by Glen Krisch
"You can sit down, take a load off," Cooper said to the children as he prepared the tea.
They followed through as if he had given an order, sitting side by side on the floor, still not appearing altogether comfortable being alone with a stranger. Perhaps they even sensed Eunice nearby.
The night he met Ju-Ju, all Cooper had the energy to do was nod, his fatigue quickly catching up to him. Yeah, it was fine. He held no ill feelings toward Jews. None whatsoever. He remembered feeling lucky he hadn't come across a tramp with eyes for stealing his gear and a violent bent to his personality.
The coffee pot began to steam, and from his pack Cooper produced three dented tin cups. He checked them for cleanliness, handing the children the cleanest two and wiping the third with his shirttail. He dropped a tea bag in each cup and poured the steaming water. Ellie gripped the cup in her palms and brought it to her cheek, letting the steam warm her. Jacob, sipping too soon, winced at the heat. Cooper exhausted the stove flame and gathered his mess.
Ju-Ju had stayed with Cooper for a week, the whole time grumbling under his breath about not wanting to take up roots for fear of dying if he did. The old tramp nursed Cooper along until he could fend for himself, albeit with a nagging fatigue that felt like a fifty-pound burden on his shoulders.
During his recovery, Ju-Ju taught Cooper how to tramp. Starting out, Cooper knew next to nothing. Ju-Ju laughed at his naiveté, wondering aloud how Cooper had survived on his own, even for a week. The first thing Ju-Ju taught him was what to look for when choosing a freighter to catch, and the proper technique to employ as to not die a miserable death under the weight of the coal-burning beasts. He would then demonstrate next to a boulder near the campfire how to hide from the bulls. Ju-Ju had all sorts of distasteful tidbits to pass along about the bulls--the train conductors of the PN&E railway being the worst. They'd club a tramp to death with their batons before he could get a word out in defense.
Through his many stories, Cooper learned how to forage for food, how to stay as dry as possible, and how to cook on the go. After dinner one night, Cooper drifted off while staring into the campfire's hypnotic flames. As he slept, Ju-Ju snuck away, catching a freighter for parts unknown, his wanderlust compelling him to get on the go.
"Little muddy out to go for a stroll," Cooper said. The tea's warmth had pacified the children. The rain had eased in small degrees over the last few minutes.
Jacob brought the cup to his lips again, tempting a scalding of his tongue. The boy nodded. Ellie's cheeks had flushed with warmth. Cooper thought she might fall asleep if she weren't so suspicious of her surroundings. He looked at the camp stove Ju-Ju had left behind. He had used the re-made coffee can to cook numerous meals of bland mush or tasteless brown rice in the last year. His savior on that long ago night was a kind man, despite his rough exterior. He wished he could've said goodbye or at least thank him for saving his life.
Cooper was about to ask Jacob if they had been to the funeral. Certainly the kids had attended, but he wondered why they had wandered off. Instead, he said, "Are you going to say what you're doing out in this weather, or am I going to have to guess?"
Ellie still scanned the shadowy room. She spoke to Cooper in a whisper, "Old Greta."
"I'm sorry, I'm not familiar--"
"Ellie," Jacob cut in, hoping to quiet the girl. "He don't need to know."
"Come on, Jacob. Mr. Cooper's been nice to take us in, and you seem to like the tea just fine. There's no harm." She turned back to Cooper. "Greta knows things."
"From my experience, it's good to know things," he said and found himself smiling. Despite the circumstances, he couldn't resist Ellie's charm. She possessed an equal measure of innocence and intelligence.
"She knows things no one else knows."
Jacob set his tea aside, then stood. He walked to the window in quiet protest, his back to Ellie and Cooper.
"How so, Ellie?"
"Don't know, really, but she's got a way about her. She can tell you the weather for the day you were born, down to the color of the clouds and if the crickets started singing earlier than normal 'cause the spring rains held off for the night."
"Really?"
"Sure she can. Everyone around's seen her do it. Ain't that so, Jacob?"
The boy didn't move. Cooper saw his angular profile, his crossed arms, his solemn eyes trained out the window.
"You decided to visit Greta on a day when the whole of the summer's rainfall seems to be falling just this afternoon?"
Ellie didn't answer, but her expression darkened.
"Ellie, the rain's stopping. We catch a break, we'll make it to her house without any more trouble." Jacob removed the damp blanket from his shoulders, dropping it to his feet.
Ellie's eyes briefly held Cooper's before shying away. That half-lit second revealed the weight of her unguarded anguish, the longing for her brother.
"Let's go then." Ellie stood and handed him the empty cup. "Thanks for the tea, Mr. Cooper. It was a lifesaver."
Ellie met Jacob at the door, their wet footprints trailing across the dusty floor.
Cooper felt torn. Looking about the house, he saw all the repairs he needed to tend to, that he felt compelled to do. But more importantly, his thoughts returned to his hope that he might learn more about the Blankenships and what they wanted with him. But the children. Innocent, desperate, looking for answers from an old lady. An old lady "who knew things."
Jacob opened the door for Ellie and followed her out.
Cooper caught the door before it could close and called out as they stepped from the porch to the driveway's waiting puddles. "What's this Greta going to help you with?"
The children stopped walking. Jacob didn't turn, but Ellie did. "Someone killed Georgie. No one knows who, and no one knows where Jimmy's at, but both me and Jacob know he's still alive. If there's a person in the world who knows where Jimmy could be, it's Greta. She's gotta know." Ellie blinked through tears.
"Wait a second," Cooper said.
Jacob looked back, putting his hand on Ellie's shoulder. "Mr. Cooper, you can't stop us. What're you gonna do, carry us home?"
"No. I'm coming with you."
16.
"He's not going to last much longer," Dr. Thompson said six hundred feet below ground. He was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open. His sleep had been spotty at best since the death of George Banyon. With the additional stress from the slaughter at the Harris farm last night, and then George's burial this morning, Thompson felt lucky to still be standing.
Ethan Cartwright was a thin white line gliding through the dark water of his private, hand-hewn pool. With machine-like precision he pulled against the cold water, acting as though he hadn't heard the doctor.
"Ethan? I need to know how you want me to proceed." He rubbed his arms. His bones hurt whenever he came to this place.
Ethan pumped his arm through a final fluid arc and reached for the pool's edge. "What do you recommend?"
"Your son is bed-ridden. He's an old man."
"Aren't we all these days?" He stood fully, the water falling from his naked body. If he stood still, he could pass for a statue extolling the virtues of perfect health. If you could ignore the purple scar bisecting his chest.
"He's going to die. I cannot be more serious. His heart is weak, terrible arthritis twists his limbs. He can't see well enough to make his way safely through his own town. He doesn't have long."
"Hand me that towel, would you?"
As Thompson handed him the towel, their eyes met.
"What would you have me do, Doctor? He won't step foot in the Underground. I cannot force him."
"Can't you? Like the others? Can't you send the Borland brothers?"
"If I brought him here, would I also chain him to a wall?"
"Go. Talk to him. Convince him."
"I understand your concern--growing up, my son was like an older brother. You would never see him suffer." Ethan dried his chest with a rough towel. His scar bec
ame a more menacing purple, savage and pronounced after swimming in the cold water. "But--"
"He's going to die," Thompson cut him off.
Ethan gritted his teeth, but something in his eyes softened. "Please leave. Now."
Thompson looked like he would continue arguing, but exhaustion weakened his resolve. He turned to leave. When he pulled the door shut behind him, Ethan was alone.
Soon he would be even more alone, having outlived his own son, a man lived to a ripe old age. He hadn't seen Jasper in… oh, he couldn't remember how long. Decades. But he loved him even though he never again wanted to see his own father.
After long minutes of internal conflict, Ethan called to the man guarding the door to his room. He asked him to fetch Leo Borland.
17.
The darkness lifted from his body. An insistent heat intensified within his heart, spreading outward, pulsing through his veins, reaching his extremities. The heat itched like the worst ever case of chiggers. Oh lord, Jimmy would rip through his skin to get at that itching. If only he could move.
That was the worst part. No feeling besides the itching. No ability to move. He concentrated, focusing his energy on his eyelids, at the thin cleft where the delicate membranes touched at the edges of his lashes, until a bundle of energy formed in the middle of his forehead like a clenched fist.
His eyelids fluttered.
"Jimmy, lie still. Don't try to move too much too soon." Close by, Harold Barrow's voice. Reassuring, yet scared.
What had happened to him?
He searched for his last memory, the last thing he remembered before…
Jimmy tried to speak, but words wouldn't form. The concentrated fist inside his forehead loosened and the energy cascaded throughout his body, sparking synapses awake. His lower lip trembled uncontrollably, letting loose a quiet whimper. He could taste his own exhaled breath floating languidly at the tip of his tongue. Stale and sour. Like a slab of steak sitting outside an icebox far too long.
All at once he took in a breath, and he realized he hadn't been breathing. The cold air caressed his lungs and the feeling was exhilarating, some kind of intoxicant. The breath rushed from his lungs in warm, fitful spasms. He was reluctant to let it go, as if the air itself were a friend leaving for an unknown length of time, not certain to ever return.
Until the next breath came. And another.
His chest heaved, his arms twitched, and then with all the effort he could harness, he flipped from his stationary position on his back, coming to rest on his right side. That same damned candlelight greeted him when his eyes fluttered open. Golden wisps flickering in the cavern's constant and subtly flowing breeze.
"You sure in a hurry to go on living." Harold sat on the cave floor by his side, stroking the white whiskers of his pointed chin.
Jimmy tried once more to speak, but all that came out was garbled and weak.
Hardened pools of blood pressed against his spine, at the back of his neck, in his calves. It ran liquidly again through his blood vessels, and as it flowed, it leveled off throughout the rest of his body. Blood sought the lowest point only when it stopped flowing, when the heart no longer pumped. He knew this from his experience on the farm when he would slaughter a milk cow past its prime. After slicing its neck--the beast hanging limply and quite dead from a barn rafter--the blood would gush from the wound, draining into a metal trough on the straw-strewn floor. If he didn't act quickly after dispatching the animal, its blood would pool at the lowest point until the distended tissues would verge on rupture, grown purple and hard.
"It's not pleasant, Mr. Jimmy, not at all. Take it easy while you adjust." Harold patted his hand, his touch warm against his ice-cold flesh. At least now he felt something.
Jimmy stopped struggling. He closed his eyes. He remembered Charles Banyon, drunk as all get out and with a drinking friend in tow, stumbling across the old mule stables where he and Benjamin had been resting. The drinking friend repeatedly bleating out, "Where that nigger girl at? Where she at? It's been too long."
He remembered feeling sorry for Benjamin. For Harold, too. Poor Edwina. And the hatred in Charles Banyon's eyes. Hatred brought on for reasons Jimmy didn't understand. Banyon coldly stating that George was dead. His best friend, Banyon's own son, was dead. Jimmy's lip trembled uncontrollably.
George is gone.
He remembered the melon-sized stone falling from Banyon's grip, knocked off course by Benjamin's foolish bravery. Ricocheting off the cave wall, but still connecting solidly with his skull. A sharp, bitter agony stabbing his skull. After that, only emptiness. Cold, cold emptiness.
Jimmy had died. Just as his best friend had died. But his friend was never coming back. Jimmy couldn't wrap his mind around what was happening to him. Was this hell? Purgatory? Was he now a ghost, a memory, a dream?
"Where's Benjamin?" he croaked painfully.
Harold spoke as if he hadn't heard Jimmy, or if he did, that it didn't matter enough for him to respond directly. "You know, I find myself thinking back on my times in the fields--"
"He saved my life. Where is he?" Jimmy cut in.
Harold continued on, "Tobacco season runs from--"
"Harold, where's Benjamin?" he said sharply. He still couldn't move much.
"I got an idea where he's at, Mr. Jimmy, an idea I just don't like at all." Harold paused, collecting his words. "After that man hurt you, they took Benjamin away. For a long time, he cried out… the things they musta done to him."
"Where, Harold?"
"Pretty sure the waste pit."
Jimmy could immediately picture what Harold meant. They dumped the waste rock from their digging into the gaping hole. It was a cold mouth that Harold opined led to Satan himself. A place where light can't live, where warmth never existed. Scully would torment Harold and Benjamin by threatening to dangle them into the pit, winched down by the slack of their own intestines. Lowered as low as their guts would allow and let Satan's breath frostbite them.
"He's not coming back. Not with the Paradise about completed. My boy's gone."
They'd tortured Benjamin for attempting to save him. Jimmy kept quiet, guilt sickening him.
"You know, when I close my eyes, I can't recall a setting sun no more. Can't remember a single thing about it."
Considering Harold's word, Jimmy thought of his father, buried when he was three. The memories best remembered were of pure emotion. Laughter and good humor. Not much more than that.
"Get's me thinking there ain't no God. No God would put any of His creatures--even the lowly--through nothing like what He done to my family.
"You wanna hear something funny? Benjamin--I never liked him too much, didn't like him courtin' after Edwina. He had book learning and was a house slave. That Joss Parkins, some say he a bit moony in the head… he had strange ideas. Raised at Parkins's plantation, Benjamin never worked a day in them fields. He learned reading and writing. Parkins thought he was doing himself a Christian duty. I never thought highly of no nigger going off kowtowing to no… well, he just wasn't right for my girl. But Benjamin, me and Edwina met up with him at a hideaway house where they're kind enough to help get you north on up to Canada, but 'course them bounty men, they catches up to us. Chases all the three of us down some tunnel into the ground. Benjamin, they killed him right off once they cornered us down underground. He fought with them, fought harder than any man before, you ask me. And they killed him dead. Then they had their way with Edwina, all of them, all of them nigger-haters had their turn… forcing me to watch the whole while. Full of bloodlust, they slit me and 'Wina's throats. We died, Mr. Jimmy. But next morning, wit' all that blood dried in black rivers on the floor, wit' all those bounty men sprawled out, passed out, Benjamin and me an' Edwina stirs awake just like you just did, and we all come to, all awake and alive.
"Seeing us rise like that, like some almighty spirits, them bounty men, and the townsfolk kind enough to help 'em find us, they just about seized up and died. They had no idea what to think
. But in the end, they comes up with a solution. They up and stayed is what they did, us doing their bidding. Just like old times.
"That was the last day that was different than any the others that followed. They put us to work. You know what Mr. Jimmy? That boy I thought weren't no good for Edwina, he learned me reading. Sure enough, an old Nigger slave boy from Joss Parkins's tobacco plantation learned reading.
"Benjamin'd scratch letters on the floor, and I learnt them one by one, and soon I'm reading words. Now, after so long of practicing, I bet I read better 'an that Scully bastard."
Jimmy couldn't say much. His body could only manage simple commands. Move a finger, bend an wrist. Finally, he braced his elbows on the cold stone floor, levering himself into a sitting position. Sweat dripped from his forehead.
Pain and sweat and struggle. Dead people didn't have any of the three. Jimmy was somehow doing all three and ever more.
"But the funny thing ain't me learning to read. Funny thing is me learning I loved that boy. I loved Benjamin like my own blood, and I would've done anything for 'em. Now it's too late. He ain't coming back."
"Harold, I have family of my own. A brother, a mother. And I'm gonna be a father soon."
"If you can, forget 'em, Mr. Jimmy, that'd be the best thing for you to do to get on with things, you ask me. With them so close by, you'd go mad otherwise."
"I have to get out of here. My family needs me. Harold, you can help me, can't you?"
"No."
"Harold, please."
"I can't do that. Mr. Jimmy, don't you know it yet? You died. You're one of us now. That means you stay here or you're just as dead as your buddy George."
18.
The rain-soaked grass clung to their thighs as they broke from the muddied drive to cut across the back of the old Blankenship property. The rain had eased to a humid mist and the thunder had become a weakening echo. The haggard gray sky appeared to be catching its breath after taking a beating.
