The Buffalo Soldier

by Chris Bohjalian

  Then again, it may not even have happened here. Maybe the girls had been at a friend’s house in another town. Or at a grandparent’s house.

  Now, there was a thought: What would it be like to be a child who had grandparents as well as parents? Perhaps even two sets of grandparents?

  No, he decided, it had happened here in Cornish. He had met Laura’s parents and Terry’s mother—it had been a pretty typical meet-the-foster-kid show, where everyone gathers at the foster parents’ house and tries to be polite, but no one has the slightest idea what to say—and all those old people would have been a lot more screwed up if their grandchildren had died on their watch.

  He realized he was thinking too much. Making too much up. The fact was, he hadn’t a clue where the girls had died. It could have been anywhere.

  He was glad for the woman that Terry was coming home the next day. She might not have been the happiest person on the planet, ever, but at least she didn’t wake up in the night and start crying when Terry was home. Terry didn’t respect him the way Laura did, of course, and he had a feeling the man didn’t especially care for him. He didn’t let him get away with nearly as much as Laura did. But it was still pretty clear that Laura was better off when he was there.

  Alfred turned over the pillow and fluffed it. Maybe, he thought, when Terry was back he could figure out a way to ask him about the girls. He wasn’t sure how—the subject would most likely make them both pretty uncomfortable—but at least it would give the two of them something to talk about for a couple of minutes. He might even be able to use that somehow with the man. Make him believe they were friends.

  Outside his window, the clouds in the sky were breaking up and the moon was starting to appear. It would emerge for a couple of long seconds and make the clouds around it look like gray smoke. He thought it was full.

  He considered going downstairs and seeing if one or both of the cats wanted to sleep in his bed. He’d had the idea before, but the animals seemed pretty set in their ways and he’d never tried bringing them upstairs to his room. They slept, as far as he knew, near the woodstove in the den, in what was actually a dog bed Laura had ordered by mail. Because they’d been together their whole lives, they slept almost in a single ball, so at first glance it was hard to tell where one cat ended and the other began.

  He didn’t go downstairs, however, because he knew Laura would hear him. Instead he remained under his quilt and tried to take comfort in the notion that he was warm and fed, and these two people—Laura and Terry—didn’t seem to drink and had never once hit him. He glanced briefly around the room, surveying the unfamiliar toys and clothes that had been amassed for him by these grown-ups, and the new paper they’d put on the walls just before he arrived. It was yellow with thin blue and white stripes, and he had a feeling that if he peeled away a corner, he’d see something underneath that was flowery and pink. He knew this room had belonged to one of those girls—maybe even to both. It seemed big enough for two people.

  But the house had a third bedroom that Terry and Laura called the guest bedroom, and that one had recently been redone, too. Maybe it had belonged to one of the twins.

  For a moment he savored the fact that this was the second place in a row where he’d had his own room. Sometimes he couldn’t believe his luck in that regard.

  New wallpaper. What he guessed were new curtains. A new throw rug. These people were generous, no doubt about that.

  Still, they’d had girls their whole lives and it was clear they weren’t quite sure what to get a boy his age. Laura, anyway. But then, she always seemed to be the one who felt like opening up her wallet.

  He hadn’t told them he was too old for Legos, but he guessed they’d figured it out since he hadn’t gone near the box they’d given him. Same with those odd plastic cars that you could twist and turn into robots and bugs and reptilian-looking monsters.

  He decided a BB gun might have been fun: After all, Terry sure had his share of guns in that case down the hall. There were two rifles locked in there most of the time, the one with which he liked to hunt and the one that had belonged to his father that he never used. Only Terry’s father’s gun was in there right now, since Terry had brought his own rifle with him to deer camp.

  And then there was Terry’s sidearm. A 40-caliber Smith & Wesson Sig Sauer with a bullet in the chamber and twelve more in the magazine in the handle. Now, that was a cool-looking gun. He’d seen rifles before, but never a pistol. One time Terry took out the bullet and the magazine and let him hold it. They were having breakfast and Terry was in his uniform, and he took Alfred’s request to see the gun seriously. Led him outside into the backyard, where he unsnapped his holster, pulled the magazine from the weapon, and worked the slide—locking it open and ejecting the chambered round into his hand.

  This is not a toy, he had said, his voice even. It’s a tool. About the most dangerous tool you’ll ever see. Do you understand? He then handed him the unloaded gun.

  Laura had been watching from the back door, and she got so upset that Alfred feared she might have a stroke right there in the kitchen. She couldn’t believe what her husband had done—and neither could Alfred. Not then, and not now.

  He wasn’t sure what had surprised him more: the idea that Terry had let him touch his sidearm, or how much that sidearm had weighed. He hadn’t realized a real pistol would be so heavy.

  He thought some more about what sorts of things he really wanted, and decided that one of those pocket-size computer games would be nice. And, perhaps, a pair of in-line skates—though he wasn’t going to ask for a pair of those. There was no place to use them out here. Same with a skateboard.

  He’d had a chance to steal a skateboard that spring when he was living with the Patterson family in Burlington. He and Tien, both. They’d wandered into the shop on Cherry Street around ten-thirty in the morning, and the place was empty because every other kid in the city was in school—or supposed to be, anyway. They could hear the young guy with the tattoos and the tongue stud in the bathroom peeing, and he and Tien had the same thought at the same time. Grab boards and run. The guy would never know they’d been in the store. It might be days before he or the owner even realized two boards were gone.

  But they hadn’t taken anything. It was only when they were both back on Church Street with the cigarettes they’d bummed off the salesperson after he emerged from the bathroom that they even shared the fact with each other that they’d both considered swiping a skateboard.

  A few times Alfred had taken packs of cigarettes and candy bars from stores, and the studs he’d worn in his ears were stolen—but it was that kid named Maurice who’d actually ripped them off the black canvas display rack when no one was looking, before deciding he didn’t really like them. Once he and Digger had lifted a couple of videos from a shop in the mall, but he’d done that more to impress the older boy than because he wanted the movies. And for a while—three or four weeks, maybe—he’d taken dog food from the Hannaford’s supermarket for that pathetic animal the Fletchers kept tied to a clothesline yet hardly ever bothered to feed.

  He wasn’t proud of the list, but he told himself it really wasn’t all that long and he’d never been caught.

  The truth was he’d never owned very much, or cared a whole lot for whatever he had. His CD player, maybe, and some of his CDs. But there was no future in things, because things didn’t go with you.

  Most things, anyway. You took what you could in a couple of plastic garbage bags and a suitcase—unlike a lot of kids, he actually had one—and that was pretty much the rule. He’d been with the Sheldons since Labor Day Weekend, and he didn’t think he’d collected more than two or three things he’d take with him when he left. He’d take some of the new clothes, of course, but he’d leave behind the shirts and the pants he was getting too big for. He’d take his buffalo soldier cap, that was cool. And he’d take the football.

  Was there anything else? Some food, maybe. Laura hadn’t noticed, but in the back of his cl
oset he’d been building up his small store of provisions. That was one of the first things you learned: Always have rations handy in case they move you out fast, because there’s no telling what kind of food will be waiting for you at the next stop. So far he’d amassed Twinkies, canned peaches (along with one of the two can openers Laura had in a drawer that was positively overflowing with kitchen utensils), and four of those single-serve boxes of cereal. If you only took one or two things a week, the grown-ups rarely figured out that you were building up a stash.

  Maybe, he decided, there would be more possessions he’d want after Christmas—especially if he asked Laura and Terry for one of those handheld computer games—and he figured there was a good chance he’d be here through the holidays if he kept out of trouble.

  If. Like it was really up to him, and he had any say. Maybe if he wanted out, all he had to do was take another hike up to Burlington. Or give Terry some lip. But he knew he had no control if he actually wanted to stay. As soon as things changed or those two got tired of having a stranger under their roof, he’d be out the door.

  He wondered if he would care when that happened (or how much); he wished he knew what he wanted.

  He closed his eyes. With the light on in the bedroom and the assurance that he was completely alone, he figured he would fall back to sleep quickly, and he did.

  ONCE WHEN HE was sitting on the stairs petting one of the cats, he and the creature quiet but for the animal’s small purring, he had overheard Laura telling Terry that she was concerned about the effect his uniform might have on the boy. The sort of memories it might evoke.

  Alfred had rolled his eyes, even though no one could see him.

  You need to come with me, son.

  Laura needn’t have worried. Terry wore khaki and green. The uniforms that moved him around—that kept him on his toes on the street, that watched him warily when he’d walk from a store with stolen cigarettes or a stolen candy bar, that years and years ago now had appeared in his life when his mother first started to choose her rock and her men over him—had always been blue.

  ALFRED’S BUS WAS small: The two columns of seats stretched back a mere four rows, and it actually looked more like a van than a school bus. Still, it could seat sixteen children, though he was one of only a dozen kids who were riding it this year. The bus made a big loop out by the Cousinos’ and the cemetery, and, as Alfred knew well, there just weren’t many houses in that direction. Moreover, he was the only kid on the bus beyond the third grade. Apparently if he’d been on the bus last year, there would have been three sixth-graders, but the group—two girls and a boy—were old enough now to attend the union high school in Durham.

  Alfred saw Tim Acker walking down the sidewalk adjacent to the front of the elementary school as his bus was pulling into the parking lot, his red hair an almost neon beacon at fifty or sixty yards.

  In the past Alfred had always walked to school, and after two and a half months he still wasn’t used to the bus. The fact that he was at least two years older than everybody else on the route didn’t help, but he also found the notion of a schedule confining and the idea of the bus itself a constant reminder that he lived in the middle of nowhere. He was jealous of Tim and Schuyler and Joe Langford because they lived in the village and could walk to and from school—the way he had when he’d lived in Burlington.

  Tim was alone today, which meant the boy might wait for him when he got off the bus. When Tim was with other kids, Alfred had noticed, the whole group usually went pounding on ahead together, and Alfred wouldn’t catch up with them until they all met in the coatroom just inside their classroom.

  Hey, Tim said to him, once the small horde of first-, second-, and third-graders had raced off the bus, squealing today about cartoon stickers and gummy fruit snacks. Alfred could see the shape of the other boy’s in-line skates pressing against the inside of his nylon backpack.

  Hey.

  Can you stick around after school today? Tim asked. My mom says she could drive you home.

  They started up the cement steps, the crisp November air on their backs. The rain had come and gone in the night and the sun was up now. It was going to be unnaturally warm by mid-morning.

  Alfred tried to think if there was any reason why he couldn’t stay after school with Tim, and he couldn’t come up with one. At some point he’d need to phone the animal shelter and make sure it was okay with Laura—or, at the very least, leave a message on the answering machine at the house. Then, when Laura returned, she’d listen to it and figure out where he was.

  I’ll have to call Laura, he said, still unsure whether that meant at the Humane Society or their home. As soon as he’d spoken, however, he figured it would be easier for everyone if he just left a message at the house. He’d probably get Laura’s voice mail at work, anyway.

  Terry got a deer yet? Tim asked.

  Hadn’t as of last night. And he’s coming home today.

  My dad hasn’t got one yet, either. But my brother did. A button buck. Sixty-eight pounds.

  Cool, Alfred murmured, guessing that sixty-eight pounds must be pretty good if Tim was boasting about his brother’s kill. He wondered what a button buck was.

  When they reached the classroom, they saw Schuyler Jackman and Joe Langford by the classroom aquarium, and without taking off his jacket Tim went to join them. Alfred started to follow, but he had the sense that he shouldn’t. Once before he’d accompanied Tim to the group when they’d arrived at the classroom together, and it had been awkward. The other boys lived within blocks of each other in the small village, and had known each other practically since the day they’d been born. The only reason Tim didn’t walk to school with them every day was because it was slightly quicker for him to cut across the athletic field and the playground from where he lived. Usually when Alfred saw him alone, it meant that he was running a few minutes late.

  Alfred took off his blue-jeans jacket and draped it over a hook, and hung up his backpack beside it. Then he unzipped the top compartment and reached inside for his loose-leaf notebook. He noticed that he had inadvertently allowed the notebook to mash the visor on the cavalry cap the Heberts had given him, and a part of him wished that he had worn it to school today—if only so the bill wouldn’t have been crushed. When he was filling his backpack earlier that morning, however, he decided at the last minute not to wear it. Kids might ask him who the buffalo soldiers were, and he’d have to tell them the little he knew—which meant driving home the point, one more time, that he was black and they weren’t.

  By the aquarium the three boys started to laugh at something Schuyler had said, and though Alfred didn’t believe it had anything to do with him—at least that’s what he assumed—the laughter hurt him if only because he wasn’t a part of it.

  HE KNEW HE was the only black kid in the fifth grade, and he was almost as positive that he was the only black kid in the school. Certainly he’d never seen any others. In the entire village he’d never seen any other black people, children or grown-ups.

  The school had a single class for each grade, and during an assembly one morning he heard the principal say there were 119 students in the school, including the morning kindergarten class. The assembly was held in the gym because the school didn’t have an auditorium, and so the kids sat on the polished wood floor under the basketball hoops.

  One time when he was standing in the lunch line at the cafeteria with Tim, a first-grader who rode his little bus had asked him why his skin was so dark. The inquiry wasn’t meant to be hurtful, but it had made him self-conscious: He was embarrassed because the question was asked in front of Tim and slightly angry because he knew nobody would ever think to ask this six-year-old boy why his hair was so blond.

  Burlington, of course, had had a couple of black kids, as well as a black teacher. Burlington had even had Chinese kids and Japanese kids and kids whose parents had come from Vietnam.

  Briefly he wondered how his friend Tien was doing, and what she was up to right that sec
ond. He guessed she, too, was in school, but you could never be sure with Tien. He wondered where she was living.

  Alfred knew a little history, just enough to sense that no one here discriminated against him because he was black. No one called him names, no one wanted him to have less of anything. No one expected him to use a different water fountain. It wasn’t like those pictures from the South they’d looked at in Ms. Huntoon’s class when he was in the third grade in Burlington.

  But he also felt as if the people here, teachers, too, were always staring at him when he was on the playground or in the lunchroom, and that may have been because he was black—although it may also have been because he was a foster child. A person just dropped into a school filled with kids who’d been together since the very first day of kindergarten.

  Either way, some of the kids still kept a certain distance, even now when he was involved in one of their games. He was part of the group that was playing Capture the Flag during recess. Immediately after lunch the teachers had herded everyone outside because it was so warm for November and the sun was out. Schuyler Jackman had made sure that Alfred was on his team, which had made him feel better than if he’d wound up as a spectator with his back to the brick wall of the building—something that had happened twice before. But he still found that he could reach the opposing team’s flag almost at will, as if the other kids didn’t want to tag him. His team had won both games so far, because with a minimal amount of darting and ducking he had raced through the defense and grabbed the red art smock that was serving as their flag.

  He couldn’t figure out whether they were being nice to him, or whether it was something else entirely. No one, he could not help but notice, had clapped him on the back or asked for a high five when he’d crossed back onto Schuyler’s team’s side with the smock—not even Tim. That had certainly been a part of the victory celebration in the games he had witnessed from the sideline. In his case, however, both times there had been a few small cheers and a few kids had pumped their fists into the air, but then he had simply been expected to hand the jersey back to the losers so they could begin a new game.