Through Darkest America

by Neal Barrett

  “Not ’less you tell her she will,” Papa muttered. “Let’s get on and out of the street. We come to the fair to have fun an’ by God we’re going to do just that!”

  Later, he asked Howie, “Well, what’d you think? About the nigger?”

  “I don’t know, Papa. It was all shriveled and funny looking. And black.” He looked up at his father. “Why’s it all black?”

  Papa shrugged. “I reckon that’s what color they was.” “Why?”

  “Don’t know, boy. They just was.”

  “You ever see one? I mean, live?”

  Papa laughed. “Godamn, boy that was all ’fore the War. Your daddy’s not that old.” He pushed Howie forward and announced they could have sweets if they wanted—red sugar candy or the big loops of blackgum, whichever.

  There was more to see than Howie had even imagined. The town was crowded with people. Papa said some had come from as far as High River and across the Ridge at Calliesville and Newpack. Even if there hadn’t been a fair, Howie decided, there was plenty to look at. Bluevale’s main street was lined with wooden stores, some with another floor stacked on top of the first. And all had been freshly colored in reds, greens, yellows, and bright blues. Howie wanted to stop and look at each one. He hadn’t realized you could get paint in anything but white.

  There were booths and stalls everywhere. They sold metal knives, and bright clay dishes that had been colored and glazed until they shined brightly in the spring sun. There were strips of glass buttons, bolts of patterned cloth, and a hundred things Howie couldn’t even put a name to. Papa bought his mother a fine set of bone and wood forks and spoons, though she flushed and lowered her dark eyes and said she wouldn’t know what to do with something that fancy. Papa just laughed his big laugh and said she’d surely figure some way to show them off right.

  There were smells Howie had never smelled before. Pepper, cinnamon, thyme, and sage. There were booths offering fresh fruit pies and red candied apples and small cakes with white sugar on top. It made his mouth water just to walk by, but he didn’t ask Papa to stop. Carolee, though, wanted one of everything.

  Toward noon, his mother took Carolee back to the inn for a nap. This pleased Howie greatly, though he was careful not to show it. Papa was relieved too, he was sure, but he kept his face just as straight as Howie’s. Little sisters were all right, as far as they went. But they cried a lot and got tired easy and were always in the way when there were men things to do.

  Howie was proud to walk down the long board sidewalks with his father. Papa seemed to know everybody. Howie noticed, too, that most of the men had to look up a little when they spoke to him. He walked close on his father’s heels so everyone would be sure and know he belonged with this giant of a man with long yellow hair tied at the neck in leather and eyes that were sometimes blue and sometimes the lightest of gray.

  Chapter Three

  If there was a bow, or a set of metal arrowheads, or a bone- steel knife in Bluevale that Howie and his father hadn’t seen, he decided it wasn’t worth looking for. Papa told him, with a broad wink that said this was not information to be shared with anyone else—meaning his mother—that after the meat market, tomorrow there just might be some extra coppers that could go for a few dozen arrowheads, or maybe even that bluebone belt knife Howie said fit his hand like it was made to lie there.

  In late afternoon there were contests on the edge of town—archery shoots at wooden targets and the axe throw at a white circle on a big oak. Howie’s father said it seemed fair enough if a man wanted to pay good money to show off in front of everyone he knew—or make a fool of himself, as the case might be—but as far as he was concerned these were things a man was supposed to know anyway, and it didn’t matter much if someone else knew he could do ’em or not.

  Howie wanted to tell his mother all he’d seen in town, but he sensed right away it wasn’t a good time for that. You could tell when she had something on her mind; and when she did, it was best to go about your business until whatever it was had run its course.

  Howie’s father knew the signs, too. And usually what caused them. It was an important something this time, Howie knew, because Carolee was left in his charge while Papa and his mother walked a ways toward the river to talk.

  Howie was worried. He was twelve and figured a lot of things out for himself, even when they were things he wasn’t supposed to think about at all. This had something to do with the fair, he knew—which his mother hadn’t wanted to come to in the first place. And it had a lot to do with what his mother had said on the barge the day before. About Colonel Jacob. Though what that could be, he couldn’t say.

  A small knot grew in his stomach and stayed there until Papa and his mother got back. They were gone an uncommonly long time and every minute gave him the chance to think about maybe not getting to see the rest of the fair— which was the very best part. There was The Gardens, where you ate without cooking anything yourself. People just brought things right to you, whatever you wanted. And then the parade, with government soldiers and real horses. Besides that, there’d be pictures from Silver Island pasted up by the Courthouse. You might even recognize someone you knew, who’d gone there. People from all over won all the time and it might be someone from Bluevale or a farm right next to your own.

  Howie decided that if his mother made Papa take them home and they missed everything he’d never say anything to her again no matter what. He took that back right away, though, and told God he hadn’t meant it, and not to write it down anywhere.

  The Gardens was a special place, built for the duration of the fair. There was an open tract across from the Courthouse, between Holdern’s Market and the Metalsmith’s. The land had been scraped and graveled, and wooden picnic benches set about. A string of colored lanterns added soft light, and there was usually a fiddler or two on hand for the diners.

  Papa ordered for everyone. There was a fair cut of meat, charcoaled in the open, generous helpings of potatoes and greens, and a cold fruit punch that had been iced in barrels in the river.

  “Seems a waste to pay good money for what you get at home,” Howie’s mother said wistfully.

  Papa stiffened slightly, and his fork paused just an instant. Then he shoved the bite of meat into his mouth and chewed it savagely. Howie busied himself with eating.

  His mother was plenty sore about something. They were both mad, really—they just showed it in different ways. Nobody had said much of anything to anybody since the walk by the river. Howie had watched them from a window—Papa red-faced and chewing his lip, making a lot of noise when he finally climbed the stairs. And his mother walking real quiet, but with her back straight and her eyes right ahead. Even Carolee, who didn’t ever know anything, could tell there was something wrong and managed to keep her mouth shut.

  The fiddlers came out of the big tent where the food was fixed and struck up a tune. A few couples sprang up from the tables to dance and everyone picked up the music with their hands. Howie wanted to, but his mother acted like there wasn’t any music at all, so he pretended not to hear it, either. He looked morosely at the last bite of meat on his plate. Everything had tasted real good at first; he wasn’t hungry, now. He didn’t even like the fair anymore. What good was it, if everyone was too mad to even talk to each other?

  “Howie . .”

  He felt his mother’s small hand, cool over his own. “Howie,” she smiled, “it’d be a gentlemanly thing to ask a lady to dance.”

  Howie straightened. “Me?” He felt the color rise to his face.

  “Yes, you!” she laughed. She swept her long wings of hair into a single dark strand and looped it with a short ribbon behind her neck. Howie tried to glue himself to the bench, but she pulled him to his feet.

  “I don’t even know how!” he protested. His father leaned back and laughed, and Carolee shrieked and spilled punch down her skirt.

  She swept him in wide, graceful arcs through the maze of tables. And because she was a striking beauty, and “
looked hardly older than her son,” they said, the people clapped and formed a circle about them. And the fiddlers moved in so close the bows were nearly singing in Howie’s ears.

  For the first few moments Howie prayed he’d turn to stone. But his mother’s face was whirling about him, flushed with joy, and boyish awkwardness changed in a blink to young man’s pride. And then it wasn’t his mother who was guiding them through the steps with the small pressure of her fingers, but Howie himself, her hand squeezed tightly in his, a strong arm sweeping the slender waist where he wanted it to go.

  The claps and shouts were for the both of them when he brought her through a final turn, and the fiddlers sawed them to a finish.

  “Whooooie, Howie!” She laid a hand on her breast and took a deep breath. “You’re going to make quite a man.” Then she shook her head and kissed his cheek. “No, that’s wrong. You’re quite a man now!”

  “He dances better’n I ever did.” His father gave him a mock frown.

  “Milo, that’s not even sayin’ anything at all!”

  Everyone laughed. Papa thanked Howie solemnly, shook his hand, and announced that at any further time when dancing was called for, Howie would take over such duties. Later, when the fiddlers did a tune that was some slower, he caught Papa and his mother looking at each other in a certain way, and knew everything was all right again.

  Howie and his family stood atop their table to watch the parade, as did most of the people who’d eaten at The Gardens. Howie held his mother’s hand, because she didn’t like high places. Carolee was in her usual spot, legs wrapped about Papa’s broad neck, screaming she couldn’t see anything, when she was really higher than anyone.

  You could hear them long before they turned the corner at the Courthouse—with drums that sounded like big hearts beating and made the pit of your stomach go tight. The tops of the flags appeared then and brought cheers from the crowd. Howie stood on his toes and yelled until he was hoarse. First the flag of Old America, red and white stripes and white stars on a blue field. Then the White Mountain flag of Tennessee—that brought more hurrahs than anything. Though there were plenty of people from Arkansas Territory in the crowd, too, and their banner got ample attention.

  After that came a whole company of government regulars—all in green denim uniforms that mostly matched. They wore leaf-colored straws set rakishly on their heads and some of the men had stuck long, black-dyed feathers in their crowns. Their captain, a red-faced man with too much stomach, tried hard to keep his troopers in some sort of order, but when they spotted a friend in the crowd or a pretty girl, they’d jerk longbows from their shoulders and wave and shout. The people loved them and didn’t mind if they couldn’t march right or didn’t want to.

  Some wore a ragged red patch on their sleeves and that meant they could do more than march straight. They’d been as far west as Colorado and fought Lathan there in the mountains. And come back to tell about it.

  The crowd was all but silent, now, and Howie knew what was coming. He watched, struck with both fear and wonder, as the mounted troopers appeared and he saw his first horse. Lordee, Howie shuddered, they were ugly things to be as valuable as Papa said they were! Big barrel frames on long legs, covered with hair all over. And terrible snouts that ended in little mouths, like sucker-fish. Carolee howled and buried her face in Papa’s hair. And for once, Howie didn’t blame her at all.

  The cheers started up again and the noise set the horses skitting about. One reared up on its hind legs and pawed the air. The crowd sucked in its breath and pulled back. The rider laughed, doffed his hat, and made the creature do the same thing again. Finally, the crowd laughed a little at itself.

  There was no mistaking Colonel Jacob. There were bigger men in the parade—tall men with proud shoulders, broad chests, and thighs hard as oak posts. Colonel Jacob was lean and spare, and no bigger than a storekeeper. His face was all bone, with leathery skin stretched tight over narrow cheeks and a great beak of a nose. His hair was near white under his cap and everyone knew it hadn’t turned from age. The eyes, though, told you who Jacob was—and where he’d been. And when you saw them, it didn’t matter anymore how big he was.

  Halfway down the street those eyes reached out and picked Howie’s mother from the crowd, held for a moment, then flicked away again. Howie saw a shadow cross her face and felt her hand tighten in his. Papa saw it too, but said nothing.

  The riders passed directly in front of The Gardens and they were something to see. Each wore the red blood-patch, and blue tabs on their shoulders to show they were officers. Many had hearts cut from purple cloth sewn to their chests. Some had stars over the hearts—meaning they’d been wounded more than once.

  Many of the ground troopers wore the same badges and medals, but something else set the riders apart. For each carried a rifle on his back, or a pistol at his belt, and all had broad canvas bands slung across their shoulders. The bands, Howie knew, were lined with brassy cylinders that could kill a man further away than any arrow could travel. He’d never seen a gun before, or the things that went in them, but he was aware they were even harder to come by than a horse.

  He wondered what it would feel like to hold something like that in your hand. Maybe that’s why the riders all looked down at the crowd with easy smiles. And how they could even sit on a horse without fear. If you had a gun, and some of the little brass things to go with it, there wasn’t a man anywhere who could tell you what to do, or stop you from going where you wanted to.

  There wasn’t much else to see except people from town, mostly boys and young men, who joined the rag-tag end of the parade and laughed and waved their arms and tried to march like soldiers. People were leaving The Gardens and mingling about deciding where to go and what to do. Howie figured a lot of them were going over to look at the pictures from Silver Island.

  “Now see, Ev,” Papa was telling his mother, “you got to say that was right nice, wasn’t it?” He squeezed her arm and patted her shoulder gently.

  Howie’s mother shifted Carolee in her lap and didn’t say anything.

  “You want to go on back to the inn and rest up then? You feel better doin’ that?”

  He looked at her, waiting, and she raised her head and smiled wearily. “Milo. It’s all right.”

  “Damn it all, nothing happened, Ev. Nothin’s going to!” “I guess not, Milo.”

  “All he done was ride by.”

  “Yes.”

  “He rode by and that’s all there was to it.”

  “And looked,” she said. “You saw him look.”

  “I seen him, all right,” Papa said fiercely. “Don’t guess I can stop him from doin’ that.”

  “Don’t guess anyone can stop Jacob from doing what he takes a mind to.” She looked up quickly, pain on her face, clearly wishing she could call back the words. Howie saw his father’s big fists tighten until they turned white, and he knew they weren’t going to be seeing the pictures of Silver Island, or likely anything else at the fair.

  Chapter Four

  Just past poortown, near a mile out of Bluevale proper, the high bluff sloped down to the sandy flats of the river and the sprawling site of Ten Creek stockyards. It was a good spot, because the wind usually blew off the bluff and away from town. Also, stock could be brought in easily by barge and processed meat taken out the same way.

  Howie and his father walked to the yards just after sunup, along with a rancher from the Territory staying at the inn. The stench was bad, even if you were used to working stock. Not near as bad as it would be, though, Papa pointed out, when the full heat of summer hit the river bed. Howie didn’t doubt it, but it was hard to see how something that awful could get worse.

  To his left, pit-pens stretched out of sight around the bend of the river. Hundreds of separate hollows checkered the flats, under a network of narrow rampways. Every dozen rows or so, wider ramps had been built to serve the heavy feed carts.

  There was a slow, constant motion within the pens— shuffling,
incurious. And the sound was one Howie had heard before—an almost visible thing wherever stock gathered—like the dry hum of big, sad bees.

  Papa said Bluevale was in a good position between the eastern and western roadways. The river was central to both and there was hardly a time in good weather when ten or twenty thousand head couldn’t been seen there. Howie was ready to believe there were a hundred times that many on hand now.

  “Over there’s the fathering pens,” Papa pointed, “and the breed shacks and show barns. And past that—see where the smoke’s coming out? That’s the processing plant and the dryers and smokers on the other side.”

  Howie nodded understanding. He was familiar with all these things, and what they were for. Here, of course, everything was on a much larger scale than at the farm. The maze of wooden buildings and sheds tumbling toward the river seemed a fairly big town in itself.

  Down the roadway cut through the bluff, Papa led him past the sound and smell of the pit-pens and the noisy mechanical jangle of the cutting plant. They passed under the chute where non-edible organs and parts sluiced down in a tumble of color to four-man wagons, which workers hauled off to waiting barges. From there they floated twelve miles downriver to the fertilizer plant at Harrow Point. Now that, Papa grinned sourly, had to be the most God-awful smelling place on the face of the Earth! Even birds, he said, wouldn’t fly over Harrow unless they had to.

  Though he didn’t say, Howie knew his father had gotten a good price for the trouble-making mare and the three geldings. He came out of the plant office with a spring in his step, and coins that rang sweeter than copper in his pocket.

  There was a tavern lean-to set up right on the river under cottonwoods, where the sun brightened the water and sparkled off white gravel. Howie had cold cider while his father drank clear corn and talked to the other buyers and farmers. The reason meat prices were good, they told each other, was that the trouble with Lathan’s rebels in the west had gotten a lot more serious than folks figured on. Plenty of towns and ranches had been overrun. Stock west of Arkansas Territory and Missouri had been scattered, stolen, or just plain used up. The army, and the people living out there, needed all the meat they could get.