The Year of Jubilo

by Bahr, Howard;

  “The Lord be with you,” intoned the priest.

  “And with thy spirit,” said Gawain and Aunt Vassar and all the others.

  Gawain was a little disappointed that the priest failed to mention Saint John the Baptist in his homily. Still, the man was a good high-churchman like Father Garrison, and when the service was over, Gawain felt satisfied. There was the usual bustle and talk at leaving, and the usual delay in the aisle as each person stopped to speak to the priest at the door.

  As Gawain stood facing the rear of the church, calculating how long it would take to get out, he noticed a man sitting alone in the back pew, waiting. Suddenly the light went out of the day, and Gawain felt the clutch of anger and of fear, old familiar partners, and with them the thought Not here. Not here. Then the red light breaking behind his eyes, and the trembling, and at last the calm, all passing in a moment as he stood behind Aunt Vassar in the nave of Holy Cross.

  King Solomon Gault sat with his legs crossed, his arm across the back of the pew, his eyes fixed on the altar. He seemed to be lost in thought, his face reverent and at ease.

  Gawain did not look at Gault when he passed. He managed to slip around the priest, an easy task, for Aunt Vassar was ahead of him, and she would hold the man’s hand and ask about his family and comment at length on the homily while people bunched up in the nave behind. Gawain moved out into the churchyard and dropped his prayer book in the grass. He was breathing deeply of the clear air, thinking The son of a bitch the goddamned son of a bitch while absolution and grace and joy slipped away. His thoughts drove him away from all who were gathered there, and he thought I could do it now, get it over except he had no pistol, no knife, nothing but the walking stick, and he had never been any good at knocking a man in the head. He fought himself then, hearing the priest’s voice not twenty minutes gone: Let us confess our sins unto Almighty God— He felt the weight of his sins and wished that Stribling were here so that one man, at least, might understand what had descended upon him so quick in the holy light of Sunday. Except Stribling would try to talk him out of it, and what good would that be? And no sooner had he thought of Stribling than he raised his eyes and saw, at the end of the overgrown brick walk, Harry Stribling himself sitting on old Zeke, leaning forward in the saddle, his hands crossed on the pommel. Gawain, at first sight, thought man and horse an apparition, so silent had they come. But the horse nickered at him, and Stribling grinned and lifted his hat, and Gawain knew they were as real as anything else he might put his hand to in that moment. He went on down the walk in the leaf-dappled sunlight, a long way it seemed, and the voices in the churchyard seemed distant and without meaning. At last he had come far enough; he took hold of Zeke’s army bit and looked up and said, “Gault is here, Harry. What am I to do?” And Stribling, shaking his head, thumbing his hat back and looking toward the church: “He’s here, too? Good God.” Then he said the very thing Gawain Harper knew he would say: “This ain’t the time, pard, believe me,” and it wasn’t any good at all, no help at all.

  Now the bell was tolling again. Gawain let go of the bit, backed away, watching Stribling’s face. At last he turned; Aunt Vassar was huddled with a pair of old gossips, all in black, and in the yard stood Solomon Gault, an unlit cigar in his fingers, watching him.

  “Gawain,” said Stribling behind him, but too late now. Gawain was already moving, slapping the brass head of the walking stick in his palm, his eyes on Solomon Gault’s face.

  All right. He could knock a man in the head all right. He had done it once before anyhow, on the works at Franklin, took his musket by the first band—hard to swing a musket with a fixed bayonet, but he had done it all right. The point of the bayonet had jabbed him in the stomach, but he had done it and the boy’s head cracked—he could hear it crack, even over the terrible detonation, the solid wall of sound that surrounded them, impenetrable, and Gawain Harper moved on through it and into the smoke beyond—he who had once read Keats to the young girls in a room full of sunlight—

  Then the horse was in front of him, turned by the flank, and Gawain said, “Get out of the way, Harry,” and Stribling reached down from the saddle and gathered Gawain’s shirtfront in his fist and said, “Goddamn you, stop.” But Gawain was still walking, pushing at the horse. The people were looking, and the priest had stopped, still shaking someone’s hand, and was looking too, and Solomon Gault was walking. Then Aunt Vassar was there, and Stribling released his hold.

  “Gawain,” she said. “He has a pistol in the tail pocket of his coat. There , is no honor in dying like a dog, boy.”

  Gawain stopped. He couldn’t seem to get enough air. “All right,” he said. “All right. All right.” Then, looking at Stribling: “You got a pistol. Let me borrow it.”

  “Nope,” said Stribling.

  “Harry—”

  “Leave it alone, Gawain,” said Aunt Vassar. “This is not your affair.”

  “All right,” he said. “All right, all right.” But it was too late then, for Solomon Gault was there, touching the horse’s nose. Stribling backed Zeke a few steps and sat watching, his hand inside his frock coat. Aunt Vassar stood her ground.

  “You have business with me, sir?” said Gault. He was relaxed, holding the cigar in two fingers.

  “Yes,” said Gawain. “Yes, I do.”

  “Get on with it, then,” said Gault.

  Gawain looked around him. He was not afraid, though he knew he would be later. And later he would wish he had never seen Solomon Gault in the pew, though he would know that he’d have to wish a lot further back than that to fix things, to reshape the universe so that he did not have to stand here now in the sunlight saying, “Gault, you are a goddamned coward. You killed Lily Landers and must answer for it.”

  Gawain’s boldness was rewarded with a momentary look of surprise in the man’s face and, more than that, a brief glint of knowing. But he recovered quickly and bought a little time by lifting the cigar and studying it. Then his eyes moved to Gawain’s again. “You mistake me, sir. I never met the lady.”

  “Then you are a liar as well as a coward,” said Gawain.

  “Jesus God,” said Aunt Vassar.

  Gault pondered his cigar a moment, shaking his head, then he looked at Gawain and smiled. “You have the advantage of me,” he said. “I do not know you, but no matter. I’ll let your remarks pass for now, saying only that, when I have a free moment, we’ll discuss the matter in more detail. In the meantime, sir—” He glanced at Stribling, then back at Gawain. “In the meantime, you might do well to go armed like your comrade here. You never know when I might find the time to learn your name.”

  “It’s Gawain Harper. I am a friend of Judge Rhea’s—perhaps you’ve heard of him, at least.”

  Once more a look of surprise passed over Gault’s face before he could stop it. “Ah, yes,” said Gault. “I do know that gentleman, by reputation anyhow.” Then he smiled again. “I would have thought he’d send a man, but I reckon they are in short supply these days—the war and all. Good day, now.” He pushed past Gawain and went on down the brick walk into the lane and was gone.

  “Well,” said Stribling after a moment.

  Aunt Vassar handed Gawain his prayer book, wet from the grass. She looked at him hard. “Why don’t we all go have some of Captain Stribling’s possum,” she said.

  THEY WERE ON the gallery again, smoking and drinking coffee, though the afternoon was hot. Sunday dinner had been tense; Aunt Vassar was in a brown study, more or less ignoring them all, even old Harper, who rhythmically tapped his fork against his plate through the whole meal until Gawain thought he might go mad from the sound. The possum had not gone far among five people, though Priam got a double portion: his own and most of Stribling’s. By tacit agreement, the confrontation at the church had not been mentioned, but Stribling brought it up now. “You played hell with Gault,” he said. He was sitting on the balustrade; Zeke, still wearing his tack, was grazing in the yard.

  “I know,” said Gawain, “but
there it was. I thought maybe I could get it over with.”

  “You are a brash and hasty man for a scholar,” said Stribling, sipping his coffee, Gawain had no answer. In fact, he was deeply embarrassed by the episode and wished Stribling would change the subject. He said: “Where’d you get off to this mornin? I looked for you to go with us.”

  “I went to a funeral,” said Stribling. Then he told about those he had seen at the burying ground. Gawain listened in astonishment. “So Gault was there,” he said. “And those other boys—Nobles and them. Are they that starved for amusement?”

  “I can’t say it was all that amusing to em,” said Stribling. “Or to Molochi Fish either.”

  “Molochi was there?”

  “He wasn’t just there,” said Stribling. “He was standin right next to me. He came out of nowhere—upwind, so Zeke never smelled him. Old Molochi is quite a talker when his dogs ain’t around to distract him.”

  “Well, everybody was there but me,” said Gawain. “What did you all talk about?”

  Stribling told how at first Molochi Fish had ignored him completely. “Then all at once he pointed to my glass and wanted to know if you could see afar off with it. Then he wanted to borrow it. I don’t mind sayin I was reluctant, him with those rheumy eyes, but I give it to him, and he looked a long time, then he said some peculiar things. I tell you, Gawain, he is as crazy as a Chinee with the Holy Ghost. He hears things out in the woods at night, people talkin to him, dead ones mostly.”

  “Dead people,” said Gawain. “Well, what do they tell him?”

  Stribling set his cup on the balustrade. His hat was off, and a breeze ruffled in his long hair. Zeke lifted his head and pricked his ears, as if the same breeze had brought some message to him. But the yard was peaceful, the road empty. “He looked a long time,” Stribling went on, “movin the glass back and forth, then he give it back without so much as a word. I said, ‘What you know about this Gault?’ He chewed his gums awhile, then he told me a story. He said a dead boy came in his yard one night. The dogs had him, of course—apparently, he wasn’t so dead that he couldn’t be mauled by those devils before Molochi beat em off. He said the boy’s eyes were like glass marbles, a detail I could have done without. Boy never said but one word, and that a name: Gault. What does that tell you?”

  Gawain felt a dark wing brush his heart, as he had three days before when his cousin’s wife told him about Lily. “Oh, blessed Jesus,” he said. “Willy Landers, tryin to get home.”

  “Yes, Molochi found the long-lost boy,” said Stribling. “Buried him, too. I trust a merciful Providence that he really was dead by then.”

  “Gault,” said Gawain Harper, while the little wind moved among the oaks.

  “Yes, but that ain’t all,” said Stribling. “Old Molochi come to town Friday night. He followed that boy, the one under the bridge.”

  Gawain blanched. “Molochi! I should’ve known—the thing had all the marks of—”

  “No,” said Stribling. “It wasn’t him. Somebody else was ahead of him. Molochi saw him with my glass, standin by the grave.”

  “Molochi knows the man that done it? I don’t believe it.”

  Stribling lit his pipe, taking his time, and Gawain waited. In a moment, Stribling told the story that Molochi Fish had related among the willows: of how he had followed the boy under the moon, and of what he had seen as the dark birds swirled above him. “He called the man’s name, too,” said Stribling at last.

  Gawain waited again. Stribling, like most storytellers, was getting the most he could out of the suspense, and Gawain waited until just the right moment to ask, “Well, who was it, dammit?”

  “The name he gave was Wall Stutts. Do you know him?”

  “Ah, shit,” said Gawain in disgust. “He is a damn peckerwood, worked for my daddy once, drivin mules for the track gang. Papa, of all people, run him off because he was too mean to the niggers. He worked out on Gault’s place, too—lived out there, I think. Damn, Harry, you think Gault was behind it?”

  “Molochi left me with that impression,” said Stribling. “It was no idle killin.”

  “What should we do? Go to the yankees? Let’s tell em, Harry—even if it wasn’t Stutts, he deserves hangin anyhow.”

  “Let’s hold off,” said Stribling. “There is more to all this than we care to know, but we better find out anyhow. I mean to talk to those boys at the tavern.”

  “My God,” said Gawain, shaking his head. “If I’d of known all this, I’d of stayed in Mobile.”

  AUNT VASSAR BISHOP stood in the perpetual twilight of the hall, arms folded, watching her nephew and his friend through the side lights of the door. Like most women, Aunt Vassar had no qualms about eavesdropping; in fact, she considered it the only genteel way to gather information for later use against the parties involved. This time, however, she had not come to spy, would not have expected to learn anything new even if she had, for intuition had already informed her of the game afoot. This time, she stood hidden in the cool shadows of the hall for no other reason than to contemplate the two peregrine spirits lounging on her porch.

  She thought of Gawain that way now: a strange spirit dwelling in the shape of someone she thought she had known once, had pretended to recognize only two days ago as if, by simple refusal, she could vanquish the alteration of time. Then this morning, in the churchyard, she saw what those three lost years had wrought in her nephew, and she could fool herself no longer. Time had won out anyway, as he always seemed to do, and he would carry them all down paths of his own choosing, and it was folly to deny it. She supposed she ought to have learned that long ago, and perhaps she had. It was the sort of thing one had to learn over and over anyway.

  Forty years ago, Vassar Bishop had watched as the boy, not even named yet, emerged from the agony of her sister’s labor. Vassar heard him draw his first breath and make his first complaint against the light of the world as if he’d been awakened from some deep and comforting dream. She had seen other new-born creatures—cats and dogs, horses and cattle and men—do the same, and she always watched with wonder and not a little envy at the pain and privilege of engendering life. She had thought that creation held no puzzles for her, but on that distant morning she looked at her nephew lying on the blooded sheets—hairless, squirming, still wet, flushed and wrinkled like a boiled squirrel—and thought to herself My God—he is too raw by half, he is not finished yet, and now on this twenty-fifth day in June 1865, she was still thinking it: He is not finished yet, not by a long way, and he is as much a stranger to me now as the day he arrived.

  So she lingered in the hall and watched the two old soldiers talking on the porch in the illusory peace of a Sunday afternoon—old soldiers indeed, who were not really old, who had been but children once, and that not long ago. At last she turned away, fumbling in her sleeve for the lace handkerchief, wishing for the instant that she had a vial, just a vial, of laudanum to ease the passing of the day. But the blockade had put a stop to that—not even Solomon Gault could procure that blessing—and she supposed she was glad, though in trying times she missed the sweet elevation of the poppy. In any case, she had no choice now but to push against the hard edges of reality. So she daubed her eyes with the handkerchief, and turned away, and set her shoulder to one of the big pocket doors that opened into the library where old Frank Harper had his desk. The door rumbled sullenly in its track, and the various smells of the closed room greeted her: dust, mildew, the odor of old books bound in crumbling leather, of trapped sunlight and time. Into this she moved, her skirts rustling like the wings of frightened birds.

  COLONEL MICHAEL BURDUCK was not immediately aware that it was Sunday—only that he was in his office at the Shipwright house. Even that knowledge came to him gradually, line by line, like a sketch emerging from a blank sheet of paper. First the light, then the familiar shapes of furniture, then smaller details: his pen and inkwell, his revolver on the table before him, his watch with the case shut but the key lying there as if it had
just been wound. He did not recall taking the watch from his pocket, but there it was. He looked up, disturbed by the sense that someone had been in the room with him, but the room was empty, the door closed.

  Burduck turned his chair to the window and looked out on the yard. It was full of broken limbs from Saturday’s storm, and trash from where the creek had overflowed. He looked upon it as if seeing it for the first time. The skeleton of the abandoned carriage had been blown off its cedar props and looked more forlorn than ever, listing in the mud like a beached derelict. The sight of it woke in Burduck’s heart a profound sadness he could not put a name to, as if the night’s wild passage had imbued the carriage with a fresh portent. Burduck rubbed his eyes. He had lost time again; that much was plain from the afternoon light that dappled the yard. He remembered standing on the color line with Captain Bloom’s company on parade, young Kelly’s plain coffin at his feet. He recalled the drums beating the slow march, the column passing through the Camp, past the tents and smoldering fires and stacked arms where the men watched in silence. The last thing he remembered was the sound of the clods striking the box and splashing in the water. Now here he was, in his office again, the mud of the burying ground on his boots, the stink of the grave in his nose.

  Clearly he needed a rest. More than that, he needed a month or so out on Long Island with nothing but the sea and the lonely beacon of the Montauk light. Maybe he would ask for a furlough. He had not had one since the war began, not once in all those years, and now that the war was over—

  Over? he thought, catching himself. He laughed out loud at the notion. Wars were never over, not this one anyway. Too much had happened, was still happening, and enough remained for generations to wallow in bitterness, making charge and countercharge, revising and accusing and apologizing long after the smoke had drifted away on the wind, and those who had walked through the smoke were dust. Then he remembered the anger he had felt the day before when he stood under the Town Creek bridge and looked at the remains of Tom Kelly. How quick to hand his anger had been, how easy to embrace and how infinitely difficult to control—and it was in him now, he knew, like a shadow moving under the calm waters of … was it Sunday? Yes, God’s own day, morning and evening. Yesterday the man Thomas had spoken of hate. Did you hate the rebels, Colonel? It’s a grand feelin, ain’t it? Thomas had said.