So Cold the River (2010) (53 page)

Delicious. You could never get too old for a taste like that.

She set the glass down, licked her lips, and walked to the front door. There was not so much as a twinge in her knees or hips,
and her back felt strong and supple, ready for heavy lifting. In fact, her
walk
felt supple, felt like the old head-turning walk of her youth. She hadn’t forgotten how to move.

She’d left a pair of heels beside the door, beautiful black heels that she hadn’t seen in years. What they were doing down
here, she didn’t know, but given how steady her legs were this afternoon, she’d rather have them on than those silly white
tennis shoes.

Off with the tennis shoes and on with the heels, then out the door and onto the porch. Down the steps and into the yard, and
then she turned to the left and walked past the house and toward the empty field beyond. All around her the clouds were dark
but the funnel remained white. Odd, because it should have been picking up debris by now, lots of it, absorbing the dirt to
change into that fierce gray you always saw in the photographs.

It roared just as she’d known it would—the sound of a train.
It wasn’t a frightening sound, though. Familiar, really. Took her mind back to other places. Why, it sounded just like the
old Monon, the train of her youth.

She walked to the edge of the yard and waited for it, and she couldn’t keep the smile off her face now or the tears off her
cheeks. Silly, to stand here and cry as she faced it, but the cloud was just so beautiful. There was magic here, and she’d
been allowed to see it.

What more could you ask?

C
AMPBELL STOOD WITH A
lantern in his hand and Shadrach Hunter at his side as the rain poured down around them. The boy worked in a shallow ditch
below them, pulling aside broken slabs of limestone.

“See there!” Campbell shouted. “There it is, Shadrach. The spring, just as I promised.”

The lantern light cast a white glow on the shallow, softly bubbling pool that was exposed as the boy removed the rocks. When
Campbell held the lantern directly over the top of it, the pool seemed to absorb the light and hide it.

“Boy, get him a bottle of it.”

The boy took a green glass bottle from his coat pocket. He removed the stopper and held it upside down so Shadrach could see
that it was empty, and then he knelt and dipped the bottle into the pool. When it was full, he straightened and handed it
to Shadrach, who took a drink.

“You tell me,” Campbell said.

“Tastes like honey,” Shadrach Hunter said. His deep voice sounded uneasy. “Like liquid sugar.”

“I know it. This is what the boy’s uncle put into that liquor, and there ain’t never been any other liquor like it. You know
that, Shadrach. You know that.”

“Yes,” Shadrach said and returned the bottle to the boy.

Campbell grinned, then shoved the boy with his free hand and said, “Cover it.”

The boy went back down into the ditch and replaced the stones. When he was done, the water could no longer be seen, and scarcely
heard.

“Well, there you go,” Campbell said, switching the lantern from one hand to the other. It hissed when rain hit the glass.
“You said you wouldn’t give me a dime unless you saw the spot, knew that it was real. You seen it now, haven’t you? It’s real
enough.”

“It is, yes.”

Campbell tilted his head back, his face lost to the shadows. “Well, then. My part of the bargain is complete. Yours is not.”

Shadrach shifted, brought a hand out of his coat pocket and wiped it across his face, clearing some of the moisture away.

“Let’s bargain while we walk,” he said. “I want to get out of this rain.”

He started away from the spring without giving Campbell a chance to argue. There was a hill leading away from the spring,
and as he walked up it, Campbell and the boy fell in behind him. They walked into the woods.

“What’s your plan?” Shadrach said.

“My plan? You know what it is! There’s a fortune sitting here, a fortune pooling out of the rocks. That old man never made
more than a dozen jugs of whiskey at a time. He was a fool.
Lacked the ambition to see what could be gained from this, the fortune that was waiting. Well, the boy knows how to make the
liquor, too.”

“So you intend to… expand.” Shadrach had his face turned away from Campbell, walking through the woods with a brisk stride.

“Expand?” Campbell stared at Shadrach as if he’d spoken in Greek. “Hell, that’s too soft a word. I’m going to make more money
than anybody in this valley ever dreamed of. I’ve got contacts in Chicago—Capone and all the rest of them. The network is
there. All we need to do is handle the supply.”

“And you want me as an investor.”

“That’s all you need to be. You’ll get your share returned tenfold by the end of the year. Believe that.”

“Why me?” They’d crested the hill now and were walking along the spine of a wooded ridge. Campbell was on the left, closest
to the brink.

“Hell, boy, everybody else is busted! You ain’t figured that out yet? You’re the last man left in the valley with dollars
to his name.”

Shadrach Hunter smiled. “You want to see my dollars?”

“I’d like to utilize them, yes.”

Hunter stopped walking. He reached in his jacket and removed a silver money clip. Peeled the bills off and counted them. Fourteen
bills—all ones.

“There you go,” he said, replacing the money in the clip and offering it to Campbell. “That’s my stockpile, Bradford.”

Campbell looked at him in disbelief. “What in the hell is the matter with you? I always heard you was cagey smart for a colored.
Ruthless. You think I’m making a joke here? There’s a fortune to be made!”

“I believe you,” Shadrach Hunter said. “But I don’t have any money. That’s what I got—fourteen dollars.”

“Bullshit.”

Hunter shrugged and put the money clip back into his pocket. “Ain’t no shit but true shit, Bradford.”

“Everyone knows you been skimming for years. Just sticking it away somewhere. A damned miser, that’s what you are.”

“No, that’s what the gossiping old fools in this valley
say
I am. Truth is different.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t have to, but refusing to believe ain’t going to line your pockets with dollars that I simply do not have.”

It was silent for a while. Then Campbell said, “You could have told me that days ago, you son of a bitch.”

“Wasn’t going to see the spring if I did that, was I? I wanted to know if there was anything to your talk. Now, look here,
we can work on this. Find a way to raise a stake. I’ve tasted that liquor, and I believe what you say—there’s gold to be made
from it. I just don’t have the cash you need. But I’ll work with you to see if—”

“Now you know where it is,” Campbell said. His voice had dropped in volume and darkened in tone. He’d turned to face Hunter,
and his back was to the drop-off of the ridge now, no more than a few steps away. “You played me for a fool, got me to show
you where it is.”

“Yes, and now that I know it’s real, we can try and figure out a way to raise—”

Campbell had to move the lantern again to go for his gun. He’d been holding the lantern in his right hand and he clearly didn’t
like to shoot with his left, because he switched the lantern before he drew the weapon. That gave Shadrach Hunter enough time
to see what was coming, and he actually fired first.

He shot through his coat pocket, and the gun was caught pointing down. The first bullet drilled Campbell square in the
knee and dropped him, and the second went through his left side. Campbell finally cleared his gun then and returned fire from
the ground, one shot that caught Shadrach Hunter in the forehead.

Hunter was dead by the time he hit the ground. Campbell’s mistake was in trying to stand. He lurched up but his wounded right
leg collapsed beneath him. He gave a howl of pain and then fell backward, hit the ground, and rolled. The gun came free from
his hand and then he slid over the lip of the ridge and there was a long rustling of leaves and a cry of pain.

“Damn it, boy, help me!”

The boy walked over to Shadrach Hunter and stared down at him. Then he leaned down and picked up Campbell’s weapon and walked
to the crest of the ridge.

“Boy! Get down here and help me!”

The boy wrapped one hand around a thin sapling and leaned out over the edge. Campbell had slid all the way down the slope
and into the edge of a wide pool of water, was in water up to his chest. He had one hand wrapped around a hanging root, and
now he grunted and tried to heave himself up out of the pool. He couldn’t make it. He slid back down into the water and only
the hand on the root kept him from going under. His efforts had placed him only deeper in the pool.

“You got one chance to get down here and help me, boy. You waste another second and they’ll be picking you up in pieces for
weeks to come. You hear me?”

The boy didn’t speak. He sat down on the top of the ridge and watched silently. The rain was still pouring down, and the water
in the pool was rising and spinning. Campbell’s grip on the root loosened as the water tried to pull him away, but he caught
hold again and splashed, fighting for his life.

“Get down here, boy. Get your worthless ass down here unless you want to end up like your uncle.”

Campbell’s voice was fading. His face was stark white. The boy remained silent.

“You don’t understand what you’re tangling with,” Campbell said. “You should by now. You been around me long enough to get
a sense. You think I’m just another man? That what you think? I’ve got power you can’t even fathom, boy. This valley’s given
it to me. You think you’ll be safe from me if I drown out here? You’re full of shit. There ain’t no hiding from me.”

The boy dragged the lantern closer to him. He held the pistol in both hands.

Campbell gave a howl of fury and tried once again to pull himself out of the water. This time the root tore, almost pulling
free completely, and Campbell was submerged for a moment before he tugged himself high enough to get his face clear.

“You’re going to let me drown,” he cried. “You’re going to let me
die!
”

The boy didn’t answer.

“I’ll have you in the end,” Campbell said in a voice so soft it was hard to hear over the rain. “You will feel my fury, boy,
everyone in this whole damn valley will. You think you’re safe if I’m dead? Boy, I promise you this—ain’t nobody safe from
me unless they carry both my name and my blood. You understand that? Only my family will be spared, you little bastard. And
you ain’t family. I’ll come for you. That’s a vow. I will come for you and anyone else who doesn’t share my blood and my name.”

The dangling root tore free. Campbell gave a harsh cry of surprise and pain, and then he slipped backward and was lost to
the water. When he surfaced again, he was upside down and motionless. The boy sat and stared at him. After a while, he picked
up a few sticks and threw them at the body. There was no response.

He stood and picked his way carefully down the ridge and out to the edge of the pool. Then he set the lantern down, took off
his jacket and shoes and rolled his pants up above his knees, removed the green glass bottle from his pocket, and waded into
the water with it in his hand.

Campbell continued to float facedown, thumping against the stone that surrounded the pool. The boy reached him and turned
him over, exposed his white face. The eyes were still open.

He looked at the dead man’s face for a moment, and then he shifted the body and found the wound on Campbell’s left side. He
pressed the bottle into the wound and watched as blood leaked out of him and joined the spring water that was already inside
the bottle. He squeezed out blood until the bottle was full of the mixture, and then he took it away and fastened the stopper.

When the bottle was back in his pocket, the boy grasped Campbell’s shoulders and began to tug him through the water. He waded
along the southern rock wall, waist deep, moving carefully. Here the lantern light was dim. He stopped moving at a point where
water gurgled between rocks, slipping out of the pool and back below ground. He tried to push Campbell into the dark gap,
but the dead man’s shoulders snagged and held. The boy turned him slowly, rotating him in the water, and slid him in feet-first.
He went in more easily this time, up to the waist, and then the boy placed his hands above both shoulders and shoved hard,
grunting with effort. The body hung up for a moment, but then the water rose up and slapped against the stone and pushed the
corpse out of sight beneath the earth.

He waded back to shore and put on his shoes and jacket. He checked the bottle and placed it gingerly back in his pocket. He
then took the lantern and the pistol, climbed the hill again and returned to Shadrach Hunter’s body, and knelt and removed
the money clip with the fourteen dollars and put it in his pocket.

He rose again, with the lantern in one hand and the pistol in the other, and walked on into the dark woods. A train whistle
was shrilling out over the hills. He walked toward the sound.

The lantern’s glow turned smaller and continued to fade until it was barely visible in the shadows, and there was nothing
but darkness and the sound of rushing water. Then the lantern began to grow larger and brighter, as if the boy had stopped
somewhere out in the woods and decided to return. The light grew and grew until the dark woods melted away entirely and there
was nothing but that gleaming, flickering light and…

Sky.

Gray sky.

And a voice.

Claire’s voice.

These are the things he remembers. The lantern coming back through the dark woods, the warm flickering light, the gray sky,
Claire’s voice.

He is told that he shouldn’t be able to remember a thing. That he had been under the water for fifteen minutes before they
got him out.

He learns new terms in the hospital: apneic, which means not breathing; cyanotic, which means displaying a bluish discoloration;
PEA, or pulseless electrical activity, which means an electrocardiogram test records some heart function although there is
no pulse. The heart still lives, in other words, but it is incapable of completing its job.