Homeland

by John Jakes

  “Naw, not me. See you in the morning.”

  “In the morning. Try to get a little sleep, will you?”

  The answer was the tap-tap of Julius’s shoes on the wooden stair. At the bottom he called out, “Oh, I forgot. We’ll meet at the regular starting time.”

  “The regular time.” Joe Junior waved. Julius was quickly gone in the dark that lay on the road.

  He went inside and shut the door against the chill. The gas mantles were trimmed low. Ehling had gone to bed. The kitchen was cleaned up. It was so still, he could hear faint wind outside. He trudged up the narrow stair. No light showed beneath Anna’s closed door.

  She wasn’t in her room, she was in the attic, in his narrow cot, under a down comforter and a wool blanket, naked. She turned the brass key and extinguished the oil lamp he used for reading. Not a word passed between them before they made love.

  Anna had thick, strong legs. She clasped them high around his waist with a power and urgency entirely new. She bit his lip and flung herself up against him in rising rhythm, as if to show him what he was throwing away by his decision to go with the others.

  Her white-blonde hair was undone and got tangled between their mouths as they kissed. Her face was wet with salty tears he tasted when he kissed her eyes. Her climax was long, with loud sounds he’d never heard from her; as if she was in beautiful pain.

  When their bodies were cooling and they snuggled together, his muscular arm around her shoulders, her head tucked in the hollow of his neck, she made her last plea, as Abel Grover had done to Julius:

  “Joey, I love you, don’t go down there in the morning. I told you about Daniel Ivars, one of the ringleaders the last time they tried to organize. They kicked and beat him, then they lifted him over a saw blade and lowered him down. They knew just how to do it, so it’d hurt the most. He lay bleeding and screaming the rest of the workday and no one dared stop and help him, or run for a doctor, Grover forbade it, no doctor could set foot on company property without his permission. Daniel Ivars bled to death around four in the afternoon. Like all the rest, his widow got nothing from the company.”

  Her hands were at his face, each caress another plea: “They might do something that awful to you. Don’t go.”

  “I have to, Anna. I have to go.”

  “Oh God, oh God, I love you so, you crazy stupid man.”

  She slept with him until around three in the morning. Each was restless; now and again she’d seize him and hug him. She was a fine woman. He wished he loved her as much as a man should love a wife. He loved his work more. Or it needed him more, perhaps that was a better way to put it.

  She stole out of the attic while it was still dark, so old Ehling or Thor wouldn’t discover her moral lapse—as if they didn’t suspect already. At 6:15, warmly dressed in a gray wool cap and a mackinaw of green and black plaid, he quietly left the house.

  He went down the porch stairs to the vine maple and there breathed deeply before he stepped into the road. The sun was still behind the mountains. But there was enough light to see the layout of the town. There was enough light for him to find his way down to the Smiley Shingle Company.

  97

  Dutch

  ON THE LAST MONDAY in May, the thirtieth, the hotel was full of talk about a Jewish pawnbroker found murdered in his shop. Police were investigating. The Tampa Times suspected “someone from the gambling and saloon crowd which has followed the Army to our city like the biblical plagues of yore. It is also possible the culprit belongs to a certain bad element in the Army itself, notably the aggressive colored men.”

  Late in the morning, Paul left Jimmy idling at the hotel and again walked across the river with a small wooden crate containing two more magazines. He feared the colonel would find most of the footage dull. There were the now familiar scenes of soldiers drilling, playing ball, erecting tents, scouring mess kits. Most of the rest was scenic material. Sailboats in the Bay. Palms swaying in sea breezes. Some of the local beauties, who were not so beautiful, tossing a beach ball and frolicking in their neck-to-ankle bathing costumes. There was only one sequence Paul considered unusual and exciting—a demonstration of one of the four rapid-fire Gatling guns that would be taken to Cuba.

  Several correspondents had gone out to the beach to watch the demonstration, including Sylvanus Peterman, the humorless jingo whom Crane had christened “the worst of Hearst.” Crane himself showed up a few minutes later, slack-jawed and sleepy, wearing jeans pants and a sweated-out shirt of red silk. He greeted Paul with the animation of a hospital patient.

  Billy Bitzer was setting up a few yards from Paul and Jimmy, William Paley and his assistant an equal distance in the other direction. Shirtless, Bitzer hailed Paul with a smile and a wave. Paley took no notice of his colleagues. He wore a suit black and heavy as an undertaker’s. Sweat dripped from his haggard face.

  Davis wasn’t present, so of the reporters, Michael Radcliffe was the sartorial king. The temperature was near ninety, but Michael looked perfectly cool in his spotless white linen suit, colorfully striped scarf cravat and white felt homburg. His knob-headed stick was tucked under his arm. Michael shook Paul’s hand, and Jimmy’s when Paul introduced them. “Swell-looking suit,” Jimmy said with a grin. “Cost much?”

  “Enough.” Michael had an immediate and negative reaction to Jimmy, Paul saw.

  As the young men readied their camera, the Gatling gun arrived, pulled by artillery horses. The gun had a crank and a ring of ten rifle barrels mounted around an axle. The crank, sights, and loading hopper were protected by an iron shield above the gun mount, and by a smaller iron apron below.

  “Ever seen one of these?” Michael asked. They said they hadn’t. “The gun was developed by Mr. Lincoln’s minions during the American Civil War. Of course you know war departments. They move with the speed of mastodons. Takes them only a century or so to decide a weapon is useful and should be widely adopted.”

  Jimmy wandered away to adjust the tripod of the Luxograph. Michael continued to his remaining listener. “Do you recall my telling you I paid to experience jolts of electricity at the Prater in Vienna? How I felt the apocalypse through my hands that day? I had a similar, equally powerful reaction the first time I saw one of these guns operating. Science is piously promising to fill man’s horn of plenty in the next century, but I’ll tell you what it’s really doing. It’s opening the gates of hell.”

  Smiling balefully, he strolled off to a patch of shade.

  Noncoms led the horses away, unchained the limber from the gun’s trail, then wheeled the gun so that it would fire almost due north along the beach. The target was a coconut palm just above the high-tide line. The tree tilted steeply toward the water, its fronds almost directly above the breaking surf.

  The reporters and three cameras were ranged in a semi-circle on the shore side of the gun. A young first lieutenant of infantry stepped in front of the gathering.

  “Gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. Lieutenant John Henry Parker, 13th Infantry. General Shafter has placed me in command of the Gatling Gun Detachment going to Cuba, presumably because I learned a little something about artillery at West Point.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled self-deprecatingly.

  “There have been several modifications to the gun since it was invented by Dr. R. J. Gatling, a physician, in 1862. This particular gun is the 1895 model, the latest. So long as the crank is turning, the ammunition hopper is kept full and no round jams, the piece will fire continuously. The recommended rate is six hundred rounds per minute, though the gun is capable of even faster speeds.” Jimmy let out a long, two-note whistle.

  “The gun employs a gravity feed of the Bruce type. During the demonstration you will see that the rounds go directly from the box into the loading hopper. I should also point out this cross-hair sight on the left of the muzzle, and this pointing lever with which the gunners can accurately control the elevation and direction of fire. You gentlemen with cameras may start them if you wish, we are ready to beg
in.”

  Paul was already cranking. Paley had a problem and there was a five-minute delay. Bitzer lit a cigarette. Paul took a cigar stub from his shirt pocket and enjoyed it until Paley announced he was ready. Lieutenant Parker cracked out orders to his men, who suddenly moved quickly, ripping off box covers, dumping the contents, turning the crank. The barrels projecting through the shield began to revolve and stutter.

  The sound was unnerving; a deafening brrr that sent chills through Paul. The opening in the shield was large enough for the gun to move back and forth horizontally about fifteen degrees. While the barrels revolved, the bullets chewed across the trunk of the palm tree from left to right, right to left, back and forth, blowing bark chips and splinters in all directions. It seemed only seconds before Parker yelled “Cease fire!” and the gun stopped its deadly drumming. A silence crashed over the watchers, broken only by the sibilance of the surf. Then came a cracking and a grinding as the palm toppled into the blue water with a great loud splash. The trunk had been cut through at a height of about three feet. The splintered stump was smoking. Behind Paul, Jimmy said, “Jesus, ain’t that something? One guy could mow down a whole gang with that thing.”

  “Gentlemen, that completes the demonstration,” Lieutenant Parker announced. “If you have questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.”

  Paul checked the footage counter and capped the lens. Michael strolled over, swinging his stick. “There it is, chaps—the future. War is no longer a cricket match for a bunch of nice fellows whose mums taught them to be mannerly above all things.” Paul could agree. He’d never seen anything so destructive at short range.

  Sylvanus Peterman ran down the beach, rudely pushed another reporter aside, and crouched by the fallen tree. He caressed the splintered end of the broken trunk, moist-eyed with excitement. Jimmy walked up behind him, equally admiring of the damage done by the Gatling. “Couple of bloodthirsty sods, Peterman and your friend,” Michael remarked.

  “Jim’s my helper. I wouldn’t go so far as to use the other word.”

  At the freight office Paul filled out papers for another collect shipment. As he left the depot, Paley of the Eden Museé climbed down from his wagon with a box similar to his. Paul said hello. Paley didn’t reply, just threw him a hostile look as he rushed inside.

  A familiar tightness was building in Paul. He could relieve it by calling the grocery in Ybor City and asking Luisa’s whereabouts. Hot as it was, he decided to walk a while, hoping it might drain off some of his tension.

  On Franklin Street he bumped into Dick Davis coming out of the popular and expensive Maas Brothers dry goods store. In defiance of the weather, Davis was wearing his best professional costume—a dark blue coat and gray riding breeches tucked into polished black knee boots. His soft gray fedora had a white puggaree draped down in back. A case for field glasses hung on his right shoulder. He was carrying a gift box wrapped in foil paper. On his way to some fancy function, Paul assumed.

  Still, Davis had time to stop and give him a smile. “Hallo, Dutch. Surviving in this blasted town?”

  “Barely, Mr. Davis.”

  “We all feel that way. Worst place I’ve ever seen. Orange trees, sand fleas, and derelict houses in an ocean of sand. The locals won’t like the copy I’m writing about it.”

  “Is there any word on departure?”

  “Nothing. How’s your picture making?”

  “I’ve used up Tampa. I’m ready for Cuba.”

  “You and the rest of us. Take care.” He jumped into a waiting carriage. The black driver shook his long whip over the horse and the carriage rolled off. The expense account of the famed R.H.D. must be huge indeed.

  Paul walked aimlessly, with no destination. Soon he was on Pierce, headed north on the shady side. It was no cooler there. He bought a tin cup of lemonade from the bucket of one of the many street sellers. It tasted like sweet soup heated on a stove. God above, when would they get out of here?

  After ten or twelve blocks, he turned east, into an increasingly shabby section. Presently he was on Liberty, the western fringe of Ybor, biting off the end of a fresh cigar and thinking seriously of searching for Luisa at once. He was distracted by loud laughter from an alley between two stores, each with dual signage, English and Spanish. To the left was a Farmacia; on his right Quincalleria Jonas—Jonas hardware. At the drugstore hitch rail, a sorrel mare with a U.S. Army saddle was standing with her head down. Outside the hardware store tools pitted with corrosion stood in open barrels.

  In the shadowed alley, four soldiers in blue blouses were tossing a fifth into the air with a blanket. Paul had photographed blanket-tossing in the camps. He thought it a silly but harmless form of abuse of new recruits. But an alley was a strange place for …

  The soldiers whipped the blanket aside and let the victim fall. He was a black man, his holster empty, his side-arm nowhere visible. Bloodstains on his brown fatigue blouse were very visible.

  Landing hard, he gave an involuntary cry. In a few seconds he tried to rise, pushing with his hands. An overweight sergeant kicked him. The sergeant was white. So were the others.

  “Here, leave him alone,” Paul shouted, running into the dim alley. Three of the soldiers were young men; farmer types with red sunburned skin and an undernourished look. The sergeant was older, with pendulous chins and a face round and white as a cream pie. He snaked his revolver out of its holster.

  “I wouldn’t mess in this, boy.” He brought the gun up and straightened his arm. The muzzle was level with Paul’s eyes. “You listening? You better.”

  “This nigger went where he shouldn’t of,” one of the others said. “He tried to sit down next to a white woman at the drugstore fountain.”

  “Looks like you beat him half to death for it,” Paul said while his brain busily calculated the odds against him.

  “Hey, he’s some kind of foreigner, Cheat,” a third soldier said. “A kraut or suthin’.”

  Sergeant Cheat drew back the hammer. “Yeah, well, mebbe I’ll blow that funny accent right down his throat. Boy, d’ya know who we are? Jacksonville Light Infantry of the 1st Florida. This here’s our home state. Our territory. Don’t fuck with us.”

  Volunteers. He might have guessed. He felt taut as a wire, not wanting a bullet but not wanting to run, either. On the ground behind the four, the black soldier was groggily rousing. When he took in the situation, his hand shot out, grabbing the sergeant’s boot, tripping him.

  The sergeant fell on his face. The revolver went off. In the narrow alley the shot resounded like a thunderclap. Paul had already flung himself out of the way.

  Cheat’s bullet tore through the dirt, raising dust. Paul slammed into the wall of the hardware store, the force of it snapping his teeth on his tongue. He tasted blood as he reeled around to the street, yanked a shovel with a long wooden handle from one of the barrels. Holding the shovel in both hands like a fighting staff, he jumped back into the alley. Blood drizzled out one corner of his mouth.

  Sergeant Cheat was on his knees, grappling with the black man for the revolver. From the sidewalk someone yelled, “What the devil’s goin’ on?” One of the Jacksonville soldiers stepped behind the black man and booted him in the small of his back. Paul bowled into the other soldiers with the shovel held in front of him. Two of them went down.

  Cheat yanked hard on the revolver and got possession of it. Holding the barrel, he struck the black soldier a vicious looping blow to the head. The black soldier pitched over, unconscious.

  “Cheat, we’ll be in the guardhouse, we don’t run outa here,” one of the soldiers panted. Cheat squinted at Paul crouched with the shovel, then at townspeople collecting at the mouth of the alley. He spat at Paul. The gob missed Paul’s cheek but struck his shirt. Cheat led a running retreat down the alley and over a board fence, out of sight.

  A woman in a bonnet stepped into the alley and shielded her eyes. “Oh, never mind, it’s just one of those coloreds.” She and the man with her moved on. The crowd dispersed.
Paul’s heart began to slow down.

  The black soldier lay with eyes closed, his bleeding cheek resting in the dirt. He wasn’t a very handsome specimen; he had a jutting jaw, an ugly, misshapen nose, a back-slanting forehead. Paul knelt to make sure he was breathing, then returned the shovel to its barrel and went into the hardware store, where he asked for a telephone.

  “Drugstore,” the man said, avoiding his eye.

  Paul crossed the alley. The drugstore’s marble soda fountain was up front. Its four tall wire stools were empty. At the back, where peculiar odors seeped from white apothecary jars, the little black-haired druggist was energetically dusting a large glass teardrop containing bright red liquid.

  “There’s a soldier hurt outside. Can you telephone the authorities for assistance?”

  The white druggist went on dusting the teardrop in its silver stand. “Phone’s out of order.”

  The druggist was perspiring. Instantly, Paul understood. He stalked back to the screen door, disgusted.

  In the alley, he squatted and lifted the injured man, who groaned again but didn’t waken. Though leanly built, the soldier was heavy. Paul bore him on his back, staggering a couple of times. He draped the man across the saddle of the cavalry horse, having assumed they belonged together.

  He untied the rein and led the horse through the streets. Every block or two, he checked the man’s pulse and breathing. He led the horse all the way up to Tampa Heights, to the camp of the 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments; the nearest black units. The camp was neat and orderly, its grid of sandy streets marked out by rows of white tents. A trooper directed him to the dispensary tent.

  He described the incident to a black orderly. The orderly pointed to a cot and lowered some insect netting around it. Then he hurried off to find a physician, who turned out to be white.

  The doctor examined the soldier and found nothing more serious than the bruises and abrasions produced by the beating. He made a note of Paul’s name and where he was staying, and thanked him. Paul left the camp and paid five cents to ride the trolley down into town. Although he was bedraggled—even more unkempt than usual—the conductor didn’t bother him. Like the other passengers who got on or off at different stops, Paul was white.