River Runs Deep (11 page)

It was a small fortune, Elias knew that much.

“So I reckon,” Nick went on, “I save up as much as I can, sell me about a thousand of these fish, and then I ought to be able to buy myself out. Then maybe I set up someplace with a wife.”

Elias had no idea how long it would take Nick to gather that many fish. He knew enough about Nick to know he was the patient sort, but it would take years. Years of nabbing up these little fish, years of leading people around on tours.

“Why'nt you just run?” Elias asked suddenly, thinking of Jonah.

“Running ain't no good.” Nick did the clasps at the bottom back up. “Man can't live a life wondering if someone's going drag him back to some place he don't want to be. That's what I told—”

His sentence stayed unfinished as he busied himself resetting the trap in the water.

“Told who?” Elias pressed.

Nick wiped his hands dry on his trousers. “Nobody.”

But Elias wondered. Was Stephen going to run? Or Mat? A piece of Elias thrilled at the idea. But another piece worried that Nick was right. That running away was just a lot more pain in the end. How long could Jonah hide down there before he got caught? Before he haunted somebody who wasn't as friendly as Elias or Sarneybrook?

It wasn't like Nick was doing anything wrong, was he? Buying his freedom, all things considered, seemed the most honorable way to get free.

But still. Doctor Croghan owned the cave. And the fish. Did that mean Nick was stealing from him?

But in a flash of clear, quiet thought, Elias understood that he didn't care. He only hoped there were enough fish hiding in these waters to make up what Nick needed.

L
et us say a special prayer on behalf of our departed friend, the widow Patton.”

Elias's head yanked up. The widow Patton?

Departed?

Though he'd never met her, having barely even heard her voice while he waited outside during Croghan's rounds only a week or so before, the knowledge that she'd died shuddered through Elias.

Dead. Just like that,
he thought. She was alive yesterday, and now she was not. It seemed awfully unfair that she'd put herself down there, stayed in the dark, and did what the doctor said, only to die.

The cave was supposed to be making them better. Supposed to be giving Croghan time to cure them. But was anybody besides Elias improving?

Maybe the widow had been too old to fight off the consumption, or maybe she hadn't squared up with Doc Croghan's remedies. He reminded himself how important it was that he follow the doctor's prescriptions and avoid the little treats Jonah left, no matter how tempting they were.

But poor widow Patton.

He bowed his head and prayed along with the rest of them that the Lord would speed her along to his side in paradise. “Amen,” Pastor Tincher finished. They all sat down to eat. Doctor Croghan had thought it might benefit them all to take Sunday supper together. Stephen and Mat and the others had set up long tables and benches in the space outside Doctor Croghan's office, which blazed with light. It was a stone hut just like so many of the others, but it had a wooden floor, a proper door, and an honest-to-Pete roof.

As they'd walked in, Elias had been teased by the smell of the cooking fire and bacon grease. And through the blessing his stomach had flipped and rolled, his mouth watering at all the food soon to be spread on the table. There was ham sizzling, and Elias was almost sure he could smell potatoes. What he wouldn't give for a mess of potatoes fried up crisp and golden, thick slices of greasy onions mixed in the pile. But when he sat down, Lillian passed him by with her big skillet full of home fries. Hannah acted like she might give him some of that bread she was carrying round before she remembered. Finally Nick brought him a plate of fried eggs, three of them, and his mug of tea. His eyes signaled his apology for Elias's sad plate.

Elias sighed, picked up his fork, and ate dutifully.

After he finished he sat and listened to the adults talking. But they all seemed out of practice with visiting, and none protested as Hannah and Lillian began escorting them back to the huts.

Elias, however, had no intention of wasting another day in his room.

“Hey, Bishop!” Elias whispered when Stephen came close to collect plates. “Nick took me out fishin' yesterday!”

Stephen picked up a teacup. “So I heard.”

“What're we gonna do today?” Elias asked Stephen.

Stephen stopped stacking the plates and dropped his voice low. “We can't bring you out today.”

Elias's heart sank. “But you said—”

“All of us got things to do.”

“But . . . it's Sunday,” Elias argued.

“Sunday doesn't mean the same thing for us,” Stephen said, his voice curt.

Stung, Elias settled for the next best thing. Stephen had books, books Elias hadn't read the words off the pages yet. “C'n I have a look at some of your books, then maybe? I was thinking I wouldn't mind seeing them maps—”

If a body hadn't been watching, they'd have thought Stephen dropped the plate that suddenly crashed to the floor out of clumsiness. But Elias had been watching, and he was pretty sure Stephen
threw
the plate he was about to add to the stack in his hand.

The crash and clatter of the clay plate against the rock floor choked off all other sound and conversation. Everyone stopped and stared. More important, it cut off Elias's question.

“Apologies,” Stephen said, bending down to collect the shards. Lillian rushed over to help him.

“What'd you do that—” Elias started.

“Not. Another. Word,” Stephen said low so only Elias heard, sweeping the slivers aside with his coat sleeve.

Elias stared at Stephen's back. He'd been helpful the other night, hadn't he? What had he done to make Stephen so cross? And who was Stephen to get angry with him, anyway? He had half a mind to ask Doctor Croghan to
make
Stephen take him out, but quickly dismissed the notion. Elias wanted Stephen to
want
to take him, not be saddled with him like his mother did when she used to make him look after Tillie.

Elias fumed, wondering if there were anything he could say to maybe change Stephen's mind, when a heavy form settled next to him, the nails in the bench creaking as they took his weight. Pennyrile.

Elias had managed to avoid him since last night when he dropped off the letter he had collected at the tree.

The slate tap-tapped on the tabletop. Elias gripped the side of the bench. Most of the others were gone, but some were lingering to touch what looked like a bundle of laundry on a low flat rock behind Croghan's office.

Pennyrile held the slate so Elias could see it.
Gone long time yesterday just to fetch my letter back and forth.

Pennyrile was the last person Nick would want to know about the fish or his plan. “Nick just took me about. Showed me some gypsum flowers and such.” The lie sounded thin to Elias, but Pennyrile was already writing again.

You're friendly with them.

Elias read the words and looked at Pennyrile. It was unmistakable, that look in his eyes. Part disbelief, part disgust. Like back when Elias still went to school, and some of the boys found out he'd volunteered to stay after to empty the ashes out of the woodstove for the new teacher. Peter and Lawrence and Trumbull couldn't believe he'd done such a thing, and accused him of being sweet on her, which he might have been a little, but still.

Elias shifted. “So what?”

Pennyrile twitched his nose like he smelled something foul. But he let it drop and wrote again.

How do the darkies get around out there?

“They do fine,” Elias said, wondering what he was after.

More writing.
Blazes on the route? Maps?

“Mostly they just know where they are and where they want to be,” Elias said, “but Stephen's got a good—”

He caught himself. Stephen had dropped that plate on purpose, right as Elias was asking about looking at the maps. And now Pennyrile was asking about the same thing. Had he been watching them? Listening?

And Elias now understood: Stephen didn't want anyone to know about his book.

“Stephen's got a good sense of direction,” Elias finished.

After a beat, Pennyrile scribbled,
Have letter. Take tonight.
He waited just long enough to make sure Elias had read it, then erased it quickly.

Elias fought the overwhelming urge to tell him what he could do with his letter, not that it would have mattered as Pennyrile was scribbling away, longer and longer. At last he showed Elias the slate.
Don't want to get your new pals into trouble, do you? Doctor's looser with slaves than he ought to be, but even he would have to take a firm hand with that lot taking advantage of a sickly lad who doesn't know better.

Elias's neck grew hot. “Now you know it's not a thing like that!” He could barely keep himself from shouting.

Pennyrile erased the slate and wrote again.
They'll fool you blind if you give them half a chance.

Elias shook his head. “You're wrong.”

Pennyrile shrugged. But he didn't have to be right to get Elias to obey.

Elias set his jaw. “Fine. But I don't know when I'll get back up there. Stephen said he can't take me out today.”

Pennyrile waved dismissively.
You'll work it out,
he jotted down before he passed another wax-sealed letter under the table to Elias.

Then began the halting, huffing work of raising himself off the bench. Once Pennyrile was standing again, he stared at the bundle on the rock. Tincher the preacher was lingering beside it, head bowed like he was praying. So Elias asked, “What's that going on over there?”

Pennyrile wrote,
Corpse Rock.

Elias's breath caught. Corpse Rock.

It wasn't laundry laid out on the stone. It was the widow Patton. All the others were filing past, paying their last respects. Elias stared, undone by being so close to the body this whole time without even knowing it, and undone by the fact that it all appeared to be so routine to the others.

They must have used it this way many times before for it to have earned the name!

Elias swallowed.
It might be me next, laid out there,
he thought. And if not next, someday.

Pennyrile. Jonah. The exploring. He'd come here for one reason only, and it wasn't to do with any of the those things. He'd come to heal. And he would not be next. Not if he had anything to do with it.

But he didn't want anyone else to be next either. He tore his eyes away from the bundle, and Pennyrile touched his forehead in mock salute, then began to shuffle back up the path.

Elias rose, circled around to the edge of Corpse Rock, and stared at the sheet-bundled body of the widow. He'd never met her, never even seen her face. And he wouldn't. Ever.

How many people will never know me,
he wondered. If he died down there?

He closed his eyes then and there and prayed, pleading with God to make him better. To heal him. Promising he'd do what the doctor said and promising to be kind to everyone and promising to not think those dark thoughts about Mama and Granny shipping him off so they wouldn't have to be bothered with him dying anymore.

But he was ashamed that the prayers that came first were for himself. So he screwed his eyes shut tighter and prayed for peace for the widow Patton's soul. But all those other prayers, the ones for himself, kept crowding back in. Finally he gave up, recited the Act of Contrition, and murmured an amen as he made the sign of the cross.

When he lifted his head, he found Nick had drawn near. “All right, son?”

Elias sighed. “I'm all right.”

“You see her?” Nick asked. “When you went calling with Croghan?”

Elias said he had not. “Bet she was real nice, though.”

Nick's nose twitched. “Naw. Mean, that one.”

Elias was surprised to hear Nick talk so. But also relieved somehow. He could always count on Nick.

“But maybe being so sick made her that way. It does that with some folk,” Nick continued, eyeing Pennyrile creeping away, stopping every few yards to lean against the wall.

Elias would have to sit there a while if he didn't want to pass him as he made his way back. Maybe Nick was right. Maybe Pennyrile only got so mean after he got sicker, and maybe he was getting meaner by the day, just as he was getting weaker.

“Pennyrile trouble you any?” Nick asked, Elias catching the scent of his tobacco on his words.

Pennyrile had. But Elias couldn't make it Nick's trouble too. “I reckon I'll be all right,” Elias said, beginning his own slow march back to his hut. Maybe Jonah would turn up today, he thought. But he doubted even a visit from him could bring his spirits up now.

T
he next morning after breakfast and Croghan's visit, Jonah returned.

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Where you been?” Elias whispered back.

“Around. You the one been out a lot, ain't you? 'Tween fishing with Nick and 'splorin' with the fellas, and the doctor getting y'all out for that supper, you're the real man about town, ain't you?”

“Sorry I missed you them times,” Elias said. And he was.

“Gonna be harder to call on than ever, what with Croghan sending you out with the tours now.”

“How'd you know about that?” Elias asked. Croghan had only that morning told Elias that he wanted him to join the tour group that would be by later. Since the bit of exercise he'd had so far seemed to be helping, he figured to let him get even more.

“Like I said, I keep up on all y'all,” Jonah said. “And you still got the best end of things, you ask me.”