Passage to Natchez

by Cameron Judd

  “I’m sorry. What can I say? It’s a tragedy none of us wanted to find.”

  Clardy lifted his head sharply and in an angry heat said, “‘Tragedy,’ you call it. ‘A tragedy none of us wanted to find.’ I wonder, Mr. Deerfield.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Isaac Ford asked me some questions about you that night you sprung me out of the jail in Natchez. He asked me why a man like you would be interested in finding and freeing the very outlaw who robbed him at gunpoint. He asked me if maybe your notion was to see Thias brought before the court for having done that. I told him he was wrong. Now I wonder. I wonder if the ‘tragedy’ you see in this is that now you won’t get the chance to haul my brother before the court and get him locked up or pilloried for robbing you.”

  Japheth was taken aback to hear his motivations so mischaracterized. “You’re speaking rather impertinently, Clardy. I’ve done nothing to justify that kind of insult.”

  “Insult? Or truth? What would you have done if we had found Thias alive? And why did you go sneaking off, trying to find him yourself, without me around?”

  “I told you: I did it because of the very possibility that we would uncover news you didn’t want to hear. I wanted to spare you having to be slapped in the face with any bad news that might turn up.”

  “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

  Japheth’s face went crimson. “Mr. Tyler, after all I’ve done for you, I see no need for me to stand here and endure this kind of abuse.”

  “I should never have trusted you,” Clardy said. “All you ever wanted was to see Thias punished.”

  Japheth said, “That, sir, is a lie.”

  “Now who’s insulted?” Clardy spat back. “I should knock your head off your shoulders!” He drew back his fist.

  Everything froze for several seconds. Clardy’s upraised fist began to tremble. He lowered it slowly and swallowed hard.

  “I’m sorry, Japheth. I’m sorry. I had no call to say what I did.”

  Japheth lost his angry color. “Well, the truth is, I can’t much blame you. My own wife asked me what my intention was should I find your brother alive and well, and I had no answer for her. I suppose I should have thought all that out.”

  “Don’t matter now, does it? There’s no Thias left to be freed or brought to trial.”

  “I am sorry. And not because I had some plan to avenge myself on your brother. Please believe that.”

  “I believe you.”

  “What will you do now?”

  Clardy seemed overwhelmed by that question. Japheth suspected that this was the first time he had really faced the possibility of his quest coming to a truly final negative end … now not merely a possibility, but the grim reality. “I ain’t sure. I’ve got land. Not only my own holdings, but now Mr. Ford’s, too. With his family dead, he wrote me in his will just like a son. So I reckon I can go back to Nashville … but not just now. There’s no task seems worth doing at the moment. Now I don’t want to do nothing but … God! He’s dead! Thias is dead!” He turned away and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him so hard that it rattled the pitcher and basin on the far side of the room.

  Left alone in the sudden ringing silence, Japheth shook his head. “What a day!” he said aloud. “What a day!”

  CHAPTER 40

  Clardy roamed New Orleans in a daze of grief until late in the night. Knowing he had been rude to Japheth, who had never given evidence of having anything but the highest intentions, and who had gone to much effort on his behalf, he returned to their rooming house, where he found Japheth abed but awake. He mumbled his apologies, again, which were accepted graciously by the lawyer.

  “It’s been a difficult turn of events for you, Clardy,” Japheth said. “I don’t fault you for being consternated. Think no more about it. But have you thought now about your plans?”

  “I suppose I’ll stay here for a time. There’s Isaac Ford’s remains to be relaid where he wanted to be buried. A promise to keep, you know. I reckon I can deal with that.”

  “Yes. Did Isaac retain ownership of the place he wanted to be buried?”

  “He did. Sold the farm, kept the burial ground.”

  “I see. That simplifies the legal side of reinterment. Of course, simply having the remains removed and shipped to Kentucky will be difficult practically. Maybe costly. I wish I could help you to—”

  “No no. Thank you, but no. You’ve done enough already, and I do appreciate it all. My harping at you yesterday was, well, unforgivable.”

  Japheth smiled. “If so, how is it that I’ve already managed to forgive it? Now, Clardy, if you’ll excuse me, I want to get some sleep.”

  “Roll on over and go to sleep, then. I believe I’ll sit yonder by the table and smoke a few pipefuls, if that won’t bother you.”

  “It won’t. Good night.”

  Clardy sat with pipe in hand, the bowl glowing red in the darkness, listening to Japheth snore and pondering the pivotal point his life had reached. Isaac Ford was dead, as was Thias. He had no partner left to work with, no brother left to find. It was as if he stood at a place where many roads crossed and he was free to choose any of them … and yet he had lost his drive, his sense of motivation for choosing any road at all. He was wounded, deeply hurt. All he wanted to do at the moment was merely to be, answering to no one; to follow no ambition, make no plans. Maybe during that time he could adjust to a reality that had taken a turn he didn’t want to accept.

  Or maybe he would do what he had done before at such low times: turn back into the sorry, drinking, debauching Clardy Tyler he had been in youth. He clenched his fist, bit the stem of the pipe. No. He wouldn’t do that this time. He’d control himself, stay away from the taverns and dance halls and gaming tables.…

  The devil with it. He stood in the darkness. Walking to the little fireplace in the corner, he knocked ashes from the pipe bowl and tucked the pipe into a pocket. Then moving carefully, he gathered his possessions into his pack. Pausing beside Japheth’s bed, he said softly, “Thank you again, lawyer. Best wishes to you and your own. And good-bye. To you, to Isaac Ford. To Thias. Good-bye to you all.”

  Clardy slipped out of the room with the numbing sense that a great change had come into his life. With the soft closing of the door behind him, he closed out all that had gone before and turned into a future whose pattern he could not foresee at all. Walking the streets of New Orleans, he looked for the nearest tavern.

  Japheth Deerfield concluded his New Orleans business in a somber mood, mostly because of the unheralded disappearance of Clardy Tyler. Japheth had simply wakened to find him gone. That was fine—Clardy was a grown man and independent, not Japheth’s charge—but he worried about what would come of the man. He realized he didn’t know Clardy all that well, but he could tell that Clardy was a man of deep feeling. He took things, good and bad, to heart. How would he take such a major disappointment as this one? His unceremonious departure was evidence of the likely answer, and it wasn’t cheering. Japheth had seen men ruined by loss. He hoped better for Clardy Tyler.

  With Clardy gone, however, Japheth was able to get a more objective and philosophical perspective on the total scenario. He didn’t fully like what he saw, particularly his own degree of involvement. Once again he had allowed his emotions to become unduly entangled in a case, even to the point of making a rash promise to a pitiful and perhaps undeserving prisoner. It was a most unlawyerly trait, but he couldn’t rid himself of it. He had always been too easily touched by a moving or unusual story.

  He knew he should fight against that. Change his approach to his profession. No more free professional service, no more getting involved with the personal aspects of cases. He should be more businesslike, not become too sympathetic … but hang it, wasn’t it his inborn sense of sympathy for downtrodden folk the very part of his nature that had made him what he was? His late brother John had possessed a similar spirit, which found its outlet in the ministry. For Japheth, the practi
ce of law provided the same spiritual kind of satisfaction. He was in his profession for the pleasure of seeing problems solved and wrongs righted as much as for money and stature.

  Even so, it was clear the time had come to strike a balance between his eager personal altruism and professionalism. He knew it wore on Celinda when he was out late, interviewing some client in a situation that he had labeled an emergency when in fact it might not be. And certainly his tendency to waive fees on impulse did nothing good for his balance sheet.

  No more, he pledged. From here on out, I’m going to be as tough and objective an attorney as I can be. It’s for my own good. I’m changing my ways.

  Of course, he couldn’t fully put that pledge into effect just yet, having promised Willie Jones a petition for release. What a foolish, unprofessional promise that was! Too late to do anything now but go through with it, however.

  The rest of the day was occupied with the legal affairs that had originally motivated this journey to begin with. The next day, however, Japheth wrote out his petition, addressing it to the governor, asking for the release of “John Deerfield,” jailed under the name of Willie Jones. Japheth poured his best effort into the petition, which when complete read like a moving masterpiece of supplication. The fact that he intended this to be one of his last acts of legal altruism only bolstered his incentive to make it as effective a document as he could. He closed the petition with the request that his brother be released on his own authority, claiming that they had already devised plans for reuniting elsewhere. The latter was a bogus claim added for the sake of realism and to make it unnecessary for Japheth to be physically present for Jones’s release, should it be granted. As far as he was concerned, he would probably never see Willie Jones again.

  He had only a moment of uncertainty before delivering the petition. What if Jones were a truly bad man? What if he was released only to commit further and worse crimes? Japheth didn’t know the man, after all.

  The doubts almost won the day, but were overcome by the fact that he had made a promise to Jones, and the memory of Jones’s sickness. To remain in prison would be fatal to him. He might die of whatever disease held him even if he went free, but outside he would at least have a chance to fight for his health. And the man wasn’t a murderer, hang it. All he had done was steal some gold relics.

  Thus persuaded again by his own arguments, Japheth filed the petition and promptly put Willie Jones out of his mind. His business kept him in New Orleans only a day more, then he checked out of his room, paid the bill both for himself and the still absent Clardy Tyler, and turned his path toward Natchez, Celinda, Beulahland, and home.

  The night after Japheth returned home, Celinda lay beside him in their bed, listening to him breathe. She was more grateful to have him back again than Japheth could know. Since the stabbing of Timothy, her time here alone had been hellish. Every waking moment had been spent in the fear of that dreaded knock on the door, that throat-tightening glimpse of a policeman crossing the yard, which would herald the end of life as she had come to know it. Every night had been spent in terrible dreams of what would happen to her when her crime was discovered.

  Crime. An ironic and inaccurate word, she realized, but still the word that came to her mind when she thought about what had happened. She had come to see that the real crime done in Beatrice Sullivan’s room was not her slaying of Timothy, but his attempted molestation of her. Timothy’s slaying was not a murder, but an accident: she had not deliberately stabbed him; he had run onto the knife himself. But none of that mattered now, Celinda believed. She was sure she had waited too long to come forward and report what had happened. By now her story would have the look of an alibi developed late and presented later. And how could she prove the death was accidental? No one but she knew what had happened.

  Celinda’s immediate worry was whether Japheth had detected anything different in her manner that would rouse questions. Every glance he had turned toward her today set her heart to racing and her mind scrambling in fear. He knows something is wrong—he’s going to ask me what it is.… He hadn’t asked. Maybe he didn’t see after all.

  But he will see. I can’t keep this from him. I won’t be able to bear it. Yet I won’t be able to bear it if he finds out, either. Such conflicting thoughts had dominated her mind all day, keeping her distracted and tense. Even now, as her travel-exhausted husband slept easily beside her, her body was stiff and tight; her pulse pounded loudly inside her ear.

  She could not go on like this. Either she would have to relent and confess it all to Japheth, or she would have to toughen her mind, somehow, and learn to endure and thoroughly hide her inner tension. Neither prospect seemed easily achievable. For the time being, however, she would try for the latter, because all her worries and nervousness to the contrary, one small element in the overall picture continued to give her hope: So far, no news of Timothy’s death had emerged from Natchez-under-the-Hill.

  Celinda couldn’t understand it. Usually such deaths became known very quickly. Over the past three days, for example, news had arisen of a fatal shooting on the riverfront and a serious knifing that had one man lingering on the brink of death and another only scarcely better off. Yet there was nothing, not one word, about a corpse being found in an upstairs room. Celinda was encouraged, daring to hope that the whole event miraculously would never be discovered. Could it be that Beatrice Sullivan had found the corpse, feared she would be blamed for the death, and disposed of it in secret?

  Then again, might the body simply not have been found yet? Maybe Beatrice Sullivan had left Natchez, or moved to new quarters. If so, then the axe still hung over her head, Celinda thought. A corpse in an upper room could not remain undiscovered forever.

  Such thoughts swam in alternating rounds of hope and despair, stealing her sleep, spoiling even the happiness of having her husband with her again.

  One week later

  Almost from the moment he was home again, Japheth had detected something different about his wife. She had a nervous, fearful quality about her that she hadn’t had before. He wondered if perhaps it was simply an odd emotional reaction to his return, but it hadn’t lessened with passing days. He caught Celinda staring fearfully out the window several times, and twice came into a room to find her hurriedly wiping away tears. She provided no explanations.

  She had reacted with disinterest to all the news he brought back. It didn’t seem to distress her that Clardy Tyler’s quest had turned out sadly; instead, she seemed pleased to have him now removed from their lives. Japheth thought it an uncharacteristically callous attitude for Celinda, but he remembered her instinctive fears about his involvement with Clardy Tyler and understood her feelings better in that light.

  Now Japheth slowly walked through the dusk toward his home, thinking over a private, somber conversation he had just held with his friend Moses Mulhaney. He had gone to Mulhaney because his wife was Celinda’s closest friend. Had Mrs. Mulhaney said anything to her husband about some event occurring in Japheth’s absence that had upset or frightened Celinda?

  Moses replied that the only mention his wife had made of contact with Celinda while Japheth was away was that one day Celinda had brought Beulahland over to be cared for while she dealt with some matter or another elsewhere. Moses did not know what that matter was; but after much prodding from Japheth, he did reveal that his wife had said Celinda spoke of preparing a supposed “surprise” for her husband and needed a few hours alone to accomplish it. Moses apologized for giving away the fact that a surprise was in the works, and asked if Japheth’s birthday, or some other special occasion in his life, was coming up. No, Japheth replied. There was nothing … and so far Celinda had given him no surprise except her obviously distraught emotional state. Moses admitted that he, too, had noticed that Celinda didn’t seem to be herself, and his wife had commented to the same effect only the day before.

  Japheth was uncertain what to do. He was more worried than ever about Celinda, but reluctant to spoil her s
urprise, whatever it was to be. A party of some kind? A special gift? Neither seemed likely. Celinda had never been prone to take the lead in social matters, and she was exceedingly careful with the family’s tight budget, having never spent much money without first consulting Japheth. Besides, why would either a party or a gift have her upset?

  He reached his home and suffered through a quiet, tense supper, during which Celinda seemed distracted and maybe on the verge of tears. Afterward she began to wash the dishes, not humming to herself, as she had always done for years when performing that job. Japheth played with Beulahland, watching Celinda from the corner of his eye. Over the course of half an hour she dropped two glasses, breaking both. When she broke a favorite platter right after that, she began to cry.

  “Celinda, what’s wrong?”

  “I’ve broken three dishes, and one’s our best meat platter. I’m clumsy tonight and don’t know why.”

  “Don’t cry. They’re only dishes. Maybe you’re tired, or getting under the weather.”

  “No. No. I feel fine. I’m just a clumsy fool.”

  Japheth prudently took Beulahland to her room, rocked her, and put her to bed, giving Celinda time alone to get over her upset. When he came out again, Celinda was seated in her favorite chair, her legs curled up beneath her, her face looking drawn and pale. “Celinda, I believe you are under the weather. You look like you don’t feel well.”

  “I’m fine, Japheth.”

  He went to her, knelt beside her chair and put his arm around her shoulder. “Celinda, you haven’t been yourself since I came home. Something is troubling you. What is it?”

  “I’m fine, I told you! Nothing is troubling me.”

  “I’m your husband. I know you better than anyone. You can’t deceive me.”

  He felt her tense. “I’m not deceiving you, Japheth. What would I deceive you about?”

  “I was talking about deceiving me about how you’re feeling. That’s all.” He paused, knowing he had trodden into territory she apparently didn’t want him in. “Is there something else you thought I meant?”