Caught In The River, Ronald Lee [paper ebook reader .txt] 📗

on. I can’t stay with you while you’re like this!”
Mary remembered the sounds of the scuffle that followed. The next day her mother came into her room and announced, they were going to go to grandmas. Her mother gave no explanation and no debate was accepted. Mary had decided to go with Fran because her dad did not even offer to let her stay with him. Out of anger, she stole the rock the Indian gave her father while he slept. Three weeks had passed since they were gone, and her dad still hadn’t called to check on her.
Mary felt in her blue jean’s front pocket for the rock the Indian had given her father. What did he call it? Oh yeah, he said it was called the Looking Stone. Mary held the jade-like rock in her hand. Her father had told her mother and Mary about his encounter with the Indian.
“How could he be so cruel?” Mary’s mother cried. “Jack’s dead!”
“We don’t know for sure,” Robert had offered. “Maybe I can go down to the river’s edge and try it.”
“If Jack were alive God would have told us!” Fran had argued. “He does not need some stupid stone. If you want to believe in that junk fine, but don’t expect me too!” She ended the conversation by storming out the room. Mary rubbed the stone in her hands as she remembered her dad putting the stone on the counter and crying. She had never seen her father cry before and it bothered her greatly. He had always been so strong, so smart. Yet here he was weak and trusting in a rock.
Mary shuttered as a breeze blew her black hair. She tried to close the white blouse she wore and wondered how she was going to explain the missing buttons to her mom. Then she grimaced as she thought her mom would not notice or care anyway. Mary looked at the stone in her hand and held it up to the river. The moonlight caused it to shine as she looked through the hole at the gently flowing water and said; “Looking Stone, I want to see my brother Jack Woodle!”
For several moments, nothing happened. Mary felt stupid as she stood on the boat slip looking through the hole in the stone. Then the space inside the stone started to cloud over. Her hand tingled as she watched an image slowly appear in the hole. Like a silent movie, she saw her brother wrapped in a bearskin asleep by a fire. The image faded as quickly as it appeared.
“Jack!” Mary called wiping the tears from her eyes. “Come back!” She held the stone for several moments without anything happening. “Maybe if I got closer to the water’s edge,” she thought. The tips of her tennis shoes were under water as she called out again “Looking Stone, I want to see my brother Jack Woodle!” The stone started to cloud again when the feeling of her socks getting wet distracted Mary.
“What the. . .” Mary did not get to finish the sentence as she felt wet hand’s grab her ankles. She screamed as she lost her balance and fell backwards on to the boat ramp. Mary tried to scramble up the ramp away from what grabbed at her. Despite the full moon, all she could see was water. “Help,” Mary screamed as she clawed at the muddy cement. When she tried to rise, the water pulled her down. Mary felt her legs forced together, and then her waist and chest became wet, as the river slowly dragged her deeper. Mary hoped to see the lights of Kyle’s truck at the top of the boat ramp, as the water pulled her under. She prayed for the saving touch of her father’s hand as the water covered her head. The only thing Mary could feel as her fingers clawed at the mud was the Looking Stone on the edge of the ramp. A trail created by her fingertips was the only evidence Mary had ever been at the river’s edge, and the water slowly washed them away.


CHAPTER FIVE
“Hey, do you mind?” Jack asked as he woke. Cappy’s arm fell over his face waking him. He was angry because had been dreaming about girls.
“Sorry,” she said sleepily and rolled over. Jack stood up and stretched. The fire had burned down to embers, so he got a couple of limbs from the woodpile and stoked the flames backs to life. As he built the fire, he thought about the rest of the previous evening.
After Soho had made his shirt of beaver’s skin, Brian took the young man on a tour of the cave. Jack saw the kitchen area, which consisted of a part of the cave that held several wooden and clay drinking and eating vessels. A small smoothed out cleft in the rock served as the sink. A fire pit in the center of the floor served the families’ cooking needs. They cooked their food with large clay bowls made by Soho, which rested on iron rods just above the flames.
Jack also saw what Brian called the “Front door.” It was actually a small passage winding up ten or twenty feet where it turned from stone to dirt. A wood bottom covered with earth opened in a hollowed out tree located somewhere in the middle of the swamp.
Brian told Jack that in 1974, his boat overturned and the river became his home. The soldiers caught Brian before he woke up on the beach. They tortured him ruthlessly. After several days, he escaped by waiting until the guards fell asleep and working loose the knots they had tied him with. He tripped over Soho who had fell victim to the river years before and helped her escape as well. The two hid in the British fort called “New England” until they stumbled onto an evacuation tunnel located in a storage shed. The two fled into the swamp and found their home. One day, while picking berries, Soho heard Cappy crying just as the British patrol was coming. They called her Cappy because Soho heard one of the guards calling out “Captain, Captain!”
Throughout the evening Jack brought Brian up to speed on the changes in American history.
“And we have a black President?” Brian said impressed. “Obama you say?” Jack nodded.
“Well if that doesn’t beat all.” Brian said. “I just can’t believe it.” He explained political events to Jack from his time.
They spent the rest of the evening formulating ideas of returning to the present, talking sports, science, and movies. After what seemed like hours, they went to bed.
Jack sat on the stone couch looking at the fire he had just rekindled and his new family. Brian and Soho slept together on one side of the fire while Cappy rested on the other. He thought of his own family and felt a deep emptiness in spite of the appreciation he had for everything his new friends had done for him.
Meanwhile his sister slowly regained consciousness. She coughed up water and shivered uncontrollably. Mary felt as if the water was still dragging her, but now it was carrying her by her shoulders. She opened her eyes and saw the gray gravel of a beach passing beneath her. She heard the crunching sound of boots walking on the gravel and heard her own shoes sliding along. Mary tried to stand but was too weak. The seventeen-year-old realized two men in red and blue uniforms were carrying her. They had muskets and gun powder horns.
“Hey, I’m alright now.” Mary said weakly. She tried to stand but the men’s momentum kept her off balance. Mary tried to struggle free and the soldiers released her. She picked herself up off the beach spitting out gravel and sand. “You didn’t have to drop me,” she whined.
“I am so sorry miss. . .” One of the men said sarcastically. Mary noticed his British accent.
“It’s no problem,” Mary said accepting his outreached hand. She stood up and screamed as she looked into his face.
The skin of the British soldier had long since wrinkled and turned a whitish-gray. It hung from the skeleton and muscles of his body. His eyes had sunk deeply into the sockets; and his lips and gums had receded revealing a permanent evil grin. Mary screamed repeatedly as each of the twelve men she faced had the same ghastly look. She fell down in their midst with her hands over her head as the soldiers laughed. They yanked her up off the ground by her arms and pointed their muskets at her.
“March!” one of the soldiers ordered.
“What?” Mary asked confusedly.
“March you stinking settler!” He repeated and pointed with the barrel of his gun into the swamp.
A Whippoorwill sang in the distance as Mary started trudging through the murky water. She held her blouse closed in an effort to stay warm. She wiped sweat and water from her eyes as the soldiers forced her through the swamp. By the time Mary reached the British soldier’s fort, the sun was high in the blue sky. She watched as a log bridge lowered over a mote and more guards came out and led her inside. The walls of the fort were tall pine and oak tree trunks, which had been debarked and cut to a point. Guards manned strategic positions standing on a catwalk they reached by removable ladders.
“Welcome to Fort New England,” one of the British said.
The guards tied Mary’s hands behind her back as the fort bridge returned to an upright position. Mary felt like she was out of time as she walked through the fort. Soldiers busied themselves cleaning their muskets or uniforms unless they were carrying out daily choirs of cleaning the parade yard. In the shadows, Mary could see what looked like cages. Hands reached out to her and she could hear the groans of the prisoners. In the center of the parade yard, a tall poll stood with a British flag flapping in the breeze. After Mary went through this entire scene, she found herself inside the cabin of the General. Once there, the soldiers forced Mary to sit in an old wooden chair saluted then walked out. The cabin was shrouded in darkness even though it was the middle of the day.
“Are you thirsty Miss?” A raspy voice asked from the shadows.
“Yes,” Mary admitted.
A figure immerged from the shadows of the cabin with a wooden glass of water and held it to Mary’s lips. “My name is General Charles Towen.”
Mary received just enough water to ease her thirst, and then the General put the bamboo cup on his desk.
“What’s your name?” He asked sitting on the desk. Mary could see his dark blue trousers and white military shirt. The shadows covered his face. Mary could only imagine it was as horrible as the other solders.
“Mary Woodle,” she answered.
“How old are you?” He