If It Is April

by Edward A. Stabler

  “What do you want?” Jess Swain said in a strained voice.

  Cole pushed his hat back on his head and smiled his wolf smile. “Just thought I’d stop by and say hello, since I been away the last week.”

  “You can stay away as long as you like,” Jess said, without opening the door any further. “It’s fine with me.”

  Cole told the locktender that the Emory brothers would be arriving in a day or two to truck their mules back to Washington County. “If they want to haul something back from the scow, tell ‘em where they can borrow a mule cart. And set some planks so they can drive it onto the towpath.”

  “I got my own responsibilities, you know!” Jess sputtered.

  “Won’t take you but a few minutes,” Cole said. “You don’t want the Emory boys to work up a big appetite. Might get their mouths watering over that fat goose of yours.”

  “You leave Jimmy alone! All of you! I never saw such ill…”

  “One more thing,” Cole said, cutting him off. “I heared there was a injured man on the scow the morning it burned down. Hurt pretty bad. Must of got help or made it off the boat himself, probably around sunrise. You know if anyone seen him?”

  Jess looked skeptical and shook his head. “Far as I’m concerned, the only people using that boat was you and the old miner Zimmerman. That’s what I told the sheriff’s deputy when he came out for a look. We figured Zimmerman burned it on purpose, or knocked over a lamp when he was falling-down drunk.”

  “I heared the other feller set the fire. The injured man.”

  “The sheriff wants to ask Zimmerman what happened. I said I reckoned he was coming back sooner or later for his car, but it looks like you just took care of that.”

  “If you was watching out the window, you might of stepped out to help with the hay,” Cole said. He smiled again and pulled his hat brim down. “I heared the other man’s name was Owen Thompson. You can tell that to the sheriff.” He turned to leave, then looked back on his way around the lockhouse. “And once them mules go home, our deal is over,” he called out. “Then it’s open season on Jimmy the goose!”

  Cole couldn’t stifle a grin when the door slammed shut and he realized that the locktender’s non-verbal rebuke was about as provocative a reply as he could muster. There was no denying that it took something out of you to wake up every day thinking about how to deal with your enemies, but it must be worse trying to steer your way around every confrontation. Sooner or later you got to collide with fellers and see who broke. He got in his truck and drove the now familiar fifteen miles out to Edwards Ferry.

  It had been nine days since he’d nearly caught Jake and Katie. Before fleeing up the towpath, they’d found and taken the note he left on the hallway floor, so they knew what to do if they wanted him to set Pete free. Cole had taken Pete down to the scow on Tuesday, then watched and waited at Jarboe’s until Wednesday morning, when he’d found the scow burnt and a wounded Zimmerman collapsed with Pete in the woods. So he’d given Romeo and Juliet a week to retrieve the toolbox and leave it under the basement stairs. Any thoughts they might have had about springing Pete the way Jake had sprung Katie must have expired by now. Were they finally ready to concede?

  He shuffled from the towpath onto the dirt road leading to the boat ramp, and there it was: a lone pillowcase pinned to the clothesline behind the lockhouse. Cole took his hat off, scored his fingers back through his hair, and stared at the pillowcase for a moment. Was the mouse finally giving up her stolen cheese? He loped down the shoulder into the backyard and over to the basement door. The rain barrel was on the edge of the yard – more evidence that someone had been here. He entered the basement, let his eyes adjust to the gloom, and found his way to the stairs.

  There was no toolbox underneath them. Instead he found a step stool with a note on top of it, held in place by a horseshoe. More games, he thought, anger flaring in his chest. He took the note upstairs to read.

  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

  Dated April 30. That was a week ago, and today was the “next Weds” cited in the note. So if he wanted to meet them at Pennyfield on Sunday, he had to hoist a flag by sunset. Why did they want his signal near the boat ramp? Maybe they were across the river, he thought. Or maybe they were still in Maryland but had a rowboat, and they wanted to keep watch by water to avoid being ambushed. Or they might have enlisted someone else to pass by once a day and tell them when a flag was set.

  Choosing Pennyfield Lock for the exchange made it hard to guess where they’d be coming from. That was eleven miles down the towpath, three miles this side of Swains. They could approach from the road, from either direction on the towpath, or from across the river by boat. Cole didn’t think they’d been hiding out at Pennyfield for the last week. Tobytown was just up the road, and you had darkies coming down to the towpath and the river, so if Romeo and Juliet were camped in the woods, word would get around. But maybe the toolbox had been hidden there all along. Maybe it was there now.

  What didn’t make sense was waiting until Sunday. Why did they need four days to get ready, once they knew Cole was willing to meet? He shook his head and stepped out the front door, then circled the lockhouse to the backyard and pulled the pillowcase off the clothesline. With his pocketknife he cut a long segment of rope from the line, pierced the corners of the pillowcase, and ran the rope through. Down near the water he chose a branch near the boat ramp and hoisted his flag.

  Four days, he thought. He’d head back home today and work tomorrow. That would give him Friday to visit Eliza and Saturday to plan. Zimmerman should be much stronger by Sunday, and Cole wanted him to come along this time. He could keep Pete tied up and point the pistol he took from Owen Thompson at Katie and Jake. Cole would make sure the magazines on both Colts were full.

  If the Elgin girl handed over a toolbox, Cole planned to hacksaw it open before anyone had a chance to run off. The money and the ledger had to be there or they were taking Katie back to Jefferson County, where they could keep tightening the screws until she coughed up what she stole. That might take time, so it was best to get rid of Jake, who was too much of a nuisance. Take him for a ride and drop him into the Shenandoah from a bridge, with a bullet in his head and a bucket of cement on his feet. Pete knew names and faces now, but he hadn’t witnessed anything except his own kidnapping, and things would stay that way. Cole knew how to convince him not to talk.

  What if it was all there – the gold and silver coins, the paper money, and Kevin Emory’s ledger? Cole would take it to Abel Emory. They’d need most of it to get another boat ready for the canal. Pete could go home. Jake needed to forget everything that had happened and disappear, with help from Cole if necessary. And the Elgin girl? He pondered the options as he started back up the road to the lockhouse. Maybe he’d turn her over to Zimmerman.

  Chapter 38

  Catfish Talk

  Thursday, May 8, 1924

  Jake opened his eyes as morning light seeped into the spacious, canopied woods of Blockhouse Point. He’d only slept a few hours but it was time to get up. Travel by night, travel by day. It felt strange to wake up without April by his side, for the first time since… when? Since Sharpsburg, where they’d slept in different bedrooms in his parents’ house. That was two weeks ago and it seemed like half a lifetime. Maybe the best half.

  She’d spent last night at their campsite on Goose Creek. The second one, which was upstream and off the trail. After they’d seen some of the same faces come and go along the creek during the first few days, they’d decided to make themselves less visible. It still took just five minutes to walk down to the river, where they’d spent t
ime every day fishing and scouting for a flag on the opposite bank near the Edwards Ferry boat ramp.

  Eight days ago they’d been disappointed when Cole had missed their Wednesday evening deadline. But just when it looked as if another week was lost – with Cole either ignoring or not discovering their note – the white pillowcase had appeared yesterday afternoon, waving lazily from a high branch near the water’s edge. They’d hooked their fish, but that was the easy part. Now they had to reel him in and finish him off.

  That meant a quick visit to Pennyfield Lock, eleven miles downriver. There was no reason to risk a premature encounter with Cole, so it was best to paddle across to the Goose Creek river lock after dark, pull the canoe out of harm’s way, and travel the towpath in the dead of night. If Jake didn’t waste time he could be back early the following afternoon with the canoe’s owner none the wiser. He’d convinced April that there was no reason for her to come along, and she should stay to look after the mules.

  So far, so good. He’d walked almost nine miles last night, passing moonlit tents and dying fires at the Chisel Branch campground and Seneca Creek but not encountering anyone face to face. At the far end of Blockhouse Point he’d crossed the muddy floor of the canal and found a trail leading to the level woods on top of the hill, where he’d curled up in his blanket with a pile of leaves for a pillow.

  He sat up and pulled the sausage and heel of bread from his jacket pocket. From here it was less than two miles to Pennyfield, so he could arrive early enough to minimize the chance of running into repair workers or passersby. He swallowed his dry breakfast, rolled his blanket, and set off down the hill toward the canal, veering off to a little stream to drink. Washing his face, he was struck by the feel of soft hair covering his cheeks and jaws. He hadn’t shaved since Sharpsburg and his characteristic stubble was growing into a chestnut-colored beard. The unparted hair on his scalp was an inch longer than he usually allowed and seemed twice as thick.

  “When I met you, you looked like you spent your days in a basement office,” April had needled him yesterday. “Now you’re starting to look more like a mountain man than a con man.”

  “Convict,” Jake said. “Blyth was the con man. And I worked plenty in prison, but it wasn’t like an office. Speaking of work, we need to rig the cart and test it out.”

  They’d spent most of their time the last few days finding a two-wheeled horse cart in Leesburg that was both affordable and fixable. The one they ended up buying for fifteen dollars had a broken shaft that Jake splinted successfully enough for Bertie to pull it to a farm supply store, where he and April washed tractors and stacked hay bales in exchange for a pine pole and the hardware Jake needed to fashion and attach a new shaft. It was a good thing they’d finished fixing the cart before they saw Cole’s flag, because now there was little time left. They had to leave Goose Creek tonight. He brushed the water from his beard and crossed the canal bed to the towpath.

  Pennyfield Lock was quiet as he approached. Charlie Pennyfield, or whoever was minding the lock, wouldn’t be using the lockhouse with the canal still out of service. Not when the much larger family house was just across the canal. Eyeing its white clapboard siding in the distance and the two cars parked out front, Jake wondered if anyone had missed the pole-hook that he and April had borrowed from the pile on the wraparound porch.

  The road ran beside the canal for its last quarter mile, and a few outbuildings had been placed along it. Jake studied them as he passed by. The first was a chicken coop that looked abandoned. The next appeared to be a two-stall stable, also unoccupied, its doors closed and padlocked. Then came a windowless wooden shed and a firewood hutch with only a few layers of stacked logs left. It was the shed that caught his attention. He recited to himself what he’d heard April say was written on the note she cast into the floodwaters.

  Charlie, Welcome home. I left your drill in the shed, behind the marked plank. Lee

  It struck him again how strange it was that April had walked off with such a mundane message. Unless drill meant something else. Maybe the Emorys’ toolbox was behind the marked plank. Would that mean Charlie Pennyfield was in league with Lee Fisher? Had Charlie helped steal the toolbox? But April had removed the only pointer to it and Lee got his throat slashed before Charlie came home. Where had Charlie been?

  With the Emory brothers, Lee Fisher, and Cy Elgin all ending up as flood debris, and with only a few scraps of April’s memory to work with, there were too many possibilities to sort out who had done what to who. So Jake just had to pursue the available clues. He and April had fished every lock between Swains and Edwards Ferry. Now he needed to check the shed for a marked plank and anything hidden behind it.

  He crossed the lock and doubled back along the road to the shed. Its door was closed but there was no lock on the eyelet latch. He pulled it open and studied the interior. Fishing gear. A row of poles standing against the left wall, neatly held in place by nails. A tangle of netting and pole nets on a back-wall shelf. Two stacks of mud-stained tin buckets, a box of rubber wading boots. His eyes widened when he spotted a small metal box on a shelf, but it was easy to open and all he found inside was a collection of hooks and lures. The floor was planked but not the walls, which consisted simply of the studs that held the outer siding. No meaningful marks that he could see on the dusty floor. He snorted in disappointment. Either this wasn’t the right shed, or the marked plank and whatever was behind it had already been harvested from an unfinished wall. He closed and latched the door and continued up the road to his next destination: Tobytown.

  As he walked he pulled a folded note from the lining pocket of his jacket. It was a bit warped from his travels but otherwise intact and readable. He’d written it yesterday at the Western Union office in Leesburg. He opened and re-read it as he walked.

  Mr. Cole,

  We need to change our appointment. Meet us at five o’clock today at the upstream entrance to the Paw Paw Tunnel. Release Pete Elgin to us unharmed and we will give you the toolbox you seek. No games, this is an honest trade.

  Jake Reed

  Jake laughed to himself. He’d learned in prison and working for Blyth that only habitual liars called themselves “honest.” He flipped the page over. On the lower half of its back, April had drawn the symbol that she etched on the sand floor of the cave. The one that had spoken to her when she’d seen it on the letter from Tess Elgin. April couldn’t place or explain it, but she knew that somehow it belonged to her.

  Cole had seen the mark on Tess Elgin’s letter, so it should prove to him that this note was authentic, Jake thought. He crossed Muddy Branch on the bridge and followed the road a half mile up the wooded hillside to Tobytown, which was tucked into twenty acres or so just below River Road. He checked his pocket watch and quickened his pace when he saw it was almost eight. School might be starting soon.

  Actually, Jake thought, Tobytown probably didn’t have a standalone school. The tin-roofed houses formed a loose ring around the church, which was the community’s only two-story building. That was probably where school was held. Jake veered onto the dirt entry road and slowed his pace. Tobytown was all colored folk, and he didn’t want to be taken for an unwelcome authority figure. He stopped in the center of the road between the two houses closest to the intersection.

  From here he had a clear view of the front door to the church. He watched a young girl carrying a notebook with a torn cover jog up the steps and disappear inside. Then he spotted another girl, in her early teens, heading for the church along a path that would steer her across the road not far from where he stood. She carried a book-bag in one hand and led a boy half her age by the other. Jake waited until she reached the road before calling out in a friendly voice.

  “Hello! I wonder if you could help me find two boys who live here.”

  The girl turned her head to assess Jake and lowered her eyebrows. “Who you after?” she said in a wary voice. “Somebody in trouble?”

  Jake smiled a reassuring smile. “No, no.
Nobody’s in trouble. I’m looking for Linus Jones and Floyd Meeker. They sold me the best catfish I ever ate three weeks ago. Told me to stop by when I was ready for them to catch me another.”

  “They cain’t be fishing for you now. Got school.” The little boy had turned to face Jake and was staring at him with round, liquid eyes. The girl tugged his hand and resumed her progress toward the church.

  “No, not now,” Jake agreed, striding down the road toward the girl while trying to look friendly. “Sunday. But I need to give them instructions and a little money first.” Those last words spun the girl’s eyes back toward him. “If you see them inside, could you tell Linus or Floyd that Mr. Jake is out front and wants to buy another catfish? It won’t take me but a minute to tell ‘em what to do.”

  “How much you going to pay?”

  “A dollar today. More when I get the fish. Tell ‘em that. They know I’m good for it.”

  “Tell ‘em Mr. Jake got a dollar?” she confirmed grudgingly. “If they ain’t playing hookey I can do it. But that don’t mean you eatin’ catfish on Sunday.” She turned and walked briskly toward the church, pulling the boy along at a pace he could barely manage, especially with his eyes swiveled back toward Jake. They climbed the steps and went inside.

  Jake waited for Linus or Floyd to emerge. Another boy sprinted down a path from the other direction, flew up the church steps, and disappeared through the whiplashed door. Ten minutes passed, then twenty more. Jake nodded affably at two matrons who paused their animated dialogue to stare at him as they returned from the water pump, buckets in hand. He walked halfway to the church, turned and retraced his steps, then repeated the circuit.