Behold, This Dreamer

by Charlotte Miller

  And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.

  Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

  Deborah Sanders stared at the point where the red earth and the blue sky met, her thoughts troubled—

  “. . . and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

  PART TWO

  Endicott County, Georgia, 1927

  3

  The landscape that passed outside the open doorway of the rail car that Sunday afternoon in January of 1927 was a mixture of green southern pines and red Georgia clay. Janson Sanders sat just within the open doorway of the boxcar, his back against the wall, feeling the train rock and sway beneath him as it moved along the tracks. He had no idea where the train was taking him, and in that moment it did not much matter—anyplace was fine, anyplace that was not Eason County.

  He shivered with the cold and tried to pull his coat closer about himself, but knew there was little use. The frigid January wind that numbed his face, his hands, and bare feet, also cut straight through the worn old coat, his faded workshirt and dungarees, and even the old newspapers he had stuffed down inside his shirt against the cold, to leave him shivering anyway. He had considered for a time moving back into the recesses of the car, away from the freezing wind that blew in the open doorway, but had already decided against it—the cold was far preferable over the stench that filled a space usually occupied by cattle, far preferable, and also probably far safer.

  He eyed again the two men who rode the rail car with him, glad again of the distance between him and where they sat. They stayed at the far side of the car, seated against the wall, away from the air and the light. They had been here, sitting much as they were now, when he had swung himself and his few belongings on board those hours ago as the train had been picking up speed pulling out of the depot in Pine. They had looked at each other, and then had begun to stare at him as he settled down with his back against the wall—as they stared at him even now, returning his look with hard eyes that showed little concern for him, or for the remainder of the world.

  Some instinct born within Janson warned him to be on guard as he met their eyes. They seemed hard men, neither too clean, and neither with less than several days growth of beard on his face. The youngest was at least twenty years older than Janson’s nineteen and one-half years; he was a big man, with huge shoulders bulging beneath a dirty coat, and huge hands and thick wrists extending far beyond the ends of his sleeves—but it was the older of the two who put Janson even more on guard. He was somewhere in his mid-fifties, with a body already going to fat, and a broad nose that looked as if it had been broken and poorly mended several times. He sat apart from the other man, drawing his looks on occasion without saying a word. His head was bare, the greasy black hair thin and sparse over the top of his large skull, but growing in thick mats down along the backs of both his broad hands—and somehow he made Janson even more wary than did the other, staring at him, squinting even through the darkness inside the car, never taking his eyes away even as the hours passed and the miles rolled by the train.

  Janson returned his stare, knowing somehow that the two men were together, just as he knew they were not friends, for men such as these had no friends—rather they simply traveled together, as any predatory animal might travel in a pack. And, as Janson watched them, he felt as if all his instincts were on guard.

  He turned his eyes out the open doorway of the car, some part of him still watching and alert for any movement one of the two might make, just as it had been from the first moment he had swung himself on board the train those hours ago—he wondered again where the train might be taking him. The land they were passing through seemed at times almost as red as the Alabama hills he had been born to, but it was flatter land, rolling only on occasion into the hills and curves his eyes were more accustomed to. There were pine woods, broken for broad expanses by winter-barren cotton fields; small towns, and what once seemed to him to be the edges of a big city, though he could only guess at that, for he had never been in a big city in all his life. From the height of the sun in the west, and the direction the train had been traveling, he knew they must now be somewhere in Georgia—Georgia, that seemed as good a place as any to start earning the money he would need to buy his land back.

  He continued to stare out the open doorway, feeling the old leather portmanteau against his thigh, his shoes not far away. His stomach was growling and empty, but the smell of manure, urine, and sweat within the car, and the constant swaying motion of the train, had already combined to replace his hunger with nausea. The white-wrapped bundle of food his gran’ma had given him those hours ago before he had left Eason County had long ago grown cold, and it sat, still unopened, atop the portmanteau at his side, his hand resting on top of it. He knew he would have to eat soon, but not here, not in this stinking, swaying car. Once the train stopped, he would get off, find someplace warm, someplace the air was fresh and the ground steady, and then he would eat—besides, he had to urinate badly, and he could not bring himself to stand and relieve his strained bladder against the wall as he had seen one of the other men do.

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, exhausted, numbed from the cold, sick from the smell. He had never felt so alone, been so alone, in all his life—but perhaps alone was better. No one to worry about. Nobody else to think of. Alone.

  He was tired. There had been little sleep the night before, the decision to leave Eason County sitting heavily on his mind, taking the badly-needed rest from him—for a moment, he thought of home, of the white house on the red acres; the fields so rich, green with plants in the summer, white with cotton in the fall; the tall green pines, the rolling red land. He thought of his pa’s booming laugh, his mother singing softly as she worked at the old foot-treadle sewing machine in the parlor, his gran’ma coming by to make sure he ate two messes of polk sallet each year to purify his blood, and the time she had drawn the fire from his arm when he had burned it so badly on the old wood stove several years back. For a moment, he could almost see it all, almost touch it all—home, his parents, the white house as it had been in years past, just as if nothing had happened. Just as if—

  There was a sudden movement across from him, quick, furtive, and Janson realized with a start that he had been almost asleep. His eyes sprang open, and his muscles tensed, ready—

  The younger of the two men was half raised onto one knee, the dark eyes above the tangled beard set on Janson’s face. For a moment, the man stayed as he was, staring at Janson, then he slowly lowered himself back to a seated position, his eyes never once leaving Janson’s face—they were hard eyes, eyes that put Janson even more on guard. He would not fall asleep again.

  It was not long before the train began to slow, coming into a small settlement, then finally coming to a halt with a shudder and a high-pitched screech of metal just outside an old depot. Janson cautiously looked out, hearing the two men shift even farther back into the darkness within the car. He knew it was not safe to stay so close to the open doorway, there being too great a chance the railroad police might spot him with the train stopped here at the station, and even Janson had heard of what often happened to the transients found riding the rails, how they were often beaten, sometimes to within an inch of their lives, before they were thrown off the train—but something inside Janson told him even that could be far preferable to what could happen to a man even deeper within the darkness of that car. At least the railroad police were the law. There was no law alive within that rail car.

  The old depot building was run down, the once-white paint on its walls now peeling and gray from the smoke of the many trains that had come through. There were several sets of tracks, going in several different directions, but few buildings, and even fewer people—probably a freight stop, Janson told himself, staying hidden as bes
t he could at the edge of the doorway. This was not the sort of place he had thought to leave his free ride, but both the smell, and the companionship, forced the decision on him—there were other empty cars on this train, other trains going other places if he chose. He could get out into the fresh air, stretch his cramped muscles, maybe find someplace warm where he could eat—but he had to get out of here.

  He gathered up his things, the portmanteau and his shoes in one hand, the bundle of food in the other, and glanced back at the two men. They did not move or speak, but only continued to stare at him from the darkness as he got to his feet, the muscles in his back complaining at the position he had been sitting in against the inside wall of the car for such a length of time. He looked out again, checking cautiously for any sign of the railroad police as well as for any people from the train or station house who might know he should not be here; then he jumped down into the loose dirt alongside the tracks and knelt there for a moment, waiting to make sure he was unobserved before hurrying on toward the woods that stood at a distance behind the depot—he did not know why he looked back, but he did, turning back as he reached the edge of the woods to see the two men jump down from the boxcar only seconds later, wait there for an instant, then hurry off in another direction. Janson stared after them for a moment. And for some reason he shuddered.

  He made his way into the woods, stopping for a moment to make sure he had not been followed. He stood still, his eyes moving through the trees, his breathing quiet as he listened to the silence. Then, satisfied, he turned and made his way even deeper into the pines.

  The temperature had fallen, the damp, chill ground uncomfortable now even to his toughened and calloused feet—but the air was clean and fresh, and the ground steady, and he decided to stay here rather than to risk going back toward the depot where he might find a warmer place to rest and to eat his food. He took the time to relieve his strained bladder, then happened on a rusting tin water bucket left discarded and forgotten beneath a tree, filled now with rainwater, and topped by a thin layer of ice and dead leaves. He knelt and brushed the leaves aside, then broke up the ice and washed his face and hands in the frigid water, washing away the stench from the rail car, and hissing through clenched teeth as the icy water hit his skin.

  He settled down beneath a tree and unknotted the bundle of food his grandmother had given him those long hours ago, his appetite returning now at the sight of the biscuits and cold fried chicken wrapped in the white cloth. It had been sometime late the day before when he had last eaten, a supper of dry corn bread, cold turnip greens, butter beans, and fatback as tough as shoe leather, and he thought now that he had never been so hungry before in all his life as he greedily bit into a fried chicken leg and picked up one of the large buttermilk biscuits.

  “You gonna hog all that food t’ yer’self, boy?” a voice came from behind him, and Janson immediately froze, almost choking on the food in his mouth as he turned in the direction from which the voice had come, finding the older of the two men from the rail car staring at him. Janson moved into a low crouch, the food and his hunger both immediately forgotten—the man was alone, but Janson knew the other would be nearby. His eyes quickly scanned the woods near the man, his ears straining for any sound of movement through the underbrush.

  “Ain’t you gonna be neighborly, boy, an’ offer t’ share some ’a that food with a hongry man—”

  A movement came from the woods to Janson’s right, and his eyes quickly darted in that direction, then back again, as the older man quickly moved so there was no way he could keep his eyes on both men at the same time. He remained in a crouch, a nervous knot of fear constricting his stomach—he knew what sort of men these were, and he knew there was no mercy within either one of them.

  “Why don’ you let us get a look at what you got in that suitcase, boy?” the older man said, beginning to move forward, his dirty hands moving down along the thighs of his greasy trousers—Janson rose quickly to his feet, his muscles tensing, his back to the tree so the other man would not be able to get to him from behind. The older man froze, eyeing Janson cautiously. “You do what I say, boy, an’ it’ll be a mite easier on you—”

  “Like hell I will—”

  “We should’a took keer ’a him back there on th’ train—” The voice came from the woods behind him, making Janson turn quickly in that direction—but the older man shifted, moving closer, drawing his attention back. There was a sudden, quick movement at the corner of Janson’s eye, and he started to turn back—but it was too late; the big man was already on him, twisting his arm up behind his back, turning him to shove him chest-forward against the tree. His ribs impacted the hard wood with a pain that drove the breath from his body, and he struggled to breathe again, his cheek against the rough wood of the pine as the older man moved closer to stare at him.

  The man looked at him for a moment, then down at the chicken and biscuits now scattered out over the ground. “Jus’ look what you done, boy,” he said, then bent to take up a fried chicken breast, making only a bare attempt to brush away the dirt and bits of dried leaves that adhered to it before biting into the flesh. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, staring at Janson, cold grease shining now on his mouth and chin. “What you got in th’ suitcase, boy?” he asked, then squatted cumbersomely at Janson’s feet, holding the chicken breast between his teeth as he unbuckled the straps of the portmanteau and laid it open on the ground.

  Janson struggled against the man holding him, having his arm forced even more painfully up behind his back as he watched the dirty hands go through his things, his clean clothes being shoved aside, the Bible thumbed through in search of anything of value—then there was a grunt of satisfaction as the man found the little money Janson had knotted into a handkerchief among the other things. The man spat out the piece of chicken and pushed himself to his feet, unknotting the handkerchief and counting out the few coins into one greasy palm.

  “I tol’ you he had some money, th’ way he was holdin’ ont’ that there case—” the man behind Janson said, but the older man only grunted in response, shoving the money into one deep pocket of the dirty coat he wore. He turned to look at Janson again, and Janson started to struggle anew, only to have his struggle halted by the question the big man behind him asked. “We gonna kill him, Hoyt?”

  For a moment, Janson could only stare at the older man, the muscles in his stomach knotting again—men such as these could kill him without a thought, and leave him here in the woods where it might be days, even weeks, before his body was found. But it was something more than that. He stared at the man, feeling a chill move up his spine.

  “Meby—meby not—” the man said, and Janson heard the big man behind him start to laugh—but there was no humor in that sound; it was cold, deadly, something less than human.

  “You always did like ’em young—” And suddenly Janson understood. He started to struggle against the big man holding him, feeling a sharp pain stab through his right shoulder with the pressure on his arm. He twisted to one side, bringing his left elbow into sharp contact with the man’s ribs, twisting farther to land a hard punch to his jaw. He lashed out with a foot into the groin of the older man, catching him off guard and sending him stumbling backward, clutching his crotch.

  Janson stumbled as well and almost fell, his right shoulder hurting as he grabbed up the portmanteau and his shoes, trying to capture as much of his things as possible as he slammed the case shut and began to run, holding it against his side. He could hear the two men behind him, crashing through the underbrush and cursing—but he did not take the time to look back. His sense of direction was gone, but he could hear a train in the distance, and he ran toward that sound, hoping to reach the area of the depot before the men could catch him—but he had misjudged, coming into the clearing at a place he had never seen before, the tracks before him, and a slow-moving train gathering speed from the station blocking his way.

  There w
as no choice. The men were coming closer, breaking into the clearing behind him. He ran toward the train, trying to match its speed, but failing—there was an open rail car doorway ahead—but the train was moving too fast. Too—

  “Get him! Goddamn it, don’t let him get away!” He heard the shout from behind him, the anger. He threw his shoes and the portmanteau in through the open doorway of the car, seeing the portmanteau open and his possessions spill out over the dirty flooring, his shoes bounce off the far wall of the car. He pushed as much speed from his legs as he could, demanding even more, feeling sharp rocks and bits of glass cut into his bare feet. He grabbed for the edge of the doorway, almost catching hold—if he lost his hold, or was unable to swing himself on board, he knew he would end up under the wheels of the train.

  But he was dead to stay here anyway.

  He grabbed for the edge of the doorway again, feeling his hands close over the wood and metal, feeling the power and momentum of the train jerk at his body as he finally caught hold. He swung himself forward, grabbing for the bottom of the doorway with his feet—for a moment, he lost his footing, hanging in mid-air, his hands slipping—then he was inside, landing with a hard jolt on his side on the wooden flooring.

  He lay there for a moment, his heart pounding, the sound of the train loud in his ears. He forced himself to breathe, to think, to know that he was safe; then he moved to look out the open doorway of the swaying freight car, seeing the two men left far behind him now as the train gathered speed moving into the pines.

  After a moment, he moved to sit with his back against the inside wall of the car, closing his eyes, and leaning his head back—for a while he could think of nothing more than that he was alive.

  It was not until later that he realized what little money he had possessed in the world was now gone.