River Runs Deep Page 9

  They must have used it this way many times before for it to have earned the name!

  Elias swallowed. It might be me next, laid out there, he thought. And if not next, someday.

  Pennyrile. Jonah. The exploring. He’d come here for one reason only, and it wasn’t to do with any of the those things. He’d come to heal. And he would not be next. Not if he had anything to do with it.

  But he didn’t want anyone else to be next either. He tore his eyes away from the bundle, and Pennyrile touched his forehead in mock salute, then began to shuffle back up the path.

  Elias rose, circled around to the edge of Corpse Rock, and stared at the sheet-bundled body of the widow. He’d never met her, never even seen her face. And he wouldn’t. Ever.

  How many people will never know me, he wondered. If he died down there?

  He closed his eyes then and there and prayed, pleading with God to make him better. To heal him. Promising he’d do what the doctor said and promising to be kind to everyone and promising to not think those dark thoughts about Mama and Granny shipping him off so they wouldn’t have to be bothered with him dying anymore.

  But he was ashamed that the prayers that came first were for himself. So he screwed his eyes shut tighter and prayed for peace for the widow Patton’s soul. But all those other prayers, the ones for himself, kept crowding back in. Finally he gave up, recited the Act of Contrition, and murmured an amen as he made the sign of the cross.

  When he lifted his head, he found Nick had drawn near. “All right, son?”

  Elias sighed. “I’m all right.”

  “You see her?” Nick asked. “When you went calling with Croghan?”

  Elias said he had not. “Bet she was real nice, though.”

  Nick’s nose twitched. “Naw. Mean, that one.”

  Elias was surprised to hear Nick talk so. But also relieved somehow. He could always count on Nick.

  “But maybe being so sick made her that way. It does that with some folk,” Nick continued, eyeing Pennyrile creeping away, stopping every few yards to lean against the wall.

  Elias would have to sit there a while if he didn’t want to pass him as he made his way back. Maybe Nick was right. Maybe Pennyrile only got so mean after he got sicker, and maybe he was getting meaner by the day, just as he was getting weaker.

  “Pennyrile trouble you any?” Nick asked, Elias catching the scent of his tobacco on his words.

  Pennyrile had. But Elias couldn’t make it Nick’s trouble too. “I reckon I’ll be all right,” Elias said, beginning his own slow march back to his hut. Maybe Jonah would turn up today, he thought. But he doubted even a visit from him could bring his spirits up now.

  Chapter Nine

  KILLICK HITCH

  The next morning after breakfast and Croghan’s visit, Jonah returned.

  “Hey,” he whispered.

  “Where you been?” Elias whispered back.

  “Around. You the one been out a lot, ain’t you? ’Tween fishing with Nick and ’splorin’ with the fellas, and the doctor getting y’all out for that supper, you’re the real man about town, ain’t you?”

  “Sorry I missed you them times,” Elias said. And he was.

  “Gonna be harder to call on than ever, what with Croghan sending you out with the tours now.”

  “How’d you know about that?” Elias asked. Croghan had only that morning told Elias that he wanted him to join the tour group that would be by later. Since the bit of exercise he’d had so far seemed to be helping, he figured to let him get even more.

  “Like I said, I keep up on all y’all,” Jonah said. “And you still got the best end of things, you ask me.”

  “What’s he doing to the others now?” Elias knew he should ask about Jonah being a runaway, but was half afraid Jonah might get spooked enough to not come around.

  “Tryin’ everthing,” Jonah said, and Elias could almost hear the glee in his voice. “Been working at bleeding some of them folks.”

  Elias’s skin crawled. “I hate leeches.” He’d yanked plenty from his ankles in the freshwater marshes back near Norfolk.

  Jonah hissed. “Leeches nothing. Too cold by half down here for them things. And Croghan don’t think a knife is civilized at all. Made him some kind of borehole that poke through when he turn a crank.”

  “You’re making that up,” Elias said, at once horrified and impressed.

  “Naw!” Jonah said. “Does it to a lot of ’em. Don’t know if it works any. But I’d say it’s a sight better than what he done that Mr. Cherry.”

  “What’s he do to him?”

  “Calls it a ‘emetic.’ You know what that is?”

  Elias did not.

  “Thing to make a body cast up what he ate. Bad, too. Some mix of raw tobacco and castor oil. I don’t hang around much when I hear the doctor call for that one. Sounds is awful enough to make me th’ow up too, and then they’d know I was near.”

  “ ’Lias?” Lillian called from the fire. “I see the lights from Mat’s tour. You best get down the hill.”

  “Be right there!” Elias hollered, but he turned quickly back to Jonah. He had to do it now. “You know we called on Sarneybrook.”

  “Yeah,” Jonah said. “I know.”

  Elias took a deep breath. “You visit him. And he told us about it and even used your name.”

  Jonah didn’t reply.

  “Croghan didn’t act like your name meant anything to him,” Elias went on. “He seemed to think Sarneybrook dreamt you up.”

  Still Jonah kept quiet.

  “They’re below, Elias!” Lillian called from outside. “Hurry on!”

  “I’m coming!” he yelled, then whispered toward the window. “You’re a runaway, aren’t you?”

  The silence that fell stretched out long and thin. Elias heard Mat’s voice in the distance as he addressed his tour.

  “Jonah?”

  “You got a tour to catch.” Jonah sounded grim. Elias wished he could see his face, wished he could read what Jonah might have been feeling.

  “I won’t tell on you,” Elias pressed on, but then he heard Lillian’s steps drawing near.

  “Now, Elias!” Lillian said, poking through the curtain.

  Elias threw one last look at the window, but he knew Jonah would stay hidden or had already gone. “Okay.” He scattered extra feed for Bedivere and wrapped his green scarf around his neck. He patted his coat pocket to make sure Pennyrile’s letter was still there in case he managed to check the tree.

  “Mat’s fit to be tied about you coming out,” Lillian said to Elias. “You’ll only make it worse by holding him up now. Watch yourself.”

  Elias thanked her for the warning and thumped down the slope. Mat broke off from his little group of tourists to intercept Elias. “Don’t get in the way,” he growled, then stalked back to the head of the group and snapped at them to come along. A few of the tourists eyed Elias with curiosity, but Mat was moving fast, and no one was keen to be left behind.

  Elias was relieved to see that Mat’s rough treatment seemed sort of universal.

  Elias hung near the back, watching the rest of the folks. There were eight of them. A young couple on honeymoon from Nashville, which he knew because they must have told the other folk on the tour with them a half dozen times. Two other couples, older, one accompanied by a grown daughter. All the ladies were wearing breeches, which Elias could scarcely believe. Finally there was a fat man who seemed to be by himself.

  They tracked back through Gothic Avenue, everybody gawking up at the signatures. Mat didn’t ask them if they wanted to sign their names. In the Star Chamber, Mat climbed up to show them the stars twinkling overhead, holding the torch high. Then every man on the tour paid for the privilege of throwing a rock up high and making a new star. The quarters clinked in Mat’s palm, but he didn’t seem any happier for it. Then he led them over Bottomless Pit. When the others hesitated at the bridge, Elias dug up his courage and went first without being asked. Though his legs threate
ned to turn to jelly, he kept his eyes straight ahead, hoping he looked braver than he felt. Mat didn’t appear impressed. Then they wound down to Fat Man’s Misery. Elias noticed that the fat man on their tour did seem to be a little more miserable than the others. He thought he saw Mat grinning at that. Elias felt a little sorry for the big man, and hung back and waited as he squeezed himself through the narrow twists. It took a good while, and Elias found himself looking anywhere but at the man, embarrassed for him, embarrassed to have to stand there and wait for him.

  Eventually he looked behind him, back up the path. He wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.

  In a little alcove just to the right of the path lay one of Pennyrile’s pigeons.

  The fat man was still miserable, trying to unwedge himself, so Elias backtracked to the bird.

  The pigeon lay on its side, wings tucked neatly in, tail feathers fanned out behind. It could have died an hour ago or a month ago, Elias guessed, what with the cave vapors doing their magic on the bird’s corpse even now.

  Elias eyed the little scroll of paper rolled tightly around the pigeon’s right leg. How long had it been here?

  The fat man had made progress, so Elias didn’t have much time. He quickly untied the perfect square knot around the paper scroll and worked it free. He was tempted to read the message then, but Mat shouted, “C’mon, kid!”

  He pocketed the scroll and snaked his way through Fat Man’s Misery to catch up. He felt awful leaving the pigeon behind, but Mat wouldn’t stand for it, he knew.

  Mat finished out the tour. When he wasn’t telling stories about the cave or pointing out the different formations or grabbing folk by the elbow to make sure they didn’t step off the path, he was talking sharp, barking at the visitors for not watching where their feet were going.

  But nobody objected. Nobody pointed out that he was only a slave and ought to be minding his manners. In fact, Elias noticed they all seemed to like it. Maybe it made the whole experience of being down in the cave that much more foreign. They would leave here, go home, and tell their friends about Mammoth Cave, where the sun never shone, the fish were blind, and slaves bossed white folk around.

  And, why, Mat sure didn’t seem to mind everybody obeying him either, for all his acting annoyed. There was a spring in his step, surly or not.

  At the end of the tour, Elias followed them back out to the main entrance. As the little group of folk lingered there in the shadows of the arch, asking questions, Elias saw his opportunity. He climbed to the top of the rise, watched Mat and the others edging away from the cave at last. The men were giving Mat money, coins that he took without so much as a nod or a look in their eyes. When they finished, he led them to the rope, and let them all struggle up its length to where Elias sat waiting. Elias did what he could to help a couple of the ladies and the one fat man, who worked up a heck of a lather by the time he gained the top. Poor fellow sat down heavy on a log and handed Elias a dime without even saying thanks, he was heaving so hard. Just as the last person was climbing up, another slave—one Elias had seen in the hospital ward only once or twice—came to lead the group of tourists to the wagons that were waiting there for them. Elias watched them go.

  “You comin’, runt?” Mat barked from below.

  Elias waved a hand at him. “In a minute,” he called. He dashed to the tree, cleared wet leaves from the hidey hole, and found, just as before, a letter inside the jar. Whoever this brother Pennyrile was writing to might be, he must live nearby to be writing back and forth so quick.

  Elias pulled the letter from his pocket, his fingers brushing the roll of paper he’d taken off the bird. He fished it out too.

  “I ain’t got all day!” Mat thundered. Elias swapped the letters, then paused, the scroll still in his hand. It wouldn’t contain much of use to Pennyrile’s brother now, would it? He’d already written since, so the note wouldn’t be any count to him.

  And what would it hurt, he reasoned, if Elias read just this one?

  Only to find out how long the pigeon had been missing, he told himself.

  But he hadn’t been brought up to read other folks’ private business. Then again, he hadn’t been brought up to run errands for snakes like Pennyrile, had he?

  “Boy, if you make me come up there to fetch you, you won’t like it,” Mat hollered from below. Elias swapped out the letters, but still held on to the scroll.

  Then a queer feeling came over him, and he looked all around the silent woods. If Pennyrile’s correspondent was close, could he be watching him now? Elias hopped up and dashed back down the hillside, barely holding on to the rope.

  “Slower than molasses in January,” Mat griped. “Don’t know what Croghan thought to accomplish sending you out with me.”

  Elias held out the dime. “That fat man give me this,” he said. “Figure he meant it for you.”

  Mat eyed Elias as he snatched the coin. “Small tip for such a big fella.”

  “They always give you money?”

  Mat didn’t answer at first, just stalked back into the cave. “Meaner I speak to ’em, the more they think I’ve saved them from.”

  Elias smiled, wondering if maybe Mat’s meanness wasn’t anything more than a habit born of good business. “You gonna use the money to buy your freedom too?”

  Mat whirled on Elias. “No concern of yours what I do with money I earn, boy.” He was close enough that Elias could see his whiskers were shot through with silver.

  “I reckon it’s not,” Elias agreed quietly. He kept his distance as he followed Mat back into the cave, wondering why the man was so dead set on disliking him and wishing it bothered him less.

  Chapter Ten

  ANCHOR BEND

  How you want ’em, tonight, Elias?” Lillian had an apron full of brown eggs.

  “S’prise me,” Elias said.

  Lillian laughed as she cracked three eggs into the pan. “Yer funny.”

  He walked past her and tried to ignore the savory broth she had simmering in the kettle. Onions in there, he figured. Potatoes, too. His stomach rumbled at him, but he kept on, straight to Pennyrile’s door.

  “Mr. Pennyrile?”

  The man appeared, waved Elias inside, and snatched the letter from him.

  Pennyrile looked a little better today, Elias thought, though better for the man wasn’t much to get excited about. He had a long way to go before he was well. The wrap needed changing, already soaked through with ointment, blood, and serum.

  “I can fetch you another one out tomorrow, maybe,” Elias said, almost feeling sorry for him. Pennyrile waved him off, popping the wax seal on the letter. Elias saw the little brown bottle with the medicine dropper and recognized the bitter almond scent of laudanum in the air. Pennyrile wouldn’t be writing any letters tonight.

  Elias considered the scroll. He could—maybe should—tell Pennyrile now what he’d found. But no. He was curious enough. And this was his chance. Besides, the old dog was lucky enough that Elias hadn’t just read one of the letters he’d carried back and forth for him. He could have. But that would have been wrong. Well, more wrong. Reading a message he’d found, though? That had been abandoned? Forgotten? Maybe it was wrong too, but not as much.

  “I’m goin’ then,” Elias said. Pennyrile ignored him, already engrossed in his letter.

  He passed Lillian carrying a bowl of soup to Nedra. “I put your eggs on the shelf next the stove so that bird won’t get at ’em,” she said.

  “Thanks, Lill,” Elias said.

  Lillian stopped abruptly, soup sloshing over the rim of the bowl, and studied him. “You welcome,” she said, pleased as anything, looking at him like he’d just given her a present.

  She shook her head, still smiling.

  “What?” Elias asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, breaking off for Nedra’s hut.

  Elias watched her go, trying to figure out what he’d done to make Lillian smile. And then it dawned on him. He’d told her thanks.

  That was it?
>
  It must have been. And he wondered if he’d ever thanked their house girl back home. Or if he’d ever heard his mother or Granny thank her. He quickly realized they hadn’t, that they had done as he always had, mostly acting like she wasn’t there unless they gave her an order.

  Well.

  Bedivere was happy to see him, cooing and warbling and flapping. Elias thought his bad wing was opening up a little better. Maybe he was healing. At least somebody was.

  He scattered the corn on the tabletop for Bedivere before wolfing down his eggs. He got through half the tea before he sat back against the headboard to watch the bird eat. Elias felt the worry draining out of him, felt the day’s exertion catching up with him, and fell asleep the moment his eyes dropped shut.

  He woke an hour or two later, sitting quickly upright in bed.

  Pennyrile’s note!

  Elias fished it out and found it was beginning to unfurl, begging to be read.

  He poked his head out the door. Pennyrile’s cabin was dark and silent—even his pigeons had settled for the night. Elias snugged the curtain as tight as he could and went back to the table.

  He unrolled the little scroll. Each scrape of paper against paper sounded like a scream in the quiet hut. It seemed to take forever just to flatten out the fool thing, and he was clammy with nerves by the time he did. Holding the letter gingerly, rocking it back and forth to catch the light, he read:

  My dear brother,

  Long to be out of this place. Find myself growing weaker. Getting to the entrance to pick up your letters grows more difficult. Don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do so. Doctor is a quack. The man in the hut across from mine died last week, the doctor unable to cure him in the least. If were the only reason I am here, would go now. But still have hope of finding what we seek. Slaves prove impossible to follow in secret and won’t talk free with me. But a new boy has taken the empty bed and I think he may prove useful.