If It Is April

by Edward A. Stabler

  “Maybe you already have.”

  “Then I’ll see it again. And I’ll climb down to the river and carve my initials on a tree.”

  “First you’ll have to decide what those are.”

  The endless late-night thumping of a passing train on the approach to Brunswick. Dawn near the never-was town of Weverton, on the north shoulder of South Mountain, where they’d led Bertie and Gladys across the tracks and into a wet meadow. The mules had rested and grazed for eighteen hours before starting another trick at midnight. Watching the hillside lights of Harpers Ferry dissolve across the water in the rising fog. Wasn’t that earlier tonight? Of course it was – downstream from Dargan Bend.

  Even traveling by night, one observation was inescapable: the canal was trying to come back to life. Lights burned in half the lockhouses and many of the breaks in the towpath had been fixed. Shoots of grass were poking up through the dried silt left by the flood. Some of the short levels held hip-deep water. Pushing toward the canal’s mid-point, Jake and April were starting to see grounded boats that had been launched downriver a few days before the flood. Jake’s skepticism about the canal’s viability had been growing for years, but he had to admire its apparent refusal to die.

  Ahead through the fog, a small creature darted across the towpath, fleeing the canal bank for the wooded safety of the apron. Probably just a muskrat, Jake thought, but it startled Bertie enough to make him bob his head and whinny. Worried that April might fall off if Gladys broke stride, he turned in the saddle to check on her. Gladys was following ten feet back with no rider. April was gone!

  Heart racing, he wheeled Bertie around and back to Gladys. The saddle hadn’t slipped; the reins were looped around the pommel. What had happened to April? If she’d fallen off, wouldn’t Jake have heard her cry out? Had a towpath drifter approached stealthily from behind, silenced her somehow, and carried her off? Had Cole been following them? How could she have disappeared – he’d checked on her just a few minutes ago!

  Maybe she’d slipped from the saddle in her sleep and been knocked senseless by the fall. She might be lying on the towpath a short distance back! He urged Bertie along the ground they’d just traveled, holding him to a swift walk for fear of trampling April or missing her in the fog. Gladys followed for a minute or so, then broke into a canter, swinging around Jake and Bertie and pulling away down the towpath. Jake snapped Bertie into a trot to keep her within reach.

  Before they reached Dargan Bend, Jake saw Gladys brake to a sudden stop, shake her mane, and rear back. When she pivoted, Jake guided Bertie aside and out of her way. Then Gladys started up the towpath again, cantering back the way she’d come. Jake eased Bertie forward to see what had spooked her.

  It was a beehive, cracked open in the center of the towpath and bleeding angry bees. Bertie began backing away as soon as he saw it. In the moonlit fog, the dark bees swarmed like a chest-high whirlwind. Jake let Bertie retreat ten feet, then held the mule still while he stared at the broken hive. As he raised his eyes he saw the silhouette of a man materializing through the fog, striding up the towpath toward the swarm. The man stopped just outside its perimeter.

  “They only sting them that got it coming,” he said. The voice sounded familiar but Jake couldn’t place it. And he couldn’t make out the old man’s features in the dark. “But a feller don’t know he got it coming until he gets stung.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Gooteekhl.”

  Jake nodded and turned Bertie around without replying. He prodded the mule into a trot. Now both Gladys and April were missing. He couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow Cole had shadowed them for hours or days, capturing April when Jake’s guard was lowest, in the dead of night in the fog. The beehive mystified him. It must have fallen just minutes ago from an overhanging branch. Could Cole have cast it onto the towpath to obstruct Jake’s pursuit?

  Jake and Bertie were approaching the spot where he’d noticed April missing. A figure on horseback was waiting, mule and rider standing calmly near the edge of the towpath, watching them approach. It was April aboard Gladys. Jake exhaled a long breath and drew Bertie to a stop alongside them, at a loss for words.

  “What happened?” he finally managed.

  “I was getting tired,” April said. “So I flew ahead to see how far we had to go.”

  “Flew.”

  “Jake.”

  “Jake, are you asleep?” she asked, as Gladys stretched to nuzzle Bertie’s neck.

  “No,” he answered after a moment, climbing back into the fog. “I’m awake.”

  “Do you want to stop for a while?”

  “No. Let’s keep going. We’re almost there.”

  ***

  When he could first discern the knotholes on the far wall, Cole unwrapped his blanket and rolled his feet to the floor. He shuffled over to the open window and peered into the early morning light. The lockhouse across the dirt road looked as it had yesterday and the day before. He’d tightened the clothesline out back but there was still nothing hanging from it. His stomach growled as he pulled on his coat and boots and headed downstairs.

  In the lockhouse kitchen he was down to his last two eggs – another reason to move on. He’d be back; things weren’t over at Edwards Ferry. Jarboe’s was a good observation post, but for three nights there’d been nothing to observe. He lit the coals in the stove and climbed the stairs.

  The half-dozen books were still stacked on a bookcase in one of the bedrooms. He opened Jack London’s White Fang and ripped out the first blank page, where the owner had written his name in ink. Emmert Reed. It’s the kind of name you’d remember, he thought. It shouldn’t take long to find someone who knew it. But for now there was a business to attend to in Jefferson County, moonshine and firewood. And Eliza to slip away with once or twice. He couldn’t stay long, or the Elgin girl’s trail would start to go cold.

  Flipping pages and reading whatever caught his eye, Cole noticed that White Fang seemed to be constantly hunting or fighting, but that the wolf-dog prevailed by outwitting his enemies. After a few days back in my den, he thought, I’ll be ready to do the same.

  Chapter 26

  Shepherdstown

  Monday, April 21, 1924

  Cole found the driveway exactly where Joe Bowers had told him it would be – a left when the road starts rising on its way into Shepherdstown. Set back a hundred feet, the small house had dingy white clapboard siding and a gabled tin roof that was dented and painted green. A post-and-rail fence presented its weathered face to passersby but wasn’t anchored on either end.

  Cole had hope for Bowers, who he’d met yesterday at a gathering of Great War veterans in Charles Town. Like Cole, Bowers had served under Pershing in the Meuse-Argonne. Unlike Cole he’d been wounded, losing three fingers. But for Bowers, shell shock was the worst of it. Yesterday he’d readily inhaled a line of heroin in the coat room, after Cole had apprised him of the drug’s salutary effects. And Bowers had seemed less anxious under its influence. He and a few other veterans might turn into customers, giving Cole a beachhead in Jefferson County.

  When Cole had mentioned his interest in tracking down a locktender from Edwards Ferry, Bowers recommended he visit Luther Mills in Shepherdstown, where Bowers had grown up. Just across the river from the C&O, Shepherdstown was the closest thing West Virginia offered to a canal town. Mills had captained a coal boat for three decades before retiring a few years ago. He would have met everyone who spent a few seasons on the canal. So Bowers told Cole where to find Mills.

  Cole tooted his horn as he drove through the opening in the fence, hoping the old man wouldn’t be flummoxed by a visit from a stranger. Mills opened the front door and started down the steps. He was lean, bald, and a little hunched, but he moved easily, his strong brow and full gray beard imparting an aura of authority. Nothing to worry about here, Cole thought, getting out of his truck. He watched Mills size him up as the two men converged.

  “Where’s the typewriter?” Mills
asked.

  “Don’t reckon I’ll need one,” Cole said. “I’m only looking for a few words.” He doffed his Stetson and held out his hand. “My name’s Delmond Cole.”

  It turned out that Mills repaired typewriters to supplement his savings, and he’d been told a new customer would drop one off before noon. Cole noticed that Mills’ narrowed eyes seemed to soften and grow more accessible as they shook hands, as if something about the name struck a chord with him.

  “You from Harpers Ferry?”

  “Close enough.”

  “There’s a Cole family that used to help the locktenders run a business on the side. Back in my boating days.”

  “Those are the days I want to hear about.” He tapped his coat where the flask was tucked in his inside breast pocket. “Maybe a taste would bring ‘em back.”

  “They ain’t coming back. But I reckon a taste can’t hurt.” He led Cole around the house to a flagstone patio, where they sat in Westport chairs beside a low-slung table of pine planks. Cole said he was trying to track down a locktender at Edwards Ferry named Emmert Reed.

  “You mean M-Street Reed.”

  Cole showed Mills the page he’d torn from White Fang, with the name written in longhand at the top.

  “That’s him,” Mills said.

  “Why do you call him M-Street?”

  “He got that name in Georgetown.”

  Mills paused as if assembling his thoughts. Cole twisted the top off his flask and handed him the half pint. The old man took a careful sip and grimaced, then sat back to catch his breath.

  “Sometimes when you got down to Georgetown there might be a line of boats ahead of you, and you could wait two or three days to unload your coal. That’s what it was like twenty years ago, when business was still good. Back in ’02, Emmert was tied up on the Georgetown level waiting his turn. It was his first season running his own boat. I was tied up behind him and so was Clete Mayhew.

  “One night after dinner I rounded ‘em up and we headed over to M Street along with a couple of the boathands. It was early summer, one of them long blue-sky days before the heat rolls in, when everyone wants to be out in the streets, buying or selling or watching the world go by. We had a drink at the Azimuth, then moved down the block. Outside the Black Gull, there was some people gathered around a card sharp when we stopped for a glass of beer. The game ended and people drifted away, then it looked like it was starting up again, so we went over to watch.

  “The dealer was probably on the near side of thirty but his face had deep lines and brown spots, like he seen his share of sun and wind. Bloodshot blue eyes and a fat gold ring on his pinky finger. He was dealing three-card monte, and a feller about his age jumped in saying he was ready to play. When the feller pulled out a dollar bill I noticed he was missing half a ring finger.

  “The dealer holds up three cards so we can see ‘em – two low diamonds and a queen of hearts. He lines ‘em up on the table face down, shows us the queen is in the middle, and starts shuffling side to side. When he’s done, the stub-finger feller says it’s on the left, but all five of us know the queen is on the right. Sure enough, the dealer turns ‘em over and it’s on the right. Stub-finger says he wants to play again, and the same thing happens. We all know the queen is on the left, but he says it’s in the middle, so he loses again.

  “Now Shupp, one of our boathands, is itching to play, and he catches the dealer’s eye. When the shuffling stops it looks like the queen is in the middle again, and that’s what Shupp says. But it ain’t and he loses his dollar. None of us can figure where he went wrong. So Shupp plays again and loses another dollar. Now he’s feeling low and shaking his head, ‘cause that money was supposed to last him all night. When he doesn’t dig back into his pocket, Emmert steps in front and puts a dollar on the table.

  “The dealer does his shuffle and it looks like the queen is on the left, but Emmert points to the card on the right. The dealer gives him a funny look and takes his dollar, ‘cause the queen is in the middle. Then Emmert puts two dollars on the table and loses again, so now he’s down three. He nods for another round and puts a five-dollar bill on the table. We all watch and everyone thinks the queen is in the middle. Emmert points to the card on the right and the dealer gives him a sour look, ‘cause that’s where it is. So Emmert wins five dollars and quits the game.”

  “Sounds like he got lucky,” Cole said.

  “Being lucky is knowing when to quit,” Mills said. “Emmert told us later he decided to watch where the queen was supposed to be and pick one of the other cards. That way his odds was fifty-fifty. If he lost, keep doubling the bet until he won, and then walk away ahead. We started joking that they ought to call it Emmert Street, since he had the place in his back pocket. Then we flipped it around and started calling him M Street.

  “We never saw stub-finger or that card sharp again, but we figured they was working as a team somewhere. Clete and M-Street and the rest of us got to know the Georgetown taverns pretty well, up until Prohibition. Since then it’s been hooch like yours. I heared M-Street was selling hooch to boaters that come through Edwards Ferry.”

  Cole rubbed his whiskers and nodded. “Is that right. Think he knows a feller named Kevin Emory?”

  “I don’t know,” Mills said. “I never asked where it come from. Haven’t seen him since I quit boating, though I guess he’ll be back at Edwards Ferry when the canal opens up again.”

  “Well he ain’t there now,” Cole said. “I want to find him ‘cause I got a box of old books that belong to him. Someone stashed ‘em on my cousin’s boat before the flood. I don’t want to just drop ‘em at the lockhouse, ‘cause they might disappear, and there’s family photos mixed in. Got any idea where he might be?”

  Mills broke into a gap-toothed smile. “Less than five miles from here, if you’re a crow. M-Street lives just across the river. On Harpers Ferry Road in Sharpsburg.”

  Chapter 27

  Sharpsburg

  Thursday, April 24, 1924

  Emmert Reed’s farm was halfway between the canal and Sharpsburg, on the last three-mile leg of Harper’s Ferry Road. That’s what Luther Mills had said. Must be something about canal boaters, Cole thought, always knowing how far it was from one place to another. He pulled his truck into the driveway and rolled in slowly, sizing the property up.

  The house was a single story and almost as deep as it was wide, with clapboard siding painted a fading gray. Dormer windows poking through the shingled roof suggested a livable attic. Past the house to the right, a brick outbuilding and a wire-fenced pen. To the left of the driveway was a small red barn, its far side opening into an empty corral. As he drove by, Cole noticed saddlebags and blankets hanging from a fence rail. He pulled to a stop at the end of the driveway as a man came walking around the side of the house, wearing gloves and boots and overalls with mud-stained knees.

  “If you’re looking for pork, you’re out of luck,” the man said, pulling off his gloves as he approached. “We’re smoking today and tomorrow, selling Saturday morning.”

  Cole took off his Stetson and raked his hair back with one hand. “I ain’t here for pork,” he said with a smile, “but it sounds good, now you mention it. I’m a friend of Jake’s and came to say hello. Is he home?”

  The man shook his head. He had cropped gray hair, a thick mustache, and a trimmed gray beard. His gleaming dark eyes looked almost black. “He went out for a ride. Guess he wasn’t expecting you.”

  Cole nodded, shifting his weight and feeling the pistol in his coat pocket bump against his thigh. “I told him I was coming but didn’t say exactly when. Think he’ll be back soon?”

  The man squinted as he studied Cole. “Sooner or later, most likely. I’m his father,” he said, extending his hand. “Emmert Reed.”

  “Tom Cushing,” Cole said as he shook hands. “Most people just call me Doc.”

  “Always good to meet a doctor,” Emmert said.

  “I ain’t a real doctor, just a horse doctor. Ja
ke had a mule down at Edwards Ferry with a stab wound in its neck. Nice-looking albino mule, which ain’t common. I patched her up. Gladys, I think it was. He said he was heading back to Sharpsburg so I told him I would check on her when I was passing through. Make sure she’s healing right.”

  “Well that’s good of you, Doc,” Emmert said. His wry smile made Cole wonder if he’d missed something humorous about the conversation. “And as I far as I can tell, you did a fine job. We still got it wrapped, but only to keep the flies off. The wound is filled in solid.”

  “Glad to hear it. Can’t be hurting if she’s off on a ride. All the same, I’d feel better if I had a look. Guess I could take a nap in my truck until they get back.”

  “Jake got to know a lot of doctors,” Emmert said, not taking the bait. “Frederick, Hagerstown, Baltimore. Did he tell you he’s looking for investors in a new auto-financing partnership?”

  “Yes he did,” Cole said, with a smile that revealed his canine teeth. “I was hoping to hear more about it when I was done with Gladys.”

  Emmert nodded. “Well he’s been playing around with my camera the last few days. Said he was going down to the battlefield after lunch, looking for shots of flowering trees along the creek. He took Gladys and Bertie to get ‘em some exercise.” Emmert stroked his chin with two fingers, pausing as if he were visualizing the setting. “I told him to walk Burnside Bridge to Middle Bridge. It’s about a mile between ‘em. Head over there now and you’ll probably find him straight off. Wait here and you might not see him ‘til six or seven. You know the battlefield?”

  Cole shook his head, so Emmert described the single turn off Harpers Ferry Road, and how he should follow the bending road east to the creek. If he didn’t find Jake between the bridges, cross the creek and walk back on the opposite side. He might be grazing the mules and napping behind a screen of trees.