Nancy appeared through the snow up ahead. Reuben wrapped an arm around her and threw her over his shoulder.
“Let go of me!” Nancy said. She slapped Reuben on the head. “Ye pistol-whip old ladies often?”
“Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know what you were goin’ to pull out of that apron,” Reuben said, panting.
Nancy wrapped her hands around his neck. “I seen ye hit that preacher man too, so we’ll forget about it.”
Peyton’s voice rang through the graveyard. “Ernest! Put that down!”
Still running, Ephraim looked over his shoulder. Boggs was chasing after them, and behind him, Ernest Williams was holding a lit stick of dynamite. Ernest lobbed the dynamite and plugged his ears. The stick arced through the air.
Ephraim put on a burst of speed, pulling Isabel forward. “Run!”
An explosion rocked the ground behind them, sending bits of earth and gravestone flying. Chips of rock peppered Ephraim, stinging his unprotected ears and neck like a swarm of frozen hornets.
They reached the woods.
Reuben pointed through the trees to the creek. “We’ll follow that up around the bend, and I’ll take you to my camp.”
Ephraim could barely hear over the ringing in his ears, but he nodded.
They ran to the creek and waded in. Reuben let Nancy down off his back.
Isabel gasped, lifting the skirt of her dress. “It’s freezing!”
The chill took Ephraim’s breath away, but it was nothing compared to the bone-deep ache he felt in his arm.
They reached the bend in the creek when the shouts of their pursuers echoed through the woods. There was no time to run; they needed to hide.
Ephraim spotted a broad shelf of rock sticking out from the bank. There was about a foot-high space between the underside of the rock and the top of the water. He sloshed over to it, motioning for the others to follow.
Taking a deep breath, he lowered himself into the water until it reached his chin. Then he slid under the rock. The others followed suit.
Moments later, they heard the splashing of horses in the creek.
“Ernest, what were you thinkin’?” Peyton sounded angry. “Isabel was with him! I don’t know how Reverend Boggs survived that!”
“Aw, hush, Peyton. The reverend didn’t come to no harm. I was just thinking ’bout that two hundred dollars is all.”
“Yeah, well, if you’re not more careful, you’ll wind up hanging next to Cutler!”
Ephraim looked over at Isabel. Her teeth were chattering.
They waited until the sounds of the men faded into the woods before emerging from under the shelf. Reuben pointed to where a spring joined the creek, and they all followed him toward it, arms wrapped around their shivering bodies.
“How far away is your camp?” Ephraim asked.
“’Bout two miles up this way,” Reuben said, pointing uphill. He shuddered as a breeze gusted across them. “I hope I still have a few coals burnin’.”
26
Trotter Head
Reuben’s camp consisted of a small white square of canvas stretched over an A-frame of sticks. The remains of a cooking fire sent up a single curl of smoke, and a blackened pot sat on a rock next to it.
Ephraim helped Reuben gather sticks and rekindle the fire. Isabel and Nancy marched around the camp sniffling, rubbing their arms, and trying to stomp feeling back into their feet. When the fire was going, Reuben fetched a pair of blankets from his tent and offered them to Nancy and Isabel. The men turned their backs as the women removed their soaking clothes.
“That’s a pretty dress ye got there,” Nancy said to Isabel.
Isabel snorted. “I don’t know how pretty it’ll be after today.”
“It’s still a sight better’n mine!”
When they told the men it was once again safe to look, Ephraim and Reuben turned back around. Nancy and Isabel had wrapped the blankets around their sodden shifts. They spread the dresses on a rock and huddled, shoulder to shoulder, next to the flames. Reuben had no more blankets, so he and Ephraim just got as close to the fire as they dared, letting their clothes steam dry.
“Soon as I get rid of this chill, I’ll get us some food,” Reuben said to Ephraim. “I ain’t got much, but I got a little of that cake you gave me.”
“Anything sounds good to me,” Isabel said.
Ephraim stared at Nancy, thinking about how she had failed to visit Ma. She must have read his expression, because she said, “Why ye squintin’ up your eyes at me like that?”
“I trusted you,” Ephraim said flatly. “You came all the way back to town with me, and you didn’t save Ma. You didn’t even look in on her. And now she’s dead! Where were you?”
“I went to help her!” Nancy said. “There weren’t nothin’ to be done, the foxglove did its work.” She stopped. “Wait, did Boggs tell ye I didn’t come? He’s the one that run me off!”
“She’s telling the truth, Ephraim,” Isabel said, wrapping her arm around Nancy. “You ought to know better by now than to believe anything Boggs told you.”
Ephraim looked down. They lapsed into awkward silence.
Reuben cleared his throat and left the fire. He went to his pack and pulled out a hunk of the apple stack cake wrapped in oilcloth. He broke off a lump and passed it around.
When the cake came to Isabel, she examined it with curiosity. She seemed to recognize it, but didn’t say anything. She broke off a piece and passed the rest to Ephraim. It was stale, and hard enough to hurt his jaw when he chewed it.
Nancy took a bite of her piece, crunched, and swallowed. She looked at Reuben. “I’m sorry I smacked ye, mister. We thought ye was the Devil.”
Reuben looked up. “No harm done, ma’am. Any enemy of Bill Boggs is a friend of mine.”
“So ye know that wicked preacher from somewheres else?”
Reuben nodded and stared off into the snow-dusted woods. “Unfortunately.”
“Where from?”
“The war. I don’t care to burden you folks with that story, though. It’s enough to say that I know Bill Boggs from the war, and that he took my son from me.” He looked from Nancy, to Isabel, to Ephraim. “Any of you ever hear Boggs mention a boy named Amos?”
They looked at each other, and all of them shook their heads.
Reuben sighed. “I was so sure I’d find him if I tracked Boggs down. It’s all been in vain.”
“Did he get Amos to sign a deal with the Devil?” Ephraim asked.
Reuben nodded. “You saw what he did back there, spittin’ up that lead like it was nothin’? Boggs can’t be killed. Lot of boys in the war saw him do things like that and were mighty impressed. Near as I can figure, Amos was one of ’em.”
They watched the fire burn as the sun sank behind the mountains. After a while, Nancy felt the dresses and declared them dry enough to wear. Ephraim and Reuben turned their backs again to let the ladies dress.
As darkness crept over the woods, Reuben and Nancy settled down to sleep. Reuben offered his tent to the old woman, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She accepted his blanket, though, and bedded down by the fire. Soon she was snoring.
Ephraim stirred the embers with a stick, watching the moon rise. The glowing orb was nearly full. He thought he could feel the coldness stirring in his arm again. He rolled up his sleeve and held it to the firelight. The charred, deadened appearance had spread. When he held his arm closer to the flames, his entire forearm, from wrist to elbow, was numb to the heat. So this is it, he thought, staring vacantly into the fire. I’ll become a haint. He thought of Wes Sherman, how the old man’s ghost was rumored to haunt the woods around his cabin. He’d be like that, a story told to children at night, a thing spoken of in whispers around Sixmile Creek. It was a fate worse than death.
Isabel came over and sat down on the log next to him. She picked up his right arm and traced the outline of the bite marks. “You don’t deserve what’s happened to you, Ephraim,” she said. “You didn’t mean to kill Sil
as.”
“How do you know that?” Ephraim said. “Even I’m not sure.”
“Because you’re kind. You’re the kindest man I know. I’ve always known that about you.”
“Well, let me tell you, you don’t have to be mean-spirited to be a murderer. I found that out.”
Isabel slid her hand down his arm. “No, you didn’t mean to do it. Or if you did, you meant it in a way that was good, like when you took that licking for Billy Cartwright at school.”
Ephraim snorted. “You remember that?”
“Of course I do. It was the kindest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. Miss Harmon accused you of stealing Rindy Sue’s apple, but everybody knew that Billy did it.”
“Billy didn’t have anythin’ to eat that day. He rarely did.”
“You saved him from a licking, Ephraim. In a way, all this is you taking a licking for your ma. You. Have. A. Good. Heart.” Isabel tapped the back of his hand, emphasizing each word. “And I believe this will all work out somehow, because of your goodness.”
She grabbed his arm and held it up for a closer look. “Surely there’s something we can do to draw out the venom. Isn’t there?”
“If there is, I’m afraid I don’t know it. Nancy tried a couple things, and none of ’em worked.” Ephraim wanted to believe Isabel more than anything; he wanted to stay by the fire and enjoy her closeness. But as he looked at the moon, he felt the throb of venom in his veins. Goodness and kindness—even if he was those things—could not protect him from his doom.
He pulled his hand away from Isabel’s. “I can’t do this.”
She sat up, looking hurt. “Why?”
He held her gaze, trying to find the right words. “No one died when I took a lickin’ for Billy. Silas was a good man, Isabel, and he’s buried now. Everyone says my pa was a good man, and he never made it home from the war. They were both better men than me—they never made the mistake I have. So how can I expect a fate better than theirs?”
Isabel’s eyes filled with tears. She turned away.
“Look, Isabel, I wish I could pretend that all this is goin’ to end well. I want to be with you. But I’ve hurt enough folks, and I ain’t going to hurt no one else. Least of all you.”
They sat there, side by side, separated by silence. Ephraim’s heart pounded painfully. He wanted to take Isabel’s hand and tell her everything was going to be all right, but this was how it had to be.
Reuben groaned and stumbled out of his tent, rubbing his eyes. He excused himself and walked off into the woods. Ephraim heard the rattle of dry leaves as the man urinated. He returned to the fire and squatted by it, hands outstretched to catch the warmth.
Nancy stood up suddenly. She tossed the blanket to Reuben, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “This blanket of your’n smells like a boar hog and a billy goat had themselves a pissin’ contest in it. I reckon you could’ve used a lump of soap when we were down there in the crick.”
Reuben scratched his beard and looked sheepish. “Sorry, ma’am. I been searchin’ for my boy for so long, I guess I let everythin’ else go. I ain’t used to keepin’ company of any kind.” He reached into his coat, drew out the scrap of paper, and fiddled with it.
“What is that?” Isabel asked. “I saw you holding it when you came into the church.”
“This?” Reuben held up the paper.
Isabel nodded.
Ephraim sat forward on the log. “Yeah, why were you lettin’ it blow down the road ahead of you when I first saw you?”
Reuben smiled. “I don’t reckon you’d believe me if I told you. It’s the craziest thing.”
“I’m ready to believe just about anythin’ you tell me,” Ephraim said, “after what I’ve seen over the past few days.”
“To be honest with you, I don’t really know what this is myself,” Reuben said, turning the paper in the firelight. “My boy sent it to me. It came with the last letter I ever got from him. See, me and my boy both knew Boggs back before the war started.” Reuben studied Ephraim. “Amos was about your age then, and Bill Boggs was the preacher in our town. When the war began, I joined up as soon as I could, thinking they’d leave my wife and son alone. I never reckoned Amos would’ve wound up a soldier. But pretty soon I got a letter from my wife saying conscript officers had come through. They took our mule, the hogs, emptied the corncrib, and told Amos he’d been drafted. My wife said not to worry though, she’d manage until I got home, and that Reverend Boggs had volunteered to join the army when he saw they were takin’ Amos. But I did worry. I worried myself sick about him. The war ain’t no place for a boy, and the fact that men have to fight them is somethin’ I’ll never understand.”
Reuben grabbed a stick and prodded a log deeper into the fire. “Everythin’ I heard ’bout Amos, I got from my wife. He was sendin’ letters home to her, see. She wrote to me and said that a couple weeks in, he’d killed a Yankee boy ’bout his own age, and it had torn him up somethin’ awful inside. He told her he couldn’t quit thinkin’ ’bout that boy’s face, that he saw it every night before he went to sleep.”
A lump rose in Ephraim’s throat. He knew the feeling Reuben was describing all too well.
“His letters kept gettin’ stranger and stranger. My wife started sendin’ ’em to me so I could read ’em for myself. Amos said he wasn’t plannin’ on comin’ home after the war. He told us that Boggs had shown him a better way to live, a way to live with your sins and be powerful. He said there wasn’t a soldier alive that could kill Reverend Boggs. Said he’d seen Boggs kill ten Yankee soldiers usin’ nothin’ but a tomahawk, said it looked like a wildcat tearin’ through a henhouse.
“I quit gettin’ letters from home for a while, but after the war ended and I went back home, my wife showed me the last letter Amos ever sent her. He’d written that he wanted to come clean to us. Said he’d sold his soul to the Devil and was livin’ after the manner of Cain—and that Boggs had showed him how to do it. He told us not to come lookin’ for him, and that he wasn’t our son no more.”
Reuben gripped the paper tightly. “Way I see it, Boggs got into Amos’s head somehow. He knew my son wasn’t right after he shot that Yankee boy, and he used that to get him to sell his soul.” He looked at the paper as if seeing it for the first time. “This was folded up inside that last letter. It’s a page torn out of some book. I’ve read it several times, and I can’t reckon what it’s about. There’s three lines on it.” He passed the paper to Ephraim. “Have a look.”
Ephraim held the page up to the firelight. It had been torn from a book, and part of the page had been left behind. From the torn edge, the three partial lines read:
L Eckerlin
1757 and all years hence
and the time for every purpose under heaven
“Can you make any sense of that?” Reuben asked.
Ephraim shook his head. “Not without the rest of the page.” He passed the scrap to Isabel.
She examined it and passed it to Nancy. “So why do you toss it out in front of you?”
“That’s the strangest part,” Reuben said. “A year after the war, my wife died. I think her heart was broken over Amos; he was our only child. After I buried her, I went home and I got real drunk.” He looked sheepishly at Isabel and Nancy. “I beg pardon ’cause I know that ain’t fit to say in the company of ladies, but it’s the honest truth. While I was drinkin’ I got a fire goin’, and I started tossin’ all of Amos’s letters into it. Well, when I got to that scrap of paper, try as I might, I couldn’t get the blamed thing to go in! I’d throw it in the fireplace, and it’d fly right back out and land by the front door. Finally I left it there and went to bed.
“When I woke up sober, I remembered what’d happened, so I picked it up and went outside to throw it into the hog pen. But it wouldn’t go in there neither! I noticed then that the paper always flew the same direction, no matter which way the wind was blowin’. I don’t know why, but I realized that this thing was tryin’ to take me to Amos. So I got
my pack ready, and I’ve been followin’ the blamed thing ever since.”
Ephraim and Isabel glanced at each other, wide-eyed.
“Well it certainly brought you to Boggs,” Ephraim said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
“For certain,” Reuben said. He inspected a hangnail, chewed on it, and spat. “And it don’t want to leave Sixmile Creek neither. I’ve tried it out. It always goes back toward the church. I got no idea where Amos is.”
“I think I know somethin’ ’bout this,” Nancy said.
The granny woman had been uncharacteristically quiet during Reuben’s tale. Ephraim looked over at her now, and saw that she was holding the scrap of paper in both hands, a somber expression on her face.
“You can make sense out of that?” Reuben said.
Nancy nodded. “Some. Eckerlin’s my family name.”
Reuben straightened up. “Well, let’s hear it!”
Nancy fiddled with the end of one braid, studying the paper again. “I’ll tell ye what I know. But first, we need to head back to my place. I’ve got to talk with my pappy’s shirt.”
Reuben and Isabel looked confused.
Ephraim got to his feet. “Let’s go,” he said. “You’ll see what she’s talkin’ ’bout.”
They got to the Laura just as the sun peeked over the mountaintops. Earl rushed to meet Nancy as they approached. The goat was munching on what appeared to be the remains of a basket. The granny woman shook her head as she scratched him between the horns. “I wondered where that basket went. Must’ve left it outside.” She went inside the hollow sycamore and came out holding a lump of soap, a straight razor, a bucket, an ax, and the folded cream-colored shirt.
She handed the soap and razor to Reuben. “The crick’s that way,” she said, pointing into the woods. “Go give yourself a good scrubbin’.”
Reuben looked hurt. “Ma’am, that water’s freezin’ cold. Ain’t no way I’m goin’ to jump in it again unless I have to.”
“Ye will if ye want to set foot inside my house!” Nancy declared. She passed the bucket to Isabel. “Fetch us some water to cook a proper meal, dear, and make sure ye stay upstream of him.” She shot Reuben a narrow-eyed glance.
Some Dark Holler (The Redemption of Ephraim Cutler Book 1) Page 16