Soul Catcher (52 page)

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^{F
or some time, Cain slipped in and out of consciousness. All manner of peculiar images swept by him. One moment he was}

^{sitting on the side of the bed, brushing his mother's hair, the next he was watching a woman lying completely naked on the roof of a cabin that floated by on a surging river. There was even a frightening series of bloody visions of the men he'd killed, both in and out of war. They all stared at him as a body, with the silent, accusatory eyes of the damned. The last dream he had was of the Indian girl. She lay beside him in the hut, her warm body naked against his. She felt so real, so palpable, her skin like a wildfire against his own. When he shivered with cold, she held him tightly, pressing him against her.
Cain,
she whispered hotly into his ear.
Cain.}

^{When he came to finally, it was dark. The fire blazed nearby, but he nonetheless shivered with cold. His mouth was parched, and his head drummed to its own sullen beat. When he moved a little to his left, he felt his side flare up with pain. As his eyes focused, he saw, sitting across from him, a small, shriveled form squatting on its haunches. An old woman. She was as black as coal, her tiny face as furrowed as a prune. She wore a white kerchief wrapped about her head, and extending from her mouth was a long corncob pipe. Leaning over the fire, she stirred something in a scorched pot. For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming and that she was the Indian girl's grandmother. But then she spoke, and he realized he was awake.}

^{"For a while there, young feller, I thought you was a gone coon," she said to him.}

^{Cain tried to get hold of one of the thoughts fluttering around in his head, but they eluded him and he just stared across the fire at her.}

^{"You done a fair job a doctorin' yourself," the old woman said. Without straightening, she moved crablike over toward him and squatted beside him. She put a cup of some awful-smelling liquid to his mouth and helped him to sit up. "Drink this."}

^{Cain was so repulsed at the smell, he turned away from it.}

^{"You ain't out the woods yet. Drink!"}

^{The liquid tasted as bad as it smelled, and he had to fight gagging when he swallowed. He then thought of Rosetta. He tried once more to speak, but he had no more luck this time.}

^{"Hush," the woman scolded. "Get you some rest."}

^{Whatever she'd given him made his eyelids grow heavy. In a little while he was asleep. He dreamed once more that the Indian girl had come and lain with him. He could feel her naked body against his, warm and sweet as whiskey, her arms wrapped around him, hands rubbing his chest.}

^{When he woke again sometime later, the old woman was gone. In her place, Rosetta was squatting near the fire. It was light out now, though the sun was hidden behind a mist hovering close to the ground. She was turned at an angle away from him, chopping wood, and didn't see that his eyes had opened. He watched her for a moment. He noticed her hands, how finely made they were, long and thin, with fingers like those of some highborn mistress, but also how strong and supple they were, how they moved with such deliberateness and assurance as she wielded the hatchet, the same one she had used on the blackbirder's face. Then he looked at her profile, the fullness of her mouth, the slight overbite she had, the smoothness of her honey brown skin.}

^{"Morning," he said.}

^{"Well, look who it is," she replied, turning toward him, a faint smile framing the corners of her mouth.}

^{"Didn't think I'd see you again," Cain said.}

^{"I was thinkin' the same thing about you."}

^{He brought his right hand up in front of his face and looked at it, turned it this way and that, as if seeing it for the very first time, the way an infant is dazzled by its own limbs.}

^{"I had some dreams," he offered.}

^{"That you did. You were talkin' up a storm."}

^{"I dreamt you had turned into an old lady."}

^{She looked over at him and chuckled. "Wasn't no dream, Cain. That was old Maddy. And lucky for you, I found her."}

^{Rosetta explained how she'd come upon the cabin near a swamp on the road to Hagerstown. How she'd told the old lady that lived there of a man who was dying, pleading with her to come back and help her. When Maddy first laid eyes on him, she'd said, "Chile, you brung me all this way for a
white
man?" Yet she stayed and tended to}

^{Cain's wounds. Made him poultices from dogwood trees and linden roots, from herbs she had brought in a leather pouch, boiling them and putting them on his wounds.}

^{"She kept telling me you were done for. But God musta heard my prayers."}

^{"Where did that Maddy go?"}

^{"Had to midwife a woman in labor. But she said she be back."}

^{"How long have I been out?"}

^{"Goin' on four days."}

^{"Jesus!" he said, trying to raise himself. As he did, he felt the stabbing pain in his side commence again, like the bite of a small feist dog. "Damn!" he cursed.}

^{"Jess set still. You ain't ready to go nowhere," she said to him.}

^{"My horse--"}

^{"You never mind 'bout your horse. Maddy said for you to stay put till she got back." From a pot at the edge of the fire she poured a cup of a brownish liquid. Then she came over and squatted next to him. "Here. You're suppose to drink this."}

^{She held up his head and tipped the cup toward his mouth.}

^{"What in the Sam Hill is that?" he said, wincing at the taste.}

^{"Drink it all up you want to get better."}

^{He looked up at her. In the hazy morning light, her eyes were smooth and soft. He thought then of the dreams he'd had about the Indian girl.}

^{"I dreamt of that Indian girl," he said.}

^{"Yeah," she replied, having him drink more of the awful-tasting brew.}

^{"I was cold, and she came and lay down beside me."}

^{Rosetta smiled. "What she look like?"}

^{"She had long dark hair. Dark eyes. Her skin was soft, the color of acorns."}

^{"She pretty, this dream girl a yours?"}

^{"Yes. She was pretty."}

^{He realized that he was hoping to make Rosetta jealous. But she only looked down at him and offered a cryptic smile.}

^{"What?" he asked.}

^{"Wasn't no dream," she said. "You was shakin' real bad. Maddy said I should get under the blanket and warm you."}

^{He looked at her, confused for a moment, then exclaimed, "That was you?"}

^{She smiled at him, nodded.}

^{After a while, he said, "What made you come back?"}

^{"Damned if I know. Drink some more," she told him curtly. She held his head up again. "Wasn't that I didn't give it serious consideration, Cain. When I come to Maddy's place, I thought hard on jess keepin' on going. Heading north. I come this close to doin' it," she said, holding her thumb and forefinger a hair's distance apart.}

^{"What changed your mind?"}

^{"Just plain stupidity, I guess."}

^{"Did you think I wouldn't bring you back?"}

^{She snorted, shook her head. "I figure you gonna do what you have to. But my coming back hadn't a thing to do with you, Cain. It had to do with me. I thought, Rosetta, you can't just leave him to die. That wouldn't be right."}

^{"This from the same woman who said she'd kill me if she got the chance."}

^{"Killin' you was one thing. Leavin' you to die was another. And not after how you come to be shot on my account."}

^{"I thought you said it was my own fault for coming after you?"}

^{"It was. But I figured you didn't have to risk your neck to find me. I prayed to God, askin' him to tell me what to do. I was goin' back and forth when some patrollers come riding up. I took to the woods until they passed. Then I got to thinkin' 'bout my chances of makin' it to freedom on a stolen horse. Figured not much. So it's lucky for you them patrollers come by when they did, Cain."}

^{What had been so clear the night he was alone and thinking he would die, no longer seemed so clear now. Could he just turn her loose? Let her go free? There were certain considerations that he had to weigh now in the harsh light of day. He started to say something, but she told him firmly, "Hush up and drink some more."}

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^{O
ver the next couple of days he slowly began to recover, gradually regaining his strength so that he was able to stand and walk a little. The old woman, Maddy, rode in on a black mule to check on her patient.}

^{"You lookin' only half-dead now," she joked, smiling to show gums that didn't boast a single tooth.}

^{Cain was lying near the fire. She lifted his shirt and checked on the wound in his side.}

^{"Comin' along. Look like you gonna pull through after all, young feller."}

^{"He a stubborn one," Rosetta said.}

^{"Chile," the old woman instructed Rosetta, "g'won down to the creek yonder and fetch me some water."}

^{After Rosetta had left, the old woman turned to Cain. From the fire she took a piece of kindling and lit her pipe. She stared at him for a while with her dark, gummy eyes.}

^{"I reckon I'm looking at a soul catcher," she said after a while. "Is you?"}

^{"I am," Cain said.}

^{"If she'd a tole me at first, I'da let you die."}

^{"I'm grateful you didn't."}

^{"Ain't me you need being grateful to." She looked off in the direction where Rosetta had headed.}

^{"I have responsibilities," he said.}

^{The old woman snorted. "Responsibilities? That girl done gave you back your life."}

^{"Don't you think I know that?"}

^{"You don't act like you do. She said you a good man. That you ain't like other white folks."}

^{Cain shrugged.}

^{The old woman frowned so her entire face seemed to collapse in on itself. "Well, is you?"}

^{"Am I what?"}

^{"A good man."}

^{"I don't know."}

^{"You know what her massa done to her?"}

^"Some."

^{"And you gone bring that poor girl back to him?"}

^{"He could make things hard for me."}