River Runs Deep Read online

  Elias, too taken with the news that Jonah was friendly with others like Sarneybrook, did not reply. Maybe Jonah had even nicked that chunk of meat for Elias from Sarneybrook’s plate when he wasn’t looking.

  “I think he and Jonah’d get on fine,” Sarneybrook joked, though the doctor’s smile seemed forced.

  The doctor patted Sarneybrook’s shoulder. “I’ll have Stephen come down and read to you when he gets time,” he said. “But now I’m afraid I need to continue my rounds.” He stood. “Elias?”

  Elias wanted more’n anything to tell Sarneybrook that he’d been visited by Jonah as well. Wanted more than anything to tell him he hadn’t imagined it. And he would, he decided, when he came down next time. Soon.

  “I read, too,” he told Sarneybrook in a rush. “I can bring a book and read to you when I come again.”

  Sarneybrook smiled. “That’d be fine. Or you can just tell me about the ocean. I think I’d like that even better.”

  Elias promised that he would.

  In the next hut, Pastor Tincher greeted them warmly, but soon was putting the screws to Elias about how the Baptists had it right and how Elias better get his house in order.

  Soon they moved on, heading back toward the main cave, Elias only half listening to Croghan telling him about the next set of patients. He was too busy thinking about what he’d just learned about Jonah, trying to decide how he felt about it. And then he landed on it—he felt a touch jealous! How many other patients did Jonah call on?

  But at the next little grouping of huts, no one mentioned Jonah or visitors of any kind, really. There was a woman about the same age as his mother called Mozelle, who seemed nice enough and slipped him a withered apple when Croghan stepped out of the room for a moment.

  Next door to her lived a circuit lawyer Doctor Croghan kept referring to as the Honorable Mr. Cherry. He offered Elias a wedge of good-smelling cheese, which Elias refused as the doctor looked on approvingly.

  But at the third hut, Croghan placed a hand on Elias’s arm. “You’d best let me see the widow Patton alone,” he said. “She’s quite unwell.”

  Weren’t they all unwell? Weren’t they all here because they were unwell? But there was something in Croghan’s look that made Elias understand. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to be bothered by Elias. It was that he didn’t want Elias to see her. See someone dying quite as obviously as she apparently was.

  So he waited out in the clearing with Dorothy, one of the nurses who sat in for Lillian now and then.

  “You want something?” she asked him, not unkindly.

  Elias thought of the treats he’d collected. They seemed silly to him suddenly. Silly to care about an apple or a sweet—things he’d have cared about before he fell ill. He realized he’d almost forgotten why he’d come. Forgotten that he was going to die, and that if he didn’t want to, he ought not go sneaking food the doctor thought he shouldn’t have. He’d already given in with the salt pork. “No, thanks.”

  Mr. Cherry called out for Dorothy. When she disappeared, Elias tossed the apple and the sorghum cake into the fire.

  Not long after, Croghan came back out, looking grim, but as soon as he saw Elias watching, forced a smile. “One more to go,” he said, motioning for Elias to follow.

  They made quick work of the short walk up to the last hut.

  A figure stood in front of the hut, snapping twigs off a shrub that someone had planted outside the door. The man abandoned his little garden when he saw the doctor approaching with the lamp.

  “Good morning, Shem,” Doctor Croghan called. “How are—”

  “Bring him near . . . ,” Shem said, shuffling barefoot toward Elias. The man was gaunt and pale, sweat beading his brow. Before Elias knew what was happening, Shem buried his nose in the fabric of Elias’s coat, right at his chest, and inhaled. Long, deep sniffs.

  “That’s enough, Shem,” the doctor said gently, prying the old man’s fingers from Elias’s coat. “Let Elias be.”

  The man’s eyes met Elias’s, full of disappointment. “You’re not new,” he said accusingly.

  “Elias has been here for weeks,” the doctor explained. “He’s come to heal up as well.”

  “I can’t smell the sunshine on you.” Shem let go of Elias’s coat and let the doctor guide him back inside his hut.

  “Mat’s got a tour coming in later. Perhaps they can visit with you a spell. You can see if they have the scent about them.” He whispered to Elias, “Wait here, son?”

  Elias was happy to wait outside. He knelt and scooped up some of the soil from the little garden patch, wondering if they’d had to bring it in along with the plant.

  Inside, Shem whimpered as Croghan spoke to him. He heard the clinking of glass against glass, the sound of a dropper against the neck of a bottle. Laudanum, Elias guessed. They’d used the powerful drug with Daddy to help him sleep. And by the silence that descended on the hut a minute later, he figured he’d been right.

  Croghan stepped out. “Well,” he said. To Elias’s ear, that well sounded fairly full of things he wasn’t saying. But it was fine, as Elias didn’t feel much like talking.

  “Shall we head back?” Croghan asked.

  Elias was ready. If he’d brought the other visitors any cheer, he felt depleted himself, like it had been sucked straight out of him. Croghan seemed worried too, that the benefit of the physical activity might be undercut by low spirits. “I’m eager to see how your lungs have responded to the exertion.”

  Elias just trudged on.

  “Perhaps your next walk could have you join Stephen or Mat for part of a tour instead of just visiting with me.”

  “Whatever you say, Doc.”

  As they walked, his mind drifted back to Jonah.

  He was trying to work out how to ask Croghan if any of the other patients had ever mentioned a ghost or spirit or visitor called Jonah when it hit him.

  Croghan hadn’t recognized Jonah’s name. When Sarneybrook had said it, when Elias had blurted it out in response, Croghan had only seemed concerned for Sarneybrook.

  If Croghan did have a boy called that, wouldn’t he have said something?

  And if Jonah wasn’t a slave shirking work to haunt folks, well . . . who was he?

  Elias recalled all he had heard about Jonah so far.

  Jonah had left someplace.

  Jonah was black.

  Jonah was inside the cave, without Croghan knowing, maybe without a lot of people knowing. The facts slotted into place, like the bights of rope in a difficult knot.

  Jonah was, Elias realized, a runaway.

  Chapter Seven

  DOUBLE FISHERMAN’ S KNOT

  A week slunk by. A week in which Elias grew sicker still of eggs and foul tea and his little hut. A week in which he stewed on his discovery that Jonah must be a runaway, a fugitive slave. He’d heard Stephen and Mat pass by often enough, their voices echoing as they guided tours, but they’d not collected Elias to go exploring with them again. Nick had been around some, hauling water or firewood for Lillian, and he sat with Elias a little, learning a couple of knots when he had time.

  Elias filled his days tying knots and reading—having at last swapped books back with Miss Nedra—and trying to stay awake in case Jonah came by. He’d missed him at least once, awakening to find another of Sarneybrook’s sorghum cakes sitting on his windowsill. As good as it smelled, he didn’t eat it; instead he broke it into crumbs and let Bedivere peck the bits up from his palm.

  He began to wonder if, since the bird was clever enough to be trained to fly home, could he be taught to do other things? He’d taught Charger to fetch, stay, and shake hands. He didn’t reckon he’d ever get Bedivere to roll over, but maybe he could get him to do something else.

  So he spent hours trying to teach Bedivere to come when he called. He used the crumbs of the sorghum cake, whistling and saying his name softly, imploring the bird to come closer. But Bedivere just cooed and warbled and occasionally hopped over to see what Elia
s had. He thought wistfully of how easy it had been to call out for Charger, how the big dog would come bounding to him.

  After a while, he gave up and slipped Pennyrile’s letter from his pocket.

  He’d had it too long. Pennyrile had asked him twice if he’d delivered the note, but Elias had not had a chance to get up to the entrance since accepting it. Elias had promised he’d take it as soon as he could, and were it not for the fact that the pigeons were even less reliable, he was sure Pennyrile would have asked him to give it back.

  But he hadn’t. So for the hundredth time, Elias studied the symbol stamped into the wax seal over the fold. He’d grown more worried over the week about the message it might contain, and he’d tried to lift the edges of the paper, tried to see what might be written there. But they were folded neatly enough to keep him from learning anything. He returned the letter to his pocket.

  It didn’t matter. He was under Pennyrile’s thumb for certain. He’d take the letter. If he didn’t, he knew Pennyrile would surely send those other birds out to die in the cave.

  Though he told himself there were worse things he could deal with (Sarneybrook’s perfect stillness, for instance), he didn’t like the feeling of being owned by the man. He kept seeing Pennyrile’s words on the slate, kept hearing the scratch of the chalk. And he marveled at how a fella who was near enough to being mute could be so loud inside his own head.

  Then he had the strangest thought: he wondered how Stephen and Nick and Mat and all the rest of them stood it. Doctor Croghan seemed kind enough, but even so . . . being ordered around, not being in charge of your own self. Was this what it felt like? Was this what the house girl and their outside man back home felt like?

  He shook the thought off and reasoned that it had to be different.

  But even so. Another thought came to him.

  What about Jonah? Maybe if a slave wasn’t treated right, maybe it meant he didn’t have to stay. Like his daddy had said, a man who couldn’t be bothered to scrape the hull of his ship free of barnacles didn’t deserve to have the ship. Maybe an owner who didn’t look after his slaves deserved to have them run off.

  They were good to their hands back at home, and Croghan was good to his, as far as Elias could see. It could be worse. Mat had even said so.

  But for the first time, he admitted that just because something could be worse, it didn’t mean it also couldn’t be better. Didn’t mean that a body got used to being treated like a boat, steered and directed and told where to go. Didn’t mean that a body gave up, no matter how much it appeared to be satisfied with what life had become.

  He thought about the man back home. George? It was George, wasn’t it? Or was that his boy who he brought with him to work the gardens sometimes? Did George feel that? Or what about Sally? Did she get tired of cooking and cleaning and answering the door?

  His wondering didn’t help him a whit with the matter of Pennyrile, though. In the end, there was nothing for it. He’d deliver his letter.

  All in all, it was a fine mess.

  He was still stewing on it, still trying to get Bedivere to respond to his name, when Nick called softly at the door.

  Elias sprang off the bed and burst through the quilt. “Yeah, Nick?”

  If Nick was startled by Elias’s eagerness, he didn’t let on. “You feel like coming out with me?”

  Elias brightened. “You bet!”

  Nick grinned. “You fancy fishin’?”

  Elias figured he was pulling his leg. “Sure. Fishing.”

  “You gonna bring that bird?”

  “He’ll be all right,” Elias said, dropping to a knee and tightening his bootlaces.

  “C’mon, then,” Nick said, spitting toward the shadowy side of the hut. Elias sure hoped Jonah wasn’t hiding there.

  Lillian came to the door. “Y’all can’t be turning this boy into some sort of pet—”

  “I’ll have him back ’fore supper,” Nick said.

  “See you do,” Lillian said to Nick, before addressing Elias. “Wear your hat.”

  Elias obeyed and followed them out of the hut, smiling at the thought of a new adventure. But the smile faltered when he saw Pennyrile watching from his window. He checked his pocket to make sure the letter was still there.

  “Um, Nick?” Elias said when they were out of earshot.

  “Hmm?”

  “I was wondering,” Elias said. “I mean, I was hoping, that is . . .” He hemmed and fussed with his words, but Nick stayed patient. “I was wondering if I could take a peek up top,” Elias said finally.

  Nick slowed. “Up top?”

  “I ain’t seen the sun or anything in over a month. And I promise, it won’t have to be long, just a single second, and Croghan won’t have to know—”

  “Croghan gone over to Cave City,” Nick said. “But he wouldn’t like it. Naw, I should—”

  “Please,” Elias begged. “I just need to see light that don’t come from a candle! To sniff some fresh air.”

  Nick bit the inside of his lip. “Only for a minute,” he decided. “And we best hurry if I’m to check the traps and get you back on time.”

  Elias almost hugged him with relief. If Nick could take him this one time, Elias would be sure of the way out. And then he could do the other letters by himself. “Thanks, Nick. I promise to be quick.”

  Nick was quick too, setting a relentless pace toward the entrance. Elias took stock of the landmarks, mapping the route in his mind so he could find his way back by himself if he needed to. He was so busy making his mental map and so busy trying to keep up with Nick that he didn’t even notice how good he was feeling. How strong his lungs felt. But when he caught Nick staring, he asked him, “What?”

  “You lookin’ better,” Nick said. “Ain’t got that ashy look you had when you first come.”

  “Eggs and tea and cave air, I guess.” Elias took a deep breath, feeling his lungs expand and collapse again without cracking or popping or experiencing the bits of needlelike pains that he’d gotten sometimes when he tried to draw in too much air. Nick was right. He was better.

  “Sump’s workin’,” Nick agreed. The breeze kicked up around them as they passed through an opening about the size of a barn door.

  “Why’s it blow like that?” Elias asked, remembering how the wind had been at his back when he’d first come in with Stephen. Now it was stiff enough that he had to lean into it. Nick left the lamp behind, sheltered from the breeze.

  “Cave’s Breath,” Nick explained. “Indians called it so. Blows in like this when it’s cold outside, out just as quick when it’s warm.”

  “But how?” Elias asked, wondering at a cave big enough to make its own weather.

  “Just do,” Nick said. “No ’countin’ for it.”

  Soft gray light made him forget the wind. It took everything Elias had not to run toward it.

  The sun was high, the air clear and cold. He hadn’t noticed before how beautiful it was here in these woods, the canopy vaulting impossibly high above the cave entrance, bare branches like fancy brocade against the sky. He whipped off his hat, let the light soak his hair and face, shut his eyes, and tilted his chin up toward the treetops, the rim of the cave.

  “Nice day,” Nick offered, biting off a fresh plug of tobacco and settling it between his cheek and his gum.

  Elias laughed just for the joy of it. “Perfect.”

  “I knew it’d be a good one when I walked over this mornin’,” Nick said.

  Elias opened his eyes. “You live out here,” he said, realizing he’d sort of imagined him living somewhere in the cave. But why would he when he wasn’t sick? When he could be out here with sunshine and blue skies?

  Nick pointed out to the east. “Not far.”

  “All by yourself?”

  Nick spat, staining a rock a good six feet away. “Naw. Got me a little room halfway ’tween the hotel up there and the place Mat share with his wife—”

  “Mat’s married?” Elias was incredulous.
/>   “Met Parthena not long after me and him came up here. Got some little ’uns, too.”

  “You never met a girl?” Elias asked. Nick seemed more the type, he reasoned. He couldn’t imagine Mat sweet on anybody or putting up with children.

  “Someday,” Nick offered.

  There was a lot in that “someday,” Elias guessed. A lot he didn’t understand, but he heard one thing he did recognize: hope.

  Elias walked farther away from the overhang forming the arch of the cave. “We got traps to check,” Nick said. He wasn’t often in a hurry, but Elias sensed he was now. Then he remembered the letter he was meant to deliver, the reason he’d begged Nick to bring him out here in the first place.

  But not even the letter in his pocket could curb his joy. He didn’t know if it was the sunshine or the sneaking about or if Croghan’s treatments really were working, but he felt good. Strong. Really strong. He eyed the slope that rose up sharply from where they stood to the ridge above them. He remembered coming down that slope, leaning heavily on the rope handrail to keep his balance. It had worn him out then. He couldn’t wait to try it now.

  “Please, Nick . . . ,” he began. “Let me get up and down the hill. Just once, just to see if my lungs’ll hold up.” He meant it. He really did want to see what he could do.

  Nick took a deep breath. “Go on then,” he said at last. Elias didn’t wait for him to reconsider. He ran to the rope handrail and began hauling himself up quick. The rope flew through his hands, his feet striding out, taking great big bites out of the hillside. He was up top in no time at all. Elias whooped when he gained the ridge, then he leaned over, hands on his knees, panting.

  He glanced behind him at the entrance.

  The cave gaped wide. He thought of the story of Jonah from the Bible, being swallowed by the great fish. From here the mouth of the cave looked exactly that: a mouth set to swallow up the whole woods and the world beyond. Loose rock of all sizes made a fencerow of crooked teeth. Ferns—still green most of them—fringed the entrance like whiskers.