Silence.
I held my breath and waited for the man to answer. My mother screamed at someone in the distance. Something about injustice being the highlight of her life, about being double-crossed. Her voice shook me into Bertie, causing her to lean toward me a little. I buried my head in her back and tried to be still, but it was hard.
“Well now. You know your place. I like that.” His toe tapped on the wood floor. Five taps. Ten taps. Fifteen—“All right. Come on down behind me.”
Bertie moved backward as he came further into my room, and I made my feet follow her. He slammed doors and rustled my dresses, and his knees popped when he knelt to look under something. “Some of your clientele into having you dress up like little girls?”
Aunt Bertie sniffed and turned her head.
He snickered. “Just follow me and let’s get this loaded train of crazy on down to the station.”
His feet bounced down the stairway ahead of us. Bertie didn’t change her normal hip-swinging walk when she followed. I had to fight to keep up with her. In my head, I counted the stairs to the second floor landing, turned, and counted the steps to the bottom.
A wet breeze moved through the folds of Bertie’s robe. The front door was open, and from the smell of the rain mixed with oil, I could tell that the door was close. Bertie reached around and pinched me, my signal to slip out and run. I crawled out from under the wispy material, hot and confused, looking for the open door.
The officer was shorter than Bertie. His dark suit swallowed his skinny body. His eyes almost popped out of his face. “Hey!”
My mother’s voice called from her office. “Emmaline! There you are. I never meant for this to happen. You have to believe me. Your mommy loves you.”
Hot tears stung my eyes, and I started to run to her, but another man stepped out of the shadows. All fat over muscle, with one hand wrapped in bandages. The Judge. He wore the same ink blue suit, and the tips of his fingers shook.
His face softened when he saw me. He almost smiled.
“Judge, what do you want me to do?” The policeman’s hands came at me like pinchers on a crab.
The Judge was lost in me. He took a step toward me and held out his bloody hand. “Wouldn’t you like to live a better life, little beauty? In my house? With me?”
His bulldog head nodded toward me, and the officer pounced. He reached around Bertie and tried to grab me, but I slipped through his fingers and ran. Out the front door. Into the rain. Away. My mother’s screams were sucked into the wet wind. I ducked my head to keep the water out of my eyes and ran around the side of the house. Shouts echoed through the courtyard, and feet galloped after me.
I crawled on my hands and knees to get under a house. It was all open underneath, and I could squeeze out the other side. As I worked my way along the dirt, I kept my eyes on the alley at the far end, the one that led to my school. If I waited until the footsteps ran away, I could sneak through the alley and run across the street. Maybe one of the nuns would open the door and let me in.
I put my head between my knees and counted. Ten. Fifty. One hundred. Five hundred. When I listened for the officer, all I heard were the sounds of people laughing and singing on Bourbon Street. I smelled the air, but it was all dirt and Bertie’s roses. No cigarettes or sweaty men.
I slipped out from under the house and ran down the alley as fast as I could. When I came to the street, I hurried toward the light in the window at school. One light.
It was my only hope.
EIGHT
Tuesday. October 4, 1977. New Orleans, Louisiana
Rain. It tumbled down the end of my nose and slid into the street outside the bar. The French Quarter. I don’t know how I knew it. Even if I didn’t recall my other assignments, New Orleans was a strange familiar.
I let go of the door knob and slipped into a different day, months from where I started. A visit to the bar erased all sense of time, just like it obliterated the words in my journal. A few hours with the Bartender could be six months, six years in the living world.
Along Bourbon Street, people ebbed and flowed in a sea of stale alcohol and human piss. I stopped long enough to wipe my face and secure my hat before I pushed into the party, fighting to stay upright in the midst of them, when an old woman bumped smack into me and stopped. Blocked my way.
She wobbled a little when she winked a fish eye at me. “Would you like to buy a lucky bead?” Her voice rang with an accent. Germanic, maybe. I had more experience with Spanish and French. She was one of those New Orleans eccentrics, indigenous to the place. Her gold football helmet was streaked with rain, and her dress was a black shroud that stuck to her sparse frame.
She opened her shriveled hand and flashed it. A single purple bead. Glass, it was, with a ring of smoke through its center.
My pocket burned next to my groin. The two dollar bill. The closer I got to finding my next charge, the hotter it got, until I would have to release it into the air. It would lead me to the person I sought. Now that I was out of the bar, my need to find my charge consumed me, like an alcoholic to the next drink.
I swallowed and pushed past the Bead Lady. She would find a buyer. Part of experiencing the Quarter was a little give-and-take between drunks and eccentrics. It made everyone on the street the same.
Someone swerved into me from behind, knocked me off-kilter. I hung there, suspended above a river of Bourbon Street pollution. My eyes registered a blue dress and tangled blonde hair. When she looked over her shoulder, her eyes branded a place in my heart.
Pain tore through my right kneecap as it struck the concrete, the momentum hurtling me face forward into the thick, coursing muck. I reached out to stop my fall, but at the same moment, a pair of strong hands gripped my shoulders. Jerked me to a halt. I turned away from the stinking bilge to meet my savior.
The football helmet and fish eyes. The Bead Lady helped me to my feet. She did not blink. “You see what happens to those who do not buy the lucky bead.”
“Come on, Bead Lady. Someone just plowed into me, and you’re still trying to sell me beads?”
“The lucky bead wards off all bad luck.”
I gripped her arms and put weight on my leg, gritting my teeth against the hot waves of pain. I thought back to the expedition, to the time I fell over the side of a sandstone cliff along the Missouri. Had to dig my knife into the soft dirt to catch myself. My arms were sore for days, but I ignored them. It usually helped to push through the pain. I ground my teeth and shifted my weight.
The Bead Lady’s stale breath blew into the space next to me. “The lucky bead will help you find what you seek.”
“Who says I’m seeking anything?” I looked around for the little girl, but she was replaced by a couple of men. Plainclothes. They worked their way through the crowd. Shook their badges and showed a picture. When they got close, my gut lurched at the blonde hair and longing eyes.
I turned back to the Bead Lady. “Tell you what. I’ll buy your lucky bead if you can tell me something about my future.”
“Lucky bead make lucky future. You buy.” She waved it, hypnotic-like, in front of her pit eyes.
Of all people, I should’ve been superstitious enough to believe in the luck of a spell. The natives cast plenty of spells on my travels with Clark: for rain, for safety for our team, for clear passes and a herd of buffalo at the right time. We were lucky, more times than I could count.
But, as I wiped rain out of my eyes, I remembered: my luck ran out on a moonless October night. It couldn’t be resurrected by a gaudy purple bead.
Ignoring the voice in my head, I reached into my pocket for my wad of cash. “Here’s a dollar. Give me the lucky bead.”
She took my money and put the bead in my palm without touching me. I closed my hand around it and followed the path of the little girl. I blinked more rain out of my eyes and scanned the street. Where was s
he?
In a crack of thunder, the wind blew that two dollars out of my hand. It fluttered over people’s heads, but I could see it, lit up like a lantern in front of an alley, right before it disappeared. Sucked into a crack in the wall.
Panicked, I shoved the drunks that stood between me and the two dollars. If I lost sight of it, I might miss my last chance. Doomed to the back side of a bar, one of the most forgotten men in history. A Nowhere man.
It was time to rewrite that story.
I reached an uneven wall of coral stucco and followed it, until I found a door that opened into the alley. As I swung it back, a tease of cool air hit my face. Inside, the rain pinged on the metal roof like a classical music piece I’d heard long ago. Teased from a fiddle under a stardusted Western sky.
The two dollars strobed on the rock pavement beyond the entrance. I slid into the dark, feeling along the wall with one hand while reaching toward my money with the other. As my skin touched it, I heard a whisper, or a sigh. Further off in the darkness. Caused my heart to lurch.
The money singed my fingerprints, but I held onto it. Soles clattered on wet stone and mingled with the sound of my breathing. I took another step, and a shuffle scraped in the dark.
“Who’s there?”
I stopped breathing and waited for an answer. My ears strained to hear through the barrage of Quarter sounds.
A sob.
It ripped through me, followed by a crash. Steps ran through the dark, and a ghost brushed past me. I fished the air with my hand and caught the body of a child.
The little girl.
I dragged her around a corner, to a shaft of weak light from a high window. Knotted blonde hair and eyes rimmed in red. I gazed into them and knew she was the person I sought. She kicked my shins with her Sunday shoes, powerful in her fury. Her fear.
When she tried to bite through the leather of my coat, I grabbed her other arm and turned her to face me. Still, she thrashed against the grip of my hands. The two dollars, it burned like a bonfire, lodged between her left arm and my palm. I let it float to the ground. It twisted through the light and landed at her feet. Instead of following its slow trajectory, she turned her dirt-streaked face up to me.
I kneeled in front of her to get myself eye-to-eye. “Let me help you.”
“Did the bad m-man send you to find me, Mister?”
“Who?” I thought back to the men on the street, the ones brandishing a badge and a picture. “I may be many things, but I’m no bad man. I promise you that.”
Her face was red with crying, and her chest heaved with the kind of helpless kid noise that hacked into my heart. “H-how do I k-know that? I just ran from a b-bad man, and he’s got people that look like police chasing me.”
“Did you see these men who were chasing you?”
“Y-yes.”
“Were any of them dressed like me?” I looked down at my stained denims, emphasis of a point.
“I don’t r-remember. Everything happened so fast.”
She studied my face through her tears, recording every detail of my dress, from the crumpled brim of my hat to my wet leather jacket and jeans. When she got to the ground, she stopped, transfixed. Her voice was quiet when she spoke.
“Two dollars? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a two dollar bill before.”
“Merry. Call me Merry.”
“That’s a funny name for a man. Especially one big and scary like you.”
“I use it so I’m not so big and scary.”
A smile played at the edges of her mouth, and she swiped at her cheeks. “Isn’t Merry a girl’s name?”
“Nah. That’s Mary. Like the Virgin. My name’s Merry, like Merry Christmas. Only I’m not very happy most of the time.”
“Me, either. It’s been years since I’ve been happy.”
I had to smile at her measure of time.
“Mister Merry. I like that name.”
“What’s yours?”
“Emmaline, like ‘Emma, hang the clothes on the line.’ People always get it wrong. Emmaline Cagney. I’m nine.”
She stuck out her hand, and I shook it. Old-time gravity and a deep bow worked wonders on ladies of any age. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Emmaline Cagney. About this running away from bad men business—”
She jerked her hand away. “Please, PLEASE don’t make me go home. I can’t go back there. Ever. My mommy—mother—does business with bad men. The worst of them is after me. The Judge. Pure evil where his heart should be. That’s what Aunt Bertie says. I know if I go back—”
“Wait, Emmaline. Slow down.” I looked at the two dollars. It pulsed in time with her beating heart. I closed my eyes, and I knew I had to help this little girl. Save her from a tragic end no one would remember. Rewrite her story before it ruined her life. When I opened my eyes, they met hers. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t take you back there.”
“You won’t?”
I was surprised to hear my voice shake when I replied. Did my reactions always get clogged up with emotion when I found my charge? I closed my eyes and tried to recall one image—anything—from a Nowhere time before. Blackness. Quiet. Nothing was all I saw. “Emmaline. I’m going to take you away from here.”
Her liquid eyes widened. “To Daddy? All the way in Nashville?”
“Yes. I’m taking you to your father in Nashville.”
My quiet heart twisted in my chest when I said the words, because I knew the way I would take her.
The Natchez Trace.
I remembered the last time I stood on that forgotten ribbon of earth, a path worn down by thousands of years of listless feet. Air that mingled with the ghosts of buffalo and red men, of thieves and bankrupt souls. I shuddered. Phantoms. They would be everywhere, especially after what happened to me the last time I rode through its tunnel of hardwood trees.
It was the second gunshot that snuffed out my life. That robbed me of death. I was convinced it took away the full measure of my name, my immortal mark on the timeline of the earth. That propelled me into Nowhere.
NINE
“What’s the matter, Mister Merry?”
Her voice pulled me back from the shadowed haunts of an ancient trail. To the present. To my last chance at redemption. To a rainy New Orleans night and a lost girl named Emmaline.
I sat back to take the weight off my knees. “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. Tell me about your daddy.”
Her smile was like sunlight. “I write my daddy most days. Letters. I write the best letters. Decorated with hearts and flowers. And music notes just for him. That’s what he does for a job. Plays music and sings. I mean, he used to, anyway.”
“You don’t know what he’s doing now?”
She reached down the front of her dress and pulled out a wad of wet paper, bound with a red string, and held it out to me. “I have these letters from him. Aunt Bertie gave them to me right before I ran.” She rubbed her fingers over frayed edges, like her mind could consume the words by touch. “He wrote me all the time, see? But my mother wouldn’t let me have his letters. Aunt Bertie saved a few of them, though. Maybe we can find him that way.”
I tried to touch a smeared postmark. Indiscriminate. Illegible. She pulled them back and cradled them in her arms, her eyes clouded with suspicion. “Why should I trust you with Daddy’s letters? How do I know you’re not just another bad man?”
I kept myself neutral. No big movements. Nothing to give her cause to flee. “You can’t know my intentions, Emmaline. I wish I could do something to make you trust me, but I can’t. All I know is that’s quite a stack of letters. Your father must love you very much to pen such a volume of words.”
“It’s six whole months’ worth.” Her eyes remained shuttered, and she gripped the letters to her heart. “It feels like forever since my mother divorced Daddy. I haven’t seen him since th
en. Not one time. My mother fixed it with the Judge so that he couldn’t see me. Not ever.”
“How did she do that?”
“She did her mothery things, I guess.” Her eyes grazed wet stucco and glass, humid air and sky. “When she does those things, she gets whatever she wants. Anyway. Daddy told me not to worry. He said he’d write to me every day, but my mother must have hidden his letters, because I only got a few. Until tonight, when Aunt Bertie gave me these.” She stopped for breath and studied me. Took a step back. “How did you know about my daddy? Who told you?”
A smart little firecracker. Just what I needed. My knees groaned when I crawled up on them again. I’d been around too damn long.
“Emmaline, I know what it feels like to lose a father. I guess that longing—that hole in the soul—well, I recognize it in other people.”
“You mean, your daddy was taken away from you, too?”
“Not the same way, but yes. When I was younger than you. That’s why I want to help you find your dad. To help you avoid growing up with that empty place I had. It’s a job I can be proud of.
She took a step toward me. “But how did you know it was your job? Who gave it to you?”
Even when she scowled, she radiated fragile beauty. I leaned forward and put myself on eye level with her, like convincing her that I was the man to help her find her father was the only thing that mattered in my life. Failure was easy to face again, because I couldn’t remember what it felt like. Except for the failure of my life, the ending that drove me into this timeless place, this Nowhere.
I gave her my best smile. “My intuition told me. Do you understand?”
“No. Not really.”
I wobbled on my knees. Winced. “Do you have any imaginary friends?”
“Yes!” She hopped from foot to foot. “The Wonder Twins. One is the real me, and the other is the pretend me. The girl I’d be if my mother would let me. I’d wear pants and get dirty and have all kinds of adventures.”
To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis Page 4
