If I Never Get Back

by Darryl Brock

  I looked down at the grass between my feet. It seemed bright and unreal. “How did I . . . deliver you in the dream?”

  “It was unclear. There was a great store of money.”

  I felt as if I were being hurled along the surface of a wave, trapped in its momentum. “You’re asking me to help Andy find enough money to send you home, is that it?”

  “ ’Tis my dying wish, and yet I wouldn’t burden you, Mr. Fowler, were fate not a-playing with us all—and had I not seen the sweetness in your eyes. When Andy brought you in, I knew . . .” She reached timidly and touched my arm again. Her fingers felt like brittle paper.

  It was that touch that nailed it down. Helping her seemed as right as anything ever in my life. “I’ll do what I can,” I said, putting my hand over hers. “I promise.”

  “May God bless you,” she said quietly. “You’re a fine man.”

  Harry was calling me. I said good-bye. Inside the coach I looked back and saw them all waving. Mrs. Leonard, dressed in black, seemed a small shadow in the sunlight.

  “She ask you to look out for me?” Andy said.

  I felt a keen, cutting sadness. “That’s right.”

  He grinned. “Then who’s to look out for you?”

  I sat back and closed my eyes. It made no sense, the old woman reaching out to me like that. And the Clara Antonia business was absolutely mystifying. Yet the pull it all exerted on me was so strong, so irresistibly strong.

  It happened with no warning. And, as in Albany, it began outside a railway station. We were standing on the Penn Central dock in Jersey City. While a Newark writer attempted to interview George, the rest of us volunteered his answers, hugely enjoying the reporter’s frustration. A porter appeared at my elbow and said a telegram awaited me inside. Not until later did I think it strange that he hadn’t brought it with him. Or asked my name.

  I followed him, coat in one hand, cash box in the other. Just inside the doorway I felt a painful prod in the center of my back. At first I thought it was a cane or umbrella. I started to turn and felt my arm gripped. A voice close to my ear said, “This is set to shoot. Keep moving steady.” A cold tide of fear rose in me as I recognized the voice as Le Caron’s.

  I suppose I should have made a move right there in the busy station. Wheeled suddenly and knocked the gun loose and punched before he could react, like in the movies. But terror had frozen my brain to a point where it didn’t seem to be working at all, much less devising heroic scenarios. After a few seconds of absolute numbness, I remember thinking, Jesus, I’m going to die. Right here. In the evening. With the sun still shining. A deep, fatalistic dread encased me. The gun barrel jammed suddenly into my kidneys, bringing a spasm of pain edged with nausea. I moved, legs rubbery. My bowels felt like they were about to give way.

  We went out a side door to where a hack waited. Le Caron prodded me inside it. He sat facing me. A long black barrel jutted from beneath a length of cloth, pointed unwaveringly at my chest. His eyes flicked toward the cash box.

  “Now I got the money and you,” he said, leering. “You meddling fine-haired bastard!” His breath reeked; I glimpsed broken, discolored teeth. “If you’da kept your goddamn hands off’n me, you wouldn’t be in this fix.”

  I worked my tongue inside my parched mouth and managed, “Where’re we going?”

  “Depends,” he said. “How much is in there?”

  My brain showed signs of thawing. “Everything we’ve made on the tour,” I mumbled. “You can’t take it.”

  “How much?”

  “Everything, thousands,” I lied. Champion had already exchanged the hefty Brooklyn receipts for a letter of credit. The box held only our cut of the Irvington gate, maybe three hundred at most . . . and my gun. I pictured the nickel contours, imagined the satisfying weight in my hand, saw flame stretch from its barrel into Le Caron’s sneering face.

  “Open it.”

  “No.” My voice held a tremor.

  He moved the long barrel slightly. “I said open it!”

  “I won't.”

  He snarled and smashed the gun against my collarbone. Through a curtain of pain I saw that he was vulnerable for an instant. But before I could react he’d trained the gun on me again. I doubled over in exaggerated agony. “Please,” I groaned.

  That tickled him hugely. “Oh, the big bastard don’t fancy being hurt.” He leaned back with pleasurable anticipation and motioned for me to open the box.

  I clutched my right shoulder and kept my right arm stiff, as if it were paralyzed—which wasn’t far from the truth. Moaning with each movement, I lifted the cash box to my lap and unlocked it with my left hand. I hoped desperately that I’d remembered which way the gun lay. Still using my left hand, I lifted the tray from the box and raised it slowly. “Why don’t we work something out?” I said. “How about just taking a thousand or so and . . .” Meanwhile I’d lowered my right hand. Praying that the tray would occupy his attention long enough to mask the movement, I eased my fingers into the box, felt the rubber-gripped butt of the derringer—thank God it was pointing away!—and, without trying to remove it, stretched a finger forward to the trigger.

  “This don’t look like no thou—”

  BLAM! The box bucked. A tongue of flame spurted. Nerves at the snapping point, I bellowed and dove forward, hurling the box ahead of me. Le Caron screamed. There was a bright flash, a deafening boom. Then I was on him. With both hands I seized the arm holding the pistol and wrenched it backward until it gave way with a snap. The pistol dropped to the floor. Shrieking and twisting, Le Caron aimed a knee at my crotch that caught my thigh instead. Muscles straining, I jammed my forearm against his throat, pinning him. With my right hand I pounded his face. Blood foamed from his nose and mouth; his skin grew slippery. He wrenched sideways and tried to dive for his gun. I jerked him back by his hair, forced his head out through the hack’s window, and drove my fist into his stomach like a piston until he went limp. For a moment, seeing his chest not moving, I thought I’d killed him. Then he sucked in a convulsive breath, retched, and vomited.

  As I slumped there gasping for air myself it dawned on me that the hack wasn’t moving. I tucked Le Caron’s pistol in my belt and retrieved the derringer from the wreckage of the cash box, checking to make sure its other chamber was ready to fire. Keeping a wary eye on Le Caron, I opened the door. The horses stood placidly, whisking flies with their tails. The driver was nowhere in sight. Who could blame him? We were on rocky, uncultivated land. A hundred yards to the right the Hudson shone golden in the setting sun. I guessed that we’d come only several miles from Jersey City toward Hoboken.

  Pondering what to do, I dragged Le Caron outside. His eyes were closed, his breathing ragged. I trembled, remembering the gunfire. How had we missed in the cramped space? Checking myself, I found that my hand had been sliced by the cash box; then I saw a round hole in the sleeve of my coat. When I propped Le Caron against a tree, blood seeped through his shirt. I tore it away. The derringer shell had torn through his armpit and exited below his shoulder. I tied the shirt over his wounds as best I could, wondering that he’d been able to fight so hard. I removed a long, ugly-looking knife from the sheath taped to his ankle.

  I put the money from the cash box into a bag I found beneath the driver’s seat, thinking that I needed to get back at once. The team must already be on the train to Philadelphia. Or had they delayed to search for me? Would Champion think I’d stolen the money? If only phones existed!

  “You hear me?” I bent over Le Caron, gun leveled.

  He mumbled and opened his eyes.

  “I’ll kill you next time, you fucker.”

  He spit phlegm and blood at me. My intimidation campaign was not off to a good start.

  “What do I have to do? Shoot you right here?”

  “Go ahead, shoot.” He spat again; I felt wet flecks on my face. “You ain’t got the balls.”

  I almost did shoot him. A crazy hotness spread through my brain. Loathing him and how h
e affected me, I raised the derringer and sighted on his face. I imagined squeezing the trigger, but couldn’t do it. Le Caron’s fixed stare gave way to a sneer.I started toward the hack, then had another thought and ransacked Le Caron’s pockets. Nothing there, but I discovered a leather pouch secured by a cord inside his pants. It held eighty dollars in gold and silver. I cut the cord free and tied his hands behind his back. I bound his feet with his belt—and discovered six fifty-dollar greenbacks folded into tiny pouches. I pocketed them. His black eyes glittered as I slit his pants and boots, yanked them off him, walked to the river’s edge, and threw them in. He was naked beneath the tree.

  “Enjoy the mosquitoes,” I said, and climbed up onto the driver’s seat. I felt his eyes burning into me a long distance down the road. Fortunately for me the horses were streetwise and docile; they ignored my jerky rein-handling and commands that probably would have smashed us into passing wagons.

  It must have been the adrenaline wearing off. A giddiness overcame me. I’d just shot a man, beaten him senseless, taken his money, left him bound and naked. And I felt damn good about it.

  The Stockings were gone. I found a police station and gave an abridged version of events, handing over Le Caron’s pistol and the money—they were satisfied when it matched the amount Champion had reported missing—and was told to return in the morning.

  I wired the Bingham House in Philadelphia, assuring Champion that all was well. Early next morning, after a miserable night in a fleabag hotel near the station, I was taken to Le Caron’s cell. He jumped up when he saw me.

  “That’s him! The one that robbed me!”

  “You’re cute in stripes,” I told him.

  The cops were pleased with me. Le Caron was wanted for a number of indiscretions in New York. I signed a statement. They said I’d have to appear in court later in the week. That didn’t sound good, but I let on that I’d cooperate.

  Stepping into the bright morning, I made my decision. I’d thought about it most of the night. I knew of only one way to help Mrs. Leonard. And it might not hurt to keep a bit of distance from the club just now.

  I sent another telegram informing Champion that a family crisis had arisen; I would rejoin them in several days. Then I went back to the station and bought a ticket on the Sunday train to Elmira.

  I was going treasure-hunting.

  The new white courthouse sat like a wedding cake on Lake Street, glistening in the sun, its Greek Revival portico and balustraded windows trimmed with stone frosting. I looked out one of its windows. Heat waves shimmered on the Chemung River two blocks away. Flies buzzed in the corridor outside the county excise commissioner’s office, where I sat in a straight-backed wooden chair, waiting and sweating.

  I’d arrived in Elmira Township late the previous afternoon and taken a carriage up to Woodlawn to scout the situation. It was unsettling to know that in time Twain and Livy, their infant son, and three grown daughters would be buried there. The grounds were hushed and cool, with shade trees and winding paths. But they held no military graves. Finally a caretaker set me straight: the Confederate section was in Woodlawn National Cemetery, adjacent to the municipal facility. In gathering darkness I trudged to the top of Davis Avenue and set out across fields. Beyond a row of young maples I found wooden markers—soldiers’ graves, but Union soldiers. I hadn’t gone ten paces among them before I was challenged by a guard in blue who cradled a rifle.

  “Cemetery’s closed.” His New York accents seemed to fit the uniform. “Open tomorrow.”

  I asked him where I could get information about the Confederate graves. He said to see Sexton Vincent at the Baptist Church. I thanked him and retraced my steps. But before leaving I climbed partway up a nearby hill for a broader view. Above me, on its crest, stood a squat fortresslike structure with a posted sign: ELMIRA CORRECTIONAL FACILITY. A guard stared at me from a sentry box. A savage-sounding dog barked nearby. It all gave me a bad feeling.

  I studied the burial ground. No fence. Just the one guard—no, there came another. I watched them talk in the glow of a lantern. One rolled a cigarette; they looked bored.

  Did I dare try it that night? No, too big a risk. Even if they fell asleep later, how would I carry the loot? I’d need a horse and rig, tools, a light to work by.

  So, obliquely, I was going through channels. I’d found Sexton Vincent—a gaunt, kindly, Lincolnesque man—at his church and obtained the information that Corporal O’Shea lay in plot #3117. Vincent sketched that portion of the grounds for me, indicating the grave’s exact location.

  “Were you related?” he asked.

  “Acquainted,” I said.

  He said that even four years after the war, many still came searching for lost friends and relations. Most he could not help; I was among the fortunate few. I assured him that he was performing a valuable service. Precisely how valuable, I reflected, would soon be determined.

  The Chemung County courthouse was proving more difficult. I’d gotten as far as the anteroom of Commissioner Costigan’s office. There a clerk with the overbite of a woodchuck and clearly not enough work to do proceeded to belabor my ears with a capsule history of the township. Did I know why it was called Elmira? Well, back in ’28, when folks were choosing a name, they recalled an early settler who’d yelled for her daughter in a piercing voice. Why not use the name they’d all heard so often? He looked at me expectantly. “Isn’t that something?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Something.”

  He went on about how the Chemung Canal was dug and linked with the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. How during the war the Woolen Manufacturing Company put half the town to work producing cloth for uniforms. How the new Elmira Rolling Mills and all the others were turning out tons of iron now, and soon the whole valley would be a paradise of industrial prosperity.

  “What about the military prison?” I interjected.

  He looked startled. “What?”

  “Wasn’t there a prison camp here during the war?”

  “Why, yes,” he said, shifting gears. “In ’sixty-four they converted old number three barracks into a grand, first-class facility. Folks visited from all around to take it in—and catch sight of the Rebs too, of course. Why, I remember booths selling cakes and lemonade and crackers and peanuts and beer and sometimes stronger potions—”

  “Where was it?” I interrupted.

  “Where? Why, right down below Water Street.” He pointed southward. “Along the river, foot of Hoffman. Some of them Secesh boys like to cried at how kindly the folks hereabouts treated ’em. It weren’t your general notion of a prison ’tall. Nothin’ like them in Virginia, where our boys starved.”

  “Didn’t a good many die here?” I asked bluntly.

  “Pshaw,” he said—the first time I’d heard anybody actually voice it—and looked indignant. “That old tune don’t play. We treated them boys like they was our own, practically. They got the same food and provisions, got to move freely inside the camp, got to make articles and sell ’em to folks so as to earn their own money. . . .”

  He droned on. I stopped listening and considered how to handle the good commissioner once I got inside. The Army maintained only a skeleton detachment in Elmira now. Though guarded by federal troops, Woodlawn’s military adjunct was under day-to-day municipal administration. I stared at the gilt letters on the door, aware of butterflies gathering in my stomach; if I blew this, they’d nail me for offering a public official a bribe. Daniel J. Costigan. Wasn’t that Irish? Christ, they were everywhere.

  At length the door opened and a burly man with a large paunch beckoned me inside. He had small piggish brown eyes and gray-streaked whiskers. His manner was brisk, the busy servant of the people. He gestured to a seat in a pool of sunlight, where I sat, sweating even more profusely. He retreated behind a battered oak writing table.

  “How can I help you, Mr. . . .”

  “Snider, Ed Snider,” I said. “People call me Duke. I’m here on a sentimental mission. One involving a lady�
�s honor and her most cherished memories.”

  “Indeed?” His expression did not change.

  “Yes, her cousin died here in the camp during the war. The family was loyal—they’d moved to North Carolina just before secession—and they promptly disowned the cousin when he joined the Rebels. But she gave him her most valued possession, a ring, to carry with him. She’d like to have it back now. It was her grandmother’s, you see, and—”

  He had begun to frown as I talked. Now he interrupted. “Sexton Vincent, here in town, was the camp’s chaplain. He maintains wartime records.”

  “Yes, I’ve talked with him.”

  “And the boy was interred here?”

  I nodded.

  He placed his hands palms down on the tabletop. “Possessions of deceased prisoners were held for claim after the war, of course, but I don’t believe such is still the case.”

  “Well, here’s the thing,” I said confidentially. “She feels positive the ring is still on his finger.”

  His small eyes listed to mine. “On his finger?”

  “Yes, in the grave. She said the ring was so tight it couldn’t have been removed in any . . . normal way.” I mopped my forehead with a handkerchief. “She’s positive that it’s, well, still in place.”

  He shook his head slowly. “You must understand that those were times of hardship and confusion, Mr. Snider. Stealing was common, I’m afraid. A valuable ring, on the hand of a dead man . . .”

  “I made that very argument,” I said quickly. “She insisted that the ring was of so little value that nobody would go to the trouble of taking it. A plain band, no stone. Impossible to remove without ruining it.” I packed my voice with nobility. “I pledged my solemn word of honor that I would help.”

  He eyed me lugubriously, as if assisting me were his fondest wish. “I trust she appreciates such gentlemanly aid,” he said. “But I'm afraid the family will have to apply for the removal of the body in the proper manner. I can provide you the appropriate forms—”