The Buffalo Soldier

by Chris Bohjalian

  Pretty safe, maybe. But nothing’s completely safe. Fourteen-year-old girls disappear in broad daylight in Brattleboro, female hikers seem to fall off the face of the earth while they’re on some major trail up on Mount Carmel. I’m glad you didn’t take walks at night alone.

  You just worry because you see so much.

  I do. Even on a good day, I’m likely to see some real nasty stuff. And I try and help, but a lot of the time—maybe even most of the time—there’s very little I can do.

  A gust of wind blew across their path as they walked, swirling the snow around their boots and their knees. It sounded to her a bit like an owl.

  I imagine you do more than you think.

  He started to laugh. My dear, I couldn’t even keep my own children safe.

  Oh, God, Terry, don’t go there. There was no way you could have known your daughters would be in danger that day.

  I know. Really, I do. But that’s exactly what I mean: Things happen all the time that are completely beyond our control. Even—hard to believe, I know—the control of a sergeant with the Vermont State Police.

  But at least you try to make things a little safer, a little better. Look at what you tried to do with Alfred.

  I take no pride in anything I did with or for Alfred. We never connected, and that’s nobody’s fault but my own.

  You tried.

  Not very hard. Maybe if I’d gotten him a couple years ago—a couple houses sooner—I could have done something for him. Helped turn him around. Hell, maybe Laura still can. Maybe she has a magic silver bullet I don’t. That wouldn’t surprise me. She was always a great mom.

  Well, I’ll bet you were an amazing dad with your own girls.

  I was okay. Maybe even pretty good. But they were amazing kids, too. Even I couldn’t screw them up too badly.

  She stopped walking, and he paused with her. I have to say something, she began, and this is important. I have enjoyed these last few days a lot. I’ve enjoyed all the times I’ve seen you. But if tomorrow you and Laura figure out that you two should be together, I will be...not unhappy. How’s that for an honest waffle? I will—

  Phoebe—

  Look, I’m not being a martyr, she went on, and she took his gloved hands in hers. I believe you’d be as good a father as my baby—our baby—could ever have. And, at least when we’re naked, we certainly seem to have a lot in common. But I just found myself actually worrying about your lunch tomorrow, and that’s not a good place to be. It’s not good for me, it’s not good for you.

  She felt the wind whipping her bangs into her eyes, and she hoped it was only the cold that was making them start to water. What I’m trying to say, she said, before her voice broke abruptly and she was crying and he was pulling her against his chest.

  What I’m trying to say...

  Shhh, he murmured, shhh, and he pressed one index finger, still sheathed in its leather glove, against her lips.

  If she’d finished the sentence, she thought, her mind muddled by tears, she would have said, What I’m trying to say is I want you to break this thing we have off because I’m selfish and I haven’t the strength to do it myself. But she realized she was too weak to even verbalize the idea, much less push him away and end their affair.

  “It wasn’t until this winter that I even realized I was lonely. It may have been the presence of these tiny Indian girls, but the fact I have nieces and nephews in Philadelphia I’ve never met has begun to trouble me more than ever.”

  SERGEANT GEORGE ROWE,

  TENTH REGIMENT, UNITED STATES CAVALRY,

  LETTER TO HIS BROTHER IN PHILADELPHIA,

  MARCH 15, 1877

  Laura

  The barracks were within a mile and a half of the county animal shelter on Route 7, but because they were to the south of the building, she never had to pass the site where Terry would usually begin and end his shift. She knew that he, however, had to pass the Humane Society at least twice a day, since he was staying out at the Labarge family’s winterized camp on Lake Champlain. The reality, of course, was that he probably drove by the shelter considerably more often than that: Much of his district spread out to the north, and both the courthouse and the state’s attorney’s office were in that direction. Sometimes, when she was in the room with the cats in the front of the building, or walking one of the dogs and getting some air herself, she would find herself staring at the two-lane state road down the hill from the shelter, half-expecting to see his green cruiser spin by.

  She was meeting him for lunch today at a casual restaurant called Rosie’s, and it would be the first time she’d seen him since he and Henry came by the house so he could get his pickup and a couple suitcases of clothes. They’d spoken on the phone five or six times since that afternoon, but they hadn’t laid eyes on each other. She sat now at a table in the sunniest corner the hostess could find, a woman alone with a sheaf of papers about animal vaccines and contagious diseases, and sipped her tea and waited, wondering what it was she wanted from the lunch—what, if anything, they would resolve.

  When he arrived he waved at the waitress behind the counter near the front door, and he had to clap the shoulders of two men who, based on their own uniforms, worked in the service department of one of the nearby auto dealers. Perhaps they serviced the barracks’ cruisers. Perhaps they were volunteers with the local fire department or the rescue squad, and their paths crossed with Terry’s at small (and, alas, large) fires and accidents.

  Even the hostess knew him and they, too, shared a small laugh as she guided him over to her table. Was there anyone in this part of the county Terry didn’t know at least slightly? Probably not.

  He stood for a brief second before her as the hostess retreated, then awkwardly leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. When he sat down across from her, he was smiling.

  It’s good to see you, he said. Really good.

  She put the papers in the wicker tote she used as a pocketbook and sat back in her seat. It didn’t seem fair to her that she’d spent twenty minutes that morning thinking about which blouse and sweater and shade of lipstick she should wear, when he got to slide inside the same clothes every single day. Of course, it was like that to some degree for all men, but it was particularly easy for him.

  It’s good to see you, too, she said. I didn’t notice you pull into the parking lot.

  He put his campaign hat on the empty chair beside him. I’m parked around the side. There weren’t any spots out front.

  She almost commented on how busy the restaurant was, but she didn’t: It would sound, in her mind, as if they had just begun dating and needed small talk to get through the awkward moments.

  You’re looking good, he said when she only nodded. You hanging in there?

  I am. It’s quiet. Lonely. Must be for you, too.

  Can be.

  I called the cabin last night. There was no answer.

  Yeah, I went for a walk after dinner, he said, and he looked down at the menu. That’s where I must have been when you called.

  She had a sense that he wasn’t telling the whole truth, but she didn’t press it because she wasn’t here to pick a fight.

  You get the chimney cleaned? he went on, his eyes still on the menu. Earl show up on time?

  Earl always shows up on time.

  He does, doesn’t he? And the furnace hasn’t been acting up?

  You’d know if it was.

  I guess. I just feel bad that I’m not there to keep the house pasted together.

  The house is fine. I’m a big girl: I can carry in my own wood, I can pick up the phone and call the chimneysweep. I can even read the pressure gauges on the furnace.

  You lose power in the windstorm the other night?

  We did. I think we’ve lost power twice in the last week.

  Twice?

  Neither time for very long. And one time neither of us was even home. You?

  Once.

  Furnace go out?

  It did.

  You don’t have a wo
odstove out there. You must have been freezing.

  It was a tad nippy for a night, I grant you that. And I had to go get a torch to unfreeze the water pipes the next day. You’d know what to do if our pipes ever froze, right?

  She nodded. Of course.

  You’d call me.

  Actually, I’d call a plumber.

  Well, if you can’t get a plumber, call me. Please.

  He looked briefly back at the menu and then at the specials written in chalk on one of the blackboards in the large room. I always have the turkey here, he went on. Especially this time of the year. I don’t know why I bother to look. The open-faced turkey and gravy. He flipped the menu shut and shrugged. So, how’s Alfred? he asked.

  He’s fine.

  What does he think about all this?

  The fact we’re taking some time off?

  That’s a nice term for it.

  He’s been through worse, I imagine. He said he lived one place once where the man, his foster dad, just up and left.

  And the guy never came back?

  Nope.

  What a life. He still doing all those chores for Paul?

  Tending the horse, you mean? You bet.

  He’s good about that, isn’t he? Most kids, I guess, wouldn’t be that responsible. They’d find excuses. They’d go do something else.

  What would he do?

  I don’t know. Most kids would figure it out.

  She looked across at him, trying to understand why what he had just said annoyed her so much. He stared back at her and offered a smile that he probably thought was boyish and winning and handsome. Not the knowing look he reserved for people he was about to nail for speeding or because they were driving with more beer in their blood than white corpuscles; it was a smile that once she had found quite attractive.

  Alfred isn’t most kids, she said simply, but she knew there was a trace of irritation in her voice.

  Nope. Has he been paying attention to you—listening to you?

  He has.

  And he hasn’t gotten into any trouble?

  When was the last time he got into any trouble, Terry? Seriously?

  I’m sorry, really I am. But I know what I saw the Monday morning after Christmas.

  You still think he was up to something?

  Still do.

  The waitress returned to take their order, and she watched the way he teased the young woman good-naturedly about her haircut, and then asked her whether the gravy was thick and fatty enough to come with an angioplasty. Everything he said seemed to make her giggle. After she left, he leaned forward with his elbows on the table and the fingertips on his hands joined in a pyramid, and asked, So, tell me: Where are we? What are you feeling these days?

  Well, I would love to see us get back to where we were. It was pretty good once, wasn’t it? I don’t think I’m making that up.

  Nope, not a bit. It was. Remember when we got the girls all the way to the top of Mount Lafayette?

  I do.

  And the time we left them with Mom and went to Montreal for that long weekend? It doesn’t get better than that.

  No. That was nice, she said, and though the memories were indeed pleasant—capable, even, of taking the edge off her annoyance—she had the sense that they both were stalling. Certainly she was.

  You still have that chemise? The one you slept in?

  Somewhere.

  You should find it.

  There was the small sliver of an ice cube left in her water glass, and she swirled the liquid so that it disappeared. Then: I don’t think it’ll ever be like that again. I could find it. But we’re older now. And very different.

  You never know.

  Yes, you do. Are you seeing someone, Terry?

  Pardon me?

  I asked if you were seeing someone.

  Don’t tell me that you’re still obsessed with what my brother said back in November.

  Nope. Not at all. But if we’re going to talk about me in a chemise, I want to know if you’re seeing someone else.

  That’s why you’re asking?

  I’m asking because we haven’t connected on anything for the last month—

  A month is not a very long period of time. People go through phases, you know—

  We haven’t connected much in two years. You said so yourself. It’s the good periods that have been rare.

  That’s not my fault.

  I didn’t say it was.

  I could ask you if you were seeing somebody. I could—

  And you know you’d be acting like a jerk. You know damn well I’m not seeing anybody else. I can say that. I am not seeing anybody. I haven’t had a drink with another man in a bar, I haven’t kissed one or held one or fucked one. I—

  You might want to keep it down if this is going to become an NC-17 brawl.

  I was almost whispering.

  Words carry in this place. Trust me, I know.

  I won’t ask why.

  Excuse me?

  She sat back in her chair, surprised that she hadn’t started to cry. She was angry and she was hurt, but she felt strangely composed. She thought she would ask him one more time, though there was no longer much doubt in her mind: So, tell me, she said, it’s a simple yes-or-no question. Are you seeing another woman?

  Behind him she saw their waitress reaching through the window to the kitchen for the plates with her egg salad sandwich and his open-faced turkey, and she was glad he didn’t know their lunch was about to arrive. He might have stalled if he had, knowing the imminent return of the waitress would give him another moment to consider his answer.

  He took a deep breath and looked back into her eyes. I am, he said. I’m sorry.

  She nodded. It wasn’t nearly as painful as she had thought it would be. Perhaps because she had been expecting it for so long, the blow barely nicked her. Is it serious? she asked simply.

  It’s complicated.

  Meaning?

  I guess it’s serious.

  Do I know her?

  No. You two have never met.

  Can I presume, then, this mystery woman is the person you met in November when you were supposed to be hunting? The woman you claimed you only had a beer with in a bar?

  Yes. You can.

  The waitress arrived, smiling, and placed the egg salad sandwich before her and the hot turkey in front of her husband.

  Can I get you anything else? she asked.

  Without thinking about what she would do, she reached for her coat and her tote bag and stood, and then—aware that the waitress was gazing at her, confused, and her husband looked vaguely alarmed—she pushed the plate with the hot turkey and the gravy and the creamed squash off the table and into Terry’s lap. A napkin for my husband, she said to the young woman. Maybe even a towel: No offense, but that gravy does look pretty greasy. Other than that, I think we’re all set. Then she left the restaurant, waiting until she got to the parking lot and was sure that Terry wasn’t following her to put on her coat.

  It was only when she was in her car and on her way back to the animal shelter that the magnitude of what she had done dawned upon her, and despite what he had told her, she was unable to restrain a small smile: Like all troopers, he had four pairs of all-season uniform pants and an equal number of long-sleeve winter shirts. She was quite sure that half his pants and two of those shirts were in the ironing pile at the house, because she’d seen them there that week. And so although she didn’t know exactly how he was spending his evenings at that camp, she realized there was a pretty good chance that he would be shopping for pre-wash stain removers after work, and tonight he would be doing his laundry and ironing.

  “I knew he liked me. Maybe if I had been older it would have been harder to like him, given what his uniform meant to my people. But I was a teenager, I was still so young. And he was very handsome.”

  VERONICA ROWE (FORMERLY POPPING TREES),

  WPA INTERVIEW,

  MARCH 1938

  The Heberts

  Th
e riding ring was filled with girls, most of them blond, most of them with long straight hair that (inevitably) they had pulled back into ponytails. For a moment Paul watched a group somewhere in the neighborhood of Alfred’s age, five kids nine or ten or eleven (but who could really tell these days, with girls starting to mature so young? For all he knew, they were all third- or fourth-graders) giggling as they fed fast-food French fries to a hitched Appaloosa. They were wearing either leather chaps over their jeans or stretch riding breeches, and they all had boots that laced partway up their shins.

  It looks like you and I are the only males here, he said to Alfred.

  Maybe some of the horses.

  In name only. Count on it: Any male horses here aren’t exactly the men they used to be—if you get my drift.

  Some of the girls looked up at them, but most paid them little attention.

  It’s nice in here, Alfred said. Not too hot. I’d thought it might be like a gym.

  Nope.

  There were two large rings, and a pair of teenagers was jumping over small red-and-white fences in the far one.

  A middle-aged woman approached, and one of the girls ran from the hitching post where she, too, had been trying to convince the big Appaloosa to eat French fries, her arms filled with a tangled bridle and a jumbled mass of reins, and intercepted the teacher before she could reach them. The woman, small and athletic with long red hair that fell down her back in a braid, bent over and disentangled the great lump of leather. He was relieved she was an adult—a real adult—not some twenty- or twenty-one-year-old kid. It was bad enough he was taking a lesson, but the notion that he might have been taught by a person barely a third his age had been galling.

  When she was done she motioned for the girl to return the tack to a room off to the side, and then ambled over to them.

  It looks like you’re Paul and Alfred, she said. I’m Heather Barrett. Welcome. She extended her hand first to Paul and then to Alfred, and for a moment the boy looked at the hand, apparently surprised that it had been extended to him so cavalierly.

  I understand you’ve already got a pretty good foundation, she said to him. That true?