Skavenger's Hunt

by Mike Rich

  Eeeeeeesh, that is the strongest handshake I’ve ever felt in my life!

  “Good to meet you, Henry Babb.” Clyde thankfully let go. “It is a little late, though, isn’t it? A young man of your age in a place like this? How old are you, Henry? Ten?”

  “Twelve,” he answered. “Thirteen next month.”

  “Ah, good for you,” Clifford said before taking a quick sip.

  The brothers really didn’t appear to be all that interested in whether he was twelve, thirteen, or a hundred years old for that matter. Ever so calmly, Clifford set down his beer on the edge of the table.

  “Let me ask you a question, Henry,” his even—yet now somewhat cold—expression suggesting he wouldn’t ask twice. “Why are you and your friends here? Looking at each and every thing inside the place?”

  Clyde checked his pocket watch. “At half past twelve in the morning,” he added. The snapping click as he closed the watch told Henry all he needed to know.

  They’re hunters! They’ve been everywhere we’ve been. Made the phone call. Saw Vanderbilt. Now they’re here—but that means they haven’t found it! They’d already be gone if they had!

  Clifford broke into a thin smile under his slicked-back thoroughbred hair. “There’s a lot of money at stake here, Henry.” He was trying to sound casual, but failing. “Our father’s rich, but even his money’s a fraction of what Skavenger’s offering. A fortune both enormous and incalculable, witnessed by New York’s finest bankers. Remember?”

  Both men moved an intimidating step closer to Henry. He was eye level at best with the second-lowest button on their suits.

  “Now,” Clifford calmly continued. “If you and your friends are smart enough to share what you’re looking for here, I’m fairly sure we could reach some kind of agreement—an agreement that might help us both.”

  Clyde was in the process of finishing off his beer as well. He issued a gentlemanly belch, before saying with genuine appreciation, “It’s remarkable you got this far, Henry. Skavenger always makes the first clues the most difficult. Gets the number of hunters down in a hurry.”

  A glass crashed to the floor in a far corner, and Henry waited to hear someone dragging a flailing Jack, or Ernie, or even Mattie toward the closest door. But there was barely a ripple in the steady buzz of mumbling drunkenness.

  “What do you say, Henry? We have a deal?” Clifford asked.

  A deal? A deal with you? Sorry, my deal’s about getting back home. I’ve got enough to worry about with Hiram Doubt.

  Even under the pressurized gaze of the Coltons, Henry had no trouble keeping Doubt’s threat at the front of his mind. A threat to eliminate his fellow hunters one by one by one, starting off with Jack—who, odds were now good, was his great-great-grandfather. And if Doubt eliminated Jack? Henry would never even be born.

  “Well?” Clyde asked him.

  A quartet of customers broke into a loose semblance of song a few tables away from them—something about a girl leaving someone somewhere. Not much chance it would help with the twin’s dwindling level of patience, nor would what Henry had decided to say next.

  “I’m sorry,” Henry finally answered them. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  Clifford shook his head and sighed.

  “Foolish boy. Foolish, foolish boy, Henry,” he quietly said to him, tapping his fingers and waiting another second before raising his voice above the din.

  “BARTENDER!!” he bellowed. “You got a bunch of low-life kids running around this place!”

  Henry had already counted four bartenders on duty—and one of them had hopped over the bar and was storming toward him. In a flash, the entire room was roaring with shouts and laughter, each drunken patron stepping back to create a corridor toward Henry and the others.

  Knowing the bartender’s not-so-tender hands were about to grab him, Henry looked up at Clyde and Clifford.

  “Should have talked to us,” Clifford said with a privileged shrug. “Good luck making it out of New York.”

  “Get the hell outta here, ya punk!” the bartender snarled as he dragged Henry across the sticky floor, the remnants of more than a few lukewarm beers finding their way onto the twelve-year-old’s face. He would have probably been doused with more had he—and his three fellow minors—not been tossed straight through the door onto the sidewalk.

  The door slammed behind them. Some, but not all, of the boisterous yelling from inside was muffled. Another dark billow of smoke curled out of the windows above them.

  Jack was the first to sit up, resting his hands on his knees as he gave his soaked hair a good shake. “Well, fellow ragamuffins? Anything?” he asked the three of them, surprisingly calm.

  “Nothing,” Henry answered, upset with himself.

  “Nothing? Nothing?” Ernie had to laugh. “You got us thrown out of our very first bar!”

  “Speak for yourself there, pal,” Jack said, shaking beer off his hands as well, unable to hold back a half laugh himself.

  Henry noticed that Mattie, though, wasn’t laughing. She was far too engaged in studying an empty beer glass she’d managed to hang on to during her short flight from interior to exterior—a beer glass that was quite a bit cleaner and clearer than the others he’d seen inside.

  She gave it a scrub, held it up to the light, then closely looked at it again. Her eyes almost crossed for a second as she slowly spun it in her hand . . .

  . . . before her mouth broke into a small, triumphant smile. She handed the glass over to Henry.

  “Hold it up in the light, then relax your eyes,” she said to him as she sat back. “Read what’s down at the bottom. It’s really hard to see.”

  Henry looked at it longer than she had, enough that she seemed to grow concerned. “You see it yet?” she asked.

  See what? What am I supposed to—wait.

  There it was. And yes, it was really, really, really hard to see. A message that wrapped all the way around the base of the glass. Two lines’ worth.

  “I do see it!” he finally said, and Mattie rolled onto her back, shooting her arms up into the air in pure exultation.

  “YEEEEESSSSS!!!” she shouted to the sky.

  “Hey, hey, hey, stop.” Jack scooted over to block the window. “We don’t want anyone else seeing . . . whatever it is you two see. Down there at the bottom.”

  “I wanna see what’s down at the bottom,” Ernie said, reaching for the glass. He gave a long look at the same spot Mattie and Henry had studied. And for the longest of moments, it was obvious he didn’t see it.

  Until he did.

  “Well, whatta ya know,” he said with a growing grin as he slowly spun the glass. “Wouldja look at that.” Ernie tossed the glass over to Jack.

  “Hey, hey, HEY! Be careful!” Mattie gasped, but Jack reeled it in with ease, looking a touch perturbed that he was the last to get to look.

  But just like the rest of them, a short moment peering at the now-clear glass was all it took to produce one last smile. Jack read the words out loud.

  “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written nine years ago. Now to a new adventure. Journey to the gateway banks of Tom’s travels. Search there from noon till midnight on July fourteenth for your next key. Through the Natchez door and then two fathoms deep is where you’ll find it.”

  “Tom Sawyer! Skavenger’s favorite adventure!” Mattie laughed with delight as she stood up to retrieve her cape, still tucked in the wall. “Whatcha think about that, Jack?”

  He twirled the glass around to make sure there wasn’t anything they’d overlooked.

  “I think it is now very clear,” he told them all, “that our journey is about to leave Gotham.”

  THIRTEEN

  Westward

  IT WAS NIGHTTIME, or so Henry thought—quickly deciding it had been the sound of rain that had just nudged him awake.

  He’d gotten used to the steady loud rumbling of the locomotive, the occasional screech of the steel train wheels, and the rhythmic tilt of the railc
ar from side to side—so it was definitely the tip-tap patter of rain that had pulled him out of his sleep.

  Mmmkay. How many days now?

  It was easy to lose track of time, which for Henry was both a huge and ironic understatement.

  Every time he woke up—after ten hours of sleep the first night—the routine inside his head had been exactly the same. In the fogginess of fading slumber, he’d hear his mother knocking on his door, telling him Christmas breakfast was ready and, yes, that he’d need a heavier coat, and, no, he couldn’t go with Abigail Kentworth to Central Park.

  He let out a sad and deep breath.

  Mom.

  That was the other thing he did every time he woke up: kick himself for the tone he’d used Christmas Eve when she was busy handing down the rules.

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “Got it, Mom.”

  “Great. Perfect.”

  He’d regretted it then. He regretted it even more now—being as there was nothing he could do to make things right.

  She said she loved you. And the only thing you said was, “You too.” Kinda dropped the most important word there, buddy. “Love.”

  A louder sheet of heavy rainfall convinced him he was awake for good. He pulled the ledger sheet from his pocket, holding it up to a crack in the boxcar—which was really more of a storage car, with forward and back doors—to steal some light.

  They were all there. Every destination entry, including those now magically written in for each day of the rail trip out of New York.

  July 10th, 1885,—Central Park, New York

  July 10th, 1885—Telephone Exchange, Hell’s

  Kitchen, New York

  July 10th, 1885—Grand Central

  Depot, New York

  July 10th, 1885—The Vanderbilt

  Mansion, New York

  July 11th, 1885—The Jennings

  Establishment, New York

  July 12th, 1885—Pennsylvania Railroad,

  In Transit

  July 13th, 1885—Pennsylvania Railroad,

  In Transit

  July 14th, 1885—Pennsylvania Railroad,

  In Transit

  His eyes drifted to the upper right-hand corner. He’d picked up a pencil stub that Ernie had tossed away—privately writing down “Christmas Morning” along with the exact place he hoped Skavenger could help him find: “142 Central Park West, New York.”

  “Chief’s and Gigi’s home,” Henry quietly whispered to himself.

  He still had time, he knew, or at least he was still trying to convince himself; but he also knew he didn’t have forever until that last box would be filled.

  That’s when it’ll turn into forever right here in good ol’ 1885. Why’d I even get up and go into Chief’s study that night?

  Henry folded up the sheet and put it back, yawning and blinking his eyes. He’d slept next to a large storage box bearing the address of a Mrs. Mildred Parsons of St. Louis, Missouri. All of the address labels left were either from that city or somewhere nearby. Anyone with a trunk destined for a spot east of that had gotten off the train long ago.

  “You hungry?” he heard Mattie ask. She was sitting on a box belonging to a Mr. Robert Jeremy, and she was holding up a plate of whatever she’d bought for breakfast.

  Henry sat up. “Nope, not really,” he said as he stretched, not as stiff as the night before. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “Still nighttime. Closer to morning, I think,” she answered. “I couldn’t sleep. Kind of a big day. I think we’re only an hour away.”

  Mattie had slept through Pennsylvania, but she’d been awake through the short sliver of West Virginia, a good portion of Kentucky, and a fair share of Indiana. She nodded her head toward the pair of wooden trunks behind her, the train squeaking again as it leaned into a turn.

  “Jack and Ern have been out for hours,” she said, quietly laughing. “We could run off the tracks and they’d sleep right through it.”

  “Let’s not find out,” Henry said through a yawn that drew a smile out of her. “Like you said, big day ahead of us.”

  He reached in his other pocket to make sure the money Vanderbilt had given them was still there—which it was—always a relief. Didn’t need to be losing a dollar of that. The last thing the rail tycoon had told them that night was that every hunter who walked through his gargantuan door had received the same amount, which meant their team had received a total of four shares.

  The amount of cash Mr. The Second had given them also supported the first decision they’d made about the riddle—being as it was totally consistent with the cost of rail tickets to Missouri.

  Jack, though, had tossed out the smart suggestion that they save money not just by buying cheap tickets, but by not buying any tickets at all. Better to sneak onto one of the storage cars and save almost all their money for something more important down the road.

  Just in case they were wrong about the riddle.

  All four had quickly agreed “gateway” meant St. Louis, giving Ernie the chance to regale them with his Central Park knowledge of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Mattie, being a big fan of Tom Sawyer, had figured out that “Natchez” was the name of a riverboat, so it was a good start on both of those fronts.

  It was the last few words, however, that still had all of them stumped.

  The part about the door and the key being two fathoms deep.

  They all knew that “fathoms” meant water, specifically the depth of water, which, to be honest, didn’t sound too great to any of them. Was Skavenger’s next clue buried underwater? Underwater in the Mississippi River? Even worse, maybe “Natchez” wasn’t what Mattie thought it was, and instead was the town of Natchez, Mississippi.

  Three long days of railroad travel to St. Louis, and they still weren’t sure.

  The one stroke of good luck was that Mattie had befriended a rail porter named George, whose job was to manage not only the passenger cars in the middle of the train, but also to keep an eye on the half dozen storage cars at the back. This included the one they’d been hiding in the past few days. It was nice knowing there was someone, especially in an official capacity, who was watching out for them.

  Mattie scooted a newspaper across the floor to him: the Vevay Reveille of Switzerland County, Indiana.

  “Not much news about the hunt,” she said matter-of-factly, then added, “Course it is an Indiana newspaper.”

  Mattie rarely sounded too overwhelmed—and certainly never worried—by where they were in the hunt. She was different from Henry in that regard.

  “They did have a short article in the back about the groundskeepers at the Dakota being upset,” she chuckled. “I guess they’ve still got a few people digging around, thinking that’s where the first clue is.”

  Henry pulled the paper closer.

  He admired the fact that Mattie seemed unshakeable—even after he’d brought everyone up to speed about Clyde and Clifford Colton and their threatening words back at the bar. Henry had even delicately mentioned, without actually revealing Doubt’s name, the encounter behind the Vanderbilt Mansion, all with the intent of keeping the four of them on guard.

  Mattie had asked George to keep an eye out for twin brothers, or anyone else who looked like they might be trouble. She’d told him to let her know if he saw anyone suspicious, no matter what time of day or night it might be. Midnight, 3:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m. Didn’t matter.

  That was the other thing bothering Henry.

  How is it I go back more than a hundred years in one second, but once I get here everything feels the same? Days and nights feel like they’re exactly twenty-four hours. It’s crazy.

  The forward door of the storage car opened and the clanking noise of the train, along with a fresh swirl of rain, accompanied George the porter as he moved inside. He shook off the mist still clinging to him—and there was plenty of him to cling to—before wandering over to his young stowaways.

  George had told them the first hour they’d met, long after he�
�d decided not to kick them off, that he’d been born and raised in Pittsburgh. Now in his late twenties, he was carrying on the family railroad porter tradition started by his father, who right now was working on the same train way up ahead in the luxury cars. A couple of decades earlier, he’d actually served in the 6th US Colored Infantry Regiment of the Union Army, having seen battle in Virginia and North Carolina. George had beamed with pride telling that story.

  “Mornin’, you two,” the young porter cheerfully said, holding some food wrapped in a small towel. “I found some cheese up in the Parlor Car. Don’t worry, they’ll never miss it.”

  “Thanks, George,” both of them said.

  He waved ’em off and said, “Aw, it’s just a special treat for you kids finally gettin’ to where you’re goin’ this morning. Less than an hour now. Hopefully the sun’ll be shining by then.”

  He glanced around the car. “Other young gents still sleeping?”

  “They’re over there,” Mattie nodded to the other side, her eyes sticking tight to what was inside the towel. “This looks delicious. I’ll give you some money for it.”

  “Noooo, it’s my pleasure, little one,” he kindly assured her. “They would have thrown it away anyway. It’s not like anyone’s stealing it.”

  “It is, though, George.” Her steady smile slipped a bit. “You’re a good man for helping us out so much.”

  “Won’t be the last time.” The porter winked at her and smiled.

  Henry knew that Mattie had captured a big part of George’s heart. It seemed to be that way with anyone who spent time with her. It was how he felt about her too, that’s for sure.

  George meandered back toward the front door, which had somehow strayed back open. He closed it with a firm shove, tight as he could, and the collection of rolling and lumbering sounds faded as he shuffled back to the passenger car ahead of them.

  “I do hate thinking that,” Mattie admitted to Henry. “That we’re kinda stealing something.”

  Henry folded the newspaper and set it aside. “Come on, Mattie, it’s nothing. You heard what George said.”

  “It isn’t nothing,” she shook her head. “It’s what my father did. That’s why he’s in prison right now.”