful but for Garry’s assurance. They backed the skiff until an invisible hand seemed to snatch at it and fling it over a runway into a choppy crested channel, down which it bobbed like a cork, rising over the white mounds, to pound at last once more into open, spreading river.
Here they passed the Lewis Ranch and sped on over the rock ledges and gravel bars and ripples which had once been Keven’s favorite fishing waters. Floods might come and go, but Keven knew the river there, and he sat as one in a trance. Garry was whistling. The mist was breaking away to reveal the timbered slopes, ever rising higher. A mile-long stretch of river followed on a sharp bend. Chair Riffle! Here ran the famous steelhead pool, beloved alike by native spooner and the effete fly-fisher. How many times had Keven sat in that rocky chair from which the riffle derived its name! Then on they went round the bend, over the rapids that had cost Keven many a game trout; on under a sunny blue sky.
The quiet stretches of river grew few and far between, but the current took its fall gradually, as if preparing for a big drop round the bend, above which the green slopes sheered mountain high. Alameda! The end of the road and the entrance of the Rogue into the wilderness! Soon Keven sighted the gaunt and rusted ore mill, abandoned and falling to ruin, that despoiled the beautiful slope. Another turn fetched them within sight of the wide pool above Alameda Falls. Here a great gap yawned in the bridge that spanned the head of the fall. Keven’s quick eye espied a motorcar, and men standing on the left bank.
“Told you so,” shouted Garry, turning to Keven. “Them lousy cops!”
“What’ll we do?” queried Keven quickly.
“Nuthin’ They’ll reckon they’ll halt us above the fall. But we’ll go right on over—an’ then to hell with ’em!”
They rode the long swift stretch that ended in the huge eddy. The current here slowed for a hundred yards, then converged towards the gap in the bridge, where the river disappeared. From below soared up a hollow boom.
The policemen on the bank began to make authoritative gestures, which grew violent as the boatmen made no effort to row out of the current. Then the pull of the fall caught the boat and it was too late. The officers saw that. They yelled:
“Row ashore or we’ll shoot!”
Garry stood up to reply in stentorian voice: “We gotta go over!”
Alameda Falls, without any officers of the law, or any broken bridge, was ticklish enough to run. The drift swung to the left and circled over black knife-edge rocks on the lip of the fall. Garry pulled well to the right of the middle and had to keep pulling to hold that position. Keven for the moment forgot the two policemen, crowding to the edge, now brandishing their automatic pistols. When Garry shipped his oars Keven knew all was well for that descent. As the skiff careened on the curved green crest of the incline he let out a wild yell, which he scarcely heard in the din. Down they slipped—crash! And then fast indeed did they speed down the diminishing waves away from the falls. It was when Garry turned his smug red face that Keven remembered the policemen. He turned. They were bouncing up and down, waving weapons, and evidently yelling like Indians. A few seconds had carried the skiff two hundred feet and more beyond.
Again Garry stood up, and this time he put his thumb to his nose and spread his fingers.
“Com mon!” he yelled from leather-bellowsed lungs. “Come an’ get us—you lousy loafers!”
No doubt the policemen heard; at least they could not have misunderstood Garry’s defiance. And they began to shoot.
“Wow! Low bridge, Kev. Duck your nut!” he shouted, and fell into the bottom of the boat.
Kev crouched low behind a gunwale, while the bullets whanged and splashed all about the boat, until it drifted out of range.
CHAPTER FIVE
BELOW Alameda the river wound around a bend in the green mountain-sloped canyon. Keven had a last glimpse at the broken bridge, the watching policemen, and the abandoned mill. Then swiftly they disappeared, and he realized he had left civilization and law behind. For more than a hundred miles the Rogue bisected a wilderness that was a law unto itself. The great slopes slanted to towering crags where eagles soared. Then another heavy roar filled Keven’s ears.
“Snap out of it, Kev,” called Garry. “Thet’s the Argo, an’ she ain’t no slouch to run. We gotta pull like hell to keep close on the right. There’s a ledge we can slip over.”
Another turn brought into view a rocky black gap, where huge ledges, striped with white quartz, obscured the river. It jumped into a pit, but a goodly part of the current kept to a long bench. Keven always used to line down this bad fall, as did all but the most reckless rivermen. But now it pulled a yelp of delight to his lips. Garry began to sing: “Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore.”
Keven lent himself with all his power to aid Garry in making the desired place. Soon they were in the heavy current, from which there was no backing. A hundred feet below the main body of water thumped into a hole from which rose clouds of mist. They could not now see the slanting ledge that was to help them over. But they knew where it lay. They rowed with deep strong strokes. When within six feet of the butting black bluff, and twice as far from the dip, Garry slipped his oars. He was still singing, but Keven could not hear him. Like a swan the skiff took the leap into the narrowing millrace that sped high above and alongside the cauldron below. With plummet speed they went over, and such was the celerity of the new boat that, despite Garry’s sudden and tremendous exertions, she bumped hard into the cliff. Keven was thrown off his seat, and one of his oar handles hit Garry a sudden blow in the back. The backlash drew them away from the wall, and when Keven had righted himself and gotten his oars fixed, they were drifting safely into the pool below. Only then did Garry turn, grievous pain and amaze showing on his face.
“What t’hell you doin’, soakin’ me thet way?”
“Accident, Garry. When you tried to knock down the cliff I went flying off my seat.”
“By gosh, Kev. Our boat’s a hummer. She’s too good. Too fast. We gotta load her, or Lord only knows where we’ll jump when we hit Kelsey Canyon.”
“We’ll line the rapids, you broncho-busting riverman.”
“Line nuthin’. There ain’t no bad runs till we get to Kelsey an’ thet ain’t bad.”
So they drifted and rowed, glided and eddied, and drove on into the deepening wilderness of the range. Except at the head of long stretches they could not see the tips of the high, mountains, but when they were able to gaze far down the valley, crags and domes and peaks greeted their eyes, piercing the blue sky. And ever the river murmured and sang and roared on into solitude. Cloud ships sailed across the gold-green slopes; troops of deer stood on the
sand bars, heads erect, long ears up, to bound away only at near approach of the skiff. Wild ducks winged rapid flight down the canyon. Eagles streaked across the blue gap above. And at the end of every still stretch boomed a rapid.
They ran Graves Creek Fall, and once more Keven’s skin prickled. To look back and up at that fall, where a green flood poured between narrow gray confining cliffs, and turned white and spread fan-shape into the great pool below, stirred both daring and dread in his tormented breast. Garry beached the skiff at the head of Lower Graves.
“Gotta start linin’ sometime,” he said. “An this bird is a good one to break in on.”
They took the long line out of the bow and, shoving the skiff adrift, waded down along the shore, holding back and letting loose as the exigency of the case demanded. But when the boat shot over they had to run, hanging on as best they could, while the line whizzed through their hands. Keven slipped on a rock that was like ice, and down he plunged at Garry’s heels, to have the line wrenched out of his hands, and to plunge down, striking on his shoulder and face. He saw a million stars and lay stunned, half in and half out of the water, until he recovered and awoke to excruciating pain.
Garry waited below the fall. “Kev, you can’t move these river boulders with your face,” he said.
“Don’t kid me, old man,” gasped Keven, his hand to his jaw. “That was awful.”
“It wasn’t nuttin’ to what we’ll hit at Blossom or Mule Creek. Com mon. Don’t you hear Reamy Falls bellerin’ fer us?”
They went on, but it was long before Keven regained the spirit of the voyage. Reamy Falls was a big drop, where the river roared into a foaming hole. It could not be run. They had to portage their cargo around the fall, over tremendous stones between which deep ruts yawned. And lastly the skiff had to be dragged, and hauled, and skidded over the bare ledges to the channel below. After that ordeal Keven was exhausted. But the river, as if to make up for that violent break, glided smoothly and evenly for a distance, then rippled on to Whisky Creek, which was the voyagers’ objective for that day.