Retribution Road

by Antonin Varenne

  John Street Church was a simple building in black stone. Almost square, its façade was embellished only by a triangular pediment with straight mouldings. Two high, narrow windows flanked the front door. A sort of monolith trapped between two residential houses that plunged the little church in their shade.

  The interior was dark too. Candles burned on both sides of the nave, while on benches old men and women were praying. In front of the altar, a pastor was talking to a young couple. The pastor was elderly, his head bald but for a few last white hairs. He smiled as he listened to the couple.

  Bowman waited near some candles, overhearing a few words of the conversation and gathering that the couple were preparing for their wedding. They were organising a ceremony with the pastor, who was answering them in reassuring tones.

  When they walked away, Bowman approached the old man.

  “Can I speak to you?”

  “Of course, my son. What’s it about?”

  “Pastor Selby in Plymouth gave me this address.”

  The old pastor smiled.

  “I don’t know Pastor Selby, I’m sorry. I’m Pastor Ryan. You’ve come from England?”

  Bowman was about to reply, but Ryan was looking at his jacket, bending forward to examine it.

  “My Lord! Is that blood? Are you injured?”

  Bowman looked down at his clothes.

  “Not mine.”

  “What happened, my son?”

  “I picked up someone who was injured.”

  Ryan put a hand on Bowman’s arm.

  “Follow me.”

  They walked around the altar and went into a room at the back of the church. It was not a lodging, just a little study cluttered with buckets and brooms, a little table and three chairs. The light came through one narrow, barred window.

  “Sit down.”

  Pastor Ryan grabbed a pitcher and two glasses from a shelf and poured some water for Bowman, who drank it willingly. The water was cold and hurt his teeth.

  “What happened?”

  “I got trapped in the middle of a protest march.”

  “You were over there? How is the wounded man?”

  Bowman drank a little more.

  “It was a woman. A girl. She’s dead.”

  Pastor Ryan crossed himself. Often Bowman found this gesture ridiculous. But the old man had not done it pityingly, nor in a mechanical way. More as if it were a thought he didn’t like translated into a polite gesture, suggesting that all of this, in the end, was a sick joke.

  Bowman opened his bag and put the bottle of gin on the table.

  “I need a drink. Help yourself.”

  Ryan sat opposite him and poured a little gin in the bottom of a glass.

  “My son, it is not to be mean that I’m taking so little, but because my liver has been terribly painful for some time now. About twenty years, if you really want to know.”

  Ryan lifted his glass.

  “Do you have a change of clothes?”

  Bowman nodded.

  “Do you have a place to sleep?”

  Bowman said no.

  “Give me your things. I’ll get them washed and you can stay here.”

  “I’m not in need. I can pay for a room.”

  “But you’ll be better off here.”

  Bowman got to his feet. Without even thinking, he took off his jacket and his shirt, and stood bare-chested in front of the little table. Pastor Ryan crossed himself. What a joke.

  3

  “May I ask what happened to you?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “You don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Seems like for a while now, the only people I’ve met have been pastors who want to make me talk and madmen who want to shut me up.”

  The old man lowered his eyes and turned his glass in his hands, as if unsure whether to poison his liver a little more.

  “There are cases where I don’t believe in confession, Mr Bowman. Often, talking about something painful just brings back the suffering. Whoever you are, I don’t think you have anything to reproach yourself for regarding those wounds.”

  Bowman stuffed his pipe with tobacco and lit a match by scraping it on the table.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

  The old pastor smiled.

  “Do you want to ask God for forgiveness?”

  “Or I could piss in a violin and wait for it to play music.”

  The old man’s smile grew wider.

  “Good Christians are not always the ones you think, my son. You tried to save that young girl. Most of us would have just run away.”

  “There was no-one else there. And I couldn’t save her.”

  “Chance is something I have learned to mistrust. I ought to tell you that it is God’s work, but I suppose you don’t believe in that?”

  “I didn’t do anything. I just picked her up.”

  “Did you say anything to her?”

  “What can you say to someone who’s dying?”

  Pastor Ryan had pushed back his chair and was observing the man in front of him. Bowman met his gaze.

  “Why did they shoot at those women?”

  “You don’t seem to be a man overly encumbered with illusions, Mr Bowman. If you still have any regarding this country, this should be enough to cure you. The United States is not a young nation, but a flourishing trade in human beings. Those in Washington who are currently debating the emancipation of the slaves are the owners of the factories where those women work. It was they who ordered the striking workers shot. In the South, a white man who kills a negro does not go to prison, but a white man who helps a slave escape will rot in a cell for a long, long time. The arithmetic is set down in law, Mr Bowman. There are too many poor people, so they must not be allowed to unite. The textile workers have been on strike for three weeks. The steelworkers were going to join them. So the negotiations were ended. If an honest count were kept of the protests, strikes and revolts that break out here every year, not a single politician would dare to talk about prosperity for fear of getting stoned. And when there isn’t an economic crisis, like this one, which has been going on for three years, they always find a way of starting a war. The factories go to work to supply the army with weapons, food and trains.”

  The old pastor leaned over the table.

  “But you already know all that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t care about politics.”

  “Are you sure you couldn’t have said anything to that young woman?”

  “When you die, you’re alone. All the rest is bullshit.”

  “And I suppose you, Mr Bowman, are not afraid of dying alone in this country where you have just arrived and know no-one? Is that right?”

  Bowman filled his glass, and then the pastor’s.

  “I know someone. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Do we have a mutual acquaintance, Mr Bowman?”

  “I’m looking for Pastor Peavish. It was Selby, in Plymouth, who told me that he might have passed through here.”

  Ryan pushed the glass away, fighting his desire to drink.

  “Yes. Peavish.”

  “You know him?”

  “He stayed only a few days.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “I don’t have the faintest idea. When we go away to preach, we don’t keep in touch. We simply go where we are needed. In towns that are sometimes just tents beside a river and the church a wooden crate under a tree, standing on top of which anyone who can read can become a pastor. Peavish left here more than a year ago. He might be in California by now, or buried by the side of a road in Utah. Would you tell me why you’re looking for him?”

  “I think he was in Texas in November. In a town called Reunion.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Is there a church there?”

  “I told you: what you call a town, which existed four months ago, might have disappeared today. But I don’t know that place. Do you know what
Pastor Peavish was doing there?”

  “It’s a town that’s not like any others. An ideal community. Utopian.”

  Ryan smiled.

  “Lots of people try to found communities in the West. People who think they can find virgin territory there, without any religious or political authorities. But the ideal does not last long round here, Mr Bowman. The theorists, the dreamers and the visionaries are usually robbed, unless they have a good army like the Mormons. What do you know about Reunion?”

  “It’s in Texas.”

  “And?”

  “There was a murder there.”

  The old pastor thought for a moment. His smile was frozen in place and his forehead crinkled.

  “Mr Bowman, I would like to ask you a few questions, so that things are clear between us. I am not asking you to make confession, just to trust me.”

  Bowman leaned back in his chair. Ryan crossed his hands on the table.

  “Did you make this journey to kill someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you looking for Pastor Peavish in order to kill him?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Do you want to kill him or not?”

  “I don’t know if it’s him. Peavish or someone else.”

  “Those scars . . . Are you looking for the man who gave them to you?”

  “No. But he has the same ones.”

  Ryan was pale.

  “The murderer in Reunion, Mr Bowman . . . Are you saying he went through the same hell as you?”

  Bowman gritted his teeth.

  “The same.”

  The pastor began to make a gesture, but did not finish it, as if he had wanted to cross himself but realised it was pointless.

  “All the pastors who leave for the West go through St Louis, in Missouri. That is also the route you must take to get to Texas. I’ll give you the address of the Methodist church and the name of a pastor there, who might have met Peavish. I’m going to make up a bed for you, and tomorrow I will bring you back your clothes. I’ll also bring you some food.”

  The pastor stood up, holding his back with both hands. Bowman got up at the same time.

  “I’ll pay you for all that.”

  “You will make a donation to the parish, Mr Bowman.”

  *

  A choirboy unfolded a mattress on the floor and gave Bowman some blankets. He brought him bread and stew, and a bit of rum and water. The child told him he was locking up and he would be back at dawn.

  Bowman walked around the church, a blanket thrown over his shoulders. He went up to the front door and listened to the street sounds on the other side. He paused by the candles, warming himself on their flames, and took two back with him to his cubbyhole. Sitting on the mattress, back to the wall, the blankets covering his legs, he smoked a pipe and drank some rum while he watched the candle burn down.

  The next morning, Pastor Ryan found the little room empty. On the table was a letter, held in place by some English coins.

  Pastor, if you can find the parents of the girl who died, the money is for them and her burial. If not, it’s for the church.

  I don’t know if it’s Peavish. Because there’s another sergeant and I’m looking for both of them. We all came from that hell you talked about, and what’s sad is that monsters like us are alive and children are dying in the street.

  I might send news here or tell you when I return.

  Arthur Bowman

  Ryan crossed himself, folded the sergeant’s clean clothes and tidied them away in a wardrobe.

  He bought a new jacket – tweed with leather-lined shoulders – and matching trousers, some fur-lined boots with flat heels, a pair of bison-skin gloves, and a long black coat. All he kept of his old clothing was the leather cap.

  Entering the Duncan, Sherman & Co. bank, at 48 William Street, Bowman looked like just another customer. At the counter, he asked for two letters of credit to be paid out. They gave him the two hundred dollars in gold and silver coins, inside a leather purse stamped with the bank’s initials. He asked how to get to St Louis and they answered, as if it were obvious: “New York Central Railroad. You’ll be in Chicago in two days. From there, it’s another day by train to St Louis. The best line in the country, sir. You should take a carriage: the station is at the other end of town.”

  Bowman set out into the flood of pedestrians, walking down Broadway Avenue, past the City Hall Park. Bowman did not recognise the place now it was packed with people, the road cluttered with horse-drawn carriages and cabs. People were strolling in the park, families and merchants walking the pavements, donut sellers and shoe-shines. No trace remained of the shooting.

  He deviated from his route, pushing past a few shoulders and stopping at the entrance to the alley. At the foot of a wall, he found an ankle boot with the laces undone. He picked it up and turned it in his hands, then tossed it on a pile of old rags and went on his way.

  The city was designed like a military camp. Straight lines and numbers. He left Broadway and continued on Park Avenue for another mile, until he reached the junction with 42nd Street.

  Inside the Grand Central Depot, you could have fitted Plymouth’s wooden train station three times over. For thirty-one dollars, he received a second-class ticket for Chicago; a train was leaving in two hours.

  “You should buy another ticket once you get there. Several companies go to St Louis, without any changes of train or driver.”

  “Are there changes for Chicago?”

  “Three, sir.”

  In the station’s shopping mall, Bowman took a seat on a restaurant terrace, under the arch of the main concourse, ordered some meat and beer, and sat watching the other passengers. He bought a newspaper from a vendor. The front page announced the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln, Republican, for the next presidential elections. Bowman put the paper down, too distracted to read any more. He had no idea how far Chicago was from New York. Calculating that the trains travelled at the same speed as those in England, he thought that the trip must be thousands of miles long. Then it would take another day to reach St Louis, the final staging post before the start of Irving’s West.

  Bowman felt dizzy when he realised that the United States was as big as India and that he was searching for two men who were hiding from him. But in places as vast as this, public transport was rare, particularly when the territory itself had not been entirely colonised. Anyone who wanted to travel far had to take the same routes. So, despite the sheer size of the country, it was still possible to find a man. Sitting in front of his steak, in his new clothes, Bowman also realised that his fortune would soon no longer be of any use to him, that he would have to abandon his bourgeois suit. Penders and Peavish had no money. He must travel like they did, go through the same places, with the same means, if he was to have any chance of finding them. Because he felt sure now that they were surviving somewhere far from any city.

  He boarded his train and only felt better once it had left the city limits behind, when the track began to snake between hills and lakes, passing over rivers swelled by rain. Bowman watched the landscape rush past until nightfall – a world of dark, snowy forests – without glimpsing any of the tall grass described by Irving. The second-class seats were made of padded leather; after an initial sensation of comfort and a few hours of travelling, however, the passenger started to toss and turn in all directions to try to avoid aches and pains in their backs and behinds. It was cold in the carriage, and the train shook as it rounded corners, the carriages in front and behind banging into it. The noise was as loud as in his cabin on the Persia.

  His mind filled by this din, Bowman began to doze off, wrapped up in his coat, holding his bag tight against him. When he woke up, it was still night, but the train was slowing down. They entered a station lit by three lamps, in the middle of nowhere. A conductor passed through the carriages, announcing that all passengers had to change trains. Bowman waited on the platform, where an icy wind blew. Twenty minutes later, another train stopped at a second platfo
rm. A man walked past pulling a trolley filled with blankets for sale. Bowman gave him twenty cents and covered his shoulders. Then, feeling the thickness of the cotton, bought a second one, which he haggled down to ten cents.

  “Why are we changing trains?”

  The blanket vendor blew into his numb hands.

  “Because you’re changing company, sir. And as they all have different width tracks, that means you have to take a different train.”

  “I only paid for one ticket, though. Do I have to buy another one?”

  “No, sir. Because all the companies belong to one big one, in fact – Vanderbilt’s New York Central. The Central has bought all the companies in the north-east, but they haven’t remade the tracks yet, so you still have to change trains.”

  There was no change in the quality of the seating, however. Bowman folded a blanket on the bench, wrapped himself up in the other one, and fell asleep again. The next day, the train sped through pine forests all morning, interrupted only by a few woodland shacks. Bowman had left without any food. The conductor told him they would soon be stopping at Rochester to change trains, and that he would be able to eat something there.

  The train line went past a vast, iced-over lake for several miles. Whirlwinds of snow flew over the ice, and cold gusts of air blew some snowflakes through the cracks in the carriage doors. In Rochester, Bowman had time to buy a few things – some food and a bottle of bourbon. All afternoon and evening, this third train followed the shore of the lake. They filled up with water and coal at the station in Buffalo. In Cleveland, after another change, he climbed aboard the last train – to Chicago – and, at the end of the day, got off the train and immediately bought a ticket from the St Louis, Alton & Chicago Railroad. He left again a few hours later and travelled through the night without seeing anything of the land he was moving through as the train took him south.

  *

  Bowman had hoped St Louis would be a quiet little town, but it was even more frenzied than New York, despite weather so cold that the ground was rock-hard. The station was a rail hub the like of which he had never seen before. The trains were loaded with goods. Drivers shouted and whips cracked as lines of connected carts carrying crates and barrels were pulled by teams of twelve or sixteen mules. The station was built on the bank of a brown river, as wide as the Ganges or the Irrawaddy, where dozens of boats as big as houses were moored, like some enormous three-storey steam barges, surrounded by gangways. The goods passed from trains to boats and from boats to trains. The streets were made of bare earth, criss-crossed with ice-hardened ruts over which the carriages skidded and bumped. Bowman had never seen such turmoil. It was as if all the goods in the country were arriving here at the same time, and the inhabitants of St Louis, panic-stricken, were rushing around trying to get rid of them before they were engulfed. To make themselves heard in this chaos, everyone shouted. The horses were noisy too, whinnying as they were whipped, their hooves caught in ice. He threw a blanket over his shoulders and covered up his head, crossing the street to a saloon from which the hubbub of conversations could be heard on the opposite pavement.