October Light

by John Gardner

  Dr. Alkahest told them he wanted to buy their pot. Not just a little. All of it.

  “Man, you are a gas,” Dancer said.

  “I’m in earnest, young man,” Dr. Alkahest said. “Look.” He fumbled with his moneybelt, then dipped his fingertips in and drew out a thousand-dollar bill.

  Dancer snatched it, held it over the fire where he could see it. His eyes bugged. “It’s real!” He looked from one to another of them. His face became indignant. “What you doin, carrying around thousan’ dollar bills? What if I was a thief or somethin? You tryin to lead me to temptation?” He put the money in his pocket.

  Dr. Alkahest watched with a startled grin. He’d been robbed—they’d all seen it. Perhaps he’d be beaten—perhaps he’d bestripped and bound and gagged, perhaps even made a human sacrifice. “He he he!” Dr. Alkahest laughed ecstatically. What a place! What a company! No limits!

  “Don’t laugh,” Santisillia said, misunderstanding, “he really is a thief. Grew up in Harlem. Can’t help himself. They made him a transom man when he was four.”

  Dr. Alkahest trembled, dizzy with happiness. The bearded man was a moralist. All the better! “Don’t you people have any standards?” he cackled, and crazily flopped his head from side to side. They hadn’t yet noticed that he was seated on a cushion of moneybags.

  They all looked at him, a little puzzled. Dancer said, as if trying it out, “You’re rich, I’m poor.” He poked his white-T-shirted chest with his big black thumb. “You got a responsibility for me.”

  Dr. Alkahest squealed with laughter, and Dancer looked around at his friends again, hoping for clarification. Gradually the doctor got control of himself. He’d remembered that he must settle the arrangements while he still had the wit. With a quick little jerk, he got out his flask and drank. He said, “When does the shipment arrive?”

  “Any time,” Santisillia said. “We don’t know. They’ll bring it over from the mainland some night, probably early in the morning. What time you got, Peter?”

  Peter Wagner looked at his watch. “Two a.m.”

  “If it’s tonight, they’ll be along soon,” Santisillia said, “Otherwise we wait until tomorrow night, or the night after that—”

  “They come by boat?” Dr. Alkahest said.

  He nodded.

  “Then maybe that’s them.” The old cripple cocked his head.

  Santisillia looked doubtful, glanced at Peter Wagner. “You hear anything?”

  “Not me,” Peter Wagner said.

  The Indian, who’d been sitting as still as a boulder, put his hand to his ear, then shook his head.

  “I have excellent hearing,” Dr. Alkahest said. “I assure you somebody’s loading a boat, back that way.” He pointed.

  “Crazy,” Dancer said. A wicked smile showed at the corner of his mouth. “Hey listen, I’ll make you a bet. A thousand dollars.”

  “Oh come on,” Peter Wagner said.

  “No deal, but I’ll bet you a nickel,” Dr. Alkahest said.

  Dancer sagged. “Shit man, who’s got a nickel?”

  An hour later they heard the rumble of the Mexicans’ boats.

  “They’re coming! He could really hear them!” Jane said.

  “Then my part in the comedy is over,” Peter Wagner said. “I’ve brought you to your Mexicans. Adieu, adieu, night-night, ta ta!” He snatched up the rifle.

  “Stop it!” Santisillia said. “You going to shoot yourself right in front of us, boy? You got no feelings?”

  Peter Wagner sighed and put it down.

  By now the Mexicans were inside the cave, climbing out of the boats. Their yells of greeting—coming up through the shaft they sounded more like groans—rose to the basin, and a moment later their heads began appearing. Soon the volcano basin was full of them, a huddled mass if ever there was one, people crippled, maimed, bloated, wart-faced, dwarfed, blind, deaf, voiceless, some of them on wooden legs, some of them on skate-boards; Dr. Alkahest fainted, bowled over by the scent.

  “Let’s go! Let’s load up!” Santisillia said.

  But Dancer leaped up. “Wait! We forgot the trial!” He stood with his arms raised, like a wildman praying.

  Ominously, as if in support of his earnestness, the earth grumbled.

  “Aw, come on, Dancer,” Peter Wagner said.

  Jane said, “Outlaws can’t hold trials.”

  “It’s illogical,” Mr. Nit said.

  The Indian nodded, solemn.

  The crowd of Mexicans watched them, bright eyed and agreeable. A fat one with gunbelts crossing his chest, two of his upper teeth missing, said, “¿Qué es? ¿Una misa?” Those behind him pressed closer.

  Dr. Alkahest opened his eyes and cried, “Welcome friends! God bless you,” then passed out again, though he wanted to say more.

  “¿Quées?,” the fat man said. He leaned forward, staring with his eyebrows lifted, like a man looking into an aquarium at a curious fish. He pointed at the doctor.

  “He’s high,” Peter Wagner explained. “He’s found happiness.”

  “High,” the Mexican said to those behind him. They passed it back.

  Santisillia was looking at the sky, troubled. It would be morning soon. If they didn’t get the boats loaded and move out, they’d have to sit here another whole day. It was time they didn’t have. If the old man had found them, others knew. And if it was true that Dusky had brought Dr. Alkahest and was near, staying out of sight, given that infallible sixth sense he had …

  Suddenly Luther Santisillia hit himself on the forehead and whispered, “Shit! What a fool!” It wasn’t by some uncanny sixth sense that Dusky always knew where Fist was, where the Feds were, where everything was! Old Dusky had the whole fucking picture: he was a Narc! Santisillia began to laugh, his muscles going weak. Old Dusky had played his dumb niggers like a ju-ju man—he’d said a little pig-Latin backwards and they’d believed! Beware the stories yo mama tells you, he thought. Beware the man with the fictions!

  He raised his arms for attention. “Listen,” he said, “we gotta leave. We been fucked. Dusky’s out there—he brought the old man in. He’s a Narc.”

  They looked at him.

  “No Narc,” the Indian said.

  “He’s a Narc, I tell you. It’s incredible none of us thought of it. All the time he’s been settin us up, playin us that tune about his infallible sixth sense—”

  “Setting us up why?” the Indian said.

  “Who knows why? You understand the mind of a government agent?”

  “Some kind of rip-off maybe,” Peter Wagner said. “Ends against the middle.”

  “No Narc,” the Indian said. He folded his arms like an Indian in the movies. “We take the load.”

  Santisillia flashed anger for an instant, then laughed. He felt something give in his head. It was too late anyway. Ah, that Dusky!

  “Maybe he’s a Narc and maybe not,” Mr. Goodman said. “But to walk away from a load like this one—”

  “We could load fast,” Mr. Nit said.

  Santisillia held out his arms, palms up, as if to plead, then laughed again. It made no difference. “Ok,” he said, “let’s load.”

  The crowd stirred slightly in the direction of the entrance, then stopped. Dancer was waving the machine gun. “No!” he yelled.

  “First the trial! Captain Fist shot me in the leg! I ain’t had my vengeance!”

  “Hey, cool it man,” Santisillia said. “It’s all over.” He took a step, casual, smiling, then jerked back with a yelp. Bullets chopped up the stone just in front of his feet.

  “We gonna have a trial. That’s final,” Dancer said.

  They looked at him.

  The Mexicans all scratched their heads and smiled. It always takes time to learn new customs. Nobody spoke.

  Peter Wagner said at last, wearily, “Why, Dancer? Why so petty? What if it turns out Luther’s right—what if the Narcs are on the way right now?”

  Dancer stamped his foot. “Man, you’re crazy! Dusky’s a gentleman, pri
de of the people. How come you bastards always tryin to undermine a young person’s heroes and ideals?”

  “All the same,” Peter Wagner said reasonably, “we could hold the trial later—be on the safe side.”

  “Safety is for chickens,” Dancer snapped.

  “Makes no difference,” Santisillia said. “It’s all over but the shooting anyway.”

  Dancer shook his head furiously, as if to drive away gnats. “I want you peoples to get ready for this trial.”

  “With the Narcs coming?” Peter Wagner asked.

  “No Narcs coming, God damn you,” Dancer yelled. “The Narc is a mythological beast. One more word about Narcs, I gonna shoot you for contempt of this court.”

  Jane touched his arm. “Why have it now though, really?”

  “We gonna find out,” Dancer said. “That’s all, man. We just gonna find out.”

  They all looked over at Captain Fist, still bound and gagged. Jane said innocently, “Find out what?”

  “What’s the matter you, ofay?” Dancer said, turning the machine gun toward her. “What you spose to find out when you try a man? We gone find out if he’s guilty, you understan? We gone put that ole motherfucker on trial and try him and see if he’s guilty. What the fuck you expect?”

  “Man,” Santisillia said, smiling at the sky, “what’s guilt? You never killed nobody?”

  But Dancer wasn’t hearing.

  “Hey Alkahest!” he yelled. He poked the old man in the chest with his machine gun. “Wake up, man. We havin some justice.”

  The doctor slept on, both drugged and drunk, mumbling in his sleep, “What fun for the Sons of Liberty!”

  “Let him be,” Santisillia said. “He’s way up in the sky. He can’t get down.”

  “I say he’s comin down,” Dancer said. He leaned over and shouted in Alkahest’s ear. “Wake up and look sober or I’ll blast your faggotty head off. What you mean, man, settin there, ignorin your social responsibility?” He held the gun three inches away from the tip of Dr. Alkahest’s nose. Dr. Alkahest opened first one eye, then the other, and abruptly smiled from ear to ear.

  “Are you going to kill me?” he asked coyly.

  Santisillia said, “You want to murder the Captain, why don’t you just shoot him?”

  Alkahest was making a powerful effort to keep his eyes open. If he was to die, it was important that he feel it, actually hurt for an instant, get the whole sensation. It was his inalienable right. He shook his head, batting his lashes and rolling his half-closed eyes, smiling widely.

  “That’s better, rich man,” Dancer said. Alkahest trembled with excitement, pinching himself, picking at himself. Dancer chattered on. “I appreciate your sittin up and doin your duty. And to show my appreciation I’m gonna confer a honor upon you, understand? I gonna glorify you, Jack. On account of I can see you’re one smarrrrt doood, and you been educated and all that shit, and also because I have happened to observe you are higher than Jesus, I’m makin you Attorney for the Defense.” He pointed at Captain Fist. “Now get ready to defend him.”

  Alkahest looked at Fist—still bound and gagged—then back at Dancer. At the sight of the Captain’s wicked little eyes, fouler than plague, Dr. Alkahest smiled and went woozy. “I’ll do my best,” he brought out, and giggled.

  Dancer nodded. “You gonna have to.”

  “A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute’s sake.”

  The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1757

  6

  Truces and Human Considerations Rejected, the War Rages On

  1

  Despite the discomfort of his sleeping position, James Page awakened late. Out by the barn, the cows were noisily bellowing to be milked. The sunlight, what there was of it, luminous gray as a month-old boiled egg, came spilling into the bathroom not horizontally but from fifty degrees up. He was sick and full of pain. His head was splitting, his scratches, bumps, and cuts were all whimpering, his dry lips were strangely stuck together, so that parting them made slivers of the skin tear off. As if his eyes had been open before he came awake, he was aware abruptly, without transition from sleep, of the sink and its pitted pipes and trap, the blistering gray wall behind it. All he saw was unnaturally motionless, unreal, as if it were a cunningly built model of itself, or as if the world had gone through some catastrophe and, surviving, was at perfect rest, regathering its strength. His rear end was numb, his neck stiff and painful, his gray-haired bare legs freezing.

  He couldn’t remember at first what had happened or why he was here, sitting above foul waters his swollen and blood-clotted nose couldn’t smell. But by lifelong habit he was disturbed by the mooing of the cows by the barn, the cackling of the chickens, troubled, maybe, by one of these ’possums that had been moving into New England these last few years, settling like a plague; and he blinked, turned his head, and reached with his left hand for the wall, with his right for the sink, intending to raise himself. He saw the shotgun and looked hard at it, registered its weight, its curious purity of purpose and line, the two shiny triggers, the pock-marked stock—many’s the woodchuck and skunk he’d shot with it—then remembered what he’d done. His heart went out from under him. He ached too much to feel, just now, the full shame or shock; what he felt was worse, and duller: simple and absolute despair and the farmer’s bred-in knowledge that whatever his misery, however profound his self-hatred and sense of life’s mortal injustice, he must get up and go milk the cows, feed the pigs and horses and, if he could get to it, winter the bees.

  He bent forward and pulled up his trousers, then, knees screaming, straightened up. With stiff, numb fingers he hooked the top fly-button, hooked his belt, then worked, slowly, clumsily, at the rest of the buttons. He took two steps forward, put his hands on the sink, and carefully, for fear he might pull it off the wall, leaned on the edge. He glanced at the mirror and was arrested. On the side of his head stood a pearshaped black lump, black as an eggplant, with cracks running out from the center like the faults on a broken tomato, radiating spokes of split-open flesh, bloodless, as if the wound were an old one and he’d picked the scab. Scratches went out from each side of his mouth, and on his upper lip dark clotted blood formed a moustache. His nose, below the swollen black ridge, was as red with burst vessels as an old, half-dead wino’s. All this damage in one night!, he thought. He assumed that his nose would be like this henceforth, the ruin looked final; but in this, he would find, he was mistaken; in a week the nose would be practically normal. Surprisingly enough, the old man was not distressed by the ruin. By virtue of the depth of his self-hatred he was beyond that, almost welcomed it as justice.

  He became aware again of the cows’ mooing, and leaned to look out through the window. Outside, the world was gray, the glory of foliage all gone, no leaves still clinging but the dull brown of oakleaves, the gossamer tan leaves of beeches. The pastures were as drab as the barn walls, no color but here and there the maroon of a brier. The rain had again, for the time being, stopped. He turned on the faucets, pushed in the plug, splashed cold water on his face, and began to wash up. When the blackish, caked blood was almost all washed away, he groped along the rack for a towel and dried himself. He was reaching for the door when he remembered the shotgun. He took it up and broke it, removed the empty shell and the loaded one, put both in his pocket, and, closing the gun, indifferently leaned it once more against the wall.

  He had a dizzy moment, pain that went through him like a brash yell, and it made him yell himself. Out in the barnyard the cows mooed more loudly, as if they’d heard him.

  He rubbed the sides of his face with his fingertips—the old man never used pain-killers—and, having no choice, he moved on.

  At the top of the stairs he hesitated, his clogged nostrils catching some peculi
ar scent, and after a moment he turned again, bent half double, and walked to his sister’s door. He stood there looking in, having no intention of entering, though the door was open as if in invitation. The smell was stronger, something burning, a smell from his childhood. Through the door’s foot-wide opening he saw Sally in bed, sleeping with her hands over a paperback book. Her dentures were in and had slipped out of position—the uppers hung crookedly between her dry, crinkled lips like the wax vampire-teeth children wore, dressed for a Halloween party. He again had a picture of Sally as a teenager, taking her bath in the kitchen tub. He nodded as if someone had spoken.

  He was staring at her door, and it came to him that somebody—Lewis, of course—had scraped off the paint. He remembered now that he’d heard him doing it. He was saddened. They deserved no kindness, Sally and he, though he was grateful. His eyes traveled up the door cross, admiring his son-in-law’s workmanship, and with a jerk of his heart he saw, perched above, the crate of apples. It seemed to take on weight as he stared at it—the weight, perhaps, of her murderous intent. Despite his headache, despite his wild alarm, he smiled. He looked again at his old, sleeping sister.

  “Thally?” he said.

  She was dead to the world.

  He recognized the smell as insurance oil—kerosene, that is; but for years in Vermont, because of the Democrats, its main use had been getting back money out of fire insurance. On the bedroom walls he could make out a hint of the flame’s yellow flickering. After a moment he spit on the floor to his left for luck, then carefully, carefully put his head through the open door to look. His heart pounded once, like a blow from outside, when he saw the lamp. It was burned almost out, no more than an inch of kerosene in the bottom of the grayish glass bowl. He could let it burn on; it had burned all night without accident. But even as he thought it he knew it was no good. The gods take care of fools and children for only so long; they eventually look away. He took a deep breath and straightened up—pains shot through his abdomen—and inched far enough through the door to reach the lamp. With his fingertips he pushed it from the edge onto the table, clear to the middle, where it wouldn’t fall even if the applecrate fell; then carefully, balanced like an acrobat, he drew his hand away and edged himself back into the hall. He let his breath out.