by John Jakes
Charles shrugged in a bleak way. “What are you doing here?”
“She used to belong to the owner of this place,” Bent said. “I sell her. She’ll hump man or beast for gin, but you won’t have the pleasure. I have other things in mind.” His face wrenched. Charles remembered how crazy he was. “You bitch, hurry up!” The cry echoed away. The wind blew.
Bent eyed Charles and giggled. “Now, Main. Now we’re going to enjoy this unexpected reunion. I’m going to give the orders. You’ll obey them to the letter unless you want this child to bleed to death before your eyes. When I say forward march, you come this way and take two steps through the door. Not one or three, two, keeping your hands raised at all times. Any mistake, any disobedience, I’ll slit him.”
Bent could barely contain his good humor. “All right. Forward—march.”
Hands above his head, Charles walked to the house.
Magee strode away from the pecan trees carrying his rifle in the crook of his arm. The wind fluttered the wild turkey feather in the band of his derby.
Gray Owl called out, “He said wait.”
“He’s been gone too long.” Magee kept walking.
“Wait. That was his order.”
Magee broke stride. Stopped, stared across the bright water at a pair of redbirds swooping in the sunshine. With a fretful look down Vermilion Creek, he turned and slowly walked back to the tracker wrapped in his blanket.
62
THE ROOM REMINDED CHARLES of a sutlers. The dirt floor bore the imprints of boots, moccasins, bare feet. Dark lumps of cold food scummed the tops of two tables. The chair where Bent ordered him to sit creaked and swayed when he put his weight on it.
Then he saw the crookedly hung portrait. He stared at the woman for about ten seconds before recognition went off in his head like a shell.
“That picture—” He had trouble enunciating clearly. Fear for Gus dulled his mind, slowed his reactions. And coming on the portrait here, he felt propelled into some unreal place, some world where anything was possible, and nothing was sane.
With effort he finished the thought. “Where did you get it?”
“Recognize the subject, do you?” Bent laid the knife, the Spencer, and the Army Colt on the plank bar, then carefully positioned the open razor within easy reach.
“My cousin Orry’s wife. It’s a bad likeness.”
“Because it’s her mother. A whore in New Orleans. A quadroon.” Bent took a coarse, heavy rope from a box beneath his shelf of bottles. “You don’t act surprised that she’s a nigger.”
“I know Madeline has black blood. But I never expected to see a picture like that.”
“Nor find me, I venture to say.” Bent was all false politeness. “Hands together, raised in front of you.”
Charles didn’t respond. Bent struck him with his fist. Blood leaked from Charles’s right nostril. He raised his hands and Bent looped the rope around his wrists.
Charles’s mind was still sluggish, awash with rage against this stubbled, crippled man who moved with obvious discomfort. He raged at himself, too. He’d failed outside. His mistake would cost his life. He saw it in the feverish shine of Elkanah Bent’s eyes as Bent looped the rope a third and fourth time.
All right, his life was forfeit. But there was Gus.
Bent’s color was high. Constance’s teardrop earring swayed like a pendulum gone wild. Bent had pierced his earlobe to hold the post. Green Grass Woman, so soiled and sad, watched Charles with unconcealed pity. It prickled the hair on his neck, that look. She knew what was coming. She clutched Gus to her side, protecting him while she could.
The boy gazed at him with eyes so dull Charles wanted to weep. He had seen the same lack of life in the eyes of wounded young men the night after Sharpsburg. He had seen the same whipped-animal stare in aging black men who feared jubilo, freedom, as much as they feared a master.
But Gus was not yet five years old.
Bent snugged the rope and knotted it. Charles had been exerting pressure against the ropes, but Magee’s trick didn’t seem to have gained him much slack. Another defeat.
“Do you know how I think of myself?” Bent asked pleasantly.
Charles let the hate pour. “Yes, Orry told me. The new Napoleon.” He spat in the dirt.
Bent smashed his fist in Charles’s face. Gus hid behind Green Grass Woman’s hip.
Breathing noisily, no longer smiling, Bent said, “Did he also explain that he and Hazard ruined me at the Academy, and in Mexico? Destroyed my reputation with lies? Turned my superiors against me? I was born to lead great armies. Like Alexander. Hannibal. Bonaparte. Your tribe and Hazard’s kept me from it.”
Bent wiped a ribbon of saliva from his lip. Charles heard birds chirping outside the closed door. The cold ashes on the hearth had a familiar woody smell. The world was lunatic.
Bent picked up the razor and lightly passed the blade over the ball of his thumb. His smile returned. Reasonably and persuasively, he said, “I do think of myself as America’s Bonaparte, and it’s justified. But I’m forced to be watchful because every great general is besieged by little men. Inferior men, jealous of him, who want to pull him down. Tarnish his greatness. The Mains are like that. The Hazards are like that. So I am not only the commander, I’m also the executioner. Rooting out plotters. Betrayers. The enemy. Hazards. Mains. Till they’re all gone.”
“Let my boy go, Bent. He’s too small to harm you.”
“Oh, no, my dear Charles. He’s a Main. I’ve always intended that he die.” Green Grass Woman uttered a low sound and averted her head. “I planned to wait several months, until you’d given him up for lost. Then, when I killed him—”
“Don’t say that in front of him, goddamn you.”
Bent snatched Charles’s beard, yanked it up, forcing his head back. He laid the razor against Charles’s throat. “I say whatever I please. I am in command.” He edged the razor deeper. Charles felt pain. Blood oozed. He closed his eyes.
Bent giggled and withdrew the razor. He cleaned the blade in the armpit of his coat.
Charming again, he said, “After I disposed of him, I planned to send you certain—parts, so you would know. Several fingers. Toes. Perhaps something more intimate.”
“You fucking madman,” Charles said between his teeth, out of control, starting to rise from the chair. Bent grabbed Gus’s hair. The boy yelped and pounded small fists against Bent’s leg. Bent slapped him, knocked him down, kicked his ribs. Gus rolled on his side and clutched his stomach, whimpering.
“Stand up, boy.” Bent boomed like a revival preacher. How many men lived in that perverted body? How many different voices spoke from that one crazed brain? “Stand up. That’s a direct order.”
“Don’t,” the Cheyenne girl said. “Oh, don’t. He’s so little—”
He slammed her in the stomach with his fist. She fell against the wall, clawing at the rough logs, knees scraping the dirt. “You’ll be the next for execution if you say another word.” He flourished the razor over his head, silver steel death. “Up, boy!”
Whimpering again, not quite crying, Gus tottered up. Bent seized him and pulled him against his legs, turning him at the same time. He put his free hand under Gus’s chin and straightened his head with a wrench, so Charles and his son were face-to-face.
“After him, and after you,” Bent said, “the next will be the family of Hazard’s brother, in California. I’ll exterminate the lot of you before I’m done. Think of that, dear Charles.”
Gently, caressingly, he drew the razor over Gus’s right cheek. Gus screamed. A thread of blood unwound itself on the pale flesh.
“Think of that while the executioner carries out the general’s order.”
Magic Magee said, “Shit,” which stupefied Gray Owl, because the soldier had an inordinately clean vocabulary for someone in his profession. Magee jumped up from beneath the pecan tree with the big branch over Vermilion Creek. “I don’t care about his orders, something’s wrong.”
&nbs
p; Gray Owl started to call him back again. Magee was striding fast. Gray Owl hesitated only a moment before hurrying after him.
Tears rolled from Gus’s eyes and diluted the blood on his cheek. Charles was consumed with a rage like sickness. He pulled his hands apart between his knees. The rope burned the backs of his wrists. Suddenly the left hand slid a little, slippery. He was bleeding. He pulled his left hand toward him but the largest part, just below the knuckles, held fast against the rope and wouldn’t slip through. No use. No use.
Magee laid one hand on the corral rail. The chestnut and the mules smelled him and tossed their heads. “Now, now,” he said, “don’t take on. I’m friendly.”
He slid between two of the rails. The chestnut neighed. “Don’t do that,” Magee said, wanting to shoot the blasted horse. He nodded sharply to Gray Owl, who clutched his rifle and padded out of sight, going to the front door. Magee had told him to wait until he called him in. Charles had to be inside. He wasn’t in the combination stable and henhouse, or in the abandoned trader’s wagon.
Magee didn’t know what he’d find just inside the corral door but he hoped the door didn’t open directly to the main room. He was sweating as if it were August. Just as he reached for the latch string, a fat raccoon shot around the back corner and ran right up and poised by the door.
“Scat,” Magee whispered. He kicked the air. The tame raccoon wouldn’t budge. He wanted in, probably for food. He’d give Magee away.
Baffled, Magee held still about fifteen seconds. Then, clearly, he heard a small boy cry out. With a glum face he drew his knife. “I’m sorry, mister.” He swooped down and killed the raccoon with one stroke.
Gus bled from the cut on his cheek. Charles wished the boy would faint, but he hadn’t.
Bent’s head was blessedly free of pain and those queer hurtful lights. The general’s orders were just and right, and the executioner’s duties were a joy. He couldn’t prolong it much longer, though. The cutting, right in front of the boy’s straining, terrified, mad-eyed father, had given him a huge painful erection.
He laid the razor on Gus’s throat.
Charles saw the blued muzzle push out between the door frame and the red blanket. He’d heard nothing from that part of the house, not a sound. Loudly, Magee said, “Mr. Bent! You better turn around and see this gun.”
There was a slow, tortured moment when Charles knew Bent would cut Gus’s throat. Instead, like a soldier, he obeyed the commanding voice. He turned. Magee stepped from behind the blanket.
Charles hurled himself out of the chair and flung Gus down. Bent bellowed, realizing his error. Charles leaped away, stumbled over his son, and fell. Green Grass Woman jumped at Bent and began to claw and pummel him. Magee aimed but she was in his line of fire. Bent shoved her and lashed downward with the razor, laying open her skirt and slashing her thigh. She cried out. A second push toppled her. Bent went for Charles, the razor shining.
Magee shot him. The bullet struck the back of his left thigh. He spiraled down and flopped with his hand flung out. Charles rolled over, his wrists still tied. He reached, pulled the razor from Bent’s hand, and threw it. Magee shouted something. A rectangle of light fell over Charles and his son. Gray Owl crouched in the door with his rifle.
“Want me to finish him?” Magee asked. Bent stared, realizing he was unarmed, caught.
“Not in front of the boy. Cut me loose.”
Magee freed Charles with his knife, which was bloodstained. Charles knelt, trembling.
“Gus, it’s Pa. I know I look terrible, but it’s Pa. Pa,” he repeated, with an extra puff to the P, as if that word alone could make the link.
The boy drew away, using his hands in the dirt to pull himself. Some frightened witless animal peered from his eyes. Charles extended both arms, hands spread, as he’d done outside. “Pa.”
Suddenly the tears broke, racking the boy, great gulps and shudders. He wailed and ran to Charles. Charles enfolded him and held him. He held Gus a long time, until the tiny body stopped shuddering.
Green Grass Woman’s gashed leg bled heavily. She had lost consciousness after she fell. Magee raised her skirt and inspected the wound. As dispassionately as a physician, he wiped some blood from her thick pubic hair. “I used to doctor drunks in the saloon when they pulled stickers on each other. I can tie this off. Be painful for her to walk for a while, but I think she’ll be all right.”
From his pouch Gray Owl took some roots, which he crumbled and mixed with a few drops of creek water, working the material to a paste on a flat stone brought from outside. He searched the smaller room and found a piece of clean cloth. Magee was busy tying Bent’s hands with part of the rope that had bound Charles. He was careful to brace Bent’s arms behind his back and loop the rope with no possibility of slack. He wasn’t gentle.
“How about his leg?” Charles asked.
“Grazed, that’s all. I’d say leave it alone. Serve him right if the gangrene got it.”
Gray Owl knelt beside the exhausted boy. His brown hands were gentle as he worked some of the gray-green paste into the cheek wound. “He may be scarred, the way Cheyenne boys are scarred from the Sun Dance.”
“Sun Dance hooks go in the chest, not the face.”
“Yes,” the tracker said sadly. “There is nothing to be done. He will heal.”
“Even if he heals he’ll be scarred,” Charles said.
He returned the Army Colt to his holster, bandaged his rope-burned wrist, and went behind the bar. There he found another coil of rope. He slipped his left arm through and carried it on his shoulder. Bent stood by the door, his pant leg bloody. He blinked in the sunshine. He seemed docile.
Charles drank two swallows of the vile bar whiskey in hopes of staving off the shock that was an inevitable consequence of violence. He walked over to Bent. It was all he could do to keep from putting the Colt to Bent’s head and firing it.
“Magic, come along, will you? Keep the boy here, Gray Owl.”
Bent cringed in the doorway. A lemon-colored butterfly flirted around his head and flew on. “Where am I going?”
The sun struck the gold filigree of Constance’s earring and made it shine. Charles felt the impulse coming and couldn’t stop it, or didn’t want to stop it. He seized the earring and jerked downward. The post tore out most of Bent’s earlobe. He howled and crashed against the door. Charles kicked his ass and drove him into the hot bright light.
The soft air did nothing to take the taste of dirt and bad whiskey and corruption from Charles’s mouth. He had never felt the burned-out feeling so strongly. It tasted like sand and alum in his mouth. It hurt like salt and vinegar in a wound.
Palm over his bloody ear, Bent was abject. “Please—where?”
“You white trash,” Magee said, imperial in his wrath. “You’re going to hell.”
“Where?”
Charles leaned close, to be sure Bent heard him. “Waterloo.”
___________
RAMPAGE OF THE KUKLUX.
_____
A Night of Terror
on the Ashley.
_____
The Mont Royal School Destroyed a Second Time.
_____
Two Are Dead.
_____
President Grant Expresses Outrage.
_____
A Wounded Night-Raider Unmasked.
Special from our
Charleston Correspondent
___________
MADELINE’S JOURNAL
May, 1869. Buried Prudence Chaffee and Andy Sherman today. They lie side by side, by my wish, and Jane’s. I read the scripture, John 14. …
Fr. Lovewell has fled the district No trace of the body of Des L. My feeling about him reduces to sadness rather than hate. I am told he served in the Palmetto Rifles throughout the whole four years. Afterward he fought for causes more suspect. The preservation of slavery in different form. The supremacy of whites. The honor of a cruel and haughty family. Must men always be prey to evil idea
s that cloak themselves in a seductive righteousness? …
Thinking of D.L. again. In death he excites my curiosity in a way he could not when he threatened us. Like so many millions of others on both sides, he was changed and ultimately destroyed by the war. That kind of experience may be the central fact of our lives for a generation or better. Charleston people still discuss the way the war blighted Cooper. I know how Mexico wounded you, my dear husband. And how that unknown Yankee whose name you never knew cut short your precious life at Petersburg. Had it not been for Sumter, secession, Lee, and all the other great events and persons now being tinted with the false colors of romance, D.L might not have been driven to fight his last doomed war at Mont Royal.
But as I have said before, pity is not without limit. I will have justice in the matter of the Klan. R. Gettys is still semi-unconscious in the hospital in Charleston, and the authorities move too slowly. One good friend said I could appeal to him for help at any time. Will travel to Columbia tom’w., taking a pistol for my companion. …
Nothing was left of Millwood or Sand Hills. All of Wade Hampton’s land was gone in the wake of forced bankruptcy the previous December. Rising taxes, shrinking crop income, investments worth forty cents on the dollar—it all culminated in a single tidal wave of disaster. Over a million dollars in debt had driven him down.
Hampton and his wife, Mary, now lived in sharply reduced circumstances: a modest cottage on a scrap of land he’d managed to keep. The Hamptons welcomed Madeline and insisted she stay the night on an improvised bed in the room the general used for an office.
Hampton’s age showed, but he was still vigorous and ruddy. While Mary served tea, he left with his pole and creel. He came back in an hour with four bream for their supper. Mary set to work boning the fish and Hampton invited Madeline into the office. He cleared a place for his cup on the paper-strewn desk and in doing so had to move a handsome gold-stamped volume, which he showed to her.
“Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention in New York last July.”