Liminal States

by Zack Parsons

  Adelaide disappeared down an adjoining hall, and Gideon could hear the receding thump of her shoes on the carpet.

  A rasping voice called out through the door of the bedchamber. “Adelaide, I need you.”

  “It is me, Father,” said Gideon.

  “Junior? Is that ... my Junior ... who ...” Father’s voice trailed off into half-heard muttering.

  Junior was Harlan Long II, Gideon’s older brother, dead on the battlefield nearly ten years prior. Gideon accepted his own fate and limped to the door. His cane clicked against the floor, and his leg brace squeaked with each turn of the joint. He took a last deep breath before stepping through the threshold into Father’s shrinking domain.

  The stench of endings filled the room. Father lay withered by time and a procession of disease. He was a fragile thing beneath the overstuffed down comforter, shrunken in every measurement and capacity. Though waning, he existed still as a fearsome spirit at the outer edges of the world. Gideon wondered if the dead could restlessly seek to pursue their evils. Though he knew the man could no longer strike him with his fists, it was no coincidence that he recalled the horse Apollyon whenever he thought of his father.

  The bedchamber was crowded. Books and ledgers were piled over what windows might have provided at least a scrap of moonlight. The room was made to seem smaller still by the few oil lamps burning at this late hour. The walls were papered with pictures of pheasants, father’s favorite beast to shoot, and festooned with Hindoo knives and German landscapes, finished with the garish portraits of ten generations of Longs. The painted eyes of Gideon’s ancestors were uniformly dark, as though something had prevented each painter throughout the many years from finishing their depictions with believably human eyes.

  Perhaps not so unfinished, Gideon thought as he looked upon the sickly remnants of his father. The old man’s eyes were dark, sunken, glittering coal in the pallid face. Father looked at Gideon with the cold envy of a man unwilling to relinquish history to the next generation.

  Gideon did not doubt that, were Mephisto to appear to offer his father a bargain, Gideon would find his soul caged in his father’s rotting carcass, while his father lived out a full life in Gideon’s body. Such a trade would suit his father well.

  “Ah, it’s only you,” said Father. He lifted a palsied hand and motioned Gideon to his bedside. “This long wait for the reaper tests my patience. I nightmare away the hours sweating and pissing myself, yet the true terror is conjured when I imagine what ruin you have brought to my lifetime’s enterprise.”

  Gideon said nothing. He reached to take his father’s hand, but the invalid dragged his speckled claw away.

  “This land remembers me, what I did. I carved civilization from it. I beat back the savage, god damn him. I—” Father’s cough interrupted him. His lungs rattled, and he spilled phlegm down his chin. “Civilization.”

  “Please, Father, you are unwell. Try to calm yourself. Perhaps some sleep.”

  “Perhaps sleep,” Father said in a voice that mocked Gideon’s tone. “Sage counsel to be sure. History is written by the sleeping.”

  Father raised his gnarled hand once more and pointed a bony finger up at Gideon. “You’ll not raise my hackles on this day. I called you here to be spoken at, so listen.”

  “I brought you the accounts,” Gideon said. “I have detailed everything with—”

  Gideon brought forth the heavy ledgers he carried beneath his arm. Each was carefully crafted to tell a story of vitality to his father. Each was an increasingly difficult deception. Father pushed them away with surprising vehemence.

  “You brought me scrap paper and numbers written down by liars.” Father sat up in the bed. “I yet have faithful men within your midst, men whose loyalty to my enterprise compels them to report your mismanagement. You can bring in your Dutchman and your fancy machine. Replace white men practiced at the trade with stinking Slavs and all those gutter Chinese. Cheaper, but they will ruin you. Those mongrel peoples are parasites gathering upon the body of this nation.”

  The old man’s eyes bulged, and foam gathered at the corners of his lips. His hair was long and gray and as thin as spun sugar around the spotted dome of his head.

  “Father, try to calm yourself,” Gideon said as he took a step forward.

  “Your brother, God rest him, was brought up for this. He had the spirit of a Long in him.”

  Father fought to catch his breath.

  “You have already met Mr. Horten,” Gideon said with a pleading tone. “I have explained the wireworks. It is an investment that will pay dividends over—”

  “We’re in copper, boy. Not iron.” Father sighed and allowed himself to settle back in the cushioned bed. “Your excuses no longer matter to me. I have sent for my attorney.”

  Gideon felt a fearful lurch and clenching in his gut. He steadied himself by leaning against his cane and tried not to show his fear. It was too late. His father’s smile revealed a mouthful of teeth so decayed, they were nearly gray.

  “Yes, Gideon. My attorney is come from Memphis. He will be arriving in Jessup in two days by railway. Robert Broken Horse can take care of sending a coach to retrieve him.”

  Father gleefully wallowed in Gideon’s dismay.

  “He will want to see everything. The accounts themselves, not just these ledgers. What you have done to my foundry, to the mine. To our family.”

  “I have done nothing.”

  “Nothing would be bad enough, a failure by inaction, but I suspect you are lying to me. I fear Pearce has not been put in his place, as you claim. Profligacy, perhaps criminal acts of accounting. Mr. Surebow will sniff it out, and your goose will soon be cooked.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Should any of my suspicions prove true, I have already alerted your sister’s husband to be ready to take over the business.”

  Gideon began to protest, but Father held up a hand to stop him.

  “He has already proven himself in his own enterprise. I should rather my life’s work pass to another name than have it ruined by my own. By this method my industrious ancestors will at least enjoy some benefit of all my labors.”

  Father clapped his hands together to punctuate his declaration. He seemed rejuvenated by Gideon’s reaction. He took the edge of the comforter in his left hand and flung it back from his body. An orange brine of liquid surrounded him on the mattress.

  “I will be needing you to clean my piss.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  He snatched in his hand the fire and the knife and ran, heedless of discovery, out into the night. He was barefoot. His nightshirt was soiled with blood. The same blood sheathed his face and his eyes were wild marbles in its midst. Smoke coughed from every crack of the shanty. Could someone yet live within its walls? Fireglowed beneath the door. The shack throbbed with malevolence.

  He fled from it. Into the cold. Men were returning from shifts in the textile mills and chemical factories of Kensington. Some were barge tenders from the river come to the snowy mud and squalor of the shanties in search of pleasure.

  The boy ran on against the tide of returning workers. He escaped the grasp of twenty men. He howled toward the river. In sight of the railhead he cast aside his lantern and it broke open and spilled fire in the road.

  The train platform before him was crowded with travelers bound for Schuylkill and farther on. A train policeman was patrolling to prevent stowaways and thefts among the waiting travelers. The boy tried to discern some course by which he could climb onto the train and avoid detection. His head was not clear. His hands shook with the wild beat of his heart.

  The fire started by his lantern was causing a commotion. A shabbily dressed man took off his jacket and used it to beat the spreading flames. Curious inhabitants of nearby shacks were emerging one by one to view the spectacle. The impromptu fireman shouted and pointed to indicate the boy.

  His only route for escape was in the direction of the river itself. He shoved past a man with the obvious intent o
f capturing him and leaped onto the wooden decking to the coal wharves of Port Richmond. A half dozen steam colliers crowded the docks. Most were dark and silent, their crews ashore. Two bustled with activity as the overhead cranes loaded coal into their holds.

  A cry went up from behind the boy, and he sensed that he was discovered. The boots of several men beat against the dock as they chased him. If they caught him, his life would end, perhaps not by noose, but by some other slow and poisonous method. His fear propelled him, and he ran to the railing. The boy took a last glance back. He bit the blade of the knife and jumped into the Delaware.

  The cold nearly sent him into shock. He could not swim. Years spent up to his knees in the muck, and he could not swim. He thrashed and kicked and was only just able to keep his head above water. His fingers collided with something, and he grabbed hold. When he bobbed to the surface again, he could see that he was clinging to the rigging of one of the iron-banded steamships. He hauled himself up the slimy ropes and paused out of sight to ensure no guard was patrolling. His body steamed in the cold air. He pressed his prickled flesh against the ship’s hull.

  When he was certain he was not detected, he heaved himself over the railing and onto the deck. It was crowded on the ship. Men with long hair and heavy coats focused on one another or the coal clattering into the hold. Their voices were loud and fearless. He crept across the deck undetected and turned himself sideways to slip into a gap between the ship’s superstructure and its sidewall.

  Exhaustion and cold took their toll. The boy sagged and lapsed into a restless sleep. His dreams were haunted by bloody visions of his deeds. He awoke for just a moment as the ship departed. Long enough to see the fires of Philadelphia receding into the distance.

  He next awoke to angry shouting. One of the sailors was leaning half his body into the narrow passage the boy occupied.

  “C’mere,” the man said. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

  The sailor stretched his arm out as far as he could in the tight space and his grimy fingers wriggled scant inches from the boy’s nose. The boy could smell the rope oil on the man’s hand.

  “C’mere!”

  The boy slashed the knife at the sailor’s fingers and nearly opened the man’s wrist. The blade was made from thick bottle glass and wrapped in twine. The sailor howled in pain and surprise and retreated from the hiding spot. The boy darted out. His legs were unsteady on the swaying ship but he was too nimble for the shocked sailors to catch. He ducked under one and dodged around another. They enclosed him in a half circle and backed him against the railing.

  “We have you, boy.” The sailor’s teeth showed red from sucking at his wound.” Throw down the knife and it’ll only be a kick or two.”

  The boy leapt into the frigid Delaware. He resurfaced with a gasp and heard the men calling out to him and throwing ropes into the water. “You will drown!” they told him. He ignored them and paddled and kicked away into the night as best as he could manage. The ship never turned back for him.

  When the boy finally pulled himself onto the rocky shore he was some ways distant from any city. Across the river a few lights burned. On his side of the river was only darkness and piles of fresh snow. The snow here was different. It seemed to trap and hold the moonlight and it took him a moment to realize it was because there was nothing but the snow. There were no buildings or rutted roads to break it up. Hardly any animal tracks at all.

  The boy’s limbs were nearly frozen. His arms were growing rigid and his legs did not bend at all. It was only his will that allowed him to start off across the snowy field. The mud beneath the snow squished between his toes and pulled at his feet. It was exhaustion piled on top of exhaustion. At least the mud of the riverbank had scoured and concealed most of the blood.

  There was a dark wood to the north. He recalled a friend’s tale of black bears living in the wilderness near Philadelphia and he had no true measure of how far he was from the city.

  He feared the wood. In daylight he might have enjoyed it. In the darkness and on this night of all nights he was afraid of things far more sinister than bears. Spirits of retribution might haunt those trees.

  The boy followed a snow-scabbed brook. It was easier to walk in the water and his feet were so numb he felt no pain from the rocks. He trudged for what seemed hours before he could not endure more. It was in that moment of surrender, with legs of lead and hair matted with frost, that the boy heard a familiar sound. The night was so quiet, and the sound was still very distant. It was the unmistakable creak-creak-creak of a waterwheel turning.

  In his relief the boy tripped and sprawled facedown into the stream.

  He splashed and stumbled forward on frozen legs. He could see the wheel now as it revolved slowly in the current. It was joined to a barrel-shaped mill house made from river bricks. A few wet lumps of snow slid from the steeply angled roof and thumped onto the rocky path to the doorway. The soft glow of candlelight was visible behind the varicolored pucks of crowned glass composing two small and deeply set windows. The candle moved behind that glass and the boy’s pace quickened with excitement.

  He climbed up the snow gathered at the banks of the brook. His deadened feet caught roots and he pulled himself up and out of the streambed. He set off across the field in the open. Each step cut deeply into the snow. His arms and legs no longer hurt at all. The more he walked the warmer he became.

  When he first spied the mill it did not seem far away and yet he never seemed to close with it no matter his effort. Despite this he felt a great calm descending. He felt reassured and well. He felt that the candle glimpsed through the window was a fire that touched him with its warmth.

  The heat built to an uncomfortable temperature and he began to pull at his sodden nightshirt. He lifted it over his head and threw it aside. Another few steps and he felt compelled by the burning heat to strip out of his flannel drawers. The skin of his arms and legs was nearly blue. He had no concern. The flow of blood would soon be restored by that incredible heat.

  He stumbled and sprawled naked into the snow. He gave a queer shout as he dropped to his knees and then tipped onto his side. He was very warm and tired. Snug as a weevil in a flour sack. He laid his belly in the warm snow and let sleep come easy.

  Somewhere in the distance the fire took on a voice and called the boy’s name. The fire knew what he had done. He was ready. He was unafraid. He smiled into the snow and knew it was coming to claim him.

  The boy woke in the mill house. It was daylight and he was swaddled like a babe in blankets three thick. He sat inches from a hearth churning with tall flames that buffeted his face.

  “He’s awake,” said a young girl with a plain face and straight brown hair. She was sitting very near him and reacted as if he were a trapped beast coming awake.

  “Go fetch Pa,” said a woman.

  The boy’s whole body ached so that it was a great undertaking to turn his head to see who was talking. A woman smiled down at him. She possessed the same plain face as the girl, and yet she was pretty. Her eyes were brown. Her cheeks were pinched pink. The boy smiled back.

  “Let me get you some hot milk,” she said.

  “Pa” came down the ladder from the attic. The sound of his boots arriving on the puncheon floor reminded the boy fearfully of his own father. Pa was smaller than the boy’s father. He had bigger hands, though, and he easily lifted the boy up and carried him to kitchen.

  Ma ladled hot milk from a pan into a cup and held it to the boy’s lips. The boy drank, though the liquid burned him. Pa cradled the boy. His black hair was as coarse as a horse brush, and odd moles like little fleshy ticks disfigured his face.

  “You’re safe now,” Pa said. “No more harm will come to you. What do they call you? Where do you come from?”

  The boy swallowed the milk and answered quietly, “Don’t know.”

  He knew, but they never asked again, not once in seven years. They called him Stranger for a few days and then Warren. Ma said it was a strong name.
It was the name of her father’s brother who fought the Indians. Warren took on their family name of Groves. They taught him letters and to use a pencil and celebrated the winter day he’d come to them as the day of his birth. When he was twelve, they gave to him a black book in which to write what he thought. He treasured the book but only wrote one thing upon its pages. A name and a deed they could never know.

  They loved him as their own. Fortune could not have provided a better home. In those years his brothers and sisters came to see him as shared blood. Kin of gentle demeanor. The boy named Warren knew different. By blood and by deed, he was a killer.

  Sheriff Warren Groves rode high in his saddle through the streets of Spark. Pat Cole rode alongside. Cole was the bigger man and he rode the larger horse and yet Sheriff Groves commanded the attention of those on the streets at this early hour. His eyes were steely. His square jaw was unmoving beneath his natural frown.

  The town was named for the sparks that flew from the axes of early prospectors striking against unexpected deposits of flint rock. The houses and hotels of the mining town atop Red Stem were tinted gold by the deceptively soft glow of the New Mexico morning. Spark was beginning to stir. Drunks staggered out of alleyways in search of a more comfortable place to lay their head. Whores and gamblers retreated from the morning light and left the world to be cleaned up and made into some estimation of wholesome again for the day.

  The furnace smell of the foundry permeated every corner and the Red Brook tannery made itself known as well. There was room enough in the air for more pleasant aromas. Delilah’s smelled of baking bread. Cook fires smoldered and gave off the scent of trail coffee and stew and salted ham.

  Stores and hotels and saloons and cribs clung to the wagon trail running up the mountain’s gentle slope like cheap beads on a string. The houses made from whitewashed mud and wood were kept to side streets. The Pearce family owned most of the land in town and doled it out with preference given to their own employees. The workers at the Pearce foundry were nearer the summit end of town to shorten their walk.