“The same,” Kevin said. “We met him near the end of last season and did a little business. He sent word he wanted to catch us on the first run of the year. Said he’d be starting out from a stuck boat above Swains, and a young feller from Seneca who boated with Ben Myers was bringing his mules down from winter quarters.” Kevin stopped for another drawn-out sip of moonshine. “That’s how we knowed you’d be down on this part of the canal. So we figured you could boat with us back up to Harpers Ferry on our way home.”
Tom finished scraping puddles from the bottom of his bowl and leaned away from the table. “Always good to get another pair of hands on board,” he said, belching and looking at Lee with expressionless eyes.
“And a third set of legs on the towpath,” Kevin said with a wink. “One trick on, two tricks off. Allows for family conversation at the tiller.” He pushed the empty frying pan onto the table before knocking back the rest of his whiskey with a wrist tilt, then put the cup down and rubbed his reddish-brown mustache. “So we was wondering, cousin,” he said, “how you got tied up with Cyrus Elgin in the first place. He don’t really seem like your type.” Tom had pulled his knife from its sheath and was holding it a few inches above the table, then dropping its point to the wooden slab. When the stuck knife stopped wobbling, he repeated the process.
Lee explained that when he heard Cy was stranded on the drained White Oak Springs level, he’d offered to find a winter farm for Cy’s mules. Lee was going to give his farmer friend in Seneca the chance to earn a few dollars but had decided to take care of the mules himself instead. He was planning to request the standard fee from the canal company, since the company generally paid to have its mules wintered. “I never got an opinion of Cy from last season,” he added. “Just saw him coming and going a few times. Didn’t seem like a real friendly guy, but I never heard of him causing trouble neither.”
“You might want to keep an eye in the back of your head when he’s around,” Kevin said. “Based on what we heard last fall, he ain’t your typical ditch runner.”
Lee nodded, remembering Cy’s bloodshot arrival at Swains last December, too late to see off Katie and Pete. “I know he growed up boating out of Williamsport, then moved away to Philadelphia during the war,” Lee said. “Worked as a welder in the Navy boatyard there. His sister told me he fell off a scaffold and broke his hip.”
Tom left his knife wobbling in the impaled table as he leered at Kevin, who leaned toward Lee with a slowly spreading grin. “You met his sister?”
“I met her last season, when she come down to help Cy close up the boat,” Lee said warily. “Seen her a few times, I guess.”
“She’s a looker,” Kevin said. “Short blond hair, kind of flirty. Going on twenty or twenty-one, maybe?”
Lee flushed and stared at the moonshine in his cup. “That don’t sound exactly like Katie,” he said. “She’s only eighteen. Could be you met her sister.”
Kevin chuckled and shook his head. He bent forward to snare the jug from the table, then poured himself a refill and sat back on the bunk. “Oh, I think we met the same girl. She was with Cy when we did a little business with him in Williamsport last fall. We was doing a run upstream and he was home for a few days between trips.”
Lee looked at Kevin in surprise. It stung him a little that his cousins knew Katie, and he bought time with another slow sip of whiskey. That Cy would associate with the Emorys didn’t surprise him, but Katie – whose fingers had singed his wrist, and who had worn her Sunday dress to walk with him out to Great Falls yesterday – that felt like a minor injustice. When Lee lowered his cup, Tom had resumed dropping his knife into the table. Kevin ran a meaty hand through his streaked hair and gave Lee a sincere look.
“I’d keep an eye on her as well, cousin,” he said. “She strikes me as the kind of girl that can make a man see whatever he wants to see.”
Lee felt the skin around his temples burn. He focused on the knife stabbing the table. Tom plucked it free with a flourish, sheathed it, and looked at Kevin. “Still got six miles of boating to Widewater, and we got to get through Swains and Six Locks first.”
“Quite true, my brother,” Kevin said. He put his hands on his knees and rose heavily from the bunk. “Cousin Lee, thanks for joining us at Emory’s house of fine dining.” He dug into his hip pouch for a plug of tobacco, which he crammed into the side of his mouth and worked into place with his tongue. “We’ll look for you here in a few days,” he said, spitting stained saliva into the empty frying pan, “for the trip upstream.”
After subduing his tobacco, Kevin went on to explain that they planned to tie up at Widewater, below Great Falls. From there they could make Georgetown by mid-afternoon tomorrow and meet with their customer tomorrow night. They planned to spend the following two days in Georgetown before heading back upstream on Friday. That should get them back to Pennyfield sometime after noon on Saturday. Lee could boat with them to the Harpers Ferry level, then find passage up to Hancock to meet Ben Myers on the number 9 boat. By then the canal should be running all the way down from Cumberland.
Lee retrieved the ham-plate and followed the Emorys back up to the deck of the scow, where Tom put the feed trough away while Lee helped Kevin harness the mules. When they had the towline rigged, Kevin took the tiller. Tom drove the mules forward to drain the slack while Lee untied the mooring lines and tossed them onto the scow. Since the boat was already a hundred feet out on the next level, the current from the flume provided a push. “Up now! Git on, Mike!” Tom called out, slapping the mule in the haunch. Mike and Bess strained against their harnesses and the scow started moving downstream.
Chapter 15
Paying for Ten
Monday, March 24, 1924
Almost an hour later the scow approached a company coal barge tied to the berm. Must be Cy Elgin’s number 41, Kevin thought. He steered a course between the boat and the towpath. Tom slowed the mules and paused to inspect something on the bank. “Nobody on board!” he yelled back to Kevin. He kicked at the long plank as Kevin nodded and held his course.
Around the next shallow bend he saw the whitewashed face of a lockhouse a thousand feet downstream. It was partly obscured by something moving, and he realized that a small boat was heading upstream from the lock. Tom saw it too, because he blew five quick blasts on the tin horn. As the boats drew closer, Kevin recognized the familiar lines of a company repair scow. Its low deck was painted gray and littered with wheelbarrows and bags of gravel and cement. Two workers sat with their backs against the cabin wall. In deference to a loaded boat, the repair scow steered to the berm side of the canal while its mule driver guided his team to a stop on the outer fringe of the towpath. The repair scow’s towline slackened, fell into the canal, and slipped beneath the surface of the water.
Tom guided Mike and Bess forward, and they stepped carefully over the downed towline as they passed the repair scow’s team. Even after you’d been on the canal for years, passing a boat going in the opposite direction was something that made you pay attention, since there was a half-dozen ways to muck it up. Kevin doffed his hat as the Emorys’ scow slid over the sunken towline. “Much obliged, gentlemen!” The dozing workers ignored him. The captain nodded and the driver restarted his team.
Kevin looked ahead toward Swains Lock, which he now knew was set for a loaded boat. When Tom blew a series of blasts, Kevin saw a figure emerge from the lockhouse, traverse the lock, and proceed haltingly toward the upstream gates. He’s going to snub us, Kevin thought, as he watched Cy exchange a few words with Tom. Very accommodating of you, Cy.