Ned looked at Jinx like he was born yesterday. “Geez, kid. You’ve been in Alaska too long. They call themselves the Ku Klux Klan and they hate pretty much everyone who isn’t like them. If you have the wrong color, religion, or birthplace, they don’t like you. Around here it’s mostly foreigners they hate.” Ned’s face flushed with anger.
“They wear hoods because they don’t want anyone to know who they are. Like that one with the crooked arm who threw the clothes in the fire. That’s Buster Holt. He’s a knacker. A fella who carts off dead animals. He hates foreigners, but he doesn’t mind taking their money to pick up their dead cows and horses. The other one, laughing like a girl, that’s Elroy Knabb. He’s one of the bosses at the mine, but if his wife found out he was here drinking and carousing—well, let’s just say Mrs. Knabb is wicked with a rolling pin.”
Just then, two other men stepped away from the fire and took off their hoods.
“Who are those two?” Jinx asked, his eyes wide. “And how come they took their hoods off?”
“The big one’s Arthur Devlin. He’s the grand knight. And he owns the mine. The other one is his pit boss, Lester Burton,” Ned answered, his voice charged with anger. “Devlin doesn’t care who sees him, because he doesn’t have to answer to anybody. They all answer to him. Around here, whoever owns the mine pretty much owns the town. Everybody has to come crawling to him, his mine, his company store. And believe me, with his wages and his prices, he makes sure you stay on your knees.” Ned took a slow breath and whispered, “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Ned moved away and Jinx followed. “Be careful, kid. There’s poison ivy along the bank. Let’s wade downstream and get out at that clearing.”
They glided quietly through the shallow water, holding their shoes in the air. Sounds of tree frogs and cicadas filled the still night.
“Listen,” Jinx said, “maybe we can work out a deal.…”
“Shhh.” Ned held up his hand. They heard voices several yards ahead. Two men splashed water from the creek onto their faces.
“Must be a hundred degrees up there,” a big man said, kicking off his shoes.
“Hotter than Hades, I’ll say,” the other agreed, his bald head shining in the moonlight. “This ain’t much of a rally. I went to one in Arkansas that makes this one look like a marshmally roast.”
“Yeah, well, what do you expect from a place that’s made up of a bunch of foreigners? They come here and can’t even speak good English.”
“I hear there’s enough Irish, French, and I-talians around these parts to have us some fun tonight.” The big man staggered out of the water. “That chili’s kicking in. I gotta see a man about a dog first.” He plopped down on the muddy bank, trying to get his shoes back on.
“Who’s he talking about?” Jinx asked.
“Foreigners, kid. Immigrants. People who come from another country. That’s most of the people in Manifest. The whole town is made up of immigrants who came here to work the mines.”
Jinx detected a note of personal injury in Ned’s voice. “Where are you from? I mean, where were you born?”
Ned paused before answering. “Truth is, kid, I don’t know. Darnedest thing, right? Seems like a person should know where he was born. Where he’s from and who his people are. But I came here on a train when I was real young. Hadley Gillen adopted me and this is the only home I can remember.” He squinted, as if trying to peer into his past. His vision must have been too fuzzy and he shook it off. “The way I see it, those two fellas are the foreigners and I’d like to put a burr in their britches before they get too comfortable around here.”
Jinx saw a chance at redeeming himself. “I’ll be right back.”
Ned shook his head but Jinx slipped noiselessly out of the water. A couple of tense moments passed before he returned.
“Here, put this on.” Jinx held out a white cloak to Ned, then put one on himself.
“Where’d you get these?”
“Those two guys in the creek. They won’t miss them for a while. Besides, you said you wanted to put a burr in some britches. Well, here’s your chance.” Jinx held out a handkerchief full of three-pronged leaves.
Ned shook his head but couldn’t help grinning. He looked at the large man still trying to put his shoes on. “You’re crazy, kid,” Ned said to Jinx, “but I like your way of thinking.”
They put on their shoes, donned the white hoods, and hoisted themselves over the bank. Like flies in a Venus flytrap, they were immediately swallowed up by the crowd of more than fifty men. The point on Jinx’s hood fell short of those around him and the bottom of his robe brushed the ground.
Ned and Jinx maneuvered their way casually through the sea of white. They peeked through the eyeholes in their hoods, trying to see over shoulders and around big bodies, moving toward the far side of the camp. Suddenly, a wiry man stood hoodless in front of them, wagging his cigar. It was Lester Burton, the mine pit boss. Their path was blocked.
“Well, lookie what we got here,” he said in a gravelly voice.
Jinx took a step to the right but Burton grasped his shoulder. Ned, a few years taller, stepped closer to Jinx. Whatever happened now, they were in this together.
“Got us a babe in the woods,” Burton said as a few hooded figures gathered around.
Jinx’s hands were sweating. If they could just get around these men … He straightened up tall. “Yeah, this is only our second rally. Our dad took us to one all the way down in Arkansas, ain’t that right, Cletus?”
“Arkansas?” Ned repeated, a little slow on the uptake.
“Yeah, they sure know how to do things down there, ain’t that right, Cletus?” Jinx was more insistent this time, hoping Ned would catch on.
“Uh, that’s right, Emmett. That was quite a rally down in Arkansas. ’Bout twice the size of this one, don’t you reckon?”
“I’d say that’s about right. Course that wouldn’t be counting the women.”
“Women?” This seemed to rile one of the hooded men. “They got women in the Klan down in Arkansas?”
“Why, sure they do,” Jinx said. “Who do you think puts the hems in all their white sheets?”
All eyes descended to the bottoms of the men’s cloaks.
“See there?” Jinx pointed. “You got raggedy bottoms. I’d say you boys could learn a thing or two from the folks down in Arkansas. Wouldn’t you say, Brother Cletus?”
“I’d say so, Brother Emmett. Come on. I think I hear Pa calling us. Coming, Pa.”
They left the men gazing downward and made a beeline to the far side of the camp.
“Over there.” Jinx nudged Ned toward a dilapidated cabin that looked long abandoned. The nearby outhouse apparently stood in good stead, since six or seven men waited in single file.
The boys fell in line and Jinx hopped around enough that three men let him move ahead. It was dark inside, but he easily found the leaves wrapped in his handkerchief. Making appropriate grunts and sighs, he grabbed a stack of newspaper scraps and dropped them into the open hole. Careful not to touch the leaves, he left them in place of the paper, remembering a well-known rhyme:
Ivy on the vine, two leaves on a stem are fine,
Pick up one with three, and itching you will be.
“Come on, son. We’re backed up out here,” came a holler from outside.
“Yeah, we’re backed up something fierce,” Ned yelled.
Jinx opened the door. “I guess leaves’ll do in a pinch, but can’t you boys afford any newspaper or something? Let’s go, Cletus.”
The boys sauntered away, Jinx yelling over his shoulder, “They got toilet paper in Arkansas.”
A Bargain Is Struck
MAY 29, 1936
Miss Sadie looked to be done for the day. Her voice had gotten raspy toward the end of her fortune-telling and she breathed like she’d been carrying something heavy.
I wanted my dime back. “I said I wanted to know about my daddy. That was just some old story from twenty y
ears ago about two people I don’t even know.”
Her eyes narrowed a bit and she raised her chin as if she had just figured me out. “You show me a letter. I tell you what the letter shows me.” She wagged a finger. “Next time you should be more specific about what it is you are seeking.”
I didn’t plan on there being a next time. So she’d told a story about Ned and Jinx. A made-up story about two names she read in the letter. I pictured the yellow and green fishing lure in the Lucky Bill cigar box. She knew the mementos I had and she’d zeroed in on the fishing lure mentioned in the letter to conjure her story. Anybody could do that.
I looked at Miss Sadie sitting there, her leg propped up. She was a pathetic sight. What kind of purveyor of the future could only tell stories from the past?
“Go home,” she said. “Communing with the spirits is a privilege. I have ointment on the top shelf, just behind the baking soda, above the icebox. But I will get it myself.”
She sure gave good directions if she was planning on getting it herself.
“I’ll get it,” I said with no small amount of reluctance. “Long as you don’t charge me another dime for the privilege.”
I maneuvered my way through the maze of velvet and fringe into her pantry and retrieved the nearly empty jar of salve. I gave it a whiff and nearly singed my nostrils.
“What is this stuff?”
“Hawthorn root,” she said, scooping out the remainder and rubbing it onto her leg. “It helps to increase circulation.” She moaned a little, massaging her swollen leg. It was then that I could see the wound that was causing her so much distress.
“What happened to your leg?” I asked with a grimace.
“I catch it on barbed wire. It is slow to heal.”
That was putting it mildly. That sore, with its scabbing and yellow pus, looked to have gone from bad to worse and about another mile past that.
“If you tell me where another jar is, I’ll fetch that for you and then I’ll be on my way.”
“There is no more. I gather the last of the hawthorn root near the cemetery last night. But I am sure there is more to be found elsewhere.”
I looked outside at the scorching sun. “Maybe you haven’t been outside lately, but there’s not much growing around here. There’s not enough water to fill a thimble.”
“There is water. It remains deep and hidden, but there is always water.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know what my father knew. And his father before him. It is what diviners know.”
“Your people are all fortune-tellers?” I hoped they were better at it than she was but I didn’t say so.
“No. We are a family of diviners. We see and understand things most people overlook. We read the signs of the land.”
“You mean like those hill people who walk around with a jiggly stick, thinking they can find underground wells?”
She made a guttural, scoffing sound. “Pah, what does one need with a stick? All one needs is eyes and ears. The earth speaks loud enough when it wants to be heard.”
I was beginning to have no doubt that she heard things. The woman wasn’t right in the head.
“All right, then. You have a nice day,” I said, backing toward the door.
“I believe there is still a matter to be settled about my broken pot. It survives a boat ride all the way from Hungary and now it is in pieces.” Hungary. That explained the accent.
I stood my ground. “Well, it wouldn’t be broken if you hadn’t taken my compass.”
“Take your compass? I am out to gather hawthorn root and find something on my property. How am I to know it is yours?”
She had a point, I thought as she winced, rubbing her leg. I was surprised she could make it to the cemetery and back, but figured that was why her leg had swelled up so bad today.
“I’d offer to pay for the pot but I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Yes, it is worth much more than the coin you have remaining in your pocket.”
The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I didn’t believe in fortune-tellers, but how had she pulled that one off?
“So,” Miss Sadie said, knitting her fingers together, “it appears you have something I want and I have something you want.” She said her w’s like v’s. You have something I vant and I have something you vant.
“You have my compass. But what could I have that you vant … I mean, want?”
“Two. Good. Legs,” she said, punctuating each word.
I wasn’t sure where this was going but I knew I wasn’t going to like it.
“You will come here to do a few odd jobs.”
Any job for her would be odd, I thought. But she had me over a barrel. I did break something of hers and I wanted my compass back.
“For how long?” I asked.
“You will know when you have finished.”
She handed back the letter I’d given her, and suddenly, I found myself heading toward the front door. I stopped short. There, just inside, was my compass, hanging on a single nail, daring me to take it. I gave it a strong look but knew I’d broken her pot and needed to make restitution. I marched down her rickety steps, a bead of sweat already trickling its way down my back. Curiosity had set in.
I ran back to Shady’s place, clomped up the wooden steps to my room, and reached under the floorboard for the Lucky Bill cigar box. Dumping the contents onto the bed, I found the fishing lure I hadn’t paid much attention to. The words from Miss Sadie’s story came back to me as I looked at the fancy green and yellow spotted lure. The underside of the lure, in pretty gold lettering, read WIGGLE KING—SO COLORFUL IT’LL CATCH A BLIND FISH.
At that moment I wished I’d never set foot on the Path to Perdition.
Likely Suspects
MAY 30, 1936
I lay in bed the next morning, feeling mightily burdened. Something had been gnawing at me all night. It was Gideon. Where did he fit into all this? How was he connected to this town? To these people? Manifest was the place he’d chosen to send me to, and yet it didn’t seem like he’d even been there. Did he know Ned or Jinx? Did anyone know him? I wasn’t even sure that I did.
Now, there was a thought. What did I know about Gideon? What did I think people should know about him? I started a list in my head. He always walked like he knew where he was going. He was a better cook than Shady. He tucked the blanket up under my chin when he thought I was asleep.
I stretched out in the warmth of my bed and pulled the blanket up to my chin. Let’s see, I thought. He was smart. Not so much book smart, even though he did know all forty-eight states and capitals and all the presidents from Washington to Roosevelt. No, Gideon was more “living by your wits” smart. He had once turned a bunch of wildflowers into a twenty-dollar bill. Some might have said that wasn’t smart, that was magic. Not the way Gideon had done it.
He’d gathered up a nice bunch of wildflowers and traded them for a sewing kit in Decatur, then, in Fort Wayne, swapped that for a camera, which he raffled off at a church picnic in South Bend. Chances were twenty-five cents apiece or five for a dollar. He ended up with seven dollars and fifty cents and bought us a tandem bicycle. But our behinds were so sore by Kalamazoo that he sold it for a twenty-dollar bill to a man with twin grandkids.
I remembered all these things about Gideon, but I couldn’t remember if he’d said the words or if I’d only imagined them. Those words I’m coming back for you.
Memories were like sunshine. They warmed you up and left a pleasant glow, but you couldn’t hold them.
I’d have to do some divining of my own, I thought as I rolled over. There was the Wiggle King fishing lure, sitting on the windowsill, where I’d left it the night before. I should have put it back in the cigar box, but somehow it had separated itself from the rest of the items. It had become different. Special. And it needed a special place.
There was a welcome breeze blowing through the open window. I was no stranger to hard work, but the thought of being c
ooped up in Miss Sadie’s Divining Parlor left me feeling a bit short of breath. Maybe I could busy myself helping Shady and wouldn’t have to go.
There was a plan. I’d saunter downstairs and make myself so useful Shady couldn’t possibly see fit to allow me to walk out the door, let alone to do someone else’s bidding. I figured Shady might be feeling a little down in the mouth that day. He’d held his church service the night before, followed by a potluck, but it turned out to be more of a “down on your luck,” as only one person showed up. A fellow with a week-old beard and a hole in his hat brought a can of beans.
I hopped out of bed, put on my overalls, and headed down the narrow wooden stairs.
“Good morning, Shady,” I said, ready to sit down to a plate of his usual warm, slightly burnt biscuits and molasses. Shady stashed something under the bar and mumbled words I didn’t catch. When he looked up, I could see that his eyes were kind of bloodshot and his whiskers hadn’t been shaved since the day before. The bottle on the shelf behind the bar was still full, but I supposed it was like any craving. If a person liked cookies, he was going to keep more than one at hand. When Shady went back to the stove for my breakfast, I leaned across the counter and peered behind it, but there was only a chipped coffee cup holding a couple of nickels and a button. Was it Shady’s drink money? Alcohol was against the law then as much as it was in 1917, but folks could usually get a bottle of the stuff here or there. I didn’t know if bootleggers would take buttons for payment along with nickels.
I scooted back to my barstool as Shady came in, presenting me with a plate of cold, more than slightly burnt biscuits and half a leathery pork chop. I knew that times were hard, so I didn’t complain, but my stomach couldn’t help its moaning and groaning. Hattie Mae had brought by some delicious fried chicken the day before, but that was a distant memory. I bit into a hard biscuit, hoping I had enough spit to soften it up. But just then, Shady brought me a cold glass of milk. I nearly drank it down in one gulp and he poured me another glass. It filled my stomach nicely, but in my head I made plans to go by the newspaper office later to see if Hattie Mae had any leftovers.
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