Through Darkest America-Extended Version

by Neal Barrett Jr

  Howie didn't understand all of it and wasn't given to asking grownup questions. But he'd overheard enough since late winter to know Lathan was someone who'd been important in the army once—like Colonel Jacob—and was now fighting against the country in the west. That was a bad thing, he guessed. Still, if it brought Papa more money for stock, maybe it wasn't real bad. He was holding a picture in his head of the bone knife in the window of the store in Bluevale. The one that fit his hand just right, like he'd squeezed it together in his fists out of river clay . . .

  Howie finally asked Papa about stock when he was nine— but the questions had been in his head longer than that.

  "No reason to get all solemn-like," Papa told him. "Every child there is has to get the wonders out of him. Don't figure you're any different."

  He set Howie up on the board fence under the heavy oak that shaded the tool shed and looped his big stock whip on a weathered post.

  "Now, just speak what's on your mind," said Papa. Howie bit his lip and looked down at his feet. "I . . . ain't sure I can do the words right."

  Papa nodded understandingly. He'd seen the questions coming, long before Howie knew they were there. "I reckon I can nudge you along a little," he said. "What you got to know, Howie, is lots of things in the world look the same, but that don't mean they are. That's kind of what's in your head, ain't it?"

  Howie nodded. He didn't want to tell his father what he'd been thinking. He was sure Papa would understand, all right, but the thoughts were real scary and he didn't think he could ever say them out loud. Not to anybody. When it had started, his heart had stopped right where it was and he'd been too frightened to even sleep for three or four days. And after that came the terrible nightmares and he kept his eyes open as long as he could—until sleep caught up with him and he couldn't hold back any longer.

  What started it was looking down in the pit-pens one morning. Just watching stock mill about, like he'd done a thousand times before. One of the hands, was bringing some colts in for doctoring. He was working alone, because the stock was too young to give much trouble. He waved at Howie and said something, but Howie didn't hear. Because just then one of the colts looked up and stared right at him—that was when Howie felt his heart stop and knew all the blood had gone from his face.

  He ran as far as he could, away from the pens and out through the fields. He ran until his lungs quit and he stumbled and buried his face in sweet grass. He kept his eyes closed tight, but the pictures wouldn't go away. He still saw the colt looking up at him, and the terrible thing he couldn't tell anybody was that just then—at that moment—it was like being at the creek and looking down into silver water. And seeing your own face stare back.

  Only, that couldn't be.

  A boy didn't look in the water and see an animal. Howie had, though. For a quick second, it was the same—and no matter how much he told himself it couldn't be that way, it was.

  That was how the nightmares started, and for a while he didn't think they'd ever stop.

  "That's how questions come to you, Howie," his father went on. He reached up and pulled a sprig of oak leaves from the branch above. "Things that might seem the same is lots of times altogether different."

  He turned the sprig of leaves between big fingers and held them up to Howie. "Now suppose you was on that ridge up there," he nodded to the west, "no more'n two hundred yards away. An' I was standing right where I am and I yelled out and said 'Howie, I'll give you a copper if you can tell me what kind of leaf I'm holdin' up here."

  Howie grinned. "I'd sure do that!"

  "And what kind of leaf is it?"

  "It's a oak."

  "What kind of oak, though?"

  "It's a live oak, for sure."

  "That it is. But if you was a couple hundred yards up on that ridge and I was to hold up a bunch of different leaves— a white oak, say, and then a red oak—what'd you say then?"

  Howie frowned. He could see the copper in his father's story vanishing quickly. "I don't know," he said honestly, "might be I couldn't say for sure."

  "Might be's right," Papa grinned. He rubbed a rough hand over Howie's hair. "They'd all seem the same, wouldn't they? Only they're not. And you don't even have to get up on that ridge, boy. S'pose you didn't live here, and you just come in from somewhere they don't have no trees at all. No oaks or pines or maples or elms or anything. And I showed you leaves from a white oak and a red. Reckon you'd know the difference?"

  Howie shook his head, imagining a place where they didn't have trees.

  "Likely what you'd say is they seem just the same. They got the same way of curvin' in and out, and their acorns is about the same. Reckon they are the same. Only they're not, are they?"

  "No," said Howie, "they're lots different."

  "And that's the way it is with people and stock, Howie. They might look kind of alike in some ways, but they're not anywhere near the same. You know why that is?"

  Howie thought. "They don't act the same. Or talk or anything."

  "That's two things. What else?"

  "They're not smart like we are. They don't know hardly anything."

  "Right," said Papa, "they don't. And you know why that is? 'Cause they're made different, Howie. Their bodies look some like ours, but they're not the same at all. Remember the oak leaves? How they 'peared like they might be the same, but were different altogether? Well there's a lot more difference than that between people and stock. More difference than night and day."

  Papa paused, stripping the leaves from his twig and letting them flutter to the ground. He squinted at the sun through thick branches and looked at Howie. "The thing to remember, son, is that what you see on the outside's not near as important as the part you can't see. And that's the biggest difference of all between people and animals. There's other things, but that's the biggest. God gave men a mind to think with and the power to reason out the ways of the world. And he give him something else that's most precious of all, and that's a soul. Whatever somethin' might look like, Howie, don't forget that people has got souls. And that's something a animal can't never get. He's got a heart and blood and lots of other things. But in the end, he's still all empty inside."

  Howie’s father talked to the other men under the lean-to and drank white corn; then the sun was nearly overhead and Howie wandered over to the pit-pens to watch the feeding. It was a lot bigger job than just slopping a few hundred head. Dozens of the big handcarts rolled out of the cookshed, so heavy it took six men to guide them up the rampways. Long before the carts appeared, though, the stock sensed it was feeding time. They bunched up tight under the edge of the pits, waiting. And those that saw the wagons first made grunting noises in their throats; jumped up and down, and slapped the ground with their feet and hands. Soon, the stock further down took up the cry and the sound swelled toward the bend of the river like rising thunder.

  The heaviest carts went to the far end of the yards. The stock there was still being pen-fattened on a rich mixture of cooked grains and cereals heavily laced with meat scraps. The nearest pens got only a handful of the cheapest feed. There was no sense filling bellies that would soon be quartered on the end of a hook, making their way around the heavy plank walls of the cutting room.

  The creatures here didn't look as if they could hold another bite, anyway. Some were so fat they could hardly waddle up to the rim. It was a meal most of them would hardly get digested, but hunger was a strong habit and they scrapped up everything that spilled over the edge. Howie knew, from experience, a stockman always had to keep his whip handy, even at the kill pens. Eating was all an animal had to do and sometimes they'd even go after their own wastes, or each other. You couldn't watch them all the time, but you had to discourage them when you had a chance.

  The trip was near as perfect as you could ask for. There were presents for everyone—a doll for Carolee, the fork and spoon set for Howie's mother, and for Howie, the fine bone- handle knife he'd set his mind to. Papa hadn't forgotten. And Howie knew, from his f
ather's mood and what he'd overheard at the river, that some good trading and studding dates had been set. A lot of hands had been shaken over white corn.

  There would be plenty of food for the cold winter, then, and good times for the year to come. Especially if the spring, and summer crops were as good as they should be and the frost came when it ought to. Papa was even talking about extra-fine winter barns for the stock.

  Everything would have been fine, and Howie didn't even mind missing the pictures of Silver Island. Then the thing at the barge had to happen.

  Papa had gone aboard to check on his stock and Howie was just carrying the last sacks of salt and ground meal up the narrow gangway. He chanced to look up and catch his mother's eyes, then saw her face go dead white. He jerked around; Colonel Jacob was right behind him, high on his terrible horse. Howie jumped away, quickly ashamed. The man looked at him and his thin face stretched into a grin.

  "I startle you, boy?"

  Howie flushed. "No, sir," he said and felt worse because the Colonel knew it was a lie.

  The eyes flicked away from him, then, and rested on his mother. "You're looking well, Ev."

  "Thank you—Jacob." Howie could hardly hear his mother.

  "What's it been," said Jacob. "Eight, nine years? And by God you're as pretty as ever, Ev. Prettier, maybe. Your girl?"

  Howie's mother tried to open her mouth, but couldn't. She nodded dumbly at Jacob.

  "Looks like you. Going to be a beauty, too. Likely have hair fine as silk, Ev. And skin softern' rain."

  "Jacob . . . please!"

  Howie looked hard at Colonel Jacob, past the fine boots and the big metal gun at his waist. His fingers were hooked in his belt just above the gun, like he sat that way all the time. His smile seemed cut in his face, as if someone had taken a knife to it and sewn it back crooked. Long after, though, it was the eyes Howie remembered. They didn't just look at a person like they ought to—they reached. out and touched wherever they wanted. And Howie tightened up inside because he knew plain as day where the eyes were going and his mother couldn't move away, or do anything at all.

  Then the man looked down at him and Howie felt the eyes brush over him. "What's your name, boy, and how old are you?"

  "Howie, sir. And I'm more'n twelve."

  Colonel Jacob nodded. "You look more'n twelve, too. You any good with a bow?"

  "Yes, sir," Howie told him, "I guess I am."

  Jacob chuckled to himself. "Fine enough. If you're good at something, why, don't mind saying you are—if you've the guts to back it. You thinking on following your daddy's trade, or might you try a spell in the army? You studied on that?"

  "No, sir," said Howie, who had thought plenty about just that since he'd seen the parade, "I reckon I'll help Papa."

  Jacob looked at him a long moment, then the smile changed some and the blood rose in Howie's cheeks again. It was a funny kind of smile, like he was looking right in side you and knew something you didn't want him to know.

  "Ev," he said, the smile still there, "you give my best to Milo, hear? Say I'm sorry I missed him and all . . ." Then, to Howie: "Take care, boy."

  Clucking at his mount, he tossed the reins and turned back up the dockway. Howie could hear his father making his way forward from the stock pens at the rear of the barge as he followed Colonel Jacob until he disappeared in the haze off the river. He didn't turn to look at his mother. And when the man was finally out of sight, he was suddenly aware of an awful aching in his hand; he glanced down, surprised, to see it was curled tight around the bone handle of his new knife. It was a peculiar feeling—good and bad at the same time, and scary, too, because he didn't know what it meant, for certain.

  Chapter Five

  Papa said it was the hardest winter in twenty years, that they were just damn lucky they'd been ready for it, and that Howie should remember nothing came to a man that he didn't sweat for.

  Howie knew this was so and didn't need to be reminded. He'd heard the same thing a couple of thousand times before. Of course, Papa had a point, like always. Even if you knew winter would come around again, it was awful hard to keep from dreaming through the green days of spring, when the earth smelled deep and alive. There were always lots of things to take your mind off fences and planting and tending stock. Papa seemed to understand all that, though, and where a person might be found if he suddenly wasn't where he was supposed to be.

  Some of the stock had sickened and died during the long, bitter months, even in the two big barns Howie had helped build the summer before. But Papa had planned well, and fattened the herd on good feed; the barns, and extra care, had done the job for the most part. On top of that, there was an extra good calving in the spring.

  Even the worst stock, now, was bringing prices a man would have been happy to get for prime meat a year before. On the tail of the first good thaw, when wagons could move over the roads again, the countryside swarmed with government buyers. It was much like selling ears to the deaf, said Papa. They'd take anything on two legs that could crawl, walk, or hobble.

  News was that Lathan's army had broken out of Colorado, defying winter cold and government troops. They were in a strong position now, and for the first time Howie heard his father and other men use the word war. It had been Lathan's rebellion, before, or "trouble in the west." It was more than that now. If Lathan couldn't be stopped, they said, he'd sweep across the plains and down to the Gulf before fall. Then, California would be cut off from the East and the government would have a war on two sides—with a hornet's nest in between.

  "There'll sure be hell to pay," Papa said, shaking his head slowly. Howie wasn't sure what that might mean, and didn't want to ask. At any rate, Papa kept everyone working hard as ever, as if they might be close to starving instead of having more real money than they'd ever had before. There was plenty to be done, the war hadn't changed that any, Howie noticed. There was summer work and fall work and then another winter, before you knew it. One year seemed a lot like the last, he decided, when you did the same things over and over again.

  The spring he turned fifteen, Howie found new things to think about. Things that had seemed important once, didn't matter much anymore. The fair at Bluevale was something that had happened a hundred years ago, to someone who was a different person, and not really him at all. That year, when sap stirred in the big oaks, something stirred in Howie, too. He'd felt it some before, but never quite like this. This was different. Like the whole world was somehow locked up inside him and couldn't get out.

  Sometimes, every limb in his body felt like it was full of worms. He'd drop whatever he was doing without saying anything to anybody and run as far as he could, until sweat stung his eyes and the air cut his lungs. Then, he'd fall to soft grass and lay there letting blue sky whirl around him until the storm passed over.

  Papa never said much when he came back. Like he understood, maybe, that something was happening that couldn't be helped. And when he just sat under the kerosene lamp at night and stared at the same page of spelling words, his mother pretended she didn't notice.

  Sometimes, he woke up from dreams he couldn't name. And there were warm nights when he didn't sleep at all and everything within him came alive. The things that came to his head then were far stranger than the dreams themselves.

  Across the broad, flat fields high with summer wheat, the land tumbled away in a line of small hillocks covered with grass. The hills dropped gently to the edge of the wood where the creek was shaded by heavy oaks. Howie lay just inside the forest, his head against a thick trunk. Lace fern touched his cheek and his eyes held the bright bird chattering on the limb overhead. It was a place he came to often, especially when troubling thoughts filled his head. And that seemed to happen all the time, now. Not about any one thing. It was usually a lot of different things that didn't have much to do with each other. It was the way the earth smelled, or how his hands felt gripping a heavy stone, or how willow looked with all the bark stripped. Mostly, though, it was something he coul
dn't put a name to. Something that made him feel good and bad at the same time; and, worse than that, hard to tell the difference between the two.

  Looking up, he decided he'd dozed a minute. The bird was still there, but it was quiet now, moving its head in quick, curious motions. It heard the sound a second before Howie and froze, flattening itself against the rough bark and nearly disappearing.

  Howie raised up on one arm, listening. There were voices. Men, and more than one. They were only a few yards away, just outside the woods, in the shade of the tree next to the one that belonged to the bright bird.

  For a reason he couldn't explain, Howie didn't stand up immediately, but worked his way quietly through the ferns on his hands and knees. He stopped on the other side of the trunk and moved foliage carefully aside.

  Breath caught in his throat. His heart beat against his chest until he was sure they could hear him. There were three men. He knew them, stock tenders who sometimes worked for his father. And a woman, too. She was . . . Howie's stomach tightened. Lord God, it wasn't a woman at all—it was a mare! A young mare with yellow hair, and the men were . . .

  Howie thought his head would split open. The mare lay flat on soft grass. Her legs were spread and she grinned up - vacantly at the men. One of them said something to the other. The second laughed and touched himself and rolled his eyes. The third man had already lowered his trousers to his ankles; the big shaft stiffly erect between his legs. In a moment he was down on the mare, hands clutching at her breasts. The mare groaned and engulfed him, thrusting her belly up to meet him. Her eyes were closed and her head arched back until the veins in her throat stood out like blue cords. The man breathed hard, pumping himself into her. His companions watched, laughing and calling out advice.