SWAINS LOCK (The River Trilogy, book 1) by Edward A. Stabler

Author:Edward A. Stabler [Stabler, Edward A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: mystery, possession, curse, gold, flood, moonshine, 1920s, gravesite, chesapeake and ohio canal, mule, whiskey, heroin, great falls, silver, potomac river
Published: 2014-01-12T23:00:00+00:00

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 dinner, he thought. That was the price of doing business at Great Falls Tavern. Five pints sold so far and two left, since he’d had to turn one into a tasting flask. The damn Englishmen didn’t know him, so that was what it took to get them to buy two pints, after they finally came around.

Before that Clint Hillis and Frank Penner had come by, and both bought without needing a taste. They worked on one of the repair crews and remembered Cy from last season. They had gone back to their camp for dinner, but said they was planning to return later to play cards. No harm in joining ‘em, Cy thought. They might bring a friend. Customer relations was good for business.

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 connected those endpoints offered him predictable days of subsistence and pain.

Clint Hillis appeared on the patio, coming around the corner from the entrance. He spotted Cy and raised a hand in greeting as Frank Penner followed him to Cy’s table. “A bit quiet here tonight,” he said, casting his eyes at the empty chairs. Hillis was hatless and lean, a few inches shorter than Cy, with a weathered face and an auburn mustache that defied the graying hair on his head.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.