Rainbow Landing: An Adventure Story

by Frank Lillie Pollock

During those first days he did not leave the turpentine tract, and he saw nothing of either Hanna or the Power boys. He heard a good deal of them, however. In the evening there was always a group of white men at the commissary store, employees of the camp, and occasional visitors from the neighborhood, and bits of gossip were continually dropped regarding these nouveaux riches of the woods. They were the chief objects of attention of the whole district, but it was an extremely friendly attention.

Nobody grudged them their good luck, though they told amused and admiring tales of the wild pace the boys seemed to be setting. The motor car had cost seven thousand dollars; cases of smuggled wine and liquor were coming in at two hundred dollars apiece—figures which Lockwood could only regard as wild exaggerations. Tom Power had driven the car to Flomaton, thirty-five miles over sandy roads, in less than an hour.

They talked of Hanna with less freedom, and he seemed less popular. Now and again Louise was mentioned, but it would have been beyond their code of courtesy to discuss her. They said she was “a mighty sweet girl,” and let it go at that.

Lockwood heard curious and amusing tales of the swamp country at these gatherings, of flooded rivers and hurricanes, of bears and alligators, of extraordinary snake superstitions, and shootings and outlaw negroes and river pirates. There was a continued talk of the river, which, though deposed from its old importance, yet loomed as the chief physical fact of the district. It rose or fell with amazing rapidity; it flooded the bottom-land cotton; it floated rafts of pine down to Mobile; no one could talk of that part of Alabama without speaking of the river and of the men who used it.

Among these last, Lockwood heard frequent mention of the house boat he had seen moored at the shore. It had moved now and lay at the mouth of the great bayou that bordered the turpentine tract, crossing the road and passing directly behind Power’s house. The boat belonged to “Blue Bob’s gang,” Lockwood heard—a crew that seemed to have made a reputation for themselves all along the river. They were river thieves, it appeared, and were said to drive a considerable trade, mainly among the negroes, in “shinney.” This is a powerful beverage usually distilled from the refuse of cane sirup-making, by means of a couple of empty gasoline tins and a few feet of rubber tubing. Craig did not care to have such an establishment camped so close to his business, for shinney and the turpentine negro make an entirely uncontrollable combination.

He had threatened several times to “run off” these undesirable vagrants, but the Power boys had spoken in their behalf. Lockwood gathered that in the old days the Power family had not been very much better than the house boat people themselves; and they were generous enough to remember their former associates of poverty.

Lockwood followed the course of this bayou every day on his rounds, and only a couple of days later he heard the muffled thud-thud of a motor engine. His first impression was that the house boat was coming up, but the noise came on far too fast for that clumsy craft. He edged his horse behind a titi thicket, and in a moment saw a motor boat come round a swampy curve of the waterway and recognized the figures in it as Hanna and Louise Power.

The girl was at the wheel, and Hanna appeared to be giving her a lesson in navigating the boat. She steered crookedly and uncertainly. Hanna had his face at her shoulder, and seemed to be talking fluently. Lockwood thought that Louise looked uneasy and nervous, as if she were having difficulty with the mechanism. He tried again to remember where he had seen that face, certainly pretty enough to be recollected, and just opposite him the engine stopped.

The boat drifted a little, while Hanna tried to start it. Then the propeller swished, and the boat got under way again, moving slowly past him for thirty yards, and sheering in toward shore where the bank was low and dry enough to land. Hanna got out and held out his hand. Miss Power shook her head. Lockwood could not hear what was said, but the next moment the engine broke into faster explosions, the boat backed off and came flying down the bayou again, leaving Hanna ashore.

Hanna shouted something laughingly and expostulatingly after her, but she paid no attention. The boat drove past Lockwood, sending a great wash of waves up the clay bank, and disappeared around the curve.