The Buffalo Soldier

by Chris Bohjalian

  I hope you’re not thinking about the roof. God, at this point don’t trouble yourself with that.

  No, I wasn’t thinking about the roof, he said as he opened the car door and swung his legs back out into the downpour. I was actually thinking about you.

  “We took a mud wagon for the first part of the trip east. It was supposed to be pulled by six horses, but I remember we had four oxen instead. There was a white officer with us who was going home, too, and a blacksmith. Here’s something that made me laugh: Before boarding we were told we could bring all the guns we wanted but no alcohol because, of course, we were traveling through Indian Territory.”

  VERONICA ROWE (FORMERLY POPPING TREES),

  WPA INTERVIEW,

  MARCH 1938

  Alfred

  It wasn’t even two-thirty and he was on the bus home because they were closing the school early. This time the little kids weren’t ogling the river in excitement, or shrieking happily when they saw slabs of ice the size of bedsheets and as thick as truck tires careening down the water or wedged upright like firewalls. They were sitting in their seats and facing forward, only glancing at the river with the corners of their eyes. This was frightening to them—to everybody—because even if they hadn’t known the Sheldon twins, they’d been told enough by their parents or they’d heard enough from older siblings to know exactly what water could do.

  He knew Laura wouldn’t be home when the bus arrived at the house, but he wasn’t concerned. She would be back from the shelter within half an hour, and it just seemed easier to get on the bus than try to get a message to the shelter—which might have been useless, anyway, because she probably had just left—when he’d only be alone in the house for a couple of minutes. Not a big deal.

  When he got off the bus, he thought he recognized the truck instantly. He’d only seen it once before, and that was at Terry’s mother’s house back on Thanksgiving, but he was fairly confident the dark blue Silverado with the gun and the gun rack and the extra long cab belonged to Russell. It was parked now with its left wheels in a sodden drift along the side of the driveway, causing the truck to tilt ominously.

  He paused there in the rain and reflexively felt inside his pants pocket for his house key. Then he started toward the front door, but he hadn’t even reached the steps when he heard the sound of metal scraping metal, and he saw Russell emerge from the far side of the house, hefting Terry’s massive extension ladder under both of his arms. The ladder was the color of silver, and one long edge of it was caked with wet snow and ice.

  Young man, you got yourself a northern exposure with not so much as an ice cube on it, he said, and he dropped the ladder in the snow by the front wall of the house. His eyes were tiny red slits and his hair was a mess: His bangs had been pasted against his forehead by the cold rain, and the strands over his ears were splayed and dangling like frozen bulb roots.

  Alfred nodded, unsure what to say. He figured that Laura must have asked him to do this after all, but he couldn’t get over his surprise at finding the man here.

  No thanks needed, son, Russell said, lowering his voice unnaturally. I am just happy to help your fine family.

  Thank you, he said then. He was thankful, because if Russell had eliminated the leaks, then Laura would be happy. But he still couldn’t get over the fact that Russell was here.

  Let’s go inside, Russell said. I need me a towel and a beer, but maybe not in that exact order. The man then motioned toward the key in his fingers—until that moment, Alfred had forgotten that he’d actually taken it from his pocket and was holding it in his hands—and continued, I believe that key’s my ticket inside. Then he took it from the boy’s fingers and marched up the steps and into the house.

  RUSSELL BLEW HIS nose into a wadded paper napkin and stood with a towel over his head like a shawl. He took a long swallow of his beer, finishing it, Alfred guessed, and stared at the ceiling above the stove. There was a drop slowly forming where the Sheetrock was taped, but nothing had dripped in the sixty seconds he had stood there and watched the leak.

  It may still drip a bit for a while more, he said. Until everything already in the walls has run its course. But I would say you’re outta the woods.

  Apparently, Russell had been up on the roof with a sledgehammer and a snow rake since well before lunch, banging and scraping away at the ice and the snow that had been melting into the house.

  Nasty, nasty stuff, he added, and then he tossed both the towel and the beer can, now empty, into the sink. And on that note, I’m off. The Lone Ranger is riding off into the...well, sure as shit, not the sunset, not today. Into the monsoon, is what it is.

  You’re not going to wait for Laura?

  Russell fell back against the counter in mock astonishment and smacked his hands, open-palmed, against his cheeks. For the love of God, the boy speaks! The boy speaks! It’s a miracle, a miracle, I tell you!

  I talk, he said.

  Hardly. But, no, I am not going to wait for Laura. I kinda like the notion that she’ll just get home and then Terry will drive on up, and they’ll both see that I took care of the roof. They’ll see the slate and the standing seam as clean as the middle of June, and my fine, upstanding older brother and sister-in-law will see that ol’ no-account Russell got the job done just fine, thank you very much.

  He then walked into the hallway where he had left his boots, sat on the steps to the second floor, and climbed back inside them. A puddle had formed on the wood where he had set them down, and Alfred had a feeling the insides must have felt as squishy as marsh mud. Then Russell was gone, outside the door and the house, and he heard the truck engine start with a growl and the man was driving down the hill toward the village and, Alfred guessed, home.

  WHEN LAURA WASN’T back by three-thirty, he called the shelter. He guessed she had probably left by now, but maybe something had come up and she’d called the school and someone had forgotten to give him a message. Or maybe because the school had closed a little early, no one had been able to get the message to him.

  Caitlin, the shelter’s kennel manager, answered the phone, and he could hear alarm in her voice the moment he asked to speak to Laura. She told him that Laura had left an hour and a half earlier, and as far as she knew had gone straight home. She said that Laura had in fact left when she did precisely because she wanted to be able to meet the school bus when it got to the house.

  We got let out early, he told her, not exactly sure why this fact would make the woman feel better, but hoping now, at least, she wouldn’t be alarmed by the reality that he had gotten off the bus and no one had been there. Besides, he added, I’m ten. Lots of kids my age get home after school and nobody’s there.

  Oh, I’m sure, she said. Then: Do me a favor. Would you please have her call me the minute she gets there? I know there’s nothing to be worried about—I know some roads are closed, it was on the radio—but I’ll still feel better when I know she’s back. Okay?

  Okay, he said, and after he hung up the phone he decided that he wouldn’t wait for the rain to let up to go take care of Mesa. She was used to seeing either Paul or him this time of the day, and he wasn’t about to let either the man or the horse down.

  Besides, it was one of Sergeant Rowe’s rules. You always take care of your horse.

  THOUGH HE HAD the hood of his raincoat up and the wind was rumbling like ocean surf, he could hear the sirens in the village in the distance. Not the ambulance from the Durham Rescue Squad, he believed, these were the sirens atop the volunteer firefighters’ trucks. He fed the horse and brushed her a bit, and when she was done eating, he decided that he would muck out the stall later. He thought the sirens had gone down the River Road, but he couldn’t be sure. They might have been heading south into Ripton. And so even though he still wasn’t supposed to ride Mesa when Paul or Laura or some grown-up wasn’t around, he carefully unfolded the blanket and placed it atop the horse’s back, got the saddle and the bridle off the wall, and decided that he would ride to the ce
nter of town. Something was going on, and perhaps if Laura had been home he wouldn’t have felt the need to investigate. But she wasn’t there and she was supposed to be, and that was exactly the problem.

  The horse paused for a moment just inside the wide entrance to the barn, sniffing at the wind and the rain, and he had to squeeze hard with his heels and his legs to prod her outside. There were wide streams of runoff along the sides of the road, and a smooth glaze in the center. Though he knew the road crew would spread sand and salt all night long, if the temperature fell fast enough after dark, the roads would still be impassable in the morning. He wondered if there’d be school the next day.

  He saw Laura’s car still wasn’t back in the driveway, and so he rode across the street to the house, hitched the horse to the front railing, and went inside to write her a note. He couldn’t tell her where he was going because he wasn’t exactly sure, but he didn’t want her to worry and so he scribbled simply that he and Mesa had ridden toward the village and they wouldn’t be gone long.

  When he emerged back onto the porch and climbed atop Mesa, the wind immediately blew his hood off his helmet. He pulled it back up and over the mound, but it blew off again, and so he listened to the raindrops drum steadily on the plastic shell as he started down the hill at a trot. He was cold and wet and he realized there was something frightening about the sirens and the squalls, but still he pressed on. He pretended he was a buffalo soldier, and sat a little higher in the saddle than Heather would have liked.

  HE HEARD THE river before he saw it, and then as he neared the church and the general store, he saw the vehicles parked along the side of the road—there were a half-dozen cars, and perhaps that many pickups—and the people standing near the banks of the water. Then, as he neared the center, he was able to see above the crowd because he was atop the horse, and he saw that the bridge—the bridge made of steel and cement, the bridge that had withstood the wave two years ago that swept away Hillary and Megan Sheldon—was gone. The guardrails and the asphalt and the steel cross beams had vanished. He envisioned the stanchions being pounded throughout the day by those immense chunks of ice, and then one great wave of rainwater and melted snow crashing into the overpass, ripping it vertical—there it was in his mind, standing up on its side for one long, long second, before hurtling back into the Gale—and sending it downriver in pieces. In his mind he saw chunks of asphalt that looked like pieces of meteors, the guardrails twisted like licorice, the cement now rocks in the mud in the channel.

  He pulled the horse to a stop when he saw an older woman he recognized whose name, he believed, was Mrs. Wallace. He knew she was friends with the Heberts, because he’d seen her at their house a couple of times that autumn and winter.

  When did the bridge go? he asked her, bending down from the horse and raising his voice.

  She looked up at him, and he saw that her skin had the gray translucence of block ice.

  Alfred, she said, and because she was speaking instead of shouting, he could barely hear her over the torrent. Alfred, she said again, but he only knew she had spoken his name because he could read her lips.

  Just now? he asked, yelling.

  She shook her head and took a deep breath and sighed.

  Is that why I heard the sirens?

  A fellow who he knew had children in the first and third grades turned toward him and answered for Mrs. Wallace. The trucks didn’t get over the bridge before it went, he said, cupping a hand around his mouth as he shouted. They wanted to get ’em on this side of the river, but they didn’t make it.

  Where did they go? he asked, and the look of fear on his face must have been obvious: He’d imagined a truck on the bridge at the exact moment the span collapsed.

  The road’s been chewed up again closer to Durham, the man said calmly, clearly trying to reassure him. They’re going the long way around, through Ripton, to see what’s happening on the other side of a very big crater. That’s what you heard.

  The older woman turned toward them. This sort of thing is only supposed to happen every generation or two, she said, speaking loudly enough this time for him to hear her. If that. Now twice in barely two years. It’s sad. So terribly, terribly sad.

  At least this time no one was on the bridge, the man said. Thank God for that.

  Yes. Thank God.

  Still. This one’s going to be mighty nasty to clean up.

  Alfred looked to the west and realized he hadn’t seen a single car coming east along the River Road. The road’s really gone, isn’t it? he asked.

  Well, I wouldn’t say it’s gone, but you can’t drive on it. There’s a major gorge about half a mile from here, and who knows what’s going on beyond that. Probably more damage.

  The reins were raw where they weren’t wrapped in his hands, and when he stretched his fingers, he discovered just how cold his hands had become. Quickly he curled them back into fists around the leather.

  You should get out of the rain, Mrs. Wallace said to him. We all should. There’s nothing to be done now.

  He turned the horse around, but he couldn’t imagine just going home. There was no reason to believe Laura was there yet, not with the roads this bad, and Terry probably wouldn’t be coming by now at all. Not with this storm and the damage it was doing: There’d be chaos everywhere he’d have to help clean up. And Paul and Emily weren’t at their house, either. And so instead of riding back up the hill, he gave the horse a squeeze and started west toward that immense gash in the road. He’d never seen such a thing, and he might never have the chance again.

  Besides, a thought was forming in his mind: Although Laura rarely took the River Road, she had to know that the rains might be washing away whole sections of dirt on the notch way, while turning other long stretches to quicksand. Perhaps today of all days she had chosen to come home via the River Road, and somewhere beyond that great hole in the asphalt she was trapped in the storm in her car.

  “I had never seen a train. I was unprepared for it to be so uncomfortable and so noisy. I guess because white people rode them, I had expected it would be like a palace. I had been almost as comfortable in the wagon we’d used to reach Dennison.”

  VERONICA ROWE (FORMERLY POPPING TREES),

  WPA INTERVIEW,

  MARCH 1938

  Phoebe

  She had been driving carefully through country that was almost all snow-covered farmland, and now she was climbing up a series of foothills and at the higher elevation the rain was changing to sleet and—she thought possibly—ice. She was keeping both hands on the wheel at all times, she was pumping her brakes when she needed to slow. She was listening to her music a little softer than usual so she could focus on the conditions of the road and remain alert. Once she looked back to make sure she had remembered to toss her duffel bag into the backseat of her car (she had), but otherwise she stared straight ahead and kept her eyes on the pavement before her.

  Generally she had been pleasantly surprised. Once she was beyond Eden Mills there’d been little ice on the roads, and even north of there the pavement had been so thoroughly salted that it hadn’t been too bad. And she knew it was warmer still to the south, and soon she’d only have to confront rain. Nevertheless, she realized she still had some dicey conditions before her: She was hearing that some roads had been closed by high water—she guessed her first big test would be the Lamoille near Johnson—and there were power lines down in almost every county. But Route 100 had really been pretty good. The key was simply to be slow and cautious, and leave nothing to chance.

  Ahead of her, at the very end of a straightaway on the ridge she had reached, she saw a small SUV with its hazard lights on, but for a moment she couldn’t tell through the sleet on her windshield whether it was at a complete stop or simply forging ahead at a creep, and so she leaned closer to the glass to see better between the wipers. It was stopped, and it was only partway off the road—the drifts to the side had been hammered by rain, but they were still a yard high—and so she started to brake
. Abruptly she realized the car was sliding, she’d hit a patch of black ice. She tried to steer into it, aware on some level that this—this patch of slippery glass on the road—was why the SUV had pulled over, but she understood as the rear of her car swung to the side that this knowledge wasn’t going to help her. Then she saw she was in the other lane, the wrong lane, and there were headlights coming toward her through the side windows and someone somewhere was pressing a hand down upon a horn. And so she jammed her foot as hard as she could to the floor of the car and rammed the gearshift into park—anything, anything at all, to stop—and, much to her surprise, she was airborne. She was actually off the pavement, spinning, and the lights were getting closer and the horn was getting louder—louder even than the wind and the rain and the wipers—and she thought, Shit, I’m going to have an accident and I just can’t afford this!

  Then, at the moment that she landed back on the ground, her front wheels on the pavement and her rear wheels in the drift to the side, she remembered she was pregnant and she let out a whimper, but she didn’t hear the small cry because of the almost deafening crunch of metal upon metal as her car started to collapse all around her.

  “And I knew I was pregnant on the train, and that didn’t make the ride any easier. I told George, but not the girls. It was going to be complicated enough when we introduced them to George’s brother’s family. And so mostly on the train I talked about the buildings, and how some would be taller than any trees they had seen. But even that was difficult, because I’d never seen such a building myself, and only knew of them what other people had told me. It was like describing a rattlesnake if you’ve never seen one—not even a photograph. I think my children expected the walls would be made of animal hides.”