The saloon doors swung back and forth and body after body made their way into the space. Smoke and laughter escaped and reached Paul as Adam pulled the coach up to the post outside. Adam jumped down from his seat and tied the reins to the post before quick-stepping over to the coach to open the door for Paul. Paul stepped down slowly. He tugged on his collar and pulled down the brim of his hat so that his nose and mouth could be readily seen, but one had to do a bit of work to make eye contact.
“Mind the coach,” he said to Adam. “And you have your papers.”
“Yessuh,” Adam said as he nodded his head and then let his chin rest on his chest.
Paul passed a few fellows saddling up horses, friends of James, who were all cheerful enough.
“Mr. Halifax,” they said.
Paul turned to acknowledge them but made no other overture. The men read this as disrespect. But since they weren’t courageous enough to confront Paul directly about their grievance, they turned, instead, to Adam.
“You would almost think that nigger was a white man, but just out in the sun a little too long,” one said to the others.
Paul smiled and hopped up onto the boardwalk leading to the saloon.
He pushed through the saloon doors, and they creaked back and forth several times before they were still. Inside, it was cooler than he had expected it to be and a shiver shook him before dissipating at the back of his neck. Something sweet scented the air and mixed with the blunt aroma of cigars. People passed in front of him, not recognizing him at first, too caught up in the mood, which, if it could be given a color, would be crimson because it was almost as if the lanterns had been covered in some careless woman’s frock and the caress between the two would dim the whole world, recast it in the light of a fast-pumping heart, or even the blood that shot through veins with such force that one could hear the rush. This, of course, before the heat was too much and everything caught fire, but people were too rapt to notice the world burning around them, ashes mistaken for confetti.
Paul carried that crimson inside him against his will. He promised himself not to let it escape or taint his thoughts. Looking at the women in dresses buttoned to their necks, some with smiles that he didn’t recognize as strained, and the men with jugs in their hands, raising them, occasionally, in the air, awkwardly spilling some of their contents onto giggling bodies as a prelude to what will happen when they leave and step behind the saloon, behind water barrels, hidden by the starlight that couldn’t reach them. Dresses raised up and pants pulled down, and then the gyrations that don’t last very long at all before both parties feel a bit of shame as they don’t look at each other when they part. This was Vicksburg, yes, but it was also the whole world. James didn’t share much about England, Paul thought, but there was so much revealed in his silence and eyes that refused to be looked into. Paul was sure that not even an ocean between them could eliminate the ways and means that connected them.
He found his way to a back corner of the saloon and sat at a small table closest to the wall. Since he had chosen to come without James, who was often the buffer between him and the nosy Vicksburg denizens, he wanted to be as tucked into a corner as he possibly could. He preferred that James remain at Elizabeth this time, ensuring safety because he would be out late as he needed to be. He wanted to contemplate his next move without interference and arrive at his decision without James’s judgments or simplifications. That was his right as a man.
The barmaid made her way through the crowd toward him. He barely acknowledged her beyond a quick dissection that attempted to see, foolishly, what she didn’t uncover, even when she asked what he wanted to drink and even when she returned with a bottle of whiskey and a glass whose cleanliness was suspect.
“I know you,” Paul heard someone say at a distance too close for anyone with the proper manners. “You own that cotton farm over yonder. Halifax, ain’t it?”
Paul turned only slightly to see the skinny man in a hat with a jug of ale in his hand. “Elizabeth Plantation.” He nodded, simply to acknowledge him, hoping he would leave.
“We never see you ’round here without your cousin. Where’s James, too drunk to drink?”
Paul snickered and poured himself a little bit of whiskey and took a gulp.
“Jake. Jake Davis,” the man said, extending his hand to Paul, which Paul sized up and took a moment too long to finally shake. “Can I join you?”
Paul grunted and poured more whiskey into the glass. He shrugged his shoulders. Jake raised a finger and mouthed words for the bartender to send over a bottle of gin.
“Your cousin tells me that you’re looking to sell a couple of studs,” Jake said. “As it turns out, I know a buyer ready to pay you top dollar. Much more than you would get at auction.”
Paul looked at Jake with narrowed eyes. “Hm. And if that’s the case, I wonder why this buyer can’t just attend the auction like anyone else.” He took a swig of whiskey. “And I also wonder what you might want in exchange for introducing me to this buyer.”
Someone had sat down behind the piano, a man with large eyes and a mustache that grew over his mouth. His grin was too big for his face, Paul thought, and made him seem more like a painting of a man that an artist had gotten wrong. The man banged his fingers down on the keys and the first couple of notes had missed their mark. He was drunk, surely, but soon the melody made sense and the pitch was pleasurable. The man sat as upright as he could and barely looked down. Instead, he looked out at the people who had begun to clap and dance.
Paul tapped his foot because the rhythm reminded him of something his mother’s attendants used to sing to lull her and make her forget about the pain that came with wasting away. In one of the moments when she was lucid, she had described it to him, the pain. She said it was like someone was trying to pull her out of the world by folding her lengthwise until there was nothing left. And each fold, she said, felt like a red-hot poker being laid upon her soul.
“It burns,” she said.
Paul gave her water, but it didn’t matter, she said. It would just cloud everything in steam and she needed him to see what happened to her so it wouldn’t happen to him. He didn’t understand what she meant then and he still didn’t understand. The piano notes brought him back and his foot tapped a little faster now. He took another gulp and he started to feel the numbing, the buzzing, the light-headedness that he was looking for to help him forget—no, to help him remember that it was a not a loss that brought him here and there was no use in grieving. James had made it plain and only Paul’s pride had prevented him from seeing that this was merely the price of doing business. And what was a win if it wasn’t a strategy that ended in profit?
“He’s a private man,” Jake said. “Not much for public things like auctions. And before you ask, he likes to conduct business directly so he doesn’t send men in lieu of him.”
“And yet, here you are,” Paul replied.
The saloon shook as the men rose in song, something Paul had never heard before. They were slurring and off-key, but that almost seemed to be the point. Merriment had its own way, and the messiness of it all, under the red-red light, in the fuzziness of Paul’s inebriated senses, wasn’t just a kind of beauty, but beauty itself. He felt loose enough to stand and raise his glass.
“He didn’t really send me,” Jake said. “I sort of volunteered. As a favor to James.”
Paul looked down at Jake, who was still seated. “James said nothing to me.”
“I told him not to. Not unless I could be sure. But then you walked in here tonight and that was . . .”
“Providence,” Paul said.
He turned back to the table and grabbed the bottle and, this time, drank straight from it. Some of the whiskey missed his mouth and dribbled down his chin. His condition made it so that he didn’t care. Come to think of it, right now, he didn’t care about a lot of things. Not Isaiah and Samuel, not Ruth, not
Timothy, not the plantation, not nothing. And the load that was loosened from him made him feel like he might well float right up to the ceiling with no earthly idea on how to get back down. And he didn’t care about that, either.
“So when can I meet this mysterious gentleman?” Paul said to Jake.
“As a matter of fact, he’s here. He’s out back. As I said before, he’s not much of a people person and prefers his privacy.”
“If he prefers his privacy, what is he doing in the back of a saloon?”
“He has other business to attend to. Otherwise, he’d be home.”
“And where is home? In fact, what is this man’s name?”
“You should save all of these questions for him. You won’t be disappointed. Follow me, Halifax. Right this way.”
So Paul followed Jake as he led him to the back, where the music could still be heard through the open door. The red-red light had followed them, too, but fainter now, confoundedly absorbed by the night as they strayed farther and farther away from the tumult that he strangely, but unmistakably, craved. Bottle still in hand, he took another swig before they made it out the back door of the saloon.
The bottle was all but dry and he threw it and lost his footing and fell down laughing. Jake helped him back up. When he got to his feet, he saw three men standing beside Jake.
“All right. So which one of these men is . . . Mr. Privacy?”
Jake said nothing as the three men charged Paul. They knocked him to the ground. Paul kicked one of them in the face and the man fell back, but the other two kept on him.
“His pockets!” Jake yelled and the two men began to tug at Paul’s pants. Paul went for his holster and one of the men grabbed his arm, trying to prevent him from pulling out his gun. Then the man whom Paul kicked returned to the fray and began to help the one who was trying to wrestle the gun from Paul. The third man, meanwhile, had managed to take the banknotes from Paul’s pocket and also pulled the gold watch from the chain attached to Paul’s waistband. He held it up to Jake.
“I got it!” he exclaimed.
“Good! Let’s go!”
One man grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it in Paul’s eyes. Paul covered his face and the men took off running. Blinking and trying to rub the dirt away, Paul fired off a shot in the direction he thought they were running. He couldn’t really see if he had hit his target. He tapped his shirt pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and began to wipe his face. He slumped against the rear wall of the saloon, looked up to the starry sky, and shook his head.
“Auction it is,” he whispered.
He slid down the wall until his ass hit the ground. He looked at his shoes a moment before he stood up. At least they didn’t take my shoes. Then he laughed. Then he laughed full belly. Then, finally, he fell backward onto the ground, unable to control the laughter that rocked his whole body. He had never before felt so light. He wished he could keep falling backward, relishing the flutter in the pit of his stomach, the tickle at the bottom of his sack. But he got up again because he thought he could float. When he was no closer to the stars than he had ever been, he swatted the thought away with his hand.
He stumbled toward the front of the saloon. He turned the corner and he saw his horse and coach, and Adam in the driver’s seat nodding off, head jerking before he caught himself and returned to the upright position. Paul straightened himself, but his mind still belonged to the whiskey.
“Where’s my boy?” he said with a smile on his face. “I need my boy.”
Adam, still dozing, didn’t hear him.
Paul got closer and repeated himself but louder. Adam shook and turned to see Paul standing there, disheveled. Forgetting himself, he recoiled at the sight of a smiling Paul. Realizing what this might earn him, he quickly resparked the dying light in the lantern at his side. He jumped down from his seat, lantern in hand, and bowed his head before Paul.
“Massa,” he said in a voice that had traces of interrupted sleep all up in it. “Is everything all right, suh?”
“Yes, my boy. Everything is perfect.” He touched Adam’s face and lifted it. He was dirtying Adam’s face with his scuffed and dusty hands. Adam’s eyes widened. “I need you, Adam.” Paul smiled with woozy eyes. “I need you to get me home right now. You hear me? Ready the horse for home. You know why?” Paul moved his face a little closer to Adam’s. “Because God has blessed us.”
“Us, Massa?” Adam interrupted before he caught himself.
“Has blessed us with the answer to my prayers. Isn’t He amazing, Adam? Doesn’t He give so much to His children, His blessed children who He has charged with stewardship of all things earthly?” Paul finally removed his hands from Adam’s face and they slipped to his chest. “Oh, sometimes I can shout, Adam,” he said. “Sometimes, I feel that I could just stand in the middle of everything, like your grandfather did, and shout to the whole entire world that there is no greater gift than to be in God’s favor. No matter how low you may fall. No matter how many times you stumble, there is no greater knowledge than knowing that everything you do is in service to God Almighty and is, therefore, righteous. That’s why your grandfather did it. I never did tell you how he spun ’round with arms extended and laughed into the sky. That’s how I know God. That’s how I know He will make a way. Just when you think there is no portion, He will come to move mountains and reveal treasures for your chest only. You may half know this. But I hope at least some of it is getting through. You aren’t us, but you aren’t them, either. So maybe I’m not wasting my time by telling you this. And if I am, no one would believe you, anyway. So it doesn’t matter.”
They stared at each other in the lantern light, two faces that were reflections of each other to even the least discerning eye. Paul saw it clearest now. In another life, they might have been actual father and son rather than the hush-hush kind. Paul swallowed the notion that Adam made a more suitable offspring than Timothy. He would shit it out later.
The light between them had started to dim and the shadows had weakened. The dark had begun to claim them.
“I think the lantern need more oil, Massa,” Adam said quietly.
“More,” Paul replied, just as quietly, just before the light went out completely and the two of them breathed heavily in the dark.
* * *
—
The moon, sliced in half by the encroaching darkness, was nevertheless suspended high up in the night. It could be seen through the boughs of trees, threaded against it, as Adam steered the horses slowly up the trail to the Halifax property. Adam sat erect and cautious in the driver’s seat as Paul lay back in the coach, looking straight up into the sky through its opening.
He was in and out of consciousness. His head was pounding, but he ignored it. Instead, he looked at the half-moon. He raised his palm to the sky and blotted it out, then put his hand back down. It was easier than he thought to pull the moon out of the sky. He looked at his dirty hands and then down at his torn clothing. Empty pockets. No pocket watch. To find one’s self the winner even when life had designated you the loser. If his trip to the saloon taught him anything, it taught him that. Slumber finally caught up to him. The moon he saw now was inside his head, still half, but less bright.
The horses moved slowly by Adam’s hand. The road was gentle and rocked Paul and the half-moon that was now inside him. Other than the half-eaten moon that had now left him, Paul didn’t remember much about the ride other than how comforting it was, and he was startled not just by what seemed too quick a journey (and whiskey-induced slumber was always the best kind), but by Adam, who was now leaning in near his face. Too close.
“What are you doing?” Paul asked.
He sat up, finally. Adam moved back a bit, faced the ground, and said something Paul had no interest in hearing. They remained like that—ground-seeker and gazer—until discomfort set in. Paul then told Adam to take him to the house. Adam walked to th
e horses, grabbed their reins, and led them through the gate he had obviously opened while Paul slept. They approached the house. Adam helped Paul out of the coach.
“You need me for anything else, Massa?” he asked.
Paul shook his head because he didn’t have the patience for words and moreover didn’t wish to waste them. He stumbled less and walked slowly toward the house.
“You all right?” Adam asked.
Paul just waved him off. Adam led the horses by their reins, coach still attached, over toward the barn.
Paul continued walking, now more steadily, toward the house. All of the lights were out, except for a warm, dim glow coming from Timothy’s room. He hated that Timothy stayed up so late and painted by such low light. The quickest way to harm the eyes, he thought. Then he saw tussling shadows in the window just as the light went out completely. Pigs squealed and he perhaps heard hooves and cowbells.
His heart became a fist in his chest, trying very hard to batter its way out. He removed his pistol from its holster at his hip and ran to the house, moving quicker than his body would normally allow. He tripped on the first porch stair and banged his knee. He crawled up the next four stairs and stood, finally, at the top and stumbled into the entrance door, pushing it open with such force that it hit its adjoining wall and swung back into Paul’s face. Annoyed, he pushed it out of his way, but gentler this time, and started for the inside staircase. He called for Maggie but didn’t wait around for her to show up. He took the stairs two at a time and stumbled, again, at the top for being unable to see in such thick darkness. He called for Maggie again, this time waiting for her to arrive with a candle or lantern, which he would snatch from her the moment she appeared. But she didn’t. He would remember that come sunrise. He took off down the hall toward Timothy’s room, calling for him and for Ruth as he sped down the long stretch of it. Where was Ruth?
The Prophets Page 27