Flyjar is the kind of Southern town where time doesn’t mean much. Maybe that’s because there’s little in the way of change between the seasons—the difference between winter and summer being a mere fifteen degrees, on average. And when you’re as poor as most folks in Flyjar, there’s not a whole lot of change from one year to the next—or decade, for that matter.
The two constants in Flyjar are poverty and the river. The town clings to the Mississippi like a child to its mama’s skirt, and its fortunes—for good or ill—have always been tied to the Big Muddy like apron strings. At one time it served as a regular fueling stop for the riverboats that once traveled up and down The Father of All Waters. But those days were long gone, and now all that remained of “the good old days” were some deteriorating wooden piers along the riverbanks.
Since most of the old wharves extended several hundred feet into the river, there were plenty of crappies, channel cat, and gar free for the taking, provided you had the know-how and patience to catch them, as Sammy Herkimer, one of Flyjar’s better fishermen, was quick to tell anyone who’d listen.
There were several old docks to choose from, but Sammy’s favorite was the one at Steamboat Bend. It was a mile or so from town and, because of that, was not in the best of shape. Since you had to keep an eye on where you walked, not many of the townsfolk used it, which suited Sammy just fine. Then one day, while he was sitting there, sipping ice tea from a thermos, Sammy was surprised to find himself joined by, of all people, Hop Armstrong.
Hop was the closest thing Flyjar had to a fancy man. The good Lord had seen fit to bless him with good looks, and a generous Johnson, if the gossip was to be believed, while skimping in the ambition department. When it came to playing guitar and getting women to pay his way, Hop was second to none. However, when it came to physical labor…well, that was another story.
“Lord A’ mighty, Hop!” Sammy proclaimed, unable to hide his surprise. “What you doin’ here? Someone set fire to your house?”
“You could say that,” Hop grunted. “My woman said I got to bring home supper.”
“That a fact?” Sammy said, raising an eyebrow.
Hop’s most recent sugar mama was Lucinda Solomon, the proprietoress of the local beauty parlor. Lucinda was good-looking and well-to-do, at least by Flyjar’s standards. She was also notoriously strong-willed and, rumor had it, that in living off Lucinda, Hop had finally met up with something approximating work.
Sammy glanced at the younger man’s gear, noting with some amusement that while Hop had remembered to bring along his guitar, he hadn’t bothered to pack a net. He returned his gaze to the river, shaking his head. After a long stretch of silence between the two, the older man spoke up abruptly.
“You know why they call this stretch of the river Steamboat Bend, Hop?”
“I figgered on account of it bein’ a bend in the river and there was steamboats that used to come down it,” the younger man replied with a shrug.
“That’s part of it, but it ain’t the whole reason. A long time ago there was this big ole paddleboat that used to cruise up and down the river called The Delta Blossom. She was a real fancy pleasure boat, with marble mantelpieces and crystal chandeliers and gold door-handles. When folks heard The Delta Blossom was coming, they ran from the houses and fields to watch her pass. Anyways, one day, without any warning, The Delta Blossom went down with all hands, right about there,” Sammy said, gesturing towards the middle of the river.
“Why’d she sink?” Hop asked, a tinge of interest seeping into his voice.
“No one’s rightly sure. Some said the boilers blew out th’ side of the boat. Some said there was a fire below decks. Maybe it got its hull punched open by a submerged tree. Who can really know, after all this time? But my old granny used to swear up and down that The Delta Blossom was scuttled by catfish gals.”
“You funnin’ with me, ain’t you, Sammy?” Hop scowled.
“No, sir, I ain’t!” he said solemnly, shaking his head for emphasis. “Before there was any White or Black folk, or even Indians livin’ in these parts, there was catfish gals here. They live in the river, down where it’s muddy and deep. They got the upper-parts of women, and from the waist down are big ole channel cats. They keep their distance from us humans, and, for the most part, they’re peaceful enough. Some folks said the catfish gals sank The Delta Blossom on account of one of ‘em gettin’ caught in the paddlewheel and crushed.”
Hop turned to fix the older man with a curious stare. “You ever seen one of them catfish gals, Sammy?”
“No, I ain’t. But I ain’t gone lookin’ for ‘em, neither. But my granny said they was why no one ever finds folks who are fool enough to go swimmin’ in the river. They take the drowned bodies and stick ‘em deep in the mud, until they get all blote up. That way their flesh is easier to eat.”
Hop grimaced. “Hush up about that! It’s bad enough my woman’s got me out here without you goin’ on about catfish eatin’ daid folks!”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you was sensitive on the subject.”
After another stretch of silence, Sammy nodded towards the guitar.
“So—if you’re here to fish, why the git-box?”
“Man can do more ‘n one thing at a time, can’t he?”
“I reckon so—but I don’t recommend it. You’ll scare off the fish.”
“Mebbe I’ll just charm me a catfish gal, instead,” Hop grinned.
“If anyone could, I reckon it’d be you,” Sammy sighed as he reeled in his line. “Well, I caught me enough for one day. I better get on home so’s I can clean this mess of crappies in time for supper. Good luck on charming them catfish gals, Hop. Y’all take care.”
“Y’all too, Sammy,” Hop replied absently, his gaze fixed on the river.
* * *
Hop had to admit that being out in the sunshine on a day like today wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t too hot and there was a nice breeze coming off the water…plus, there was the added advantage of being out of his woman’s line-of-sight.
Lucinda was far from an easy woman to please, and an even harder one to live with when riled. And she was most always riled. Hop knew the signs well enough by now to realize that his days of leisure at the feisty Miz Solomon’s expense were drawing to their close, but he didn’t like to jump ship unless he had a new girlfriend lined up. Unfortunately, for a man of his tastes and inclinations, Flyjar didn’t have much in the way of available lady folk for him to choose from—so it looked like he was going to have to make do with Lucinda for a while longer. At least Steamboat Bend was remote enough that the chances of Lucinda actually finding how hard he was—or wasn’t—working at putting supper on the table was in his favor.
Hop pulled a forked stick from his tackle box and wedged it between the loose planks of the dock. After baiting the hook, he cast the line into the murky waters and propped the reel against the stick. Keeping one eye on the bobber, Hop leaned against the nearby wooden pylon and picked up his guitar.
There was not a time in his memory where music didn’t come easy to him. Ever since he was knee-high, he’d been able to make a guitar do whatever it was he wanted of it. Playing came as natural to him as breathing and eating— it was pretty much the same with women, too—and both were a lot more pleasant than chopping cotton or driving a tractor to make ends meet.
Hop scanned the deceptively calm surface of the river. It was so wide the current’s strength was difficult to gauge with the naked eye. The only way to figure out just how powerful the river truly was by the size of the driftwood, and the speed at which it went past. There were days when he’d seen full-grown oak trees racing one another to the Gulf of Mexico like leaves in a gutter. Today was relatively placid, with only a few deadfalls the size of railroad ties headed down river.
Hop found his mind turning to the story Sammy had told him. Not about the catfish gals—that was pure hokum if ever he heard it. What piqued his imagination was The Delta Blossom. Hop wondered what i
t must have been like back in those days, when the steamboats cruised the river, bringing glamour and wealth to pissant little towns like Flyjar. To think that one of the grandest of the old paddle wheelers had come to its end a stone’s throw from where he was sitting, taking its splendor to the Mississippi’s silty floor….
All Hop had ever seen gracing the river were flat-bottomed barges and the occasional freighter or small leisure craft. These were hardly the kinds of vessels that sparked the imagination and quickened the heart. Folks didn’t flock to the levees just to watch a barge pass by.
Hop wondered if there was still anything left of the old Delta Blossom at the bottom of Steamboat Bend. There was no way to know. What secrets the river held it did not give up readily. Still, it didn’t keep him from idly hoping to spot the sunken pleasure ship’s outline.
In his mind’s eye, he could see the long-lost floating pleasure palace, white as new cotton with towering double-smokestacks puffing away like cigars as she made her way along the Mississippi. He could picture the southern belles in hoop skirts lining the ship’s second story promenade, silk fans fluttering like caged birds, while riverboat gamblers in pristine linen suits and wide-brimmed hats tossed silver dollars and gold-pieces onto the felt of the gaming tables. Hop saw himself dressed like Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind, tipping his hat to the young ladies of fashion gathered in the grand salon for the evening’s entertainment. What a swath he could have cut back then!
As his debonair phantom-self danced underneath the swaying crystal chandeliers with a young woman who looked a great deal like Vivienne Leigh, Hop’s nimble fingers were quick to provide the music. Granted, Goodnight Irene wasn’t around at the time, but it was his daydream, after all, wasn’t it?
As he played, a sudden movement in the middle of the river caught Hop’s eye. From where he was sitting, it looked as if a swimmer had surfaced in the middle of the bend, near where Sammy said The Delta Blossom had gone down, then just as quickly submerged. But that was impossible.
Swimming in the Mississippi was only slightly less hazardous to your health than brushing your teeth with lit dynamite. Every so often some fool would get drunk enough to try and brave the river—and disappear without a trace ten feet from shore. If the family were lucky, the body would turn up a few days later, fifty miles downstream, snagged in the branches of a tree on the flood plain, looking more like a drowned pig than a human being.
But what Hop saw hadn’t looked anything like a floater popping to the surface. For one thing, it stayed in one place and didn’t follow the current. Hop shaded his eyes against the sun, trying to get a better look, but there was nothing there. His attention was brought back closer to shore as the bobber on his line registered a strike. Hop dropped his guitar and snatched up the fishing rod, reeling in a ten-pound catfish.
It looked like Lucinda wasn’t going to have anything to scold him about tonight, that much was for certain.
But as he headed back home, his fishing pole draped over one shoulder and his guitar slung over the other, Hop couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched—and by something besides the catfish hanging from his belt.
* * *
That night as he was lying in bed, Lucinda snoring beside him, Hop got to thinking. Maybe what Sammy Herkimer said about catfish gals wasn’t all hogwash after all. He remembered reading in one of them yellow-backed magazines down at the barber shop about some kind of fish everyone thought was extinct being found in some foreign country a few years back. Besides, who was he to decide there weren’t no such things as catfish gals, when he didn’t know a soul who’d been to the bottom of the Mississippi and lived to tell the tale?
The very next day Hop went fishing without Lucinda telling him to.
He decided to try his luck again at Steamboat Bend. When he arrived at the dock, he was relieved to find he was alone. Hop set himself up just as he had the day before, but after a half-hour of sitting and waiting for something to happen, he put down the fishing rod and picked up his guitar to pass the time.
Halfway into Moanin’ At Midnight, Hop heard what sounded like a fish slap the water near the pier. When he glanced up to see what had caused the noise, he nearly dropped his axe into the water below.
There was a human head bobbing in the water a hundred feet away from the dock. At the sound of his astonished gasp, the head ducked back down beneath the muddy surface without leaving so much as a ripple to mark its passing. Just as suddenly, there was a strike on Hop’s line so powerful, it nearly yanked his fishing pole into the river.
* * *
Although Lucinda was extremely pleased with the fifteen-pound catfish he brought home that evening, Hop didn’t say anything about what he’d seen on the river. Something told him that whatever it was that was out at Steamboat Bend was best kept to himself.
The next day Hop didn’t even bother casting his line into the water. He knew what was drawing the thing in the river to the dock, and it sure as hell wasn’t the shiners he was using for bait.
He made his way to the very end of the landing, careful to avoid the loose and missing planks, and sat so his legs dangled over the edge. After a moment of deliberation, he decided They Call Me Muddy Waters would be an appropriate choice.
Just like before, the thing surfaced halfway through the song. Hop’s heart was racing so fast it was hard to breathe, but he forced himself to keep playing. He didn’t want to scare it off, so he continued, switching to Pony Blues once he’d finished with his first song.
While he played, Hop kept his head down, ignoring his audience as best he could. As he launched into Circle Round the Moon, he risked glancing in the thing’s direction, only to discover it was almost directly underneath his dangling feet, staring at him with big, dark eyes that were almost all pupil.
Hop was surprised at how human the catfish gal looked. From what Sammy had said, he’d pictured a fish in a fright wig, but that wasn’t the case. Her upper lip was extremely wide, with the familiar catfish whiskers growing out of them, and she had slits instead of a nose, but outside of that she wasn’t too ugly. Hell, he’d seen worse looking women in church.
Her hair was a real mess, though, with everything from twigs to what looked like live minnows caught in the tangled locks. He couldn’t see much of what she looked like below the waterline, although he did glimpse vertical slits opening and closing down the sides of her neck.
Hop couldn’t help but smile to himself when he saw how the catfish gal looked at him. Half-fish or not, he knew what that look meant on a woman’s face. He had her hooked but good, and now was as good a time as any to reel her in.
Hop looked the catfish gal right in the eye and smiled. “Hello, lit’l fishie. Y’all come to hear me play?”
The catfish gal’s dreamy look was replaced by one of surprise. She glanced around, as if confused by her surroundings, then shot backwards like a dolphin walking on its tail.
“Please! Don’t go!” he shouted, stretching out his hand to stay her retreat.
To his surprise, the catfish gal came to a sudden halt, regarding him curiously, bobbing up and down in the Mississippi as easily as a young girl treading water in a swimming pool.
“You ain’t got nothin’ to be scared of, lit’l fishie,” Hop said, smiling reassuringly. “I ain’t gonna hurt you none. Do you want me to play some more for you?” he asked, holding up his guitar.
The catfish gal nodded and lifted a dripping arm, pointing at the guitar with a webbed forefinger. Hop smiled and obliged her by picking up where he had left off.
By the time the sun was starting to go down, his hands were cramping and his fingertips bloody. He’d played a little bit of almost everything—blues, bluegrass, honky tonk, camp songs, even a couple of nursery rhymes—trying to figure out what the catfish gal liked and didn’t like: turned out she was partial to the blues—which made sense, seeing how that music was born on the banks of the Mississippi.
When he finally put aside his guitar, the catfish
gal disappeared beneath the river’s muddy surface. A few seconds later a large catfish came flying out of the water as if shot from a sling and landed on the dock beside him. Hop picked up the floundering fish and shook his head.
“I appreciate th’ thought,” he said loudly. “But this ain’t what I’m lookin’ for.” After he tossed the fish back into the water, Hop reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver dollar, which he held up between his thumb and forefinger, so that it caught the sun’s fading rays. “If you want me to keep playin', you got to feed th’ kitty. And this here is what th’ kitty eats.”
The catfish gal popped back to the surface, stared at the gleaming coin for a long second, then submerged again. Hop shifted about uneasily as first one minute, then another, elapsed without any sign of her return. Maybe he pushed his luck a little too far, a little too early….
Just then something heavy and wet struck his chest then dropped to the deck with a metallic sound. Hop picked up the flat, circular piece of slime-encrusted metal with trembling fingers. He scraped the surface with his thumbnail and was rewarded not by the gleam of silver—but the mellow shine of gold.
He gave out a whoop then looked around to see if anyone might have witnessed his good fortune, but he was alone on the landing, at least as far as human company was concerned. Talk about falling in a honey pot!
And all for the price of a song.
* * *
As summer wore on, Hop Armstrong became a regular visitor to Steamboat Bend, showing up early and staying till late, and always leaving with heavy, if somewhat damp, pockets. On those occasions Sammy Herkimer was fishing off the dock, Hop was forced to wait the old angler out, but for the most part he didn’t have to worry about being discovered.
At first Lucinda had been suspicious of his newfound interest in fishing, but since he never came back smelling of perfume or wearing another woman’s shade of lipstick on his collar, she eventually accepted his pastime as genuine. Of course, Lucinda had no way of knowing about the Folgers can full of old gold and silver coins he had stashed out in the garage, or of the bag of gold door-knobs hidden in the woodpile behind the house. Hop didn’t see any need to tell her about his new-found wealth because that would lead to her asking him where he got it from, and then where would he be?
Mister October - Volume Two Page 20