River Runs Deep (16 page)

It was a good long one, full of little things about what was happening back in Norfolk, about how the frosts were heavier and the fogs thicker and how Tillie found a sand dollar and Granny's rheumatism was acting up but not so bad as last year. How the parish was planning a potluck supper and one of his friends—did he remember Wendell?—had been made an altar boy. Of course Elias remembered Wendell, and remembered him as the most creative cusser he could name, to boot. But he was glad to hear of it. All of it. He downed the letter at a gulp, reading maybe every third word, letting it all wash over him, catching not so much the meaning and the detail as much as the reassurance that his mother had not forgotten him. And if the length of the letter were not enough, the closing cast out the doubts he hadn't even fully admitted he harbored.

The house is too lonely for you, and so am I. It isn't right that you went so far. And I worry every moment that I should not have let you go. But the doctor was kind enough to write and say that you appear to be improving and are popular with the other patients. I am relieved to hear the former, and not at all surprised to hear the latter. And though you say you want to come home, part of me frets that you might become so enamored of the cave and the people and that pigeon that you will forget us. Charger still watches the river for you each morning, as do I.

Yours ever,

Mama

Elias read it through a second time, then folded it carefully, blinking back the feeling of missing and being missed. He slipped the letter under his pillow so Bedivere couldn't get at it, already looking forward to reading one more time. But for now, he had a tour to catch.

*  *  *

Elias had done this same tour already with Mat, so he kept his distance, shimmying up bits of the rock walls when no one was looking. What struck him was how different Stephen was in this role as guide. He wore his fancy touring getup—the striped velvet pants, the smart green jacket, his chocolate-colored cap. His hair was oiled to a shine, curling out beneath the edges of his hat, and he'd shaved that morning. But as fancy as he dressed, and as fancy as he talked, showing off all the books he'd read by quoting out bits of poems here and there when they might echo something he was showing the group walking along with him, Elias couldn't help feeling that he was watching Stephen play a part, like an actor in a play. Stephen didn't lord over them like he did with Elias sometimes. He presented himself as smart and handsome and well-spoken, but he was diminished somehow, like he was holding back.

Curious,
Elias thought.

Elias kept hoping he might discover something he could impress Stephen and Nick and Mat with later, but every spot he found had one of their marks scratched onto the wall.

At one cleft, he stuck his head in, held the lamp in as far as he could, and nearly dropped it in fright.

“Hey,” whispered a voice, a pair of eyes blinking back at him.

“Frogs and stars!” Elias shrieked, loud enough that Stephen and the others stopped and whirled on him. Jonah was hidden safely, but Elias had to say something.

“Uh,” he began, “just spooked myself a tick.” His excuse sounded thin even to Elias's ears, but Stephen easily regained the attention of his little pack.

“Happens all the time down here. And if you follow me, I'll show you the ghost of the lady of the cave and tell you all about how one gentleman nearly scared himself to death when he glimpsed her.”

Elias waited long enough for them to be almost out of earshot before stepping away from the crack in the rock. “What are you doing up here?”

Jonah sidled out. “Like to follow the tours,” he said. “Watch out with that light or they'll see me if they look back.”

Elias put a few feet between them.

“Scared you good.”

“Didn't neither,” Elias lied.

“Did so,” Jonah said. “Even better than I got you in your hut them times.”

Elias gestured at Stephen's group. “I gotta keep up.”

Jonah stayed with him, always just out of the light, moving so silently that Elias had to check to make sure he was still there.

“Ain't you supposed to be on watch or something?” Elias whispered.

“Not till tonight.”

“What about the schooling?” Elias pressed.

“I get bored,” he said. “Too much being still.”

“If you could read, you wouldn't get so bored, maybe,” Elias offered.

“I ain't bored
generally
,” he said. “Just with the schooling. Keep myself busy roaming and looking in on Croghan's patients.”

“You could nearly do the tours yourself, I guess,” Elias offered.

“S'pose. Doctorin' more interesting though. Maybe I'll be the first run'way to become a doctor. Learned me almost enough watching Croghan.”

Elias was more eager than he liked to admit to hear more about the gruesome treatments Croghan was attempting on the others. “What's he done lately?”

“Aw, more o' the same, mostly,” Jonah began. “That Mozelle got bled again today. Poor girl don't even cry anymore when it's happening. I heard him ordering up another one of them baths. Few days back he was asking Hannah over to the other ward if she could bring him in a wet nurse—”

“A wet nurse?” Elias made a face. “What on earth for?”

“He had a letter from some doctor over in France he said that told him the best cure he'd found was giving grown men and women mother's milk.”

Elias was horrified, almost more so than of the bleedings and the baths and the blisterings.

“He were goin' to try something on Old Sarney. . . .” Jonah trailed off.

“I was real sorry to hear on him,” Elias said. “Y'all were friends, weren't you?”

“Near 'nough. He was glad of company.”

Elias appreciated the simplicity of it, that Jonah didn't have to complicate it. But he knew Jonah had to have been fond of him to risk getting seen when he went to talk with him.

“I called on him last night,” Jonah said quietly. “I was too hungry to sleep. So I went up to see him, see if he had any food he didn't want. He always had food he couldn't eat, on account his wife brung stuff down ever' other day or so.

“I whispered hey at him, but it was so quiet. And a body sounds differ'nt when it's sleeping, 'specially him, with all the work he did to breathe. But it was so quiet I knew he was dead before I even peeked in the window.”

“I'm sorry,” Elias said.

“Me too,” Jonah replied.

They followed the tour quietly for a while before Elias worked up enough nerve to change the subject. “How are things in Haven?”

“ 'Bout the same,” Jonah said. “Nobody know what to do yet.”

Elias continued on, whispering over his shoulder, “I'm going to do what I can to help.”

“I know,” Jonah said. “First time I snuck up on you, I knew you wouldn't give nobody up.”

Elias straightened. “You couldn't know a thing like that.”

“Could,” Jonah said. “You get a sense of people when they don't know they're being watched. And being a ghost gives you plenty of chances to watch.”

“I never thought you was a ghost,” Elias said sharply.

Jonah laughed. “Did too. But no call to feel 'shamed of it. I've had lots of practice. All these folk come through on the tours. Sometimes I sneak up and tap somebody on the shoulder or whisper close on 'em from a good high hiding place.”

“You don't!” Elias asked. “Why?”

“ 'Cause it's fun,” Jonah said. “I reckon they like it well enough too, going out and telling people they got tapped by a haint.”

“Bet Hughes don't think it's fun. Bet he'd skin you alive if he knew what you got up to.” Hughes was clearly so protective of the colony of runaways, Elias knew he wouldn't look warmly on one of them risking exposing them all just to entertain himself.

Jonah fixed his stare on Elias. “You wouldn't tell him, would you?”

“Naw.”

They were nearing the end of the tour, the main entrance arcing wide and bright in the distance.

“ 'Sides,” Jonah began. “This place is too big to stay penned up down in Haven. What with all this,” he waved an arm around at the cave, “who can stay put when there's so much to see?”

Elias looked about. He felt it too. The urge to see it all, the pull to find the wonders and marvels of the cave. What he'd seen already was enough beauty and mystery to live off for half a lifetime, but he wanted to see even more. More grand arenas like the Rotunda, more haunts like the Devil's Armchair, more magic like the Star Chamber. “I know what you mean,” Elias said.

Jonah stopped and pointed toward the rise and the light in the distance. “Far as I go. Can't hide in that.”

Elias understood. “See you later then.”

Jonah grinned. “Naw, you won't. But I'll be there just the same.” And he backed up a few steps, disappearing into the black.

Elias jogged to catch up with the others. The tour folks were giving Stephen coins and shaking his hand as they threw out their last few questions.

Then a little fellow, a man down from Illinois with his wife on one arm and maybe his daughter on the other side, said, “You are a remarkably well-spoken Negro.” It sounded to Elias like a question, like Stephen needed to explain why he sounded as intelligent as Doctor Croghan or any other white man.

But Stephen only dropped his eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

The wife put her hand to her husband's ear and whispered, like she was afraid to speak to Stephen directly. “How long have you been at the cave?” her husband asked after bobbing his head.

“Seems like my whole life,” Stephen said shyly, adding, “but it's been only about four years now.”

“I dare say you must know the cave well enough to hide in its depths forever,” the man said. “Can you imagine, running away to live underground?”

Stephen's eyes caught Elias's. “I don't think I could,” he said finally. “Dr. Croghan is a fair master, but I mean to one day buy my freedom. I shall sail to Liberia or one of the other colonies.”

The man's face lit up as he smiled at his wife and daughter. “There you have it,” he said. “A noble ambition.” He pressed a whole half-dollar piece into Stephen's hand. “A noble ambition.”

Stephen thanked him, led them the rest of the way up the path, and then saw them safely up the rope. Elias sat on a tangle of fallen wood. He'd never even heard about anybody buying his way to Africa.

Stephen jogged back down the hill, the coins jingling in his pocket.

“Africa?” Elias whispered fiercely.

Stephen sniffed. “Tourists don't want to hear about how wrong it is to keep slaves. But they don't mind a fellow with plans for his life, especially don't mind a Negro with the aim to leave the country and never come back.”

“It ain't true, then?”

Stephen laughed. “No, it isn't. What would I do in Africa? Never laid eyes on the place. Never met a man who has. Might as well be the moon.”

“Oh,” Elias said, oddly relieved.

Stephen looked up at the ceiling yawning high overhead. “No, this is home. Has been since I first saw it.”

“So why you go on like that for the visitors?”

“Safest answer. Mat likes to give them an earful, boss them around, tell them about the injustices he's suffered. And I don't blame him for it. He's had it tougher than some.”

“Bet he never got a half-dollar for being so mean,” Elias said.

Stephen grinned. “I expect he didn't, but he does all right too.”

Elias drank in the sunshine, noting that Old Shem was right: it did have a smell, spiced by the tang in the air from the rotten leaves warming. “It keeps Haven safer too, doesn't it?”

“Hope so. If folks just see a polite Negro with polite ideas about his lot in life, then they've no reason to worry what a man like me might be up to down there.” He unstopped his water jug, took a pull, and held it out to Elias.

Elias drank, noting the penny taste of the water. “This is the stuff from the spring, ain't it?”

“Yes,” Stephen said.

“You carry it around in your canteen, but you don't believe it does any magic?” Elias pressed.

Stephen didn't blink. “No.”

“Think it'd make any difference if you gave it to the rest of them straight, like you did with me? Not cooked into broths or steeped in the teas?”

Stephen shook his head. “I don't, Elias. And if I did, they'd notice the taste, and soon enough it would get round to Croghan and then we'd lose the spring and the way to keep Haven going, and it still wouldn't make any difference anyhow.”

“Then why'd you try it on me in the first place? Or give it to the others?”

Stephen took off his hat and scratched his scalp like he was trying to shake the thought loose. “When there isn't much you can do, you want to do whatever you can.”

Elias knew that well enough.

Stephen pointed to the ridge. “Get on up that rope and check the tree.”

Elias hadn't even thought of the tree since telling Stephen and Hughes about carrying the letters. “Pennyrile ain't given me nothing to carry up.”

Stephen rubbed the back of his neck. “Doesn't mean whoever's been writing to him didn't leave another. And having one in hand gives you a good reason to go talk to him when we got a plan worked up.”

Elias wasn't even winded when he summited. There was a horse with a fine saddle tethered about twenty yards from the rim, its nose deep in a bag of grain. He wondered who left their mount behind, but he didn't tarry as he ran to the tree. The jar was empty. He raced back down to find that Dr. Croghan had joined Stephen, with Nick hanging behind.

“It really cannot wait,” Croghan was saying. “We must have it as soon as possible.”