Rainbow Landing: An Adventure Story

by Frank Lillie Pollock

“Seems like they’ve got a heap of freight to——”

Lockwood never heard the rest of that sentence. For a moment the whole wild scene reeled around him; he turned deaf and dizzy; he felt for an instant as if he had been suddenly dipped in ice water, and then his blood rushed flaming hot.

He had not heard that voice for over five years, but he knew its first word. It had come—the meeting he had pursued for four years, through unimaginable discouragements and hardships and distress. Through sleepless nights he had imagined it a thousand times, but he had never expected it to come like this; and now at the crisis he was astonished to find that he felt no fury of hatred, but only a dead stupefaction.

He collected himself, muttered some answer. He ventured a glance, and met the man’s eye. It was McGibbon, right enough, and not greatly changed; his eye rested casually on Lockwood, and then shifted back to the landing. Lockwood was not himself afraid of recognition; for years he had guarded against that danger, and those years had changed him greatly.

It flashed upon him that McGibbon must have been the unseen passenger in the next cabin, since he had not been visible on the boat before. No wonder Lockwood had been sensible of something ominous in the air! Evidently McGibbon was going ashore here as soon as the gangplanks were cleared of freight, for the two suit cases stood beside him, and the deck steward was hovering about, fearful of losing his tip.

Had it not been for this negro, Lockwood could have shot the man unseen, as they stood there. His hand unconsciously crept toward the little automatic that he had carried for years, awaiting this day. He could slip ashore in the darkness, hide in the swamps, reach the railroad. But the steward loitered behind them, and Lockwood waited, his head still awhirl, for the situation to develop itself.

McGibbon said nothing more, and in a few minutes he beckoned to the negro and they started down the stairs to the lower deck. Lockwood saw him come out on the gangplank, make his way between the roustabouts, pass into the dark warehouses at the other end. With a shock Lockwood realized that he had let his opportunity pass. In a panic he plunged back to his cabin, snatched up his own suit case and dashed out, and down to the lower deck.

“Hol’ on, captain! Dis yere ain’t whar you gits off!” the porter cried as he headed for the plank; but Lockwood brushed past, through roustabouts, and into the warehouse. It was dimly lighted by a couple of lanterns, showing the piled freight, the sacks of oats and cottonseed and fertilizer, the crates and barrels and cases. But McGibbon was not there.

There was an open door at the other end. He set down his suit case and hastened toward it. Outside was the flat, sandy shore space, backed by the woods and the rainbow-colored hill. A road led slantingly up the bluff. He saw a lantern swinging in the distance, and still farther was a white glare that could be nothing but the lights of a motor car on the higher ground.

He was furious with himself now for his delay. He had never dreamed that he was going to flinch at the critical moment. With the pistol in his hand he rushed madly out of the circle of the searchlight and toward the landward road. But he was too late once more. He heard a sound of loud talking, then the car started with an enormous roar, broke into what seemed sudden, reckless speed, and its lights vanished into the encircling woods.