by Ralph Peters
When I come in, she had a washbasin waiting. And coffee and pie on the table. She shook her head maternally, as all good Welsh housewives do.
“You must be frozen to the heart of you,” she said.
FIFTEEN
NOW THERE IS PIE, AND THERE IS PIE, AND I MUST pause to tell you. My mind was all on invasions of Canada and streaming snows when I come back into the house, but when Mrs. Rhys placed that bounteous slice in front of me, with its crust golden as the dreams of Midas and the filling red as rubies, I could do naught but sit me down and eat. For hungry I was, and there was courtesy to take into account, too. The good lady had baked it for their evening meal, twas clear, but cut it fresh for me. The oven’s warmth was still in it, and cream spooned thick from the jug covered it over, and the flavor packed a wallop. Twas made of cherries she had put up, that pie, with black walnuts to take the sweet off, and oh, such a puckering beauty you will rarely hold in your mouth. That pie demanded more than I could give, for savoring was owed it, and second helpings, and a plush chair thereafter in which to glow and drowse. But time there was none.
The poor woman was baffled and amazed by my goings-on, but she bore it like a Christian and sent a lovely piece of pie along for John Brent as I dashed out into the snow again.
Now you will say, “Oh, this Jones is an eternal hypocrite. For he fair trumpets his respect for this Reg’lar John, along with his swelling regard for the Negro race, then leaves the poor fellow to freeze while he gluts himself sick in the warm with his own kind.” But I will tell you: Firstly, Mrs. Rhys would have had him at her table and wondered only that he did not help himself to a bigger portion. And secondly, I would have had him inside, too. But he knew his world, John Brent. He never went needlessly into a white man’s house, and never would he put himself alone with a white woman. For he grasped that innocence is ever weaker than suspicion, and tongues will tell more than they know. John Brent was regular, all right. And cautious, too. But let that bide.
He put up the horse blankets and off we went into the blow, with the flesh of cherries clinging to my gums. The storm had come out of the north, and the wind was up. The driving snow cut into the eyes of the horses, making them shy. Big flakes fell fast, and all of John Brent’s skill was wanted to keep the sleigh on the road. Not halfway up the lake, we come upon a spilled-over log sled, and a mule down broken-legged and braying. Its jittered fellows fought the harness and worsened the beast’s sufferings. A mile farther on, I had to get down and lead our team by the bridle, with the horse fear in me all the while and John Brent steadying their path. The snow grew so deep I could not lead the pair properly, and my friend had to turn to the whip—of which he was ever sparing—to carry us into the gale.
All the way I worried. For though we would do best to wait and catch Kildare deeper in his deeds and all uncovered, I had to get off a coded telegraphic to Washington warning Seward of what was afoot. Next, I must share my intelligences with Sheriff Underwood, then make a plan to bring up soldiers from Elmira to see the business of arresting these fellows done orderly. For where fifty rifles had gone, five hundred might have preceded them. We needed to find every store of arms, and break every conspiracy. It would not do to lock up Kildare—or Kilraine—only to learn that his plot would go on without him. A crushing was needed. Not cruel, but thorough. War with England would ruin us all.
We made it back into Penn Yan after dark, with the snow scraping the belly of the sleigh. John Brent dropped me before the parsonage, remarking, “I’ve got to get these horses into the barn. They’re blown, sir.” His strong features showed no self-concern, despite the cold, but only alarm for his animals. For he loved all that the Good Lord had created.
The truth is we were as blown as the beasts. There is a special weariness comes of the cold, and it slows a man’s thoughts as surely as it does his limbs. Oh, I was born to be a fool that day.
I intended to thaw my fingers then set to work with my code book. After sending off the message to Seward, I would go by the jail to see if Sheriff Underwood was still there—although I suspected he would be gone home to his farm with such a storm upon us. For we would see no rebellion, nor invasion, nor common crime in such a snow as this.
Still, I was anxious to take matters in hand. For duty delayed is duty betrayed, and the man who begins by putting off a chore ends by putting off his salvation.
I did not even get inside Mr. Morris’s front door before a boy ploughed up to me and gave my coat a tug. Snow cascaded from my shoulders.
“Major Jones!” he cried. “Major Jones!”
I had seen him somewhere before, but could not fix him. Then he wiped his nose with the back of his mitten and I remembered. He had begged a penny of me in the street a month before, and I had given him ten cents. He was the boy with the Irish face and American voice.
“What is it, lad?” He should not have been out on such a day, but inside, fed and warm. I pitied the lad and thought of my own son.
“Sheriff Underwood sent me to ya. He needs ya right now.”
Oh, how I longed to go inside and thaw.
“Where is he, boy? The jail is it?”
The little fellow shook his head. “No, sir. He’s gone home to his farm. Had to go real quick. Says to tell ya, ‘Bloody murder,’ and that yer to come to him quick, no matter what.”
“More, then?”
He shook his head and shivered. “Kin I go now, sir? It’s awful cold.”
I gave him another ten-cent piece and sent him off.
There was hard. For I was cold and weary, and wanted my rest. I felt near sickness again and, despite the dark, my eyes were all bedazzled. But Underwood would not have sent for me on such a night had the matter not been urgent.
Murder was it? Again? And the constables and deputies no doubt out in the storm themselves, with a shivering boy sent to fetch me.
But what was I to do? John Brent could not take me, for his horses were spent. Besides, the sleigh would not cut through the depths of the snowfall any longer.
Now I am human like you, see. For a moment, I wondered if I could not plead the weather and stay in until the morning. And such I might have done, had a lesser man called for me.
I shook as much of the snow as I could from my coat and boots, and went inside.
Mr. Morris come running.
“I was afraid, afraid!” he cried, with his peaked hair aquiver. “A terrible storm! I prayed for you and our John Brent. I prayed! And now my prayers are answered! Isn’t the storm terrible, terrible? A judgement, a judgement . . .”
“Mr. Morris . . . I must ask a favor, sir.”
“A favor? A favor? Anything, anything!”
“I would like to borrow your horse.”
“My horse?”
Yes, his horse. Twas a sad, decrepit animal, fit only for a preacher’s gentle rounds. Yet, it was little less of a terror to me, for all that. I would as soon have mounted a dragon. But I saw no other way to reach Underwood’s farm. For it was too far to walk, and my good leg was as frozen as the bad one, and the drifts were half as high as me and growing.
“The sheriff has called for me,” I told him. “It is an urgent matter, see.”
“Urgent? But the storm, the storm . . .”
“Your prayers will see us along, Mr. Morris.”
The poor fellow looked at me in fear. He faced eternity boldly, but had his qualms about the day-to-day. And truth be told, the horse was precious to him. I have never understood the bond between the human and the equine.
“Prayer? Surely, surely. Yes, prayer. An urgent matter? You said it was urgent?”
“Murder,” I said. Forgive me, but I knew the fellow liked a bit of excitement.
“Murder?”
“Murder.”
He looked about himself, at tables and at chairs, as if a tool to prevent my foolishness might be found lying around like a book or a pair of misplaced spectacles.
“Then you must go,” he said, despairingly. “Go, go. I’ll
saddle Priscilla. But you’re all wet, all cold . . .”
“I will change my socks, and that will do.” You will note that, selfishly, I did not try to dissuade him from saddling the mount himself. For I would endure horrors enough upon its back without attempting to girdle the creature with leathers.
“You know the way?” Morris pleaded. “You . . .”
I nodded firmly. For I had traveled the road past the sheriff’s farm many a time, if in better weather, and I had visited him at his homestead twice.
“So cold,” the preacher said, “awfully cold, the storm . . . the storm . . .” And off he went to help me all he could.
I changed my socks in haste and pulled on another length of unmentionables beneath my trousers. It made for a snug waist and seat. But the warmth was worth the squeeze. I repositioned the pistol for what little comfort I might have, then chose my greatcoat over my India rubber cape. For I wanted the warmth without the sweat of it. I should have taken the time to write a note, detailing all that I had learned. But my brain was as frozen as my fingers.
We think too little, and learn too late.
Morris led the horse around to the front, stepping high to make his way through the snow. I had a problem with the placement of my cane and fiddled about. Sitting a horse is an awkward business. And my shivering come not from the cold alone. For that sunk-backed beast seemed a viper to me. At last, I handed my cane down to the pastor.
“I will not need it to ride,” I told him, “and Underwood will loan me a walking stick.”
“Yes, ride, ride,” poor Morris said. “Oh, what a dreadful night! It makes me fear the Apocalypse!”
I snapped the reins and rode off after murder.
I never lost my way. It was a trial, but I had not soldiered all those years for naught. If a man can find his way through the killing deserts of the Pushtoon and come out with all his parts still on him, he will not go astray in New York State.
Still, I often had to trust the horse and my instincts, for there was little enough to see. With the snow blowing against us and the dark down, my eyes found no more than a shroud of earth, and that close as the walls of a coffin. Only the trees by the roadside, white to windward and black on the lee, gave reassurance that we had not suffered a second Flood, and this time a frozen one.
Twas hard going for the horse. I hate the creatures, yet I will be fair. She did good service, though after some miles of plunging through the drifts she could do no more than plod. I sang hymns to help us both along, and the animal did perk up all startled at the handsome sound of my voice. Even a beast will take comfort in a nice hymn.
I sang out “Old One Hundred,” for that one pleases me ever, with its feel of marching Heavenward. Then I gave the night “Rock of Ages,” which, though newfangled, has meat on its bones. On I went through Watts and Wesley, with snowflakes darting into my mouth and the wind like the breath of the devil.
I prayed between melodies, asking for safe deliverance from the perils of the night. I know we are not meant to pray selfishly, asking the Lord for favors and comforts. But the horse was going feebly now, and the drifts looked as high as my shoulders, and I will tell you without shame that I was afraid. For men may be faced down, but nature is implacable.
Well, there are ever those worse off than us, and sometimes we are guided to their aid. Passing through a grove, under branches clacking in torment, I heard a human cry.
It made me jump, I will tell you. For the dark seemed full of devils, though I am not one for spooks.
I heard it plain.
A human voice, weakened and calling for help.
I saw the figure then. Plunged into the snow beside the road. Pleading with a desperate, upraised hand.
“Help me,” a man’s voice called, all broken. “Please . . . help me . . .”
I pulled up closer to the dark lump in the snow and, holding the reins tightly in my hand, let myself down from the saddle.
I dropped into snow up to my hips.
“ . . . help . . . me . . .”
The poor fellow sounded Irish of a sudden. It occurred to me that he was likely drunk, and lost, and would have died had I not happened by. I felt a lilt of pride at the prospect of rescuing my fellow man.
I bent toward him, thinking of the Good Samaritan.
THE LIGHT SHOCKED ME. The world was naught but a blaze. Pain pushed outward from my head, greater than my skull, and the world wore a killing glare.
I shut my eyes again and went back under.
I do not recall any dreams, and my sleep had not been notched by day and night. I would tell you that I knew only a long darkness, but that is looking back. Then I did not know if my sleep was long or short, or if it was a sleep at all. Twas a nothingness. On dark days, when my devils come upon me, I fear eternity will be so. But then I turn again to my Redeemer.
I woke a second time. Moments later? Hours? Days? I was too wrecked to wonder. All was a jumble, and so that day remains. I have but scraps, stuffed in the pocket of memory.
A ceiling of unfinished boards, gray and uneven.
The smell of rough soap used in quantity. Prickly as briars in the nose.
Wind. Before I found the strength to turn my head and look around me, I heard the wind screaming to come inside. It strained the walls and smacked against the windows. A vandal of a wind, it was, with a sharp keen to it.
My face was cold. My body lay cocooned, but coldness pressed down on my eyes, my cheeks, my nose.
I did not try to move at first. I did not even think of it. Something in me knew I could not yet take on so great a task.
My eyes would not stay open. The light hurt too much. I hid behind my eyelids, letting myself sink again. Yet, something braked me before I lost consciousness, and I lay between the worlds. Perhaps I had a glimpse of Nellie’s days. Thoughts rose vivid and out of rhyme, without the comfort of order. Images sought to lure me from all decency, and darkness seeped out of my corners.
I was visited by my Mary Myfanwy and our little John, by President Lincoln sitting in a coach, by flaunting girls that I had long forgotten and a drunken quartermaster recalled from India. The cholera dead rose, too, not least my mother. Countless phantoms robbed me of my peace, and those who should have comforted did not.
Do you believe we ever know ourselves? What hides within us, waiting to emerge?
Not sense, that’s certain. If I speak of myself. I had forgotten the invasion of Canada and government arms and the Irish. I had no recall of my night ride through the snow. Twas as if my brain were going carefully with me, testing me with pictures from the past before bullying me back to present duty.
I remember turning my head as if called. The room was spare as a country chapel. There was a single window.
Beyond the glass, the sky was so blue that I want a better word to tell the color. I felt that I had never seen a sky so blue.
The wind howled and the panes shook.
Only then did I wonder where I was. For nothing was familiar. My sense of time and place had slipped askew. I did not know the room. Or the smells, at once familiar and foreign. I floated under my blankets, chill air on my cheeks.
Thinking was too hard and soon I slept.
I awoke to find a woman standing over me. She jumped when I opened my eyes.
“Du lieber Gott!” she said, laying her hand over her mouth in alarm. But then she lowered the hand. And smiled. “Verzeih’mir. Hub’s nit erwartet.”
She had a face just wearing beyond youth, with brown hair gathered back. All kindness she looked. Handsome, in a sound and solid manner.
Her eyes, though, were treasures. They poured over you like honey.
“You are . . . waking?” she asked, in my tongue. But I could not respond. I could only look up at her, an angel hovering over me. And then I could not do that much.
When next I woke it was dark. I felt a need to carry out a personal matter. Quickly.
Fortunately, my limbs had come back to me. With needles in them. G
reat complainers they had become, my arms and legs. And there was a business that wanted hasty attention.
I got up on an elbow.
Too fast.
The room swirled and hurt and pushed me back toward the pillow.
All I could think of was my need. I wanted to cry out. With no sense of past or future. I dreaded the embarrassment of soiling the bed. A strange bed, at that. A bed between worlds.
I bullied my way out from under the blankets, unsteady as if I were drunk. Which I was not, you understand.
My bare feet found the floor. The sharp cold of it. And I toppled over.
Then it was day and I was sitting up. The angel spooned broth into me. I could not remember waking, but suddenly the world seemed clear. Twas not, to tell the truth. But I thought it was. My head held a mighty hurt.
I had a sense of something gone wrong.
Of something gone terribly wrong.
“ . . . day . . . is it?”
“Was?”
“ . . . day . . .”
Her face was oval and full, with life’s cares just beginning to mark it.
“Montag.” She tipped the broth into my mouth. “Monday is today.”
I tried to shake my head. I don’t know if I managed it. “Date . . . the date?”
The question seemed to confuse her. “Weiss nit. Muss mal gucken.”
She took away the empty bowl. And left me with a child’s sense of loss.
The sky was gray that day, but the wind was down. For the first time, I heard an infant’s cries. It occurred to me that the poor woman had two infants to feed now.
Bits and pieces, pieces and bits. Molloy kept popping into my head, but I did not get the sense of it. Then I slept and dreamed I was confined in a madhouse—a place of horrors it was—and could not convince anyone that I did not belong there. I woke sweating, leaping up only to collapse back into dizziness, with the great ache ever in my head.
Isn’t it queer how one little drop of thought can unleash a flood of memories? As when your life’s love kisses you a certain way and erases the years? Well, I had no kiss, but, of all things, the pistol that the boys in my old company had given me come suddenly into my mind.
