Pale Horse Coming

by Stephen Hunter

  “My name is Jack Bogash,” Earl said.

  19

  SAM knew people; people knew Sam. That was one of his gifts; he had made friends wherever he’d been.

  So now, feeling he’d pretty much used up his congressman’s assistant’s assistant’s good will and energy, he turned to the colonel of the artillery battalion he’d served in during the war, the same man who had pinned the Bronze Star on Sam for blowing up the German armored column.

  But Russell K. Parsons was a brigadier general now, and he worked in that strange new building that was so singular it inspired awe, a skyscraper on the ground, broken down into five units, called by its geometric shape the Pentagon.

  A phone call got through easily enough; the general headed something called the Army Logistics Command, designed to hustle toothpaste and tin cups and condoms and Lucky Strikes and packs and Garand rifles over to Korea or wherever.

  “Well, Sam,” said the general, “I’ll be damned, how are you.”

  “Sir, I am fine,” said Sam, realizing again that the colonel, now the general, was three years younger than he was.

  The two chatted; Sam had been a damned good artillery officer and the general had been happy to have him in his command. It was citizen soldiers like Sam, the then colonel often said, who won the war, not the few West Pointers such as himself salted through the ranks.

  But of course the general knew this was not a social call, and got quickly enough to the point.

  “Don’t suppose you’re calling me to set up a get-together for the families, are you, Sam?”

  “No, sir. I probably couldn’t stand your kids and I know you couldn’t stand mine.”

  “Well then, designate your target, set your coordinates and open fire.”

  “Sir—”

  “Sam, you really should call me Russell. Frankly, as an elected official you probably outrank me now.”

  Sam said nothing about being turned out at the polls last time; he just played the role.

  “Sir, I could never call you by your first name. You were God to us, and I’m comfortable that way.”

  “Well, then ask God for a favor and possibly God will look with pleasure upon it. It’s nothing to do with manna from heaven.”

  “Only information from the Pentagon.”

  “Why, that’s more valuable than manna from heaven, and probably harder to come by.”

  “Even for a general?”

  “Sam, in this place, they send brigadiers for sandwiches. I’m lucky to have a job.”

  So Sam finally got to it.

  “The 2809th,” said General Parsons, “a medical research unit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Major David Stone?”

  “Major Stone, M.D.” Sam left out the detail that the man was dead. It wouldn’t do to suggest that he already knew quite a bit.

  “All right, Sam. I will have a sergeant look into it, and if that doesn’t get it done, I’ll send a captain. If that fails, some poor colonel is going to be working for you and not even know why.”

  It took a few days—anguished, of course, but Sam couldn’t call to press, for he knew that would be a mistake—but finally the general got back to him.

  “Now, explain to me why you need this information again?” There was an edge to his voice that Sam picked up on right away, even as he launched into his new cover story about a lawsuit against the state of Mississippi regarding the wrongful death of a man in the vicinity of the state penal farm at Thebes, for which he was trying to assemble information by people who had been there. A doctor who had served in the war and was by all means an outsider would certainly be considered objective, and would be highly regarded for a deposition.

  “Well, I’ll have to disappoint you there. Sam, Dr. Stone died, in 1945, at that duty station.”

  “I see.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sir, is it known of what cause?”

  “No.”

  “No, it’s not known, or no, you don’t know.”

  “It’s not known,” said the general, a certain distance coming into his voice.

  “Is something wrong, sir?”

  “Sam, this thing isn’t well documented. In fact, it’s unusually poorly documented.”

  “I see, sir.”

  “Well, possibly you don’t. In fact, I did have to send a sergeant, a captain and finally a colonel on this errand, and even that didn’t work. So finally I went to Records myself, and of course it turned out I was at the Point with the OIC. We’d played football there together in the early thirties.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So he looked. He himself, a full bird colonel, he looked. Sam, we got David Stone’s personnel file out of the storage room.”

  “Is it classified?”

  “Sam, it’s more than classified. It’s nonexistent.”

  “I don’t—”

  “The jacket is there, but inside there’s nothing. The contents of the file have been physically removed. That’s highly irregular.”

  “There was no reference, no note, no explanation or anything?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Could such a thing simply be lost?”

  “Possibly. But not probably.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “Someone took it. It was physically removed.”

  “Who on earth has it?”

  “Someone else.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Someone else in the government. Someone with a lot of power. Some agency or bureau or board or committee that can get things done.”

  “I see.”

  “Sam, I would run, not walk, away from this thing. ASAP, as we say. If they can do this—make a file not exist where by all legal authority it is mandated to exist—then they can hurt you badly. You’re in dangerous waters.”

  20

  THEY led Earl in, and in the jamb of the door, the guards unlocked his chains.

  As the men bent with the ancient keys and he felt the locks yield and the sudden weightlessness as the chains that had been his companions for so long disappeared, Bigboy leaned in close.

  “You’re on the levee tomorrow,” said Bigboy. “And the day after that. And all the days after that ’til you either come clean or you kill yourself or your new pals in here kill you. You know what? It doesn’t really make a shit’s worth of difference to me. It does to the warden, who gets paid to worry about such things, but it doesn’t to me.”

  He stepped back, and the door was opened, and the two men propelled Earl inward with a shove.

  He entered a different world.

  He knew it immediately from the smell. It was the smell of ancient sweat and blood, hammered into the wood. He knew from the darkness, because no details swam into his vision, but only indistinct impressions, mainly of rows of bunks, most full of men, and an open space at one end, near to him, where some men played cards.

  But he knew mostly from the eyes.

  At least thirty sets drilled into him. He could feel their weight. In the Marines, he’d felt such a thing when he moved to a new outfit, and the men he would be responsible for watched him out of fear or curiosity or in defiance or to test him. That was all right; that was human. That was recognizable.

  What he felt now was fury. The eyes spoke eloquently. They were narrowed but intent, close to warriors’ concentration, tracking his every movement, the details, committing them to memory, and most of all expressing hate. He could feel the mass will of obliteration upon him, unleashed, unbroken, unmitigated. These weren’t the Negro eyes as white people experienced them, obedient, ready to please, hoping for a compliment or a tip. Earl had never seen eyes like these.

  But as he looked he saw some eyes past caring. It became clear that sick men were in here too, or mentals or the feeble-headed, for a certain segment of the population was apart and it was men in strange states. One stood, arms clasped about himself, jabbering madly. Another rocked back and forth, shaking his head, a spume of drool running
down his chin. Still another was lashed crudely to his bed, and thrashed, though with the diminished energy of the exhausted, against his bonds. One was stark naked, standing frozen in the corner.

  Earl looked away; it would not do to stare.

  It was fine for them to stare, and stare they did, as all the cards being played were set down, and the Negroes just looked at him. There was no greeting, no acknowledgment, no anything, only the sullen looks of an anger so pure and deep and old it was beyond reckoning.

  Tentatively, he walked the rows of bunks, until he found one that was empty.

  He unrolled the mattress, which had no sheets and only a thin stretch of blanket and a rough pillow, and sat.

  “Dat my place,” a voice came out of the darkness.

  Without speaking or looking Earl rose and found another bunk like the one he’d tried, and he sat there.

  “Dat be mine,” came a voice.

  He rose again, this time to laughter. Three more times he tried and each time a voice warned him off, until it became clear that none of the bunks were for him.

  So he walked to the wall, and slid down it, and commenced to sit, staring at nothing, unmoving, willing himself so quiet and still it seemed he approached animal death.

  But he was not ignored.

  He heard the talking, the laughing, the joy of their voices. They were happy. This was damned interesting to them. They’d never seen a goddamn thing like this, a white boy among them. Put here without protection or explanation.

  He waited. He knew they would come sooner or later, and he knew there would be more than one.

  Finally, two young men rose from the card table, and sauntered over. They stood over him, but he did not look up at them.

  “Hey,” one finally said, “you. White boy.”

  Earl at last looked up. They were splendid young men, muscular and lean with an athlete’s grace and light dancing in their eyes. They wore the striped prison pants, but just undershirts, and their complex arrays of muscles gleamed off shoulders and arms.

  “Dat’s my spot,” said one. “You can’t be there.”

  Earl got up, moved a few feet, then sat down again.

  “Hey, now he gots my place. Damn! He don’t git nothing.”

  “Must be dumb. Hey, boy, you dumb? You be in Marcus’s spot.”

  Earl didn’t say a thing. He just sat there, giving no signal of response, as if he were made of stone.

  They walked over again.

  “See, boy, you done be in Marcus’s spot. So you gots to move. You understand.”

  Earl stood up.

  He looked them square in the eyes.

  “Moved twice now. Figure I’ll stay here a spell, fellows, if it’s okay with you. If it ain’t, well then, it ain’t.”

  He smiled a little dry smile.

  “Hey,” said the one, “who you think you be talkin’ to? Huh? You think this here be funny? You think you come in an’ take a man’s spot and it be funny? So you smile a bit? Huh, white boy?”

  Earl just looked into nothingness.

  “See,” said Marcus, “we gots to make you understand how it be in here. It be different. You ain’t no boss, you see that?”

  Earl looked at nothing.

  “I don’t think this here fellow done be too smart,” said the one. “He don’t seem to be listening wif both ears.”

  “He don’t look so smart to me. Hey, you got cigarettes?”

  Earl said nothing.

  “You. I’m talking to you. You got cigarettes?”

  “Not for you,” said Earl.

  “See, here’s what it is. What it is, you be paying us cigarettes. Every day. You git us a pack of cigs, and then we be your friends. Then we look after you, you got it? See, that’s the way it is in here, okay. So you be handin’ over some cigarettes.”

  “I said,” Earl repeated mildly, “I don’t have no cigarettes.”

  “Whoa,” said Marcus. “Then we got us a problem. You know, a situation. He can’t pay, what we goin’ do?”

  A hand flicked out, and snapped Earl hard in the shoulders. He could feel the strength in the sting.

  “That git his attention,” said Marcus.

  Two hands flashed out with good speed and propelled Earl hard against the wall, rattling his teeth. The two young black men stepped in close to him. Their eyes had drained of any mischief and were now dull and swollen, the pupils dilated large as saucers in anticipation of what was coming next. They were fixing to beat him hard, Earl knew.

  “What you staring at?” one asked.

  “Don’t think the man like us,” said the other.

  “You got some problem, boy? Huh, you don’t understand what we sayin’?”

  “Boy, I think I’m going to have to teach you some manners, yes suh, so you know how it be in this here place. What you think about—”

  “All right!”

  It was a rumbling voice. A figure stepped from the shadows. He was an immense man, jet black, with huge biceps that loomed immensely on his large frame. He had almost no neck at all, and his eyes burned furiously. Earl could see a crescent scar running down one side of his face, like a quarter moon, and knew instinctively that this was Moon himself.

  “Don’t y’all be hassling this here poor boy,” said Moon, smiling. His immense strength had the effect of pushing them back and away.

  He turned to Earl.

  “If he be in here, he be our brother. He be one of us, yes sir. I can tell a good man when I sees one, and I know this here be one of ours, yessir. Son, what’s your name?”

  “Jack,” said Earl.

  “Jack? Jack, well, y’all meet Jack, our new brother, new to our world, and welcome to it. Jack, I am called Moon. Brother, I offer you my hand—”

  He stretched out a big hand, as if pushed forward by the smile that lit his face in welcome.

  Earl hit him in the throat. He hit him so hard even a man of his size was stunned, and gave up a pace, and then Earl drove the same fist hard into the center of the body, and heard the gasp as in reflex the air was pushed from Moon’s lungs, and then he turned.

  Earl lunged and before Marcus could get his fists up he hit him a three-punch combination, two to the head with a shot to the solar plexus between, which set the young man to his butt, retching.

  That left the third who moved in on boxer’s feet, bobbing behind his fists as if he knew what he was doing. He didn’t. Earl fired a punch through his guard that broke his nose, slipped a weak comeback punch, drove inside for a body tattoo of five or six speed jabs, and when he dropped his hands to cover up there, Earl teed off on the side of the head.

  In ten seconds, everybody was down. In that same ten seconds, everybody else was up, staring, some tensed for action but unsure, some falling back to avoid the riot, some protecting their poker winnings, but most waiting for the first man to make a move so they’d know what to do.

  “Y’all listen now,” Earl addressed them. “This here big fella, he wasn’t no friend of mine. I know how these places work, so don’t you be trying no shit like that on me. Y’all ain’t my friends, not a one of you. You move softly behind me, and I will be on you hard. You move fast around me, you be behind me, I know you fixin’ to kill me, that simple. So I get you first and fastest. You think you can take me in a group? Tell you what, you’re probably right. But I will kill one man in the group before I go. Maybe it’ll be you. Anything you pay me I will pay back with interest. That is the goddamn rule I live by, so don’t you be gettin’ bold on me. If you mess with me, I will hurt you so bad you’ll be beggin’ for Bigboy to save you.”

  Then he walked to the nearest bunk, flipped somebody’s effects off the mattress.

  “This here’s my bunk. Nobody comes near it without making noise. I sleep real light, so don’t think you can git me while I’m out. I won’t never be out, not so’s you know it. You want to git through this, you leave me be. You want to die young in this shithole, you come against me. I will finish you and not think twice abo
ut it.”

  21

  NOT even Connie could help.

  Connie Longacre was forty-four and Sam’s secret confederate in the adventure of his life. She was married to Polk County’s richest man, Rance Longacre, whom she’d wed in 1930 when he was a glamorous naval aviator in Pensacola, headed for the fleet, and looked so dashing in his white uniform, so heroic. But Rance, as it turned out (this was Connie’s bitterest lesson), wasn’t particularly heroic; he was always the lesser of the men he was around except for the natural lubrication of the immense ranch and beef cattle empire he had inherited and which would produce more income than anyone could spend into perpetuity. For example, he didn’t have a particularly distinguished war, serving on an admiral’s staff far from the battle zone, where most of the county men had come back with medals if they came back at all, Sam with a Bronze Star and Earl, of course, with the Medal of Honor. The one thing Rance was really good at was staying buzzed twenty-four hours a day. He slept drunk, he awoke drunk, and there wasn’t a second during the day when his Scotch glass wasn’t within easy reach.

  Connie tried other avenues, but her one son, Stephen, was more like his father than his mother, handsome and reckless and ready for trouble wherever and whenever he could find it. He was currently spending his father’s money at a heartbreaking rate in New Orleans while attempting to stay married, through his many infidelities and other indiscretions, to one of Louisiana’s most beautiful and socially connected young ladies, equally as wild as he, equally, it seemed, as hellbent on her own destruction.

  So Connie, bent in her own unexpressed agony over the tragedy of a husband who would never accomplish anything and a son who would die too young, turned to the one civilized man she could find, a strong, fair, just man, who worked like a dog and said true things no matter the cost. Connie would have gone out of her mind if she’d never discovered Sam, who under his bushy eyebrows and his appearance of brusque annoyance, seemed to understand the deeper mechanisms of the universe in a way Rance couldn’t and Stephen wouldn’t. Sam had been to Princeton and Yale law, he had stood under the clock at the Biltmore and seen shows on Broadway, and secretly read novels behind everybody’s back. He had a dutiful Arkansas wife who produced babies and biscuits and looked great at political functions, but felt numb around Sam, as Sam did around her, and so this whatever it was between Sam and Connie magically just happened.