Soul Catcher (58 page)

^{When Cain reached to pick up his winnings, including the bill of sale for Hermes, the crookback fumbled for something in his vest. But the sheriff had already drawn his big Colt dragoon and placed it against the small man's temple.}

^{"I don't think you want to do that, Doc."}

^{The crookback froze while the sheriff reached his hand into the other's vest pocket and came out with a small-caliber coat pistol.}

^{"Son," the sheriff said to Cain, "I'd suggest you take your winnings and get on out of here."}

^{Cain scooped up what he'd won, shoving the bills and coins into his pocket. Before he left, he turned to the sheriff and said, "I think I'll need my guns, Sheriff."}

^{The man gave them to Cain and he left.}

^{* * *}

^{A
s he hurried across town, he kept looking over his shoulder. He purposely headed in the wrong direction for a time, just in case some friend of Dr. Chimbarazo's tried to follow him. Again, he heard the words of the old Negress Maddy:
That girl done gave you back your life.
It was true--she had. And in more ways than she could have imagined. Then he thought of Eberly. He knew the old man would try to make things difficult for him. He was not the sort to give up once his mind was fastened on a thing, as it was on getting Rosetta back. Plus with a man like him, there was pride involved. There was always pride. He'd get a warrant out for Cain's arrest as a horse thief, send a posse out after him. If caught, he could hang for that alone, though Cain suspected the old man would never let him be brought in. If he got his hands on him, he'd deal with him himself. And he would make Cain pay, all right. In the same way he did his Negroes.}

^{Then he thought of the way Eberly had looked as he stood in the doorway of the whorehouse. His stone cold eyes softening for a moment as he'd said,
Bring her back.
At that moment, Cain felt, it was more than dominion or ownership, more than simply wanting to see his will imposed on the world. More even than the desire to have a favorite plaything, a mere bauble returned to him. It was something deeper and more profound, something akin to love, if a man such as Eberly could actually be capable of loving something. He saw Eberly standing there, his gaze wistful and downcast, his haughty demeanor having abandoned him, leaving him as forlorn-looking as a child who'd lost its mother. Then, for some reason, Cain pictured Rosetta as he'd first seen her in the streets of Boston, staring into the shop window, with that sad, pensive look on her face. She'd reminded him of someone then, the high, strong cheekbones, that indomitable expression of hers. And just like that the thought that had been lingering in the back of his mind for some time now became clear.}

^{He climbed up the stairs and into the room where Rosetta was still sleeping. From the bureau, he got the oil lamp and lighted it. She was turned toward him, her mouth open slightly, and he held the lamp close to her face, inspecting it. She roused with the light.}

^{"Cain?" she muttered, holding her hand up to shield her eyes. "That you?"}

^{"I want to ask you something," he said to her.}

^{"What's the matter?"}

^{"You don't have to answer if you don't want to."}

^"What?"

^{He placed one hand on her shoulder. "Is he your father?"}

^{"What you talkin' about?"}

^{"Eberly. Is he your father?"}

^{But he already saw the answer in Rosetta's face. In all of her features, the angle of jaw and cheekbone, the line of her brow, the almost patrician cut of her nose. There was the unmistakable stamp of Eberly. She looked up at him, then rolled away from him, ashamed.}

^{Cain placed the lamp on the bureau and sat down on the side of the bed. He hesitated, then reached out and lay his hand on her shoulder. She flinched at his touch, so he withdrew it.}

^{"It's all right," he reassured her. Her back was to him, so he couldn't see her face. "Did he know?"}

^{She snorted in disdain. "Oh, he knew, all right. He knew."}

^{She fell silent for a while. Cain placed his hand on her shoulder again, and this time she left it there. He waited. He noticed the fine velvety down on the back of her neck, as soft as lamb's wool. The way her shoulder blades rose and fell with her breathing. When she began to talk, it was as if something inside had broken and its contents came spilling from her. He could actually feel the movement of it in her shoulders, the pouring out of what she'd kept locked up inside. He recalled then how she'd said everybody had something buried deep within them, something they couldn't tell anyone.}

^{"I think he liked that I was his," she began, her voice flat, devoid of emotion, as if she were reciting someone else's story. "Not just some slave he owned but
his.
His flesh and blood. That he owned me in every way a man can own something. When he be in my bed, he usta whisper in my ear, 'You my girl? You my sweet little Rosetta?' It made me hate him all the more."}

^{She went on like this for a while, telling Cain how her father would rape her. The things he did to her. Made her do to him.}

^{When she paused, he asked, "How did you find out? Did your mother tell you?"}

^{"No. She wouldn't never a told me. I heard talk around the plantation for a long time. The other slaves saying this and that. About Mr. Eberly and my momma. About me. They's always talk and I figure they just jealous on account of how he treated us special like. I didn't set no store by it. Didn't know the truth till later, when Momma was already long gone and I'd given birth to my boy. One day I was down at the tub washing the clothes. Israel was with me. He follow me everywhere. He was such a sweet little boy. Solomon, the man who used to bring my momma sweet potatoes, he happened by. He said, 'Mornin', Miss Rosetta,' and he look down at Israel. Then he said my little brother gone be a right fine-lookin' man. I said, 'What you mean, my brother? This here my son, my boy Israel.' He said, 'That young'un's your son
and
brother both.' At first I didn't know what he gettin' at. Then, when I finally did, I stared at him like he just slapped me. But something inside me
knew
it to be the truth. I guess I always known it, too. After that I take to looking in the mirror and couldn't help seeing Mr. Eberly's face staring back at me. It was like I had the thing I hated inside me, and no matter what I did I couldn't never get it out. And whenever I look at my little Israel, I felt so ashamed. 'Course I'd felt shame before. Tha's what a slave's life is--shame. But never like this. To know he was my father and that he was layin' with me, touchin' me that way. That he was my son's father, too. It made me feel dirty, like I'd fallen in the pig mire and I was covered with it and no amount of soap and water would ever clean me of it. You want to know the truth about why I ran, that's why. Sure, I wanted to save my baby. Have him grow up in freedom. But I also wanted to set myself free. I didn't want him touching me no more."}

^{When she finished, she fell silent, and for a moment he thought she was sleeping, but then he could tell that she was crying softly, could feel her shoulders gently quivering, as if with cold. Her body seemed drained of everything, a hollow shell lying there. Cain, too, felt suddenly emptied. And at the same time, he felt filled with something else--shame. He felt shame for having made a deal with that man. For having caught her and brought her back in irons. For having treated her like an animal. For having nearly gotten her killed. For what Preacher had almost done and for what the blackbirders had done. Most of all, he felt ashamed of the color of his skin. It was something he had never before really thought about. He was a white man, that was who he was, who he'd
always
been, but he'd never thought about that, sort of the way a person is never really aware of the air he is breathing or the ground under his feet. It was just something
there,
something he possessed. Now his skin felt too tight and hot about his flesh and bones, like a sunburn, squeezing him from the outside, so that he was painfully conscious of it.}

^{"The bastard," he said under his breath. If he'd had Eberly there he would have killed him with his bare hands. He'd have grabbed him by the throat and choked the life from him the way you'd wring a chicken's neck.}

^{"Cain," she said, without looking at him.}

^"Yes."

^{"If I was to ax you to do something, would you do it?"}

^{"If I can," he replied.}

^{Of all the things he imagined her asking, the one he didn't expect was the one she asked. "Would you hold me?"}

^{He stared down at her for a moment. Then he removed his holster and put it on the bureau, started to lie down on top of the covers.}

^{"No. Here," Rosetta said, lifting the covers. He pulled off his muddy boots and lay down next to her. She wore her shift and had her back to him, but she reached behind herself and found his hand and took it and draped his arm over her side. She held on to his hand tightly with both of hers, pulling him toward her, into her. She was tense, all her muscles drawn tight as fiddle strings. He could feel her shivering, and then, after a time, slowly beginning to relax. He could smell her hair and skin, a pungent yet vaguely sweet scent like the smoke from an applewood fire. Though he tried not to, tried to fight back the feeling, he felt himself becoming aroused. It was not something he could help. He was, after all, just a man--a man who had not been with a woman in a long time.
Yet, if this is what she wanted, why not?
he thought. And hadn't he wanted her as well, wanted her ever since he'd laid eyes on her in front of that store in Boston? It was more than plain, animal need, though it was that, too. It was part of that confession he'd made to himself the night he thought he was going to die, when all the rules he'd lived by had fallen away, and he was no longer a slave catcher or a white man or a southerner, and Rosetta wasn't a runaway slave belonging to someone else, when he was simply a man and she just a woman, a woman he happened to have fallen in love with.}

^{"Rosetta," he whispered hotly into her ear. Yet when he kissed her on the neck, he felt her flinch and stiffen again.}

^{"What?" he asked.}

^{"Jess hold me," she said.}

^{"I thought . . ."}

^{"I jess want to be held, Cain," she said. Then she added, "Feel."}

^{She slid his hand down so that it came in contact with the ripe swelling of her belly, and she pressed it firmly there. He could feel something faint but sure, a kind of insistent murmur like the beating of a spring rain on a roof. He could feel the beating of it in his hand. Neither said a word, and after a time he heard her breathing level out and become rhythmic, felt her hands release their tight lock on his, and he knew she was asleep. He thought of removing his hand but he kept it there, over the child that she was carrying, Eberly's child. He stayed like this for a long time, holding her, not moving for fear of waking her, listening to her breathing, taking in her scent, thinking about what he'd admitted to himself, thinking of the sheer oddness of it all.}

^{What in the hell are you doing?
he thought. Sometime just before he fell asleep, it came to him. What he would do. It was clear now. It was all very, very clear.}

^{Chapter 20.}

^{W
here is he?"}