The Carnelian Cube

Twelve:

Farther north, one would have said there was a touch of autumn in the air—not cool, but with the stifling summer heat of Memphis a trifle lifted. Finch looked cheerfully along the line of his crew's massive shoulders, approaching and receding in unison as they loafed down to Harahan Bridge.

The St. Louis Rotarians, rowing out ahead, looked good, also—too good, thought Finch, with a qualm of doubt. Yet no; it would be all right. Colonel Lee's intelligence staff had obtained accurate figures on the time they made in their practice spins, and it was far poorer than that of his own eight. He had just been too long away from the undoubting, victorious energy of his college days. It occurred to him that a rational consideration of all the factors involved in a problem might not always be an advantage; he looked across the stream and felt good.

The "beauty and chivalry of Memphis" lined the bridge, waving as the shells slid through the arches. Someone tossed a handful of orange peels at the Rotarians, and when they missed a beat in dodging, there were hoots.

"Back water," Finch commanded, and they brought up smartly. The timekeeper's face, open-mouthed and inverted, hung twenty feet about his own.

"Ready?" called the mouth. "Git set—"

Finch felt tenseness creep along his muscles, watching Rhett's eyes fixed on his own, and there was a splash and surge of water to starboard. The Rotarians had jumped the gun—at least three of their rowers had. They stopped, their shell drifting a few yards, oars bumping and voices raised in the unmistakable note of recrimination, though they were too distant for the phrases to be heard clearly. Their cox was apparently engaged in prayer; at least the name of God was on his lips, and his expression bespoke a mind fixed on far-distant things. Finch saw grins and bobbing heads down the line of his own crew. "Eyes in the boat," he said.

"Ready?" repeated the timekeeper, and the gun went off with a shock. Out of the tail of his eye, he could see the St. Louis crew, keeping pace as perfectly as though both shells were driven by the same motor, as they flew past Riverside Park and took the left fork of the river around President Island.

His own men were pulling a good, even stroke, a nice thirty-four, and getting a good run. Side glances showed him the Rotarians holding even in what he judged to be a thirty-six, going a trifle ragged. They would have a break at that pace—and it would be needed, for now that the teams were closing the foot of the island rapidly, the St. Louis group had the time-saving inner lane.

Finch watched them; there was a sound of voices in the opposing boat, someone caught a crab, and the break he had been hoping for arrived, with their shell checking suddenly. Their cox cursed, his voice going shrill.

"Step it up, now!" cried Finch. "Stroke—stroke— stroke—longer reach, Howard—stroke—stroke—stroke ;—" and the shell came riding down the slant till his starboard oars just missed the water-plants at the bulge of the island. He dared a backward glance. St. Louis was all trim again, still looking ragged but strong, and so close astern that he half expected the referees' boat to call a foul. Out ahead, the right bank of the Mississippi, low and dark, came into sight. "Stroke—stroke—" called Finch and leaned hard on the tiller ropes.

Upstream their progress seemed cumbersome after the swift flight down. Hulbert crawled into sight and passed with people out in faded clothes to whoop languid encouragement to the representatives of Memphis. Through it the shout of the other cox sounded and a glance showed Finch the Rotarians had gained. They were a little rough still by the sound of their beat, but holding up to it through sheer grim strength. "Come on, gang," said he, "a little sprint will break the hearts of those birds," and he began to count, "one—two—three—"

The shell leaped in response: he could feel the strong drive—"thirteen—fourteen—fifteen—sixteen—" he had reached, and then Rhett laughed.

Finch turned; the other boat was angling off leftward toward West Memphis. He knew why, easily enough. The practice spins had taken him through those river currents and it was a little easier going over there, though not enough to compensate for the extra distance to the bridge. But the big stroke did not think so:

"Whoo-ee," he panted through his effort, "they're done givin' up and goin' home by train."

The gasping laugh of happy elephants ran down the boat and Finch could feel the tension relax, the run fell off.

"No!" he cried. "They're over there to get better water and they're finding it. Eyes in the boat and hit it up! Come on, now, one—two—three-—"

Half the boat obeyed. But Pritchard in the bow was half a beat too slow in his response and the two astern of him caught the rhythm from his slide instead of from Rhett at stroke. There was a massive thump as an oar-handle came into collision with somebody's back, and a yell of, "You son-of-a-bitch!"

"No Flahda red-neck kin call me that!" came the response and someone shipped his oar, half-stood in the tooth-pick-thin shell and turned in the effort to swing.

For an instant Finch's vision was full of toppling bodies, nailing brown limbs and tall splashes opening up and out like yellow flowers in the turgid water. Then the Big Muddy hit him in the face, and the world Was a coffeebrown cavern of infinite extent with a roof of rippling glass and dim bunches of grape-like bubbles gyrating upward.

He broke surface and spouted, looked around, treading water. The shell was ten feet away, swamped, but still right side up.

Between him and it the disputants were engaged in an earnest but ineffective effort to throttle each other, in which Finch devoutly hoped both would succeed, while he turned on his-side and struck out for the distant shore. His error; the swirl of his motion drew the attention of Magnolia the cat, who announced her presence by landing on his shoulder with all ten fore-claws thoroughly extended. With a bubbling yell of agony, he grabbed, but barely touched a handful of fur as the frightened cat clutched for the greater security of his scalp.

His head lacerated, blood, water and tears mingling in a veil before his eyes, Finch hove over and down in the most prodigious porpoise dive he had ever managed. When he came up, lungs protesting, he saw eight heads turned toward him, eight laughing faces, and heard somewhere behind, a voice that shouted: "Better take a lift. You'll git there sooner."

The referees' boat. He had forgotten it, and though at the moment, he felt no desire to have anything to do with the human species, he submitted to being hauled aboard and wrapped in a blanket. He looked around, more than a little grim over a fresh whooping outburst of laughter and quite prepared to award someone a punch on the nose and take to the water again; then perceived that he was not the object of attention, nor was it the spectator-boat which was pulling the last of the dejected crew of the Pegasus Literary Society from the water.

Everyone was pointing past toward the other shore, and as he followed the fingers, Finch saw the St. Louis Rotarians had also come to grief. The white bow of their shell was on the beach; some of its occupants were Struggling to the shore, where two of them had already gained footing and were swapping punches in a magnificent fight.

At least there was this much gain—that the Colonel could hardly hold him responsible for the loss of any bets placed on the race. All the same he felt a severe chill, and not from immersion, as the boat pulled into the dock where Colonel Richard Fitzhugh Lee stood in the midst of a semicircle, Sonia beside him in a flowery dress, and the uniformed bodyguard forming the semicircle.

He was handed to the dock with an accompaniment of ribald remarks from the referees' boat, and it pulled away. The semicircle remained grimly in position and completely silent, penning him in with his back to the river. After a long moment, the Colonel intoned unctuously: "As this is a purely business conference, I reckon the ladies had better withdraw. Sonia, my deah ..."

The semicircle parted to let her through. She laid a hand on the Colonel's arm, and for a moment Finch thought she was going to speak, but she only shook her head and walked away, foot dragging and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

"Suh," said the Colonel, "an intelligent justice is the beacon-light of southern liberty. I await with interest, suh, anything you have to say in defense of conduct that would disgrace a pole-cat."

Said Finch: "Nothing except that I made a mistake thinking I could control that bunch of apes."

The Colonel said: "You do not tell me anything of novelty or value."

"You think so because your sense of novelty is so highly developed that it has warped your sense of values. My real mistake was' letting you hand me a ready-made bunch of strong-arm men instead of choosing for myself a crew who could work together. Another time—"

With a brief thrill of exultation, Finch perceived he had been right on the major premise. The Colonel would never do anything else while he saw a chance for an argument. His face had relaxed from a good imitation of one that might be visible in a nightmare into a mere stern interest. But there was a mistake in the detail of that last unfortunate phrase. The face went grim again, Lee's hand went to the breast of his coat and came away with a pistol.

"There will be no other time for a scalawag who has had his fingers in my pocket."

"The big mistake was yours, though," Finch cried desperately. "You made two of them; but I suppose I can't stop you if you want to break your tools because you don't know how to use them." He looked away across the green hills and rolling river and wondered if there was any way the carnelian cube could save him.

The barrel of the pistol was allowed to droop through a few degrees. "And what use, boy, does your wisdom suggest for a broken tool beside throwing on the scrap-heap. You shall go befo' the great white throne, and proclaim that you are a deceiver, a rascal."

"I said two mistakes. Anytime you use a jeweller's saw to cut a steel girder, something is going to break. When you asked me what I could do, you jumped on me over this rowing business and didn't give me a chance to say I could restore the prestige of the Pegasus in a field where it stands pretty low right now."

The pistol came up again. "Are yo' insinuating that the reputation of the noblest band God ever made—"

"I'm not insinuating; I'm saying it right out. What have I to lose, telling the truth? You call it the Pegasus Literary Society, but how much literature do you produce? Do you suppose the only reason you have trouble selling your books in Birmingham is because of the Arcadians? Not at all; it's because everybody refuses to read the terrible books you offer them. People have to eat, and they'll even eat at Basil MacPherson's if they have to; but they don't have to read anything they don't like."

"Colonel Lee, suh," said Basil Stewart, "that dad-burned scamp is more'n half right. I call to mind the trouble we had over in Knoxville, but I thought it was just on account of them black Republicans in the schools there."

The Colonel's head swivelled round. "Yo' just shet your mouth and let me handle this. He hasn't told me yet how he's going to do anything about it. If he handles books the way he does rowers—"

"Handles them!" exclaimed Finch. "I'm not offering to be a literary agent. That's the profitable end of the business, and I thought you'd want that for yourself. I'm a poet, and I can write better poems than anyone has produced in Memphis for fifty years."

"Haw, haw, haw!" guffawed the field marshals, in a simultaneous outburst. "Him a poet!" Impy added: "What's the use of argufyin'? Shove him off, Colonel, and let's go on 'bout our business."

"You shet yo' mouth, too," said the Colonel, without turning his head. He was staring at Finch with the same chilling fixity he had given Marmaduke Mallory across the dinner table, and the ex-coach could not seem to withdraw his own eyes from those pinpoints of light. "This matter will be examined in the chivalrous but practical spirit of the old south, giving every man his fair chance to prove his virtues. You-all" he gestured with the pistol. "Make a poem. Right now."

"But it takes time—" began Finch.

"Right now. The Pegasus Lit'ry Society does not tolerate four-flushin' carpetbaggers."

Finch thought desperately. Even of his own poems he could for the moment recall only disconnected lines and fragments, and with that trick of mind-reading, the Colonel would be almost sure to spot quotation. But wait— hadn't there been an old Eighth Reader recitation piece about a boy in a similar fix? One could use partial quotation. He threw back his head and began:

The mouths of Finch's audience gaped to the tonsils. Colonel Lee shoved back his hat and scratched his head. "I reckon that's poetry all right, and it shore is unusual. What do you think, Impy? Can we sell a bookful of that down in Bummingham?"

"Ain't no good," said the gun-mam

"Why not?" asked the ColoneL

"No sex int'rest. Them Alabamians gotta have sex int'rest."

"Not all the time," argued Finch, "any more than they want a meal that's nothing but cake, cake, cake." He was flushed with success. "But we can give them a few poems of that kind, too, if they want them. Wait a minute." He leaned his chin on one hand for a moment, and then started again, more slowly:

Hyperion Weems cleared his throat. "Colonel, suh, I don't know what yon-all think, but I say anybody that kin make poems as original as them is a asset to the Pegasus Lit'ry Society."

"I dunno," said Impy. "Seems to me like I heard some o' thet bjefa', somewhere."

"You've heard all of it before," said Finch, boldly. "This is poetic montage, an invention of ray own. Most poems, you see, have good lines and then bad ones. Well, I say why not poetry that's all good lines, even if you take them from different sources. The thing that matters is the effect, not how you produce it."

The last vestiges of doubt cleared from the Colonel's face. "Nobly spoken, suh," he said, putting away his gun and extending his hand. "It is a gentleman's privilege, nay his duty, suh, to acknowledge an error. As for those dough-faced baboons who betrayed you in the race which you might easily have won, they shall reap the just reward of their villainy. Impy!"

"Yessir."

The Colonel gestured toward the boat-house and started for the car: "Up to the present yo' efforts have not met with the distinguished success they deserve, Mr. Finch, but we shall rectify that, we shall rectify that. In the hands of the Pegasus Lit'ry Society, suh, this work will spread to earth's remotest borders."