Soul Catcher (51 page)

^{"I suppose I couldn't blame you if you did."}

^{"Damn right, you couldn't blame me. I got this child to think about. I don't need to be obligin' myself to some man gonna bring us back to slavery. Some damn
white
man. No matter what he did for me."}

^{"You're right," Cain said.}

^{"'Course, I'm right."}

^{"Can I ask you one favor before you go?" Cain said.}

^{"All depends," she said, the anger slowing.}

^{"Could you build me a fire?"}

^{"You want me to build you a fire?"}

^{"If you would. And put a pan of water on to boil."}

^{"What you fixin' to do?"}

^{"Make some coffee. I'm cold and I'd appreciate a cup of warm coffee."}

^{Rosetta stood there for a moment, debating. Then she shook her head and set about building a fire. When she got it going good, she headed off into the woods with a canteen in search of water. She returned after a while, filled a pot with water, and put it on the fire to boil. Then she scavenged for kindling and put it in a pile within Cain's reach.}

^{"There," she said. "That should hold you awhile. You be needing anything else, Cain? 'Fore I go."}

^{"Bring my saddlebags over here."}

^{She brought the saddlebags back and placed them on the ground beside him, then she stood there with her hands on her hips, looking down on him. He glanced up at her silently.}

^{"Don't be lookin' at me like that," she said.}

^{"Like what?"}

^{"Like you doing. I don't owe you nothin'. Not one damn thing."}

^{"Never said you did."}

^{"Good. Just so we straight on that."}

^{He nodded.}

^{"I be going now," she said. "You just remember--that bullet in you is your own doin'."}

^{"Sure," he replied. "If you see any riders, you make sure you take to the woods. And don't trust anyone. Even if they tell you they're Quakers. If you make Hagerstown, you turn north. Just a few miles and you'll cross the Mason-Dixon line. You'll be in Pennsylvania, but don't let your guard down. There'll be blackbirders all along that stretch. Stay off the main roads. And here," he said, pulling from his boot and extending toward her the smaller Tranter. "I'll trade you this for the Colt. It's easier to handle. Ever fire a gun?"}

^{"I know which is the business end," she said.}

^{"It still kicks pretty hard, so hold it with two hands and aim low and for the body. Don't look a man in the face before you shoot. Harder to shoot somebody if you look him in the eyes."}

^{"Don't you worry none," she scoffed, shoving the gun into the pocket of her dress. "It comes to it, I won't have no trouble shootin' a white man."}

^{"No, I don't suppose you would," he said, and tried to form a smile. "You have that money purse I gave you?"}

^{"I do."}

^{He reached into his pocket and withdrew his billfold. He removed some bills and gave them to her. He thought she might be too proud to accept them, but she took them and stuffed them into her pocket with the gun.}

^{She nodded a thanks, then went over to the horse and mounted, as easily as if she'd been doing it every day of her life.}

^{"Take care of yourself, Rosetta," he called to her.}

^{"You, too, Cain," she replied. Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, "If'n I run into that Maddy, I'll send her back to you."}

^{"Sure," he replied. But both of them knew it was just something she said so she could leave him with a free conscience.}

^{With that, she took off into the darkness. Soon the horse's hoofbeats faded to silence, and Cain was alone.}

^{He built up a good fire. He wanted it to last the night, keep away animals in case he fell asleep or passed out. From his pocket he removed his clasp knife and from the saddlebags got the box with his gun supplies and took out the bullet mold. He dropped the knife and the bullet mold into the pot of boiling water, then took two long drafts of whiskey. After that, he removed the bandage to expose the inflamed wound. With a piece of cloth he grasped the handle of the knife and put it over the fire, heated it until the blade was red-hot and he could feel the warmth creeping back up into the handle. Then he lifted it out of the flames and, without giving his resolve a chance to weaken, he placed the flat side of the blade flush against the wound.}

^{The breath went out of him as if he'd been kicked by a mule, and he screamed like a banshee.}

^{He continued pressing the blade against his flesh, cursing to high heaven. He cursed all manner of things, living and dead, animate and inanimate: the trees and the hills and the night air simply because it was there, the blackbirder who'd shot him, Tranter for making the gun that he'd used to put the bullet in his side, Eberly for sending him on this mission, Misters Clay and Webster for writing the blasted Fugitive Slave Act. He even cursed God for fashioning Africans in the first place, figuring if there were no Negroes there wouldn't be slavery and he would have had some other vocation in which he was less likely to be gutshot. He wasn't making much sense, but the pain had muddled his thoughts, narrowed his mind to a fine point in which subtle distinctions didn't matter. When the ache in his side and the sickening stench of his own burning flesh overcame him, he rolled onto his right and vomited. After a while the sickness passed, and he was able to catch his breath. Then before his will or strength failed him, he went back to work.}

^{With the cloth he picked the handles of the bullet mold out of the boiling water. They were shaped like a pair of pliers, with a sharp pincer at the end for cutting lead sprues. During the war he'd once seen a surgeon extract a piece of grapeshot from a wound using a bullet mold when he hadn't had regular surgical tongs. Cain pressed them against the wound, trying to force the ends into the hole, but it was too small. So he picked up the knife again and started cutting along the grain of the muscle, enlarging the opening. He got only a short way, though, before he was overcome by pain, and he passed out. He came to in a few minutes and tried again. He got a little farther before he passed out once more.}

^{When he awoke, he tried again, and this time he was able to open the hole wide enough for the bullet mold to enter. He pushed the mold into the incision, following the track of the wound. He probed around, searching for the lump of lead that had bitten into his flesh. He had to do it more by feel than by eye, as the angle was too sharp for him to see, and besides blood seeped out and coated everything. Twice he had to stop and mop up the blood with the cloth, before plunging the mold back into the wound. It felt like the fingers of death reaching right into him, trying to grab hold of his very soul and yank it out of his body. Still, he kept at it with a single-mindedness that blunted the pain somewhat. He told himself that he needed to be careful not to damage his internal organs and end up making things worse than they already were, though he didn't see that as likely. He was about to give up on the entire notion when, beneath the broken rib, down toward his kidney, he felt something hard and compact, and it made a clicking sound against the metal mold. After several attempts, he was finally able to snag it with the pincer ends and pull it out. When, at last, he held the bloody .32 caliber ball up to the firelight, he was filled with something akin to pride. The lead bullet looked like the eye of some creature fashioned by Hephaestus. He put the ball into his coat pocket, thinking that, if he were somehow to survive this, it would make for an interesting conversation piece over a whiskey ages and ages hence.}

^{The thought of whiskey prompted him to take a sizable drink from his bottle. He was weakened and shivering so badly now that he could barely hold the bottle to his lips without spilling it. Then he splashed some directly onto the wound, as he'd seen the doctors do in the war. After that he packed the wound as best he could with cotton cloths to stanch the flow of blood, which was considerable. He was exhausted, his limbs weary and leaden. He lay back on the soft ground, staring up into the gritty darkness overhead. He couldn't see stars or sky, and felt saddened that he would die without ever having seen them again.}

^{As tired as he was, though, his mind was very clear and alert, more so perhaps than it had ever been. Yet he wasn't afraid. More disappointed than anything. It wasn't dying so much that troubled him as it was having left things so unfinished, so many loose ends. His beloved horse in the hands of some scoundrel who'd work him till he dropped in his traces. His never having realized his dream of going out west, starting over, making a new life for himself. Most of all, the business with Rosetta. Part of him, even now, wanted to complete what he'd started, finish his job, see to it that she was brought safely back. But another part felt differently. This part knew something with the certainty that comes only to a man facing the imminent prospect of his own demise: he wouldn't have brought her back. Though he'd not been aware of it, somewhere the idea must have been brewing in him for a while. Maybe as far back as that night he had watched her bathe in the river and come walking out of the water like some Venus emerging from the ocean's foam, when he learned that she was carrying a life inside her. Maybe even before that, from the very first time he'd seen her in the streets of Boston gazing into that window at the dress.}

^{He thought it odd that this decision had come to him only now, but then again, maybe that's why he allowed himself to think it--when it was no longer in his power to decide her fate one way or the other. In any case, he marveled at the change in himself, this sudden alteration in his thinking. Not only would he
not
have returned her, he actually found himself hoping she'd make it to freedom. For one thing, it let himself off the hook--his having captured her and brought her south would no longer matter. For another, in an odd way it pleased him that Eberly wouldn't get what he'd paid for. He pictured Rosetta riding through the night. He saw the wind in her face, blowing her shawl back, her urging the horse onward, the fear and hope mingling in her eyes, the baby inside her jouncing and wondering what all the commotion was. He pondered her chances of making it to freedom. Not much, he knew, but one in a million was better than going back to Eberly. And she'd already made it once, so she was not someone to underestimate. If he were a praying man, he'd have prayed for her. Then again, if he were that, he'd have prayed for himself, too.}

^{Something else came unbidden to him then, the sort of revelatory notion that comes to a man when he has a glimpse of the abyss, when all the restraints that had bound him to a life and a certain view of the world are cast off and he is momentarily freed to think his own thoughts for once. It was a curious notion, one that both confused and yet made everything suddenly clear to him. Above all, he knew that the
only
reason he even entertained it now was exactly because he would never have to contemplate its actuality. Still, for a moment he let himself picture her once more, the soft tension of her mouth, the strange, ever-changing blue of her eyes, the way her burnished skin shone in the firelight. In his mind he reached out and touched her face lightly, almost the way the blind man had touched his own face.
Yes,
he thought. Then, because the image pained him so, he pushed the whole notion from his thoughts, willed it back into whatever dark recess of his heart had given rise to it. And then he remembered what the blind man had said to him. How if he made the wrong choice things would go hard for him. He had and they did.}

^{Help her,
he thought.
Please help her.}

^{The last thing he recalled, the last thing he felt he would
ever
recall, was the tremulous cry of a screech owl wafting through the night.
Who-who-who?
it cried.}