by John Jakes
He kept it there while slowly lowering his left till they were parallel. His face showed no sign of pain. No stutter or falter interrupted his singsong chant. Magee sat stiff as a post, his eyes brimming with curiosity and admiration. He had momentarily forgotten that the Cheyenne wanted to kill him and take his wool and hang it up in his lodge. He was wonderstruck by the magic.
A great rippling sigh—“Ah! Ah!”—ran around the circle, and there were smiles, grunts, scornful looks at the three interlopers. Slowly, Whistling Snake lifted his left hand from the fire. Then his right. White hairs on his forearms above his wrists curled and gave off tiny spurts of smoke. His palms were unblistered; not even discolored.
Charles looked at Gray Owl, who exhibited as much expression as the granite of the Wichitas. Trying to hide what they all knew, no doubt. Magee flung Charles another look that was almost apologetic. Charles smiled as if to urge him not to worry. With a defeated air, Magee climbed to his feet. Charles snatched a faggot from the fire and with the hot end lit his last cigar.
From a saddlebag Magee pulled a leather pouch which he carefully laid on the ground. He next took out a small handcarved wood box which he opened and displayed. The box held four lead-colored balls of a kind Charles hadn’t seen for years. Magee plucked one out and carefully placed it between his teeth. Then he closed the box and put it away. With a sudden flourish, he yanked a pistol from the saddlebag.
Several Cheyennes jumped up, readying their knives or lances. Magee quickly gave them the peace sign. He balanced the pistol on his palm and slowly turned in a complete circle, so all could see it. Where had he found an old flintlock? Charles wondered. The barrel showed no rust. Magee had cleaned it well.
With slow, ceremonious motions, Magee opened the leather pouch and inverted it, letting powder trickle into the barrel. Suddenly he stamped his right foot twice, as if bitten by an insect. Along with most of the others, Charles looked down and didn’t see anything.
Magee pinched off the flow of powder and tossed the pouch aside. He found a patch in his pocket and wrapped it around the hall he took from his teeth. He slipped ball and patch into the barrel, unsnapped the ramrod underneath, and with careful twisting motions seated the ball. He replaced the ramrod and primed the pan.
Fat sweat drops rolled down Magee’s cheeks. He wiped his hands on his jeans pants. He signed for Charles to stand up.
Astonished, Charles did. Magee glanced at Red Bear. The chief’s attention was fixed on him. Whistling Snake saw that and frowned. His fan moved rapidly, stirring the hair at the ends of his white braids.
“What I did before was just play,” Magee said. “I am going to kill King Death before their eyes. Tell them.”
“Magic, I don’t understand what—”
“Tell them, Charlie.”
He translated. Hands covered mouths. The fire popped and smoked. If silence had weight, this was crushing.
Magee faced about in precise military fashion. He used his hands to make a parting motion. Those in front of him jumped up and shoved one another until a yard-wide lane was cleared. Magee summoned Charles to him with a bent finger. He gave Charles the old flintlock pistol and looked hard and earnestly into his eyes.
“When I say the word, I want you to shoot me.”
“What?”
Magee leaned up on tiptoe, his mouth next to Charles’s ear. “You want to get out of here? Do it.” He made a puckering sound, as if kissing the white man. Several Cheyennes giggled over the strange ways of the interlopers.
Magee snapped the brim of his derby down to snug it; the shadow bisected his nose. In the shadow, his eyes gleamed like discs of ivory. He took ten long strides, rapidly, along the cleared lane, his posture soldier-perfect. He stopped, knocking his heels together, at attention. He about-faced. He was standing a foot from a tipi with a great ragged hole in its side.
“Aim the pistol, Charlie.”
Christ, how could he?
“Charlie! Aim for the chest. Dead center.”
Charles felt the sweat crawling down into his beard. Whistling Snake leaped up, his fan flicking very fast. Red Bear rose too. Charles drew the hammer back. Magee’s shirt was taut over his ribs and belly. Charles’s arm trembled as he extended it. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—
Magic Magee said, “Now.”
He said it loudly, a command. Charles responded to the tone as much as to the word. He fired. Sparks glittered, the priming pan ignited, the pistol banged and kicked upward.
Charles saw a puff of dust, as if something had struck Magee’s chest three inches below the breastbone. Magee stepped back one long pace, staggering, closing his eyes, snapping his hands open, fingers shaking as if stiffened by a lightning charge. Then his arms fell to his sides. He opened his eyes. Whistling Snake’s fan hung at his side.
“Where is the bullet?” Whistling Snake cried. “Where did it strike?”
In a drill-ground voice, Magee said, “King Death is dead. You will answer our questions and release us without harm or I will bring back King Death, riding the winds of hail and fire, and this village will be finished.” He shouted, “Tell them.”
Charles translated quickly. Gray Owl’s guards had drifted away from him, as awed as he was. While Charles spit the words out, trying to make them as fierce as Magee’s, he scanned the trooper’s shirt. He saw no sign of a tear. Magee brushed his shirt off as if something had tickled him.
Red Bear listened to the threats and instantly said, “It shall be so.”
Whistling Snake screamed in protest. The sound broke the moment. The Cheyennes rushed forward to swarm around Magee, touch him, pat him, feel his black curls. Charles stared at the old flintlock pistol, felt the warm barrel. King Death was dead, and there through rifts in the surging, laughing crowd was the banner of his conqueror. The familiar huge white smile of Magee, the wizard.
Red Bear prepared a pipe while Gray Owl attended to the horses. Charles didn’t want the forgiving mood to fade, didn’t want to linger and possibly lose their advantage and their lives. Ceremony required that he sit at the fire with Red Bear, however. Magee sat on his right. The village chief and several of the tribal elders passed the pipe.
Red Bear had forced Whistling Snake to join the group. When his turn came he passed the pipe without smoking. He snatched a handful of ashes from the edge of the fire and flung them at Charles’s crossed legs. They covered his pants and the toes of his boots with gray powder. Red Bear exclaimed and berated the priest, who merely dusted his hands and folded his arms. Red Bear looked embarrassed, Gray Owl upset.
Since the ashes did no real damage, Charles forgot about it. Having finished his cigar, he was grateful for a deep lungful of pipe smoke, though as always, the unknown mixture of grasses the Cheyennes smoked left him light-headed and euphoric, not a good thing at a time like this.
Red Bear was not only polite but respectful. After asking Charles to describe again the white man he sought, he said, “Yes, we have seen that man, with a boy. At the whiskey ranch of Glyn the trader, on Vermilion Creek. Glyn is gone and they are staying there. I will tell you the way.”
He pointed south. Charles was so dizzy with relief, his eyes watered.
Silently, the People formed a long lane through which the three trotted out. Looking back, believing their luck would break any moment, Charles heard Gray Owl laugh deep in his chest. A single figure remained by the campfire, apart from the others. Charles saw Whistling Snake raise his golden feather fan and disdainfully walk away.
They put miles and all of the rest of the night behind them before Charles permitted a stop. Spent men and spent horses rested on the prairie in the cool dawn. Charles knelt beside his black friend.
“All right, I know you don’t tell your secrets, but this is one time you will. How did you do it?”
Magee chuckled and produced the handcarved wooden box. He removed one of the round gray balls and displayed it sportively, just out of Charles’s reach. “An old traveling magician taught me the
trick back in Chicago. Always wanted to do it for an audience, but till this winter I couldn’t afford the right pistol. Saved my pay for it. First thing I did was to short the powder. You never saw it because everybody looked down for a few seconds when I pretended a bug bit me. A little misdirection. But that’s only half of it. The trick won’t work without this.”
“That’s a solid ball of lead.”
Magee dug his thumbnail with its great cream-colored half-moon into the pistol ball. The nail easily cracked the surface of the ball. “No, it isn’t solid, it’s melted lead brushed all over something else.”
He caught the ball between his palms and rubbed them hard back and forth. He showed the crushed remains, tawny dust. “The rest is just good old Kansas mud. Hard enough to build a house, but not hardly hard enough to kill a man.”
He blew on his palm. The dust scattered against the sun and pattered on the ground. He laughed.
“What d’you say we ride and find your boy?”
An hour later, Charles remembered to ask about the ashes on his boots. Gray Owl immediately lost his air of good humor. With a grieved expression, he rode a few moments before he answered.
“It is a curse. As the ashes touch you, so will failure and death.”
60
THIS TIME THEY RODE in swiftly from the river road. They were less concerned with noise than with surprise. A dozen blacks who belonged to the district militia lived at Mont Royal, scattered over the acreage in wood shanties or little tabby houses. The less time given them to wake up and come running with their old muskets or rifles, the better. That was the agreed strategy when the Klansmen mustered at the crossroads, and they followed it.
Bits jingled and saddles creaked and hooves rap-rapped the sandy road as they neared the whitewashed house with the beams and rafters of a much larger, two-floor structure rising near it. The roof beams were slanting black lines across the stars and the quarter moon. Passing from under the heavy trees, the Klansmen trotted along the road to the old slave quarters. The silvery light of the sky gave a sheen to their robes and hoods. A short distance ahead, on the right, they saw the lighted windows of the school, and people moving inside. All the better.
Riding beside Gettys at the head of the column, Des LaMotte felt a blessed calm descend. This was like a homecoming; like the docking of a vessel after a long and uncertain sea voyage. This night would finish it.
The other Klansmen were equally confident. One spoke to another, jocular; the listener laughed.
Pistols slipped out from underneath robes. Hammers clicked back. A rifle muzzle shimmered as the metal caught the moon’s light. Des kept his hands free. He was in command, and his was the privilege of putting a match to the fuse of the dynamite.
“You ladies about through?” Andy said, yawning rather than speaking it. “Must be close on to eleven.” He was sitting on a small desk with iron legs which was pushed into a corner beside others like it. His back was braced against the new blackboard. One of the volumes of his set of Kent’s Commentaries lay across his lap; he’d been underlining lightly with a pencil.
Fifteen minutes ago, he’d walked over from the cottage to collect Jane. She and Prudence and Madeline and a thin golden-colored eleven-year-old named Esau had spent the evening finishing the cleaning of the school—washing the sparkling new windows Andy had puttied in night before last, scouring the floor. Madeline and Jane used soapy rags but Prudence, as if somehow purifying herself by making the task harder, scrubbed in the old primitive way of the Low Country, with a handful of moss dipped in water.
“It feels later than that.” Madeline straightened, stiff and chilly. Her wine-colored skirt was soaked around the hem. She dropped her rag in a wood bucket. The windows gleamed with reflections of two lamps burning on stools. “We’re done. We can put the furniture back tomorrow.”
“Esau, you were kind to help,” Jane said, patting him. “But it’s too late for a boy your age to be awake. Andy and I will walk you home.”
“I wanted to help,” the boy said. “It’s my school.”
Madeline smiled, twisting a strand of gray hair away from her forehead and tucking it in so it wouldn’t fall again. She was spent, but it was not an unpleasant feeling. All evening they’d worked in the relaxed, easy way of good friends, and now the school was freshly whitewashed and cleaned of the eternal mildew of the Low Country—ready for the visitors from Connecticut.
She bent to pick up the bucket. Her glance fell across the front window, bright with reflections of the lamps. Behind them, something red shimmered. Instantly, she knew who was out there.
She had time only to say, “They’ve come.” A shotgun blew out the front window. One of the pellets flicked Madeline’s sleeve as she flung herself against the wall by the front door. Flying glass opened a cut in the cheek of the bewildered Esau. Prudence heaved to her feet, the clump of moss dripping water on the floor so carefully scrubbed and dried.
Madeline heard horses, and men shouting the word nigger, and she knew her sense of peace had been false. She heard a man say, “Light the dynamite.”
“Oh my God,” Jane said.
Andy flung his book aside. “Somebody’s got to go wake the militiamen. Miss Madeline, you take the others out the back, and I’ll do it.”
Her voice cracking, Jane said, “No, you don’t dare. They’re right outside.”
“I’ll run in the trees beside the road. Stop talking. Move.” He shoved them, first Madeline, then Prudence, who was still breathing hard from the work; she was too stout to run far. Madeline signaled Esau to her side, pulled him against her skirt, and cradled his head with her hand. She could feel him trembling.
“Come on out, niggers. You stay in there, you’re going to die.”
Madeline recognized the voice of Gettys. Andy flung the globe at the side window, breaking it. The distraction drew a volley of fire on that side of the building. Andy used the cover of the noise to break the back window with his lawbook. He pushed Madeline again. “Hurry up!”
Jane hung behind, tears tracking down her cheeks. She knew what might happen if he ran for help. Her dark eyes begged him silently. His refused her. He gave her a swift kiss on her cheek and said his parting words:
“Don’t forget I love you. Now go on.”
Madeline climbed through the window. Then Prudence lifted Esau through the jagged opening, and Madeline lowered him to the ground. Andy jumped through the side window and ran into the dark, arms pumping.
A Klansman yelled, “There goes one.” Horses whinnied. At least two went pounding in pursuit. The sound of three gunshots rolled back through the night, overlapping, reverberating. Jane had just jumped to the ground after Prudence. She gave one terrible short scream of grief and pain. She knew he was dead.
“The dynamite,” someone shouted in front.
“Lit,” someone else yelled. Something thumped inside and rolled on the floor. Above the glass sawtooths in the lower window frame, a snaky line of smoke rose.
Madeline pushed Prudence and dragged Esau. “Get away from the building. Run.”
“Which way?” Prudence gasped.
“Straight ahead,” Madeline said, pulling the boy. Straight ahead lay a heavy belt of water oaks with spiny yucca growing between. If they could break through that, they’d reach the marsh. The path across was solid but narrow; difficult to find and follow even in daylight. It would take luck and the bright moon for a successful escape.
“Hold hands,” she said, groping and finding Prudence’s pudgy fingers, cold and damp with her fear. With her other hand, Madeline hurried Esau into the darkness that rose like a wall behind the school.
Low-growing yuccas stabbed her legs. Spanish moss caressed her face like threatening hands. She saw nothing ahead, no light-glossed waters of the marsh. She’d forgotten how thick and deep the woods were.
Esau began to cry. Behind them, a fiery cavern opened in the night, spilling red light over them. They felt the concussion as the dynamite blew the school
walls outward and the roof upward. Madeline saw half a desk sail up through the fiery glare as if it were the lightest of balloons. They ran on, hearing the triumphant yells and hoots of the Klansmen.
Madeline ran faster. A pain spread outward from the center of her breasts as she breathed with greater and greater difficulty. The school was gone. Andy was gone. Prudence was weeping. “I can’t go any faster, I can’t.”
“If you don’t we’ll all die.” With a surge of effort, Madeline ran through a patch of burrs that ripped her hem and scraped her ankles like tiny spurs. But they were through the trees—through and standing in shallow water with the moonlit salt marsh spread before them.
She pushed a fist into her breast, trying to stop the pain. She scanned the marsh, searching for the path over to Summerton. She’d taken it often, but always in daylight, and now, badly scared, she had trouble remembering where it was. The moon-dazzle on the water and the reed thickets confused her all the more.
“They’re coming,” Jane whispered. Madeline heard them.
“This way.” She started across a muddy space, praying her memory wouldn’t mislead her.
Two dismounted Klansmen dragged Andy’s body from the dark to the firelight. The back of his head was gone, and his shirt was soaked dark red from collar to waist. Des looked at the body, then snatched off his hood as he ran around the burning ruins of the school.
“I saw them run into the trees.” He waved in that direction with his old four-pound Walker Colt.
“I’ll come with you,” Gettys said from behind his hood. His soft white gentleman’s hands looked incongruous clutching a shiny pump gun.
“You stay here and take charge of the others. Some of those nigger militia boys may show up. If you have to retreat, disband and scatter.”
“Des”—Gettys whined it like a child denied a toy—“I’ve waited nearly as long as you to exterminate that mongrel woman. I’ve just as much right—”
Des jammed the old Walker’s muzzle under Gettys’s chin, twisting the fabric of his hood. “You have no rights. I’m in charge.” He had to hurry; the white was flickering at the borders of his mind. He didn’t want another spell to knock him out and cheat him of success. And there was Tillman’s warning.