Power in the Blood

by Greg Matthews

  “Yes,” he said, defeated. He was glad Meggs was some distance away, unable to observe his humiliation.

  “Then we shall talk no more of it. You will tell me instead what you have learned this week from Mr. Babb.”

  “I told you last night.”

  “You will tell me again.”

  Drew related some snippets from his latest lesson. Vanda nodded her head. “Excellent,” she said. “You have the ability to absorb learning. Mr. Babb informs me you are a brighter than average boy. I’m pleased by this. A bright boy becomes a smart man. No other kind will accomplish anything in this world.” She smoothed a crease from her bombazine dress. “You know, Drew, I have some small influence in Galveston. I am on friendly terms with a number of important persons who would be willing to accommodate you among their ranks when the time is right. For a special kind of man, there are no limits to his achievement. A special man could one day become governor of Texas, and from there, who knows, perhaps even aspire to the nation’s highest office. Does such a notion attract you?”

  “No.”

  “But it will, I assure you.”

  “Did Yancy get attracted?”

  Vanda faced the gulf. “No, he did not. He was, however, not as clever at your age as you appear to be. Some are learners and some are not. Yancy is as Yancy does. You will not follow in his footsteps, because you are nothing like him.”

  Drew resented this comparison. What Vanda said was true, but he chose to see it as untruth, simply because he liked Yancy—gone no one knew where—better than he liked the woman beside him. It was very nearly a challenge; was he like Yancy, or wasn’t he? Drew knew his own preference, but couldn’t concentrate on it. The biggest shock from this stilted conversation beneath the awning was the disappearance of Winnie from his life. He had caused it, forcing himself upon her in public the way he did, despite her warnings. He didn’t hold himself responsible for the loss, though; it was Vanda’s fault.

  What she had done was unforgivable. Winnie’s picture of Vanda as a manipulator of lives had been borne out by events. Too late, Drew appreciated the power she held, and her willingness to dispense it at will, confounding her enemies, real or imagined. Why Winnie should have been counted among these was a puzzle to Drew, but he knew how to regard the woman responsible.

  His moral obligation to hate Vanda was obvious, so he hated her with a purity of purpose that frightened him a little. She had done something she ought not to have done, and in so doing had freed Drew. He need no longer feel gratitude for the way in which she had accepted him into her home. Winnie had also been right in characterizing his life inside Vanda’s house as that of a pet. He was indeed a weakling, incapable of the least heroism. Winnie’s scorn had been earned within days of its delivery. He felt like a worm. Vanda had done it to him, and he had done it to himself. He was the lowliest of creatures. Even Meggs, as unctuous a servant as could be found, was staunchly resolute by comparison with Drew.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Vanda asked.

  Drew could give voice to nothing that was inside him.

  In the week that followed, Drew’s attention to his lessons wavered. Mr. Babb persevered, unwilling to lose so gratifying a student to the malaise of disenchantment he detected in Drew. He had seen it before, and always in boys approaching manhood. The distractions were substantial, but a professional like himself knew a way around them.

  Mr. Babb abandoned for the moment any form of rote learning, and began reading to Drew from translations of Apuleius and Boccaccio, stopping often to explain the societies in which these chronicles of excess took place. Drew was captivated by the rampant sexuality of the tales, and absorbed more ancient history than would have been the case had his tutor been of conventional mold. Relishing his success, Mr. Babb decided to broaden Drew’s horizons beyond the Roman-Italian world; he would approach Cervantes by way of Rabelais, then proceed to the moderns. It was a shame there were no equally earthy works of American literature through which to interest Drew in his own land, but Fenimore Cooper would do in a pinch, by substituting adventure for lust. Mr. Babb’s practice of imparting knowledge through fiction (he referred to it as his “novel approach”) had never found so willing a recipient, and he considered writing a small manifesto proclaiming its virtues, in hopes of raising controversy and perhaps some dollars.

  The happy state of communion between teacher and pupil was called into question when Vanda happened one morning to enter the small back room set aside for lessons. She browsed among the books carelessly left behind by Mr. Babbs. Vanda had received an extensive education herself, and knew a legitimate school text when she saw it; instead were arrayed several volumes of filth, the worst offender being the illustrated Boccaccio. Such pictures were available in the brothel for the titillation of customers, but Vanda was outraged to find them in her home. She went directly to Drew’s room, intending to confront him alone before Mr. Babb’s arrival, but Drew was not there. A quick search revealed he had been doing his homework, as evidenced by a bookmark halfway through The Golden Ass.

  In the afternoon Drew arrived at the lesson room to meet with Mr. Babb, and found himself facing Vanda. “Sit down,” she told him. Drew sat.

  “Where’s Mr. Babb?”

  “No longer with us.”

  Drew’s heart lurched. “He’s dead?”

  Vanda was tempted to use this mistaken notion to avoid another lecture of the kind prompted by Winifred’s departure. She did not enjoy confronting the boy over poor choices of association; in this instance, of course, the choosing had been her own.

  “Mr. Babb was not the right man for the task. Education is a serious undertaking, I’m sure you’ll agree. Mr. Babb clearly did not take the position seriously. We must admit to our mistake and find another tutor, someone without Mr. Babb’s unfortunate flippancy. You may use the remainder of the day as you choose.”

  Drew left without a word. She had done it again, stolen away someone whose only crime was to be his friend. The woman was horrible, awful, a cruel and heartless monster! She must hate him as much as he hated her, to have done what she did. Why had she taken him in as her son if she only wanted to torment him? What sense was there in his even being there in her house if the both of them were locked in some kind of muted battle for supremacy over the living of Drew’s life? The worst part was knowing he had fought poorly, if at all, in his own defense.

  Drew had won for himself a reprieve from death at the hands of Morgan Kindred simply by running from him into the desert. Had the time come again to remove himself from harm’s way? The harbor was jammed with ships; some of them must be in need of cabin boys. He had no particular wish to go to sea, though, and it would mean leaving behind his horse and gun; he didn’t think sailors carried Winchesters. Vanda had at least allowed him to keep it in his room, so long as he promised never to load it with bullets. He had a dozen or so in his chest of drawers. He supposed he could shoot Vanda and be rid of her that way, but the complications that would follow murder dissuaded him; he doubted in any case that her wickedness was deserving of the ultimate punishment.

  Although he had already ridden that day, Drew went to the stable down the street and saddled his horse again. He rode to the northern edge of town, taking this direction for no particular reason, and traveled for several miles along the Houston road before stopping to rest his horse beside a huge cottonwood tree. He dismounted and stared at the sky, asking himself if flight was the answer. There was nothing to stop him from continuing on to Houston that day, if he wished, but it would be better to return first for his gun and a change of clothing.

  A rider was visible to the north, a mile or more distant across the flatlands. The only moving object in view, this individual occupied Drew’s thoughts as he came slowly nearer. Drew decided to ask him how long it would take to reach Houston, just in case that was the plan he chose. He soon became impatient with the rider’s dawdling pace and rode out to meet him. The rider’s broad hat concealed his f
ace with shadow until Drew was just a few yards away.

  “Yancy!”

  “I thought I recognized that nag. Who told you I was coming?”

  “No one! I just came out here to … I don’t know … Are you going to stay this time?”

  “For exactly as long as it pleases me, Drew boy, and not a minute longer.”

  Their horses fell into step. Drew couldn’t erase the grin from his face. Yancy’s appearance at the very moment Drew needed him had the magical resonance of a wish granted. He even looked a little like a prince returning from faraway regions of excitement and danger, his hatbrim and belly holster canted at the same rakish angle, his handsome face lightly smeared with the road’s romantic grime.

  While they rode toward Galveston, Yancy told a rambling tale of women and cards and high times on the Mississippi riverboats, clear up to Saint Louis and back, followed by more of the same in New Orleans, culminating in yet another gambling house dispute that sent Yancy fleeing to Texas with a murder charge riding his coattails. Drew was unsure how much of it was true, but it hardly mattered; he was too happy over Yancy’s return to care.

  “Take me with you when you go,” he begged.

  “I’m not even home yet, and you want me to be planning another leavetaking already? You sound to me like a desperate fellow, someone not content with his lot.”

  “I want to go away. You better not go without me this time!”

  “Ah-hah! Threats! Has it been so terrible?”

  “Yes!”

  “Tell me all, and I’ll stop you when I hear something that surprises me.”

  Drew spilled his tale of resentment and woe. Yancy interrupted only once, to ask if Drew had managed to have his way with Winnie before the girl was dispatched elsewhere by Vanda. Drew admitted he had not, and Yancy shook his head.

  “Drew boy, the longer you linger hereabouts, the more miserable you’ll become, and so will Vanda. I told you, the lady craves respectability, but knows it’ll never come to her, being what she is. A son’s the thing that’s supposed to bring it to her, but I’ll confess I was made of weaker stuff than she requires. Her cronies are all politicians, and powerful folk in their own right. I truly believe she could push a suitable fellow to the top, with their help, but it won’t be me, and I see by your face it won’t be you either. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then you’ll come with me. You’re too young a piece of fruit to wither on the vine, I think. Correct again?”

  “Correct again!”

  “Now listen. You go on ahead and don’t tell a soul you’ve seen me. We don’t want you-know-who to think we’re scheming together over your escape. Sometime tonight I’ll make an appearance at sweet Mama’s, but when I do, you behave toward me like you’d treat a leper, and I don’t mean with a samaritan’s kindness. Fool her, or she’ll have you tied down with chains until I’m gone. Can you do it?”

  Drew said yes.

  He waited that night for Yancy’s entrance, and was still awake and dressed after midnight, when Yancy arrived at Vanda’s door on a plank supported at either end by newfound friends. He had several deep knife wounds to the stomach, and was already unconscious from blood loss. He did not revive before dying on Vanda’s parlor floor, ruining her Turkish carpet in the process.

  Drew remained in Galveston until the funeral, to which Vanda invited no one of importance. As soon as he was able, Drew left with his horse and gun. The things Yancy had given him were precious, even if they were stolen from a dead man killed by Yancy’s hand.

  In Houston he sought out the lowest section of town and began asking around for friends of Yancy Berdell. Some people said they had never heard the name, and others were immediately suspicious, and denied knowledge of Yancy in a way that made Drew aware they were lying. He didn’t know why they would do this, since he clearly was not a lawman.

  “Yes you do know him,” he said to the latest of these liars, a very fat gentleman in a seedy cafe, “and you better know he’s dead. That’s all I’m trying to tell you. He’s dead and buried in Galveston.”

  “Yancy’s dead?”

  “And buried. He got stabbed.”

  “Some woman’s husband?”

  “He was gambling.”

  “Aah, so even Yancy’s lucky streak ran out. Sit down, boy. You’ll take coffee with me. Are you by any chance the one he rescued from Apaches in the desert west of here?”

  “He didn’t save me from anything. He was a big liar.”

  “That’s true, and I guess you’re the one. It was never a convincing tale, not one of his best. I forget the name he gave you.”

  “It’s Drew, and it was always my name. What he gave me was a horse and a Winchester.”

  “So he said. There was always a kernel of truth in Yancy’s tales. So you’ve flown the coop of mother Vanda’s chickens for sale.”

  “I wanted to tell his friends what happened. She never would’ve.”

  “Indeed no, she would not. Yancy was the blackest of sheep.”

  The fat man extended a well-manicured hand. “Marion de Quille,” he said. “I do hope we’ll become friends. Are you in need of friends, young Drew? Don’t be too proud to say so. Everyone on this earth needs a friend or two.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now tell me this: are you Vanda’s boy, philosophically speaking, or Yancy’s? Think about the question before answering.”

  “Yancy’s.”

  “You’re sure? Someone young as you is maybe not ready to be Yancy’s boy, spiritually speaking, or do I mean morally? You take my meaning, though. Yancy was not an honest, hardworking citizen, now was he?”

  “Nossir.”

  “Please, call me Marion. We have Yancy’s acquaintance in common, so that puts us on friendly terms right away. Now then, Drew, have you thought about what it means to be Yancy’s boy, and to choose the life Yancy chose?”

  “It’s better than the other lives.”

  “What lives are those?”

  “The ones I already lived.”

  “Aah, yes. We all have led lives we would prefer to have avoided. And so you wish to be a gambler.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, don’t you, that poor Yancy was not a clever man with the cards. He wished himself better, but never achieved that wish. I myself hold several hundred dollars of Yancy’s bad debts. When Yancy lost, he tended to fling lead at his opponents, which is not the way of the professional. Are you sure you wish to follow in his footsteps?”

  “I thought he was a good gambler.”

  “Alas, no, but he did have other talents he might not have shared with you. It may be that you have the nerve to be what he was after all.”

  “What talents?”

  Marion de Quille told him.

  14

  The first odor to greet his nostrils every morning was that of slightly damp socks. Most of the men washed their socks outside the cabin, then brought them in and hung them over the stovepipe that ran below the roof for several yards before angling up through the shingles. There were never less than two dozen pairs of socks draped over the pipe, scenting the cabin’s already foul air, a fetid brew of sweat-soaked clothing that somehow never merited the attention given to socks, of tobacco smoke, seldom-emptied spittoons, kerosene lamps, bad breath lightly disguised by whiskey, and lastly, since no window graced the cabin walls and the door was kept shut all night, the overpowering odor of stale farts. Altogether, it was enough to force a man from his bed even before Bruno the cook began pounding with his iron bar on the wake-up triangle outside.

  Slade prided himself on being able to greet Bruno as the cook plodded toward the triangle. He knew it irritated the man that someone should be up before he had the opportunity to beat and bash the metal, jerking the camp into wakefulness. Slade knew he could never have risen before Bruno, since Bruno’s duties obliged him to be up and preparing breakfast for sixty men a full hour before the triangle woke everyone. It was satisfaction enough to be up and mob
ile before the clanging and banging began. Bruno went to bed early in any case, long before anyone else, so Slade felt his point was made, simply by his standing there with a smile when Bruno came across to the triangle with his iron bar. It was a ritual, and as all rituals are designed to do, it renewed Slade’s faith in himself and what he did.

  Slade cut down trees; not ordinary trees—the largest trees in the world. They stood around the camp, dark titans looming in the morning mist, and he never failed to appreciate their size and their implacable stillness. The first branches of the redwoods began well over a hundred feet up the trunk. When the mist was thick, as it usually was, these lower branches were completely hidden till midmorning, so the trees stood like massive pillars in a chilly temple of air. Slade had heard that the largest redwoods were between two and three thousand years old. It was hard to credit such antiquity, but he believed it, and never approached one to bring it down with less than the respect he felt it deserved.

  His fist was always the first to smash through a scum of ice that formed in the water barrel. A frigid splashing of the face was enough to bring about instant alertness. Slade was always waiting in the cookhouse when Bruno returned to sling his bar into a corner beside the massive stove.

  The Northern California Timber Company was not niggardly with its fare. Every man could eat as much as he pleased at every meal, and loggers were not known for their lack of appetite. Ham, scrambled eggs, bacon, flapjacks: they were waiting by the plateful as the men straggled in, hitching suspenders over their shoulders, some still yawning the sleep from themselves. There was little conversation to mask the clattering of heavy-duty cutlery as they sat on the split-log benches and began serving themselves. Many of the men were foreigners with little English, and even these were disinclined to speak among themselves at so early an hour. The business at hand consisted of fueling the body for a day’s hard labor, not communication; that could wait for the evening, for the pipe smoking and harmonica playing and stilted camaraderie of the logging brethren.