Swains Lock

by Edward A. Stabler

  “I got back beside them and turned toward the woods. My heart shot into my throat and I tried to scream, but I couldn’t make a sound. The glow and the bright line was right on us now, only twenty feet away in the trees. Moving upstream through the woods, alongside us. It was a person. A girl, probably about my own age, fifteen or sixteen, and she was glowing green from head to foot! I swear, there was green and gold sparks raining from her hair. She turned to look at me and I could see her blue glowing eyes. My heart was pounding faster than I ever felt before. Then my skin froze, ‘cause I saw her walk right through a thick tree as she tracked us upstream. Like a ghost. Then she passed through another tree, still looking right at me, and she started to turn orange. The sparks from her hair was changing color, too, turning red. She smiled at me and I could see her teeth.

  “I closed my eyes ‘cause I was too afraid to look anymore. Then I was too afraid not to look, so I opened my eyes again. And she was still walking fast through the trees, but she had turned back downhill. Moving upstream but back down into the woods and away from us. I watched as she became a bright line again, then the line disappeared and there was just a glow. And then the glow faded below the rim of the hillside and it was dark again.

  “I kept driving that night, on up to Six Locks, where we switched teams and I come on board. My daddy sent one of the older hands out to drive the next trick. I never mentioned it to him or the other hands and they never said anything about it to me. My daddy was steering and they was sleeping when it happened, and I don’t think anyone else saw it. To this day I don’t know what it was, or whether I imagined the girl. But when she smiled I heard her whisper she would come again to kill me, and I knowed that night that I was done with the canal.”

  Cy opened his eyes, looked at Zimmerman, and yawned. The heroin was warming his chest, legs, and bones, and Zimmerman’s story was part of a mosaic unfolding around him. “How much for the rest?”

  Zimmerman peered into the vial. “It’s half an ounce,” he said softly. “Twenty.”

  Cy pulled out his roll of bills and counted. He peeled off two singles and handed Zimmerman the rest of the roll. Zimmerman passed him the vial and he put it in his pocket. They pushed themselves up from the straw tick and started for the stairs. There would be a reckoning of sorts with the Emorys, Cy figured, but that was for tomorrow. What was left of tonight was free of worry, pain, and fear. He followed Zimmerman up the cellar stairs.

  Chapter 22

  Swains Lock

  Saturday, March 29, 1924

  It was after 8:30 on Saturday morning when Cy’s feet found the floor. Habit guided him to the simple wooden dresser in his lockhouse bedroom at Swains, where he was relieved to see his stash of bills. He must have remembered to bring it upstairs from the kitchen jar last night after returning from Great Falls. With Pete and Katie around, valuable things needed to be kept out of sight. Leafing through, he counted fifty-six dollars. He hobbled over to the chair where he’d thrown last night’s clothes and withdrew the contents of his coat pockets. Only an empty tasting flask, two more dollars, and the remainder of Zimmerman’s vial, which he held up to the light to measure with his eyes. He opened a dresser drawer and hid the vial inside his pair of clean socks.

  Standing in his underwear, he looked out the room’s lone window and considered the events of the previous night. Shit. He’d sold seven pints and then been up in the poker game for most of the evening – up over ten dollars at one point. His winnings had evaporated as the game wound down. And in the ensuing session with Zimmerman, the rest of his money had purchased an ephemeral reprieve from his pain. So now he had fifty-eight dollars and owed the Emorys seventy-five. They were half-assed boaters, and if they’d reached Widewater from Georgetown yesterday, it would still take them two hours to get through the locks at Great Falls and cover the distance to Swains. So he had a little time.

  He looked out the window at the driveway and the canoe rack beyond it. Pete was playing in the driveway, spinning the pedals of an upside-down bicycle with his hands. If Cy was lucky, he thought, he might be able to sell a few pints of whiskey this morning at Great Falls, but that wouldn’t come close to yielding the seventeen dollars he needed. It would be a bad idea to stiff the Emorys on the first run of the season. If he did, his business with them was finished and there might be more serious consequences to follow. There were one or two people in the area who might lend him some money, but none he could tap on such short notice.

  It was a weekend, so the Inn at Great Falls Tavern would be busy. And within the next hour or so, tourists in cars would start arriving to visit the Falls. If only he had something he could sell. What about Katie? Was there a bracelet or necklace she wouldn’t miss right away? He doubted that she’d brought anything nice with her from Williamsport. That leaf-pendant with the strange symbol was a possibility, but she never seemed to take it off. He noticed that Pete had turned the bicycle right-side up and was trying to mount it, but his legs weren’t long enough. Cy snapped out of his musing when he realized he was staring at the solution. Pete didn’t own a bicycle and neither did anyone else at Swains. The bicycle was obviously built for an adult. Where had it come from? That didn’t matter. He dressed hurriedly and limped downstairs.

  Peering into the kitchen, Cy saw Katie clearing the table. She and Pete usually ate breakfast before he came downstairs. He put the thought of food aside and slipped out the front door, headed for the driveway. Pete was kneeling next to the upside-down bicycle and spinning the front wheel by its spokes. He looked up when he saw Cy approach.

  “I found a bicycle!” His face lit up.

  “So I see,” Cy said solemnly. “Where was it?”

  Pete pointed to the canoe rack. “Over there,” he said. “Leaning against the rack.”

  Cy observed with satisfaction that the bicycle looked almost new. “Pete, that belongs to a grown-up,” he said. “It ain’t suitable for a kid.”

  Pete’s face fell. “I know,” he said softly. “But I can almost ride it. When I’m bigger…”

  “Pete, that bicycle needs to be returned to its rightful owner. And I know who that is. A friend of mine. I’m sure he’ll be very happy you found it for him.”

  “But then why did he leave it here?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean to leave it here,” Cy said, putting a hand on the wheel to stop it from spinning. “It must have been a mistake.” He lifted Pete to his feet and smiled. “When I take it back to my friend, I bet he might even offer a reward to the person that found it.”

  Pete looked up at Cy but his smile collapsed.

  “So I’m going to tell my friend that you’re the one who found his bicycle,” Cy said. He righted it and put his hands on the handlebars. “I’m going to take it to him right now, so he don’t have to worry about his missing bicycle.” He started wheeling it across the driveway with Pete following reluctantly. Cy stopped and bent to address his brother. “Now Pete, I need you to help Katie keep an eye on the lock. Tell her I’ll be back in an hour or two, and if anyone comes looking for me, have her tell ‘em to wait here until I get back. I won’t be long. OK?”

  Pete tried to look his brother in the eyes but his gaze drifted down to rest on the bicycle instead. “OK,” he mumbled.

  Cy wheeled the bike to the lock gates and carried it across to the towpath, where he mounted it tentatively and began pedaling toward Great Falls.

  ***

  After hearing the front door close, Katie looked out the kitchen window and saw Cy circling around to the driveway. A bit earlier she’d seen Pete excitedly pull the bicycle out from behind the canoe rack and upend it. She dried the dishes and swept the kitchen floor. When she was finished she stepped outside and saw Pete wandering back toward the old green canoe that was tied-up on the berm. The morning air was still cool and sharp, but clear skies promised another mild spring day. Cy was nowhere to be seen and the bicycle had vanished along with him. The morning was progressing as she expected.

  A
t 9:30 she peered down the canal at an approaching scow. As it drew closer she could see it wasn’t the Emorys. It was a repair scow headed upstream, the third of the morning. When the scow reached Swains, she and Pete helped the crew lock through. Katie asked them where they were heading and they said they were going up to Seneca to do maintenance work on Dam 2. They said the repairs were mostly done around Great Falls, and all the snow and ice had melted up to Cumberland during last week’s thaw. So the canal was still supposed to open on April first. That was Tuesday. Katie asked the scow’s captain if there were more repair crews following them and he said they were the last one. He tipped his cap in thanks as his mules pulled the boat out of the lock. When the scow receded upstream, Katie asked Pete to help her reset the lock for another light boat.

  “But they said they was the last boat,” Pete said.

  “They said they was the last repair boat,” Katie said. “I think there might be a private boat coming up from Great Falls sometime soon.” Pete enjoyed turning the lock-keys and pushing the swing beams, so he didn’t question Katie further and they reset the lock.

  As Pete wandered back over to his moored canoe, Katie stood on the lock wall and peered hard down the stretch of canal that was visible from Swains before the waterway bent out of sight on its way to Great Falls. She couldn’t see a boat but reason told her it wouldn’t be long before the Emory’s scow emerged in the distance. She went inside and found an empty canvas bag in the closet. From the wallet in her purse, she culled a dollar and two dimes. She headed back out to the driveway and called Pete over.

  “Pete, I need you to run an important errand for me and Cy,” she said, handing him the canvas bag, the dollar, and the dimes. “We need some more bread for tomorrow and Monday, and you and Cy will want a loaf when you start boating on Tuesday.” Pete was staring at the money in his hand. He was often given coins, but he wasn’t used to receiving a whole dollar bill. “I need you to head up to the Crossroads Store at River and Falls,” Katie continued, “and buy us two loaves of fresh bread. Do you know where that is?”

  Pete nodded and she smiled. “Good.” Getting to the store only required turning right at the end of the long Swains driveway and following River Road, but the Falls Road intersection was over two miles away. And Katie knew he would have to wait for the day’s second batch of loaves once he arrived, so the errand would keep him busy until mid-afternoon.

  “If there’s a little money left over,” she said, “you can buy yourself an ice cream.” Pete’s expression brightened at the notion: ice cream before it was even summer! His hand closed carefully around the bill and coins. “Take your time and don’t hurry,” Katie said. “Make sure the bread is still warm from the oven.”

  Pete slung the bag over his shoulder. She watched him disappear around a driveway bend before going back inside. In the kitchen she cut and removed four pieces of cornbread from a pan, then sliced them into top and bottom halves. She pulled down a jar of strawberry preserves from a nearby shelf. Staring at her arm holding the jar, she felt a wave of dissolution break over her, and the arm was no longer her own. Her sense of who and where she was withdrew, advanced, and ebbed.

  She left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to Cy’s bedroom. The tiny closet was empty except for his canvas bag. She turned to the dresser and pressed her thumbs into the bundled socks she found in the top drawer. When she unrolled them, the glass vial slid from the innermost sock into her hands. She eyed the white powder inside, nodding in recognition.

  The lone window in the bedroom provided a view of the canal downstream. Holding the vial in her fist, she crossed to it and gazed down the waterway. No boat was approaching yet, but the course that had been charted was beyond her power to change. Its first steps led back downstairs to the kitchen.

  ***

  “Lockee, lockee, lo!” Kevin sang out from the towpath when he and the mule team were within shouting distance of Swains. “We got somewheres to go,” he added, just for himself and the mules. He pulled the tin horn from his coat pocket and bleated four notes toward the lockhouse. Drawing near he saw the lock was set for a light boat, but there was no evidence of a locktender or anyone else nearby. The lockhouse door was closed. He blew four more baleful notes on his horn. Still no sign of life. He dropped back behind the mules to get a clear line of sight to the scow. “I guess they’re hiding from us, Tommy!” he called out to his brother at the helm. “Think our friend Cy don’t want to pay up?”

  Tom shook his head grimly and spat into the canal.

  “Maybe he’s sleeping off a drunk,” Kevin said. “Let’s see if we can smoke him out.” He guided the mule team up the incline toward the lock. The mules stopped just past it of their own accord and Kevin jogged back to grab the snub-line. Tom steered the slowing scow into the lock and Kevin snubbed it to a stop.

  “Like a ballet dance,” Kevin said. “Makes you wonder why locktenders get paid.”

  “Damn, they should pay us instead,” Tom said, standing up from the tiller and edging around the cabin on the race plank. “For all the gate-slinging we been doing.”

  Kevin eyed the next level of the canal but saw no one. He pulled out his pocketwatch, which read almost 11:00. He aimed his horn at the lockhouse and blew more blasts. “Shit, it ain’t like he didn’t know we was coming,” he said after catching his breath. “Think we got a swindler on our hands?”

  “Maybe,” Tom said. He had crossed to the center of the deck and was using his knife to sever a hangnail. “If so,” he continued, “we’ll have a score to settle next time we run into him. Once the season gets going, a boat captain got nowhere to hide on the canal.”

  Standing on the lock-wall, Kevin looked across and saw a rope ladder hanging from the opposite wall. Locktenders sometimes used these ladders to perform maintenance or retrieve objects that fell into the lock, so he thought little of it. Next to the ladder was a plate that held four small cornbread sandwiches. A piece of notepaper was pinned beneath the plate.

  “Look at that, Tommy. Maybe he’s trying to buy us off with bread!” he said with a snicker. “Maybe old Cyrus plans to bake his way out of debt!”

  “Well that ain’t no seventy-five dollars worth. That ain’t even seventy-five cents.”

  Kevin jumped down onto the deck. Since the boat was unburdened by cargo, the deck was almost four feet above the waterline. He walked across it toward the plate. “Food and a ladder to reach it. Guess he’s trying to make us real comfortable while he steals our whiskey and makes us work the lock ourselves!” The top of the lock wall was at the level of his ribs, so he ignored the ladder and took the plate of cornbread and the note beneath it. He handed Tom the plate and read the note out loud.

  Boatmen –

  The lock-keys at Swains were taken last night by vandals. Cy Elgin has gone to Great Falls to get replacements. Please pull into the lock and wait. Help yourself to cornbread. Cy will be back soon. Our apologies.

  K. Elgin

  When he was finished, he glanced at the upper and lower gates and saw eight naked stems protruding through the swing beams. He cocked his head and whistled. “Ever heard of that, Tommy? Vandals taking lock-keys?”

  “Don’t make much sense. They ain’t good for nothing but turning a paddle.”

  “Our apologies, K. Elgin,” Kevin said mockingly. He crumpled up the note and dropped it into the water. “I guess Cy’s little sister feels bad for us. Well I’m scandalized that they didn’t leave us cups of tea to drink with our cornbread and jam!”

  “Hell with that,” Tom said. “We still got whiskey.” He laid the sandwich plate down near the windowless forward wall of the cabin and ducked down the stairs. He returned carrying the whiskey jug and two tin cups, which he set beside the plate. Then he sat down near the starboard rail, back against the cabin wall and legs stretched toward the bow.

  Kevin sat alongside him with the plate and jug between them. He pulled off his black fedora and brushed it while Tom poured two fingers of whiskey into each o
f the cups. He handed one to Kevin, who swirled its contents absently while tapping his hat back into place. Both men plucked a strawberry-cornbread sandwich from the plate and took a wolfish bite.

  “I’m guessing,” Kevin said, chewing the viscous offering, “that if little sister wrote that note for old Cy…”. He swallowed and took a sip of whiskey to clear his vocal cords. “Then she might also be our cornbread baker.”

  “The fixings ain’t too bad,” Tom said, taking another bite. He jerked his head toward the lockhouse. “Maybe she’s in there right now baking our main course.”

  “Hell, we can skip the main course and go right to dessert. And she can just come out and service that directly.” Kevin called out enthusiastically toward the lockhouse. “We’re getting ready for our dessert, Miss Elgin!”

  “Dessert in a skirt!” Tom blurted, laughing with his mouth full and nearly choking. He reached for the whiskey to wash down the rest of his sandwich. “That cornbread’s mighty good,” he said hoarsely, “but the strawberry jam got a bit of a tang to it.” He took one of the two remaining slabs from the plate.

  “Yeah. Maybe got some rhubarb or something mixed in.” Kevin finished and snared the last sandwich. “Tommy,” he said, “maybe you should go bang on the door. If she answers, you can say she’s invited for pancakes…” He paused to yawn and scratch his chest. “…at Emory’s establishment of fine dining. The griddle is hot and we’re ready to fabricate!”

  Tom finished his cornbread and echoed Kevin’s yawn. “Why don’t you go invite her yourself. I’m too comfortable to get up. Like a possum in a pumpkin patch.”