Soul Catcher (27 page)

^{"I didn't make it. I'm just following it."}

^{"You made it, all right. You and every white buckra makes the laws."}

^{When she was finished, she stood and lowered her shift and straightened out her dress. As he tied her hands again, she said to him, "I want to know something. What kind of man do what you did? Lie 'bout a woman's chile like that?"}

^{"I told you, I didn't want things to go bad. Let's go," he said, pulling on the rope.}

^{He led her back to camp and over to where Henry sat manacled to a tree.}

^{"You!" she cried. "You low-down no'count nigger."}

^{"Ain't had no choice, Rosetta," he replied. "I swear, they was gone cut my other ear off."}

^{"I shoulda knowed it was you told 'em where I was."}

^{She threw herself at Henry then, striking him as best she could with her hands tied. The others quickly grabbed her, pulled her off. They then manacled her to a tree a safe distance away.}

^{"Gutless bastard," she cried, trying to spit at him, but he was too far away. "Wait till I get you, Henry. You bess sleep with one eye open from now on."}

^{"Sorry, Rosetta. But what was I to do?"}

^{"You coulda been a man for once. The other way around, I wouldn't a told on you."}

^{Later, Cain was sitting near the fire, cleaning the wound to his arm with whiskey and a rag. She'd got him in the upper arm, just above the elbow. The blade had gone in sideways, leaving a jagged tear as it came out. It hurt like hell, but at least it hadn't struck any of the big arteries. He wrapped a clean rag around it, ripped the ends, and tied the dressing in place. He thought it might need stitches, but he would wait until the morrow, to look at it in the light of day. Then he got a new shirt from his saddlebags, as well as a fresh bottle of bourbon. When he glanced up, he happened to catch the woman staring at him.}

^{"How's the arm, Mr. Cain?" asked Little Strofe. He was sitting nearby on the ground, picking burrs out of the coat of one of his dogs.}

^{"It's all right," Cain replied, offering his bottle to Little Strofe.}

^{"Thankee kindly," the other man said. He took a drink, wiped the bottle's mouth on his sleeve, and handed it back. "I w-warned you that Rosetta was a wild one."}

^{"That you did."}

^{He leaned toward Cain and said in an undertone, "Tell you the God's truth, I don't see why Mr. Eberly even k-keeps her around."}

^{"Some men go through a lot of trouble over a woman."}

^{"I reckon you're right on that score, Mr. Cain."}

^{From his saddlebags he got out the copy of
Rasselas
he'd purchased back in Boston, and he put on his glasses and began to read. Yet he didn't read for long. He was bone tired, his leg aching, and the wound in his arm throbbing. Soon he put the book away and crawled under his blanket. He thought of what the runaway girl had said to him, that she would kill him if she got the chance. He knew she meant it, though the threat didn't worry him all that much. Fugitives often made threats. It was something they did. But what he thought about most was how she'd asked what sort of man he was, tricking her like that regarding her son. He told himself he had just done what anyone in his shoes might, what had saved them all a lot of trouble. Especially the girl. And if he'd had to do it over again, he'd have done the same thing. Besides, she was just some nigger runaway aiming to hurt him anyway she could for catching her. Still, her words didn't set well with him.}

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^{T
he morning began cool and overcast, with a tattered fog drifting in off the river. Cain crawled out from his blanket, his face wet from dew and the wound in his arm pulsating. Little Strofe had already gotten a fire going and started breakfast.}

^{"Some coffee, Mr. Cain?" he said, handing him a cup.}

^{"Thank you, Mr. Strofe."}

^{When breakfast was ready, Little Strofe brought plates of cornmeal and salted beef over to the runaways. As always, Henry dug in as best he could with his hands manacled and ate ravenously, but Rosetta just stared at the profferred plate.}

^{"You got to eat, Rosetta," pleaded Little Strofe, squatting in front of her. "Mr. Eberly don't want you gettin' sick. Here," he said. As he went to put the plate on her lap, she slapped it away, knocking the food to the ground. "Now what you go and do that for?"}

^{"You stay away from me," she threatened, pointing a finger at him.}

^{He threw his hands in the air and walked over to Cain.}

^{"She won't eat."}

^{Cain shrugged. "Like they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. She gets hungry enough, she'll eat."}

^{They saddled up and rode south, toward Rhode Island. They didn't have much choice, so they put Rosetta on the pack mule behind Henry. The two squabbled like children for a time, pushing and shoving for space on the mule's back, but they finally grew accustomed to the notion that it was this or one of them would have to get down and hoof it. It started to rain later in the morning and continued steady all day. The horses plodded along the muddy road.}

^{The land on either side was flat and sandy and studded with rocks, with small farms tucked between rivers and stands of elm and chestnut trees, surrounded by lichen-covered stone walls. The people they passed on the highway were uniformly inhospitable, sober farmers in wagons filled with potatoes or turnips or chickens in crates, ministers and their stern-looking wives in buckboards, well-dressed gentlemen driving phaetons.}

^{"Never see such sour pusses on folks," Strofe commented.}

^{"These Yankees must not a took them a good shit in a long while," added Preacher.}

^{They passed peddlers in horse-drawn caravans loaded with everything under the sun for sale: clanking pots and pans, articles of clothing, buggy whips and spurs, patent medicines and headache powders. The salesmen were a little more friendly, as salesmen always are. From a fat peddler with suspenders and a tweed coat, Preacher bought another hat, this one a gray felt bowler, which looked as absurd on him as it would have on one of Little Strofe's hounds. For one thing it was too large, came well down onto his head, pushing his ears out and almost covering his eyes.}

^{"That looks quite fetching on you, sir," the fat man offered up, holding up a tortoiseshell mirror for Preacher to inspect himself. Preacher kept taking the hat off and putting it back on, turning this way and that to view himself.}

^{"It's all the rage now in London," the man said.}

^"Yeah?"

^{"Yes, indeed. Why, Prince Albert himself wears one."}

^{"How do it look on me?" he asked Little Strofe.}

^{"Makes you look like a duke," he replied.}

^{"No," his brother challenged, "what it makes him look like is one a them Pinkerton men."}

^{"What's that?" Preacher asked, not knowing if he was being made fun of.}

^{"Railroad detectives. They all wear hats like that."}

^{Though, of course, he'd never seen a Pinkerton man, Preacher decided he was fond of the notion of being likened to a railroad detective. It sounded important. He strutted about like the cock of the walk. As they rode along, he could be seen turning the hat at various jaunty angles atop his narrow head and viewing his shadow as it rode along beside him. He'd also purchased from the peddler a bright blue neckerchief which he tied about his neck in a fashion he considered to be jaunty, and some hard candy and quids of tobacco.}

^{Now and then, Preacher would ride up from his position in the rear so that he was parallel with the two Negroes on the mule. Cain could see him offer the girl a piece of hard candy or try to strike up a conversation with her. While Cain was too far away to make out what he said to her, Preacher even threw his head back and laughed out loud once. The hat seemed to bring out another side to him, though Cain was not altogether sure what that side was or if he didn't actually prefer the more ill-tempered aspect of the man to this. And one thing was for sure--he wasn't about to trust this change, whatever prompted it.}

^{From a farmer's roadside stand they bought some eggs and potatoes and onions, and from a little boy fishing by a river they purchased several freshly caught trout, their flesh full and firm. They stopped for lunch at the fork of two roads, and Little Strofe made a fire and cleaned the fish and peeled the potatoes, and then fried it all in a pan with lard. When the meal was ready, he again tried to give Rosetta a plate of food and again she refused. He looked over at Cain and shrugged his shoulders. Then he brought the plate over to his dogs, and they devoured it in two shakes.}

^{Cain, too, dug into his food, eating with the hearty appetite of a man who'd accomplished something of import and was treating himself. He felt better than he had in a while, light and buoyant. They had the girl in custody, and in a few weeks they'd be back in Richmond, and he'd get the bill of sale for his horse as well as the reward, square up with those whom he owed, and be on his way west. It would still be early enough in the year to make it through the western mountains before winter set in. If he made Denver by July, he could be through the passes before the snows. Be in San Francisco for the new year. He found himself filled with a feeling that was alien to him--hope.}

^{After eating, he rolled up his sleeve and inspected the wound in his arm. It looked worse in the light of day, the edges ragged and oozing a pinkish fluid. Yes, he thought, it would need stitches. From his saddlebags he got the box with the few medical supplies he kept with him for emergencies--bandages, clean rags, a needle and some thread, a lancet for letting blood, some of Rush's purgative pills. After pouring a little whiskey on the wound, he set to work stitching it. He'd picked up a little doctoring back in the war, and over the past ten years he'd often found himself in need of the services of a doctor but was too far away, so he'd had to learn to patch himself up. One time he'd been shot in the leg by a crazy man in a card game around a campfire; another he was knifed by a strapping Negro he'd been hunting. There'd also been various cuts and broken bones, fevers and infections he'd had to tend to himself. When he was finished stitching the wound in his arm, he tied a clean rag around it and rolled down his sleeve. To ease the pain a might, he took a sip of laudanum.}

^{He glanced over and saw that the girl was looking at him. He could not quite decipher the look in her eyes, though he guessed it was some form of rancor. He thought of her threat, how she'd slit his throat if she ever got the chance. It wasn't so unusual. Most Negroes, if you could get them to speak their minds truly instead of their normal fawning and lying, would like to do violence to a white man. Yet he wasn't going to dwell on what she might or might not be thinking. He didn't want to spoil the good mood he was in. In a few weeks' time he'd be back in Richmond, settling his affairs with Eberly. He tried picturing what the Pacific Ocean would look like. When he was a boy he'd seen an artist's rendering of Lewis and Clark's first view of the coast. Sunlight glinting off the water. Waves crashing onshore. A vastness filled with light and possibility. A place where a man could fashion for himself a new life, a new beginning. Against the throbbing in his arm, he took another sip of laudanum.
To hell with her,
he thought.}

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^{T
he next day the rain had let up, though it was still overcast and gray. By noon they'd reached Providence. They rode past the}

^{statehouse and the Seekonk River, which was crowded with boats of every variety and size. Down at the wharf they saw a whaler unloading its cargo of oil while out in the bay a clipper ship was sailing south. Cain stopped at a telegraph office and sent Eberly a message:}