Rogue River Feud Read online

  “Necessity is the mother of improvement, son,” replied his father.

  “What do you charge for these boats, Dad? I’ve forgotten.”

  “Forty dollars to the market fishermen. They furnish oars, locks, lines.”

  “This one sold?”

  “No. But Garry Lord has his eye on it. Wanted to pay me ten on deposit. Garry can never keep money long enough to save up that much.”

  “Garry Lord! … Somehow that name seems familiar,” returned Keven ponderingly.

  “Humph, it ought to be. You used to play hooky from school to fish with Garry Lord. How that distressed your mother! Garry never was any good, and now he’s worse. He’s grown up now. Just a lazy drunken low-down riverman!”

  “Does he still live out on the edge of town, in a tumble-down shack under the pines by the river?”

  “No. Brandeth bought that pine grove and the river front. He ousted Garry and the other loafers out there. Garry moved farther down the river.”

  “I’ll hunt him up…. Dad, here’s your forty dollars for the boat. It about cleans me out.”

  “Son, I can’t take your money.”

  “Yes, you can. If you don’t some bootlegger will get it,” replied Keven, and forced the money into his father’s unwilling hands. “Is my old room available?”

  “It has never been used. Mother locked it after you went to be a soldier. And she lost or hid the key. That room has never been opened…. But we can force the lock.”

  Presently Keven Bell stood on the threshold of the room where he had lived his childhood and boyhood days. And on the threshold of the dim past, where vague scenes arose, like ghosts, like the musty cobwebbed things under his piercing gaze!

  In the afternoon he walked out the broad avenue to the Brandeth mansion that lifted its shiny tiled red roof among the pines on a bench high above the river. He wanted to get something over—a duty he imagined he owed himself—something for which no letter would suffice. The fine-graveled road, the smooth path, the green lawn with its plants and statued fountain, the stately house that seemed to frown at his insolence—these made but momentary impressions. The maid who answered his ring informed him that Miss Brandeth was out motoring.

  Keven returned to the main street and strolled its long length, passing many persons, not one of whom he recognized. Automobiles full of gay young people whizzed by him. Keven was used to being stared at. The attention he created, however, was not due to recognition. He went to the park, which was dotted with strollers and loungers, and from there back to the railroad station. An hour’s walk on Sunday afternoon assured Keven he was not known in his home town. But four years was an age and he had greatly changed. He ended upon the river road, from which he crossed a meadow to the pine-fringed bank.

  He sat down in a shady fragrant brown-carpeted spot. It was lonely there. The road, the bridge, the town with its noisy cars and young people were out of sight. Suddenly the dull thoughts that had been stirred in him ceased to operate. And he felt the pleasantness, the welcome of the place.

  The river ran clear, swift, and green over the rocky ledges. From the bend below floated a low musical roar of a rapid. It mingled with the sound of the wind in the pines. A crow cawed from the hills. In the shallow water red crayfish backed over the mossy stones.

  Keven closed his eyes and lay back upon the pine mat, and all these sensations seemed magically intensified. At last, thought and remembrance encroached upon the first peace he had felt for years. How strange that it should come to him here on the bank of the Rogue! Even his physical pain had been in abeyance. It was something he must inquire into. Rising, he strode on down the river, past the white rapid that stopped his heart with a recollection. Here as a boy he had experienced his first upset and had drifted, clinging to his skiff, through the ugly rocks and rushing channels to the safety of shallow water below. How much better it would have been for him to perish then! But a doubt mocked his sadness.

  At the end of the fringe of pines he espied a fisherman’s shack. He knew the type, though this one appeared more hastily and flimsily thrown up. It had been constructed of boards and stones and flattened gasoline cans, with a stovepipe sticking out of the roof. Yet it appealed to Keven. No location could have surpassed that upon which it stood. A giant pine spread wide branches down over the roof, to brush against it. Keven was calculating doubtfully about its being above high-water mark when he saw a man bending over a net which evidently he was repairing. Keven had to gaze keenly to make sure this was Garry Lord. Finally convinced, he slipped aside so that the shack hid him and went cautiously down the bank, with a warm, inexplicable desire to surprise Garry. And he peeped out from behind the shack, in time to see Garry throw aside the old net in disgust.

  “Rotten!” he ejaculated. “Rotten as the damned nettin’ game itself! … It ain’t no use. No net—no boat. An’ jail yawnin’ at me again!”

  Keven stepped out. “Hello, Garry.”

  The fisherman started quickly to rise and turn. He had a leathery, weather-beaten face, homely and hard, unshaven and dirty, yet despite these features and the unmistakable imprint of the bottle, somehow far from revolting. Perhaps that was due to the large, wide-open, questioning blue eyes. His ragged apparel further attested to his low estate.

  “Fer the love of Mike!” he yelled suddenly. “It ain’t Kev Bell?”

  “Yes, it is, Garry. All that’s left of him.”

  “But, my Gord! Last I heerd you was dead!”

  “No, worse luck, I’m alive.” There was no mistaking the glad-eyed, warm-fisted welcome of this fisherman, to which Keven felt strange reaction. He returned that hard grip.

  “Gord, I’m glad to see you, Kev. An’ you hunted me up? Or was you jest walkin’ down the old river?”

  “Dad told me where to find you,” replied Keven. “I got home today. The old place is changed, Garry. I didn’t see anyone I knew. Mother’s gone—Dad’s old and broken…. It’s tough to come home to—to all that…. Well, I’m lucky to get home at all. Garry, I was at the butt end of a gun that blew up. Breechblock hit me in the face. I’ve a bum eye, an iron jaw, and a sunspot on my brain. Ha! Ha! But that’s all, Garry, about me.”

  “Set down, Kev. You are changed a lot. I’d knowed you, though, out of a thousand. You can still ketch the eyes of the girls.”

  “Honest, Garry, I’m a cripple. Look here.” And Keven gave proofs of several of his physical defects.

  “I heerd you’d been bunged up somethin’ fierce an’ was slated to cross the big river. Fact is, Kev, I heerd lots about you before an’ after you was hurt.”

  It was Garry’s manner of speech, more than its content, that roused Keven’s curiosity. The fisherman regarded him gravely, as if remembering that before the war there was a certain definite barrier between them, and as if wondering now if that had been leveled.

  “You remember Gus Atwell?” he queried guardedly.

  “Yes, I guess so. Though I can’t recall his face.”

  “He got a major’s commission.”

  “Oh, yes. He lorded it over us at camp. God, that seems long ago. Atwell went to France long before I was injured.”

  “Like hell he did,” retorted Garry with contempt. “He came home. Invalided they called it. We all called it nogutseted! … Kev, he was as healthy as me.”

  “Is that so? News to me. I guess there’ll be a lot of news.”

  “You said it. An’ I’m wonderin’, Kev…. Wal, I’ll tell you straight. Atwell spread such talk about you thet it got to the ears of us fishermen.”

  “Gossip? What about? My accident? How near death I came—and all that time in the hospital?”

  “Not on your life,” snapped the riverman, with those keen bright eyes studying his visitor. “He spread a lot of rotten stuff. I can only remember one of the things. Thet was so queer no one’d ever forget it. About five girls in one family. Name Carstone. They lived near the trainin’ camp. Five girls from fifteen years old up to twenty-two, an’ every dam
n one of them had a baby. Five sisters! … Thet’s the worst I ever heerd.”

  “Carstone? Five sisters? That runs in my mind somehow—not exactly strange.”

  “Well, Atwell said you was mixed up in thet. An’ there sure was a nine-days’ gabfest here at the Pass.”

  “Garry, it’s a lie,” replied Keven hotly.

  “I’m right glad to hear thet, Kev,” returned Garry fervently. “An’ if I was you I’d face Atwell with it. Make him crawl or beat hell out of him. Us upriver fishermen sure have it in for Atwell. You see he’s superintendent of the biggest cannery on the coast. Belongs to Brandeth, who’s gettin’ hold of everythin’. He about runs Gold Beach. Well, Atwell’s gang of downriver fishermen are against us, an’ we’ve had hell these last two years. Fights every Saturday night durin’ the nettin’ season. There’s been two killin’s. There’s a tough crowd down the river. They’re tryin’ to freeze us out.”

  “Don’t stand for it, Garry,” said Keven stoutly.

  “What can we do, Kev? Why, there’s only a few upriver fishermen who go down to the coast. An’ they shoot the Rogue, which you ought to remember is some job. No, we’re up against it. Atwell dominates the market here an’ on up the river. An’ at Gold Beach we have to sell to opposition canneries, none of which can afford to pay what Brandeth pays…. It sure riles me to see Atwell drivin’ around here in his fast cars. Spends as much time here as at Gold Beach. He’s chasin’ Brandeth’s girl now. Hell of a lot of good thet’ll do him. Fer there’s too swift a little lady fer him. She’s playin’ him fer a sucker.”

  “You mean Rosamond Brandeth?” asked Keven quietly.

  “Sure. She’s the only daughter. She’s as swift as she’s pretty…. By gosh, Kev, I forgot!” exclaimed the fisherman, slapping his knee. “You used to be sweet on her. I remember you used to borrow my boats to take her ridin’ on the river. When you was kids, an’ later, too.”

  “Yes, I remember, Garry. It seems long ago…. But let’s talk fish. When does the season open?”

  “Open now. But there’s no run yet. If I had a boat an’ a net I’d take another try at Gold Beach, if only to spite Atwell. Kev, I’m very suspicious about thet guy. But my boat won’t hold together no longer. If I tried to shoot Tyee or Mule Creek I’d be feed for little salmon. An’ I haven’t got no net, either. Last season I hand-lined salmon. Hard job an’ poor pay!”

  “Is it enough to live on?”

  “Well, yes, if you can make a little durin’ winter to help out.”

  “What’s a net cost?”

  “Around two hundred dollars. I could make one for less, but it takes time, an’ I’m lazy.”

  “Garry, I’ve a little money. And Dad will lend me the balance. He’s just built a dandy new boat. Come in with me, Garry. We’ll be partners. I furnish equipment to start. We’ll share profits.”

  “Kev, what are you talkin’ about?” asked the fisherman incredulously.

  “I mean it, Garry.”

  “You be a market fisherman!”

  “Yes, I’d like it. I see no disgrace in it. I’ve got to work at something. And I never could do anything but handle a boat and fish.”

  “You could do them, by gosh! But, Kev, you’re dotty. I’ve got a bad name. I’m only a lazy no-good, rum-guzzlin’ riverman. It’d ruin you to be braced with me.”

  “Ruin? Ha! I’d like to know what I am now. The Army sounds great. But it’s a hideous lie! … Garry, I don’t believe you’re as bad as you make out. Or perhaps as bad as the majority of Grant’s Pass believes. You know the Rogue. It’s about all there’s left for me. I always liked you. I’d swear by you. So come on. Let’s be partners. Let’s give Atwell a whirl.”

  “By Gord, Kev, I’ll take you up!” shouted Garry, extending a horny hand. There was a birth light of love and loyalty in his eyes. “I taught you to run a boat an’ mebbe you can make a man of me. Shake!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE river called Keven. At night he lay awake listening to its low roar. In the darkness his memory seemed clearer. He longed to drift into the wilderness, into the mountain fastness which the Rogue penetrated. And that was the first longing he had felt for years—except to die. Pictures wavered before his wide eyes in the dark—Chair Riffle, with its glancing slide along the ledges under which the steelhead lurked; Whisky Creek, where the otter and the wild boars fought; Solitude, so sweet and wonderful in all that had given it name.

  But obstacles arose. The sheriff arrested Garry Lord on a belated warrant. Fishing out of season was the charge, and it required no effort to trace it to the factor now dominant in river affairs. Keven had to raise money to get him out, as well as for the necessary equipment of market fishermen. His father at length found the means. So it came about that Keven had to remain at home, during which time occurred inevitable meetings with old acquaintances. And every one probed deeper into what had seemed a closed wound.

  Girls he had been friends with, now grown into modern young women, eyed him in curiosity as if they had never known him. That, however, was a relief. It was the honest gladness and warmth of Minton, the tackle dealer, whom Keven had once fished with many a summer day, that hurt him. For here was faith, and loyalty he had not expected. “To hell with all that rot!” Minton had exclaimed, when Keven had haltingly hinted of the calumny which had been heaped upon him. “Nobody believes it. Sure I don’t. Chuck that uniform, Kev, and forget the war. It was a dose of hell for all of us. Drop in at the store. I’ll show you some of the new tackle we’ve developed. Steelhead fishing has become a great booster for the old town. But there’s only a few of us to fight the canning hogs at Gold Beach. If we don’t unite and restrict them the grand fishing on the Rogue will soon be gone.”

  He met Clarke and Dugan, likewise former fishing comrades, and old Jim Turner, and the Negro Sam Johnson—all of whom were cordial in their welcome. No reference to his army training—no hint of any change in him! They were glad. How significant that each associated him with the past and the river they loved!

  Then he turned a corner to be confronted by a tall, blond, sweet-faced girl who appeared strangely familiar. He swerved.

  “Kev Bell! You can’t dodge me,” she called in a high treble. “Don’t you know me?”

  “I—I do and I don’t,” replied Keven confusedly, hastening to take her proffered hand.

  “Guess,” she said archly. “I was one of your schoolgirl sweethearts.”

  “Indeed. It’s good of you to remember that,” he responded, stirred by unfamiliar emotion. “Your face I know. But I—I can’t place you…. I sustained an injury to my head. It affected my memory.”

  “You fickle soldier! I am Emmeline Trapier,” she said reproachfully.

  In a flash Keven linked the name with that pretty face and bygone associations. “Well, I know you now,” he replied heartily, and wrung her hand. “Lord, I’m glad you spoke to me, Em. I’ve been snubbed until I’m leary.”

  “Have you seen Billy yet? Oh, of course you haven’t, or you would have known me. We heard you had come home. Billy is crazy to see you.”

  “Billy who?” inquired Keven.

  “Why, Billy Horn, your old chum.”

  “Oh! … No, I haven’t run into Billy yet,” replied Keven hesitatingly.

  “You will soon, for he’ll hunt you up. Come, Kev, walk out home with me.”

  “I’d like to. But it wouldn’t do for you to be seen talking to me.”

  “I’ll risk it, Kev. We’re not all snobs. And you’ve friends still in Grant’s Pass. Mother will be glad to see you…. Did you know my brother Hal was killed in France?”

  “Hal! No, I didn’t. I’ve heard so little…. My God, that’s terrible, Emmeline, I’m sorry…. I never got over there.”

  They walked down the street toward the residence quarter.

  “You were badly hurt, though, I heard,” she said solicitously.

  “Yes. It’d been better if I’d gone west, too.”

  “No. Don’t say that.
Kev, you mustn’t be bitter. How silly of me! Yet I mean it. For your own sake.”

  “Emmeline, it’s good of you. I thank you. It makes me feel there are a few people who understand a little. But there’s no place in the old life for me. I can’t delude myself.”

  “Then you’ve seen Rosamond?” she asked gravely.

  “Not to speak to. I called Sunday. She wasn’t home. And again last night. The maid took my name. But Rosamond was not at home—to me…. I saw her through the window. Seemed as though she suited that gaudy place.”

  “Don’t take it to heart, Kev.”

  “Well, it hurt so little I was surprised. Perhaps I can’t feel deeply any more. I only wanted to see her a moment…. Em, I wish you’d tell her I felt honor bound to release her—no, never mind. That’s ridiculous. I’ve fallen behind in these quick modern days. But I’m no jackass.”

  “I don’t see Rosamond often,” rejoined the girl. “She belongs to the new set. While I—well, Kev—I’m engaged to Billy.”

  “Fine!” ejaculated Keven, thrilled at the blush that flushed her cheek. “I congratulate you both. I wish you everything life can give, Em. There are two kinds of people: the destroyers and the builders. You belong to the latter.”

  “Thanks, Kev,” she said, stopping at a gate. “Won’t you come in and speak to Mother? She’ll weep over you. But don’t mind. It’ll do her good to see you back alive.”

  “Yes, I’ll come. It might do me good to have someone shed a tear over me…. But wait just a moment, Em. I want to ask you something. Was it Atwell who started this vile gossip here? I mean that scandal about a family named Carstone, who lived near our training camp. Five sisters who—But did you hear it?”

  “Yes, Kev, I did, and I—we never believed it,” she returned warmly, her face scarlet. “It was Atwell who started that talk. Billy told me so. He heard him.”

  “Emmeline, I swear it’s a lie,” returned Keven appealingly. “God knows I got tough enough in the Army. They wanted us—made us tough…. I wasn’t concerned in that Carstone affair. I thought I didn’t care what anyone believed. But, Em, meeting you again and remembering—well, I’m afraid I do care.”