Natchez Under-the-Hill

by Stan Applegate

  Now what? … Maybe I should just wait here in the cell for the magistrate. Constable said it might be a couple of days … but what about Grampa?

  He clenched his jaw in frustration. That must be what Dancey Moore wants, to keep me out of the way until the sergeant can steal Suba, and they can hide her somewhere … and maybe keep me from finding Grampa.

  Zeb began over again, digging out the tunnel entrance. He reached in and patted the walls and the roof of the tunnel. They seemed to be holding. He took a couple of big breaths and pushed himself back into the narrow hole. He had already reached the end of the wall before the cave-in. Now he would have to turn and go the other way.

  He started the new tunnel, digging and crawling backward with each potful of soil. He dug as fast as he could, trying to keep from disturbing the fragile walls. His body was folded around the wall, his legs still in the first tunnel and his upper body in the tunnel on the other side.

  He twisted back and forth until he was free.

  Afraid to move, he stopped for a moment. Oh, no! Loose, dry sand was filling the place in front of him that he had just dug. He filled the pot and then squirmed to back around the corner. His shoulder touched the roof of the tunnel. It quivered and then sand began to pour on top of him. It was heavy on his hips and waist. He couldn’t move backward at all.

  He held the pot in front of his face with both hands, pushing forward, straining, trying to make some breathing room. It was completely dark. There was very little air left. He relaxed his arms for a moment and rested. Then he pushed as hard as he could with the pot. The sand is holding! It isn’t caving in! He pushed again, digging with his toes, trying to move his body forward.

  One more push…. There was dim light coming through the sand! He must be near the end. He wiggled his body from side to side, pushing with the pot until the wall in front of him gave way. He forced his head and shoulders into the empty corridor.

  Zeb lay there breathing deeply, almost sobbing. He could feel the sand inside the tunnel tightening its grip on him from his waist down. He put the pot down quietly and then twisted until he was on his back. Digging with his heels against the tunnel floor, he twisted back and forth until he was free.

  He wiped the sand off his face, trying to keep it from getting into his eyes. Then he staggered to his feet, gasping for breath. No one in sight … no sound, either. He crept down the hall, praying that the huge oak door would not be locked.

  He turned the handle carefully and pushed on the door. It began to swing open, the old rusty hinges groaning with the effort. He opened the door just enough to edge through, closed it behind him, and then darted into the shade of the alley between the jail and the building next door.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Grampa

  October 14, 1811

  Zeb found himself in an alley with only one way out. He started to move in that direction but he stopped when he heard someone crying, someone who might see him and call the constable. He crept forward and peeked around the edge of the building.

  It was Hannah! She was sitting on the front steps of the jail, her head on her knees, sobbing her heart out.

  Zeb whispered loudly to her, “Hannah!”

  She didn’t hear him. He called her again. “Hannah!” and even louder, “Hannah!”

  She turned her head and screamed, “Zeb! You’re alive!” She jumped up and ran to him, throwing her arms around him. “C’mon!” she said frantically, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the jail. “They’re sure you’re dead, or buried alive!” She tugged at his arm. “C’mon! Father and the constable are in there, still digging at the back wall of that cell. The sand keeps caving in on them. We’ve gotta let them know you’re alive!”

  Zeb pulled back and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I can’t. The sergeant stole Suba and I hafta go find her.”

  “Oh, Zeb!” Hannah cried. “How could you let him steal Suba from you?”

  “He told the constable I was a kidnapper, so he could steal her when I was in jail. The constable went back to get her a few minutes after he arrested me, and she was already gone.”

  “What’ll we do?”

  “I’ll find her, Hannah. They can’t have gone far.”

  “What about your grampa?”

  “I heard a horse wrangler talking yesterday about a man mistreating a horse, and a bald-headed man chasin’ him down the street with a whip. It sounded just like something my grampa would do. I can’t imagine him bald, but that’s what I’m gonna look for. They said he comes down here to the cotton buyer drivin’ a big freight wagon. So after I find Suba, I’ll go to the cotton auction down at the docks.”

  He looked at the jail. “Hannah, I want you to give me time to get away, then go in and tell them I’m all right. Tell your father I’ve gone lookin’ for Suba and then I’m gonna look for Grampa…. Go now.”

  Hannah turned and ran up the stairs to the jail-house door. She turned and called down to him, “I’ll keep an eye out for a big wagon and a bald man.” She opened the door and stepped inside.

  Zeb moved as quickly as he could, staying in the shadow of the buildings. He ran across the street and through an alley to Water Street. He raced from one building to the next, checking the horses tied up in front.

  Zeb ran through an alley to Levee Street, where the taverns were all built at the water’s edge. Flatboats serving as docks floated in front of some of them.

  He skidded to a halt. A row of molasses barrels and piles of staves and hoops! This was where the constable had arrested him and this was the little tavern where he had helped the man slip up to his room.

  Zeb edged in between the barrels and tried to make his way, unseen, around to the front of the tavern. One of the two wranglers he had seen with Dancey Moore was sitting on the porch. Zeb gasped. Tethered to the rail in the alley next to him were two horses. One of them was a broad black gelding, with four white stockings and a white snip on his nose. There was no doubt about it. It was Andy, Grampa’s horse.

  He stood there a moment. It’s tempting to take Andy and come back to look for Suba, but then Suba might be gone forever. And if I do take Andy and they catch me, they might hang me for stealing him. I have no proof that Andy is Grampa’s horse. Zeb slipped behind the man and moved quietly through the front door.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dark interior, he could see Dancey Moore and the sergeant at a table right next to the door. Mr. Moore was counting out money into the sergeant’s left hand. The sergeant held his other hand behind his back.

  He was being paid for Suba! Zeb was torn between his wanting to challenge the two men and knowing that he really didn’t have a chance with them. He was about to back out of the room when the sergeant raised his eyes and saw him. The sergeant leaped to his feet and blocked the door. “Well, well, well,” he chortled, “how Lady Luck can smile on me! I have the money for your horse, and now I’ve got you. Police constable let you go? Miss Hannah show up?”

  Zeb tried to keep his eyes on the sergeant while he looked around the little tavern for another way out.

  “You can forget about that,” the sergeant growled. “There ain’t no other way out of here. Just you and me now, boy, settling up accounts.” He began to move closer to Zeb.

  “You can’t sell Suba!” Zeb shouted. “She’s a registered horse that belongs to the McAllisters.”

  “And you got a paper to prove it. I know. I heard.”

  He grabbed Zeb around the neck and reached into Zeb’s shirt pocket. “That’s all we need to make it legal,” he snarled. He tossed the paper on the table in front of Dancey Moore.

  The sergeant shoved Zeb away from him but stayed between Zeb and the door. He moved toward Zeb, playing with him, keeping his right hand behind him. What does he have? Zeb wondered. A pistol? A knife?

  Zeb looked from one side to the other. He could see nothing to use as a weapon. The sergeant grinned, swinging his left fist hard as if he were aiming at Zeb’s face.

  Zeb d
ucked back and felt a low blow to the ribs. The sergeant laughed. “You don’t know nothin’ about fightin’, do you? This’ll be your first and maybe your last lesson.” He swung again with his left hand.

  This time, Zeb stepped back and then kicked hard at the sergeant’s knee. The sergeant howled. “I was just gonna mess up that face a bit,” he shouted. “Teach you a lesson. But now, it’s no holds barred!” He reached out with both arms. His right hand held no weapon. It couldn’t. The hand was misshapen, and he was missing two fingers.

  The sergeant glared at him. “That’s right. You’re responsible for that hand. I told you then that I’d make you pay.”

  “Sergeant!” A booming voice rang out from above them. The big man Zeb had helped earlier was standing on the inside stairs, looking down at them. He was wearing the same wrinkled, stained clothes he had on when Zeb found him. “You talkin’ ‘bout fightin’ with the partner of Lonnie Champ?” he roared. “The roughest, meanest cock o’ the walk on the Mississippi? Thought I already spanked ya oncet. Looks like it didn’t take. You lookin’ at an alligator, a water snake, a black bear! You’d best run while ya can!”

  The sergeant backed away and then edged toward the door. He held his hands up. “He your partner, Mr. Champ? We didn’t know that, sir … honest!”

  The man on the stairs looked over at Zeb. He lifted his chin toward the door. “You best leave, boy, and now.”

  Zeb started to mention the papers and the horse. The man pointed outside. “Now!” he shouted.

  Zeb moved behind the sergeant and slipped out the door. He wished he could go to the constable, but he knew it was no use. “I can’t do a thing about it,” the constable had said when Zeb showed him the letter. “We have to wait for the magistrate.”

  A groaning rumble came from the dock area downriver from where he was standing, and above the low rumble he heard the voices of men shouting. Freight wagons come to market!

  He hurried down toward the docks, darting from one alley to the next, constantly watching for the constable. A long line of wagons snaked down Silver Street, the steep and slippery cobblestone road from Natchez proper.

  At the docks, the wagons were jammed together. He could see a child darting from one wagon to the next. That kid’s gonna get himself killed, he thought. He gasped. It was Hannah!

  She waved when she saw him, then crossed in front of two nervous horses and ran to his side, breathing hard. “Zeb,” she said, “I found the bald man.”

  “You found him?”

  “Ran up to the top of Silver Street. Bald man’s ridin’ in a big Conestoga wagon, just like the one Mr. Culpepper has. Six bales of cotton. Four big gray horses.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Just come down Silver Street. Should be about halfway to the docks by now.”

  Zeb grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.”

  “It may not be him, Zeb,” she cautioned, running alongside him. “I got as close as I could and I yelled up to him, ‘Mr. Ryan?’ He looked down at me, shook his head, and kept on going.”

  When they reached the cotton docks, dozens of wagons were already there. Most of the wagons had a black driver and a white farmer sitting on the wagon seat.

  One of the wagons was the largest he had ever seen, slanted up on the front and the back like a boat. It was carrying six bales of cotton instead of the usual four. Four huge draft horses pulled the wagon as easily as if it were empty.

  Driving the wagon was a black man and at his right side a bald old white man. That can’t be grampa, he told himself. Grampa never lets anybody else drive a team of four, and he’d never wear overalls.

  Zeb was about to move away from the wagon when he spotted the coiled whip on the man’s belt. Maybe that is Grampa, or somebody who has his whip.

  Zeb and Hannah ran across the street toward the huge wagon, trying to fight their way between the wagons and around the horses. The wagons were jammed together, each of the drivers trying to be the first in line. Zeb got through and climbed up on the back of the wagon. He yelled down to Hannah, “Wait until I make sure who it is.”

  He pulled himself over the bales, yelling, trying to be heard over the shouts and curses of the wagon drivers. He kept looking at that bald head. The man’s head was pink with sunburn, but his neck was dark brown and leathery. Why isn’t he wearing a hat?

  He climbed over the last bale, landing on the seat between the two men. The black man shouted, “What the! …” then swung his right arm, knocking Zeb back against the cotton bales. The old bald man reached for the whip, turning to face Zeb.

  Driving the wagon was a black man and at his side a bald old white man.

  “Grampa?” Zeb asked, taking a long, hard look. The man looked completely different without all that shaggy white hair … but it was his grampa, all right.

  The old man frowned and stared. Zeb started to move back onto the bench, but the black man had his arm pressed hard against Zeb’s chest.

  “Zeb?” the old man cried. His voice quavered. “What are you doin’ here? How did you get here?” He nodded to the black driver and helped Zeb back onto the bench. He held him at arm’s length, staring at his face.

  Zeb threw his arms around the old man. Tears were flowing down his cheeks. “Oh, Grampa,” he sobbed. “I just knew you were alive! McPhee said you’d been killed by outlaws, but I didn’t believe him…. I’ve found you! I’ve found you!”

  “What?” The old man pulled away. “I wasn’t shot by outlaws! McPhee was the one who shot me!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Suba and Andy Disappear

  October 14, 1811

  Zeb relaxed his tight grip on his grampa’s shoulder and wiped his sleeve across his face. I want so much for Grampa to see me as a man, and here I am crying like a little kid.

  “Zeb, I still can’t believe you’re here, but I’m mighty glad to see you.” He looked over at the man sitting on the other side of Zeb. “Walter, this is Zeb, my grandson!”

  The black man nodded at Zeb. “Sorry about pushin’ you so hard.”

  The old man put his arm around Zeb and hugged him. “So McPhee told you and your mama that I was shot and killed by outlaws?”

  Zeb nodded. “We’ve gotta get home in a hurry, Grampa. McPhee told Mama that the farm belongs to him now, that you two had an agreement. Mama just went to pieces. I packed her up and took her in to Franklin to Uncle Ira and Aunt Annie. All the fight went out of her.”

  “Don’t worry,” the old man said. “I sent a letter by post rider almost two months ago to your Mama, and one to your uncle Ira, telling him what happened. I asked him to talk with the sheriff. By now McPhee and his men should be in jail.”

  “But Grampa, McPhee’s men followed me down the trail a ways…. McPhee and his men might be in Natchez!”

  “I haven’t seen any of ’em yet, or heard they’re in town, but we’ll hafta be even more careful now,” his grampa replied.

  The old man looked around. “Where’s Christmas?”

  Before Zeb could answer, a small figure caught his eye.

  Zeb had forgotten all about Hannah. She was walking alongside the wagon grinning up at him. His grampa noticed her at the same time. “You called to me earlier,” he said to her. “How’d you know my name?”

  Zeb reached across and offered his hand to Hannah. She climbed up and sat on the other side of the old man. “This is Hannah, Grampa, Hannah McAllister. I found her on the

  Natchez Road. We traveled together….” He paused. “I’d better tell you about that later.”

  He turned to face his grampa. “Christmas was exhausted. I had to leave him with the McAllisters. Hannah loaned me her horse, Suba.” He paused, hating to have to tell him about Suba. “Mr. Moore and the sergeant have her,” he said, pointing to the little tavern at the river edge. “They’re still in there.” He told his grampa what had happened to him that morning.

  His grandfather narrowed his eyes as he looked at the tavern. “You’re sayin’ that Dancey Moore and
the sergeant have your friend’s horse, and a letter of authorization in your name? You didn’t sign anything?”

  Zeb shook his head. “I barely got out of there alive. Some big boatman, name of Lonnie Champ, who calls himself ‘the cock of the walk’, told ’em I was his partner, and they let me go. But they still have Suba. She may be long gone by now.”

  He slumped against the cotton bale. “Mr. Moore has Andy, too,” he said. “I saw him tethered to the rail.”

  Zeb’s grampa frowned. “So Dancey Moore has my horse,” he said. “I should’ve guessed that!” He thought for a moment. “Zeb,” he said, “normally, I’d insist that we plan this very carefully. I’ve been comin’ down here every day or so for a month, lookin’ for Andy. But if we’re goin’ to save Suba and get Andy back from Dancey Moore, we hafta move now.”

  “Please step down, Hannah, so I can get by.” Grasping the bench rail with his right hand, he winced and lowered himself carefully to the ground.

  “Come on, Zeb!” He turned as Hannah joined them. “Hannah, please wait here with Walter. I need you here to keep a lookout for Suba.” Mr. Ryan called up to Walter. “Will you get the men to unload that wagon as quickly as possible? Then bring the horses and wagon up to that little tavern over there.”

  The black man nodded. Hannah climbed back up on the bench and sat next to him.

  Zeb walked behind his grampa, marveling at the way the bald head and his clothing changed his appearance. That’s why he’s not wearing a hat, Zeb realized, so people can see that bald head. He’s still the same man: medium height, stocky, muscular, barrel-chested.

  Zeb had found his grampa. But what’s wrong with his left arm? he wondered. Good thing he’s right-handed.