Chapter TWENTY-SIX: Custer's Idol Falls

Early that same night Mr. Shrimplin, taking Custer with him, had driven out into the country. Their destination was a spot far down the river where catfish were supposed to abound, for Izaak Walton's gentle art was the little lamplighter's favorite recreation. After leaving Mount Hope they jogged along the dusty country road for some two miles, then turning from it into a little-traveled lane they soon came out upon a great sweeping bend of the stream.

"I don't know about this, Custer," said Mr. Shrimplin, with a doubtful shake of the head, as he drew rein. "She's way up. I had no idea she was way up like this; I guess though we can't do no better than to chance it, catfish is a muddy-water fish, anyhow."

He tied wild Bill to a blasted sycamore, and then, while he cut poles from the willow bushes that grew along the bank, Custer built a huge bonfire, by the light of which they presently angled with varying fortunes.

"I reckon not many people but me knows about this fishing-hole!" said Shrimplin, as he cast his baited hook into the water.

"Where did you learn to fish?" asked Custer, thirsting for that wisdom his father was so ready to impart.

"I guess you'd call it a natural gift in my case, son," said the little lamplighter modestly. "I don't know as I deserve no credit; it's like playing the organ or walking on a tight rope, the instinct's got to be there or you'll only lay yourself open to ridicule."

But truth to tell, fishing was no very subtle art as practised by Mr. Shrimplin, he merely spat on his bait before he dropped it into the water. Even Custer knew that every intelligent fisherman did this, you couldn't reasonably hope to catch anything unless you did; yet there seemed to him, when he now thought of it, such a gap between cause and effect that he asked as he warily watched his cork:

"What good does it do to spit on your hook?"

"I've forgot the science of it, Custer," admitted his father after a moment's thought. "But I've always heard old fishermen say you couldn't catch nothing unless you did."

"Did you ever try to?"

"I can't say as I ever did. What would be the use when you know better?" said Mr. Shrimplin, who was strictly orthodox. His cork went under and he landed a flopping shiner on the bank; this he took from his hook and tossed back into the water. "It's a funny thing about shiners!" he said.

"What is?" inquired Custer.

"Why, you always catch 'em when you ain't fishing for 'em. You fish for catfish or sun-dabs, or bass even, if you're using worms, and you catch shiners; mainly, I suppose, because they are no manner of use to you. I reckon if you fished for shiners you wouldn't catch anything,--you couldn't--because there is no more worthless fish that swims! That's why fishing is like life; in fact, you can't do nothing that ain't like life; but I don't know but what catching shiners ain't just a little bit more like life than anything else! You think you're going to make a lot of money out of some job you've got, but it shaves itself down to half by the time it reaches you; or you've got to cough up double what you counted on when it's the other way about; so it works out the same always; you get soaked whether you buy or sell, from the cradle to the grave you're always catching shiners!" While Mr. Shrimplin was still philosophizing big drops of warm spring rain began to splash and patter on the long reach of still water before them. He scrambled to his feet. "We are going to have some weather, Custer!" he said, and they had scarcely time in which to drive Bill under the shelter of a disused hay barracks in an adjacent field, when the storm broke with all its fury. Here they spent the better part of an hour, and when at last the rain ceased they climbed into the cart and turned Bill's head in the direction of home.

"I hope, Custer, that your ma won't be scared; it's getting mighty late," said the senior Shrimplin, and he shook his head as if in pity of a human weakness which his mind grasped, though he could not share in it. "Seems to be that people give way more and more to their fear than they used to; or maybe it is that I ask too much, being naturally nervy myself and not having no nerves, as I may say."

Half an hour later, off in the distance, the lights of Mount Hope became visible to Custer and his father.

"I'd give a good deal for a glass of suds and a cracker right now!" said Mr. Shrimplin, speaking after a long silence. He tilted his head and took a comprehensive survey of the heavens. "Well, we're going to have a fine day for the hanging," he observed, with the manner of a connoisseur.

"Why won't they let no one see it?" demanded Custer.

"It's to be strictly private. I don't know but what that's best; it's some different though from the hangings I'm used to." And Mr. Shrimplin shook his head dubiously as if he wished Custer to understand that after all perhaps he was not so sure it was for the best.

"How were they different?" inquired Custer, sensible that his parent was falling into a reminiscent mood.

"Well, they were more gay for one thing; folks drove in from miles about and brought their lunches and et fried chicken. Sometimes there was hoss racing in the morning, and maybe a shooting scrape or two; fact is, we usually knowed who was to be the next to stretch hemp before the day was over,--it gave you something to look forward to! But pshaw! What can you expect here? Mount Hope ain't educated up to the sort of thing I'm used to! A feller gets his face punched down at Mike Lonigan's or out at the Dutchman's by the tracks, and the whole town talks of it, but no one ever draws a gun; the feller that gets his face punched spits out his teeth and goes on about his business, and that's the end of it except for the talk; but where I've been there'd be murder in about the time it takes to shift a quid!"

And Mr. Shrimplin shifted his own quid to illustrate the uncertainty of human life in those highly favored regions.

"Don't you suppose they'd let you into the jail yard to-morrow if you asked?" said Custer, to whom the hanging on the morrow was a matter of vital and very present interest.

"Well, son, I ain't _asked!_" rejoined the little lamplighter in a rather startled tone.

"Well, don't you think they'd ought to, seeing that you was one of the witnesses, and found old Mr. McBride before anybody else did?" persisted the boy.

"I won't say but what you might think they'd want me present; but Conklin ain't even suggested it, and if he don't think of it I can't say as I'll have any hard feelings," concluded Mr. Shrimplin magnanimously.

They were about to enter Mount Hope now; to their right they could distinguish the brick slaughter-house which stood on the river bank, and which served conveniently to mark the town's corporate limits on the east. The little lamplighter spoke persuasively to Bill, and the lateness of the hour together with the nearness to his own stable, conspired to make that sagacious beast shuffle forward over the stony road at a very respectable rate of speed. They were fairly abreast of the slaughter-house when Custer suddenly placed his hand on his father's arm.

"Hark!" said the boy.

Mr. Shrimplin drew rein.

"Well, what is it, Custer?" he asked, with all that bland indulgence of manner which was habitual to him in his intercourse with his son.

"Didn't you hear, it sounded like a cry!" said Custer, in an excited whisper.

And instantly a shiver traversed the region of Mr. Shrimplin's spine.

"I guess you was mistaken, son!" he answered rather nervously.

"No, don't you hear it--from down by the crick bank?" cried the boy in the same excited whisper. His father was conscious of the wish that he would select a more normal tone.

"There!" cried Custer.

As he spoke, a cry, faint and wavering, reached Mr. Shrimplin's ears.

"I do seem to hear something--" he admitted.

"What do you suppose it is?" asked the boy, peering off into the gloom.

"I don't know, Custer, and not wishing to be short with you, I don't care a damn!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin, endeavoring to meet the situation with an air of pleasant raillery.

He gathered up his lines as he spoke.

"Why, what are you thinking of?" demanded Custer.

"I was thinking of your ma, Custer!" faltered Mr. Shrimplin weakly. "We been gone longer than we said, it must be after eleven o'clock."

"There!" cried Custer again, as a feeble call for help floated up to them. "It's from down on the crick bank back of the slaughter-house!"

Mr. Shrimplin was knowing a terrible moment of doubt, especially terrible because the doubt was of himself. He was aware that Custer would expect much of him in the present crisis, and he was equally certain that he would not rise to the occasion. If somebody would only come that way! And he listened desperately for the sound of wheels on the road, but all he heard was that oft-repeated call for help that came wailing from the black shadows beyond the slaughter-house. Suddenly Custer answered the call with a reassuring cry.

"Perhaps it's another murder!" he said.

"Oh, my God!" gasped Shrimplin, and there flashed through his mind the horror of that other night.

Custer slipped out of the cart.

"Come on!" he cried.

He was vaguely conscious that his father was not seizing the present opportunity to distinguish himself with any noticeable avidity. He had expected to see that conqueror of bad men and cow-towns, the somewhat ruthless but always manful slayer of one-eye Murphy, descend from his cart with astonishing alacrity, and heedless in his tried courage stride down into the darkness beyond the slaughter-house. But Mr. Shrimplin did nothing of the sort, he made no move to quit his seat. Surely something had gone very wrong with the William Shrimplin of Custer's fancy, the young Bill Shrimplin of Texarcana and similar centers of crime and hardihood.

"Custer--" began Mr. Shrimplin, in a shaking voice. "I am wondering if it wouldn't be best to drive on into town and get a cop--Oh, my God, why don't you quit hollering!"

"Maybe they're killing him now!" cried Custer breathlessly.

He could not yet comprehend his father's attitude in the matter, he could only realize that for some wholly inexplicable reason he was falling far short of his ideal of him; he seemed utterly to have lost his eye for the spectacular possibilities of the moment. Why share the credit with a cop, why ask help of any one!

"You don't need no help, pa!" he said.

"Well, I don't know as I do," replied the little man, but he made no move to leave his cart, his fears glued him to the seat.

"Come on, then!" insisted Custer impatiently.

"Don't you feel afraid, son?" inquired Mr. Shrimplin, with marked solicitude.

"Not with you!"

"Well, I don't know as you need to!" admitted Shrimplin. "But I don't feel quite right--I reckon I feel sort of sick, Custer--sort of--"

"Oh, come on--hurry up!"

"I don't know but I ought to see a doctor first--" faltered Mr. Shrimplin in a hollow tone.

Misery of soul twisted his weak face pathetically.

"Why you act like you was _afraid!_" said Custer, with withering contempt.

His words cut the elder Shrimplin like a knife; but they did not move him from his seat in the cart.

"You bet I ain't afraid, Custer,--and that's no way for you to speak to your pa, anyhow!"

But what he had intended should be the note of authority was no more than a whine of injury.

"Then why don't you come if you ain't afraid?" insisted the boy angrily.

"I don't know as I rightly know _why_ I don't!" faltered Mr. Shrimplin. "I feel rotten bad all at once."

"You're a coward!" cried the boy in fierce scorn.

Sobs choked his further utterance while the hot tears blinded him on the instant. His idol had turned to clay in his very presence, and in the desolation of that moment he wished that he might be stricken with death, since life held nothing for him longer.

"Custer--" began Shrimplin.

"Why don't you be a man and go down there?" sobbed the boy.

"It's dangerous!" said Mr. Shrimplin.

"Then I'll go!" declared Custer resolutely.

"What--and leave me here alone?" cried the little lamplighter.

For answer Custer ran to the fence; his tears still blinded him and sobs wrenched his little body. Twice he slipped back as he essayed to climb, but a third attempt took him to the topmost rail of the rickety structure.

"Custer!" called his father.

But Custer persisted in the crime of disobedience. He slid down from the top rail and stood among the young pokeberry bushes and ragweed that luxuriated in the foulness of the slaughter-house yard. It was not an especially inviting spot even in broad day, as he knew. Now the moonlight showed him bleached animal bones and grinning animal skulls, while the damp weeds that clung about his bare legs suggested snakes.

"_Custer!_" cried Mr. Shrimplin again.

But it gained him no response from the boy, who disappeared from before his eyes without a single backward glance; whereat the little lamplighter cursed querulously in the fear-haunted solitude of the road.

Custer descended the steep bank that sloped down to the water's edge. His eyes were fixed on a dense growth of willows and sycamores that lined the shore; it was from a spot within their black shadows that the cries for help seemed to come. Presently he paused.

"Hullo!" he called, peering into the darkness ahead of him.

He listened intently, but this time his cry was unanswered; all he heard was the grunting of some pigs that fed among the offal. The boy shivered and his heart seemed to stop beating.

"Hullo!" he called once more.

"Help!" came the answer.

And Custer stumbled forward. As he neared the black shadows of the willows he could feel his heart sink like lead through all the reaches of his shaking anatomy. He had passed quite beyond the hearing of his father's commands and reproaches, and the wash and rush of the river came up to him out of the silence.

"Hullo!" cried the boy, pausing irresolutely.

Then seemingly from the earth at his very feet came a faint answer to his call, and Custer, forcing his way through a rank growth of weeds and briers, stood on the brink of a deep gully that a small brook had worn for itself on its way to the river below. In the bed of this brook was a dark object that Custer could barely distinguish to be the figure of a man. A bruised and bleeding face was upturned.

"Give me your hand--" gasped the man.

Custer knelt on the bank and grasping a tuft of grass to steady himself extended his free hand.

"Are you hurt bad?" he asked.

"I don't know--" gasped the man, as he endeavored to draw himself up out of the bed of the brook.

But after a moment of fruitless exertion he sank back groaning.

"Go for help!" he said, in a painful whisper. "You are not strong enough for this."

"How did you get here?" asked Custer.

"I fell off the railroad bridge, the current landed me here; where am I, anyhow?"

"At the brick slaughter-house," said Custer.

"I thought so; can't you get some one to help you?"

But Custer, his reasonable curiosity satisfied, was already on his way back to the road. "If only pa has not driven off!" But the senior Shrimplin had not moved from the spot where Custer had left him five minutes before.

"Is that you, son?" he asked, as Custer appeared at the fence.

"Come here, quick!" commanded the boy.

"For what?" inquired Mr. Shrimplin.

"You needn't be afraid, it's only a man who's fallen off the iron bridge. He's down in the bed of the slaughter-house run. I can't get him out alone!"

"I'll bet he's good and drunk!" said the little lamplighter.

"No, he ain't, and he's mighty badly hurt!" said the boy hotly.

"Of course, of course, Custer!" said Mr. Shrimplin. "He'd a been killed though if he hadn't been drunk."

He climbed out of his cart, and clambered over the fence. Something in Custer's manner warned him that any allusions of a jocular nature would prove highly distasteful to his son, and he followed silently as Custer led the way down to the brook.

"Here's where he is!" said the boy halting. "You get down beside him--you're strongest, and I'll stay here and help pull him up while you lift!"

"That's the idea, son!" agreed Mr. Shrimplin genially.

And he slid down into the bed of the brook where he struggled to get the injured man to his feet. The first and immediate result of his effort was that the latter swore fiercely at him, though in a whisper.

"We got to get you out of this, mister!" said the little lamplighter apologetically.

A second attempt was made in which they were aided by Custer from above, and this time the injured man was drawn to the top of the bank, where he collapsed in a heap.

"He's fainted!" said Custer. "Strike a match and see who it is!"

Mr. Shrimplin obeyed, bringing the light close to the bloody and disfigured face.

"Why, it's Marsh Langham!" he cried.