If It Is April

by Edward A. Stabler

  “Compromise sounds good,” April said, examining the soft and level floor. She smiled and looked surprised at the sound of her own voice. “It’s so quiet in here,” she whispered, “you can hear everything!”

  “Then watch out,” Jake whispered back. “Maybe I’ll hear what you’re thinking.”

  They went back out and unsaddled the mules. The rain had let up, so Jake left April to set up camp in the cave while he led the mules a quarter mile down the towpath to a pasture on the berm, where he let them graze for an hour. By the time he’d watered them, walked them back to the cave, and tied them to sheltering trees, it was twilight and raining again. It felt good to duck into the cave, collapse on the blanket that reached almost from wall to wall, and take off his wet shoes. April had set out bread, cheese, slices of smoked pork, a jar of apple jam, and a flask of Emmert’s whiskey that Jake had slipped into one of his saddlebags.

  “I see you did a thorough inspection of our inventory,” he said, planting his elbows behind him and stretching his legs toward the entrance. April circled the blanket, bending to light candles she’d planted in the sandy dirt floor.

  “I was wondering if you brought a gun.”

  “I thought about it. Asked my father if we could take his Winchester, but he was out of ammo. I almost brought it anyway, because with some men an unloaded gun is all you need. Hold a rifle at your side and they’ll back off.”

  “I don’t think Cole is like that,” April said, handing him a heel of bread and a wedge of cheese and settling alongside him on the blanket. “It seems like showing him an unloaded gun would be a good way to get shot.”

  Jake nodded while chewing. “I met that type in prison. Sometimes everything that comes out of their mouths is a lie. Like Cole saying he was going to drive you back to your family in Williamsport. And then telling my father he was Doc Cushing. But guns are pure truth to men like that. If you carry one, it’s gospel that it’s loaded and you’re willing to shoot it.”

  April cut slices of bread for each of them, matched them with slabs of pork, spread apple jam on top, and handed one to Jake.

  “Speaking of Cole,” he said. “Do you think the letter was real?”

  “The one from Tessie Elgin? Who everyone thinks is my mother?”

  “It seemed sincere.”

  “I’m sure it was. It seemed like the kind of letter a mother would write if her daughter was missing. I just don’t know if I’m that daughter. Maybe Katie Elgin ran off with the milk man. Or maybe she got swept away by the flood.”

  “I remember the letter said Katie’s younger brother Pete made it home safe. Do you picture anyone when you hear that name?”

  “No. I don’t see anyone. It was the mark on the back that meant something. I can’t put it into words, but when I saw it I knew it belonged to me. To who I was before.”

  Raising himself to a sitting position, Jake reached across her waist to snare the flask. He took a sip to wash down his last bite, then a second to savor the sting. He passed it to April, who took a careful sip as he leaned behind her for the bread knife.

  “Do you remember the mark?” he said, handing her the knife. “Can you carve it?”

  She scooted forward to the edge of the blanket and stared at the sandy dirt floor, knife in hand, for several seconds. She put it down and took a long slow sip from the flask, eyes closed. Handing Jake the flask, she used the knife to carve a backwards-leaning C. Then a vertical arrow to pierce its base, right arm longer than the left.

  She pushed back alongside him and smiled, leaving the knife stabbed upright into the dirt. “At first I couldn’t see it,” she said. “I had to try to clear my mind.”

  “You had to stop being April for a minute. So whoever you used to be could take over.”

  April shook her head, reclaimed the knife, and wiped it clean. She sliced bread for the two of them and slathered on jam and cheese. “I don’t think I can be two people at once.”

  “Some people manage it. When I was a kid, boating with my father, he used to tell us a story when we got to the Paw Paw Tunnel.”

  April passed him the flask and leaned back on her elbows while Jake took a sip and wiped the sting from his lips.

  “Back in the 1850s,” he said, “before the war, there was a man who used to canoe up and down the canal, one end to the other. His name was Lloyd Munson and during the winters he was a Georgetown preacher. In the spring, when the canal got watered, he’d hop in his canoe.

  “Back then the C&O was doing good business, and there were little communities – stores, blacksmiths, a few houses, maybe a tavern – around some of the locks. Munson would paddle upstream and preach a few times a week to the people that lived along the canal. Put up an awning on tent poles and hold a revival meeting. Pass the hat afterward, though sometimes he was just preaching for his supper.

  “He’d do that for a hundred and fifty some miles, all the way up to the Paw Paw Tunnel. Might take him three or four weeks. Do you remember the Paw Paw Tunnel?”

  April shook her head.

  “It’s an archway that cuts through the mountain. A shortcut, so the canal can bypass five miles of hairpin bends in the river. More than half a mile long and just wide enough for the towpath and one canal boat. Black as pitch after the first hundred feet.

  “When Munson got to the tunnel, my father told us, he’d paddle inside and disappear.”

  “Disappear,” April echoed. “More than once?”

  “Every time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Munson would paddle his canoe into the tunnel, and someone else would paddle it out.”

  “Who?”

  “An Indian trapper named Five Claws. A man who had nothing in common with Munson.”

  “Except the canoe.”

  “Right.”

  “So Munson turned into an Indian while he was in the tunnel?”

  “That’s the mystery.”

  “Did Five Claws look like Munson?”

  “Five Claws had black hair and Munson’s was white. Five Claws smoked an Indian pipe and painted his face. And he didn’t preach – he trapped muskrat and beaver along the canal and the river. Canoed and trapped the last thirty miles up to Cumberland, then sold his pelts. Bought supplies and paddled back to the tunnel.”

  “And then Munson canoed out the downstream end.”

  “That’s right,” Jake said.

  April rolled onto one elbow to face him. “Did anyone ever ask him what was going on?”

  “Munson told people he never heard of Five Claws. Said he always stopped at the tunnel to meet the sightseers and picnickers. Pitched his tent near the entrance and started back for Georgetown in the morning. But no one ever saw him do that.”

  “Did anyone ever ask Five Claws about Munson?”

  “Most people were scared of him. They thought he was dangerous and possessed.”

  April sighed. “I don’t know if I want to go back to being who I used to be. Maybe I was just a plain, dumb girl who boated with her daddy and helped take care of the mules. And when I got older I wanted to be a store clerk. Or a pie baker or a nanny.”

  Jake reached over to tuck a stray lock of candlelit hair behind her ear. With her lips barely parted, April had the innocent, luscious face of an ingenue. Mary Pickford with a voice. And the cunning of a hungry raccoon.

  “Whatever you were, it wasn’t dumb. And there’s nothing plain about you.”

  “Maybe I used to be Munson,” she said, “and now I’m Five Claws. I think I’d rather be Five Claws.”

  “A pipe-smoking male Indian trapper with a painted face?”

  “Someone dangerous and possessed.”

  “Should I take away your knife?” Jake rolled onto his elbow to face her and something fluttered in his chest as he looked her in the eyes. He was close enough to feel her warmth and it was getting him hard. Not for the first time, but for once he didn’t turn away or try to hide it.

  “Maybe I’m a killer,” she growled,
squinting and pressing her lips together.

  “Maybe someone wants you to think that and take the blame.”

  “Maybe I’m a lover.” She rose to her knees, then lowered her head until her hair almost touched his face.

  “Maybe you’re a killer and a lover,” he said, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her down toward him as he rolled onto his back. He slipped them inside her sweater and brought them slowly up to her hair, feeling every taut muscle in her back.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said softly, letting her lips fall onto his. “Things could be worse.”

  Chapter 29

  Table for Two

  Friday, April 25, 1924

  Zimmerman bought a gin and cider at the bar and carried his drink to an empty table halfway down the windowless brick wall. He took the seat facing the door because he wanted to watch Isabelle Owens come in. Unless something changed in the next few minutes, she’d be one of only five women among the increasingly ebullient scofflaws drinking at the Rathskeller tonight. Even if she didn’t live up to Werner’s description, she’d be easy to spot, entering alone. And if she wasn’t alone, or if she locked eyes with a barfly who seemed a little too attentive, Zimmerman was going to walk. Something about the whole thing seemed fishy.

  Not to mention the fact that he’d told Werner he would meet her here last Friday. She’d agreed, then left word with the bartender that she needed to wait a week. Not the kind of behavior Zimmerman associated with reliable customers. He preferred the ones who had to have it now.

  Tonight she was almost on time. Surrounded by bantering postal clerks, weathered canal workers, property surveyors, insurance agents, and a few slick-haired salesmen with their girls, Zimmerman didn’t hear the signal when it came. But the sequence of knocks and kicks must have been convincing, because a man smoking a cigarette at the nearest table stood up and opened the door without pausing to gaze through the peephole.

  The chatter was halved as eyes turned toward the door, and Zimmerman smirked when most of those eyes took their time swiveling back to a conversational partner. Isabelle Owens didn’t seem to notice or care. She walked straight to the bar and caught Werner’s attention without glancing at anyone else. Zimmerman took a good look while Werner fixed her drink.

  She wore an emerald dress that revealed slender ankles and the start of her shapely calves. Even without the heels she would have stood eye to eye with most of the men here tonight. Over the dress, a close-fitting waist-length jacket, chocolate brown with fur trim on the collar and sleeves. A cloche hat hid most of her hair. Zimmerman guessed the dress would be cut lower than usual in front. When Werner pointed out his table and she turned his way, he wasn’t disappointed. The description he’d heard from Werner – short auburn hair, brown eyes, pale skin – hardly did her justice. Isabelle Owens knew how to show off her curves. The men at the nearest tables all took a long look as she passed by with her drink.

  “Henry Zimmerman?” she said in a soft, low voice.

  Zimmerman stood up, shook the hand she offered, and pulled out her chair.

  “What are you drinking, Miss Owens?” he said, sitting down across from her.

  “Call me Isabelle. Rum punch.”

  “I tried that once myself. Tastes sweet, but two or three will kick you in the head.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Of course you probably don’t got to worry about that, since this really ain’t your kind of watering hole.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Unless you’re a stage girl. You sing and dance?”

  “No.” Her eyes hardened a bit between the accented lashes. “I prefer to be in the audience.”

  “That’s what I thought. Then you want a classier place, with champagne and a piano. The Rat here is for used-up sods drinking bathtub gin.”

  She took a full sip of punch without puckering or wincing, then offered a fleeting smile. “I’ll take my chances.”

  She’s bulletproof so far, Zimmerman thought. “How did you get past the door?”

  “I know people who come here.”

  “Who?” he said, pushing a stray lock back across his age-spotted dome.

  “I’m not saying. Just like I wouldn’t tell anyone that you come here.”

  “A toast.” He raised his glass. “To circumcision and privacy.”

  She couldn’t hold back a smile. “I think one of those words is wrong, but I’ll toast the other.”

  They drank a sip together.

  “Discretion,” he said, raising his glass again. “That ain’t exactly right either, but close enough.”

  “You trying to get me soused?” she said, leaving her glass on the table while he sipped. She was still smiling and now seemed partially disarmed.

  “You ain’t my typical drinking partner, Isabelle.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  Zimmerman lowered his eyebrows and flattened his voice. “What do you want from me?”

  Her smile evaporated but she held her ground. “Two or three ounces of heroin.”

  “You a junkie?”

  “No. It’s for someone else.”

  “Junkies are born liars,” he sneered. “Whoever sent you here is using you.”

  “I’m doing this for my uncle. I trust him.”

  “Why didn’t he come himself?”

  “He lives in New Mexico.”

  Caught off-guard, Zimmerman squinted and recalibrated. “So he wants you to start doing heroin?”

  “No,” she said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket and tapping one loose. “It’s for him.” Zimmerman didn’t offer to light it, so she produced a pack of matches and lit it herself.

  “He wants you to mail it to him?”

  “He’ll be visiting family here next week. He wants me to ask if you’ll sell it to him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Tom Owens.” She took a drag and blew smoke past Zimmerman’s ear. “You don’t know him and he doesn’t know you. He wants the heroin for his wife.”

  “She a junkie?”

  “No. She has a spine condition. My uncle said a visiting friend gave her a dose of heroin and it relieved her pain. But she can’t find any in Santa Fe.”

  “One of ‘em is probably lying. Maybe both.”

  “You seem obsessed with questioning the veracity of others.”

  “It pays off. You should try it.” He drained his glass and leaned back from the table. “What makes you think I can help?”

  “Someone mentioned your name.”

  “Who?”

  “It was through the grapevine. I don’t name names.”

  Zimmerman smiled a crooked smile. “Then I can’t help you.”

  “It was a friend of a friend.”

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “Someone you’ve never heard of.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “I won’t tell you anything more about him, only what his friend told him.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Go to the Cabin John Bridge Hotel and ask at the Rathskeller for Henry Zimmerman.”

  “You’re going to have to give me a name,” Zimmerman said. He was leaning forward and squinting again.

  “OK, but it’s not someone I know. I’m not sure what the name will mean to you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Arch Taviston. He lives in Oakland, California.”

  Zimmerman tried not to look surprised. Who in Isabelle Owens’ world would know Taviston? It couldn’t be Randall; he would have told Zimmerman about the girl himself – no need to mention his father. No other connection came to mind. But since it was a name that jeopardized everything, only someone trustworthy would know it. Someone safe.

  “When is your uncle going to be here?”

  “He’d like to meet you Tuesday evening. Sometime after six.”

  Zimmerman nodded. He stood up and walked to the bar, returning with a pencil and a blank invoice. On the back
he sketched a crude map of the river and canal between Swains Lock and Great Falls, with River Road and Falls Road as the short arms of the triangle. He marked the location of the Emorys’ scow with an X.

  “Tom Owens?” he said, waiting for her to nod an affirmation. “Tell him to bring a hundred in cash, and I’ll meet him there at eight.”

  She folded and pocketed the map, then stood up and gave him a tight-lipped smile.

  “And I don’t like surprises,” he said as she turned to go. “Tell your uncle if he wants a friendly transaction, he better come alone.”

  Chapter 30

  Bedrooms

  Sunday, April 27, 1924

  The crescent moon was high when Cole woke up in his truck. He checked his pocket watch – just past midnight. As good a time as any. During two days and nights scouting Emmert Reed’s farm in Sharpsburg, he’d seen no sign of Katie Elgin or Jake. They must have gone on another camping trip with their mules. Now he was tired of waiting and watching. Time to make the girl come to him. Unless she was already here in Williamsport.

  He stepped quietly onto the road, leaving the door open and carrying an unlit oil lamp. From the top of the driveway he made out the dark outline of the Elgin family house. No glow from within. The chickens in the shed to the left of the house were quiet. He walked softly, hoping to keep them that way.

  At the front door he paused for a moment to listen. Hearing nothing, he tried the door. Unlocked, as he’d guessed it would be. He lit his oil lamp and slipped inside. An open hallway led past a living room on one side and dining room on the other. He pushed the lamp through a half-open doorway into a bedroom that was cluttered with everything except a bed. At the end of the hall, a kitchen and another passage, leading right, with three doorways along it.

  The first door was opened wide, and Cole saw two empty beds with undisturbed quilts and tasseled pillows. Must have been a girl’s room. It didn’t look like Katie had come home. The second door was across the hall and closed. The only door on that side of the hall, Cole thought, so that room must be the biggest of the three. For the parents. He passed by and came to the third door, which had been swung closed but not latched. He set the lamp down in the doorway and pulled a coiled length of rope from his coat pocket. It was twelve feet long, with a loop already tied at one end for a slipknot. From his other pocket he withdrew the Colt.