by Daren Wang
Leander didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry the army was hard for you, though,” Malcolm finished.
There was a long silence after that until Leander stood and walked away.
He headed back into the dark woods and turned toward his shack.
When he heard voices, he slowed, thinking it might be Harry and the train stowaway. He crept behind some scrub brush at the clearing’s edge.
It was his sister and Joe sitting by a fire on the bank of the pond. Behind them was a neat little cabin where he’d built his shack so many times.
Mary was resting her head in Joe’s lap, crying.
“I can’t save him, I can’t save him,” she said over and over as he stroked her hair. “I don’t know how. I can’t save him.”
Each sob that floated over the pond felt like a blow to his stomach. He knew how hard his sister worked to hide her vulnerability. He stared in wonder at the way she shared her pain with this man, and the way she seemed to take comfort in his tenderness. Leander understood that somehow to spy on her then was as much a wrong as any he had ever done. Ashamed, he turned away, moving deeper into the woods.
His father’s mill stood on the bank of the dammed creek, black against the starry night sky. Leander climbed onto the platform and ran his hand over the well-worn saws and the iron tools hanging neatly on the wall.
There was little lumber in the clearing, but the mound of fresh sawdust testified to the work done.
He picked up a piece of fine walnut from the scrap pile, running his fingers on the smooth, planed side, admiring the straightness of the cut.
He sat in the dark, listening to the gurgle of the creek, remembering the times when he had swam with Harry and Hans in the mill pond.
He sat there for a long time before climbing to his feet.
Mary and Joe had left the clearing, but the cabin drew him back.
The neat little building he found had little in common with the shack he’d left behind. Even in the moonlight, he could tell it was perfect of line, with a tight roof and a little porch extending toward the pond.
The door was closed, but there was no lock. Inside he found a few pieces of simple furniture and a small bed.
He lay down, thinking of the night he’d spent there with his friends in the cold winter before he’d gone away and he fell into a deep sleep.
The sun was high when he woke. He stripped off his clothes and plunged into the pond and swam to the bottom. He opened his mouth, taking in the clear, cold water from the spring.
He dressed, feeling better than he had in years. Before he left, he took the quarter from his pocket and lay it on the bed, the only payment he could make.
In the barnyard, the men were loading into the wagon for their trip downtown.
He went to where Malcolm stood among the men.
“May I go with you to the enlistment office, please?” Leander asked.
The cart was nearly out the driveway when Joe followed them, hopping to climb into the wagon bed.
GETTYSBURG
Riot in Buffalo: Furious Outbreak between the Irish and Negroes.
Our city yesterday was again the scene of a terrible riot, instigated by some of the laborers on the dock. There has for some time past been a growing antipathy between a portion of the Irish laborers and the negroes, the former being unwilling to allow the latter the privilege of working along the wharves.…
The appearance of the negroes was the signal for another onset, and the crowd, yelling like so many demons, and armed with clubs and stones, made a rush for the terrified victims.…
—BUFFALO COMMERCIAL, JULY 7, 1863
Since the secession, Harry had helped plenty of Confederates pass through Town Line, but this one was different.
The ones from the Elmira prison camp showed up closer to dead than alive, and stared at him with eyes like accusations. He always thought they were sizing him up for a meal.
They didn’t speak much, and he was fine with that.
One had come through the summer before and talked his ear off. He told stories about his heroics at this battle or that. Harry tried to ignore him, but when he said something about shooting Union boys at Ball’s Bluff, Harry had knocked him flat with one punch to the face. It had taken everything he had not to skin him right then. He had put him on the next train, and Compson told him later he’d been caught in Lancaster. Harry was fine with that.
This new one was named Keith, and he talked a lot, but mainly asked questions. He asked why Harry had attacked Leander and what kind of oats were in the field they were walking through on their way to the parsonage. When Harry showed him the loft in the parsonage barn where he would sleep, he asked what denomination the pastor was.
Before Harry left him there, Keith offered him an apple out of the haversack he had slung on his shoulder.
The others barely had clothes, much less a bag. Much, much less an apple.
Harry gave short answers.
“He had it coming.”
“I don’t know.”
“The preachy kind.”
He felt kind of bad for not talking much, but he wasn’t in the mood. He kept thinking about Leander, about the way he’d called his name, like he was glad to see him. The nerve of him to come back here. How could he not know Harry wanted to kill him?
The sound of his old friend’s whimpering made him feel sick and he hardly slept that night.
In the morning, Harry looked for the Confederate in the barn, but instead found him, shaved and scrub-faced, sitting at the breakfast table with the Zubrichs. He was wearing a pair of patched overalls.
“Your friend here was just telling us about his time in seminary,” the pastor said as Mrs. Zubrich poured him a glass of buttermilk.
“It’s true,” Keith said. “I thought I had the calling in my youth, but I found myself too susceptible to worldly things to take the vows.”
“Nonsense,” the pastor said. “We all feel that pull away from the blessed life. You’ll be a fine preacher some day.”
Harry reached for the plate of flapjacks.
“You have work for us?” he asked.
“Mr. Weber needed help with his chicken coop,” the preacher said. “But that can wait. Why don’t you boys have a day and go down to the creek and do some fishing?”
“What did you say to him?” he asked the Confederate, laughing.
“I think a man of the cloth should enjoy God’s grace on a beautiful day like today,” Zubrich said. “It would be wrong to have a man of such a fine intellect digging in the mud.”
While Harry finished his breakfast, Mrs. Zubrich packed them a basket and they set off into the summer morning.
They settled around one of Harry’s favorite holes, but the sun was warm and bright and the fish stayed down. Harry pulled his hat over his face and napped in the sun until Keith woke him by digging into the basket.
“You people drink around here?” he asked, a chicken leg between his teeth.
“I thought you were one of those preacher folks,” Harry said, rubbing his face.
“I dropped out,” Keith said, pulling a bottle out of his bag and taking a swallow. “Best bourbon in Kentucky,” he said.
He passed it over to Harry.
“Anyway, Christ’s first miracle was at the wedding at Cana,” Keith said. “He turned water into wine. The temperance folks say it was grape juice, but that just don’t make sense. Those temperance preachers, they tell you that you’ve got to follow the rules exactly like the Bible says. Exactly like it says. Then you ask them about the wine at Cana, and they say everyone at the wedding got themselves worked up over really good grape juice. Something’s got to give in all that.”
Harry took a swig and it was as good as the stuff on Compson’s boat.
Keith chewed on the chicken and looked at the dragonflies darting across the slow, rippling creek.
“Over there.” He pointed.
“What? Is there someone there?” Harry said, sta
ring into the reeds near the bed.
“That’s where they’ll be biting,” Keith said.
Harry stared across the creek.
“I fished up and down this creek my whole danged life,” he said, laughing. “There ain’t a fish within five rod of that spot.”
“There’s none here,” Keith said. “Indulge me. It’s the price of the bourbon.”
“Ah, what the hell,” Harry said, climbing to his feet. “There’s shade over that side anyway.”
They had their lines in the water for less than ten minutes before Harry pulled out a fourteen-inch brown trout.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, laughing, pulling the hook from the squirming fish.
“Did you really quit the Union?” Keith said.
“Yes sir,” Harry said. “It’s been a year and a half now.”
The Confederate nearly doubled over laughing.
“Well, since you’re a fellow Confederate, I’ll even clean that thing for you,” Keith said, pulling a huge bowie knife from his bag and reaching for the fish.
“How’s that work?” Keith asked as he lay the wriggling fish on a rock and crushed its head with the butt end of the knife. “You stop the Yankees from coming in and all?”
“They don’t really bother us,” Harry said. “Not much has changed, except the pastor runs the town now.”
The knife was so sharp that he barely touched the fish’s belly with its tip before guts blossomed out of the silver skin.
“They say you should wait and do this when you’re ready to cook,” Keith said as he pulled the innards out of the fish’s cavity. “But I like to do it right then. Feels better to me.”
He submerged the fish until the water ran clear.
“Something took my bait,” he said, pulling his own bare hook from the water. He squeezed another worm onto it and dropped the line again.
“Pastor Zubrich?” he asked as he settled back onto the bank. “He said you’re the sheriff, you’re in charge.”
Harry laughed as he re-baited his own hook.
“He says that so if someone doesn’t like something, they can blame me,” Harry said. “But he makes all the rules, collects most of the fine money.”
Keith turned to look at him.
“That so?” he said. “The pastor takes all the money. What’s he spend it on? Girls?”
“Not many girls around here,” Harry said. “Not since Wilhelm got killed and the Corner House closed down. As far as I can tell, he’s got it all saved up somewhere. He collects all the money in the plate each Sunday, but damned if I ever seen him part with a red cent. He’s got a decent-sized vegetable patch behind the barn and he makes all the runners like you do the work.”
Harry took another swig of the bottle. “Except for men of the cloth, of course.” He laughed.
“So what do you all do for fun around here then?” Keith asked.
“Fun?” Harry said. “Shit, we don’t have no fun around here. All the fun people are dead. Nothing but a bunch of old farmers in this town now.”
“Shh,” Keith’s said, sitting up as his line tightened. He studied the rippling water for a few seconds before yanking the rod hard. The surface of the water exploded as a fish struggled against the line.
Harry watched as the Southerner pulled in a monster, nearly two feet long.
“Katia would fry that up fine,” Harry said.
“Katia?” Keith said, setting about to gut the second fish.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Harry said, laughing. “She’s taken. We’re going to get married and move down South and I’m going to buy a big house like those plantation people.”
Keith feigned shock.
“You really are a Confederate,” he said. “I’m not going to go messing with your woman. How could I? We’re practically brothers in arms. Why don’t you get her down here tonight? We’ll build us a fire and fry up some fish, drink whiskey, and howl like wolves.”
“It’s been a long time since I done something like that,” Harry said. “I’d like that.”
He pulled his hat back over his eyes and lay back for another nap.
They built the fire in the dry stones of the low creek.
Before long, Katia arrived, directed there by Mrs. Zubrich. She brought strawberry pie and a half-dozen ears of corn to roast in the fire. Keith asked her about her childhood in Germany, and about her work at the farm.
“The place sounds like a plantation, what with all the niggers and all,” Keith said. “They rich like the plantation folks down South?”
“There’s a big safe in Mr. Nathan’s study,” she said. “I’m sure it is full of money, though even his children don’t get to see it.”
They passed the bottle until it was empty.
“You ain’t said nothing about yourself,” Harry said to Keith. “How long you been in the army? Where you from?”
“I ain’t never been in the army,” the Southerner said. “I’m kind of a hired hand, more than anything. Mr. Compson hired me on for some work down in Buffalo. I’ll be on my way there tomorrow.”
“You already talked to Commander Compson?” Harry said. “I didn’t know I was supposed to take you downtown tomorrow.”
“Commander? Is that what he calls himself up here?” Keith said. “As good as anything else, I guess.”
It was a fair evening, and they slept under the stars.
Keith was gone in the morning, and Katia and Harry stripped and bathed in the warm water. She scrubbed his back with the silt of the creek and he washed her hair with a piece of soap she had brought.
“We should leave here,” she said. “It’s time to go. How much money do you have?”
He thought of the pickle crock full of notes he’d buried in a pine grove behind the parsonage.
“I think there’s about five thousand,” he said.
She gasped.
“I know,” he said. “Every time I tell Compson I want to quit, he just gives me a bigger wad of cash.”
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” she said. “Mr. Willis says bad things are coming.”
“Hold on for just a while longer,” he said. “I almost have enough.”
“We are rich, no reason to wait,” she said.
She moved against his body in that way, and he reached for her.
“Let’s go now,” she said, climbing on top of him and unbuttoning his shirt.
“Maybe,” he said.
Afterward, they packed their things and she headed up the creek path toward the Willis farm and he went up Town Line Road to the parsonage. He was hoping Mrs. Zubrich had made biscuits when he opened the back door into the kitchen.
Two strange men looked up from the table.
“Run!” Zubrich shouted, but Keith struck the pastor with the butt end of his knife and he fell to the ground. The two men lifted their pistols from the table in unison and pointed them at Harry.
Mrs. Zubrich went to her knees next to her husband and dabbed at the blood on his face before helping him up.
“There’s no place to run,” Keith said. “Come in and close the door.”
Harry raised his hands.
“Don’t bother with that,” Keith said.
“Don’t you hit him again,” Harry said.
“Don’t you do anything that makes me want to,” Keith said. “Now these fine people have already offered up alms for us poor unfortunate war refugees, and we wanted to see what you could add to the cause before we move on to our other business.”
“You want my money?” Harry said.
“This jerkwater doesn’t raise no idiots.” Keith smiled. “I almost didn’t bother, but it turns out the good pastor here has accumulated a nice little nest egg. My experience is that Mr. Compson spends other people’s money pretty freely, and I’m betting you’ve done well.”
He took a biscuit from the table and slathered jam on it before taking a big bite.
“I’m looking at you guessing you got it buried somewhere nearby. A pipe tobacco t
in, maybe?”
“Fuck you.” Harry spat, but he jerked back when Keith sent Mrs. Zubrich sprawling.
“That gave me no pleasure,” Keith said. “Now this isn’t going to work out any other way. You’ll take me to the money and dig it up. Me and my boys will head on down to Buffalo. You all get back to your seceding ways like good little Confederates.”
Mrs. Zubrich moaned as she climbed to her feet. She was cradling her arm as if it were broken.
Harry clenched his fists over and over again.
“I give you the money, you’ll let them go?” he asked.
“As God is my witness,” Keith said.
“Let’s go,” Harry said, opening the door.
He walked through the parsonage garden to the cypress wind break on the far side, listening to the footsteps behind him. He could see their twin shadows stretching long in front of him—his hunched, Keith’s tall, with the bowie knife moving in rhythm to their steps. He wanted to jump the Confederate, but wasn’t sure what he could do even if he could overpower him. There were still the gunman at the kitchen table.
When they got to the spot in the line of trees, Harry kicked at the fine brown needles that carpeted the ground. He went to his knees and brushed away the dirt from the top of the buried pickle crock. As he lifted the lid and reached for the bundled notes inside, the blade flashed in the sun. He jumped to the side as Keith drove the tip of the bowie knife into the ground where he’d knelt.
Harry scrambled to his feet and felt something drip from his left hand. He looked down to see blood flowing from a gash running the length of his forearm. He couldn’t feel his left hand, and it twisted weirdly when he tried to make a fist.
Keith lunged, and Harry jumped back, then took off into the cornfield on the other side of the break.
His head swimming, he stopped to listen, knowing the sounds of bodies passing through the cornfields from countless afternoons chasing Leander and Hans, but all he could hear was the wind through the tall green stalks. He took off his shirt and wrapped his arm in it.
When he heard the shots echo, he screamed into the clear blue sky overhead. By the time he got to the parsonage, Keith and the two others were gone, but he found the Zubrichs in the parlor, slumped together on their couch. He fell to his knees, and struggled not to wretch into the warm blood pooling on the floor.
