by Alan Glenn
Sam took a breath. “So this guy, this stranger, is important to you. To get him to Canada, to keep him out of jail, is important enough to you to endanger my job, our house, and our son. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were tight, and he braced for the inevitable blowup, but instead she nodded and said, “Yes. He’s that important. And … I thank you. With him, we’re done. This Underground Railroad station is closed. I swear it to you.”
He waited for a heartbeat. Then he said, “How long have you known?”
“Sam?”
“This wasn’t a surprise sprung on you in the past few hours. So how long have you known?”
She hugged herself, seemed smaller. Her robe slipped open and he noted the long smoothness of her legs, felt a flash of desire despite his anger. “A … a few days. I told you about him being in the pipeline.”
“But you knew there was no way to stop it. And still you’ve kept it secret from me, haven’t you?”
“I … I was afraid you’d say no. So yes, I’m sorry. I kept it a secret.”
“I see. And you thought by letting me know now, in the middle of the night, that I couldn’t do anything but say yes.”
“Sam—”
“I’ve got to go out for an hour or so. Don’t wait up.”
“Why?” she asked, bewildered. “What’s going on?”
Sam didn’t look at her as he put his coat and hat on, reached for the door. “Sorry, sweetheart. It’s a secret.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later he was in his Packard, rumbling over a wooden bridge to Pierce Island, in Portsmouth Harbor. Earlier he had paid a quick visit to a truck stop on Route 1, just before one of the bridges going over into Maine. In the rearview mirror he could make out the apartment building where he, Tony, Mom, and Dad had lived years back. The Packard’s headlights carved the small brush and trees out of the shadows. The steering wheel shook violently as he turned off the dirt road.
He left the engine running and the headlights on as he sat there. Three stones. Three bundles of grass. Nothing much to anyone else, but … it meant a lot to him. And to somebody else.
Sam switched off the engine and stepped out onto the dirt. Crickets chirped in the darkness. He folded his arms and sat against the Packard’s fender. Out before him stretched the harbor and the lights of the city and the shipyard. The island was a piece of city property that had never been developed. Over the years it had been a popular place during the day and night for a variety of people and purposes. In daylight it was a destination for fishermen, for the young boys who climbed the trees and played along the shore, for picnickers who managed to enjoy the view while ignoring the stench from the mudflats and marshes.
At night a different crew came in. Hoboes. Drunks. Men looking for satisfaction from other men, needing secrecy and darkness to do their illegal business. Sailors from the shipyard who didn’t have enough cash for a room but had enough money for a quick fumbling date in a grove of trees. Every now and then the city council would bestir themselves to ask the marshal to clean up the island, and sure enough, there would be a handful of arrests, enough to satisfy the Portsmouth Herald and the do-good civic groups.
There was a thumping sound coming from the shipyard. Sam straightened and saw a shape by the dark trees. “You can come out,” he called. “I’m alone.”
The man stepped forward. Even in the darkness, Sam recognized the walk. Something in his chest seized up, and he was a rookie again instantly, facing his first arrest, a drunken punk from one of the harborside bars, wondering if he could do it, could actually make that leap from being a civilian to being a cop.
“Hello, Sam,” came the voice.
“Hello, Tony,” he answered, greeting his older brother: welder, illegal union organizer, and escaped prisoner from one of the scores of labor camps across these troubled forty-eight states.
State Party Headquarters
Concord, N.H.
May 3, 1943
For Distribution List “A”
Following note was received through mail slot entrance of Party headquarters last night:
Dear Sirs,
My name is Cal Winslow and I am a public works employee at the city of Portsmouth. I wish to report that last night, during our Party meeting at the American Legion Hall, there was a time when it was requested of people there to submit three names on file cards for future investigation. I was assigned to help collect and assemble these cards.
What I wish to report is that one card listed the following names: Huey Long, Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin. As an employee of the city, I used to work as a janitor at the police department. I recognized the handwriting on this card and am certain it belongs to Sam Miller, an inspector for the City. I wish to denounce him as a subversive.
C. Winslow
P.S. For more information, please contact me at home, not at work. Please also advise what reward I might receive. Thank you.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tony came up next to him, and Sam noted the smell of sweat, of coal, of old clothes and bad meals and long travel along back roads and rails.
His brother held out a hand, and without hesitation, Sam took it and gave it a squeeze. The hand was rough from all of the outdoor work his brother had done in the camp. Sam reached into his coat pocket, took out a waxed-paper package he had gotten from the truck stop for twenty-five cents, and passed it over. Tony tore open the package greedily, started eating the roast beef and cheese sandwich. Sam let his older brother eat in silence. When he finished, Tony said, “God, that tasted good. Thanks,” and then sat down next to Sam on the Packard’s wide fender.
“You’re welcome.”
Tony wiped a hand across his mouth and Sam asked, “How long have you been out?”
“Just over a week.”
“You okay?”
“Stiff. Sore. Hope I never pick up an ax again for the rest of my life. And you?”
“Doing all right.”
“How’s Sarah? And my nephew?”
“Doing fine.”
“Good. Glad to hear that. You know … well, you get to feeling odd up there in the camps, wondering how family and friends are doing. All those months dragging by, every shitty day the same as the one before. And Sarah and Toby … good to know they’re doing well. Up there … means a lot to think about family.”
Sam said, “I know they worry about you.”
Tony crumpled the waxed paper and tossed it into the shadows. “Those food packages, they make a hell of a difference, even though the guards steal a third of everything. If it wasn’t for those packages, it’d be stale bread and potato soup every day.”
“Glad to hear the packages make a difference.”
“You know, where the camp was built, it’s gorgeous country. Would love to try hunting in those mountains one of these days, if things ever change. Christ, that’s another thing I miss, heading out into the woods for a quiet day of hunting.”
Sam remembered how Tony always seemed happier fishing or hunting than doing chores or being at school. “How long are you staying here?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Sam knew what he had to say next and was surprised at how it felt, like he was twelve again, trying to stand up to his older brother. “Then you should know this: You can’t stay long.”
“Why’s that?”
“You know why.”
“Enlighten me, little brother.”
Little brother. “Tony, you’re a fugitive. You stay here, you’re going to get picked up, sure as hell. Portsmouth’s the first place the Department of the Interior and the FBI will look. Once they publicize a reward on your head, there are damn few places for you to stay out of sight in this town.”
“Maybe I don’t have a choice, you know? On the road after getting out, this was the only place I could go, at least for now. And tell me, what’s got you worried? Me getting arrested? Or you getting the heat for me being caught in your bac
kyard?”
“I don’t want you to get arrested, and I’m also trying to protect my family. If you think so much of Toby and Sarah, you’ll be going someplace else tonight.”
“You’re my family, too, little brother.”
“If I get picked up because of you, Toby and Sarah will suffer. You ever take a moment to think about that?”
No response, just the old and complicated silence between two brothers who were never really friends. Sam felt like kicking something. It was always like this, always, like he and his brother were two radio stations endlessly transmitting past each other on different frequencies.
“I’ll be along in a while, I promise you that. All right?” Tony’s voice had softened, as if he recognized Sam’s frustration and was trying to make amends.
“Really? You got something going on? Something planned?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Me in my smelly clothes, my feet covered in blisters, no money, no place to sleep, oh yeah, I got plans, brother. Lots and lots of plans.”
Sam felt ashamed, thinking of how Tony must feel, finally being free after years of being in a work camp and not getting anything but grief from his younger brother, save a cheap truck-stop sandwich.
Tony asked, “How’s Mom doing? Any change?”
“She has good days and bad days. Depends on when you visit her at the county home.”
“Next time you see her, if she’s with it, tell her I said hi. And Sarah, she still working at the school department? And Toby still a hell-raiser?”
“Yes on both counts,” Sam said. “You telling the truth about moving on in a couple of days?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“I can put you up someplace, if you’d like.”
“Am I hearing you right? A minute or two ago, you were so shook up you were going to hand me over to J. Edgar Hoover himself. Now you’re offering me a hidey-hole? A hell of a change of heart.”
“No, it’s not,” Sam said. “It’s being realistic. You stay on the streets, it’s easier for you to get picked up. I can get you in at a boardinghouse; a landlord I know owes me a few favors. What do you say?”
“If I say no, will you arrest me?”
Something thickened the air between them. There was a cry of something out in the woods being hunted and killed. Sam said quietly, “I should. I should grab you right now and see that you transported back to Fort Drum tomorrow. You’ve always been a pain in the ass, you’ve always thought you were better than me, but I won’t turn you in. It’s … it’s bad now, Tony, but not bad enough to turn in my own brother.”
Tony nudged him with an elbow. “You wouldn’t believe the number of guys back at the camp who were ratted out by family members, either for a reward or to save their own hides. You’re a better man than a lot of folks.”
“Not sure what kind of man I am, but I won’t arrest you.”
“So you got both of my messages.”
“Hard to ignore them,” Sam replied. “I’ll always remember what you or me would do, whenever Dad got into one of his tempers, to warn the other.”
“Yeah, three stones or three sticks on the porch, and haul ass to Pierce Island to wait until his mood changed. Or he fell asleep in his chair. Or Mom told him to go to the cellar to sleep it off. Tough times but good times, brother.”
“Well, if that’s how you remember it. I just remember Dad drunk a lot, beating on us and making Mom cry.”
“He worked hard for us, you know that. The job ended up killing him.”
“That’s history, Tony.”
“The hell it is. It’s the reason I got into trouble back at the yard. Family can mean more than blood, you know? I wanted to reorganize the union, get better health care for the workers, increase the number of docs on shift … you know, the yard doc, back when Dad started coughing and coughing, didn’t even know about Dad’s service in the first war. So he told Dad to stay away from dust, told him his lungs would get better. Some fucking diagnosis. It killed him.”
Sam said, “That wouldn’t have made any difference, and you know it.”
“Oh, my cop brother, he’s a doctor now, huh? Don’t you ever think that if Dad hadn’t gotten sick, then he wouldn’t have drunk as much, wouldn’t have been so mean to Mom and us over the years? Don’t you?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know,” Sam said, hating to be put on the spot in the same place he had been so many times before.
“All I know is that what happened to Dad shouldn’t happen to anyone. And trying to do something about it got my ass in a labor camp.”
“Now your ass is out of a labor camp. Where exactly do you plan to take your ass, Tony?”
“You asking me as my brother? Or as a cop? Somewhere I can make a difference. Where else?”
“Yeah, you’re right. You’re always right, Tony, and that’s always been your problem.”
“And your problem is that you’ve always taken the safe and easy way out, Sam,” he shot back. “Star football player, Eagle Scout, cop, kiss-up to the mayor, and good little son-in-law. Or so you think.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Even in labor camps, news gets around. Met a guy out in the woods once, bundling brush. We got to talking, and when I told him I was from Portsmouth, that made him take notice. Seems he had a sister—an organizer from Manhattan, the ladies’ garment union—and she was on an arrest list. Got out of Manhattan ahead of Long’s goons, got on the Underground Railroad, and spent a night in Portsmouth. Should I go on?”
“Do whatever you want.”
“So she spent the night in Portsmouth in the basement of a little house. A little house that was near the river and across from the shipyard.”
“Tony …”
“So don’t use the Goody Two-shoe defense. You’re in the same fight as me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Oh, yes, you are. Different tactics, but trust me, your tactics—letting people sleep in your basement on their way up to Canada, that’s not going to change things. Direct action, getting people in the streets, fighting this government hand to hand—that’s what’s going to change things.”
“Sure it will,” Sam said. “It’ll change a lot of living people to dead people.”
“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”
It always ended like this with Tony, with one or the other losing his temper until all that was left were savage words and corrosive memories.
“Look, if you’re going to stay here for more than a day or two, the offer of that room still stands.”
“Please, no favors, all right? I know how to keep my head down from the feds and the screws. So go back home and be safe, and I’ll be out of here in a few days. Look, we all have our jobs to do. My job is other things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as I’m not going to tell a cop, even if he is my brother. I’m outta here, Sam. You take care of you and your family, and I’ll take care of my own things.”
Tony started walking away and Sam said, “I’m glad you’re out, but I’m not glad you’re here.”
His brother called back, “You know, you make this big old act of not liking me that much, and I know that’s so much bullshit.”
“You do? Why’s that?”
“Because of your boy. And his name.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Christ, for a police inspector, you can be dense. Yeah, his name. Where did you get it? A relative on our side of the family? On Sarah’s side of the family?”
“I don’t remember,” Sam said. “It just seemed … just seemed right.”
“Your boy and me share the same first and last name, except for one letter. Tony and Toby. You can call it coincidence. I won’t. In a way, I think the two of you named him after me.”
Then the shadows swallowed him. Sam listened for a moment, then called out, “Tony!”
There was no answer.
INTERLUDE III
After he saw his brother’s P
ackard leave the parking lot, he started walking to the city. He stood on the wooden bridge going from Pierce Island to the mainland, looking over at the shipyard lights. That’s where it had started, that’s where he thought it had ended, but now it was starting again. Organizing, fighting … back then he thought he was making a difference, but he realized it was just preparation. Preparation for that special day, the day when he would be there to make one shocking difference in this world, to make it better.
Sam was too much of just living in the day-to-day, not looking about him, not looking at the world that needed saving, that needed changing. His brother had no idea what was coming at him.
He squeezed his hands on the guardrail, thinking of his time in the labor camp, recalling all the things he had learned, remembering most the correct way to cut down a tree. Funny, in a time like this, with so much at stake, that you remembered how to slice at the trunk with an ax, knowing it was a delicate job no matter how clumsy it looked, hammering away at the tree, for how you cut it meant how it would fall.
If you judged wrong, a couple of tons of lumber were coming down straight at you, so you learned pretty quick which way to jump to save your life.
He resumed his walk into his old hometown, heading back to Curt’s place. Which way to jump. Except what do you do when there’s no safe place to jump?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning Sarah had toast and coffee for breakfast, while he and Toby had cream of wheat. He and Sarah talked about random things—including a request for him to take the boy to school, since Sarah had to go check on her aunt Claire, who was feeling sickly yet again—but Toby kept on kicking his feet against the table legs while working on a drawing.
Finally, Sam said, “Kiddo, you knock that off right now and get ready for school or you’ll lose your comic books for the week. Savvy?”
“But I wasn’t doing anything!”
“What, you think I can’t hear? You’ve been kicking the table all morning, so cut it out.”