THE NARROWS

BY MORNING, Haddon had become a trace more possible in his comportment. He did not need to speak to Joslin further about the joining of forces up the river, for the latter had his own supplies at the landing early, ready for the embarkation, and had arranged to send down for his own boat at a later time. They set about their journey in Haddon’s boat, as being more commodious and faster. It did fairly well, the out-board motor chugging along around bend after bend of the ancient river, awakening echoes whose like had never before that time been known in these hills where oar and paddle and sweep had served immemorially.

At noon they ate their luncheon on a shaded bank—not too happy a company, for Haddon was strangely silent, his wife not less so, and Joslin himself, always taciturn, found no reason for speech. As they re-embarked Haddon did make some inquiry as to the length and character of the remaining way.

“By and by, in four or five miles,” answered Joslin civilly, “we’ll come to the foot of the Narrows. I reckon we’ll have to drag the boat up through the Narrows. Between here and there we’ll have trouble—the water shoals out in a good many places.”

This last was fair prophecy, as they were to find. It never occurred to Haddon that he could go overboard and help in the progress of the boat when it grounded. Joslin stepped out as he was, took the painter of the boat across his shoulder, and, bent forward like any beast of burden, waded on, dragging the heavy craft behind him. Marcia Haddon sat watching all this, looking from the one man to the other. The patience of the poor man, the carelessness of the rich man—these things indeed came to her soul in the nature of a comparison. At length Haddon had the bad taste and bad judgment to complain querulously about the slowness of their progress.

“Damn it, man, is that as fast as you can go?” he exclaimed, perhaps having in mind earlier experiences with half-breed guides in tourist countries.

Joslin made no immediate reply, but stood rigid for a time, very pale. At length, the painter of the boat still in his hand, he waded back alongside the boat and looked the other man in the face, his own eyes glowing.

“Mr. Haddon,” said he, “get out here in the water. If we both pull on the line, we can get this lady up there a good deal faster.”

And Haddon, being wise, got out, accoutered as he was. Joslin, somber, taciturn, did not speak to him at all for a half-hour or more.

At length they came, with an hour or so yet of daylight, to the foot of the great pool which lay below the Narrows.

“Here’s where we’ll have to be careful,” said Joslin now, as rounding the bend they caught the full roar of the waters which had assailed their ears for so long. Before them lay a deep black pool with a high ridge of white running down the middle. Above the pool a transverse bar of white entirely crossed the river, here pinched down between two rock walls. The stream plunged across a broken reef, dropping some feet in a wide cascade. On either side were flat ledges of rock now exposed above the water. Obviously, it was the intention of Joslin to walk alongside and drag up the boat close to the shore.

“How far is it on from here?” demanded Haddon, sullenly. “It’s one hell of a looking spot, ain’t it, you’ve brought us to—black already as though it was night! I never did like water anyway.”

“There’s a short cut across the hills from here to town—only a few miles,” Joslin answered quietly. “We can make good time once we get above here.”

“It’s a mighty bad-looking place,” grumbled Haddon. “I don’t like the looks of it at all. How are you ever going to get up through there?”

“It’s easy,” said Joslin. “I’ve been through a thousand times, I reckon. I’ll take care of you, so don’t be afraid. Now, when I run alongside the ledge yonder, Mrs. Haddon, you climb on out the best you can.”

She did so quickly and lightly. Haddon clumsily scrambled out on his knees, red of face, still grumbling, irritable.

They stood now on a flat ledge of the sandstone which made a fair footway, broken here and there with steps as one eroded stratum after another dropped down. The river itself had cut through the entire ledge in the course of ages, and made a plunge, as has been stated, of many feet. From their new place of vantage they could see the full height of what the mountaineers called the “king breaker” of the Narrows—a white crest of up-flung water which rolled back toward the foot of the cascade before it was caught in the downward pull of the current. The roar of the water was now full in their ears. The spot was gloomy, oppressive.

“I wish it wasn’t so dark!” said Marcia Haddon, huddling her arms to her. She scarce had spoken for an hour before. “It’s growing colder, too.”

“We’ll not be long, Ma’am,” said Joslin. “Don’t be afraid at all. Just walk on up, and I’ll get the boat up a little way.”

“Wait a minute,” said Haddon. “It’s late, but I just want to try to make a picture here—I want to show the boys what sort of a place this is that they’ve sent me to—I’ve left my camera on the boat seat. I’ll have a try at it anyhow.”

As Joslin now paused, bracing back on the painter of the heavy skiff, it was caught by a strong side current where the stream was flung back from its impact against the rocky bank—a current which ran out, headed almost midstream, toward the main break of the big wave. The boat, held thus strongly, had no great bearing on the water at its bow, but Haddon, unaccustomed to such matters, forgot that, or did not know it. Before Joslin could stop him he was clumsily bending over as though to climb once more into the boat, tugging at the gunwale to pull it closer to him.

It was then, in some way—no one could tell how—that his foot stumbled and caught at a ledge of the rock. He pitched forward into the unstable portion of the boat, stumbled, and, as the wash of the water came in-board, went over, still under the impetus of his fall, and sank, directly into the outflung current. It all had happened in an instant, nor could mortal man have prevented it.

Marcia Haddon for just half a moment saw the upturned face of her husband as it disappeared, a face on which horror was written—unspeakable and unforgettable horror. The next instant he was gone—he was under.

“Quick!” called Joslin sharply to Marcia Haddon, and cast her the rope. “Make it fast over something.”

But he did not stop to see whether or not her weak strength would serve to hold the boat. He was kicking off his shoes, throwing off his coat, even as he spoke, his eyes fixed on the water, as he made ready for a leap few men would have dared.

A hat floated, far below. But nothing else showed—neither here in the eddy, nor yonder in the side current, nor in the great pool below. Haddon had gone deep in his fall, he might have been carried out somewhere midstream, but why did he not show on the surface somewhere in all this time?

All the time he called back over his shoulder reassuringly to Marcia Haddon, but he could not see what she was doing—only he waited, eyes outward, straining, to find some object on the waters—some object now so fatally long delayed. But nothing showed. At length, hesitating no longer, he did what no man ever had been known to do before. He dived straight out for the foot of the up-flung crest of the Narrows of the Kentucky—straight down under the roll of the “king breaker” itself.

Joslin before now had seen a log roll about here for hours in the clutch of the back-turned wave, tossing up and down until at length some freak of the current set it free. He fancied that perhaps Haddon might be caught in something of the same way. It was one chance in ten thousand for him now, one in hundreds for the man who was giving him that chance. Would he win?

A myriad of blue-white bubbles made a veil across the current down in below, and he saw this vaguely, although the sun was so low that the water was lighted but ill at this hour. The yeast of the water did not hold him up well—he sunk deeper, still deeper, he knew not how far down. Blindly his arms reached out, feeling every way. They touched nothing—the thin, oxygenated fluid hardly could be felt at all. He rose, swam on across the stream, on, out, indeed, he knew not where. He rose just beyond the foot of the main chute, having been down longer than he dreamed a man might stay and live.

But when he found himself still able to swim and still able to see, when he had flung the water from his eyes, he still saw nothing near him, nothing on the black pool. He was alone. He could hear the cries of a woman. He could not go back. It was all he could do to reach the further shore.

He landed well toward the foot of the pool, with difficulty pulling himself out upon the ledge there. But as he turned once more, nothing but the black and the white water met his gaze. James Haddon was gone. Where?

He dared not now look across to the woman whom he saw wringing her hands. He ran to the head of the pool, toward the flat rock where lay some charred embers of many earlier fires. Eagerly, intently, he looked out and down upon the water for some sign of what he sought.

There was some sort of sign! Deep below the surface, it seemed to him he saw some long dark object, floating, swinging, rising and falling, but not going down on the current. It hung as though held. Was it some log? Joslin knew it could not be.

Drawing his breath in deep and full, he sprang again far out, feeling with his arms, with his feet, but at first touching nothing. Suddenly, just inside the ridge of white water, there came up against his body from below a heavy blow, as from some object flung upward by a giant hand.

It was the body of James Haddon, swaying there. It was swaying strangely, for some unknown reason. It was James Haddon’s free hand had smitten Joslin in the face as though contemptuous of him even now.

But Joslin caught at the hand, tugged at it. The body would not give—it swayed in the current, but it still was held!

Joslin knew now what it meant. Slowly, gasping, he turned once more to his side of the river, and once more climbed out upon the ledge. He was growing weaker, but there was yet much to be done. He dared not look across the river now. In truth, Marcia Haddon’s face most of the time was buried in her hands—only she raised it once in a while to see what new terror was here for her.

She saw this strange man, apparently insane, on the farther side of the river, once more pull himself up on the ledge, once more run up to the head of the pool, once more stand there, at the edge, hesitating.

But Joslin was hesitating only to summon up his powers once more. When he dived this time, the open blade of his pocket knife was in his teeth. He swam out again, and she saw him working part of the time above, part of the time below the water, the dark outline of his own body now and again flung out, visible above the course of the white water which ridged down into the dark pool.

At last she saw his head turn. He followed something, apparently, down through the fast water, down into the black, down to the foot of the pool. She guessed what it must be.

Joslin had known what held the body of James Haddon fast. Carried deep down outward by the side current, Haddon had felt something floating down there, had caught at it—a thing no larger than the straw at which a drowning man will clutch. It was no larger than a straw—the thick cord of a fisherman’s heavy set-line, armed with hooks depending on short lines—two score hooks or more, each of them a man-trap in such waters. As he had grasped at this line the current had carried him on down. The first hook had impaled him, passing entirely through the palm of his hand. He swung without any possibility of escape. Below him somewhere two or more heavy catfish were tugging at the line, themselves impaled without hope of escape.

All these things had caused what Joslin had seen—the strange swaying of the man’s body back and forth there below the surface.

And Joslin knew by the time the body had reached the foot of the pool, by the time he had cut loose the remaining line and dragged the body up on the beach below, that all hope was long since gone for James Haddon.

Weakly now and inefficiently he did what he could to try to revive life in the victim, but the bluish-purple face, the wide-open mouth, the staring eyes, told him well enough the truth.

Joslin rose after a time. The woman was standing there still, her hands at the side of her face, staring. He knew that she must know.

The boat was gone. Joslin looked down the stream. He saw it on his side of the river, by freak of the stream grounded on the bar which made out from the point. He hastened to the boat, waded out, caught it, and with the oars by chance left in the boat made his way upstream to the foot of the pool. With difficulty he got into the bottom of the boat the heavy body of the dead man.

He did not speak at all when at length the boat lay once more along shore on the left-hand bank, below the flat ledge on which Marcia Haddon stood. He caught the painter now around the stump of a gnarled cedar near the edge, and so turned toward her at last, facing the hardest of all this grievous task.

She stepped slowly, horror-smitten, toward the brink, her hands at her temples. Joslin held her by the arm as she looked down into the swaying boat. The face of her husband stared up at her—bluish-white, the thickened lips open, the eyes staring.

“You must go away,” said Joslin at last.—“Go over there in the brush and sit down. I’ll have to drop the boat down.”

He did drop it down to a point where the ledge dipped so that he could make some sort of landing. Slowly, with very much difficulty, he managed to disembark the ghastly cargo. Able to do no more, he literally dragged the body of James Haddon out and let it lie upon the sand at the edge of a thicket. But she had followed him and looked down speechless as she knelt now, her hands still at her face, her head shaking from side to side.

“Jim! Jim!” she whispered. “Oh! Oh!”

“I feel as though it had been my fault,” broke out Joslin. “I put out that set-line myself when I came through yesterday. We fish there for catfish all the time—they run in that deep water out there. He must have got fouled in the line somewhere when he got in. My God!—I feel as though I had killed him myself.”