Soul Catcher (10 page)

The boy eyed him warily. "I don't have to tell you nothin'."

"Yes, you do. Have you ever heard of something called the Fugitive Slave Law? Well, it says that anybody, black or white, free or slave, is required by law to help in the apprehension of a runaway. That means you have to help, too. That's the law. Somebody's property was illegally removed from its rightful owner and we're here to see to it that it's returned to him."

"Like you done stole my eggs?"

Cain couldn't help but smile at both the logic and the pluck of such a comment.

"See what a cheeky nigger he is," Preacher called over.

"Just tell us where they are and nothing will happen to you or to your people. I promise."

He looked at Cain, searching his eyes to see if he could trust him. "We gots no runaways here. They's all freemen."

"But we know they're here," Cain insisted. "The boy wrote a letter saying he was living at the settlement called Timbucto. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You're a brave lad. We're going to find them one way or another, so why don't you save yourself a lot of trouble and just tell me the truth."

"I am tellin' da trufe. We gots no runaways," the boy said.

"Lyin' gawddang nigger," Preacher cussed. "If'n you'd kept your nose out of it, Cain, I'da had him singin' like a songbird by now."

Cain leaned into the boy and whispered, "I mean you no harm, Joseph. I promise. But if you don't tell me where they are, that man over there is going to hurt you some more. I don't want that. And I know you sure as hell don't want that either. So just tell me where they are."

The Negro looked from Cain to Preacher and back to Cain again.

Finally he said softly, so softly only Cain could hear him, "Don't know nothin' 'bout no girl. The boy he been here. But he gone now."

"Where did he go?"

"He be workin' for Captain Brown."

"Brown? John Brown?"

"Yessum, that be him," the boy replied.

Cain had, of course, heard of the infamous Brown. Kansas Brown and his boys. Osawatomie Brown. Captain Brown of the famous battle of Black Jack, pitting his Free-Soilers against the Border Ruffians. A monster to those of the South, a man capable of taking innocent men out of their homes in the middle of the night and butchering them with machetes and broad-axes before the horrified eyes of their families. With that business out west the year before, the entire country knew him, or at least knew of him. Most reasonable people knew that the fight over the soul of Kansas was a prelude to the much larger contest over the nation's soul. That the bloodshed out there was just a taste of what it would be like if war was to come, or rather, when it came. You couldn't go into a saloon or gambling establishment or livery in all of Richmond without hearing the name John Brown bantered about. For the southerner, he epitomized the meddling, hypocritical, immoral North, a place that lacked any sort of honor or code of decency. If there was going to be trouble between the South and the North, it would come because of someone like this Brown. Cain then asked the boy where Brown lived, and the boy explained that his farm was in North Elba.

"Just a ways over that mountain," replied the boy, pointing toward the north.

Turning, Cain called to the others, "All right. Let's saddle up, boys."

"Why?" Strofe asked.

"They're not here."

"That what he tell you?" said Strofe.

"Hell, you ain't puttin' stock in what some lyin' nigger tells you?" Preacher said.

"The boy was here but now he's working on a farm nearby. And the girl can't be far off. We find him, we find her."

They started to break camp.

"What do we do with him?" Strofe asked, pointing toward the Negro boy.

"I say we take him with us," Preacher offered. "Big strong buck like that, he has to fetch five hundred or better on the block."

"We're not taking him," Cain said, saddling his horse. "We don't have a warrant for him. Besides, you heard him, he's a freeman."

At this, Preacher laughed a high-pitched cackle, his blond hair falling into his angular face. "Shee-it," he cried. "Like papers makes a rat's turd of a different. Them traders down in Richmond ain't gonna worry about no damn bill of sale or a warrant."

"I'm not some blackbirder," Cain said.

"Well, la-de-da for you," Preacher scoffed. "Slave catcher, blackbirder. They's all the same in my book. We're all of us catchin' niggers."

"No, we're not all the same. I'm carrying out the law."

"You think it makes a nevermind to that boy who brings him back?" Preacher said.

"What you're talking about is common thievery. I'll have none of it."

"Don't get all high-and-mighty on me, Cain. My folks never owned no slaves."

He stared at Cain with a gaze full of insinuation, as if somehow he'd known that Cain's father had owned slaves. Preacher was still smarting from being struck earlier and looking to pay Cain back.

"I'll have no part of it," Cain said again.

"Suit yourself," Preacher scoffed as he stood up. "More split three ways than four."

"I said no," Cain repeated. But Preacher disregarded him. He got up and walked over to the pack mule and started to take the shackles out of the saddlebags. When he turned around he walked straight into the muzzle of Cain's drawn revolver.

"I said we're not taking him. Now put those back."

Preacher didn't make a move to turn around. He stared past the barrel at Cain.

"You best be willin' to use that thing, Cain," Preacher said.

"I assure you, I am."

Cain felt a hot, bitter rage well up in him at the man, felt this hammering commence in his temples.

Preacher smiled that loony, gat-toothed smile of his. "Ain't so good at cipherin', are you, Cain. They's three of us and only one of you. What do you say, boys?" he said to the Strofe brothers. "We could split the money 'twixt us."

Cain didn't avert his gaze, kept it trained on Preacher, the way you wouldn't look away from a rattler that was coiled and about to strike. The other's eyes were glossy and black, and looking into them was like looking into a well whose bottom you couldn't estimate.

"Hell, you ain't man enough," Preacher scoffed, taunting him. The two stood locked like this for another moment, before Preacher said, "See. I knowed you was just talk." He pushed the gun from his face and brushed by Cain, moving toward the boy. That's when Cain felt something crackle in his skull just behind his brows, as if a stiff birch rod had been snapped in two by a pair of strong hands. He wheeled and struck Preacher with the gun barrel across the back of head, knocking him to the ground. Then he pounced on him, shoving the gun into Preacher's face.

"I should kill you," Cain hissed at him. "Do you hear me, you son of a bitch?"

The Strofe brothers were up then, calling to him, but their voices reached him as if from a great distance. Or perhaps it was that he had left, gone off someplace. The only thing he was aware of was that crackling in his head.

"Mr. Cain." It was Little Strofe's voice that finally reached him. "Mr. Cain."

He glanced up and saw Little Strofe standing there.

"You all right, Mr. Cain?"

Cain slowly released the hammer, holstered his gun, and stood.

Preacher scrambled to his feet. "When this is all over, Cain, me and you's a score to settle. Remember that." He headed back over to his horse and mounted up.

"Let me deal with him from now on, all right?" Strofe said to Cain.

"Fine by me. Just make sure you do."

"What do we do with him?" he asked, nodding at the Negro.

Cain walked over to the boy and squatted down. He took out his pocketknife and sawed the rope holding him halfway through.

"It will take you some while to work the rest of your way through that," he told the boy. "By then we'll be long gone. Don't concern yourself with this. It's not your affair." Then he took out a silver dollar and shoved it into the boy's coat pocket. "For the eggs."

Chapter 4.

They rode hard toward North Elba, trying to make the village before word got there ahead of them. But the road was little better than a deer path that meandered through the thick forest of birch and ash, tamarack and mountain laurel. Emerging finally from the woods, they came upon a clearing with a small cabin in the middle of it, and they decided to stop there and inquire the way to Brown's place. Before they could even dismount, an old man came shuffling crablike from around the side of the cabin.

"Don't get down," he commanded. He was carrying an ancient fowling piece, and he appeared equally old, wizened and bent-backed. From his sunken, toothless maw tobacco juice dribbled out and down his chin. When Cain mentioned Brown's name, the old man eyed them suspiciously.

"That fellow John Brown, you mean?" he asked, moving the business end of his gun ever so slightly upward.

"The same," Cain replied. He wasn't sure if the old man was sympathetic to Brown's cause or not. You never could tell with these Yankees. For all he knew, he was a personal friend of his and about to let fly with a barrelful of bird shot. Cain cautiously slid back the flap of his greatcoat so his holster was clear, then he removed the leather loop that held down the Colt's hammer. This wasn't lost on the old man, though; he cocked the shotgun, marshaled his sunken lips into a smile aimed at Cain, and spat disdainfully on the ground.

"If you're more of his nigger-loving rabble come to stir up trouble, you can just keep on riding."

Behind him, Preacher snorted. "You watch what you're doin' with that thing, old man," he said. " 'Fore somebody gets hisself hurt."

"We're not part of all that," Cain explained to the man.

"You ain't one of his ab'litionists?"

"Hell, no," Preacher piped up. "We're after us a coupla runaway niggers."

Cain glanced over his shoulder at Preacher, who touched the brim of his cap and smiled at him.

"We're looking for property that was stolen from a Mr. Eberly of Henrico County, Virginia," Cain explained. "We have reason to believe he's hiding out at Brown's farm."

The old man stared at them for a long time, then spat on the ground again. Finally, he raised a bony finger and pointed toward the northwest.

"Take the road through the pass. On the far side follow the Ausable till it bends east. Then you want to cross it and head north half a mile. That's his place. Has some fine Devon cattle. If he stuck to that he might be a passable farmer."

Cain thanked the man and they turned to leave.

"He don't speak for all of us," the man called after them. "For all I give a damn, you can have every last darkie back."

They had to cross a high, narrow pass that cut between two looming mountains whose summits were hidden in the clouds. Lower down, the road was muddy from spring rains and thaws, yet as they began the ascent it soon hardened and turned frozen. Much of the higher ground was covered in ice or snow. The horses lost their footing, and for the last couple of miles up the pass, the riders had to dismount and walk them. The dogs ran along beside them, playing in the snow and yapping loudly. The mountain to their right was covered with birch and spruce and tamarack, while the entire south face of the opposite one was a sheer rock cliff. Waterfalls plunged hundreds of feet, before crashing with a deafening roar into a fast- moving river that churned below the road. With his spyglass, Cain saw, up amid the crags, aeries with eagles nesting in them. The day was one of oddly indeterminate nature. While it had remained cold and raw, one minute it would be raining, the next snowing so hard they could barely see, and the one after that the sun would break through the clouds and they would feel themselves sweating as they ascended the pass. By late afternoon, shafts of bold sunlight had torn through the ragged cloud cover and swept over the earth like God's own hand claiming possession.