If It Is April

by Edward A. Stabler

  “So we meet him in the lockhouse basement, set off the flash, and run? Then should we use our headstart to climb a bluff and raid a row of trees?”

  Jake smiled at the allusion. “Cole knows Edwards Ferry inside out by now. I was thinking of a place he might never have been. It’s dark, and if he’s blinded and drops the box it will take him a while to find it. A place on the other end of the canal.”

  “Such as?”

  “The Paw Paw Tunnel.”

  April fell silent for a moment. Jake wondered if she was remembering the place itself or what she’d heard about it from him.

  “Are we the preacher or the Indian trapper?”

  “Munson or Five Claws,” he said with a smile. “Like I said, there’s plenty of details to figure out.”

  They watched the mules graze until it was past noon, then saddled up and finished the ride. Turning onto the trail to their campsite, they passed a man rowing a dory up Goose Creek. Probably heading home after an outing on the river, Jake thought. The man turned his head and nodded a greeting, reminding Jake that they’d be noticed more often now that they’d stopped living like ghosts. He felt relieved that the man hadn’t seen them settled into their campsite, which they’d swept out this morning, leaving no trace of their presence.

  Back at the campsite they watered the mules, hitched them to a tree, and hung the saddles and bags. Jake used his pocket-knife to cut a six-foot branch from a beech tree. They took the fish-hooks, line, and worms down to a shady spot on the bank where they could watch the river while Jake shaped the branch into a fishing rod.

  “They’re out again today,” April said, pointing a bit downstream. Jake peered across and saw the red canoe they’d seen yesterday, apparently piloted by the same man and boy. Both were holding rods as the canoe drifted in the slow current near the Maryland shore.

  “Must have caught something yesterday,” Jake said. “Maybe they got a full creel and are about to come in.”

  “How do we know they didn’t launch from the Maryland side? Yesterday they were still fishing when we left.”

  That was possible, Jake admitted. But the safest way to borrow a canoe was to pick one its owner had just finished using, so they decided to watch the red canoe for a while. It was still early afternoon. Jake carved a slot in the narrow end of his beechwood rod and tied on a twenty-foot length of line. He whipped the rod back and forth and it flexed well enough to send the line flying, so he tied on a hook, baited it with half a worm, and cast the line into the river. No nibbles, but the worm was missing when he pulled in the line. The next several casts were no more successful.

  “We’ll do better out on the water,” he said.

  “Then let’s go look for a canoe.”

  They followed the trail to the remains of the boat ramp and turned onto the Virginia tail of Edwards Ferry Road. When the gravel beside the road became meadow grass, Jake figured they’d passed the highest water line. Sure enough, they found three tipped canoes submerged in the grass just ahead. One made of birch-bark and painted gray was still wet. He rolled it upright and saw that two paddles had been tucked beneath it. They carried it to the water, and Jake pushed off when April took her seat in the bow.

  With little rain for the last week, the river was running at a moderate spring level. Jake asked April to paddle on the port side while he took sweep strokes to starboard and kept their bow angled ten degrees off the current. The canoe drifted downstream as it ferried across to the Maryland side.

  “Where are we?” April said. “We must have missed the landing by half a mile.”

  “We got pushed downstream, but not that far. The Goose Creek feeder canal is just past those rocks. From there the boat ramp is less than a quarter mile.”

  The river bank offered a succession of barely noticeable bends and rock outcroppings that appeared and vanished at different water levels, but those imperfections were enough to keep the current shallow and slow, so it was an easy paddle back up the Maryland shore to Edwards Ferry. Jake swung the canoe a little further out and kept a wary eye on the road above the boat ramp as they passed by.

  “We’re not stopping?”

  “It’s too exposed here. Remember that path to the fishing hole we took when Cole was chasing us?”

  The fishing hole was only a hundred yards past the boat ramp, but saplings clustered along the bank screened the view between the two landings. They pulled the canoe ashore and out of sight from the water. Jake found the path and led them quietly to its origin in the yard behind the lockhouse. The rain barrel was lying on its side where Cole had tipped it over, a few feet from the back wall.

  “I doubt he bothered to lock the basement door,” Jake whispered.

  April’s eyes widened. “You can’t just walk in! What if he’s upstairs?”

  Jake stopped to think. They needed ten minutes inside but couldn’t risk an encounter with Cole. The best thing would be to wait until they saw him drive away.

  “Wait here,” he said, jogging up the side yard to the towpath. He didn’t see anyone in either direction. Jarboe’s looked as gloomy and impenetrable as ever, and there was no sign of Cole’s truck at the terminus of Edwards Ferry Road across the canal. Cole had parked out of sight of the towpath two nights ago, Jake reminded himself. So he could have hidden his truck again. He might have spotted Jake through the dusty windows of Jarboe’s and be coming to intercept them right now. Jake trotted down to April and ushered her back a few steps into the woods.

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No, but maybe someone saw me,” he said, dropping to a knee and gesturing for her to do the same. “Let’s wait and see if we get a nibble. Get ready to run back to the canoe if we see him coming.”

  Five minutes passed. They rocked back into sitting positions and waited another five.

  “He must not have seen the bait,” April said.

  “I guess not. Let’s give him a chance to hear it.” He jogged out onto the lawn, swiveled the rain barrel into position, and rolled it over to April. Then he stood it upside-down and banged the bottom a few times with the heel of his hand. “Should make a good enough drum.”

  “Maybe if you had hands like Tarzan.”

  Jake glared at her with lowered eyebrows and quietly beat his chest with his fists, then ran out to the log pile against the back wall and returned with a piece of cordwood, which he held vertically in two hands and rammed into the bottom of the barrel, producing a loud and hollow thump that lingered assertively in the air.

  “Now that’s a drum,” April said.

  “Keep an eye out while I play it.”

  He pounded out four quick thumps followed by an extended pause, repeating the sequence a few times while she scanned an arc from the towpath to the lockhouse basement door to the far side of the backyard. They waited fifteen minutes but no one appeared.

  “He must not have heard the bait,” Jake said.

  “I hope we’re not going to offer him a taste.”

  Jake grinned. “We can save the live bait for the river. I didn’t want to catch anything here anyway.” He handed her the piece of cordwood. “I’m going in,” he said. “If you see him heading for the basement door, bang the drum twice, then run back to the canoe and wait for me.”

  With the door open there was enough light in the basement for him to assess the contents of the stacked photography bins. He left the jars of chemicals alone and collected what he wanted: his father’s Brownie camera, several rolls of unopened film, a tin flash tray, and a hand-sized box labeled Johnson Flash Powder. Opening the box, he saw it contained a vial for each of the two powders to be mixed, along with a few strips of touch paper for the fuse. Good enough. He carried the bin out to April and hustled back inside.

  The cart harness was hanging on a rack beside the door. He pulled it off and checked it quickly: breastcollar, traces, reins, girth, bit. The tarnished buckles and worn leather straps had served well enough on the trip to Poolesville with Bertie. Was that just three weeks a
go? It was back when he still considered April a blank slate. Before she’d been painted and framed by Deputy Boyer and Cole and the dead Emorys’ toolbox and Pete Elgin’s kidnapping and a mosaic of unsettling recollections. He bundled the harness gear, carried it out to the trailhead, handed it to April, and hoisted the bin.

  “Let’s load this now and come back. In case we have to leave in a hurry.”

  Jake had come to expect comments and quips in response to statements like that, but April was quiet during the short walk to the canoe and back – the way she acted when another memory was surfacing. He left her to her thoughts and considered what his message to Cole should say. When they reached the backyard he surveyed the perimeter once more.

  “Follow me,” he said, crossing the side yard and turning into the basement. He closed the door behind them and waited for their eyes to adjust to the dim light. Taking her hand, he led her quietly up the stairs to the first floor. When the door to the hallway squeaked alarmingly, April stiffened, but Jake whispered to her that if Cole were inside, he’d have already made his move. The hallway was empty – so far so good.

  Instead of speaking he pointed to the ceiling, ignoring his own logic and yielding to an instinct for stealth. They stepped lightly up the creaking stairs. The bedrooms on either side of the landing looked the way they’d left them over two weeks ago. He nodded toward her room and asked her to get a pillowcase. In his own room, he sat at the small desk he’d used as boy when writing letters to his grandparents. The drawer still held a stack of unused stationery with faded trim. He set a page before him, pulled a pencil from the jar, and wrote out his message.

  April 30

  Mr. Cole,

  We found your toolbox. So long as you keep Pete Elgin safe, we will not open it. Release Pete to us unharmed and we will give you the box, with all of the precious treasure it holds. Hang a flag near the boat ramp to accept our offer. If done by sunset today, meet us at Pennyfield Lock at noon on Sunday. If by next Weds, then the following Sun.

  Jake and April

  By the time he finished writing, April was reading over his shoulder. “I thought you wanted to meet him in the Paw Paw Tunnel,” she said.

  “I do. We’ll switch locations at the last minute, so he can’t stake it out ahead of time. And telling him Pennyfield will keep him focused on the Maryland side of the river for now. The shortest road to the Paw Paw Bends is on the Virginia side, and that’s a three-day ride for us. For him it’s a four-hour drive. If he knows where we’re headed, he could ambush us on the road.”

  “So that’s why you said Sunday. If we leave tomorrow, we’ll get there in time. But why wait a whole week if he doesn’t set the flag today?”

  “Because we need the tunnel to ourselves. With the canal shut down there won’t be any sightseers, but there’s probably a repair crew there six days a week. On Sunday it should be deserted.” He read the note to himself once more. It felt good to be issuing terms to Cole, even under false pretenses.

  “Did you find a pillowcase?” he said, plucking the note and turning for the stairs. She held it up for him to see. “Perfect. Time to set the real bait.”

  They shuffled downstairs to the entryway, looped around, and continued down to the basement. Jake circled to the space under the staircase, where Cole had instructed them to leave the toolbox. He placed the note on a dusty step stool and anchored it in place with an old horseshoe he found in a box.

  “Lucky for him or lucky for us?” April asked.

  “Our luck’s turning up and his is turning down,” Jake said, inverting the horseshoe. “So let’s head out to the clothesline and hang our flag.”

  Chapter 36

  Healing

  Sunday, May 4, 1924

  Zimmerman lay on his narrow bed in the Cole family nursery, eyes on the barely discernible rafters, unable to sleep. It was long past midnight. Both windows were open and he could feel cool mountain air seeping in from the woods outside, but pricks of perspiration still welled up and collapsed on his neck. The bandage that wrapped his wounds felt damp. Sweating out poisons, he reckoned – the ones he’d consumed knowingly, and those from the lead slug that had nearly consumed him.

  One of Delmond Cole’s dogs was barking, inciting and echoing another dog in the distance. Seven or eight reports in quick succession seemed to erupt just outside his window, followed by a reprieve of waiting and listening, then a reciprocal volley of barks from far away. Zimmerman’s thoughts rolled forward during the interludes, only to be severed and erased by the noise.

  Owly Cole. He’d stopped by for the second time this afternoon. Older and more guarded than Delmond, wiry but not as tall, with specs and thick black hair going gray. He ran the full operation here and had a disarming manner that made you think you could trust him. Owly had seemed curious about the heroin business so Zimmerman had suggested the family take the two jars he’d salvaged from the scow. Take ‘em on consignment for now. Delmond was starting to work the Potomac out past Harpers Ferry, but maybe another Cole brother or cousin could start pushing down into the Shenandoah Valley.

  Owly lived a quarter mile up the road and his fourteen-year-old son Skeeter was staying home from school to look after Pete. Took him out hunting for arrowheads and let him shoot squirrels with a BB gun. Skeeter lugged a .22, so Pete wasn’t going nowhere.

  Zimmerman slowly formed a fist with his left hand and flexed his upper arm until the pain near his collarbone made him back off. Better now than yesterday, much better than two days ago. Still too weak to lift himself onto the deck, but that didn’t signify because the scow was gone.

  Now he needed another place to do business, once he was healed enough. Cy Elgin’s stranded coal boat was stripped and locked up, and too conspicuous anyway. Maybe the basement at the Great Falls Tavern. He’d used it before but you had to pay off the manager, schedule carefully, meet people late at night. The scow had been much simpler. Or maybe one of the worn-out gazebos at the Cabin John Bridge Hotel. One near the bottom of the property, along the canal.

  He wasn’t ready to return to the Rathskeller right away. Word might get back to Isabelle Owens, or whatever her real name was. Zimmerman would see her again, but only when he was ready, and on his terms. She would pay a price for setting him up.

  Isabelle Owens, Isabelle Thompson, Owen Thompson. At least that last name was real. Owen had made Zimmerman dig up names he hadn’t uttered in twenty years. Drew Thompson, Jessie Delaney, Gig Garrett – names from a prior life. And then all the names and stories from his days in the Yukon, days etched so deeply into his memory that they still seemed alive.

  Penson Wylie. Wylie would have killed Owen Thompson on the scow, and Zimmerman was starting to regret just knocking him unconscious with the empty pistol, splashing him with kerosene, and leaving him pinned to the floor to burn. But that was what Owen feared most; Zimmerman had sensed it and wanted to oblige him. Wylie would have stabbed him in the heart instead of the hand and set him on fire directly. Was that the difference between Penson Wylie and Henry Zimmerman?

  And there was still the Elgin girl. He was starting to feel anxious again, the way he’d felt before the flood. Wylie would kill her too, would have killed her years ago, whenever he got the chance. Cole still thought he needed her, but soon enough he would realize she was useless. She wasn’t who Cole thought she was, and they were more likely to get help finding the toolbox from Pete. Whether it turned up or it didn’t, something else was close at hand, something bigger. Zimmerman just needed to regain his strength, and that might only take another week or so. Then it would be time to finish what he’d started all those years ago with Jessie.

  Chapter 37

  Riverside Flag

  Wednesday, May 7, 1924

  Exactly a week after his last visit to Swains Lock, Cole pulled into the dirt lot and parked his truck next to Zimmerman’s roadster. For the first time in a month he had no reason to walk a mile on the towpath, and for the first time he hadn’t come here alone. He got o
ut and jerked his head toward the small backyard corral where the Emorys’ two mules were still confined. His nephew Shep nodded and spat. Cole lowered the tailgate and each of them grabbed a hay bale from the flatbed. They dropped the bales over the fence and Shep entered the corral to drag them in place and cut the twine.

  Cole watched him pitchfork the hay into a mound for the mules. At seventeen Shep was longer than his father and just as lean, with a shaggy black mane and the same green eyes. He’d begun cultivating wispy black hairs above his lip that might pass for a mustache in a year or two. Like Owly, he was usually quiet unless he was drinking, which made him effusive and loud. Shep was still learning his way around whiskey.

  He was getting his share of practice, since he’d been spending time with his father tuning and repairing the family stills. Shep liked anything he could take apart and put back together, sometimes with a few pieces removed. Coon traps, guns, and more recently, cars. That last interest might kill him yet, Cole thought, since there was nothing his nephew enjoyed more than driving stripped-down, tuned-up cars on backwoods roads. At this point Shep’s talent as a mechanic exceeded his capacity for restraint behind the wheel.

  But he’d come along today to drive Zimmerman’s roadster back to Jefferson County. Cole watched him smirk as he circled the car.

  “Nash model 42,” Shep said. “First one I seen close up.”

  “Just remember it ain’t ours,” Cole said, “so you got to get it home in one piece.” He retrieved a five-gallon gasoline can from his truck and they topped off the roadster’s tank. Shep hopped in, started it up, spun his wheels into a fish-hook turn and tore up Swains Lock Road.

  It was good to get Zimmerman’s car out of here. The Emory clan was pretty sore about their scow burning up, and Billy and Tyler were bringing a truck to Swains tomorrow to collect their mules and haul away anything on the boat that looked salvageable. Cole had sent word to Abel Emory that no one knew how it caught fire, but Zimmerman was the obvious suspect, and Cole worried Billy and Tyler might try to take his car as compensation. With the Emorys on their heels for now as moonshine distributors, the Cole clan was looking for something to replace the lost revenue, and Zimmerman’s heroin might be part of the answer. If so, there was no sense in having your business partners taking shots at each other. Cole watched the dust cloud in Shep’s wake subside, then rounded the lockhouse and pounded on the front door. He was a little surprised when it opened partway and the goose-turd farmer peered out.