Those Across the River

by Christopher Buehlman

Harvey said, “No,” then shook his head afterwards as if to emphasize the no, but more likely to shake the image of Miles Falmouth out of his head; Miles with his bad back and his oldest son just ten; the neighbors had been taking turns pitching in with the farm work. Miles, who had a little money now thanks to Pastor Lyndon’s collection. Miles, who hated vagrants, but not nearly as much as he hated blacks.

  “No, I don’t know nobody,” Harvey said, closing the matter.

  That was all they had to offer in the way of conversation, except for short, bland responses to Harvey’s questions. He spoke to them about different things, like how hard it was to run a drugstore with the economy so bad, or how smart he had been to put in a soda machine, how that was all that saved him from getting boarded up like the jeweler, or he told them about his plans to buy a car when business picked up so he could get to the mill town without having to bum a ride off somebody, but after a while he saw that they were just looking at him so he gave up on talking altogether. It got quiet. Flies buzzed against the screen windows. The fan up in the corner made the only real noise, and the three of them knew that the quiet was going to get them kicked out soon. Harvey had removed the empty ice cream dish so they could not even look at that or hold it near them like a badge of their right to sit at the counter. None of them spoke until the white man said, “Mister, we just want to sit in your fan for a little while. It sure is plum hot out there.”

  “That’s fine,” Harvey said, and it was fine for a while until Harvey got thinking how no customers had come in the store and none were likely to with three rough-looking hobos taking up space, and one of them a darkie. Nobody passing on the street and looking in could think that they were going to smell very good up close, and the truth was they did not smell good. Harvey probably didn’t want to be a bad Christian, but I imagine he got thinking how even in the desert Jesus and the others managed to wash their feet and anoint their heads with oil, having no money and no real work besides preaching. Harvey stood there at about three o’clock with a look on his face like he was practicing in his head how he was going to say something like, “Sitting in the fan is fine, to a point,” or “Alright, I think if you ain’t ordering it’s time to move along,” when the black man noticed him thinking. He nudged the white man and the white man said, “Thank you,” in his bland way and the three of them went out. The screen door banged behind them and Harvey was left with only myself and his fan for company.

  My own soda glass had been empty the whole time.

  Lester Gordeau later told me the vagrants went from business to business in Whitbrow asking if anyone needed help sweeping up that night, or if anyone had a leaky roof that needed fixing, but they found no succor. Lester was working at the feed shop that day, and he told them how to get to Pastor Lyndon’s house, but then wondered if he had done the right thing. No telling with people like that. But then, what was a pastor for if you couldn’t send poor and downtrodden folks to him for at least a few kind words?

  The dinner had not gone well, according to Sheriff Estel Blake (he of the potbelly and the good baseball arm) when he later regaled us with the story at the general store.

  Sheriff Blake had buckled on his belt and .32, pinned on his badge and closed up the hardware store to track the hoboes down. It wasn’t hard. Estel found them sitting at dinner with the pastor, his daughter and his wife. It was a nice dinner, too, but it looked like the pastor had done without fried chicken so the strangers could have some.

  The sheriff searched the woman’s rope and canvas bag and found the stolen dress.

  “What are we gonna do about this?” he said.

  “Might these brethren not at least finish their plates?” the pastor said.

  “If they do it quickly, I suppose.”

  So they gobbled down their food while the sheriff stood a little off from the table with his hat and the dress in one hand and the other hand not too far from his holster, which, he told Old Man Gordeau, he “discreetly unsnapped.” They ate like dogs, Estel said, the woman breaking a thigh bone with her back teeth and using a splinter to scrape the marrow out. When they finished, he took them outside where the butcher was waiting on the porch. The sheriff handed the dress to the butcher and said, “Do you want to press charges, Hal?”

  “What do you reckon, Estel?”

  “Any harm done, Hal?” the sheriff said.

  Hal might have looked at the pastor, or maybe at the three vagrants in their homemade shoes and worn-out clothes, before he said, “No, I don’t reckon they’s any harm done. Long as they git.”

  “Oh, they’ll git alright. Maybe they’ll even be good enough to say sorry, now that their bellies is full.”

  The white man said, “We sorry.”

  “What about you two? He sorry for all three of you?”

  “We sorry, mister. Bad sorry,” the black man said without looking up.

  Now the sheriff looked at the woman, who did not speak or meet his gaze. The white man said, “She’s Polish, from Poland. Don’t speak no English.”

  “Shit,” said the butcher, “she could a paid me in keelbossy if I’d a knowed that.”

  The sheriff laughed. He was glad not to have to drive to the jailhouse in Morgan, the small town half an hour in the opposite direction from the mill town. Besides, Estel was lower on the pecking order than the full-time boys in Morgan and they never let him forget it. A real bunch of blowhards.

  “Alright,” the sheriff said loudly, just in case the woman really was Polish, “the man you took from says no harm’s done, and I say the same. But there’s goin to be harm done if you don’t move on down the line, and I mean tonight.”

  The three of them started walking.

  The pastor said, “These brethren were thinking of working for Miles Falmouth. Seeing as they are contrite and wish only for the means to have things honestly, I wonder would it do any harm to let them remain until we may speak to Brother Miles?”

  They did not stop walking, but they slowed their pace to listen.

  “Pastor, I know you’re all washed in the Blood and I try to be, too. But I done my good turn tonight. I don’t think you want these three to have the run of Miles’ house, him as weak as he is, and them the kind of people they already proved they are.”

  “Sheriff, how would it sound if I let them to stay here the nights and work for Brother Miles by daylight?”

  “I would say that you are a Godly man, but that my word is final. Miles is too sick to keep a watch on these, and him with just the young boy. And you know how he feels about the blacks.”

  “Alright, then. God bless you, Mr. Blake. I’m sure the Lord will remember the kindness you have already shown,” the pastor said. And then he shouted, “And God bless you three. May you find the next doors open to you.”

  If they heard, they made no sign.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DORA AND I arrived early at the town hall on the night Whitbrow met to discuss the Chase of Pigs and whether to continue it. Even though school was starting in another few days and the roads needed attention and the bank in the mill town would no longer loan Whitbrow money, the question of the pigs was the only issue on the docket. The meeting was to start shortly before dark, but the sun was still round and orange just above the houses when we got there.

  The place was packed.

  A wave of human warmth hit us when I opened the door to the beat-up old building, and it was clear we were going to have to spend the night standing. The whole room fluttered with the movement of makeshift fans. I spotted Pastor Lyndon standing on the far side of the room near his seated wife and daughter, looking unsure of what to do in a crowded room he was not in charge of.

  God, the whole town had come.

  It got worse.

  By the time the meeting was officially begun, the doors had been stopped open so a growing crowd could listen in from the yard of the town hall. Some spread blankets. Those that brought chairs sat in these and smoked, and swatted at the mosquitoes that seemed inte
nt on bleeding the whole town white.

  “Lord-a-God,” one woman near me said, “took them a while to know we wasn’t in our homes, but they got our number now.”

  “In defense of the Chase of Pigs,” Old Man Gordeau said as he opened the meeting in his capacity as mayor, “some would say we ought to keep it cause that’s the way we always done. But times is harder now than they have been since I was a young man, and I don’t rightly see the point in herdin good animals into the woods. Now, I didn’t like it when them government sons a bitches came and bought up our piglets in ’33 and killed em all. They cut babies out a sows and plugged the river up with dead ones. But I had to admit, that did raise the price of pork. The difference bein that they was doin it all over the country. We’re the only idiots doin it now, and nobody’s payin us a red cent.” Some in the room started to clap, but Gordeau waved them down. “Pastor Lyndon here is goin to tell us God wants it, an he knows better than me what God wants, at least s’far as scripture goes. But I don’t think God wants us to go hungry. And I don’t think God wants us to turn animals that don’t know how to fend for themselves out to die when they’s used to havin their corn give to them in a trough. That’s all. And, Reverend, I’ll start goin to church more.”

  The people in the hot hall were glad to laugh. This town liked its mayor, and those who wanted the Chase stopped felt their cause swell; as he sat back down, applause still rippled through the room.

  Next up was Lester Gordeau, but as he took the podium Old Man Gordeau shouted, “Sit down, boy! Before I give you the wire end of the brush!” and got another spasm of laughter.

  Lester did not laugh. His Adam’s apple bobbed and he did not look up much as he spoke. He said, “I think we should keep the Chase because we always had it. It was ours as long as I can remember, and I don’t think no other place had it even once. I mean, Morgan’s always been a bigger town and they ain’t got it. I know it costs and times is hard, but I’ll keep givin what I can if others will. I mean, the mill town ain’t even got it.”

  His father could not resist speaking out of turn again, and he said, “Know what they got in the mill town that we ain’t got? Pork chops!”

  The hall boomed with laughter and Lester sat down abashed.

  A small but distinct sound of surprise rose from the gathering when Martin Cranmer was called to the podium. He came in from my left, pushing his way in from the yard, mumbling what looked like “Excuse me” through his beard, and then he stood and looked at the people for a long time before he spoke.

  He was wearing the same tight, pale yellow suit he wore to the Social. His hard hands gripped the sides of the podium so the knuckles were white, but his face was calm. I was sure he was drunk in that way that only career drinkers get; he seemed sober, but his eyes shone as if he had a secret and exclusive communion with the wellspring of all knowledge.

  Martin said, “I know a lot of you don’t like me and that’s fine because I only like a few of you. I hunt things in the woods and I stuff them and I sell them. Some of you good Christians buy another product I sell in jars because I run it through twice for good measure, I charge the thump keg just right, and you know I don’t cut it with embalming fluid like MacLeish did before you ran him out of town. Some of you trade me the yeast or corn or sugar I need, but other than that I don’t need people. If you all disappeared tomorrow I would be as happy as the man in the moon.”

  “Get to the point,” someone said from the back, not yelling, but loud enough to be heard.

  “My point, without putting too fine a point on it, is that marching those pigs out into the woods is the most intelligent thing you people do. Every month I watch a couple of young men go by my house and to the river with the pigs. I watch the fellows take that little ferry off the rocks and load the animals on and pull them across the river and let them go. And sometimes, just sometimes, I hear squealing.”

  Now they were listening.

  “Have any of you ever seen a pig running around loose in those woods?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Lester, you fish that river. Have you ever seen one of those pigs?”

  Lester shook his head in a gesture that was barely visible.

  “So my point is that something, or someone, or something who is someone is making a meal of those swine. And if you stop sending them, do you think it is possible that your pig-eater, or pigeaters, might decide to come to town for supper?”

  “You’re eating those goddamn pigs!” Buster Simms shouted. The people laughed.

  “You are wrong,” Martin said. “I do not eat the flesh of pigs, and neither do I eat carrion, although I have been known to put straw up its ass. I have become a Moslem. And if any of you holy heathens would like to hear the true gospel of the prophet Mohammed, I will be happy to testify while wearing the outfit that is traditional to the whirling dervish.”

  “Your time’s up. Now git off the damn podium,” Estel Blake said.

  Martin put his hands over his chest, performed a Moslem bow, and then left, squeezing past frowning townsfolk. He stumbled and nearly fell when he reached the door, then disappeared outside.

  Paul, who was an aldermen as well as owner of the general store, read from the sign-up sheet and saw that he was next to speak. He pulled at where his tie pinched his neck and stood before the crowd, saying, “I’m with Gordeau senior. Seems to me we been wastin a lot a pig flesh. Two pigs a month don’t sound like much, less it’s your turn to give em up. I know our folks took the pigs out startin in olden days, but our folks also rode horses or mules and none of them had the electric lights, which a few of our businesses have, and our houses will soon. These are new times. Lot of you been payin me on credit til times get better. Well, times ain’t better. Some of you ain’t paid me in a year. Still, nobody owes me as much as one healthy breed sow would fetch at market. The Good Book says, ‘Render under Caesar.’ Seems to me a man ought to pay his worldly debts first. Thank you.”

  And so it continued into the night. Miles Falmouth stood for continuing the tithe of pigs, and his words carried weight since he was the last one to lose livestock. He also went off on a tirade about how squatters had been coming into town now and again, and how they were likely the ones eating the pigs since they had no professions and could not be trusted. Ursie Noble stood up and said that she liked plaiting flowers for the pigs, and that since she did not have much that was fun to do, she would hate to give it up.

  Around ten o’clock Pastor Lyndon gave a long and rousing sermon using the story of Isaac and Abraham as a centerpiece, repeating the refrain, “If the Lord God desires it, it shall be done!” until he got even some of those from the other side riled up. Old Man Gordeau actually raised his hand before speaking out of turn this time, and said, “Forgive me Pastor, but I read the Good Book cover to cover and I don’t remember no mention of leading pigs into the nettles with flowers around their neck.”

  Pastor Lyndon said, “And neither did you read about the town of Whitbrow. Yet you did read about sacrifice. Do you believe, Brother Gordeau, that sacrifice was meant only for the children of Israel? The Lord has made manifest His desire for the Chase of Pigs through tradition. We were not present when the Lord made creation, nor were we of an age to question when our grandfathers saw fit to lead the first pigs away. Will we call them fools that nursed us and nursed our mothers? Will we now walk over their graves to put meat on our plate? We should thank the Lord for letting the choice between Him and Mammon stand so clearly before us.”

  Anna Muncie, the teacher of the younger grades, had the unpleasant task of following Pastor Lyndon. She said, “I am just as right with Jesus as anyone here. Yet I think we are doing our children a disservice to raise them in the shadow of such an ignorant tradition as this. My late husband had been to Spain before we married, and he told me all about bullfights. That is also an ignorant tradition, although he allowed that he quite enjoyed them. Now, we have no control over what the Spanish do in Spain, but we have control over our o
wn actions. I try to tell the kids about the marvels of the modern world and flight and medicine and all that, but then we stand around and let little girls decorate pigs we should be eating and shoo those pigs away for no good reason. Help me to help our kids not be savages. Thank you.”

  Old Man Gordeau called Eudora Nichols as the final speaker of the evening, noting that the meeting would reconvene the next night for others who wished to have their say before the aldermen voted.

  She captivated them.

  I watched her do it.

  If the men wanted to hate her for being a woman or a Yankee, her beauty soothed them and her reason made them listen. If the women resented her beauty, then the kindness in her voice made them forgive her for it. The kindness told them that she would never try to turn their husbands, that she would never look down her nose at them if they were plain, nor envy them if they, too, were cleverly made.

  She did not use any new arguments; the idea that the money saved from the Chase would help to ease at least a few of Whitbrow’s troubles had been addressed before. She did offer one new proposal, though.

  “Why not fashion pigs out of straw or branches and decorate them? Perhaps the labor would be sacrifice enough. Ursula and the others could still weave flowers through them. And they could be carried out to the same place. I don’t know. I’m not as religious as I perhaps should be. And I’m not from here, as you all know. But I care about what happens here, and I hope you’ll agree with me that the money from the collections might do better buying clothes or paying bank notes for those who are struggling instead of reimbursing farmers for wasted animals.”

  She got considerable applause.

  Gordeau called out, “I’m sorry I called you a carpetbagger!”

  “Mr. Gordeau, when did you call me that?” she said.

  “Not to your face, ma’am.”

  When she was done and she walked away from the podium, some looked back at me where I was beaming at her from my spot against the wall. Some looked at Pastor Lyndon to see if he was looking unfavorably upon her, but he was not.