River Runs Deep

by Jennifer Bradbury

  The tiniest spell of silence followed. No breath, no noise—nothing but the quiet. But it was long enough for the fear and the understanding of what had just happened to swell up and crash over the pirates.

  “Hey!”

  “What—”

  “The devil!”

  “Tarnation!”

  There were other words, saltier ones that Elias had heard, and plenty he hadn’t. Elias himself was near enough to panicking, near enough to forgetting where he was, even though he knew he was secure beside Nick. Jonah called above the roar. “Up and out, Mat!” And Elias knew that already they were making their way along the walls out of the passage. Then there was more scrabbling, the soft thudding sound of a kick or a punch landing, and the sharp cry of pain that followed, and then the shouts swelled up again.

  “Grab him!”

  “Get back here!”

  The volley of foul words and awful curses that flew up brought a small smile to Elias’s face.

  Then Pennyrile’s brother bellowed, “Quiet!”

  And then a voice that sounded like it was carving the words with a rusty knife broke in. “Easy, men,” it said. There was only one man who could sound that crooked, that out of practice with the art of speaking.

  “Grab on to the man next to you,” Pennyrile said. “I expect we’ll find our guide has slipped us.” Elias let the line go slack. He hadn’t thought that Pennyrile could frighten him more, but that voice. And if anyone was crafty enough to figure a way out of the mess they were in, it would be Pennyrile.

  And they had no more traps to spring.

  Then came the sound of a match striking. Of course Pennyrile would remember matches! Pennyrile’s mean smile appeared in the light. “Porter?” he called out.

  “M’lamp’s busted,” Porter—apparently—answered, holding the crumpled tin up to catch the match light.

  “The oil?” Pennyrile leaned close.

  Porter shrank back. “Spilt. Most on the rock, but m’coat’s soaked.”

  “Dawkins?” Pennyrile asked.

  “Lost mine. Could be on the other side. Or down that hole.”

  Elias could almost see the wheels spinning in Pennyrile’s mind. He had to remind himself to breathe. The match sputtered, burning right down to Pennyrile’s fingertips. The darkness closed back in.

  A few of the men began to work themselves up again.

  “The light!”

  “Please, boss!”

  “Stop your caterwauling!” Pennyrile rasped. He waited, almost as if he wanted the men to obey him before he struck the next match. Finally a white burst of the phosphorous flared from Pennyrile’s hand like a conjurer’s trick. “Give me the coat, Porter.”

  Elias felt Nick, tense, lean across him to look through the crack in the rock as the light moved closer to the edge of the pit, closer to their hiding place.

  “We’re not finished yet,” Pennyrile said. “One of you dogs find me something long enough to make a torch.”

  A torch? But how?

  Elias’s heart sank. The coat. Soaked in oil.

  Pennyrile could use it to make a torch.

  Bells! The devil himself might have hunkered down and waited for rescue, but not Pennyrile.

  The men stared at Pennyrile. “Well? A stick, anything!” he demanded. The pirates stayed put, but they cast about halfheartedly. Stephen had swept the area clean. There was nothing on the other side to help them.

  “Someone has to have something!” Pennyrile was losing patience, the match nearing its end. How many did he have?

  “I got my Bowie,” said a ratlike little fellow on the left, his eyes wet with worry. He drew a knife that was not quite a sword from a scabbard inside his coat. The Bowie blade shone wickedly as the man flipped it in his hand to extend the grip to Pennyrile. Pennyrile dropped his match, then struck another.

  “We have to go back, boss!” whimpered the big fellow who’d slugged Mat.

  Pennyrile didn’t respond; he simply passed the knife to his brother. He took the coat from Porter and hurled it at another of his crew, a man with lank black hair hanging like seaweed around his face who began wrapping the coat tightly around the blade Pennyrile’s brother held.

  “Back?” Pennyrile sneered. “No.”

  “We ain’t got no guide!” another voice called out.

  “The guide we had led us on a fool’s chase. But I’ve been on Gothic Avenue before, and I know the way from there,” Pennyrile said. “No, we won’t go back. Not now.”

  The completed torch came forward to Pennyrile. Pennyrile kissed the match to its surface in several places. Elias prayed that it wouldn’t light, his hopes growing each time Pennyrile had to try another spot, but they sank when the flame caught, tongues of orange and blue licking up the sides of the coat.

  Elias noticed Nick’s lips were moving silently, but his eyes were on Pennyrile.

  “What can we do, Victor?” his brother asked. The pirates around him seemed emboldened by the success of the torch. Elias knew it would burn itself out soon enough, but it might give them the time they needed.

  “We press on. Find the colony ourselves.”

  An uneasy silence followed as the pirates looked from one to another, each one thinking the same thing, each afraid to say it. Finally a voice from the back asked, “But how we gonna find our way out?”

  “Fools! We have a map,” Pennyrile said, holding up Stephen’s book.

  “I ain’t goin’ near that hole!” The biggest one, his face pocked with scars, pointed at Smiley.

  Pennyrile sniffed and edged nearer. “You can clear it in a stride, Jones. We’re going.”

  Elias almost bolted up from his hiding place, but Nick’s firm hand on his shoulder kept him anchored. Pennyrile seemed to sense the movement, for he stalled, his eyes flickering across the pit. When no other noise or movement came, he went on, one step closer. Now he was less than a foot from the edge. “It can’t be far from here if they bothered with a trap. And if need be, we’ll rook one of the runaways into leading us out in exchange for his freedom once we’ve found the colony.”

  “We don’t know that! It could be miles from here!” the rat-faced one said. “And that torch won’t hold us long.”

  Pennyrile was clearly fuming but didn’t bother to respond. His eyes were drawn to something else. He took a step closer to the pit. “We may not need the torch much longer after all,” he said, looking over the edge.

  The next thing Elias knew, the rope moved in his hands. He watched in horror as Pennyrile pulled it slowly until it was drooping from his grip, exposed. Pennyrile traced the rope to the bolt anchored in the wall. “Well, well,” he said as he spied the other bolt on the opposite wall. Pennyrile gazed across the pit, following the rope to the point where it disappeared behind the rock Elias and Nick hid behind.

  “Not long at all,” Pennyrile said, taking a step nearer the edge.

  “I don’t reckon I’d keep walking,” Nick called out without preamble. Surprised silence fell again.

  Then Pennyrile gave what might have been a laugh. “See, boys? They’re even closer than I expected.”

  “Best stay put and wait for Stephen and Mat to fetch the law. That’s th’only way you lot are walking out of this cave alive,” Nick said.

  “That’s Nick, isn’t it?” Pennyrile sounded almost cheerful. “Well, Nick, I’m a fair cardplayer, no mistake. And I can hear a bluff as easy as I can spot one with my eyes. And I’d lay money on something else: you’ll not have stranded yourself without light.”

  The torch flared hot for a moment, the edges of the coat peeling outward. A chunk of the fabric burned off and floated down into the pit.

  “Show yourself now, Nick, and maybe we won’t tell Croghan you knew about this little batch of runaways.”

  “Tell Croghan what you want,” Nick fired back. “But wait till he come down here with the law and haul you out himself.”

  Pennyrile stared at the rock, his eye twitching. Elias could see the grease a
nd fat smeared at his neck sores glistening in the torchlight, the wrapping soaked through. He looked stronger than when he’d last been in the cave with them. He’d come all through the cave with Mat, and still seemed fresher than he had that day Croghan had forced them all to exercise. It dawned on Elias that Pennyrile’s feebleness had been part of his trickery. He’d been sick, but not as sick as he let on. It was the only thing that would have accounted for him being able to escape the cave with Stephen’s book so quickly that night.

  “No, boy, I don’t think I will,” Pennyrile said. “Men, show the Negro why we won’t be turning back.”

  Elias watched as the pack of men rearranged itself, many of the men drawing pistols of all varieties into view. The barrels glinted in the torchlight as they pointed at the rock Elias and Nick hid behind.

  Elias drew back. “You see, we’ve come prepared,” Pennyrile explained. “And all it will take is one of us to come across. We’ll have your lantern and be on our way, and won’t think twice about leaving a few neat holes in you for our trouble if you have any more tricks planned.”

  Pistols. Six of them. But the men continued glancing nervously at the pit, none ready to be the first across. Elias knew how they felt. Still, it wouldn’t hold them long.

  “So,” Pennyrile said, taking a step forward, the toe of his boot only inches from the edge. “Will you do the wise thing and help us outright?”

  Nick said nothing.

  “Well, then,” Pennyrile rasped, sounding more impatient. “Your kind are simple, I know. I’ll give you to the count of three before we come and get you.”

  He began to count. “One.”

  Nick made no sound.

  “Two.”

  The torch popped, another ember breaking free.

  “Three.” Pennyrile almost sounded disappointed. “Very well,” he said. “Jones, you—” Pennyrile twisted to address the men, but maybe too quickly. Because as he did, another chunk of the torch burned free, broke off, and caught in the draft of Pennyrile’s movement. It dropped straight down onto his shoulder.

  “Damnation!” Pennyrile cried, moving to brush it off, but it was already too late.

  All that bear fat. All that whale oil. All of it smeared on his neck, all of it soaking his neck scarf, all of it rubbing off on his own coat.

  Pennyrile was halfway to being a torch himself.

  It happened almost too quickly for Elias to believe. Pennyrile’s deft fingers scrabbled at the knot with his free hand, undoing it and sending the scarf fluttering down into the pit. But the flames had spread to the coat, and now Pennyrile panicked and tried to slip his arms from the sleeves, only to fumble his grip on the torch. As he lunged for it, he lost his balance.

  His men began to scream, began to understand what was happening, but by then it was too late. Pennyrile’s feet danced beneath him, his whole body teetering at the edge of the drop. He was too close for any of his men to try and tackle him to put out the flames. None were that loyal, save his brother, who took a step forward. “Victor!” he yelped.

  Pennyrile fell. It seemed to Elias that the time between realizing the pirate would fall and the time he actually did was impossibly long. Long enough for Pennyrile to look across the pit, toward the darkness of Elias and Nick’s hiding place.

  Elias would never forget the sight or the man’s eyes or the smell of grease and oil and smoke and fear as Pennyrile tumbled over the edge, the chamber descending again into black.

  A second later Elias felt the line in his hand go taut. Instinctively, he held on, the full weight slamming him and Nick into each other and into the rock. It took him a moment to realize what it was.

  Pennyrile had caught the rope!

  A faint glow from six or seven feet below the pit’s lip confirmed it. Elias held fast, the men on the other side were shouting, horrified. Pennyrile’s brother wailed along with the others.

  “Nick?” Elias managed.

  “I know!” Nick grunted back.

  But all at once, the line went slack. Elias tumbled back, knocking his head hard against the rock.

  Pennyrile had let go.

  “Victor!” Pennyrile’s brother screamed.

  But there was no answer. Only the faint sound of the draft created by the falling weight of Pennyrile, and then the sickening thud that came impossibly later.

  And no more.

  A sob erupted from the dark. Pennyrile’s brother began to call, “Victor! Victor?”

  When no reply came, Nick sighed. “Tol’ him not to move.”

  “You’ve killed him, you low-down—”

  “Afore you start your jabberin’, let’s get something squared.”

  The men began to shout and scream and curse again, each word fouler than the last until Nick had had enough. “Pipe down!” he thundered.

  Elias had never heard him so angry. He’d never heard him angry at all. But it worked. “Till I hear the sound of six pistols getting tossed into that pit, I ain’t lightin’ m’lamp, and I ain’t sending word back up to my crew to come down and fetch you,” Nick growled.

  “Never!”

  “No!”

  “We’ll whip you till yer bones are showin’!”

  The rest of the insults and hate were swallowed up by the roar of all the men shouting and screaming at once.

  When the men finally began to lose steam, finally ran out of different ways to insult and threaten Nick without getting a rise out of him, the anger gave way to panic.

  “Is he gone?” one whispered.

  “He wouldn’t leave us—” another said back.

  “We’re gonna die down here in the dark!”

  “Get back here, you dirty low-down—”

  “Hush up,” Nick called over to them. Then he muttered to Elias, “Lord. What a bunch. Gonna whip me one second and want me to hold they hands the next.”

  “I ain’t getting rid of my pistol!” one of them shouted out.

  “Suit yourself,” Nick said lightly. “But you can’t eat no bullets when you start to get hungry. Can’t use ’em for light, neither. And it don’t matter how many matches you got between you; it ain’t enough to find a way to this side, or to get yourselves out. But I wouldn’t figure on that, ’less one of you was dropping breadcrumbs ’long the way. There’s near a hundred miles of passages we know of down here, and even more we don’t know.”

  “Yer lying!”

  “Don’t think I am. Cave’s mighty big. Big enough nobody ever gonna find a mess of dead pirates. So if you want to live, chuck them pistols. If you don’t, then you might as well follow your friend Pennyrile down that hole. Bad way to go, down Smiley, but I ’spect it’s a sight better than waiting in the dark for death to find you in its own sweet time.”

  Elias smiled. Nick’s words were surely finding their mark on the other side. He heard whispers across the chamber.

  Something clattered across the floor and into the pit.

  Nick remained calm. “C’mon, now. I know the sound of a rock getting throwed when I hear it.”

  More cursing.

  “Don’t be trying to fool old Nick. I’m a heap smarter than I look. Which you’d know if you had any light to see me by.”

  Elias almost whooped with laughter.

  A second later he heard the first sound of something heavy whistling through air, clattering against the walls of the pit as it spun down.

  “That’s one,” Nick said. “Old Pennyrile—devil rest him—he liked countin’, didn’t he?”

  A bellow, half rage, half anguish, came in reply, but Pennyrile’s brother didn’t say any more.

  Then Elias heard another pistol go over. Nick was right: they didn’t sound a thing like rocks.

  “Two,” Nick said. “Now you gettin’ the hang of it.”

  And then a shower of guns, one after another, some thrown so hard that they landed on the side where Elias and Nick hid. After the last pistol had been thrown, a voice shouted, “Now the light!” Elias recognized the rat-faced one’s voi
ce.

  “Not quite,” Nick replied. “I think I’d like to hear some knives going down too. They sound altogether differ’nt, I expect.”

  Elias listened as coats shifted, knives were tossed. Nick was right again. They did sound different. Some whistled. The blades clanged like broken bells.

  “That’s all,” the big one pleaded. “We got no more weapons. Just give us the light and let us go!”

  “Go?” Nick sounded offended, spitting a great stream of tobacco off into the black. “Y’all just got here. No hurry.”

  The men began to shout and curse and volley insults again.

  “Naw,” Nick said in a voice that gave up his smile. “Cave’s a good place. Good place to sit and think. ’Sides, no good ever come of rushing through nothing. Make yourself at home. I think we’ll sit a spell.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CLOVE HITCH

  Funny thing, sitting in the dark. Real, complete darkness. The kind where no light from anywhere showed. The kind where a body could wave a hand in front of his own face and only know it’s there because he felt the breeze from the movement of it.

  Full dark like that did a number on a man. If Elias hadn’t been in it before, hadn’t been sitting right next to Nick, hadn’t spent the last month buried down there under tons of rock where it threatened dark all the time, he wasn’t sure what he would have done while they waited for Mat and Stephen to return.

  One thing he was certain of, he would not have been carrying on like Pennyrile’s crew.

  Those fellows were whimpering and begging. After a while Elias tossed little pebbles over their way, just to see what they’d do. But the men got so spooked every time he did it, wondering aloud what kind of thing might be creeping there in the dark, that Nick whispered to Elias to stop unless he wanted to send another one of ’em down the pit.

  In the end, it was sitting in the dark like that that made them downright gentle as lambs when Mat and Stephen showed up—an hour or three later, who could tell—with lanterns and a way out. Even if they still had weapons, the sight of Mat Bransford with a double-barreled shotgun was enough to take the starch out of any man. Mat and Stephen weren’t alone, either. They’d rounded up half a dozen men from the hotel, all of them armed with pistols.