Soul Catcher (37 page)

^{For the next several days as they rode south, Little Strofe continued to call for his missing hound. "Skunk," he'd yell. "C'mon, boy. Here, boy." After trying that for a while, he'd change tactics. "Dang you, Skunk," he'd call. "I'm gonna whup your mangy hide when you git back, I swear." Yet as the days passed without any sign of him, the chances of his returning looker bleaker. One night Cain found Little Strofe washing pans down by a creek. He was crying. Cain squatted down beside him.}

^{"He's got a good nose," Cain said. "It wouldn't surprise me if he followed our trail, Mr. Strofe."}

^{The man nodded, unconvinced. "Always did g-give me problems, that dog. He was the runt of the litter, Mr. Cain," the man confessed. "I had to take a bottle and feed him by hand."}

^{"Don't give up hope."}

^{"I reckon," the man replied, but Cain saw the doubt in his eyes.}

^a

^{* * *}

^{T
hey continued southwest, crossing the Delaware at Phillipsburg and heading into Pennsylvania. The Quakers, Cain knew, were almost as hardheaded and belligerent as the Boston abolitionists when it came to slavery, and they would need to be cautious. He'd heard stories about those who aided and abetted fugitives, even resorted to violence to further their cause. Like the one about the sweet old lady who'd scared off a couple of slave catchers with a load of buckshot they ended up having to pick out of their backsides. For all their peaceful, God-fearing talk, they could be as brutal as any overseer or slave trader.}

^{They rode past Allentown and Kutztown and Reading, heading for Harrisburg, where they would eventually turn southward toward Virginia. The country unfolded in a series of green rolling hills, fertile pastureland filled with dark-faced Jersey cattle, and fields newly planted with wheat and corn. Along the way, they came upon the neat, well-kept farms of the Amish, whom they saw working in the fields dressed in their black clothing. Outside a small town called Womelsdorf, they met an older couple in a covered, two-wheeled trap heading off to church. Cain stopped them and asked how far it was to Harrisburg. The man, who wore a straw hat and a long beard, told them in an odd German accent it was two days' ride. He glanced at the two Negroes and gave the reins a sharp crack.}

^{For a long while they followed a narrow washboard road that wound its way through a mountain gap of mixed hardwoods and pine. Trees were beginning to form buds, and on some of the lower slopes the dogwoods were in bloom. Earlier they'd passed a large dead rattlesnake along the side of the road that a crow and several turkey buzzards were fighting over. The crow, smaller by half, had held its own, seemed even to have had the upper hand. Behind him now, Cain could hear Little Strofe and Henry arguing about snakes. They were debating whether a rattler or a cottonmouth was the more dangerous.}

^{"You can s-step on a cottonmouth 'fore you knows he's there," said Little Strofe. "Leastways with a rattler you can hear him."}

^{"I knew a overseer in the fields once got hisself bit on the leg by a big ole rattler," said Henry. "He drop down dead by the time he lift up his pant leg."}

^"Huh!"

^{"Hit's true. I seen him. Drop right down dead."}

^{"Ever'body knows the orneryest snake is your c-cottonmouth. Them critters downright mean."}

^{They continued debating the merits of their respective positions for several miles. As they rode along, Cain developed an itch in the middle of his back that was driving him crazy.}

^{"Would you do me a kindness?" he asked Rosetta. "Would you scratch my back?"}

^{She paused for a moment, then started to scratch it lightly.}

^{"Lower. And harder," he instructed. When she finally hit the spot, he cried, "Oh, God."}

^{She lifted his shirt and inspected his back. He felt her fingers, cool as alcohol, running down his spine, and he shivered.}

^{"They look like jigger flea bites," she told him. "You got you any guncotton in your medical box?"}

^{"No," he replied.}

^{"That's what you need. That or turpentine. I'd get them bites, Momma'd put guncotton on them."}

^{About two hours before nightfall, they reached the top of a long mountain pass. Cain stopped and got out his spyglass and scoped the road behind them as far as he could see. For the past two days he'd had the uneasy feeling that they were being followed. He'd had no evidence to go on, save for a feeling in his gut, but that same feeling had saved his neck on more than one occasion, and he was loath to ignore it. Yet he saw nothing. He waited for Strofe and the others to catch up.}

^{"Why don't you go on ahead," Cain told them. "I'm going to set here for a spell and watch our flank."}

^{"You ain't still worried about Brown, are you?" Strofe said to him.}

^{"Better safe than sorry," he replied. "I'll catch up with you before nightfall."}

^{As Preacher rode by, he was heard to say, "Hell, he jess wants to be by his lonesome with that bitch."}

^{Cain decided to let it go.}

^{He held Rosetta's hand as she slid off the back of Hermes, then dismounted himself. He shackled her wrists and led the horse into the woods a little ways and tied him to a tree. From his saddlebags he got his spyglass and the canteen, before heading back to the road.}

^{"Here," he said to Rosetta, handing her the canteen. "Sit still and don't move." With his spyglass he scoped the road they'd taken through the valley. He could see for miles. Nothing.}

^{So he sat down on the ground and removed his flask and had a sip.}

^{"You got kin?" she asked.}

^{"My father and brother have a farm out in the western part of Virginia," Cain explained, surveying the valley below. "A place called Nottoway Chase. That's where I grew up."}

^{"What about a mother?"}

^{"She died when I was a boy."}

^{"They own slaves, your folks?"}

^{"Some. Not many."}

^{"One's too many. How 'bout you? You got you a wife?"}

^"No."

^{"How come?"}

^{"I don't know."}

^{"Ever come close to gettin' married?"}

^{"I was engaged once."}

^{"What happened?"}

^{"What the hell is this?" He wasn't used to anyone let alone a runaway asking him so many questions. He thought of telling her just to shut up. But, oddly, he didn't mind talking to her, telling her about himself, his life. He couldn't say why. Perhaps it was that he wouldn't see her again. "I had to go to war down in Mexico."}

^{He knew that, at best, it was only a kind of truth, something smooth and polished to a high sheen that made the telling of it easier.}

^{"How about you?" Cain asked. "Did you have any other family?"}

^{"Just my momma and my boy. And this one here," she said, touching her belly.}

^{"What about your father?"}

^{She snorted. "Never had me no father. Can I axe you something, Cain?" she said in an undertone.}

^{He turned toward her. "That all depends."}

^{"How come you with these men?" She tossed her head in the direction that the others had ridden.}

^{"What do you mean?"}

^{"Why you doin' this? Takin' folks back to their chains."}

^{"It's my profession. It's what I do."}

^{"But me and Henry ain't never done nothing to you."}

^{"Doesn't matter. You're a runaway, and it's my job to see that you're returned."}

^{"So it's just the money to you?"}

^{"The money's part of it," he said to Rosetta. "I'm in Eberly's debt. He could make things very difficult for me if I didn't bring you back."}

^{"You ain't like them others, Cain," she said to him. "Preacher and the Strofes. They stupid and low-down mean and can't do no better than this. But you, you got more in you. You got learnin'. Brains."}

^{"I thought you said I was just like them."}

^{"I'm thinkin' maybe I was wrong about you."}

^{"Or maybe not. Maybe I am no better than them."}

^{"Tha's just you lettin' yourself off easy," she told him.}

^{"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.}

^{"If you don't count yourself no better'n them, then you don't have to live up to no more. It makes things a whole lot easier for you."}

^{"That'll be enough," he told her.}

^{"You don't like when the truth hits too close to home, do you, Cain?" she offered.}

^{"I said, 'enough.' Now damn it, shut up."}

^{When he turned back to watch the road, he saw, about a mile distant, the swirling dust from a party of riders. He grabbed his spyglass and had a closer look. There were about six men, riding hard in his direction. The leader rode a dappled gray horse, and he was spurring him violently. When they got closer, he recognized the same figure he'd seen back at the river. Dressed in black, his long gray beard sweeping behind him as he galloped along the road, coming on like the apocalypse. That goddamned Brown. He had with him only half the party now. Cain figured perhaps some of them had given up and returned to their other lives. Or maybe they'd split in half, with the other group following the road along the coast. In any event, they were onto them. They'd reach him in a few minutes.}

^{"Son of a bitch," cried Cain.}

^{"What's the matter?" Rosetta asked.}

^{"It's that fool Brown."}

^{"Who's he?"}

^{"Henry was working for him. He's an abolitionist. Stay down," he cautioned her.}

^{He hurried over to his horse and got his Sharp's, then returned and took up a position behind a boulder at the side of the road. He rested the barrel on the boulder and adjusted the rear sight, waiting for the riders to come into range.}

^{"You gonna kill him?" asked Rosetta from behind him.}

^{"Hush up," he told her as he cocked the hammer.}

^{"What'd he ever do to you?"}

^{"I told you, 'hush.'"}

^{He figured if he killed Brown, the others might be discouraged and turn back. At the very least, there would be one less to worry about. He waited patiently for them to come within range. When he'd tell people back home what he'd done, they'd probably make him a hero. The man who'd killed Osawatomie Brown.}

^{After a while, he said, "Don't you think he'd kill me if he got the chance?" Rosetta didn't say anything. "Do you know what he did to men out in Kansas?"}

^{When he turned to look at her, she was gone.}

^{"Goddamn it," he cursed.}