Holme sat and crossed the boots before him. He plucked a grass stem and fashioned a loop in one end. It was growing dark rapidly. The river hissing blackly past the landing seemed endowed with heavy reptilian life.
She's still risin, the ferryman said
Yes.
Say you just goin thew Morgan?
I don't know, Holme said. They any work there?
The ferryman spat and wiped his mouth on his knee. What sort of work? he said.
I don't know, Holme said. He knotted the stem and snapped it. I ain't choicey.
You ain't got nary trade?
No.
I don't know. Might find somethin. Nice enough little old town, Morgan.
Is that your home?
Yep. Borned and raised there. My daddy built this here ferry. I guess you come from over in Clayton County.
No, Holme said.
He could no longer see the ferryman's face and the ferryman didn't say anything for a while. With the dark the river grew louder and Holme wondered if the water was rising or if it was just the dark.
She runs just on the current I reckon you noticed, the ferryman said.
What?
I said she runs on the current if you've not seen such a ferry afore.
No, Holme said. I ain't.
I allowed maybe you'd not. What you do is you snug up the front and let out the back on a loose line so she noses upriver and the water just pushes her right acrost. Then when ye want to come back you just loose up the snug end and snug up the loose and here she comes.
You don't have to swap ends?
Nope. They both the same. You just change your lines thataway and here she comes.
That's pretty slick, Holme said.
Yes tis. Don't cost nary cent neither.
Did your daddy think it up?
Naw. Folks say he done but he never. He seen one like it somewheres.
It's pretty slick.
Yep. Just change them lines is all they is to it. If you was to set em both the same you wouldn't go nowheres.
No.
Might bust the cable.
Yes.
The ferryman sat down from off his haunches and stretched his feet in the grass. Cable busted once and killed a horse. They said they was a man holdin it and it knocked the horse plumb in the river and left him standin there holdin the reins.
He was lucky, Holme said.
The ferryman nodded. Yes, he said. It wasn't even his horse.
I wish one would come on now, Holme said. I'm gettin cool.
We don't get somebody directly we might ort to have a fire.
I doubt they be much dry wood about.
Well, maybe somebody be along directly.
Yes.
If it was saturday they'd be here. It's a sight in the world the traffic I get on a saturday.
What day is it? Holme said.
I don't know, the ferryman said. It ain't saturday.
They sat in the grass and watched the river run in the dark as if something were expected there. Yes, said the ferryman. She is risin.
Been a sight of rain up here too I reckon.
Yes. Risky to run at night when she's high thataway. Easy to get stove with a tree or somethin.
I guess it would, Holme said.
She scoots acrost like a striped-assed ape when the river's up.
I guess it's up pretty high now.
Yes. Hush a minute.
Holme listened.
The ferryman rose. Here we go, he said.
Is they someone comin?
Listen.
He listened. When the horse came out on the hard ground of the bluff above the river he could hear its hoofs clatter dead along the road, a sound moving sourceless through the dark, no silhouette among the sparse trees of the ridge, no horseman against the night sky. The ferryman had gone to the barge and was making ready to cast off. The rider above them faded out of hearing and Holme knew that he was coming down the road toward the river in the soft mud and after a while he could hear the chink of the horse's trappings and the animal's windy breathing in the dark and then they came out on the landing, visible against the river, the rider leading the horse. He could hear the ferryman say something and the rider said no, and the ferryman said something else and the rider said no again. You've got another fare there.
Holme rose and stretched and made his way across the mud to the ferry. The rider was leading the horse aboard, the horse with knees high and head jerking up nervously and its hoofs clopping woodenly on the ferry deck until the man got him forward and tethered. Holme boarded and got his dime out and handed it to the ferryman. The ferryman nodded and swung his rope and made it fast and the boat began to quiver and to move very slowly out, the eyerings riding on the cable overhead with a rasping sound and water beginning to boil against the hull. The river was dark and oily and it tended away into nothing, no shoreline, the sky grading into a black wash little lighter than the water about them so that they seemed to hang in some great depth of darkness like spiders in a well.
Holme had taken a seat on a bench that ran under the gunwale at the rear of the barge. He reached down and trailed one hand for a moment palmdown in the cold water as if to check his balance. The ferryman was standing riskily on the afterdeck adjusting the ropes. They had begun to move very fast and the water against the upriver hull was raging and he could feel the ferry shuddering under him.
She goes right along, don't she, he called to the ferryman above the howling water, but the ferryman was busy at his ropes, his mariner's cap skewed on his head, watching upward at the cable beneath which they ran and where the rings were now screeching in a demented fiddlenote. At the front of the boat the horse snorted and nickered and clapped one hoof on the boards. When Holme looked back to the ferryman again he appeared to be dancing among his ropes and Holme could hear him swearing steadily. He stood up. They seemed to be in high wind and water was blowing over the deck. The river was breaking violently on the canted flank of the boat, a perpetual oncussion of black surf that rode higher until it began to override the rail and fall aboard with great slapping sounds. Holme could no longer hear the ferryman. They were careening through the night wildly. The ferryman leaped to the deck and ran forward. The horse stamped and sidled. The ferryman sprang at the forward ropes. Water was now pouring across the rail and Holme had jumped to the rear capstan where he balanced as best he could and looked about him in wonder. They appeared to be racing sideways upriver against the current. The barge shuddered heavily and a sheet of water came rearward and circled the capstan and fanned with a thin hiss. Then there was a loud explosion and something passed above their heads screaming and then there was silence. The ferry lurched and came about and the wall of water receded and they were drifting in windless calm and total dark.
Holme splashed forward. There was no sound. Ho, he called. He could see nothing. He felt his way along the gunwale. Something reared up out of the dark before him with a strangled cry and he fell to the deck, scrabbling backwards as the hoofs sliced past him and burst against the planking. He clambered crabwise back along the deck, wet now and very cold. Ho there, he called. Nothing answered. It's tied, he said. But it wasn't tied. When he crossed to the other side he heard it go down the deck and whinny and crash and then he heard it coming back. His eyeballs ached. He dropped to the deck and crawled beneath the rail, up in the scuppers, and the horse pounded past and crashed in the bow. He pulled himself up and started for the rear of the barge and then he heard it coming again. He clawed at the darkness before him, cursing, throwing himself to the deck again while the horse went past with a sound like pistolfire. He waited, his cheek against the cold wood. The barge drifted, swung slowly about, trembling. A race of water wandered over the deck, ran coldly upon him, in his shirt and down his boots and receded again. He could not hear the horse. He could hear the sandy seething of the river beneath him. After a while he rose and started back up the deck. A black fog had set in and he could feel it needling
on his face and against his blind eyeballs. When the horse came at him the third time he flattened himself half crazed against the forward bulkhead and howled at it. The horse reared before him black and screaming, the hoofs exploding on the planks. He could smell it. It yawned past him and crashed and screamed again and there was an enormous concussion of water and then nothing. As if all that fury had been swallowed up in the river traceless as fire. The barge rocked gently and ceased. Holme slid to the deck, gasping, his two fists together against his chest. He raised his head and listened to the silence. When he was sure it had gone he rose cautiously and made his way to the bow, unbalanced and staggering in such blackness. With his hands on the rails he leaned and looked down toward the water. The river mouthed the hull gently. After a minute he realized he was standing on something and he reached down to pick it up. It was a boot. He held it in his hands for a moment. Then he leaned and dropped it into the water. The boot tilted and filled and sank instantly as if a hand in the river had claimed it. He felt very cold.
He did not know what to do. He groped his way along to the benches and sat and hugged himself and rocked back and forth. He could hear the whisper of water going up and down over the deck. It sounded as if it were looking for him. After a while he cupped his hands and hallooed into the night. There was not even an echo. His voice fell from his mouth in a chopped bark and he did not call again. He wondered how far away the shore could be, and the dawn.
Once in the night they went through a shoal and he could hear the river going louder until it had risen to a babble and the ferry swung away in a sickening yaw and slid down some rocky flume, him sitting helpless and blind, clutching the bench, his stomach lapsing down black and ropy glides and the fog cold and wet upon him, praying silent and godless in his heart to the river to be easy. They came about in still water and went on. Much later the fog lifted. He rose and watched out over the river. He could see the face of it in sullen and threatful replication and after a while he could see a dark mullioned line of trees. He could not tell how fast they were going, he and this boat. He had not thought of them turning either, but now the gradied imprecision of the silhouetted trees swung slowly away into a colorless vapor and went behind him and crept forth again on the far side. And again. They had begun to move faster. When they swung a third time he began to think that they were closer to the trees and now too he could see the pale teeth of a rip in the river near the shore and he could hear it like the stammerings of the cloistered mad. Very soon after this he saw a light. It went away again before he could guess what kind of light it might be but he watched for it. The barge had swung twice more and now he was in eddy-water almost beneath the dark wall of trees. He could feel the slide and bump of debris on the hull, the dull grinding of a log sliding under. The light appeared again. A pin-flicker set in a glozed cup. He watched. It had begun to rain. He felt it very lightly on his arms and was surprised. He watched the light with his shoulderblades cocked against the chill and the rain falling upon him and soundlessly in the dark upon the peened and seething face of the river.
At first he thought it to be a cabin but it was not a cabin. It had no shape but what it took from breaking on the arch of trees above it and he knew that it was a campfire. The barge had slowed. Some trees passed across the front of the fire and he thought they were men and then a man did cross it, an upright shape that seemed to be convulsed there for a moment before going from sight like something that had incinerated itself. He was very close to the bank now but moving in a slick again and gaining speed.
Ho, he called.
He could see them move. He called again.
Who's there? a voice came back.
He already had a rope up from the bow and in his hand. Now as the barge slid past a last clump of trees there were three men standing on the bank of the river in the gentle rain with the fire behind them projecting their shapes outward into soaring darkness and with no dimension to them at all.
Catch a line, he called to them.
How many of ye is they?
Just me. Here. He couldn't see their faces. He was moving before them and before the light like someone in a stageprop being towed from wing to wing.
You want me to shoot him? a voice said.
Shut up. Thow the line, mister.
He held the line. He was trying to see them but they were only silhouettes. Then the boat began to turn and he could hear the sound of the river again and he threw the line. It uncoiled across the water with a hiss and he could see one of the men move and squat and rise again.
You got it? he called.
Hitch it, one said.
He had swung past them now and no longer could see them at all. He heard the rope saw along the gunwale and tauten and there was a creaking sound as the ferry hove about and he took two little steps to recover his balance. Some tree branches scratched along the hull and broke and came aboard. Then he was ashore, staving off brush with his arms and making his way through the woods toward the light.
When he entered the little clearing there were only two of them standing there. One was holding a rifle loosely in one hand and picking his teeth. The other stood with long arms dangling at his sides, slightly stooped, his jaw hanging and mouth agape in a slavering smile. The one with the rifle dropped his hand for a moment as if he might be going to speak, but he didn't.
I was on the ferry and it busted loose, Holme said. That's it yander. He pointed vaguely to the darkness. Neither of them looked. They were watching Holme.
You wouldn't care for me to dry a little in front of your fire would ye? I'd be proud to tote wood.
Neither of them spoke. Holme looked about him. The third one was standing just in the rim of light to his left, watching him. He was dressed in a dark and shapeless suit that could not have buttoned across his chest and he wore a shirt with some kerchief or rag knotted at the neck. His face scowled redly out of a great black beard. He jerked his head at Holme. Come up to the fire, he said.
Thank ye, Holme said. I'm wet plumb thew and might near froze to boot.
The other two turned slightly to follow him with their eyes, a predacious curiosity. Holme nodded to them as he passed but they gave no sign of having noticed this.
Set down, the bearded one said, motioning with his hand.
Thank ye, Holme said. He squatted before the fire and extended his palms over it like some stormy and ruinous prophet. The small rain fell upon them silently and wet wood sang in the flames. The bearded one watched him.
That river sure is up, Holme said.
It is.
Ferryman went overboard.
What ferryman?
Holme looked at him across the fire. The ferryman, he said. The one that was runnin that there ferry.
You ain't the ferryman.
No. I was just crossin the river. We never made it. They was another feller on a horse and I reckon it got him too.
The bearded one was leaning forward with interest. Ah, he said. You ain't the ferryman.
No, Holme said. It knocked him plumb out of his boots. That cable did when it busted. Sounded like a cannonload of cats goin by.
Well now, the bearded one said. I allowed you was the ferryman.
No, Holme said. It was like I told ye.
The bearded one was watching him very intently. He looked down at the fire. On a rock was a pan of black and mummified meat. He watched the fire and rubbed his hands together. The other two men had come up and were squatting half in darkness watching him. The bearded one looked toward them and Holme looked at the pan of meat again.
Help yourself to some meat there if you're hungry, the man said.
Holme swallowed and glanced at him again. In the up-slant of light his beard shone and his mouth was red, and his eyes were shadowed lunettes with nothing there at all.
What kind is it?
The man didn't answer.
Holme looked to the fire. I really ain't a bit hungry, he said, but I'd admire to dry this here shirt if you don't care. br />
The man nodded.
He started to pull the wet shirt off and as he jerked his arms forward he felt the cloth part soundlessly down the back. He stopped and reached behind him gingerly.
Looks like you about out of a shirt, the man said.
Yes, he said. He peeled the shirt from him and looked at it, holding it up before the fire.
You ain't et, the man said.
Holme's stomach turned coldly.
Ain't no need to be backards about it. Get all ye want. We've done et.
He laid the shirt across his knees, reached gingerly and took a piece of the blackened meat from the pan and bit into it. It had the consistency of whang, was dusted with ash, tasted of sulphur. He tore off a bite and began chewing, his jaws working in a hopeless circular motion.
The bearded one nodded. And a rider, he said.
A what? Holme said.
A rider.
Yes.
Ah, he said.
Old crazy horse like to of killed me, Holme said. Whatever it was had swollen in his mouth and taken on a pulpy feel warped and run with unassailable fibers. He chewed.
Where was it you was headed? the man said.
He worked the clot of meat into one cheek. I was just crossin the river, he said. I wasn't headed no place special.
No place special.
No.
Ah, the man said.
Holme chewed. I don't believe I ever et no meat of this kind, he said.
I ain't sure I ever did either, the man said.
He stopped. You ain't et none of this? he said.
The man didn't answer for a minute. Then he said: They's different kinds.
Oh, Holme said.
The one with the rifle across his squatting thighs giggled. Ain't they, he said. Shitepoke, pole ...
The bearded one didn't say anything. He just looked at him and he hushed.
Ain't no such a thing, he said. Don't pay him no mind, mister. Pull in a little closter there. You Harmon, get some wood.
The one with the rifle rose and handed it to the one who had not spoken and disappeared.
I'd be proud to help fetch some wood, Holme said.
You just set, the man said. You don't need to worry about it.
He chewed.
That is a jimdandy pair of boots you got there, the man said.
Holme looked at the boots. He had sat and they were stretched sideways along the fire, one crossed over the other. They all right, he said.