Bats of the Republic

by Zachary Thomas Dodson

  We must know where we have been. If we cannot see our own patterns, then we are nothing but a mindless flock of birds flapping blindly in the night, scraping and pecking in the dust.

  18/6/43

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  Dearest Elswyth,

  Last night I called on you to make a proper goodbye. I should not have left my visit till the final hour, for when your Aunt Anne showed me to your chambers you were asleep, having endured another bleeding. I tried to rouse you a little and you waved me away with a limp and delicate hand. I could not very well deliver my news for you in your weakened state. I care for your constitution above all else.

  I am going away, to Texas, on a special errand of your father’s.

  The payment for this errand shall afford a wedding that befits you. I cannot deny you the finery you are accustomed to. Your beauty will be augmented by beautiful things. You must remain brave, and steel yourself, as though I were going off to war. Hardly had the truth of our separation set in, when a desperate longing was born in my heart.

  I must confess, I took a keepsake. Something of you to bring with me on my journey. The blood pan was at your bedside, and I had some of my specimen kit, so I captured a single heartbeat’s worth of your lifeblood in a small phial. I hope you will forgive me, I cannot bear the thought of being wholly without you.

  Afterward, lying in bed and listening to the call of the whip-poor-will outside, something moved in me. The idea formed to compose to you a series of letters as I go on my adventure. Though I will not send this one till I am gone, preparation is an auspicious beginning.

  Perhaps it would have been too difficult to say goodbye. I leave many things unfinished. I have not prepared the study skins of all the birds I wanted to this season (only thirty-four). And I have not repaired the museum’s insect cabinet, as I ought to have done, as I’ve recently discovered live moths inside, eating the specimens.

  Instead I busy myself packing. I intend to act as official naturalist of this expedition. I imagine myself returning with fantastic specimens, and great things in store for my future as a respected collector and adventurer. I might make a real profession of this study, rather than simply assisting your father with his cabinets of winged curiosities. I mentioned to him that there might be some as yet undiscovered birds in the wild territory, but he would not loan me the necessary instruments for documentation. No matter, there is nothing that prevents me from bringing my own jars and drawing pad.

  I have also packed my mapmaking apparatus. My skills at reading the stars should save me from being lost, and I have the idea that a map, made of the fresh territory I inhabit, would be of great value to some surveying company or government office.

  Finally, on the very top of my pack rests my mission’s cause. Your father’s letter for General Irion. Written upon the front is the phrase “DO NOT OPEN,” which does not exactly strike a tone of trust. But I would never pry. This delivery is of the utmost importance to your father, and I shall prove myself true.

  Buell found me assembling my kit, and heard tell of my new task with not a little jealousy. He has always been the favored employee. So I was surprised, then, that he gifted me one of his sabres. Even though he has many, it was a kind gesture. You may find some comfort in the fact that I have such a weapon, though you should know I intend for it to remained sheathed for the duration of my trip.

  This morning I was paid a farewell visit by Aunt Anne. Your mother’s sister knew much about the journey already. She took the phial of your blood and added to it some elixir meant to strengthen its liquid properties and keep it from hardening. She is quite the alchemist.

  I must admit Aunt Anne has become not only my confidante but also adviser in love. I told her that I am loath to leave you, but we both know my courting has run its course. To be a new man is my best hope.

  She was insistent on reading my tea leaves one last time. She produced her grandmother’s Lowestoft tea set, a beautiful porcelain with flitting birds. She pricked my finger and made the tea in the customary way. We both drank, and in the wet leaves at the bottom of my cup I discerned a mountain, upside down. Aunt Anne sat in a long silence, watching the birds trace life lines in the sky above. Her ability to sit while allowing her soul to travel and commune with other such souls is miraculous indeed. She and all her Sisters share the oracular gifts of the Auspex, for better or worse it is hard to say.

  When the prognostications were all told I rather wished I had refused the oracle. Aunt Anne was convinced I faced a journey full of hindrance and spiritual danger. But it is already known that Texas is no land of milk and honey. A single bat fluttered from her doorway as I departed. I cannot put much stock in the tea leaves, though. All my thoughts have the pain of being away from you at their center.

  We are born and live the full thread the fates have trimmed for us and then we are gone, absorbed into the great darkened sky of the past and forgotten completely. Some men have legacies. Stars that remain bright. But how to become such a man? I know little of my great-grandfather, and if we marry and have children of our own, what will their offspring know of me? I would be content to be even a small star in the vast and churning night, an asterisk in the history of man.

  Darwin and Audubon will be known as long as the heavens spin above. Think on the generations unborn who will say their names, while ordinary men like myself will be subsumed in the great sand dunes of generations that have lived and died. Though my body will turn to dust, I might turn my thoughts into paper, and keep hope.

  All the more reason to write my adventures to you, now that it seems as though the fates have something in store for me. I am your servant in this, as in all things.

  Per your father’s orders, I am to join the troop of Major McMarrow. The steamboat for St. Louis is already being prepared. It feels as though to-morrow morning will never come, yet could not come soon enough.

  Regretfully Departing, Zadock

  17/6/43

  Packing list

  Letter for General Irion

  Clothing bag, Boots

  Roborant

  Letter of introduction to McMarrow

  Specimen case

  Tubes for collection

  Nets, dredges, killing jars

  Cyanide, blow drill, glass plates

  Field glasses

  Compass, Telescope, Sextant, Vernier

  Sabre from Buell

  Blanket roll

  Phial of Elswyth’s blood

  Ink Formula

  Copperas & Tannic Acid - A Teaspoon of each

  Gum Arabic - a Pinch

  Rainwater - a Pint

  FAM. EMBERIZIDAE

  GEN. MELOSPIZA

  FAM. EMBERIZIDAE

  GEN. POOECETES

  4/7/43

  FRANKLIN, MISSOURI

  Dearest Elswyth,

  I am on my way now, and this is the first chance I’ve had to write. I think of you constantly. I am so far from home. Five days hence we traveled to Joliet, observing the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. If it had been opened, we could have reached the Missouri by way of Lake Michigan. As it was, we had to travel by land for many days before we could join the river. There are great flocks of passenger pigeons here, so many to a flock that they blot out the sky.

  Once we arrived we met the steamboat. It is a beautiful machine. The bow lifts up out of the water like the neck of a great white goose with his head held high, the deck carried between the wings on his back. A gush of white churning water issues from behind the stern, trailing violently. Just as the goose’s great paddle feet churn underneath the surface of a calm lake, so too is the machinery of the boat concealed underneath. The effect is perfect. We began the descent of the Illinois River on Tuesday, and made for St. Louis.

  The first night, I presented myself and my letter of introduction. I was invited to the captain’s table for supper that very afternoon. I quickly changed in my quarters, though my attire was still not entirely suitable. Nervous tha
t I might prove inadequate, I wore my sword. I felt flash with the silver sabre cracking my shins.

  The guests around the table were distinguished indeed. The first I met was an enterprising Mexican trader by the name of Rodriguez. He had a slight accent and a formal manner, but I liked him immediately. There was a garrulous historian who bragged to us of his Socialist cause and magazine. Rodriguez deftly put him in his place.

  Also present is Major McMarrow, with whom your father has arranged for me to travel all the way to Texas. He seems a serious man, perhaps fifty years of age, with thin lips and darkly ringed eyes. He first asked after my occupation and health. He looked upon me as a general would an unfit soldier. Glancing at my sabre, he grumpily suggested I might put away my appetite for blood during a civilized dinner. I was ashamed and had to leave the table quickly to secure the sabre back in my quarters. He must concern himself with appearances as he changed his entire uniform during the course of the evening.

  Yesterday Rodriguez told me of a legend that accompanies Major McMarrow. Some years back, he led his troops into a battle in the unorganized territory. Though outnumbered, he was so confident his men would win that he sat reading a book in the saddle, while the battlefield steamed with violence all about him. It was nearly over when some opposing soldier fired at him, dead straight. The musket ball pierced all the pages of his book, coming through the very sentence he was reading, but at such a reduced speed that it bounced harmlessly off his chest. The book is credited with saving his life.

  This would all seem fantastical if McMarrow’s cargo wasn’t also strange: a large cage covered in cloth, which bleats plaintively. Rodriguez thinks it contains a sacred goat. McMarrow will say nothing on the matter. Others on the boat have taken notice, and not kindly.

  We are traveling to meet a small unit of soldiers at Fort Osage whose colonel was killed by sickness. McMarrow says protecting me is incidental, as his orders are to escort Mexican and American traders such as Rodriguez along the Santa Fe Trail. I took his statement to mean I should not reveal his arrangement with your father.

  Each night, as always, I kiss the phial of your lifeblood. It is worn against my chest, always next to my beating heart. I hope that the doctor has not had to let any more of your precious blood, and that the summer’s fever has not returned to anguish you further.

  The steamer will remain here at Franklin two or three days to have repairs done, and then we are meant to take back up the river. McMarrow has expressed dissatisfaction with the delay and the captaining of the steamer. This river is not the broad Illinois. We have been pressed by the currents upon numerous planters, sandbars, and snags. It requires considerable effort to extricate ourselves once grounded. The trials attendant upon the piloting of a steamboat on the Missouri are numerous, and I do not envy the captain his position.

  This evening I stood silently and looked south, with the setting sun on my right hand. The eventide star, Venus, was sole representative of the wandering stars on this night. She was accompanied by Cygnus, a pet asterism, the tail of Deneb dipping toward the water as though he were diving for a catch. I thought of you in the yard with your father’s geese. The tips of houses, buttressed by spruces and bare spots of hill, were silhouetted neatly against the sky.

  Did you know I thought of marrying you the first day I met you? Aunt Anne had answered the door and told me Mr. Gray might be found in his office, for my interview. Searching for your father’s office, I wandered from finely appointed room to room, entering each with held breath. I was dampening my finest with anxious sweat when I stumbled upon you reading in a drawing room. A winking sun through the window draped dappled light about your shoulders. The moment I saw you, it was as though the sunlight had framed for me my fate.

  Do you remember? You marked my presence and held up a delicate hand, fixing me in the doorway. You finished a paragraph in your book and, deftly marking your place with a ribbon, rose with a sigh. You bade me follow and led me down the polished wooden halls to your father’s office. You disappeared from sight after that, but never again from my mind. I long for a letter from you, but have had none.

  In St. Louis, McMarrow surprised me by asking to see the letter your father gave me. I did not know how to refuse. He took it to his quarters for an hour and then returned with it unopened. I was much relieved to see that it remained sealed, but the anxiety that hour gave me has led me to vow that I will never again part with it for any cause.

  He spoke openly of my errand to seek General Edwin ‘Speed’ Irion. I had thought my mission secret. McMarrow said that the unit he is to command was ordered by the secretary of war to attend to Irion’s encampment on the remote Texian-Mexican border. This is his primary objective, my goals matter little. Your father knew of his orders and paid him a handsome sum to allow for my passage with them.

  McMarrow now proposes to leave the steamboat behind and perform a pedestrian tour to Fort Osage. I will make a map for you. Given the considerable bend that the boat must navigate, he believes we can arrive before her. This he told myself and Rodriguez tonight in the hall, after we had all dined and partaken of the rough grain alcohol that is all that can be got here. Rodriguez thought it foolish to leave the boat, swift as it is, but agreed to McMarrow’s plan. The Major was red in the face, and it seemed unwise to resist him.

  Only tell your father that I am well and progressing. The journey’s difficulties are between you and me. Also give my fondest to your sister. Read her any parts of my letter appropriate for her amusement. I would guess her introduction to society draws nearer and soon I expect the Gray household will receive a long line of young men with silver pinned to their chests or else lining their pockets. I hope she has the good sense to wait for true love. She is young for fourteen.

  Aunt Anne will be a good guide in that, as in all things. Please give my love to her, and tell her that much of what she had seen has already come to be. The fates keep few secrets from her. Also: scratches for the belly of your fine hound. I miss him more than I would have imagined.

  Tonight I will lie out on the deck of the steamer for one last look at the stars reflected in the black water. The Dog Star and its attendant heat burn brightly these summer nights. As he trails after Orion’s footsteps, so do I, with the aim of following that far lone star all the way back home before snaking Scorpius begins his wintry nipping at the hero’s heels. Home, where my heart lies in wait.

  With eternal and undying Love, yours,

  Zadock Thomas

  ∧∧ Zeke rolled over on his floor mat. The room was empty white. Eliza had drawn the shade up to let in the morning half-light. ∧∧ “I’m so glad you’re Khrysalis,” she said. ∧∧ “I haven’t accepted yet. But why fight the fates, I guess.” ∧∧ She kissed him and said, “Bye forever.” He signaled Bye. ∧∧ He had brought the letter home to Texas. It was in the pocket of his grandfather’s shirt, in the closet. He could have asked Eliza to take it down to the Vault to be carbon’d. They’d gladly accept it still sealed. But something stopped him from telling her about it. He reached out from under the covers and pulled the shade all the way down. ∧∧ ∧∧ Eliza had been a sickly child. Doctors often came and took her to the infirmary. When she was pulled away from her father, she’d turn and tell him “Bye forever.” She was only seven. She loved to watch her father’s eyes go wide, to trigger that fear. As the doctors wheeled her sickbed from the visitation rooms she’d say “Bye forever” and laugh. ∧∧ ∧∧ But then her father was suddenly gone, before the lifephase was over. He never came back. Eliza didn’t know why. ∧∧ ∧∧ Her mother had died just a few years before. The lifephase system was not made for anomalies. The seven cities were modified for specific stages of life: childhood, courting, marriage, parenting, and old age. Eliza was prematurely moved from the City of Tin, where she and her parents had lived, to the childhood city, Montana-Land. She was given the last name “Gray,” that of orphans. There were more doctors and supervisors there. She clung to her sickbed and cried. But it m
ade no difference. She had to grow up quickly. She learned to follow the rules, to stay in control. ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ Now Eliza said “Bye forever” all the time. She needed to believe the phrase held no real power. ∧∧ ∧∧ It made Zeke’s heart leap, just a little, every time. The room was still without her. Zeke’s eyes fixed on a seam in the metal wall, perfectly machined. Two unmovable panels of silver-plated iron curved under and met each other with tectonic pressure. He put his finger on the seam and stared. The walls were thick enough for someone to stand inside. ∧∧ ∧∧ Zeke traced the seam up past his head. He let his body follow his finger, and stood to trace the seam all the way around the wall of the bedroom. He kicked through a pile of neatly folded shirts in the corner. He’d have to pick them up later. The small units were hard to keep neat. He angled into his boots while keeping his finger on the line. He followed it around the corner, through the door, out into the livingroom. ∧∧ ∧∧ The seam ringed the entire inside wall. Zeke couldn’t imagine how it was made. The plates were fastened from the inside, so there had to be another seam somewhere. A door, a screw to turn, something that would allow one plate to be affixed to another. It was too perfect. ∧∧ ∧∧ He kept his finger on the seam as he climbed over the sofa, around the small end table. The sun lit whorls of lazy dust in his wake. In the kitchen, he saw that Eliza had made his usual breakfast tea. It was mixed with fount-water, which provided all the sustenance and nutrients necessary for survival in the city-state. ∧∧ ∧∧ He reached the front door and pushed against its solid wood with his shoulder. The seam didn’t stop at the door frame. He stepped out into the static morning, blinking, in his nightclothes and boots. ∧∧ ∧∧ It was quiet. The air was the same temperature as Zeke’s skin. It felt like nothing. The Washers had come last night to scrub all the dust from the buildings. The units lined his block like squat molars, struck sharp white in the sun. They would soon be dirtied again. The weather pylons just outside of the barrier kept out the storms and rain, but they couldn’t keep out the dust. ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ He continued around the outside of the unit. The morning light was blinding. He closed his eyes and let his finger guide him along the gently curved wall. He knew the building well. The whole block, even. The seam was the same on the exterior. The metal plate arched up to meet a glimmering cluster of porcelain pressure valves on the roof. They topped each unit like a metal crown on a bone-colored tooth. The streets zagged around him in a honeycomb grid. ∧∧ ∧∧ Zeke’s wall blended into his neighbors’ and his seam became theirs. He followed it. A lone steamcarrier clanked down the street. He looked at the splintered wooden plankways under his feet, new and already crumbling. The buildings in this quadrant had three units, which each housed a pair like him and Eliza. The singles lived in another neighborhood. Most left in the morning to work in the industrial quadrant: the great steamworks or laundry facilities. As a Khrysalis, Zeke’s life was privileged. He stayed home and read. Even though he no longer wanted the Senate seat. He didn’t know what it meant. ∧∧ My uses for meaning have somehow died, he wrote with his finger, over the seam. ∧∧ ∧∧ Recently he had checked out a large illustrated birding book from the Vault. It was old, with hand-colored illustrations that seemed almost alive. His favorite part was a section on migration. Birds of all sorts—geese, storks, black-necked grebes—all flew huge distances over mountain ranges and open prairies. Flocks big enough to black out the sky. It sounded impossible to Zeke. Fighting to stay aloft over such great distances. The effort of it sapping the lives of the weaker birds. He imagined the moment of failure, mid-flight, a finished bird falling from the sky like a small white stone. Zeke wanted to know what it looked like. Birds didn’t fly over the city-states. The weather pylons kept them out. ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ He traced the seam to his neighbors’ front door. It ended there. His mission was pointless. He walked back to his door, glancing up at the city clock clicking in the slanting light. It was late morning and he was outside, dressed in nightclothes, walking in circles around his unit. It was hard to tell if there were Recorders in the watchposts, but if there were his behavior would definitely be noted. ∧∧ ∧∧ He considered following the seam back to bed. Coming around the curve, he stopped short. ∧∧ There was a Lawman at his door. His thin red mouth frowned above a brown uniform. The dark rings of a laudanum user hung beneath his pebble eyes. ∧∧ “Zeke Thomas?” ∧∧ “Yeah?” ∧∧ “This is a recorded conversation.” The Lawman pointed his thumb at the watchpost over his shoulder. It was the one Zeke had smashed with his sabre. ∧∧ They had found out he cut the power lines, Zeke thought. This conversation would be typed out by a Recorder sitting up in the watchpost, hooked by semaphore lines to a carbon copier in the Vault of Records, printing out every word of his confession in triplicate. ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ “Understood.” Zeke wondered if the jail was built with the same metal walls as his unit. ∧∧ ∧∧ “Identification papers?” ∧∧ “They’re inside.” The Lawman frowned at Zeke’s nightclothes. “I’ll get them for you.” ∧∧ “Murderer on the loose, can’t be too careful.” The Lawman pushed past Zeke into his unit. He began lifting cushions and opening drawers. ∧∧ ∧∧ Clenching his jaw, Zeke retrieved his identification papers from the desk drawer. The Lawman glanced at them. They disappeared into his uniform pocket, decorated with high-rank insignias. ∧∧ “Major Daxon, Republic of Texas.” He flashed a silver badge. “We received a report of an uncarbon’d document in the files of Zacharyh Thomas. You’ve got the inheritance bundle. We’re opening a thread.” ∧∧ The Major slammed the cupboards, each echoing loudly. Zeke thought of the letter, resting unopened in his grandfather’s shirt pocket. The Law knew about it after all. If he turned it over, the Major would probably rip it open on the spot. ∧∧ ∧∧ “My bundle had lots of his letters. But they’ve all been carbon’d,” Zeke said. ∧∧ The Major searched the unit in a lazy, disdainful way. Zeke couldn’t tell if he thought the task beneath his standing or if he knew Zeke was lying. He looked up Zeke’s ventilation pipe, above the steam heater. ∧∧ ∧∧ “You got a license for that thing?” Major Daxon pointed to the sabre on the mantel. ∧∧ “You’re the record keeper.” ∧∧ The Major picked up the phonotube and peered down it. The watchposts had hollow tubes into all the units. The Recorders could hear everything, indoors or out. ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ “What’s this?” The Major pulled a small dropper of laudanum out of Zeke’s bottom desk drawer. ∧∧ ∧∧ Zeke stared. ∧∧ The Major slipped it into the front pocket of his vest. “That might go in your thread.” He was careful not to say aloud what he had found. The Recorders would hear and he’d have to report it. ∧∧ “I have no letter. The file needs to be corrected. As Khrysalis, I order it.” ∧∧ ∧∧ “Hh. That’s not official. And no one is above the Law as long as I’m the Major of Texas.” He grunted. “I don’t have time for this. I’ve got a loose animal on my hands.” ∧∧ “An animal?” ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ “A monster…I mean, a man. An evil bloody killer. Unless you want to implicate someone else, you must produce the letter. You’ve got a fortnight.” His face twitching, he pulled a paper receipt from his vest. “Turn it in by October 24 or you’re looking at the cell.” Major Daxon dropped the receipt. It fluttered to the floor. He walked out of Zeke’s unit, leaving the door open, the cupboards open, the drawers open. ∧∧ Zeke closed the door and started to pick things up. Then he remembered the letter and rushed back into the bedroom. It was still there. ∧∧ He took Eliza’s sewing kit from her bureau. He cut the front pocket off the shirt. He threaded a needle with green thread. Then, turning the shirt inside out, he sewed the pocket to the inside of the shirt. He slipped the letter inside and sewed the top of the pocket closed. The green thread made a little zigzag pattern on the outside of his shirt, but he’d be wearing a jacket this time of year anyway. He carefully reassembled Eliza’s sewing kit. ∧∧ A Khrysalis wasn’t told the secrets of the nation until he entered the Senate. Zeke had never had a secret of his own. It was hard to know how to hold it. ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ �
�∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ ∧∧ When the phonotube rang, he jumped. ∧∧