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Updated: June 24, 2025
He threw chunks on the fire and went toward the bed, but as he stood by it the world grew black before his eyes and clutching about him, he sank to the floor. Nelia Carline would not return to that miserable little river-bottom cabin where she had grown up in unhappy privation. She had other plans.
They had it all determined: Carline was to be wedged away with his friend, a cotton broker that Daisy Nelia's newfound accomplice knew, and Terabon was to be tempted to "do the Palace," and he was to be caught unaware, by Nelia, who wanted to dance with him, dine with him under bright lights, and drink dangerous drinks with him.
Thus began the inauspicious acquaintance of Nelia Crele and Augustus Carline. The shotgun was very useful to the young woman. She killed gray and fox squirrels, wild turkeys, geese and ducks, several saleable fur-bearers, and other game in her neighbourhood. She told no one how she obtained the weapon, merely saying she had found it; and Augustus Carline did not pass any remarks on the subject.
Augustus Carline was a brute, a creature of appetites and desires, who by no chance rose to the heights of his wife's mental demands. Nelia Carline regarded the tragedy of her life with impatience. She studied the looking glass to see wherein she had failed to measure up to her duty; she ransacked her mind, and compared it with all the women she met by virtue of her place as Gus Carline's wife.
"Oh, I'll be all right, won't I?" She looked at the stern-featured youth. "If you can shoot and don't care," Larry replied without a smile. "I can shoot," Nelia said, showing her pistol. "That's river Law!" Larry cried, smiling. "That's Law. You came out the Upper River?" "Yes," she nodded. "Then I bet " the girl-wife started to speak, but stopped, blushing. "Yes," Nelia smiled a hard smile.
Falteau, who's French and married May, there, an' this feller say, mister, what is yo' name?" "Rasba, Elijah Rasba." "Mr. Rasba, he's a parson, out'n the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy, comin' down. Miss Nelia Crele, suh. I disremember the name of that feller yo' married, Nelia." "It doesn't matter," Nelia turned to the mountain man, her face flushing. "A preacher down this river?"
There were, too, moral rights, and she preferred to exercise her moral rights. Part of the Carline fortune was in unregistered stocks and bonds, and when Gus Carline returned from the widow's one day he found that Nelia was in great good humour, more attractive than he had ever known her, and so very pleasant during the two days of his headache that he was willing to do anything she asked.
While yet the question echoed in his expanding soul he hailed a passing skiff: "Strangeh! How fur now is it to the Mississippi River?" "Theh 'tis!" the man cried, pointing down the current. "Down by that air willer point!" Those first free days on the Mississippi River revealed to Nelia Crele a woman she had never known before.
When at last Rasba looked up Nelia was gone. The books were on the table and he found another stack heaped up on the deck of the mission boat. But the woman was gone, and when he looked down the river he saw something flicker and vanish in the distance. He stared, hurt; he choked, for a minute, in protest, then carried that immeasurable treasure into his cabin.
Her face was as hard as a man's, her eyes were as blue and level as a deputy sheriff's in the Bad Lands, and her lips were straight and thin. How could a man ask her if she had seen his wife going down that way? He stopped his motor and let his boat drift. He wondered what he could or would say when he overtook Nelia.
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