Secret Souls (8 page)

She made the men as comfortable as she could and then she was off at a run for the stream. The men listened to the sound of rattling canisters as she vanished through the silent and dense underbrush, their hopes raised by a backwoods waif of unusual courage and charm. Good as her word, she was back before the hour was up and after handing out the precious canisters, and taking some time out to rest, she was off again, this time at a fast walk down Little Chickamauga to find Ed Chadwick.

Her father, who was sitting with two men on the front porch cleaning his rifle, paid no attention to his daughter as she ran breathlessly up the dirt road towards the rambling wooden house that looked half-drunk for the subsidence that took a toll on the Chadwick residence at about an inch a year. The two other men did. They teased Ed about Chadwick and his reluctance to marry her off. His answer was always the same, a nasty look and, ‘When the price is right, that troublemaker is out of here like a shot. I just ain’t found no one rich and mean enough to my liking to sell her to. And you, Benjie ain’t got three hundred dollars cash and a sow, so don’t even think about it.’

‘She’s gonna have to be real sweet and clean for some man to pay that, and knowing you, Ed …’ The glare Ed gave the man stopped him in mid-sentence. You could only tease Ed
Chadwick so much then he started shooting, Benjie Stoner knew that.

Chadwick’s heart sank at the sight of the two men. Benjie Stoner and Calumet Cherry were as low as you could get for men in this part of the county. Thieves who never worked a day in their lives, Calumet was a close sidekick of Ed’s and together they were more of a terror than most people could cope with. She guessed they had been out at the still for supplies.

Chadwick never showed fear of the men but every time she saw them together she felt just a little bit sick in her stomach. It was the way they had of gawping at her. She was seven years old when she made up her mind she’d never be made dirty for the likes of a Benjie or a Calumet.

Up until she had this first sight of Ed, Benjie and Calumet on the porch it never occurred to her that the strangers were in as much danger being rescued by Ed as they were of dying where they lay. But there was nothing for it, they would have to take their chances. She was twenty feet from the porch and still running when she started shouting, ‘Mama, Mama, there’s trouble on Little Chickamauga.’

She was somewhat relieved when her mother opened the screen door, wiping her face on her apron. Paislee Chadwick was the only reason Chadwick didn’t run away for good. Her mother’s consumption was killing her slowly but at the same time protecting Chadwick to some degree. Dr Rudge’s visits kept Ed only fractionally in line, but were enough to save Chadwick from an incestuous nightmare and had led to her being educated where the other children had missed out.

Chadwick collapsed on the porch floor near her father and breathlessly told him about the plane crash and the survivors. The first thing he did was stand up and pull her to her feet and slap her so hard across the face that she fell to the floor again. ‘That’s for runnin’ round the woods when you’re supposed to be doin’ your chores.’

Chadwick never blinked an eye. The moment she had seen the men she’d expected to be beaten for something. Ed liked beating her in front of his cronies; he and they got some kind of sadistic
pleasure from seeing him control her with violence. Her mother stood by passively. They both knew that was the easiest way out for Chadwick.

Ed pulled her up from the floor and dragged her to the wooden bench where he had been sitting, ‘Now, girl, you tell it as it is,’ he commanded.

A party of three men, four bloodhounds, two of Calumet’s boys and three pack mules followed Chadwick in the rescue party. All the way up the mountain she listened to the men talk about the salvage and what a fair split was since Chadwick had been the one to find the crash. No doctor had been sent for and the food and jugs of water they did take with them were only because Ed was sure if the survivors were wealthy enough to be flying a private plane, they’d have enough money to buy the food. They also brought their hunting rifles.

Chadwick raced ahead, marking the trail. The closer she came to the crash victims, the more anxious she became for them. She didn’t much like the way the men had ignored her talk of the survivors’ injuries. She was fifteen minutes ahead of the rescue party. Seeing the crash victims once again, she realised what she had to do. The men seemed in an even more sorry state than when she had left them but greeted her with enthusiasm.

Hannibal Chase was horrified when he saw Chadwick. One side of her face was swollen and her eye was black and blue; the bruise raged down one whole side of it, even her lip was horridly disfigured by swelling and a cut across it. Andrew and Sam sensed her anxiety, the fear coming off her. She appeared to be a much less confident child than she had been when she had found them. ‘What happened to you, Chadwick?’ asked Andrew Coggs.

‘The men, they’re no more than fifteen minutes behind me. Please don’t say nothing ’bout my face, it’ll go worse for me if you do. That’s the way my pa is. I don’t want to scare you but they’re mean old boys. They’re talking salvage, not so much rescue. But they’re bringing food and water and they’ll expect money. Be careful. They’re mountain men, backwoods people,
and different than most folks. Mr Sam, Mr Andrew, you gotta work fast fore they get here. Hide them guns I saw you was protecting yourself from the animals with. They ask you got guns, say no. Money, say something like you got some but you be more grateful with money for the rescue when you can call home for someone to bring more. Long as they think you can get more for them, they’ll be real good to you. It’ll be all right, I promise, but you just got to be careful and a little smart ’cause they’re really a lot dumb and life don’t mean much to them.’

Andrew and Sam went into action while she climbed into the plane and made her way to Hannibal. The heat and the humidity were if anything even more unbearable there. Hannibal, wet with perspiration and extraordinarily weak from the heat and his injuries, did however manage a smile. ‘It’s because of us … somehow I know that you took that beating because you found us. When this is over I promise you, Chadwick, your father will never lay a violent hand on you again.’

Chadwick, who never cried, wanted to burst into tears, but she fought them back and said, ‘I hide in the woods and I pretend a lot that my prince will come and take me away on a white horse. Maybe I got my transportation wrong. Maybe he comes in a crashed plane.’ She raised a corner of her skirt and wiped Hannibal Chase’s face then she smiled. ‘I know you mean well but it’s best to say nothin about me to my pa. You do and it’ll be the worse for all of us. Most important thing, stand up to him like you’re real important, like the President of the United States. And if trouble comes, don’t worry. I got ways to help, secrets, ways to get away from him he never thought about.’

It didn’t take the survivors long to realise how incredibly right and courageous the beautiful backwoods child who had found them was. As soon as the rescue party arrived Ed’s barrage of questions began in a polite if obvious manner. The men soon gave themselves and their intentions away. It was not difficult to comprehend what these men were all about. No one examined their wounds, no one offered food or water, no one even unpinned Hannibal from his crash-imposed prison until a deal was struck, money promised for their safe delivery to the local hospital. They
took the men’s watches as deposit on the food and water, and a hundred and twenty-six dollars, supposedly all the money they had, for digging Hannibal Chase out of the cockpit, and all the salvage was theirs. The three survivors did as Chadwick had suggested. They played tough, hard negotiators for their lives and there was no doubt in any of the men striking the bargain that that was exactly what they were doing.

The first night of the rescue was spent on the site of the crash. The men cleared the area enough to make camp and build several fires, lighting kerosene lamps to work by in the cockpit. It took all the men, the boys and the mules towing away the fuselage seven hours to release Hannibal Chase. Calumet and Ed carried him from the wreckage. Miraculously his legs had not been damaged. His agony was as he had suspected from broken ribs pressing against his lungs, and he was black with bruises from his neck to his feet as well as festering cuts from flying glass. A corset of twigs and rope was made to keep him straight and after hot coffee laced with Ed’s home brew and hot food, opossum and rabbit done on the open fire, he took charge of the situation with a great deal of authority, and even more diplomacy.

The most dangerous aspect of getting out of there for the crash victims was that the men kept constantly complaining about how much work this rescue entailed. It crossed Hannibal’s mind several times that they might be happy to settle for the salvage, what money they had received and just shoot them; they were after all the laziest blackguards either Hannibal or his friends had ever come across. The mules were loaded not with men but with salvage, crutches were made for the men who would be carried or dragged along on make-shift chairs with runners rather than legs, an impossible idea because of the density of the underbrush. No pleading by the survivors could make Calumet, Benjie or Ed unload the mules and let them ride out of their misery. They ended up travelling on foot with the makeshift crutches and leaning on one another for support.

After three hours on the trail down the mountain they had not made much progress and tempers began to fray. Ed, Benjie and Calumet wanted to leave Andrew there and return for him
because walking for him was the worst, his leg continued to bleed unless the pressure on the tourniquet was kept constant. Hannibal would not allow the party to be split up. He offered three hundred dollars for Andrew to ride the mule. Andrew was rough handled on top of the salvage and they continued on down the mountain.

The men were drinking too much. There were signs of danger: constant complaining about how much trouble this rescue was causing and even comments of, ‘Hell, let ’em find their own way out or die. If they be men they ain’t gonna die, and if they ain’t men, well then they
should
die.’ A great deal of laughter over that and looks of disdain for the crash victims. Was it a tease to frighten, and no more? Who could tell?

The injured men were exhausted. Clearly they couldn’t go on without rest. The party stopped in a small natural clearing and ate some of the bread, cheese and smoked ham; drank from the jugs. Sam and Hannibal injected the last of the painkiller using the disposable syringes they had found in the First Aid kit. The rescuers looked angry, were tetchy.

‘This is too hard, Pa. It’s no more than half a mile outa the way to the Muchamanee. If you went and got Siddy Parton’s boat we could take the rest of the way down by river.’

‘Come here, girl!’

Everyone stopped talking and all eyes were on Ed Chadwick. Hannibal began to rise from the ground but Chadwick shot him a look and he forced himself to remain where he was and say nothing. She walked to stand in front of her father who was leaning against a tree. ‘Did I speak to you?’

‘No, Pa.’

‘Miss Know-it-all.’ He grabbed Chadwick by her thin bare arm and pinched it as hard as he could. She bit her lips for the pain but remained silent. ‘Lucky for you, that’s not so bad an idea ’cept that we ain’t sharin’ nothin’ with Siddy Parton or no one else. The pie’s cut too small already.’ He pushed her hard and she fell against a tree trunk and steadied herself.

Benjie spoke up, ‘What about that outboard o’ yours, Ed? We could go an’ get that. It’d take longer but you sure are right about not wanting to share any more o’ this job. Just ain’t worth it.’

It was Hannibal who spoke up next. ‘I know that’s extra work for you, Mr Chadwick, but I’m prepared to pay you another two hundred dollars if we go by boat.’

‘How do I know I’m gonna be paid, that you even got that kind o’ money? We’re gettin’ into lots o’ money you’ll be owing me now.’

They haggled and they haggled and finally, much to everyone’s relief, Ed agreed to go for his boat. What was suspicious was his insistence that they all go so they could unload the mules and return with them for another load. It would mean another night in the woods for the survivors.

They were left the remaining food and water. Wood was gathered, a fire was laid for them to light to keep the animals away. When it was suggested that one of the boys or Chadwick be left to care for them, Ed laughed. ‘Leave Chadwick! You city boys is just as horny and dirty as us fellas. Everybody wants Chadwick.’ He smacked her on her bottom and then, grabbing her by the arm before she could run away, asked her, ‘Make an auction, should I missy? These city boys, maybe they’d buy you for more than Calumet here.’

He began to laugh and pushed her from him, telling her, ‘You get ready, missy, ’cause you comin’ with your pa. No city boys is gonna take that nice sweet cherry o’ yours, nobody, not ’less I say so – and I ain’t sayin’ so unless it’s for more money than yo’ worth. And then maybe nobody’s gonna get you at all. I might just keep you for me and the Lord.’

It was very nearly more than Sam could bear. He was about to say something but Hannibal headed him off by speaking up first. He asked for a rifle to be left with them for protection against bear and mountain lion. The three backwoodsmen actually laughed at him. It was then that Hannibal realised that they had been playing with him and his friends all along. The girl had been right. Dangling before them the promise of more money than they had ever seen at one time was the only hope of getting out of there.

Andrew, Sam and Hannibal watched Ed push Chadwick along by prodding her with his rifle butt several times while giving her instructions. ‘Girl, you get those feet movin’ for home, and fast.
I’m hungry and dog tired and I want a hot meal when I come through that door. That’s what you tell your ma. She vanished into the bushes while they were still making ready to follow her.

It was almost a relief to hear and see the last of them. The vileness of man, his capacity for cruelty and lovelessness gone, a kind of peace and serenity descended upon the wounded men though the shock of being involved with these aspects of life and these people still lingered.