River Runs Deep by Jennifer Bradbury Page A

again.
    â€œSellin’.”
    â€œSellin’?”
    â€œYou’ll see.” And a moment later he did. A fine vein of water cut through the floor. Elias figured it must have been deep, it ran so smooth, but he could straddle its width with ease. Downstream, it collected in a little basin before it tipped slowly over a wash of rock and into a seam in the wall. Nick hung his lantern off a spur of rock.
    â€œSee that?” Nick pointed to a basket sort of thing, a few inches of it poking out above the water. The reed was woven tight and true, and when Nick lifted the trap out of the pool, the water drained from it slow like seawater through sailcloth. The trap was bigger than Elias expected it to be based on what poked up through the surface of the stream. By the time Nick had cleared it from the water, it stood nearly as tall as Elias, and about two feet wide. Nick had made it specially to fit. There was a slot cut into the side that yawned like a mouth.
    â€œYessir,” Nick said as he laid the trap on its side. Elias heard a sound that could only be a fish flopping. Nick unhinged the bottom and three lily-white fish flipped out.
    Three lily-white fish that didn’t have any eyes.
    â€œFrogs and stars,” Elias whispered.
    It was . . . it was . . . Why, it was like the time he went to the sideshow with his father down at the parade grounds. They had seen a bearded lady, a two-headed calf, and all sorts of things that defied imagination. That was what these fish did—defied imagination.
    â€œCave fish,” Nick said, holding one up carefully. Its fins were like lace, or fairy wings, hardly anything there at all. Its snout angled sharply up, but there was nothing like an eye anywhere on its head. Elias could see right through its skin, the heart pumping away.
    â€œI sell ’em to the tourists on the sly.”
    Elias watched Nick open the waterskin—the very one he’d had Elias drinking from the first time he came out—and slide the fish inside. “Why?” Elias asked, though he wasn’t sure if he meant why did Nick sell them or why did people want them.
    â€œFolk pay a whole dollar for ’em,” Nick said.
    â€œA dollar ?” Elias asked, stunned. Nick scooped up the other two fish.
    â€œI mean to buy my freedom with these fish.”
    â€œHow many you need?”
    Nick hesitated. “Not sure, really. They don’t go round telling us what we’re worth. But once a man tried to buy me offa Bransford, offered four hunerd fifty. And Croghan leasing me and Mat for near a hundred dollars a year.”
    It was a small fortune, Elias knew that much.
    â€œSo I reckon,” Nick went on, “I save up as much as I can, sell me about a thousand of these fish, and then I ought to be able to buy myself out. Then maybe I set up someplace with a wife.”
    Elias had no idea how long it would take Nick to gather that many fish. He knew enough about Nick to know he was the patient sort, but it would take years. Years of nabbing up these little fish, years of leading people around on tours.
    â€œWhy’nt you just run?” Elias asked suddenly, thinking of Jonah.
    â€œRunning ain’t no good.” Nick did the clasps at the bottom back up. “Man can’t live a life wondering if someone’s going drag him back to some place he don’t want to be. That’s what I told—”
    His sentence stayed unfinished as he busied himself resetting the trap in the water.
    â€œTold who?” Elias pressed.
    Nick wiped his hands dry on his trousers. “Nobody.”
    But Elias wondered. Was Stephen going to run? Or Mat? A piece of Elias thrilled at the idea. But another piece worried that Nick was right. That running away was just a lot more pain in the end. How long could Jonah hide down there before he got caught? Before he haunted somebody who wasn’t as friendly as Elias or Sarneybrook?
    It wasn’t