Those Across the River

by Christopher Buehlman

  “As soon as this is over, I’m putting my wife in the car and driving out of here for good. This is your town. I thought maybe it could be mine, too, if I fought with you, if I planted my feet and stayed. But it’s not. I won’t run out on you tonight. I’ll do what you say. There’s eight of us. Seven should vote so we don’t split down the middle. I abstain.”

  “No,” Lawton said. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  “Who’s left?”

  “Lester.”

  Buster looked at him.

  Everybody looked at him.

  He was about to say “run,” but when his daddy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, Lester looked down and the word “hunt” came out of his mouth so quietly I wasn’t sure what he said.

  “No. Do what y’all want. I’m leavin.”

  Then Lawton Butler turned from where he stood near Buster and walked slowly away.

  “Hey!” Buster shouted at his back, but Lawton kept walking.

  He had only gotten a few steps when Buster trotted up behind him and spun him around, trying to be gentle, but the man’s balance was bad and he fell into Lester Gordeau’s leg. He crabbed up to his feet and looked wide-eyed at Buster.

  That was when he made the mistake of pulling his pistol out of his trousers. He probably only meant to back Buster away with it, but Old Man Gordeau, who wasn’t five feet away, didn’t wait to find that out and shot him in the chest with his deer rifle, just left of the sternum. When his heart stopped, Lawton Butler shrugged his shoulders and made a sound like a man about to throw up, then raised his pistol, shot Gordeau once in the stomach, and fell down dead.

  The old man sat down hard with a groan and said “Jesus” through clenched teeth as his sons clutched at him and everyone else, even the doctor, stood fish-mouthed at what had just happened. Gordeau kept saying “Jesus” until he passed out and that was when the spell broke and Dr. McElroy came over to him, felt his neck and lifted his shirt.

  “He’s not dead, but the way he’s bleeding, he’ll die.”

  “Ain’t there no chance?” Lester said.

  “Maybe in a hospital. Not out here.”

  “I just changed my vote,” Lester said. “Let’s get out of here. Please.”

  THERE WAS NO good way to carry Old Man Gordeau.

  In the end, the Gordeau boys used the hand-axe Charley Wade had brought and cut down saplings to make the frame for a crude litter. Saul stripped the jacket from Arthur Noble and the pants from Lawton Butler with little hesitation (even when Lawton’s eyes opened and the dead man belched, causing Lester to jump back as if from a rattlesnake), and the brothers stretched these between the poles.

  Charley Wade asked about the propriety of abandoning their friends, but nobody wanted to haul them, not even Charley, so they stayed. Handkerchiefs over their faces were the only funeral rites the two of them got; Dr. McElroy, covering Arthur, said “Poor Sadie” in lieu of a prayer.

  Buster took Arthur’s gun, saw that it was empty, and tossed it into the trees. Lester, whose rifle was almost dry, took his daddy’s six bullets. Each man checked his remaining load. I looked in Lawton Butler’s pistol and found it empty. The bullet in Gordeau’s belly had been his last.

  We looked where Charley had slung his gun as he fell, but it was too dark and the brush was too thick. The gun was gone.

  For the first hour, Gordeau came in and out of consciousness as his boys carried him along, groaning when his litter bearers encountered a root or shifted his weight clumsily. Dr. McElroy’s improvised dressings had soaked through and there was nothing clean for which to swap them out. The old man only spoke once; he looked at Lester tight-lipped and said, “Boy,” but then seemed too tired to say the rest.

  He died some time soon after that.

  When it was clear that he was gone, the boys set the litter down, as they had already done several times to rest their arms, and Lester started to cry. Saul looked away from him.

  “Quit that,” he said. “Daddy wouldn’t cry over you.”

  “I guess not,” Lester said.

  But then Saul cried, too, less for his father than for himself; for what had happened to him, what would likely happen to him yet.

  Nobody suggested they leave Gordeau behind, though all of them wanted to. I could see in Charley Wade’s eyes that it was all he could do not to sprint for the river.

  The boys picked Gordeau up and moved along.

  I was the one who recognized the trail.

  I spotted a fallen log with two gnarled branches reaching up like someone asking to be lifted, an image I had noted in our last excursion. We found the path back to the river just on the other side of that. This cheered us, and, even though it was getting near midnight and the river was an hour away, Buster thought it might be smart to rest.

  “Sit a minute, and smoke if you got it. We still got a ways to go.”

  I accepted a cigarette from the doctor.

  Lester and Saul, who had worn themselves out carrying their father, sat against the same large tree and napped, each holding his rifle in his lap, their heads nearly touching. Buster asked Dr. McElroy to look at his pocket watch and tell him when it had been fifteen minutes. He and I kept our eyes on the still, cold woods around us. Charley Wade melted against the fallen log with the outstretched limbs. The doctor sat next to him and smoked.

  Nobody saw it happen.

  “Time,” the doctor said.

  Buster roused each man separately, quietly.

  A moment after Saul awakened, he started and stood up fast.

  “What is it?” Lester said.

  “My rifle. Lord, my rifle.”

  Saul was holding a branch with rotten bark.

  He had been sleeping with that on his lap.

  His gun was gone.

  ONLY CHARLEY WADE saw where the first shot came from.

  He was halfway through the words “Look out!” when the BANG of Saul’s stolen rifle bounced in the woods. Chips of bark flew near Lester as he scrambled to his feet.

  “Gimme that!” Saul said, reaching for Lester’s rifle, which he held out to his brother, but Saul’s fingers had just brushed the stock when the next shot from the woods rang out and Saul fell down, grabbing his jaw. Screaming womanishly. I had heard this noise before.

  Got the one behind Jesus God I’m next

  The rest of the party crouched and ducked and now opened up, firing madly in the direction the shot had come from.

  The half-moon had come out, throwing pale light down through the trees.

  I saw that we were obliged to shoot over the body of Old Man Gordeau, whose face was bare and drawn in the moonlight.

  Another muzzle flash from the trees; it had relocated. Or there were two. We kept shooting. I reloaded the clip with the shells from my pocket, fired two at a silhouette, then got a stove-pipe jam. I cleared it, then stopped shooting. The doctor flinched as a bullet passed quite near his head. He was otherwise frozen, holding his empty pistol in front of his face for no good reason.

  Lester emptied his rifle and said, “I’m out!”

  “Me, too,” said the doctor.

  Buster said, “Shut up!”

  “I think they shot six!” Lester said. “If all they got’s the Enfield, they dry, too.”

  “Could be they got my gun. They’s still three in that,” Charley said.

  “Shut the hell up about how many bullets you got,” Buster yelled.

  It was hard to be heard over Saul.

  He was shrieking, hoarsely now.

  I had two bullets left.

  I resolved then and there not to use them unless I was within ten feet of one; to save them until I was certain I would die unless I shot. My resolution would be tested very soon. I looked around at the group. Lester had his shirt off, his white limbs bare to the cold; the doctor had dropped his empty gun and now held Lester’s shirt bunched and pressed against Saul’s jaw, muffling his cries somewhat. Lester was looking around to see if there was a dropped gun he could sh
oot, but he could see none, and nobody was firing now. We all panted, crouching behind trees, our breath pluming.

  Lester saw something and fixed his gaze on it.

  I looked where he was looking.

  The red dress. The boy with no pants walked out almost nonchalantly into the moonlight. Buster stood to fire, but the boy saw him and crouched low, fast, just as Buster squeezed. The bullet whined off into the trees. The boy now bent down and grabbed Old Man Gordeau by the pants legs and began pulling him across the trail to the trees on the other side. Lester Gordeau broke from where his brother thrashed and groaned and ran to the trail, grabbing his father’s arms.

  “Let him GO!” he shouted at it, but it pulled grimly, stronger than Lester, jerking at the dead man’s legs in a series of short, hard tugs like a dog pulling at a knotted sock. Lester was losing ground. He dug in and tried to pull harder. He knew it was staring at him but he would not look at its face.

  The moon went behind a cloud again and it got darker.

  I wanted to shoot the boy but would not part with those last bullets; nor could I make myself run onto the trail to help Lester.

  “Let go, Lester!” Charley yelled.

  “Lester, get back here!” shouted the doctor.

  That was when the boy in the red dress dropped the old man’s legs and walked up to Lester, who stood stupefied, holding his father’s arms. He didn’t even move his head away when it reached up like a magician about to do a trick, and grabbed Lester’s ear. The boy yanked Lester’s ear off.

  Lester yelled and dropped his father.

  Both brothers yelling now.

  The boy tucked the ear in his mouth like a piece of candy. I sighted down the barrel now, arguing with myself about whether to shoot the boy; that was when Buster grabbed Charley’s axe from his belt and ran at it.

  It didn’t even duck.

  Buster swung hard and hit true.

  He buried the axe in the boy’s head as if in a soft tree stump; I knew the sound it was making even though I couldn’t hear it, knew that Buster was feeling that sound in the bones of his arm. He let the handle go. The boy staggered backwards until he hit a tree, then slid to the ground as his legs buckled under him. Every man stood still, holding his breath.

  A gout of blood poured down the boy’s head.

  Then stopped.

  The axe fell out of the boy’s head and onto the trail. And then the wound was gone. The men who were close enough to see it gasped. The boy wiped the blood out of his eyes with the hem of his dress and stood up, picking up the axe.

  Buster backed up a step. I walked onto the trail and stood next to Buster, my gun pointed at the boy. Not ten yards away. Despite my shaking hands, I was sure I would hit him.

  The boy dropped the axe.

  Grinned his sharp-toothed grin.

  Then started to shake.

  The doctor might have thought it was a seizure from the head wound, but that had not just been a wound any more than this was just a seizure.

  Buster and I backed away.

  The boy changed.

  Quickly, tearing the red dress.

  The moon came back, shone on its dust-colored fur.

  It stepped out of what was left of the dress.

  I remember smelling urine and thinking Buster’s bladder had loosed. Turned out it was mine.

  I sensed Buster turn and run beside me, so I turned and ran also, still holding the pistol with two shots left in it.

  I believe all of us ran.

  All except the doctor, with Saul’s head in his lap.

  I never saw them again.

  Or Lester.

  BUSTER AND I ran together until we could not run. Twice I hit trees, once so hard I almost lost consciousness. When we could no longer run we trotted, and then we walked. Buster wore the expression of a tragedy mask and, at times, made a sound between panting and sobbing. I put my arm around the big man’s shoulders but Buster didn’t seem to care; just clutched his hands under his chin like a child saying grace and made that sound.

  I don’t know how long that went on. I know we were making for the river, and I have no idea if we were heading in the right direction. I was sure we wouldn’t get there. I was right.

  When strong hands took my arm and spun me, I didn’t resist. I had no fight left. “This one?” said a small-eyed Negro with an unevenly trimmed woolly head. A white man said, “Yeah. This’n shot me. With this.” He had already plucked my pistol out of its holster. He had permanently matted long hair and a huge mustache. They were both naked, as was a white woman with a curly brown mane, who moved past us and made for Buster. Thankfully I didn’t see any more. The men hoisted me on their shoulders like a rolled-up rug and started running with me.

  Behind me I could hear Buster screaming hoarsely, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  Not about the men running with me; about whatever the woman was doing to him.

  I knew I was going to die.

  And something odd happened; I relaxed.

  And it all got funny.

  The white one, the one with the cowboy mustache, was running in front with my legs, limping, favoring his right side. I remembered now shooting one of the monsters in the haunch the night my wife was bitten. The right haunch. I started laughing.

  Then I realized that I recognized his mustache.

  He was one of the hobos who came through town looking for work. I sat next to him while he ate ice cream at Harvey’s on that hot summer day. The colored with the bad haircut had been with him. It was also possible that Curly Woman was the pipe-smoking “Polish” woman. Jesus, they had our number. They hadn’t been angels looking for honest men; they had been devils making maps.

  I laughed harder.

  The colored with the bad haircut, who was holding my upper body, laughed, too, and said, “Sound like young marse got a joke to say.”

  I thought about Dora, alone in the house, and I stopped laughing. I clawed and tried to dig my fingers into the black man’s eyes. He didn’t yell, just made a sound like ack, twisted out of it and dropped me. Because the other one had my feet, my head hit the ground. Now my feet were dropped. I opened my eyes just in time to see the black one straddle my chest fluidly and sit down on me like an anchor. I remember the moonlight on his blousy but threadbare shirt, how old and dirty it was, and his stink. It was the not-unpleasant smell of a Negro’s skin and hair corrupted with something feral and something coppery like old blood. I had smelled it while he ran with me, but now it washed down over me.

  “You need a bath,” I said.

  He blinked his small eyes in surprise.

  “Lawd, you got a mouth on you,” he said admiringly, then hit me with incredibly hard open hands until I blacked out.

  I think it was twice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I WOKE UP in a cage, naked, outside.

  It was morning. It was cold. My head hurt like it was sitting in a socket of cold, broken glass. A curious chicken just outside the iron bars cocked its head so it could see me with its preferred eye.

  “Good morning,” I said to it.

  I sat up, noticing first how white my legs looked and then that they had rust stains from the bottom of the cage. I had a very civilized and unnecessary urge to cover my private parts, but there was not so much as a handkerchief in the frigid cage. There was not enough room to stand, or to fully extend my legs.

  I looked at the chicken again.

  “Would you please tell management that I would like to be moved to a better room?”

  It walked off disinterestedly.

  “I’ll have your job,” I said.

  I knew where I was, though I scarcely believed it.

  I knew where I had to be.

  Despite the murderous pain in my head, I looked around and took stock of my situation. A grey, ancient smokehouse sagged just to my left. Near it stood a sort of round wooden disk. The fact that everything was blurry informed me that my glasses were gone.

  To my right, a low st
one wall defined the limit of what appeared to be an overgrown garden. Past that were rows of dilapidated shacks, swarmed over by kudzu and impaled by young trees.

  This was all somehow familiar to me.

  When I turned around and looked behind me, I knew why.

  I saw it.

  La Boudeuse.

  The plantation of Lucien Savoyard, my great-grandfather.

  Of course.

  I turned around and looked at that wooden disk again, noticing this time the leather straps and buckles. Yes. This was the wheel on which Savoyard’s slaves had been flogged and tortured and spun until they were witless. I noticed that it was not overgrown.

  “He awake,” a voice I recognized said. The Negro from last night. Not the strong, bald one. Bad haircut. He came over with a chipped bowl and stood over my cage with it.

  “Open your mouth.”

  I was thirsty enough to oblige and I drank as best I could the cold water he poured through the bars. I was shivering.

  “I think the man cold,” he yelled back at the house. He seemed genuinely amused by this.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I said.

  He looked at me.

  He said the next thing very slowly.

  “Cause we know who you are. We smell who you are. But don’t worry none. We’s the forgivin type.”

  He stooped for the chicken that had been eyeing me and snatched it up by the neck, taking it inside with him, unconcerned with its beating wings. It took a moment for that to sink in. How fast he was.

  It rained.

  I had been testing the lock to the cage, bracing myself as best I could and pushing with both feet, hoping something might give. Something did, but it wasn’t in the door. I hurt my back.

  “Goddamnit!” I said. That’s when I felt the first drops. “Goddamnit, goddamnit, goddamnit.”

  Soon it was pouring.

  I hugged my knees, watching the rain splashing in the muddy yard, trying to focus on that instead of the cold that was creeping through my body and the dull, tight pain above my right hip.

  I saw a white foot tread in a puddle, and I looked up the leg and at its owner. The woman with the curly hair. Curly and matted. Naked, like me, standing in the rain. There was dried blood near her ear.