BURYING ZIMMERMAN (The River Trilogy, book 2) Read Online Free Page B

or control.
    Captain Zimmerman offered to take Gilbert
onboard as an apprentice mule driver on their run to Cumberland and
back. That would mean long days on the towpath and plenty of work,
but the boy would be fed and clothed and paid three dollars when
they arrived back in Georgetown in two weeks. It was mid-July, and
if he proved up to the job, he could stay on for the next
round-trip. As long as he played it straight, Gilbert could boat
with Captain Z and Henry and their older hand Otis until school
started up in the fall.
    And so despite the effortless mendacity
Gilbert demonstrated in his first encounters with the Zimmermans,
Captain Z threw him a lifeline, and Gilbert was introduced to the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The Captain must have seen a
resourcefulness that he thought could be channeled toward honest
and laudable ends. But even though Gilbert was only thirteen years
old, I'm convinced now that a core part of him was already
unreachable and broken.
    ***
    We never took Gig Garrett's fingerprints, so
there is still no evidence that he strangled Jessie Delaney before
he fled to the Yukon. And while there are rumors that he stabbed a
fellow miner in Alaska, leaving the dying man with his throat
pinned to a claim-stake, there were no witnesses to that event
either.
    The only killings that can be surely
attributed to Garrett were my brother's and his own – the position
of the bodies and bullet-holes left little doubt about what had
happened. But an earlier incident foreshadowed those killings, and
it inspired Garrett's nickname. Henry Zimmerman was both its
witness and its victim.
    By August of 1888, the summer after his
watermelon heist, Gilbert had become a capable canal hand. He was
less than a year older than Henry, and during that second summer on
the canal the two boys were accomplices and rivals in the way that
way that closely-spaced brothers are. On normal days the boys would
spend hours walking the towpath with the mules. When Captain Z
wanted to boat through the night, Henry would drive the mules while
Gilbert slept in the boat's narrowest bunk, and at the end of each
level they'd trade places. Occasionally, like on that August day,
there were chances to escape the routine.
    Captain Zimmerman's boat was approaching
Pennyfield Lock on a run back to Cumberland from Georgetown. As the
crew got closer, they could see that the lock was set for a loaded
boat approaching from the other direction. But another light boat
was ahead of them, waiting and tied up to the berm. Henry and
Gilbert realized they'd have to watch both boats transit the lock
before it would be ready for them.
    That would take fifteen minutes, and it was
only a three-minute walk to Muddy Branch, a broad and puddled
stream that ducked through a culvert under the canal on its way to
the Potomac River. Muddy Branch was bullfrog territory. They tied
up behind the waiting boat, and then with a nod from Captain Z, the
boys grabbed a frog-gig and a mason jar and set out.
    Gilbert had gone gigging with Henry once
before, but they'd failed to catch a frog. Henry had shown him how
to hold the fork-tined spear at an angle, then flick it with only
his hand and forearm, keeping his eyes on the quarry and his elbow
steady. Frog-gigging worked best at night. If you had a lamp you
could mesmerize them while you stood in the water and aimed at
their shining eyes.
    During the daytime it made more sense to
sneak up on them from behind. If the frog was close to the bank,
sometimes you could catch them by hand. You had to creep within a
few feet, reach slowly into the space above the frog – and then
snare it with a swipe, sweeping your hand into the water a bit
ahead of it, since the first sign of motion would make the frog
submerge and shoot forward. If you couldn't get close enough, then
you would use the gig.
    When they reached Muddy Branch, it took less
than a minute for Henry to spot his frog. Its telltale nose and
eyes broke the surface where a bulging eddy