SWAINS LOCK (The River Trilogy, book 1) (33 page)

March 29, 1924

Charlie,

If it is April and I am missing, I fear I have been
killed because of what happened today at Swains Lock. I may be
buried along with the others at the base of three joined sycamores
at the edge of a clearing. The name of the place is well knowed by
Emmert Reed’s albino mule. One tree leads to the money, the second
leads to the killers and the third leads to the dead. In your
search for me you may find the truth. Be careful you don’t share my
fate.

Your friend, Lee Fisher

He read the note a second and third time. It
was the best he could manage. Charlie had spent many years at
Pennyfield Lock and Lee felt sure he would understand the reference
to Emmert Reed and his albino mule. To most others the clue would
be opaque. He folded the note and left it on the table. Was there
something else he should he leave as a clue? A reference to Katie,
in case his fears came true. The photograph of them at Great Falls.
She had left it near the porch-swing during her visit last night,
and he found it this morning while cleaning up. If Lee went
missing, the photo would provide a tacit pointer to the people
Charlie should find.

The flask with C. F. Elgin inscribed on its
holster lay next to his travel bag on the stairs. Katie had
probably neglected it last night because she’d been busy trying to
keep him on his feet. And now he’d forgotten to return it to Swains
today. Just as well, since she wasn’t there to receive it, and it
would have been strange to hand the flask directly to Cy. He shook
his head, amused at his diffidence. Instead you showed him the key
to the leg-irons that killed your cousins! He opened the bag and
pulled the photo out from between the pages of a book. Appraising
the flask, he realized it would be useful tonight.

He tore another blank page from the log-book
and folded it to serve as a sleeve, then placed the message and the
photo inside it. His idea about where to leave the note still made
sense, so he carried the papers across the lock and turned into the
woods on the path up to Charlie’s shed.

The drill he’d bought recently was lying on
the workbench where he’d left it, next to a hammer and a handsaw.
He thought about leaving the message on the bench but realized that
anyone who wandered in would see it. A safer approach occurred to
him. He set the note and photo aside and took the hammer to the
unadorned wall of cedar siding planks to his left.

He chose a plank near the center of the wall
and used the claws to remove the nails that held it in place,
tossing them on the floor one by one. The studs behind the plank
could hold a little shelf of cut shingle, and there was a pile of
shingles in the corner. At the workbench he cut one to fit, then
tapped in new nails from the workbench jar to support it. He
propped the drill on the shelf – it held. He placed the photo and
his note behind it, pinned against the inner face of the thick
outer siding. It was a strange place to leave a message, but no
stranger than the events of the day.

He laid the plank face up on the floor. From
his pockets he removed Tom Emory’s knife and Katie’s sandstone
pendant, then examined the pendant’s symbol. First a curve like a
tipping C, then three converging slashes. He tested the blade with
his thumb; his cousin kept it sharp. He carved a shallow C near the
base of the plank. Its outline was rough but he didn’t care – he
was etching the symbol for himself, and to Charlie it would just be
a mark. From the lower end of the curve, he extended the
slashes.

He sat back with his arms around his knees
and yawned, knowing he wouldn’t sleep much tonight. Leaning against
the wall, he closed his eyes for a few minutes. A stab of hunger
jarred him awake. Grabbing the plank and hammer, he pulled a
handful of nails from the jar and hammered the plank back in place,
with Charlie’s drill and the message he hoped no one else would
ever read hidden safely behind it. He left the shed and walked down
through the woods.

One more note to write… a note so pedestrian
that no one but Charlie would care about it. At the dining room
table he removed another page from the log-book.

March 29

Charlie,

Welcome home. I left your drill in the shed, behind
the marked plank.

Lee

He left the note in the center of the table
and put the log-book away, then scraped together leftovers in the
kitchen. Fried sausage and potato salad from last night and the
remnants of a loaf of bread. He finished what was left of his
mother’s ham with a glass of water. After eating he dragged himself
up the stairs and laid down. Years of boating had taught him how to
sleep while still keeping track of time. He let go and was asleep
within seconds.

When he woke up, the angle of the light
striking the wall told him sunset was still an hour away. He closed
his eyes and visualized the steps he needed to take. Bring the
canoe and a paddle down from the rack next to Charlie’s house. He
was pretty sure there was an old rubberized canvas tarp in the
basement of the lockhouse that would be useful to cover a body in
the canoe. And if they wanted to use it as a burial shroud for the
toolbox, it probably wouldn’t be missed for a while. Charlie kept a
pair of shovels in the shed and Lee had already carried one to the
lockhouse a few days ago. It would take him almost an hour to
paddle down to Swains. He took a deep breath and got to his
feet.

A few minutes before six, he dragged the
black birchbark canoe down the berm. The shovel and tarp were under
the stern seat as he pushed that half of the canoe into the water.
On a final visit to the lockhouse he retrieved his coat, sliding
Cy’s flask into the empty hip pocket, balancing the one that held
Katie’s pendant and Tom’s knife. He pulled his cap from a hook on
his way out the door. The air felt cool now as he crossed the lock,
jogged down the bank to the waiting canoe, and pushed off.

As the canoe sliced through still water, he
felt a surge of adrenaline and dread. What he was going to do with
Cy had to be done – there was no alternative. If he backed out, Cy
would consider him a threat and might hunt him down. Or he could
use Lee’s leg-irons as evidence against him. He was committed to
the plan, but a subliminal fear kept reminding him his life might
end tonight. He faced the stern from the bow seat, picked up the
paddle, and aligned the boat’s heading with short strokes. His
heartbeat slowed. He clung to the hope that Katie would return to
Swains unhurt and be able to identify the killer or killers. The
hope that someone other than Katie or Cy had murdered his cousins.
He paddled resolutely downstream across the darkening water as the
sun descended into the trees.

Chapter 25
Grave Dance

Saturday, March 29, 1924

The colors of sunset emerged and faded as
Lee paddled down the canal. Approaching Swains through the
twilight, he drove his canoe toward the berm near the entrance to
the flume. A lone figure moved haltingly toward him. Without words,
Cy caught the stern and hauled it up onto the grass. “Pull it up
next to mine,” he said, turning back toward the lockhouse as Lee
climbed out.

The green canoe was sitting on the beaten
grass near the front door. Lee dragged his boat alongside it and
noticed the Emory’s toolbox was already under its bow seat. I guess
he wants the money within reach, Lee thought. And there was a
paddle but no shovel.

“You ain’t got a shovel?”

“No. Couldn’t find one. Long as we got
yours, that’s enough.”

What an ass, Lee thought. Maybe he plans on
counting the money again while I dig.

“You bring the key to the box?”

“I got it,” Lee snapped. His pulse fluttered
as he prepared to ask the question foremost in his mind. “Katie
come back yet?”

“Ain’t seen her,” Cy said without looking at
Lee, who felt as if a scabbed wound had been torn open again to
bleed. “Pete showed up around three with a couple loaves of bread.
Said Katie sent him off to the crossroads store this morning. Damn
long walk for a kid his size. I can’t figure what she had in
mind.”

“Pete ain’t around here now, is he?” Lee
said, trying to refocus on immediate concerns. No ten-year-old
should see them carry his dead cousins out of the basement.

“No. I fed him dinner and told him to stay
in his room for a couple hours. Told him I’d whup him if I saw him
and he knows I would. Anyhow he’s too tired to complain. Now let’s
get them bodies out before something else happens.”

Lee followed Cy down to the basement. The
clammy air didn’t smell like death yet, but he knew the decomposing
had begun. Cy took Kevin Emory’s ankles, leaving Lee to grope
beneath the sheet for the armpits. With no human warmth to dry
them, his cousin’s clothes were still cold and wet. When Lee
lifted, the dead man’s head fell between his thighs; he winced at
the upside-down view of Kevin’s red-brown hair, ruddy face turned
pallid, lifeless eyes. The unseeing pupils were as wide as a
finger. They carried Kevin’s body out to Lee’s canoe, then returned
to the basement for Tom’s.

“You OK with all that weight?” Lee asked as
they laid the corpse on the floor of Cy’s canoe. With three bodies
in the green canoe this afternoon, the hole in its side had sunk
below the waterline. “Want me to take the box?”

“I’ll take it,” Cy said gruffly. Lee turned
to his own canoe and laid the shovel alongside the covered body.
Then he and Cy dragged the laden canoes back to the canal, paddled
them across, and portaged to a muddy landing on the riverbank.

Looking out toward the island in the fading
light, Lee could see that the current was running fast. In the
summer, the river drifted and was no more than waist-deep here,
with scattered rocks the size of rowboats littering the channel. It
was spring now, so the water should be higher and faster, but
tonight it looked above a normal spring level. He could only see a
handful of lumpish shadows raising their backs above the surface. A
week of warm weather had brought an abrupt end to winter in the
western reaches of the Potomac watershed and suddenly melted heavy
accumulations of snow and ice. Lee guessed that the water they had
to cross might be five or six feet deep and rising.

“Looks like the river’s come up.”

“Maybe,” Cy said, gazing out toward the dark
shape of the island. “Not enough to worry about. Long as we keep
moving.”

Lee held the green canoe steady as Cy
climbed in, then lifted the bow from the bank and pushed the hull
forward into the water. He stepped into the black canoe lightly
with one foot and pushed off the bank, then followed Cy out into
the eddy.

“What part of the island are we shooting
for?” Cy said as Lee paddled alongside.

Lee pointed directly across the river, then
swung his arm a few degrees downstream. “Tail end. On the far side
there’s an eddy where we can pull up to a beach. Got a fair current
right here, so we’ll need to face upstream and ferry over. Follow
me.”

He took a stroke on each side and his canoe
glided past Cy’s. After crossing the eddy line, he set the canoe
against the current at a fifteen-degree angle and stroked
repeatedly on the port side to keep the stern pointed upstream,
aiming well above the upper end of the island. The weight of the
dead man in his boat made the canoe feel sluggish and unresponsive.
As hard as he paddled, the canoe still drifted downstream as it
rode sideways across the current toward the island. He looked to
his left to chart his progress. He would miss the tail end of the
island, but not by much. Directly below the island the current
would be minimal, so it would be easy for him to paddle up to the
tail.

He looked to his right. Cy was following at
the same angle but losing ground to the current. The body and all
those coins are slowing you down, Lee thought. The island was broad
enough at its mid-point that the eddy below it extended a few
hundred feet downstream. So even if Cy missed the island, he could
paddle back up inside the eddy. Lee refocused on his own boat when
he felt the barely-submerged skin of a rock brush the canoe’s hull
just behind his seat. He paddled hard on his left to keep the canoe
from drifting downstream onto it.

A few minutes more brought him into the eddy
below the island, and he felt the current diminish. He took a deep
breath and paddled more easily. The muscles in his chest and
shoulders burned, then grudgingly unclenched. He turned the canoe
to face straight upstream and took alternating strokes. Within
thirty feet of the island the current disappeared. He spun the
canoe to monitor Cy’s progress.

The ambient light reflected off the dark
water and he could see that Cy had finally reached the eddy below
the island and was paddling on alternate sides to head straight
upstream. But his ferry had carried him to the eddy’s tapered base,
where the split currents converged and began to regain strength.
With the additional weight and downstream distance, he had to work
much harder than Lee had to attain the island. After paddling in
place for almost a minute, he passed a critical point and began to
make headway. When Cy finally drew alongside, he was gasping. He
shipped his paddle and slumped forward, hands on his knees and
breathing heavily. “Damn current is a lot stronger than it
looks.”

“Spring runoff. Feels like it’s still
rising.”

“Then let’s get these poor bastards in the
ground and get the hell out of here.” He gestured toward the
island’s Virginia-facing shore. “That our landing?”

“That’s it. It’s a sandy beach when the
river’s down.”

Cy grunted and jammed his paddle into the
quiet water, taking short strokes. Lee followed and they eased up
the island’s Virginia side, navigating between rocks to a spot
where the rising river lapped at long grass and low brush. They got
out and pulled the canoes ashore. Lee grabbed the shovel from his
boat while Cy pulled the toolbox from under his seat.