Swains Lock

“Maybe it was made for you. Or maybe it was lost so you could find it.” He took the opportunity to gaze at the pendant resting against her chest, just above the swell of her breasts. “It’s yours now, anyway. I think it looks nice on you.”

Katie smiled again, her lips slightly parted. He thought he saw her eyes mist over but they cleared quickly. She stood up abruptly and stretched her arms overhead, then brought them together over her stomach. “Well now that it’s past sunset, I’m getting hungry! Did you remember to find us some di

“Let’s go see,” Lee said. They returned to the towpath and swung downstream.

***

The purple sky was bleeding to black as Tom stopped the mules at Widewater, about a mile below the Great Falls Tavern. Kevin tossed him the lines and he tied the scow to trees near the edge of the towpath. The Canal Company wouldn’t be ru

After the mules had been fed and watered, Tom led them a few feet into the Bear Island woods and left them in the small corral where they’d spent the night on the way downstream. A crescent moon hung in the night sky over the dark skin of Widewater as he returned to the scow. He crossed the fall-board and ducked into the cabin, where Kevin had lit the lamp and was stirring a pot of beef stew on the stove.

“You thinking about playing a few hands at the Tavern?” he said. He sat down on the lower bunk and began tossing his knife and catching it by the handle as it spun. Kevin interrupted his stirring to pour himself a shot of whiskey from the jug.

“Hell, no,” he said. “We got too much money on board to walk away from the boat, even if we lock the cabin. We don’t need no more paper anyway, and we got more whiskey here than you’ll ever find at Great Falls. You and me can play cards here. I’ll even try not to whup you this time.”

Tom flashed a crooked smile and his obsidian eyes glittered. “Keep talking,” he said, ‘cause I been setting you up. You’re about to take a dive.”

Chapter 21

Unwinding By Starlight

Friday, March 28, 1924

Cy dragged the last dollop of mashed potatoes across his plate, accumulating stray morsels of shepherds pie. When the colored girl came, he asked for coffee. About a buck for coffee and di

Before that Clint Hillis and Frank Pe

The colored girl brought his coffee. He nodded and waited for her to leave before surveying the brick patio. The other two tables were empty again. He pulled out the tasting flask and splashed a finger of whiskey into his coffee, then stirred in the cream and sugar. The shepherds pie and shots of whiskey were kneading an analgesic warmth into the knots of nerve and muscle in his hip. He stood up to stretch and transfer his weight from one leg to another, and the pain receded partway into its shell. His fingers stretched the skin beneath his eyes.

What was Harriet doing right now, he wondered. On a mild Friday night in the first full week of spring, the streetlights of Philadelphia would draw her out into the evening like a moth to flame. That his ex-wife was better off without him, he had little doubt. After his injury, and after he left the Naval Yard to hobble around their apartment while sifting his limited options for less arduous work, he had served as a constant reminder of the constraints and obstacles that life could arbitrarily impose. Harriet had spent her life believing she was destined to pursue a bright line of opportunity and fortune that stretched to the horizon, and that obstacles to that pursuit could be sidestepped or cast off. And she had cast Cy off when his misfortune spun away from her bright line. The path to his horizon had grown shorter and darker during recent years and now stretched no further than Cumberland or Georgetown. And the slow current in the artery that co

Clint Hillis appeared on the patio, coming around the corner from the entrance. He spotted Cy and raised a hand in greeting as Frank Pe

“It’s not too late,” Cy said. “I expect that will change.”

Hillis nodded, twisting one end of his mustache with his fingers. “Maybe so. Join us for a hand or two while business is slow?” Cy pushed a chair toward Hillis with his foot and the two men sat down.

Hillis passed a well-worn deck to Cy, who examined it and nodded his assent. Hillis called the game and the men threw their quarters into the pot. Pe

The first hand went to Pe

Cy gave back a few dollars before wi

When the Englishmen returned to greet Cy with inebriated affection and acquire his last two pints “for a long automobile journey tomorrow,” the equation began to seem compelling. He’d left Swains a few hours ago with twelve dollars and eight pints, and he now had thirty-three dollars and half a tasting pint left. Along with his stash at Swains, he only needed nineteen to settle with the Emorys tomorrow. After paying them he’d be debt-free, with forty pints left in his second cask to sell on the run to Cumberland – assuming them new colored boys from Georgetown showed up on time, and that his boat was ready to go when the whole canal opened on Tuesday.