I pulled her closer. I could feel her heart hammering against my hip. “Most animals in this neighborhood don’t bother people unless we bother them. Besides, it was probably a deer, and deer don’t eat people.”
“A deer like Bambi?” She broke away and skipped around the path. “Oh, I would love to pet little Bambi. Can we go find it?”
“What did I just say? About bothering the animals?”
“That we shouldn’t. But I just want to pet it, and petting means love.”
“Em, to a wild animal, people mean death. I doubt a deer would let you get close enough to pet it anyway. If we see a deer, just look, all right?”
She kicked through leaves and swung her hand in mine. “Okay. How do you know so much about animals, Merry? And the woods and stuff?”
“Remember when I told you about going out West? Part of my job was to find new plants and animals and record them for science.”
“Really? Were you scared of any of them?”
Was I scared? Of course I was. Once, a grizzly took after me. My gun locked up when I tried to shoot. I never knew how fast an angry bear could run until I took off with its breath on my back. When I splashed into the river, it stopped, like it was afraid of the water. I still didn’t know why that bear ran off when it could’ve made a decent meal of me. It was one of the most frightening moments of the expedition.
Emmaline punched my side. “I bet he knew you wouldn’t taste very good.”
I had to laugh along with her.
Late afternoon, we pushed into a clearing. I sneezed when I caught a whiff of mown grass.
“God bless you, Merry.”
I bit my tongue to keep from telling her whatever god there was abandoned me, left me Nowhere, a long time ago. Instead, I focused on picking our campsite. Set off from the road, surrounded by thick trees. If cars went by overnight, they wouldn’t see our fire. The grassy space was open enough for a tent, and in the middle, a ruined brick wall cut through it. I looked through one of two window holes and found a ground down hearth set off by jagged brick and Virginia creeper.
A monument to “forgotten.”
Free of my pack, the light breeze cooled the sweat ring on the back of my shirt. When I pitched the canvas tent I bought for Emmaline, it made a crude palace for the princess of the rambling wall. Inside, I set up her sleeping bag and arranged her pack along the back. Even zipped open a flap, a window to let the stars lull her to sleep. I couldn’t wait to show her how much I knew about trail life. I surveyed the inside of her tent, capable again for the first time since the bar. Since New Orleans.
Her voice floated to me with the wind. I stuck my head out of the opening.
“Em?”
No answer.
I ducked out of the tent and poked around the clearing. On the other side of the wall, blank space greeted me. Beyond it, smashed bricks broke through the soil next to the tree line. I took a few paces into the forest. “Emmaline! Where are you?”
The leaves applauded her disappearing act.
I ran to the line of trees on the other side and cupped my hands to shout again. That’s when I saw her. She stood on the trail we walked earlier, waving her arms and talking to a tall wisp of a man. White hair and a matching handlebar mustache.
I never liked men with fancy facial hair. Couldn’t trust them.
My heart pumping, I crouched low and crept, silent, through the brush. Always was a talent of mine, hiding my tracks in the woods. As I stalked closer, I sized up the intruder. Had I seen him before? How long had he been following us? Dammit. I should have kept off the road.
I rubbed my face to arrest my wandering thoughts. Em’s voice was childlike innocence.
I stepped out of the trees and put myself between her and the stranger.
“Merde!” He staggered back. Put his hands on his knees and breathed through the scare I gave him. His bright eyes went from Emmaline’s face to mine, while I studied him for tell-tale bulges in his khakis. With his skinny build, how many steps would it take to overpower him, if he had a gun?
“Merry, why did you have to scare us like that?” Before I could stop her, she walked over to him and patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mister Jack. Grown-ups can be really rude sometimes. That’s Merry. He’s like my father. Merry, this is Mister Jack. When I found him, he was close enough to a deer that he could almost pet it. He held out my hand to it, and I felt its breath on my fingers. It was amazing.”
The stranger’s mustache stretched across his lip when he smiled. Good or ill, I couldn’t decipher. When he straightened, he adjusted the binoculars and camera that hung from his neck. No backpack. No other visible supplies. He was unprepared for more than a few hours on the trail.
Cajun music lit up his voice. “Pardon, pischouette. The birds, they captivate me so. Coupled with your exquisite beauty, it’s enough to distract me from approaching strangers.”
Emmaline blushed through her sunburn, and I stepped forward and took her hand. “This is how you bird watch? By sneaking up on people in the woods?”
“Bird watching is a lonesome business. Too much noise scatters the birds.”
I pulled Emmaline’s hand to lead her away. “Let’s go, Em. We need to find another place to camp.”
She planted her feet and put one hand on her hip. Her jaw hardened. Stubborn. “What did you call me, Mister Jack? That p word?”
“Ah. Pischouette. Cajun for little girl. Or, in your case, beautiful little girl.”
The Cajun bowed from his scrawny waist and looked up at me. “My name is Jacques, but everyone calls me Jack.” He shifted to Em. “And, what are you called, pischouette?”
“My name is Emmaline. I already told you about Merry.” She waved me back with her free hand.
I grabbed it, insistent. “Nice to meet you, Jack. We’ve got to get moving now.”
He ignored me. “A pleasure to meet you. Both of you.” He stopped and scanned the tree tops, his long fingers drumming along the side of his binoculars. I could hear his breath. Deep. Even. His voice sported a reverence that was magic. “I love this spot. I started coming here several years ago. Sudden-sudden, it was. The urge to see the birds. The place called to me, with the lingering tease of the female.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s a dirty old man, Em.”
He laughed, cordial-like. “Ah. Perhaps I am. Harmless, at my age. Birds turn my head now.”
Emmaline took his hand and walked toward our camp site. “So, you come here all the time?”
“Once a month. I visit and watch the birds flutter in and out of the trees. Sometimes, I bring my camera. Alas, as a photographer, I am bad-bad.”
“Do you live nearby?” She dragged her feet through leaves. Carefree.
“Oui. Outside New Orleans. Cajun the whole of my life.”
“New Orleans! That’s—”
“Em—” I tried to cut her off. I stepped in front of her and smiled at Jack. “This child will talk your leg off if you get her started. I’m sure we are scaring your birds away. We’ll find another spot.”
Jack took off his round hat and sun caught in his white hair. I squinted into the light that shimmered all around him. Was he following us?
The lilt of his voice made me focus. “Nonsense. I have always wanted to camp here, but I never had the courage to spend the night alone with so tangible a ghost.” He gestured to the wrecked wall. “I left my car at the pull-off, further on. If you don’t mind company, I’d enjoy camping with you.”
“Can he, Merry? Please?”
Know your enemy. Fighting tactics from long ago echoed through my mind. It was always easier to camp close to the natives out West. Whether friend or foe, I could watch them. Learn their habits. Note their weaknesses. Most times, they were friendly.
But, if Jack was Wilkinson’s man, keeping him close might be
the best way to defeat him. To learn whether Wilkinson was on our tail.
I shook off my misgivings and gripped the man’s hand. “Jack might have a time following your chatter, Em. But, another hand for the fire might be nice.”
“Good-good. Glad it’s settled. I’ve got provisions in the car. A sleeping pallet and a can of red beans we can share.” Leaning over to Emmaline, he winked. “I believe I have some marshmallows, too.” In four strides, he was in the trees, singing baritone.
Way down yonder in the bayou country in dear old Louisianne......
Emmaline clapped her hands. “He’s singing Cajun Baby! Daddy used to sing that song to me. Merry, isn’t Mister Jack handsome?”
I rolled my eyes and waited for his voice to peter out before kneeling in front of her. “Emmaline, you can’t tell everyone we meet who you are and where you’re from. We don’t know anything about Jack. He could be dangerous.”
“But if I had been unfriendly like that when you found me, we wouldn’t be here together. Would we?”
She had a point.
“Doesn’t matter. For all we know, he works for the Judge. He could be going back to his car right now to load a pistol and force us to go back to New Orleans with him.” I stopped when she gasped. Held her eyes and let the impact of my words sink in. “This world can be pretty small. You can’t trust anybody.”
Whistling wafted out of the woods. I got up, put Emmaline behind the wall and braced myself for whatever menace Jack might bring from the car.
TWENTY-THREE
Mister Jack was a nice man, not bad like Merry thought. He brought marshmallows just for me, plus his rolled-up sleeping bag. I grabbed the marshmallows, the squishy jumbo kind, and stuffed three of them in my mouth. Sugar stuck my lips together, and my cheeks got fat. Even Merry smiled a little bit.
I played with Mister Jack until it got dark. He let me look through his binoculars, and when different birds sang out, he told me their names from their sounds. After a few tries, I could even name one or two. He patted me on the head and called me chérie, and my heart felt funny, like it would beat right out of my chest.
When it got dark, I crammed myself into my tent face first and kicked my feet through the opening.
Thinking.
Merry was right. Even though Mister Jack turned out to be my friend, I had to be careful with strangers, but sometimes I wanted to say hello so much I thought I would blow up, especially after Mister Jack got so close to the deer.
I scratched at mosquito bites on my hands and legs. Rolled up pants were a bad idea. My heavy shirt had long sleeves and my thick corduroy pants made my sunburn hotter, but I was protected from most of the bitey bugs.
Merry was right about that, too.
I flipped onto my back and admired myself in boys’ clothes. The cut of the pants made my legs look strong, and the cuff on my shirt didn’t itch. Boys’ clothes were definitely easier to wear.
My mother’s rules exhausted me, dressing up every day, always having to look girly. Ruffles and lace might make a girl pretty, but beauty was on the inside. That’s what Daddy always said. If my heart was ugly, it would make all of me ugly in the end. Maybe that’s why he came to hate my mother. No matter what she wore or how she fixed her hair, her heart was mostly rotten, and he couldn’t find anything to love in the end.
Did I ever love her? I didn’t know.
I closed my eyes and imagined Daddy. Did he still wear the white suits of his Dixieland days? Would he smell like smoke and wood? Would his fingers be rough from hours of playing his upright bass?
Would he know me when he saw me? Even without my fancy dresses and long hair?
I slid out of the tent and stretched in falling darkness. Merry and Mister Jack sat on the ground, leaning their backs against a dead log near the edge of the trees. A small campfire popped and flickered in front of them, and Mister Jack was on his knees, working a small tank. I rubbed my eyes and wandered across the dewy grass.
When I felt the heat from the fire on my face, I heard Merry’s voice. “And that’s how I thought I knew you, I guess.”
I stopped, and my throat closed. Who was Mister Jack, really? Would he tell anyone about Merry and me? If he did, it would be all my fault. If I hadn’t run up to him and the deer in the woods, he might’ve walked right on by instead of coming through the clearing. Were the marshmallows part of his trap?
I blinked my eyes and focused. Merry’s legs made a lazy line in front of him, and he threw one arm back over the dead tree. Relaxed. Not worried. His mouth turned up in a smile. If Merry thought Mister Jack was our friend, then he had to be. Merry wouldn’t sit there and let something bad happen to me. To us. I let out a long breath of relief and tried to forget my hyperactive imagination for one night.
Mister Jack pushed a button on the tank, and a circle of blue fire shot up through the top.
“Et voila. I may be as dull as a beetle, but I do have my uses.”
“That you do, Jack.” Merry threw another stick of wood on the fire. “It’s been good for me to have a spell of manly conversation. I’m glad you understand my predicament.”
Predicament? Was I his predicament? Was that how Merry saw me? As something bad?
Before I could ask, Merry patted the ground next to him. “Hi, Em. I missed you while you napped.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
I ignored Merry and watched Mister Jack turn a can opener around the top of the biggest tin of red beans I ever saw. It was enough to feed us for two days, a whole week even. He dumped it into a pot and stuck it on top of the ring of blue fire. With a flick of his hand, he added other things: salt, lots of pepper and a heap of brown sugar.
He handed me a flat wooden spoon. “Stir?”
“Oh, yes. Can I be the taster? Aunt Ber—I mean—I always get to taste when I help cook.”
He nudged the spoon into my hand and sat back. “By all means, chérie. Taste as much as you like.”
I stuck the end of the paddle into the beans and moved my arms in a slow pattern. The more I stirred, the better they smelled. I stuck my nose in peppery steam that made my tummy turn a hungry cartwheel.
“So. You know something of the history of this place, then.” Merry just said it, not as a question.
Mister Jack gave him a funny look and nodded. “Oui. A recent favorite of mine. A shame, the ruined state of it.” His face grew slack when he angled it at the broken wall. “When I turn my head just right, my eyes play tricks on me. I don’t know why, but I can almost see it whole.”
Mister Jack moved his head, and his mustache twitched a little. Merry’s voice sounded weird when he spoke.
“What can you see when that happens? Do you see the school?”
“This was a school, Mister Jack?”
Mister Jack nodded. His voice was even more Cajun when he continued. He told us the Elizabeth Female Academy was one of the first colleges for women in America. A long time ago. Buildings circled the entire clearing. They fanned out from the center in joined hallways. Craftsmanship of the highest calling, he called it. The pinnacle. All left to rot away. He blinked. “Sometimes, when it’s quiet, when the birds don’t cooperate, I hear them. The girls.”
Shadows fluttered on the brick wall, and smoke danced around the flames. If I squinted, a couple of the poufs floated along the ground. Pretty hair. Long skirts. One turned her head and winked at me.
I swallowed. “What girls?”
“Why, girls like you, chérie. Laughing and whispering. Telling stories about boys. Passing notes and crying over letters from home. Asking hard questions in the classroom, pushing themselves to a better station in life. A lost opportunity for women, the day they closed the academy.”
I stirred the spoon in the other direction. “Why couldn’t they just go to school somewhere else? I mean, almost every school takes girls. They have to, don’t t
hey?”
“They haven’t always, chérie. You are lucky-lucky to be born when you were, right now.” He took a deep breath and stopped. His smile was normal again when he looked at Merry. “Perhaps figments of my imagination are too heavy for dinnertime. I don’t know what comes over me sometimes. When I am here.”
Merry cleared his throat and handed me three thin paper plates. “Those beans smell delicious, Em. Let me take over for you, and I’ll serve them out when they’re done.”
He crawled over and took the paddle from my hands and stirred slower, while I leaned close beside Mister Jack. I sighed when he put his arm around my shoulders. He was so sophisticated and dreamy, with his accent, tanned face and twinkly eyes.
The fire made orange light dance on Merry’s face when he talked. He said the Natchez Trace used to be a busy highway. A long time ago. Nobody knew for sure how old it was. Animals used it, way back before there were people here. They migrated south along its natural ridge line, stampeding herds of buffalo and bear, deer and elk.
When the Indians came along, migration made the Trace a natural hunting ground, with food aplenty. They settled all along it and adopted the pounded ground as their own road. Early settlers used it as a way to get home after they sold their goods down in Natchez or New Orleans. Merry stirred the fire. “A lonesome trip, dogged by rainstorms and poisonous snakes and robbers. Men were almost relieved when the invention of the steamboat killed the Trace.”
“The steamboat? Like the one we rode when we—to get here?”
“Yes, Em. Just like the one we rode. Nobody much came this way when they could just power upriver like we did.”
Mister Jack hugged me to him, and my heart was in heaven. “Yes, Merry. A shame so many wonderful things died with the Trace.”
“But, in the gamut of forgotten places, I probably chose the best neighborhood for exploration. Camping. All that.” Merry scooped the paddle to his lips and tasted a bite of beans. “Mmmm. Perfect, Em. Jack here is definitely an expert of camp cooking.”
He piled them onto each plate and passed one to Mister Jack and me, followed by white plastic spoons. We chewed the first spicy bites in silence, because we were all really hungry.
To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis Page 11
