Soul Catcher (41 page)

^{"They wouldn't want me back."}

^{"That woman. You didn't love her?"}

^{"No. Not the way a man ought if he's going to marry her. I suppose I could have done worse. Her father was very wealthy. My old man always expected I would marry her, and I no doubt disappointed him mightily. Maybe it was a mistake."}

^{"But you couldn't marry her," she said.}

^{"No. I would have grown to hate her. And she to hate me."}

^{He thought about what the old woman, Hettie, had talked about, the night before she killed herself. The nature of love. About being so in love you thought your heart would burst. He had never felt anything close to that for Alexandra.}

^{"So you did the right thing," Rosetta said.}

^{"For the wrong reasons."}

^{"What you mean?"}

^{He didn't know why he was telling her any of this. She was just a runaway slave. Another man's property. He realized that he'd never talked about this before with another soul.}

^{"I ran off like a coward. I couldn't face her. Couldn't face my father."}

^{"Goin' to war ain't what a coward does," she said.}

^{"In my case it was."}

^{Rosetta turned her head and looked up at him at an angle. Her mouth, he noticed, was no longer held taut but allowed to assume its natural fullness; suddenly, he had an odd yearning: he wanted to trace his fingertips over her lips, to feel their softness. When he looked back up at her, it was as if she could read his thoughts.}

^{"Sometime," she told him, "doin' the right things for the wrong reasons is all we can do. We just got to trust that's what God had in mind for us."}

^{"I'm not sure he had anything in mind for me."}

^{"Oh, he got something in mind for ever'body," she said. "Even a low-down soul catcher like you, Cain."}

^{He nodded, though he wasn't sure he subscribed to the notion that God had any sort of plan for him.}

^{"Henry," he called, "get your ass over here. Now."}

^{The Negro came shuffling over carrying his shoes in his hands and sat down near Rosetta.}

^{"You want to put your shoes on before I put the shackles on you?" Cain asked.}

^{"No, they's some nails I still gots to tamp down," Henry replied. "Can I have more of that balm, massa? It work real good on my cuts. See," Henry said, showing his wrists.}

^{From his saddlebags, Cain got the jar of Indian Miracle Salve and handed it to Henry. When he was finished slathering it on, he said to Cain, "My ankles startin' to hurt now. You can put them shackles back on my wrists. They's all healed."}

^{Before leaving, Cain looked at Rosetta.}

^{"You 'member what I told you about God," she said to him.}

^{* * *}

^{M
r. Cain," a voice burrowed augerlike into his sleeping skull.}

^{"Mr. Cain, wake up."}

^{Groggy, Cain opened his eyes to see Little Strofe's homely face hovering over him. "What?"}

^{"He done took off."}

^"Who?"

^{"Henry. He's gone."}

^{Soon they were all awake. They found the shackles still attached to the stanchion and still locked, but now they held no black wrists. Cain saw hunks of grease and a light residue of blood smeared on the metal of the shackles. So that's why Henry had been so intent on fixing his shoes, he thought. He was planning on taking a trip. And why he hadn't put them back on, either. He didn't want to make any noise when he crept out in the night. Cain looked out the open barn door to see that the rain had finally stopped, and that sun had broken partially through and was spilling weakly onto the muddy earth, pale as goat milk.}

^{"Damn nigger used that grease you give him to slide his wrists out," Strofe said to Cain. "I warned you not to coddle 'im that way."}

^{"I wasn't coddling him," he said. Still, he thought, he should have seen it coming.}

^{Rosetta sat there, still shackled to the stanchion.}

^{"He say anything to you about this?" Cain asked her.}

^{She shook her head.}

^{"Nothing at all?"}

^{"If he'd had, you think I'd still be here?" she snapped at him.}

^{"What do we do now?" wondered Little Strofe.}

^{"What the hell do you think we do?" his brother replied. "We go after him. He can't a gone that far."}

^{"What about her?" Preacher said, pointing at Rosetta.}

^{Strofe glanced at Cain. "We'll just have to take her along," he offered.}

^{Cain hesitated, then said, "You think that's a good idea?"}

^{"Why not?"}

^{"What if we run into Brown and his boys? Or some other abolitionists that Henry might lead us to. Then what? If something were to happen to her, I doubt your boss would be very happy."}

^{The big man stood there, scratching his beard. "So what do you got in mind?"}

^{"I say one of us starts back with the girl. After Henry is captured, the others can meet up with him south of here."}

^{"And I reckon that somebody would be him," complained Preacher. He didn't say this to Cain but directed his comments to Strofe, who turned and looked expectantly at Cain as if for an answer.}

^{"I'm the one responsible for her," Cain said.}

^{"Now just wait a doggone minute," Preacher said. "Why does
he
get to take her back while the rest a us got to go traipsing after the other nigger?"}

^{"Just take it easy," Strofe said, trying to calm him.}

^{"Whyn't we draw cuts to see who stays with her?" Preacher offered. "Or better yet, whyn't Cain go after Henry and the three of us take the girl back?"}

^{"You're not coming within ten feet of her," Cain warned him.}

^{"That a fact?"}

^{"It is."}

^{"Now both of you, hold your horses," Strofe commanded.}

^{"We're supposed to trust him with her?" Preacher challenged. "Hell, you seen the way he looks at her? We all of us have. And how the two a them are always talkin' and whisperin' and such."}

^{"Just shut up," exclaimed Strofe. Then to Cain, he said, "Mr. Eberly don't want nobody laying a hand on her."}

^{"What is that supposed to mean?"}

^{"He just don't, is all."}

^{"I'm not the one tried to rape her," he said, looking over at Preacher.}

^{Strofe thought for a moment. "All right. Where we gonna meet up?"}

^{Cain told him Fredericksburg, which was about halfway and on the same road to Richmond. There was an inn he'd stayed at several times when he'd gone north hunting runaways. Down near the Rappahannock. The Rising Sun Tavern.}

^{"We'll meet there," he told them. "I'll wait for you. If, by some chance, you get there before me, you wait for me."}

^{"All right, brother," Strofe said. "Fetch your dog."}

^{"One minute," Little Strofe said. He ran out of the barn, heading for the inn. When he came back in a few minutes, the German girl was with him. They hugged once in the courtyard, then he turned and headed into the barn. He unleashed the dog and had her smell the shackles, fixing Henry's scent good.}

^{"Awright, girl," he said. "Steboy."}

^{The tawny-colored hound took off out of the barn baying wildly. Cain watched the other three men mount up and ride off, following the dog's lead. Little Strofe turned several times and waved to his girlfriend and she waved back. Preacher hadn't gone fifty yards before he halted, turned his horse around, and came galloping back, almost as if he'd forgotten something. He rode right into the barn, right up to Cain.}

^{"You," he said, his small black eyes glowering, the red birthmark on the side of his face seeming almost to smolder, "don't think I ain't wise to you."}

^{"Oh, yeah?"}

^{"Tha's right. You may a fooled them with your big talk and fancy ways. But I seen through you from the first." He glanced past Cain toward Rosetta. "And just remember, when this is over me and you's got a score to settle."}

^{With that, Preacher wheeled his blue roan about and bolted, the horse's hooves kicking up packets of mud in its wake.}

^*

^PART
THREE

^{Wo, if it come with storm, and blood, and fire; when midnight darkness veils the earth and sky! Wo to the innocent babe--the guilty sire--Mother and daughter--friends of kindred tie! Stranger and citizen alike shall die!}

^{WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON,
THE LIBERATOR}

^.

^{Chapter 14.}

^{C
ain rode south with Rosetta seated behind him, crossing the Potomac at Harpers Ferry. Swollen with rain, the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers surged down through the narrow mountain gaps, converging below The Point and flooding low-lying buildings. Having been gone for nearly two months, as Cain passed over the B&O viaduct into Virginia, he felt something tight and hard rise up in his chest. He told himself it was merely a physical ailment, dyspepsia perhaps, or the effects of having run out of laudanum. But he wondered if it could be a touch of homesickness. He'd never felt this before and he thought it bespoke a change of heart. Perhaps the South meant more to him than he had ever imagined. As they rode down Potomac Street, he spotted a druggist's shop and pulled up in front of it. He helped Rosetta down, then dismounted and tied the reins to a hitching post. From the saddlebags he got out the shackles.}

^{"I ain't going nowheres," she said.}

^{"You just tried to run on me."}

^{"You think I'd try in broad daylight?"}

^{His answer was to put shackles on her wrists and attach her to the hitching post. "I'll be right back."}

^{When he came out of the druggist's, he walked a few doors down and went into a bakery and bought two meat pies as well as a mason jar of fresh milk. Then he unlocked Rosetta and led Hermes over to a grassy area beside a church where they sat on the ground in the shade. It was midmorning, sunny and warmish, and the sky shone a perfect blue above the rocky heights that surrounded the town.}

^{"How are you feeling?" he asked her.}

^{She shrugged.}

^{"Here," he said, handing her one of the pies.}