Soul Catcher (62 page)

^{"What you fixin' to do after you bring me to Ohio?" Rosetta asked. "You still of a mind to go out west?"}

^{"I sure can't go back to Richmond," Cain replied. "I was figuring I might give California a try."}

^{"What's there?"}

^{"There's still a lot of gold to be had."}

^{Rosetta raised her eyebrows and snorted in a way he'd come to know, a certain affectation he found almost agreeable. "I can't see you with no pick and shovel, Cain."}

^{"Why not?"}

^{"I can't is all. There was this one slave work on the plantation. Joshua. He was a big talker. Always goin' on how when he run off, he gonna head out to Californy and dig him up some of that gold."}

^{"A lot of men have had the same notion and come up empty."}

^{"But you reckon it'll be different with you?"}

^{Cain shrugged. He thought of something his father had once told him. How a man doesn't get to pick his life--it picks him. Maybe that was true. Maybe that was the thing he'd never understood.}

^{He said, "There's more ways to strike gold than digging it out of the earth."}

^{"You figurin' to part it from those that do?"}

^{"Seems a might easier that way," he said with a smile.}

^{"Still, it won't be easy out there by your ownself," Rosetta said.}

^{"I'm used to being on my own. I'm turning in. Good night."}

^a

^{* * *}

^{T
he next day they reached Cumberland by midafternoon, and since there were still a few more hours of daylight remaining, they pushed on before stopping for the night. When they made Keyser's Ridge the following day, they headed due west toward the Ohio River. Rosetta's horse threw a shoe, and Cain ended up having to put her on Hermes while he walked her gelding. It took them four more days to arrive in Morgantown, Virginia. Cain stopped at a livery where he had the horses tended to.}

^{"How far to New Martinsville?" he asked the owner, a fat man with a greasy, off-kilter smile.}

^{"All depends. Five days if you go south through the valley toward Fairmont. Three if you head up Pentress and Dunkard Creek way. But this time a year you never know 'bout the road up there. The bridge in Ralston is out a lot," replied the man.}

^{They camped just south of the town. The next day Cain started out heading southwest, generally following the dark, undulating Monongahela River as it seemed to writhe and double back on itself like a stepped-on rat snake. They were soon overtaken on the road by first one and then an hour later a second band of riders approaching hard from the east. Each time Cain and Rosetta were barely able to slip into the woods before the riders came surging past. By the looks of them Cain guessed they were slave catchers. He decided not to take the chance of staying on the main road but, instead, cut northwest directly toward New Martinsville. The path from there through the mountains was of poor quality, muddy and rock strewn, with a number of sections little more than untended cow paths while, over some swampy parts, there were only corduroy roads made of rough saw logs laid side by side in the muck. Although it was slow going, the journey was uneventful. They saw no more riders. The days passed pleasantly enough for spring weather in the mountains--the mornings cool with dew covering the ground, the afternoons sunny and humid, a haze sitting along the valley floors like raggedy muslin. One afternoon they were caught in a sudden downpour, which ended as abruptly as it had begun.}

^{"Look," Rosetta said, pointing toward a rainbow ahead. It spanned the peaks of two mountain ridges like a colorful bridge. "When a rainbow's in front of you, it's good luck."}

^{Some of the dogwoods and rhododendrons along the lower mountain slopes had already bloomed, garish explosions of red and lavender and white. Overhead, turkey buzzards and the occasional red-tailed hawk rode the air thermals. They passed through deep gorges made of limestone, rising five hundred feet on either side. Along this route they met few travelers--mostly farmers or teamsters bringing goods to or from Morgantown, an occasional Negro driving hogs. In a valley, they passed coal miners trudging off to the mines, their faces permanently blackened, their eyeballs white and startled- looking. One of them called out, "What's a nigger doin' riding a horse?"}

^{One morning in a winding holler deep in the mountains, they came upon a woman dressed in white, standing by the side of the road. From a distance she looked to be holding something in her arms. For a moment Cain thought she was a mirage, a trick of sunlight. But as they approached, he saw that she was not a specter at all but real flesh and blood, a sickly-looking, bone-thin woman, her face gaunt and haggard with a deathly bluish pallor to it. Her head was uncovered, and a tangle of wild, strawlike hair billowed around her, cascading down the front of her blouse. Her eyes were lackluster and blank. It was hard to affix an age to her. She could have been anywhere from twenty to forty, but Cain leaned toward the opinion that she was younger than himself. Her filthy blouse was partially open, and one weary-looking breast was attempting to nurse what appeared to be an infant. You couldn't see the child, as it was swaddled in a fancy white tablecloth with lace at the edges.}

^{Cain had seen folks afflicted with it before, and one look at the woman told him she had the cholera.}

^{He reined in Hermes but didn't dismount. He wanted to keep a safe distance. The woman was hanging on to life by a thread that was badly frayed; she didn't look like she'd last out the hour. She seemed to be staring out over the valley at something in the distance.}

^{"Morning, ma'am," he said. "What happened to you?"}

^{She turned her blank gaze full upon him, but it seemed to take her eyes several moments before they were able to get him in focus.}

^{"We all been sick . . . with the bloody flux," she said. She spoke slowly and with great effort, pausing several times to catch her breath. "Me and my . . . husband and the young'uns."}

^{"Where are the others?" Cain asked.}

^{"Back yonder," she said, letting her head loll to her right, toward where a narrow cart path disappeared up into a holler.}

^{"You have family back in there?"}

^{She wagged her head in the affirmative.}

^{"Had. They's all dead. I sent my oldest boy . . . for help. But that was a while back. Hit's just me . . . and the baby now," the woman said, glancing down at the child she held.}

^{"When I come to a town, I'll send help back for you," Cain offered. Then turning to Rosetta, he said, "We ought to be moving on."}

^{"Cain!" Rosetta hissed at him.}

^"What?"

^{"We can't just leave 'em."}

^{"What would you suggest?"}

^{"She's all alone."}

^{"You want to catch what she has?" Then, lowering his voice, he added, "Besides, she's not long for this world."}

^{"I don't care. You can't just leave them to die."}

^{"Think of your own baby, then," he said, staring at her. He turned his horse and said, "Let's go."}

^{But Rosetta had already dismounted.}

^{"Are you mad?" he cried.}

^{However, she had crossed the distance to the woman. She took her by the elbow and led her back to a hickory tree and had her sit down, with her back to it.}

^{"Bring some water," she instructed Cain.}

^{He cursed, saw it wasn't any use, and so dismounted and brought over a canteen. As he got close to the woman he was sickened by the odor that emanated from her. Something beyond the foul stench of her disease, it was the ripe smell of death itself. Rosetta gave her the canteen, and the woman drank frantically from it.}

^{"Easy," she said to the woman, touching her forehead. "She burnin' up."}

^{Rosetta took the canteen from her, poured some water in her cupped hand, and wiped it across the woman's brow. The other sighed and laid her head back against the tree, then closed her eyes. She remained so still that for a moment it appeared as if she had already expired. Rosetta gently lifted away the cloth covering the woman's child. When she did so the source of the odor became abundantly clear. The infant had been dead for some time, and the warm, humid weather had already put it in a severe state of decay. Cain thought he would retch.}

^{Rosetta, though, didn't so much as flinch. "What's your name, honey?" she asked the woman.}

^{She opened her eyes, glanced around curiously, as if surprised to be on this earth still. "What?"}

^{"What's your name?"}

^"Maggie."

^{"When did your young'un take sick, Maggie?"}

^{"I don't re'klect. Near on to a week ago. She won't . . . take any milk."}

^{"How 'bout you give her over to me."}

^{"No!" she cried, her blank eyes becoming suddenly fierce.}

^{"I ain't meanin' her or you no harm."}

^{"You get away now, nigger," the woman said, doing something with the corner of her mouth that was close to a snarl.}

^{"Jess take it easy, Maggie," Rosetta said, trying to calm her. "What the baby's name?"}

^{The woman looked down at her dead child, the way a mother might look at a baby merely asleep, and said, "Emmie."}

^{"Tha's a pretty name."}

^{"She's my only girl. Been sleepin' a lot . . . on account of the fever."}

^{"You want her to get better, doncha?"}

^{Maggie glanced at Rosetta. "'Course, I do."}

^{"We'll see that she gets to a doctor."}

^{"A real doctor?"}

^"Yessum."

^"Promise?"

^{"I promise."}

^{The woman stared at Rosetta warily. Reluctantly, she handed the baby over to her.}

^{"Keep her bundled up. She don't like . . . the cold none."}

^{Rosetta handed the child to Cain, who took it and had to fight back another, stronger urge to retch.}

^{"Cain, why'nt you see 'bout takin' that child to the doctor right quick," Rosetta said, throwing a conspiratorial glance in his direction.}

^{He took the hint and said, "I'll find a doctor, ma'am. Don't you worry."}

^{He carried the child over to Hermes, pulled himself into the saddle with one hand, and rode for a while. He stopped when he could no longer see them and dismounted. He grabbed the hatchet from his saddlebags, walked into the woods a short distance, and set the dead child on the ground. With the hatchet he flailed away at the earth, softening the rocky soil. Then, using the flat of the blade and his bare hands, he scooped out a shallow hole. When it was a foot or so deep he stopped. He wrapped the shroud securely around the child, laid it gently in the hole, and began to cover it. Once done, he gathered some rocks and placed them on the grave so varmints wouldn't get at it, at least not right away. After he was done, he chanced to smell his hands. They stank of earth and of death. Again the urge to vomit swept over him, but this time, like a man with a hangover, he surrendered to it. He bent and let his stomach try to expel the poisonous nausea rumbling down in his gut. When he was finished, he staggered over to a small pond and dipped his hands in, tried to wash the smell from them. No matter how hard he tried, though, they still stank. He thought of Rosetta telling him how hard it was to wash away the foulness she felt.}