Then all the People — men and women and children and dogs, even Herman Basket’s sister because Ikkemotubbe would fetch a horse for her to ride and so only Log-in-the-Creek would remain, not inside the house even though it was still cold, because Herman Basket’s aunt wouldn’t let him stay inside the house where she would have to step over him each time she passed, but squatting in his blanket on the gallery with an old cooking-pot of fire inside the blanket with him — would stand on the landing, to watch the upstairs and the smokestack moving among the trees and hear the puffing of the smokestack and its feet walking fast in the water too when it was not crying.
Then we would begin to hear David Hogganbeck’s fiddle, and then the steamboat would come walking up the last of the river like a race-horse, with the smoke rolling black and its feet flinging the water aside as a running horse flings dirt, and Captain Studenmare who owned the steamboat chewing tobacco in one window and David Hogganbeck playing his fiddle in the other, and between them the head of the boy slave who turned the wheel, who was not much more than half as big as Captain Studenmare and not even a third as big as David Hogganbeck. And all day long the trading would continue, though David Hogganbeck took little part in this.
And all night long the dancing would continue, and David Hogganbeck took the biggest part in this. Because he was bigger than any two of the young men put together almost, and although you would not have called him a man built for dancing or running either, it was as if that very double size which could hold twice as much whisky as any other, could also dance twice as long, until one by one the young men fell away and only he was left.
And there was horse-racing and eating, and although David Hogganbeck had no horses and did not ride one since no horse could have carried him and run fast too, he would eat a match each year for money against any two of the young men whom the People picked, and David Hogganbeck always won. Then the water would return toward the mark he had made on the landing, and it would be time for the steamboat to leave while there was still enough water in the river for it to walk in.
And then it did not go away. The river began to grow little, yet still David Hogganbeck played his fiddle on Herman Basket’s gallery while Herman Basket’s sister stirred something for cooking into the silver wine pitcher and Ikkemotubbe sat against a post in his fine clothes and his beaver hat and Log-in-the-Creek lay on his back on the floor with the harmonica cupped in both hands to his mouth, though you couldn’t hear now whether he was blowing into it or not.
Then you could see the mark which David Hogganbeck had marked on the landing while he still played his fiddle on Herman Basket’s gallery where Ikkemotubbe had brought a rocking chair from his house to sit in until David Hogganbeck would have to leave in order to show the steamboat the way back to Natchez.
And all that afternoon the People stood along the landing and watched the steamboat’s slaves hurling wood into its stomach for steam to make it walk; and during most of that night, while David Hogganbeck drank twice as much and danced twice as long as even David Hogganbeck, so that he drank four times as much and danced four times as long as even Ikkemotubbe, even an Ikkemotubbe who at last had looked at Herman Basket’s sister or at least had looked at someone else looking at her, the older ones among the People stood along the landing and watched the slaves hurling wood into the steamboat’s stomach, not to make it walk but to make its voice cry while Captain Studenmare leaned out of the upstairs with the end of the crying-rope tied to the door-handle. And the next day Captain Studenmare himself came onto the gallery and grasped the end of David Hogganbeck’s fiddle.
“You’re fired,” he said.
“All right,” David Hogganbeck said. Then Captain Studenmare grasped the end of David Hogganbeck’s fiddle.
“We will have to go back to Natchez where I can get money to pay you off,” he said.
“Leave the money at the saloon,” David Hogganbeck said. “I’ll bring the boat back out next spring.”
Then it was night. Then Herman Basket’s aunt came out and said that if they were going to stay there all night, at least David Hogganbeck would have to stop playing his fiddle so other people could sleep. Then she came out and said for Herman Basket’s sister to come in and go to bed. Then Herman Basket came out and said, “Come on now, fellows. Be reasonable.”
Then Herman Basket’s aunt came out and said that the next time she was going to bring Herman Basket’s dead uncle’s shotgun. So Ikkemotubbe and David Hogganbeck left Log-in-the-Creek lying on the floor and stepped down from the gallery. “Goodnight,” David Hogganbeck said.
“I’ll walk home with you,” Ikkemotubbe said. So they walked across the Plantation to the steamboat. It was dark and there was no fire in its stomach now because Captain Studenmare was still asleep under Issetibbeha’s back porch. Then Ikkemotubbe said, “Goodnight.”
“I’ll walk home with you,” David Hogganbeck said. So they walked back across the Plantation to Ikkemotubbe’s house. But David Hogganbeck did not have time to say goodnight now because Ikkemotubbe turned as soon as they reached his house and started back toward the steamboat. Then he began to run, because David Hogganbeck still did not look like a man who could run fast.
But he had not looked like a man who could dance a long time either, so when Ikkemotubbe reached the steamboat and turned and ran again, he was only a little ahead of David Hogganbeck. And when they reached Ikkemotubbe’s house he was still only a little ahead of David Hogganbeck when he stopped, breathing fast but only a little fast, and held the door open for David Hogganbeck to enter.
“My house is not very much house,” he said. “But it is yours.” So they both slept in Ikkemotubbe’s bed in his house that night. And the next afternoon, although Herman Basket would still do no more than wish him success, Ikkemotubbe sent my father and Sylvester’s John with his saddle mare for Herman Basket’s aunt to ride on, and he and Herman Basket ran the horse-race. And he rode faster than anyone had ever ridden in the Plantation.
He won by lengths and lengths and, with Herman Basket’s aunt watching, he made Herman Basket take all the money, as though Herman Basket had won, and that evening he sent Owl-at-Night to tie the racing pony’s hackamore to the door-handle of Herman Basket’s kitchen. But that night Herman Basket’s aunt did not even warn them.
She came out the first time with Herman Basket’s dead uncle’s gun, and hardly a moment had elapsed before Ikkemotubbe found out that she meant him too. So he and David Hogganbeck left Log-in-the-Creek lying on the gallery and they stopped for a moment at my father’s house on the first trip between Ikkemotubbe’s house and the steamboat, though when my father and Owl-at-Night finally found Ikkemotubbe to tell him that Herman Basket’s aunt must have sent the racing pony far into the woods and hidden it because they had not found it yet, Ikkemotubbe and David Hogganbeck were both asleep in David Hogganbeck’s bed in the steamboat.
And the next morning the whisky-trader came, and that afternoon Ikkemotubbe and the young men invited Log-in-the-Creek into the woods and my father and Sylvester’s John returned for the whisky-trader’s buckboard and, with my father and Sylvester’s John driving the buckboard and Log-in-the-Creek lying on his face on top of the little house on the back of the buckboard where the whisky-kegs rode and Ikkemotubbe standing on top of the little house, wearing the used general’s coat which General Jackson gave Issetibbeha, with his arms folded and one foot advanced onto Log-in-the-Creek’s back, they rode slow past the gallery where David Hogganbeck played his fiddle while Herman Basket’s sister stirred something for cooking into the silver wine pitcher.
And when my father and Owl-at-Night found Ikkemotubbe that night to tell him they still had not found where Herman Basket’s aunt had hidden the pony, Ikkemotubbe and David Hogganbeck were at Ikkemotubbe’s house.
And the next afternoon Ikkemotubbe and the young men invited David Hogganbeck into the woods and it was a long time this time and when they came out, David Hogganbeck was driving the buckboard while the legs of Ikkemotubbe and the other young men dangled from the open door of the little whisky-house like so many strands of vine hay and Issetibbeha’s general’s coat was tied by its sleeves about the neck of one of the mules.
And nobody hunted for the racing pony that night, and when Ikkemotubbe waked up, he didn’t know at first even where he was. And he could already hear David Hogganbeck’s fiddle before he could move aside enough of the young men to get out of the little whisky-house, because that night neither Herman Basket’s aunt nor Herman
