The Mississippi Saucer Read online

* * *

  The river could rise fast too. Under the lashing of a hurricane blowingup from the gulf the river could lift a shantyboat right out of thewater, and smash it to smithereens against a tree.

  But now the blow was coming from just one part of the sky. A funnel ofwind was churning the river into a white froth and raising big swellsdirectly offshore. But the river wasn't rising and the sun was shiningin a clear sky.

  Jimmy knew a dangerous floodwater storm when he saw one. The sky had tobe dark with rain, and you had to feel scared, in fear of drowning.

  Jimmy was scared, all right. That part of it rang true. But a hollow,sick feeling in his chest couldn't mean anything by itself, he toldhimself fiercely.

  Pigtail Anne saw the disk before Jimmy did. She screamed and pointedskyward, her twin braids standing straight out in the wind like theropes on a bale of cotton, when smokestacks collapse and a savagehowling sends the river ghosts scurrying for cover.

  Straight down out of the sky the disk swooped, a huge, spinning shapeas flat as a buckwheat cake swimming in a golden haze of butterfat.

  But the disk didn't remind Jimmy of a buckwheat cake. It made him thinkinstead of a slowly turning wheel in the pilot house of a rotting oldriverboat, a big, ghostly wheel manned by a steersman a century dead,his eye sockets filled with flickering swamp lights.

  It made Jimmy want to run and hide. Almost it made him want to cling tohis sister, content to let her wear the pants if only he could be sparedthe horror.

  For there was something so chilling about the downsweeping disk thatJimmy's heart began leaping like a vinegar jug bobbing about in the wakeof a capsizing fishboat.

  Lower and lower the disk swept, trailing plumes of white smoke, lashingthe water with a fearful blow. Straight down over the cypress wildernessthat fringed the opposite bank, and then out across the river with along-drawn whistling sound, louder than the air-sucking death gasps of athousand buffalo cats.

  Jimmy didn't see the disk strike the shining broad shoulders of theFather of Waters, for the bend around which the _Natchez Belle_ hadsteamed so proudly hid the sky monster from view. But Jimmy did see thewaterspout, spiraling skyward like the atom bomb explosion he'd goggledat in the pages of an old _Life_ magazine, all smudged now with oilythumbprints.

  Just a roaring for an instant--and a big white mushroom shootingstraight up into the sky. Then, slowly, the mushroom decayed and fellback, and an awful stillness settled down over the river.

  * * * * *

  The stillness was broken by a shrill cry from Pigtail Anne. "It was aflying saucer! Jimmy, we've seen one! We've seen one! We've--"

  "Shut your mouth, Pigtail!"

  Jimmy shaded his eyes and stared out across the river, his chest athrobbing ache.

  He was still staring when a door creaked behind him.

  Jimmy trembled. A tingling fear went through him, for he found it hardto realize that the disk had swept around the bend out of sight. To hisoverheated imagination it continued to fill all of the sky above him,overshadowing the shantyboat, making every sound a threat.

  Sucking the still air deep into his lungs, Jimmy swung about.

  Uncle Al was standing on the deck in a little pool of sunlight, hisgaunt, hollow-cheeked face set in harsh lines. Uncle Al was shading hiseyes too. But he was staring up the river, not down.

  "Trouble, young fella," he grunted. "Sure as I'm a-standin' here. Abarrelful o' trouble--headin' straight for us!"

  Jimmy gulped and gestured wildly toward the bend. "It came down _overthere_, Uncle Al!" he got out. "Pigtail saw it, too! A big, flying--"

  "The Harmons are a-comin', young fella," Uncle Al drawled, silencingJimmy with a wave of his hand. "Yesterday I rowed over a Harmon jug linewithout meanin' to. Now Jed Harmon's tellin' everybody I stole hisfish!"

  Very calmly Uncle Al cut himself a slice of the strongest tobacco on theriver and packed it carefully in his pipe, wadding it down with histhumb.

  He started to put the pipe between his teeth, then thought better of it.

  "I can bone-feel the Harmon boat a-comin', young fella," he said, usingthe pipe to gesture with. "Smooth and quiet over the river like amoccasin snake."

  Jimmy turned pale. He forgot about the disk and the mushrooming waterspout. When he shut his eyes he saw only a red haze overhanging theriver, and a shantyboat nosing out of the cypresses, its windowsspitting death.

  * * * * *

  Jimmy knew that the Harmons had waited a long time for an excuse. TheHarmons were law-respecting river rats with sharp teeth. Feuding wasn'tlawful, but murder could be made lawful by whittling down a lie until itlooked as sharp as the truth.

  The Harmon brothers would do their whittling down with double-barreledshotguns. It was easy enough to make murder look like a lawful crime ifyou could point to a body covered by a blanket and say, "We caught himstealing our fish! He was a-goin' to kill us--so we got him first."

  No one would think of lifting the blanket and asking Uncle Al about it.A man lying stiff and still under a blanket could no more make himselfheard than a river cat frozen in the ice.

  "Git inside, young 'uns. _Here they come!_"

  Jimmy's heart skipped a beat. Down the river in the sunlight ashantyboat was drifting. Jimmy could see the Harmon brothers crouchingon the deck, their faces livid with hate, sunlight glinting on theirarm-cradled shotguns.

  The Harmon brothers were not in the least alike. Jed Harmon was tall andgaunt, his right cheek puckered by a knife scar, his cruel, thin-lippedmouth snagged by his teeth. Joe Harmon was small and stout, a littleround man with bushy eyebrows and the flabby face of a cottonmouthsnake.

  "Go inside, Pigtail," Jimmy said, calmly. "I'm a-going to stay andfight!"

  * * * * *

  Uncle Al grabbed Jimmy's arm and swung him around. "You heard what Isaid, young fella. Now git!"

  "I want to stay here and fight with you, Uncle Al," Jimmy said.

  "Have you got a gun? Do you want to be blown apart, young fella?"

  "I'm not scared, Uncle Al," Jimmy pleaded. "You might get wounded. Iknow how to shoot straight, Uncle Al. If you get hurt I'll go right onfighting!"

  "No you won't, young fella! Take Pigtail inside. You hear me? You wantme to take you across my knee and beat the livin' stuffings out of you?"

  Silence.

  Deep in his uncle's face Jimmy saw an anger he couldn't buck. GrabbingPigtail Anne by the arm, he propelled her across the deck and into thedismal front room of the shantyboat.

  The instant he released her she glared at him and stamped her foot. "IfUncle Al gets shot it'll be your fault," she said cruelly. ThenPigtail's anger really flared up.

  "The Harmons wouldn't dare shoot us 'cause we're children!"

  For an instant brief as a dropped heartbeat Jimmy stared at his sisterwith unconcealed admiration.

  "You can be right smart when you've got nothing else on your mind,Pigtail," he said. "If they kill me they'll hang sure as shooting!"

  Jimmy was out in the sunlight again before Pigtail could make a grab forhim.

  Out on the deck and running along the deck toward Uncle Al. He was stillrunning when the first blast came.

  * * * * *

  It didn't sound like a shotgun blast. The deck shook and a big swirl ofsmoke floated straight toward Jimmy, half blinding him and blottingUncle Al from view.

  When the smoke cleared Jimmy could see the Harmon shantyboat. It wasless than thirty feet away now, drifting straight past and rocking withthe tide like a topheavy flatbarge.

  On the deck Jed Harmon was crouching down, his gaunt face split in atriumphant smirk. Beside him Joe Harmon stood quivering like a mound ofjelly, a stick of dynamite in his hand, his flabby face looking almostgentle in the slanting sunlight.

  There was a little square box at Jed Harmon's feet. As Joe pitched Jedreached into the box for another dynamite stick. Jed was pa
ssing thesticks along to his brother, depending on wad dynamite to silence UncleAl forever.

  Wildly Jimmy told himself that the guns had been just a trick to mixUncle Al up, and keep him from shooting until they had him where theywanted him.

  Uncle Al was shooting now, his face as grim as death. His big heavy gunwas leaping about like mad, almost hurling him to the deck.

  Jimmy saw the second dynamite stick spinning through the air, but henever saw it come down. All he could see was the smoke and theshantyboat rocking, and another terrible splintering crash as he wentplunging into the river from the end of a rising plank, a sob stranglingin his throat.

  Jimmy struggled up from the river with the long leg-thrusts of aterrified bullfrog, his head a throbbing ache. As he swam shoreward hecould see the cypresses on the opposite bank,