Rock Island Line

by David Rhodes

  That night he began to hear his own death calling to him. It didn’t have a voice as such, and its communication was more direct. It talked through his feelings. It was his feelings, in a way.

  A deep morbidity would come over him, so scrambling his senses that he began to believe it was the ugliness of things he saw around him rather than his own distorted view of them. His memories were all of the same kind, and when he remembered, he remembered bitterly. He pictured himself small and having to get away. And the only place to go was there—in that feeling: his own death-dark womb to hide in.

  That night was blacker than pitch. A northeast wind blew across the roof in long, sagging groans. The old house trembled. The window sashes banged. Down in the woods the dead elms split and howled. July went out onto the porch. The wind grew wet, drawing the rain with it. The storm seemed enormous, as though it must cover the whole world—coming from some furious place in space. A lightning bolt ripped across the sky, tearing the black cloth back to the brilliant light on the other side of it, then sealing itself up like an instantly healing wound, bathing the ground in a cold blue light. July looked and thought how ugly it was.

  As quickly as it had begun, the storm abated. Within ten minutes the land was covered with a piercing silence. Not even a breeze stirred the leaves on the oaks. It was as though he could hear for thousands of miles and everywhere there was nothing. The moon rose flat and blue-green out of a dark cloud and its eerie light froze the stillness harder. Then far in the distance July heard something. It sounded like the beating of his heart and blended with it perfectly . . . but it continued to get louder. It was hoofbeats, fast, then slower, over hard ground and soft. They came from miles away. He heard them strike the surface of the blacktop and keep coming. It’s not on the road, thought July. It’s coming through the fields. He strained his eyes off toward the horizon and saw something mount the most distant hill, then disappear down into the following scoop of land, moving with unbelievable speed. The air itself was poised now, and when the shape, no larger than an ant, came into view over the crest of the near hill, it began to tremble. A gray horse, tall, long and thin, a white mane and tail, his eyes green, the steel nailed to his hoofs flashing blue in the light of the moon, his feet striking the ground only once or twice in ten yards, jumping fences by merely altering his strides, coming toward him. And he carried someone whom July recognized at once though he had never seen him before. Perched like a sparrow on the neck of a hawk, leaning forward as though breathing down into the giant stallion’s ear, the wet blade of a knife in his teeth, his dark coat cut and streaming out behind him in ribbons, his legs gripping the sides of the beast and curled beneath him, a handful of the white mane in his right hand, urging him on with his barking voice, his teeth silver and gold, a rifle and its broken and splintered stock stuck under his arm, the smell of burning powder in the air, rode the great Kingfisher. July knew him in an instant, as quickly as he might pick himself out of a crowd, and he felt his jaws tighten as though gripping the cold blade of the knife to keep it from falling. They rode like the wind, the stallion’s nostrils wide, sucking air, his mouth opened in a grimace of excitement, the old outlaw’s black eyes wild and cruel.

  Then popping into view on the horizon—a line of them like an army of ants—came his pursuers. They disappeared into the scoop of land and when they re-emerged July could see them more clearly. A whole herd of them, gray, huge hogs but running like dogs. Their feet didn’t seem to touch the ground and they snorted and spit and howled after the running horse. The bushes, trees and grass recoiled from them in revulsion.

  The outlaw and horse cleared another fence and were in the field next to the yard, still heading toward him. Halfway through and the hellhounds were in it too, each of their dark howls like some mad cry from an animal’s imagination.

  In one long bound the horse and rider entered the yard and July could see the old outlaw’s face. A scar stretched from beneath his left eye all the way to his chin, and July remembered that long ago three men had held him down while another beat him with a deer foot severed eight inches above the hoof. Left for dead, he’d crawled and rolled down from the hills, down to the ocean, where he’d submerged his head in the salt water, come up, and felt the searing burn of the wounds ignite again the terrible strength he had been born with. Later he’d killed them all. There was a bullet hole in one of his hands, made by a rifle from three hundred yards. His life was one catastrophe after another. The Devil had him then, and liked his name—the kingfisher of men . . . but he was loose now.

  His face and hands, neck and as much of his chest as July could see where his coat was ripped away were covered with wounds, new wounds on top of old, old on top of older, as though his body had originally been ironed together, a man who in his whole life had never had a friend, or wanted one; as far as people were concerned, he had no favorites, to whom women were only an evening’s entertainment and the morning’s regret. His home was the stars. All the good thoughts he ever had stayed in him: his exterior was as rough and crude as he could make it. His spirit was greater than his mind, and it swung him like a whip around the whipman’s arm. Trapped under a fallen tree, he once went five days without water or help. In a Mexican jail he had dug himself out with just his hands. Though not the best fighter, or runner, or lifter, or shooter, or swimmer, or thinker, or even that much braver then the next guy, he simply never gave up, and refused to accept that he was beaten. It was the simple, unimpeded drive to stay alive at whatever cost, for no great purpose or need that he could understand because it wasn’t to be understood, that burned in him like a comet, and it wasn’t joy that lit his face now but an expression that July almost couldn’t fathom: he was at once grim, determined and frightened. (This was his last chance: they had all been last chances.)

  Coming by the porch, both horse and rider turned their eyes on July and he backed against the side of the house. From both, the look was the same: compassionless strength—the quick, naked bones of survival. When all else was torn away, there was only this to carry on, and it worked well enough. In the next instant they were gone from the yard, over the wooden picket fence, beyond the barn and out of sight. Then the gray creatures were in the yard and all of them as they ran turned to face July. It was the ugliest moment in his life, but with the cold eye of the legendary outlaw in him, he glared back at them and thought, Get me now, you blood demons, the chance won’t come again. They passed on and were gone as quickly as they had come. The storm folded back over the house, barn and fields. The rain fell like silence. July prayed, Dear God, why must we live alone?

  FIFTEEN

  Halfway through Iowa, just off Highway 6 outside of Des Moines, Wally Cobb, Leonard Brown and Billy Joe Brighton pulled into a hamburger stand, went inside the glassed-in partition and ordered sandwiches, fries and Cokes. Billy Joe had an orange drink. They ate at a little table and watched across the street where several men were trying to start a white Oldsmobile, jumping it from another car’s battery.

  They were out of money now and a kind of tension seemed to hold them together. When Leonard, after finishing half his Coke, went over to the water fountain and poured in an inch of water to make more, he couldn’t free himself from it and moved stiffly and self-consciously. The manager watched them from behind the stainless-steel counter with suspicion.

  “You sure you know the address?” said Wally.

  “Fourteen ninety-one Edgeway.”

  “Why can’t you give them a call?”

  “They don’t have a phone. But they got to be there.”

  “Now, my idea is that we stay for a couple days, no longer than a week, and move on to . . .” Wally saw Billy Joe’s face turn white and he whirled quickly around. Two policemen stood in the doorway. Two others were outside.

  “All right, boys, take it easy. You’re under arrest. Slowly now, stand up. Keep your hands on the table.”

  “Let me go,” said Wally. “Please let me go. I’ve never been in any trouble b
efore. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “With what?” said the nearest policeman, holding out the opened handcuffs. They took them outside and put them in the back seat of the patrol car parked at the side of the building.

  From the time the three boys had left the hotel to when Ollie was ready to leave two days later, Earl had hardly left their small room. Once he’d gone down to the barroom below and sat by himself at one of the far back tables, eating, chewing the tough meat automatically and without enjoyment as he stared into the dark tabletop, as though hypnotized by a swinging pendulum inside his mind, not looking up even when called to from the bar. Betty May, an old prostitute who lived in the Shamrock, came silently to his table, pulled up a chair and began to be friendly.

  “Hey, Earl, I seen you from across the room and wondered to myself why of Earl was sittin’ way back here in the dark, so I come over, ‘n’, hey, somethin’ the matter, Earl?”

  He lifted his head and let his blank eyes fall on her face as though she were no more than one of his own thoughts.

  “Hey, Earl, you don’ look so good. Maybe you need a drink. Let me get Bobby to bring you over one. What’s the matter? Tell ol’ Betty May about it. You know we always been good friends as can be.”

  Earl’s expression hadn’t changed, and he automatically cut off another corner of meat and chewed it. Betty May became a little frightened, and decided it would be best to go back to the bar—after one more try. She reached out and took hold of his shoulder.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Earl, it’s Betty May. You all right? You remember me. We done a lot of tricks together. We was together that night—”

  “Who are you?” said Earl, looking at her now with a fierce intensity, and she quickly took her hand back and moved to the edge of her chair, ready to jump, knowing that if she were caught back here in the corner she could scream for all she was worth and no one would come but to watch. There was no recognition in his eyes, only a bitter hostility at being interrupted.

  “It’s Betty May,” she said. “You know me.”

  He stood up and put a dollar bill on the table. “I don’t know you,” he said flatly, and wandered through the bar and into the lobby, where he mounted the stairs, stepping slowly and deliberately, each step an individual decision, like one possessed. At the window at the end of the hall on the third floor he stopped to stare outside and remained standing there for over an hour, then continued down the hall and into his room. Neglecting to close the door, he fell into a chair next to the table and stared at the floor.

  They left for Iowa in Ollie’s Pontiac.

  “There’s the house,” said Ollie, indicating a lonely structure just off the road, with two miserable-looking automobiles sitting in the mud in front. Earl looked out his window and felt a shiver go through him.

  “Easy,” said Ollie behind the wheel. “It’ll be easy. We’ll have to sort of check around for a while, of course.”

  Earl’s fingers wrapped around the arm of his door in an involuntary, convulsive grip, still staring out the window, not recognizing anything but a blur of muted browns and grays from the ditch, hearing far away Ollie’s excited voice.

  “Come on, Earl, snap out of it. We can turn around up here, make a sweep back. Hell, who knows what he got on ’im? Hey, what do you think?”

  “Sure,” said Earl absently.

  “There, down there along the creek it winds all the way back up to the barn. Hey, does that look OK to you?”

  “Sure.”

  Ollie looked at him with anger, but let it pass. “Boy, you’ve been queer lately,” he said and drove around the block to take another look at the house. They met an old pickup and the driver waved at them.

  “Friendly bastards around here,” said Ollie.

  Earl had taken the bullets from his .45 Army automatic and was intermittently cocking it and firing it dry, making little snapping noises.

  July sat in his bedroom and felt like a plant with its roots cut. From his bed he looked at the partially opened closet door and thought over his life and what if any opportunities lay before him. Days passed like ugly, slow-moving trucks. He thought about Mal and he thought on and on. Some of it was incomprehensible. He would repeat things over and over—he would begin a thought with “We used to come home and . . .” and would lose track of the rest and begin it again: “We used to come home and . . .” and still not be able to finish, and would start it again, but stop, abandoned in the same narcotic image. He knew that what he was doing was wrong. Some things were clearer than they had been. He saw that he was not succeeding in resurrecting Mal, but only her death—making it a living occurrence that happened again and again. He knew in his right mind that he must divorce her from his mental image of her—because he was killing her now—he was making her into what she never was. The light of his life, he was chaining her to himself and making her drag him through the mud. He knew it was wrong, but it was his grief thinking for him, because if he gave her up there would be nothing left of him—a small peanut of a person, wrinkled and unable to live in the world. There were three relationships that he was concerned with: Mal when she was alone with herself; himself alone; and the relationship they had between them. Now, with her gone, two thirds of his life was missing.

  There was a talking voice in him that insisted at different times that he knew what he was supposed to do. He knew he should give her up—that is, forget about her and go on normally, make new contacts and get into some different thoughts and experiences and let them work on him like health specialists. That would be the mature, gentlemanly way to go about his affairs with that sickening, stoic, smiling bravery. But he just didn’t think he could do that. It seemed that moral indignation itself would crucify him if he tried it.

  No, it was not that he had loved her once that was causing him so much grief. It was that he must love her twice: once when she was alive and once when she was dead. He must love her more now, because it was only through his love that she could be alive, as it was only she in his life that brought him happiness. She was the key. Without her the whole world lived in misery. So it wasn’t the first time that he had loved her (in which he was guilty of not having realized how uproariously happy he was) that tortured him now and threatened to snap him like a stick. It was the second time. It was loving her dead. But then his mind cried out unexpectedly, louder than his grief: You fool, love her once, love her alive. You participated in happiness with her: life gave it to you both: her death changes nothing finally. Cut her loose. The dead aren’t dead. Love her living, not death.

  But I can’t, he thought. I just don’t think I can do that. I only understand things emotionally. My habits and feelings have the power over me. Coward! cried his conscience.

  Going to sleep seemed to be impossible. He got up and went downstairs. Sitting on the sofa, he felt an urge to make something with wood. Bringing up several boards, a hammer and two jars of nails from the basement, he dumped them on the floor and gave up the project as quickly as he had conceived it because of not being able to think of anything to make. Returning to the sofa, he sat and stared at a slender red clay vase on the table in front of him, the dried stalks of wildflowers wilted and bent now like burned lizards. He looked at it for a long time without really realizing what it was, then remembered Mal had picked those flowers, had snipped them off and put them in there with several inches of water to prolong their flush petals and fragrance, but they were dead now. Even if he wanted to replace them with others, he couldn’t. All the flowers were dead now. Winter had almost arrived. No more until next year. The little vase itself was something he had brought back from the Goodwill store in Iowa City and it seemed a curious object when isolated from the table and room. It seemed odd to him that the purpose of something could be to display (for appreciation) another thing that was alive but doomed—that what it was to contain was of more importance than itself, but much, much more fragile.

  He went into the kitchen and stood next to the t
able. Butch came in and stepped on his foot. He filled the dog and cat bowls with dry food mixed with water, and sat watching them while they ate.

  They seemed to enjoy eating. Holmes hardly chewed at all and July remembered once when his mother had criticized his father for eating so rapidly and he had responded, “Can’t taste it otherwise,” and laughed. But July’d noticed that he slowed down after that.

  Then he thought of his grandfather Wilson and remembered that the only thing anyone had ever really said against him (as far as July knew anyway) was that he maybe spent too much time with his dogs, and when somebody told him that, he thought it was a compliment, because he didn’t think a person could spend too much time with dogs. July smiled at the thought and the smile was so completely unexpected that he was startled right out of it. He hadn’t thought there were any of that kind left to him. He pictured his entire emotional makeup as being so many electrical circuits—a huge network of tiny passages capable of conducting his charged thoughts through them, with countless thousands of different courses. A single thought would start moving and come to a junction where four alternative paths existed; when it had fallen into one of them, another four or five directions would open up, and so on, cutting across other circuits and every which way. This unbelievably complex system was made even more complex by each small segment of line having its own particular emotional value, ranging from very good, through nonfeeling, to very bad.

  As the days wore on, he had felt his possibilities contracting. Coming to an intersection, he could see that one and sometimes two of the four channels were slowly being sealed up, like doorways being cemented over, and that it wasn’t easy to get into them any more. Before long it would be impossible. He knew very clearly the substance that was sealing these avenues, knew how it was getting there, but had no idea how to stop it. Invariably, it was the channels containing the good feelings which were being closed. He had seen also that the beginning work on the bad had started, and that the future held almost exclusively nonfeeling channels, when his thoughts would roll straight through his mind like a bowling ball down a narrow alley and, deviating just the slightest bit, would fall into the gutter, slide all the way to the end and drop into the machine to be returned. He was powerless against it. Watching it happening, understanding it and at the same time not having any influence over it filled him with a hopeless, bitter rage (which was quickly becoming a constant mood, and he began to feel friendly toward it). The quality of his thoughts was being drained from them. But one of those channels was open. He had just been in it. Something inside him was tearing down those walls, opening him back up. He sat down and held on to the table to steady himself. Holmes turned and looked at him. Butch licked a paw and rubbed it over his whiskers. They didn’t seem so sad. Yes, he thought, he could imagine how someday maybe there might be some times ahead when they might go out into the yard, lie in the sun and not have to think about Mal, but just be happy. He could imagine how, after a while, some of those moments might be possible. It was the first glimmer of joy that he’d had since Mal was murdered, and though it lasted only several seconds, still it filled him with a tenacious hope, and for the first time he took up the task of deciding what he was going to do. He had to start getting away from home. Get rid of her clothes. Perhaps he could leave altogether. He needed to find a job; there wasn’t much money left and he wasn’t going to live off Aunt Becky. The issues quickly became too much for him to handle, and the weight of infinity pressed down on him with gloomy, unresolved riddles, but with a courage that astonished him he pushed them from his mind and thought, I’m tired. First rest, then think, and he went upstairs and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep—this time on his own side of the bed.