Triumph Over Tragedy: an anthology for the victims of Hurricane Sandy

by R. T. Kaelin

  “That’s right.”

  “And I guess we’re not really killing Sammy, eh, Hobe?” He let out a raspy chuckle. “We ain’t doing the actual deed. The cave’ll do that, eh?”

  Hobe didn’t reply. He was in his pack again, this time retrieving something I had no name for. I noticed the boy was stirring behind them and mumbling something.

  “Sammysammysammy,” the shorter man said, the words hissing together like a teakettle left too long on the stove. “Shouldn’t’ve been out in this weather, Sammy.” He started tsking, and he added a finger wag for emphasis. “Shouldn’t’ve been creeping around behind the Hawkins’ house. Shouldn’t’ve overheard us.”

  “Didn’t hear nothin’,” the boy managed. He poked out his bottom lip. “Didn’t hear…”

  The tall man roughly backhanded the boy, pitching him onto his side. The boy groaned.

  “Sammysammysammy,” the other man hissed. “I bet you heard me an’ Hobe just fine. I bet you heard real good.”

  “I didn’t hear nothin’, I said. But even if I did, I wouldn’t tell,” the boy offered. “Ain’t nobody would believe me anyway.”

  “‘Cause you’re just a kid? Or ‘cause you’re always telling wild stories? I might go along with you, Sammysammysammy. But Hobe, here? Captain Hobart? He’s not the type to take a gamble. Can’t afford to.” The shorter man bent over and righted the boy. “Hobe says you’ve got to die.”

  The two men worked quickly then, double-checking the boy’s ropes.

  “I didn’t hear nothin’,” the boy repeated. “And if I did, I wouldn’t tell. Honest!”

  Hobe let out a clipped laugh. “If you’re Ament’s cub, you’d tell him about me—and mebee, just mebee he’d believe you. Can’t have my ship jeopardized ‘cause of you. Can’t risk losing all I’ve worked for. Can’t go to jail. You understand, don’t ya?”

  “I could leave town,” the boy continued, the desperation thick in his voice. “Go south to St. Louis or east to Springfield. My folks wouldn’t miss me. My Pa died last year.”

  “How old are you, boy?” Hobe leaned close.

  “Thirteen.”

  “A shame you won’t be seeing fourteen.”

  Hobe started backing toward the cave’s entrance, and taking the object I couldn’t name. He stuffed a cord in the center of the thing and motioned to his fellow.

  “Someone’s gonna find you out!” the boy hollered to them. “What you’re doin’ is wrong. Someone else’ll overhear you. You can’t steal from people like you’re doin’. It ain’t right.” His defiance grew with his hopelessness. “And if I get out of here, Captain Hobart, I aim to see that you and Jim rot in jail forever. You’re pirates!”

  “Told you the boy overheard us,” muttered Hobe.

  “Didn’t think he knew my name,” the short man said, as he returned to the boy and stuffed a rag in his mouth to quiet him. Then he snatched up the lantern. “All vinegar and no sugar, Sammysammysammy. You’re just too dangerous to let live. Light the fuse, Hobe. The way it’s thundering, ain’t no one going to hear the dynamite.”

  Then the men were outside, and suddenly the object I couldn’t name was sputtering and sitting in the cave’s mouth, the cord attached to it burning merrily. I hesitated, looking between the boy and the way out. A part of me was urging me to follow the men, not to stay here. A part of me somehow knew ‘here’ wasn’t safe. But I was curious about the boy. Aren’t all of my kind so vexed with a natural inquisitiveness?

  And so I hesitated and crept closer to the boy. I heard the thunder boom outside, and felt a trembling beneath my paws, heard a hurtful, rumbling clap of thunder coming from the cave mouth—louder than anything—and it set the stone floor to shaking. In an instant my favorite cave was quaking, sending bits of rock and dust down on me like rain. The dust was so thick that I could not breathe. The rumbling continued, and I was tossed about, the cave trembling like a frightened beast, its walls cracking, the ground continuing to pitch. For the first time ever I felt a true, profound fear as my heart hammered.

  I fully expected to die.

  The darkness was sudden and absolute. The entrance to the cave was gone, the rocks that filled the once-opening kept the twilight from slipping inside. I sensed my stomach rising into my throat.

  I was surprised I was not dead. And as moments passed, the trembling subsided. The only rumbling now came from the thunder booming outside. The boy was still alive as I could hear his ragged breath. I couldn’t see him, though. I couldn’t see anything.

  I’d found myself in this terrible blackness once before, when I’d ventured so far into this cave the light didn’t reach me. I retraced my steps on that occasion. Now, I didn’t know what to do.

  “Mmmmph.” This was coming from the boy.

  I didn’t like boys, but I padded close to him, relying on my hearing and sense of smell. He continued to make the ‘mmmphing’ noise. He smelled of sweat and fear and wet earth. I could tell that he was struggling against his ropes, and he jostled me in his gyrations as I slid past.

  “Mmmph?” He’d felt me, and he stiffened and stopped wriggling. If it was possible, his breathing became more rushed and ragged.

  I didn’t like boys at all yet I moved around behind him, my whiskers brushing first against his fingers, then the rope. I started gnawing, and finally his breathing slowed. When I’d cut through enough of it, he managed to work his hands out. In the blackness he fumbled for the gag in his mouth, and then set to untying his ankles.

  “Who’re you?” he asked. “What’re you?”

  Of course, I couldn’t answer in a way that he could hear.

  Then his fingers were groping through the blackness, finding me and grabbing, fluttering for me when I slipped away.

  “A cat,” he pronounced. He kept his voice low. “You’re a…cat?”

  I felt the air stir, his fingers still futilely searching for me. He gave up, and I heard his feet scrabble over the rocks as he stood.

  “Thank ya cat,” he murmured. “Thank ya mightily.”

  I heard his arm brush against the cave wall.

  “My head hurts somethin’ fierce,” he said. “That ol’ Captain Hobart hit me hard.”

  His feet started shuffling away from me. He grunted, finding the collapsed entrance and trying to move aside the rocks.

  “Ain’t gonna be able to get out the way I came in, cat. Not that I want to run into them thieves again anyway. They’d surely kill me this time. Shoot me or…”

  His feet shuffled again. He was going deeper into the cave.

  “Don’t think I been in here before,” he continued to prattle. “Unless I came in another way.”

  I’m not sure what I expected of the boy, but it wasn’t this—going farther into the utter black. I wanted him to move all the rocks that had fallen down in the entrance. I chewed him loose, and in payment I wanted him to dig us out of the cave.

  He continued to move away from the entrance. That he couldn’t see didn’t seem to worry him overmuch.

  “You here, cat?”

  I relied on my hearing to follow him, keeping what I guessed was a safe distance. One could never trust boys. Even ones who owed you.

  “I gotta find me a way out, ya know. I can’t let ol’ Captain Hobart and Junkman Jim get away with it.”

  I wondered just what it was the two men were getting away with. And though I doubt the boy was able to sense my thoughts, he supplied the information.

  “Them two is bad,” he continued. “And they’s right, I overheard ‘em. I was on my way to Laura’s house. She was gonna help me with some schoolwork. They was in the alley behind her house, talkin’ so fast they sounded like bees. Seems ol’ Captain Hobart keeps real close watch on his steamboat passengers. Finds out who’s got money and jewelry. And he finds out which gamblers won big stakes.”

  He paused in his words and steps. I heard him bump against stone. “Careful, cat. Find the wall and press close against it. There’s a drop off, and I don’t want to
find out how deep it goes.”

  I took his advice, though I was certain I would have felt the edge of any rocky ledge and could have stopped myself from tumbling. We traveled very slowly now, until he was certain the footing was safer. I heard a rustling overhead.

  “Bats,” he whispered.

  That was rather obvious.

  “They ain’t gonna bother us none if’n we don’t spook ‘em.”

  His course was taking us still deeper, and we were twisting down one unseen path after another. There were other sounds intruding, a plopping of drops on water.

  “Maybe I have been in this cave before.”

  Finally I sensed that we were moving up. The going was more difficult, as the boy was constantly bumping into stalagmites and rocky outcroppings.

  “Junkman Jim? When ol’ Captain Hobart docks his steamer, I think he goes straightaway to Jim. Tells him about the passengers, which ones to follow, which boarding house they’re staying at, which ones to rob. And they split the take when they do! They’s been doin’ it for some time, cat. I’m Ament’s cub, all right, and so I read every paper he prints. There’s always somethin’ there about a robbery. Every week, it seems. Wealthy folks that came down the river and are only stoppin’ in Hannibal for a day or two. No one stayin’ here long has been robbed. Bet this has been goin’ on for better than a year. They’s pirates, Hobart and Jim. Pirate!”

  “I gotta get me out of here, cat. I gotta tell Ament, gotta get to the judge so Hobart and Jim can be stopped. Ain’t right what they’re doin’.” He stopped suddenly. “And more than stealin’, cat, they’s guilty of tryin’ to kill me! My, oh, my but they’s gonna be in jail a long time.”

  We started down again.

  I don’t know how long we meandered, disoriented and lost. Hours upon hours, I was certain. It was long enough that the pads on my feet were sore and bleeding, that my legs ached like they’d been set on fire. My throat was dry and my tongue felt like I was licking sand. I was so very, very thirsty. And hungry. I’d intended to go to town after the rain quit, to search through the people’s garbage. Then came the rain, the men, and this boy.

  “You there, cat?” The boy had paused again, and by the rustling of his clothes, I could tell he was sitting. “I gotta stop for a piece, catch my breath.” His fingers were questing through the darkness, and in an uncharacteristic move, I let him touch my fur. “Yep, cat, you’re still there.” He settled back against a wall, and I lay nearby. Every few minutes his fingers fluttered along my back. “You know? I like cats.”

  Perhaps this boy was all right.

  He dozed for a time. I could not sleep. The darkness and my thirst were too disconcerting. Eventually I nudged him, and he clumsily got up.

  “Guess you want to get goin’, huh? Me, too. Gotta stop ol’ Captain Hobart and Jim. They’s gonna give the river and steamboats a bad name. I aim to be a steamboat captain someday, cat. An honest one.”

  I had to nudge him twice more in the hours that followed, on the latter occasion prodding him to his right, where I felt the air moving. My senses were far superior to his, and I knew that if I did not take the lead now, we would either die of starvation in this black place or fall down some hole and break our necks.

  The air smelled fresh, and this sped my sore paws. In it I could pick out traces of damp earth and wildflowers. And when I listened closely, and shut out the sounds of the boy’s feet and quick breath, I heard a bird’s distant cry, the tinkling of a nearby creek, and the cicadas singing their blessed, monotonous tune.

  I nudged him a final time, and by now I think he heard the sounds of outside, too. He became clumsy in his excitement, slipping on skree and falling to his knees more times than I bothered to count. I fell back so he would not tumble on me, and I only took the lead again at the very end, when a grayness intruded into the black and the insects’ song grew louder.

  “Hurry, cat,” the boy urged, though he didn’t have to. I had moved several yards ahead, and my legs were working with a speed they hadn’t shown in quite a while. “I’ve found us a way out of here, cat!”

  You found us?

  Minutes later, we stumbled out of the cave. The air was warmer out here, but for once I didn’t complain about the sweltering summer. Stars sparkled overhead, evidence we’d passed at least an entire day in the cave. I was exhausted and stretched out on the ground. In a moment I would worry about the creek and getting a drink. In a long moment.

  “We have to hurry, cat.” The boy was looking down at me, hands on his knees, and sucking in great gulps of August air. “We have to get into town and tell Ament about ol’ Captain Hobart and Junkman Jim. We gotta get the judge.”

  I raised my brow.

  We?

  We didn’t have to do anything. We were out of the damnable hole in the ground. We were safe. The creek was near. With some effort I rose and trotted to it and started drinking. The boy was talking again, but I let his words drift to the back of my mind and I concentrated on the sound and sweet taste of the water.

  “We gotta go,” he said.

  You can go where you please.

  Without warning, he scooped me up and nestled me under an arm. I squirmed in protest, but my motions were feeble, so completely tired was I. I knew the boy was heading into town—Hannibal, he called the place. And so I finally stopped wiggling. I was hungry, and Hannibal would feed me. It was night, and so I would be able to pick through people’s garbage undisturbed. And then I would find somewhere to sleep.

  “It’s only a mile,” he continued. “Not far. Me and Laura used to come out here once in a while. Don’t think it was to that cave, though. Ain’t never goin’ back to that cave.”

  I agreed with him. I could find a better place to stay out of the rain, and somewhere not so far from town. The past several times my legs had been arguing with me over the journey between town and my once-favorite cave.

  Somehow the boy managed to pick up his pace, and as we came down a hill I could see the town’s sparse lights. It was late, as most of the homes were dark, but there were streetlights burning. Perhaps this Ament the boy was intent on seeing had left choice scraps outside his backdoor.

  It didn’t take us long, and we were darting down one street, then down a dark alley. Soon he was bounding up front porch steps and pounding on a door. The boy was impatient, and he began rocking back and forth on his heels, fidgeting with his free hand, then he was pounding again. A light was lit inside, and I could hear slow footfalls and a thin voice.

  “Give me a minute.” Then the door swung open and a stoop-shouldered man, bare-chested and wearing creased pants, loomed over us. “Sam?”

  “Mr. Ament,” the boy began.

  “It’s late.”

  “I know, Mr. Ament, but…”

  “Samuel, you weren’t at work today. I needed you. I have a mind to fire you and get me another cub. One that won’t…”

  “Mr. Ament, Captain Hobart and Junkman Jim just tried to kill me! And all because I overheard ‘em talkin’ behind the Hawkins place.” The words flew furiously from the boy’s lips. He left nothing out, though the part about our escape from the cave was not nearly as harrowing as he made it seem. The boy was quite the storyteller.

  When he was finished, Ament shook his head. “Sam, I usually don’t mind your tall tales, but this one is a bit too stretched. If you made it up to justify why you didn’t work today…”

  “I’m tellin’ you the truth Mr. Ament. I didn’t whitewash nothin’ and…”

  “Hobart is one of the most successful riverboat captains on the Mississippi. He wouldn’t set folks up to be robbed.”

  “But there have been robberies,” the boy persisted. “We’ve printed stories about ‘em in the paper!”

  Ament yawned and shook his head again. “Tell you what, Sam. I’ll not fire you. Not just yet. And first thing Saturday morning—’

  “That’s two days away!”

  “First thing Saturday, I’ll start looking into Captain Hobart. P
oke around, ask some questions. Investigate like any good journalist would. There might be something in what you say, but—”

  “Captain Hobart will be gone then! Especially if he knows we’re askin’ questions. Off down the river settin’ more people up to be robbed in another town by someone like Junkman Jim. We can’t wait.”

  Boys are so impatient, I realized. But this one had reason. I found myself wishing Ament would take him seriously.

  “Sam, I will investigate this first before we print anything. And maybe we’ll have a story by next Thursday or the one after. And maybe we won’t. Now, good night!” Then Ament shut the door.

  The boy raised his fist to the wood again, but I nipped him in the side.

  “Cat, I can’t wait. If ol’ Captain Hobart sees me in town, he’ll come after me again—and this time he’ll kill me for certain. And I can’t hide while Ament ‘investigates’ this. If ol’ Captain Hobart catches wind of someone checkin’ up on him, he’ll kill me and then he’ll be gone, never stoppin’ in Hannibal again. I have to do somethin’.”

  I admired the boy’s fervor. He had a purpose other than bothering cats. There was something almost noble about him. The way his arm was crooked beneath me left his fingers just beneath my chin. I moved my head and nipped at his thumb, not so hard as to draw blood, though. And I rubbed my jaw against his fingers.

  Be a smart boy. Look to yourself for the answer.

  The light from the stars and the light from the lamp inside the Ament place was enough. The boy could see his hands. They were dirty, from being dragged in the mud and from running along the walls in the cave. But there was more than dirt, there was a black settled in the whorls of his fingers. Ink from being Ament’s cub.

  “I set type,” he murmured.

  Smart boy.

  We were off again, down another alley and then turning on a street that paralleled the river. “What we’re doin’ ain’t legal, breakin’ into a place like this, even though I work here. But our crime ain’t near so bad as what Hobart and Jim are guilty of. Our’s is a good crime! If there be such a thing.” He moved around to the back of a building and worked at the doorknob before it gave up and turned. “Lock doesn’t hold none too good,” he explained.