Passage to Natchez

by Cameron Judd

  “Ames. Celinda Ames. The man on the floor was Trenton Ames.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Ames. I truly am.”

  “Thank you, Reverend Deerfield.”

  “Plain Reverend John will do, Miss Ames. God has throwed us together, so we may as well be friendly from here on out.”

  “Yes.” She might have cried for joy. This man was friendly and generous. He would help her. From here on out, he had said. That implied togetherness, companionship for the long term. There was light in the darkness for her now. There was hope.

  CHAPTER 3

  The next evening

  Celinda settled her aching bones near the fire that the Reverend John Deerfield had built, pulled her legs up under her Indian-style as she smoothed her dirty dress around her knees, and extended her hands toward the blaze. Meanwhile she studied Deerfield from the corner of her eye as he unsaddled the horse, humming to himself as he worked.

  During the day’s travel she had developed new doubts about this man. So far he had been as kind to her as any real preacher would, insisting that she ride while he walked, calling her “Miss Ames” until she finally invited him to call her by name, and giving her all the comfort he could concerning her father’s death. All these behaviors were consistent with what he claimed to be.

  It was the odd, ignorant-sounding things he said while giving her comfort that roused her suspicions. Trenton Ames was beyond suffering, he told her, “up yonder with the holy angels and Balaam and Saint Moses and all them other Bible people.” The fact that Trenton had been left unburied would not affect his situation on the resurrection day, he assured her, though she had asked nothing about that. “He’ll light up out of that cave and sail up to glory like a cannon shot.” That is, he added in somber afterthought, “unless some critter eats up his corpse, in which case his portions would be too scattered for the Lord to regather. So you pray he’ll not be eat, so he can rise up again a whole man, missing no parts.”

  Celinda was no scholar of religion, but she knew babble when she heard it. No real preacher would talk that way. But if he wasn’t a preacher, what was he? And who? Was his name really John Deerfield? And why was he pretending to be a preacher at all?

  He had shot a rabbit and two squirrels along the trail earlier, and set about to skin and cook them now. He was still humming—a hymn? Celinda listened. No hymn, but a drinking song. And when his skinning knife slipped and knicked his thumb, the Reverend Deerfield let out a most unclerical oath beneath his breath, then glanced to see if she had heard him. She pretended she hadn’t. Now she was sure he was a fraud. It was very distressing.

  Rising, she walked in seeming nonchalance about the camp until she reached the saddle and saddlebags he had removed and set aside. With her foot she flipped back the flap of one of them, making sure he didn’t see her do it.

  She saw a Bible tucked just inside, and knelt and got it when he wasn’t looking. She opened the cover and read the name inscribed inside: JOHN W. DEERFIELD, MINISTER. She closed the book and felt puzzled. Might he be who and what he claimed after all?

  As she knelt to replace the Bible in the saddlebag, she glimpsed a small flintlock pistol tucked farther inside. On the lockplate three initials were roughly scratched in: J.B.H. Now what was this? Why did the initials on his pistol not match the name in the Bible?

  “What are you doing over yonder, girl?”

  She jumped and gasped. He had caught her! “I … uh, I was looking for your Bible. I wanted to read it for comfort. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  He smiled, just a flicker, but the narrowing of his eyes spoke a different message. “Of course not. But you ought always to ask a man before you get into his baggage.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I see you got the Bible in hand. Go on away from there and read it.”

  “Yes.” She paused, then said, “Tell me, Reverend John, what is the best scripture for me to read for comfort?”

  His best efforts couldn’t mask a sudden look of entrapment that shaped his features—rather handsome features, Celinda noticed for the first time, yet not really all that handsome the closer she looked. His nose was well-shaped but a little too big, his lips even and nicely set, but too narrow, his brow smooth and healthily colored, but infringed upon by a hairline that seemed about an inch too low. And his eyes—there was another thing. Her father had always said that eyes were windows into the heart and soul of a man, but if so, John Deerfield had closed and shuttered those windows tight. There was nothing to be learned of him in those brown, narrowed orbs.

  “Oh, well, uh … any part is good. Any old thing will do. All them thees and thous read pretty much the same, you know.” He chuckled nervously.

  Fraud! Liar! She managed to hide the contempt she felt. “There must be something that would best suit me in my grief. What do you read at funerals, Reverend John? What do you read when you’re comfortless yourself?”

  “Well … I’m partial to … uh, the first chapter of Matthew.” She could tell he had pulled the reference right out of the air.

  She opened the Bible to that chapter, randomly picked a verse, and to herself read: “And Salmon began Bo-oz of Rachab, and Bo-oz began Obed of Ruth …” And so on through most of the chapter. Nothing but odd names and “begats.” Not only was he a fraudulent preacher, but not a particularly good one at that.

  He was eyeing her with worry, as though sensing something wrong. “You find the chapter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I hope it’s what you’re needing.”

  You must learn to be strong, Celinda. “I believe I have found the very thing I need,” she said. Stooping, she dropped the Bible and thrust her hand into the saddlebag. When she came up, she had the little pistol aimed at the Reverend Deerfield.

  He threw up his hands in exasperation. “Again? What are you aiming to shoot me over now, girl?”

  “Who are you? You ain’t no preacher.”

  “The hell I ain’t!” He winced as soon as he said it.

  “That proves it! That’s not the way a preacher talks!”

  She cocked the pistol with a trembling thumb. He glared at her, then slowly retwisted his features into a cold smile. “Well, ain’t you the brave girl, aiming a pistol at a man! And I thought you was naught but a timid little rabbit!”

  Celinda declined to respond. In fact she, too, usually thought of herself in a similar light. She mentally replayed Trenton Ames’s advice to her: Learn to be strong, and never let another be stronger than you. She shook the pistol, partly to look defiant, more to hide her trembling. “I’m not timid, and I swear to God I’ll shoot you unless you tell me who you really are and what you intend to do with me!”

  He studied her like a wolf evaluating a lamb, then chuckled. “Reckon you might as well know the truth. My name is Jim Buck Horton, though some call me Junebug. And as for what I intend to do with you …” Suddenly, he strode right toward her, fearlessly and fast. Her eyes went wide and she felt herself freeze. Her finger could not even feel much less squeeze the trigger. In a moment he was upon her and yanked the pistol from her hand. To her surprise, he turned it, lifted it to his forehead, and pulled the trigger. The flint snapped, but there was no shot. He laughed. The world swam before Celinda’s eyes and she knew she was going to faint. Her senses failed her and she collapsed.

  He was still laughing as she faded out. She heard him say, “Next time you aim to kill a man, girl, you’d best make sure you’ve got a loaded pistol!” Then she fell into darkness, and his arms.

  You must be strong, Celinda … you be strong, no matter what.…

  Her father’s face loomed before her, urgent in expression, speaking with intensity. She struggled to awaken, forcing her eyes open. Darkness gave way grudgingly to light—and her father’s face became that of Jim Horton, far too close, leering, whispering terrible things, and now not even slightly handsome.

  She realized with a shudder that he was pulling at her dress, and that his han
ds were on her in ways that should not be. She struggled to stop him, but he had pinned her arms and she could not pull them free. She screamed. He laughed contemptuously and tried to kiss her. She gagged and almost vomited. That angered him. His smile went away, he called her a foul name, and pulled back long enough to slap her across the face, very hard. Then he leaned close and tried again to kiss her lips.

  I must be strong.…

  “No! No! Get away from me!” She screamed it into his face, so loud it must have rung his ears. He pulled away from her again, only for a moment. Swearing at her, insulting her with names that in her previously sheltered world she had never heard a man direct at a woman, he pushed against her and tried again to tear her dress. But in that brief moment he had pulled away, her arms had come free and she was able to reach his face. Curving her fingers like claws, she put her nails into his eyes and the heel of her hand just under his nose. She pushed up and in. He bellowed like a buffalo, roared in fury, drew back his fist and struck her in the jaw. The jolt was horrific and stunning. She grew limp. He was too strong for her. There was no hope of successfully resisting.

  But to her amazement, he left her. Cursing, wiping at his face, he meandered off and stumbled around the fire, muttering inaudibly most of the time, sometimes cursing loudly and kicking up dirt, then returning to mumbling.

  Celinda’s senses slowly returned. She sat up, straightening her dress, and found that he had not torn it. That small blessing alone seemed so great that she almost cried. Sitting there, struggling against tears, wondering if he would return to hurt her again, she exhausted her meager reserve of fortitude. Her father had told her to be strong, and she had tried—but look what it had brought to her! She had been attacked and nearly raped. She wondered if Horton would have tried such a thing had she not so boldly exposed his pretensions and dared to hold a pistol on him.

  I must not think that way, she told herself. I was right to expose him, right to try to aim that pistol at him, right to fight him and not let him hurt me. The only wrong I’ve done was not being clever enough in how I dealt with him. Part of being strong is being clever. That’s what Pap would say.

  She ached for her father. Facing the world without him seemed unbearable. She wondered how she could survive a life so dangerous that the first person she met after being left alone was so wicked a man as Jim Horton.

  A sound she hadn’t expected made her jerk her head upright. Horton was laughing! She couldn’t believe it. He was rubbing his face, wrinkling the nose she had nearly mashed flat, laughing—laughing!—as if it all were the funniest thing imaginable.

  “Hoo, boy, look at us, girl!” he said, turning a pleasant expression upon her and making her wonder if she was imagining all this. “Fighting and scrapping—and all because I lost my temper at you for seeing through me! I ought to have thanked you instead. Better I should learn now that I need to do a better pretending job than to learn it later, when it could really cost me! Reckon I’ll have to learn to do a better job of passing myself off as a preacher, huh?”

  She had nothing to say. Her astonishment at the man grew. What kind of person could change from fury to good humor in so brief a span?

  “I’m sorry I hit you. And about the … the other part, too. There was a fire in me that had me stirred, and I’m sorry.” His words gave Celinda hope, but it was dashed when he added: “I won’t be so rough about it next time.”

  Next time. So there would be a next time. She had warded him off for now, but not for good.

  “Why won’t you say nothing, Celinda? I didn’t hurt you none. Why, I don’t know what got into me, anyway. You ain’t even really all that pretty. Skinny and puny-looking … a man would be hard put to tell you was a girl at all if not for that dress.” He paused, brows lowering, and rubbed his chin. “Jingoes! You would pass for a boy, if you was dressed like one! We could cut your hair short, put you in my extra pair of britches and a shirt … why, I’ll be shot square in the nates if you wouldn’t pass for a boy in anybody’s eyes! When we get to the cave, by jingo, we’ll make good use of that!”

  She deplored even having to speak to him, but his talk raised a question. “What cave? You said you … we, I mean, were bound for Natchez.”

  “So we are. And when we get there, I’ll be the Reverend John Deerfield, and you’ll be … let’s see, you’ll be a nephew of mine—no, an orphan boy I’ve took in. Saving you from a life of misery and such. And at the cave, with you dressed like a boy and your hair short, we won’t have to worry that no scoundrel will take advantage of you in a bad way, if you know what I mean.”

  Indeed she did, and considering what he had tried to do to her only minutes before, she thought that was the most ironic comment he could have made.

  But what was more significant than irony was his obvious assumption that she would be with him for a long time to come. It was the most offensive presumption, considering what he had just tried to do. Why should she stay with a man capable of violence and even rape, a man who could shift spastically between warmth and fury?

  She would not stay with him! She would escape him … if she could. But she realized, sinkingly, that he held the advantage. If he didn’t want her to get away, it would be hard to do so, and potentially terrible if she tried and failed. An angered Jim Horton would be dangerous.

  And there would be other dangers if she succeeded. As much as she feared Horton, she also feared the river wilderness and the lonely trial of self-reliance. To be isolated in this dangerous river country, to not know where to go or what to do, to have to find her own sustenance—these were awful prospects. If she remained with Horton awhile longer, at least she would have food and protection—protection from dangers other than Jim Horton himself, at the least.

  Sadly and reluctantly, she decided she could not escape him, not just yet. Sometime later, when the alternatives weren’t so fearsome, she would find her chance. In the meantime she would just have to be clever and somehow come up with some way to keep him from attacking her again.

  “You didn’t tell me about this cave we’re going to,” she said, trying to sound pleasant enough not to provoke him, and cool enough not to invite him.

  “Yes. A cave on the river, where Sam Mason keeps his inn. The Rock Cave. The House of Nature. All kinds of names been laid on that place. It’s a lot bigger cave than the one where your pappy lays a-putrifying.” He chortled like an old man recalling some fond youthful memory. “Oh, what a grand place! And what grand times and folk we’ll find there! You’ll have never seen nothing like it, girl. You’ll see men there who have rubbed their souls in the grit of the world and found it sweet as the touch of a woman.”

  “I don’t know if I want to go among men like that.”

  “Well, you want to get to your dear aunt in Natchez, don’t you? Mason’s cave is the best place to go if we’re to find us a boat.”

  “Who is Mason?”

  “Quite a man, that’s what he is. A man who knows it ain’t the meek who are going to inherit this world, no ma’am! But I don’t know we’ll find him there. I run into a man here a few days back who says Sam left the cave sometime back and headed on down the river.”

  Good, Celinda thought. She had no ambition to meet Mason or any other human being of the sort Jim Horton would think highly of. Weary of talk, she returned to the fire and settled down beside it as before, feeling frightened and alone, and anything but strong.

  CHAPTER 4

  After they had eaten, Jim Horton dug a flask from the bottom of one of the saddlebags and settled in to drinking. Celinda could tell he was actually relieved to have his ruse exposed, for now he could openly pursue his vices. The whiskey he was drinking was so strong that Celinda could smell it from the far side of the campfire, where she had nestled to keep the greatest possible distance between herself and her companion. Or was he her captor now? Celinda was not certain of her status.

  Horton remained quiet for nearly an hour. Celinda sat staring into the fire, wishing she could magic
ally will her father and mother back to existence and herself back into her former life and situation. The extent life had changed for her in a matter of mere weeks was staggering.

  “Stop doing that.”

  She looked up sharply. After so long a silence, it had startled her to hear him speak. He looked angry.

  “Stop what?”

  “Sitting there and judging me. Stop it. I don’t like it.”

  “I wasn’t judging you.”

  “Oh, you weren’t? Reckon you expect me to believe that. Reckon you think I’m so great a fool as to believe anything you say!” His face surged red.

  Celinda’s heart began racing. He seemed to be deliberately working up anger toward her. A preface to another rape attempt? She had to restrain herself from leaping up and running.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve made you mad. I’ll not judge you. I promise.”

  He took that in, then nodded curtly. The angry ruddiness of his face lessened. Celinda felt a sweep of relief.

  Eyes fixed on her, he took another swig of whiskey, put away the flask, then turned his gaze to the flames again. “Folks have always judged me. Everybody I’m around, setting in judgment like they was kings or magistrates or something! Damn ’em, every one of ’em!” The liquor had given his voice an unpleasant grating quality.

  It struck Celinda that agreeing with him might warm his attitude toward her. “Yes,” she said. “People are bad to judge other folks.”

  “They are, yes indeed.” He scratched his beard. “Ain’t nobody suited to judge me unless they know the terrible thing that was done to me by my own mammy. Terrible thing. Worst thing a body could do to another. They’d know why I’m the kind of man I am if they knew what she done.”

  Celinda was unsure if he wanted her to ask what the terrible deed had been, and hung fire. After a few silent moments he glanced up at her. “Don’t you want to hear about it?”