The Hidden Light of Northern Fires

by Daren Wang

  A jowled man with a tall hat, a severe starched collar, and permanently arched eyes took the stage. His voice boomed out across the crowd as he paced the width of the stage, hands behind his back.

  “I know many of you and many of you know me. I grew up here, worked as a clerk not far from this spot before duty called me to Washington and the White House. My name is Millard Fillmore.”

  The crowd cheered wildly.

  “Now just last year, many of you heard me tell you that Stephen Douglas could save our Union. I traveled far and wide in our county telling you to not vote for Mr. Lincoln. But the time for differences ended when we dropped our ballots in the box. We are all Americans!”

  The crowd clapped and whooped.

  “And now we face the greatest threat to our young nation since we chased the redcoats from this waterfront in 1812. We did not fight then so that we would founder now.

  “Not two months ago, President Lincoln took my hand in that building right there,” he pointed at the American Hotel. “He asked of me ‘Millard, will you help me hold this Union?’ I told him then, as I tell you now, that I will give my very life to preserve these United States.”

  Women banged pots with wooden spoons and the men cheered again.

  “Join me, Democrat or Freesoiler, Republican or Whig. Fight, fight with all that you have to save our Republic.”

  As another cheer went up, a boy in the crowd shouted, “Where do I sign up?”

  “A valiant, brave soul!” Fillmore shouted.

  One of the men on the stage stepped forward with a scroll.

  “I happen to have a roll right here waiting for enlistees,” Fillmore said. “Come join me on the platform, young man.”

  The crowd cheered and cleared a path to the stage. He jumped onto the platform. “Let’s go get us some rebs,” he shouted.

  Like the boys she’d known all her life, he seemed barely old enough to hitch a mule, much less to fight in a war. Leander’s friends cared nothing for the politics of North versus South, of Union or Confederate, but she could imagine them signing up in that fever, and it made her despair. As separate as she felt from them, she could not imagine Town Line without them.

  And then she thought of Leander, and wondered where he was, and it felt as if her stomach had dropped into a bottomless pit.

  “Are you prepared to sign in service of your country while we put this devilish rebellion down?”

  “Gasbag,” she muttered. “It was you, as much as anyone else, who brought us here.”

  “Let me at ’em,” the boy shouted, his voice cracking as he raised his fists, an imaginary boxer standing over an imaginary opponent. The crowd egged him on.

  “Well, someone get this young man a pen, before he sees a pretty girl in the crowd and changes his mind,” Fillmore shouted to laughs.

  A pen and pot appeared, and Fillmore stretched the roll out on the rostrum. The youth signed with a flourish, and a cheer rose up under the trees again.

  Fillmore reached out and shook the boy’s hand. “Welcome to the United States Army, son. Congratulations, good luck, and we’ll see you back here for the Fourth of July.”

  He turned to the crowd, “Who else wants a nice new uniform? The girls love them!”

  “Reporting, sir,” a chorus of voices shouted from somewhere behind her.

  The crowd jostled as a murmur rumbled through the gathering and a group on horses rode slowly into the crowd.

  “Let us through, we’re here to join,” a voice shouted hoarsely.

  Mary almost fell to her knees when she saw Leander riding Karl Wilhelm’s horse to the front of the stage. Nearly three dozen of his friends flanked him, all faces she recognized. There was Henry Grimes from Alden, a boy she’d danced with once or twice, and Lafayette Glass, whom she’d seen at the rally in Alden earlier. Vaness Weber and Edward Eels followed, muskets on shoulders.

  And of course Hans Zubrich, atop his father’s old swayback, rode closest.

  The former president lifted his hands over his head as the crowd shouted itself raw.

  Once the entire company had made its way to the front of the stage, Leander climbed the steps, and Fillmore clapped him on the shoulder and embraced him like a conquering hero.

  “The first volunteer cavalry of Alden reporting for duty,” Leander said.

  The cheering shook the budding trees of the square.

  “I know you,” Fillmore shouted. “Everybody, this is Leander Willis, son of my good friend Nathan Willis, one of the first men to settle here on the Niagara Frontier. A great man, surely. Tell me, young Willis, how did you come to command this new company?”

  “I recruited these men today,” Leander said, grinning.

  “You formed a company of thirty men in one day?” Fillmore asked, his disbelief theatrical.

  “We did,” Leander said. “The men of Alden and Town Line stand with the Union.”

  “Welcome to the fight, Captain Willis,” Fillmore said.

  “I’m not a captain, sir,” Leander said.

  “You are now,” Fillmore shouted to a laughing crowd. “You men come up and sign this muster roll.”

  She watched wordlessly as nearly every boy she’d ever known climbed onto the stage and signed themselves over to the Union. The crowd surged to the stage, reaching forward to lay hands on the newly anointed unit, but she turned away, away from the noise and bustle. She crushed the empty, greasy newspaper in her hands and dropped it on the ground where it was soon trampled underfoot.

  STATION

  Katia always said the dead walked the earth at night. Harry wasn’t so sure, but if she was right, Karl Wilhelm’s ghost sure as shit knew where to find him.

  Ghosts were one thing, then there was Charlie Webster. Harry had known Charlie forever, but he’d never seen him like he’d been when he shot old Wilhelm. Charlie had dug Mary’s pistol out from under the bench cushion, aimed it at the innkeeper, and pulled the trigger so quickly that Harry hadn’t realized what was happening until Wilhelm was bleeding.

  Then there was the look in Charlie’s eyes when he’d cocked the pistol and aimed it straight at Harry. If the nigger hadn’t spoken up, he’d have been dead right then.

  Harry didn’t want to think too much about the idea that it was the runaway that he’d been hunting down who probably saved his life by giving himself up. It made him a little dizzy to try and work that out.

  So the ghost of Karl Wilhelm might be after him, and Charlie Webster might be after him, too, but what really kept him awake was worrying about Mr. Willis.

  Other than Jep, Harry’d never had a better friend than Nathan Willis.

  In the months after he’d jumped off the orphan train, Harry had mostly gotten by with stolen apples, poached fish, and whatever Katia brought for him from Nathan Willis’s table. When he finally got caught, Harry had expected to get beaten or dragged off to jail, but Mr. Willis had brought him in and sat him down like a proper guest. He had never really had to go hungry since. He’d always been able to count on Nathan Willis.

  Of course, Mr. Willis had been helping to hide the runaway, but the runaway had also saved Harry.

  He wasn’t sure exactly who to be angry with. But he knew for sure it was all his own fault.

  As hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop seeing the old man, blood pouring out of the side of his head, facedown in the mud.

  There wasn’t anybody in Town Line that Nathan Willis hadn’t helped along in some way. And all those people—they’d be looking for Harry now. Lord knew, he would have hunted himself down for it.

  Normally, he’d have hidden out in Leander’s shack, but that just seemed wrong now. So he took his old musket and his bedroll and he hid out under the Town Line bridge. He had a bottle of rum hidden there.

  He wished he could see Katia, but he was too ashamed. If there was anyone that owed more than him to Nathan Willis, it was Katia. She’d probably kill Harry herself if she had the chance.

  That night under the bridge was cold, b
ut a fire would have given him away. He drank the rum and sat up, watching for the ghost of Karl Wilhelm as the creek flowed by.

  By sunup, he’d decided to leave Town Line for good. He wasn’t sure where he’d go, but he’d start by going downtown. He had business there.

  He dug up his crock, pocketed his money, and started the long walk downtown. He could have bought a train ticket, but now was not the time to get all fancy.

  In Lancaster, the road was crowded with morons heading downtown to enlist, and he pulled his hat lower on his head.

  By the time he got to Depew, the smell of cooking sausages coming out of a crowded gin mill drew him in for something to eat. The bartender, seeing his swag and musket, took him for a volunteer and told him he was drinking on the house. Saying nothing, Harry settled at the bar and drank what was put in front of him. After a few hours of whiskey, and all the idiots talking about how the South would surrender in a few weeks, he couldn’t take it anymore and said how the war was all a fool’s errand and he’d sooner eat shit than wear a uniform.

  He’d barely finished when three men picked him up and threw him into the gutter outside the front door. The bartender followed them out and emptied the spittoon onto his head.

  He got to the waterfront in the early afternoon. He had come looking for the Abigail, but at the same time, he’d hoped it was gone. He had been dreading the conversation, fretting how to break the news.

  He was led into the same room as before, only now the commander sat alone at a desk with papers spread before him.

  Harry hung his head and put his grimy hat over his heart.

  “Sir, it’s terrible news for sure, but Mr. Wilhelm got killed,” he said.

  Compson didn’t even look up.

  “You came a long way for a drink,” Compson said, motioning to where the liquor sat on a sideboard. “Just take the bottle and go.”

  Harry glared at the top of the Southerner’s head until the silence caused Compson to lift his face and look him in the eye.

  “You can pour that whiskey into that big river for all I care,” Harry said, color rising in his face. “I came to tell you about Karl Wilhelm. He was my friend. He treated me alright. And it was my doing that got him killed. I thought he was your friend, too, so I figured I should tell you face-to-face before I moved on. I came to say I’m sorry.”

  Compson blinked, surprised. “Take a seat, Mr. Strauss,” he said, motioning to a chair.

  Harry just glared at the Southerner.

  Compson stood, and came around the desk. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m grateful that you came all this way to tell me. It’s far more than most would do, and you’ve shown yourself to be a man of honor.”

  Compson’s hand did not move for a long moment, and finally Harry took it.

  “Please, sit,” Compson said again.

  It had been a long walk, and he’d bruised his hip when they threw him out of the saloon. He sank into the soft chair.

  “The marshal let me know what happened,” Compson said, taking the chair next to him. “You shouldn’t feel bad. You did just what you said you would, and you did what the law says you should. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. God rest his soul, Karl Wilhelm brought this on himself, and he’s to blame for Mr. Willis’s fate, too, whatever that might be.”

  “You can say that all you want,” Harry said. “That don’t mean it’s true.”

  Compson gave him a rueful grin.

  “So what of you? Will you march to war?” the commander asked.

  “Hell no,” Harry said. “I got no horse in that race. They’re all idiots, signing up to get killed.”

  “You’re a prudent man,” Compson said with a smile. “So what then?”

  “I’ve left Town Line,” he said. “I can’t face anyone there. I might try to find some work down here in the city. Maybe over at the canal. I like animals. Maybe I could tend the mules there.”

  Compson leaned against his heavy desk.

  “That’s not work for a man of honor like yourself,” he said. “Come work for me. I could use someone like you. A man I can trust.”

  “For what?”

  Compson ran his fingers along his thin mustache.

  “This or that,” he said. “I’m a stranger in a strange land, and I could use a friend like you. Why don’t you let me pay you a retainer, and you go back to Town Line and wait for word from me?”

  “Nathan Willis is probably going to die if he ain’t dead already,” Harry said. “The people in that town are as likely as not to string me up if they see me.”

  “Nonsense,” Compson said, furrowing his brow. “It was Wilhelm that shot Mr. Willis. That’s not your fault.”

  He opened a drawer, counted some bills, and stuffed them into an envelope that he pushed across the desk.

  “This is fifty dollars. Take it, head back to Town Line, and wait for word from me. It’s a first month’s pay.”

  “Fifty dollars?” Harry said. “It takes me a long time to see that kind of money.”

  “You have done well by me,” Compson said. “Stay out in Town Line. I have ideas for that little town.”

  Harry stared at the envelope. He wasn’t sure what a retainer was, but if it meant fifty dollars to do nothing, he couldn’t think of a good reason not to take it. He picked it up, shook Compson’s hand again, and left.

  He rode the train back home and knocked at the Zubrichs’ door, hoping he could make Hans understand it wasn’t all his doing. Maybe he would let him stay in the barn for a few nights.

  The pastor, his blond hair cropped close to his head and his spectacles perched on his nose, answered the door.

  “Ah, you are safe,” he said. “I read in the paper about the shooting. So bad, this nigger. Praise Jesus you are safe.”

  Harry scuffed the porch with his boots.

  “I was looking for Hans,” he said.

  “Hans is gone,” he said. “Him and the rest of those useless boys. I told him that if he joined the war, I’d never let him back in this house.”

  He spat.

  “You are the only one with sense not to follow that Hurensohn Leander Willis to this war. Everyone is gone.”

  Harry’s knees grew weak at the news.

  “Who else?” he asked.

  “Everyone,” Zubrich said. “Thirty boys followed him to this godforsaken war. The Webers. The Glasses. Ach. All ungrateful boys. Only the old men are left to plow the fields.”

  Harry shook his head in disbelief and turned to leave. He was nearly off the porch when he stopped and turned.

  “I was going to ask Hans if I could stay in your barn tonight,” he said.

  The old pastor waved his hand.

  “Take his room. Stay as long as you want. You can work for it. Help with the garden, other things.”

  Harry thought of the cold night he’d spent under the Town Line bridge and smiled in gratitude.

  After he put his things in Hans’s room, he went out again, just to walk around the little crossroads. He felt like a prince with all the money he had in his pocket. He bought some candy at Snyder’s, and walked past the train station and the closed blacksmith and the closed school, then turned around and walked past them again before he went back to the parsonage. After dinner, when he was sure no one would see him, he found his way back to the windbreak and reburied his treasure, now almost doubled.

  The next morning, he borrowed the Webers’ mule and hitched it to the dull plow in the barn and turned the parsonage’s little kitchen garden. He helped Mrs. Zubrich plant it the next day.

  Pastor Zubrich would often have little projects for him that he’d announce each morning at breakfast, but nothing too hard, and he was usually done by lunch. He hired out for little jobs with the farmers around town and they all told him how smart he was to stay home.

  The town was so quiet there was seldom a noise other than the lowing of cows. Wilhelm’s widow had returned to Bavaria the day after the innkee
per’s funeral, and Harry wouldn’t even look at the little black-windowed Corner House when he passed it.

  Zubrich wouldn’t allow even beer into his house, so the nearest drink was three miles away at Oscar Dodge’s saloon in Alden. Harry walked there one evening, but the bar was empty except for a pair of gray-bearded old farmers drinking schnapps and talking in German at a corner table. When Harry ordered a beer, Dodge didn’t even look up from his paper as he said that if he wanted to drink, he should have joined the army.

  As the spring moved toward summer, Harry sometimes went to watch the younger boys play ball in the same field where he’d played with Hans and Lelo, but it just made him more lonely and sad.

  Some mornings he stood under a tree across the street from the Willis place, hoping to see Katia, but he never did. He’d heard that Mr. Willis had survived, and for that he was grateful. But he couldn’t imagine facing him or Mary.

  Then came the massacre at Bull Run. Hundreds of boys killed on a bright Virginia afternoon.

  Up until then, the war had been felt as an absence to the farmers of Town Line. The boys had all gone off and gotten themselves involved in things that weren’t their business, but they would be back soon. But now, they were dying.

  The mood of Pastor Zubrich’s Sunday-morning sermons switched from anger to dread. The girls started organizing sanitary drives, gathering at this house or that to cut old rags into bandage strips and ship them away to field hospitals.

  When he saw Susie Munn at Snyder’s General Store, he called her by name and reached out for her arm.

  “Coward” was all she said, and pulled herself free.

  The ball games stopped, and the boys that played them seemed to disappear from sight.

  Harry found Mrs. Zubrich crying in the kitchen with the windows shuttered on one warm August afternoon.

  “Back in Germany, the soldiers came and stole our boys, took them to their revolution,” she explained in her thick accent. “Brothers. Sons. That’s why everyone came to America. Now it will happen here. They hide their boys this time; some they will not let out of the house at all.”