The River Is Home. Patrick D. Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t you pay no mind to what Skeeter says, you hear? He’s lible to come home one day sayin’ he seed two bull ’gators doin’ a dance in the top of a cypress tree.”

      “Jest the same, Pa,” Theresa said, “hit shore would scare me if’n I was to see somethin’ like that. That dern Skeeter jest ain’t skeered of nothin’, and I onced seen him ketch a live snake with his hands and pop its head clear off its body. Whut makes you so skeered of snakes, Pa?”

      “Now you shet up and go tell them two boys to come here and help me git these traps in the boat. If’n we don’t get ’em out soon, hit’s goin’ to be too dark. And I jest got a feelin’ that them big ole catfish is goin’ to be on a party tonight.”

      Theresa jumped up and ran to the room where Jeff and Skeeter were throwing the knives and said: “Pa said fer you two to git them traps in the boat so’es you can git ’em out afore it gits dark. You know Pa don’t like to be on the river at night with them steamboat fellers runnin’ over everything that gits in the way.”

      “Who’s afraid of ’em?” Jeff said. “Skeeter, throw yore knife through her big ole toes.”

      Skeeter rose, drew back the blade, and before Theresa could run, the knife went slicing through the air and buried itself in the floor between her toes. “Oh my gosh, Pa,” wailed Theresa, “Skeeter is in here tryin’ to split my feet in half with his knife.”

      The boys jumped up and followed Theresa to the porch where Pa was sitting. Jeff said, “Dern fool! You ain’t got no cause to go around the house bellowin’ like that. I’ve seed Skeeter shave the whiskers off a tick’s face at ten feet with that knife. You know dern well he don’t never miss whut he aims at.”

      “Yeh, but they’re always a fust time for everthing,” said Theresa. “So jest you don’t be doin’ that no more.”

      “You dad-burned kids would make a hog’s jaw bust carryin’ on the way you do,” said Pa. “Now git them traps on out there in the boat and let’s git goin’. Theresa, you tell yore Ma to git up off that floor and hoe the garden like I tole her to. And you better help her, too.” Pa and the boys loaded the traps in the boat and shoved off down the bayou toward the river. They had about two miles to row before they got to the place where they were to set the traps. They did not put them in the river where it was deep but set them in little coves and branches running into the river. They set their trotline in the river and ran it along logs or sunk it deep into the water by putting heavy iron weights on the line. Pa was in the rear of the boat, and the boys sat in the middle and rowed.

      They passed through the area of flat marsh grass and into the dense vegetation of the river bank. The entrance of the bayou into the river was so thick with cypress and magnolias that a person not familiar with it could pass right by, without knowing it. Pa said that was a good thing because it would keep the river folks and the sporting men from Fort Henry from messing around their place. The water, where the bayou met the river, looked like a pot of boiling mud. The Coreys could never remember the river when it wasn’t muddy, but the bayou was always clear. Pa believed the big gar fighting on the river bottom kept the mud stirred up all the time.

      When they reached the river, Jeff and Skeeter had to put all the strength they had into rowing the boat upstream. The river was always swift; even in the summer when there was not much rain and the water was low, it was full of trick currents and whirlpools. They had once seen a big log go down in the middle of the river and shoot high into the air a hundred yards from where it went under. Sometimes the channel would change overnight, and the steamboats would run aground and have to be pulled out of the mud.

      About a mile above the Corey bayou, the river made a big turn and cut to the west for a few miles. This was known as West Cut. Along the turn there were several coves and creeks running into the river. When they reached the turn, they cut into an almost hidden cove along the west bank. This cove was Pa Corey’s favorite place for placing his fish traps. The big cats and buffalo would come into the cove at night to feed on the smaller fish and swim into his cone-shaped traps. He had caught as much as two hundred pounds of fish in one night here.

      After they had carefully laid the traps and tied the trap lines to stobs, they cut back into the river to see about their trotline. When they came to the line, the boys headed the boat downstream so Pa could work it from the back of the boat. The hooks were baited with big chunks of squirrel and rabbit meat, and Pa had several piles of the cut meat in the boat to bait the hooks that were empty. About halfway down the line he jumped up and started shouting wildly: “Gol dern sons of bitches! Why can’t the dirty devils let a feller make a livin’ in peace?”

      “Whut’s the matter, Pa?” asked Jeff.

      “Matter!” cried Pa. “Look at this! A dern catfish head without no body. That cat woulda weighed at least twenty pounds. Hit’s the dad-nabbed turtles did it. If’n it ain’t them thievin’ devils, hit’s the blame gar tearin’ up the traps and nets. They ought to be some way to outdo these critters.”

      “I knows a old nigger down at Mill Town that could fix it so the gar and turtle wouldn’t mess around with no fish lines,” said Skeeter. “He done learned to mix up some potion you kin rub on the lines that makes them critters turn their tails and run. Let’s see whut he kin do next week, Pa.”

      “We’ll shore have to do somethin’, Skeeter,” said Pa, “or hit won’t be wuthwhile to even fish in this muddy ole river.”

      “Pa,” said Jeff, “hit’s goin’ to be dark pretty soon and it’s jest about time fer that steamboat to come round the bend. You better hurry up or we all lible to be swimmin’ home stead of ridin’ in this here boat.”

      “You mighty right,” said Skeeter. “You shore better git done with them lines, Pa, afore that steamboat feller gits here.”

      Pa Corey finished baiting the last hook, and they turned the bow of the boat downstream towards home. The last rays of light were fading through the tall cypress trees, when they reached the mouth of the bayou that led to their home. About halfway through the marsh flats, they heard a loud blast and saw fire and smoke belch above the treetops.

      “Jest listen to that feller sound off,” said Pa. “You would think the idiot owns the river the way he tries to blow the tops off all the trees.”

      The steamboat men did not like the people who lived along the banks of the river and in the swamps. They felt that the families, like the Coreys, who made their living along the river were always getting in their way and slowing down their speed. Sometimes the boatmen would purposely go close to the bank and run through trotlines just to get rid of them, and when they caught the swampmen on the river with their small boats, they would try to sink them with their wake. Once, below Mill Town, a swampman had shot a deck hand on a boat when they passed and tried to sink him, and the people in Mill Town had lynched the man without giving him a trial. The townspeople and the men on the river boats called the Coreys and their kind swamp rats, and said they were no better than the vultures living along the river banks. There was no law to protect the swamp rats, so they preferred to stay to themselves and avoid trouble as much as possible.

      By the time the Coreys had put the few cats they had caught into the fish box and secured it in the bayou, Ma Corey was calling them to supper. Jeff took a bucket from the rear of the house, went to the bayou to bring in water for washing the dishes, and Pa and Skeeter went in search of wood, to keep the fire going through the night. The fire at night was their only protection against the mosquitoes, which were especially bad in the spring of the year. It was dark by the time all three got back to the house, and, СКАЧАТЬ