The Year of Jubilo

by Bahr, Howard;

  VIII

  The twilight was long in passing, as it often is in summertime, and the dark slow to come. At the old Wagner place, the ruined brick cookhouse gave of the sun’s light for a long time, as if reluctant to surrender any token of life. Somewhere in the brush-choked fields, a whippoorwill began to call.

  A man sat on the overturned cookpot, his saddled horse grazing nearby. It was not Colonel Burduck, though the man was examining the Colonel’s whittled stick and the drawings—a sun, a moon, a star—that the Colonel had made in the dirt. Across the man’s lap lay a Henry rifle. “Curious,” he said to himself, and laid the stick on the ground exactly where he’d found it.

  This was the second time in as many nights that Captain King Solomon Gault had visited the old Wagner place. Last night he had come to survey the ground as any good commander might be expected to do. Tonight was business.

  In the twilight, Captain Gault seemed calm and thoughtful. If he was aware of the ghosts collecting in the ruins, he gave no sign. He himself believed that he was calm, in a contemplative mood, unhurried and in control of his unfolding destiny. Had he been able to view the inner landscape of his soul, he would have been surprised to find the red shapes that rose and fell there, that spiraled upward in tortuous columns and fell back into the darkness. Others—those who knew him well—would not have been surprised.

  Captain Gault was called “Captain” because he once held a commission in the Confederate service—a roving commission, he liked to say, for he never served an hour in the regular army. His troops—sometimes a hundred and fifty or more—had been partisan rangers raised from Cumberland and Yalobusha Counties: piney woods farmers, hard men contemptuous of uniforms and discipline and drill, who could be summoned by mysterious signals and handshakes and messengers in the night to foray against the yankees. Armed with pistols, shotguns, knives, muskets lifted from the hands of the dead, they would mount their famished horses—or mules lately harnessed to the plow—and rendezvous at some lonely place where their Captain waited with his sleek thoroughbred, his English saddle, his gray officer’s frock and Henry rifle. From there, they would go and tear up the railroad, or steal livestock, or terrorize the Unionists of the county, or dangle by his heels some elderly farmer thought to have money buried in his garden. But they could fight, too. They liked to fight, preferred to fight, and they showed no quarter.

  In July of 1864, Gault and his men fought their last battle. In the piney summer twilight, with the rain just passed and a mist rising from the river, they set up an ambush on the north bank of the Tallahatchie, and sprung it on a column of Indiana cavalry escorting a pair of smoothbore Napoleons to Cumberland. Perhaps the attackers were too eager, made too bold by past successes. Certainly some of them were drunk. Whatever the reason, by the Federal artillery lieutenant’s pocket watch, the fight lasted twenty-five, minutes. Many of Gault’s men spent the first five minutes learning that their paper cartridges were wet, while the yankees, armed with Spencer repeating carbines, were under no such encumbrance. Worse, the smoothbores belonged to a veteran battery that could unlimber and open fire in a matter of minutes, which they did, with canister. The battle dissolved at last in a wild chase through the second-growth timber, during which five rebels were dispatched and three captured. Although they had suffered no casualties themselves, the Indiana men viewed the incident as a criminal act; before another half hour had passed, their captives were swinging from picket ropes in the limbs of a red oak tree beside the road.

  The defeat put an end to Gault’s command. Some of the rangers joined Forrest when he began operating in the area in August. A few decided to move west into the territories. Most simply went home, where they spent the rest of the war hiding out from both sides. None of them forgot the humiliation suffered in the Tallahatchie fight, for which they blamed the yankees, the rain, the gods, even Solomon Gault; in short, everybody and everything but themselves.

  For his part, Gault wisely chose to give up soldiering for a while. Casting about for other ways to serve, he discovered the lucrative smuggling trade that ran out of Memphis. In this adventure he was so successful that, when the war ended, Solomon Gault found that his fortune was not only intact but increased severalfold. The war had cost him his wife and child, the country was a wasteland, his house was burned, and the fields over which he once rode were tall in broomsage and black oak saplings—but Solomon Gault had things to do, a plan to accomplish that only a calm, clear-sighted man could bring to fruition. He was, by anybody’s calculation, the richest man in the country. By rights, then, he should have been the most powerful. However, that distinction belonged to one who was not rich at all: Colonel Michael Burduck, U.S.A. Gault planned to alter that galling circumstance, and much more besides. So he waited in the gathering dusk at the old Wagner place, his good Henry rifle across his knees, listening to the whippoorwill.

  Presently, at near dark, he heard another sound, the one for which he’d been waiting. The horse lifted his head and whickered softly, his ears pricked forward. Gault rose, pulling his watch; he glanced at it, then snapped it shut and turned toward the road. The sound of walking horses, and the muted voices of men, grew nearer; they were coming from the south, two of them. Gault waited. In a moment, the riders turned off the road and materialized in the dusk, walking their mounts carefully through the cedars toward the open space where the old cookhouse stood. In the tricky light, they seemed larger than they really were. One of them stopped just inside the clearing, but the other rode close enough that the Captain could grasp the horse’s bit.

  “Well, Lieutenant Stutts,” said the Captain, looking up into the sharp, bearded face shadowed by the brim of a slouch hat.

  The other made no move to dismount. “Evenin, Cap’n,” he said, and grinned. “I been promoted, I see.”

  Wall Stutts was the only ranger to stand by the Captain in the months following their defeat on the Tallahatchie. Stutts’ adventures in the smuggling trade refined his sense of avarice and earned for him the conditional trust, if not the affection, of King Solomon Gault. Again, the Captain might have been surprised had he been able to see into the deep chambers of a soul, but probably not in this case. He knew Wall Stutts better than he knew himself, and understood that the man was useful only so far as his meanness was useful. Stutts enjoyed looking down on his Captain from the back of a horse, but that was all right for now. Let the man have his small moment.

  “Yes, a promotion,” the Captain said. He peered into the dusk at the other man waiting in silence. “Who’s that,” he said.

  The rider urged his mule forward. He was a short man, his face hidden by his hat brim and the upturned collar of a rain slicker. “Ah, the high sheriff,” said the Captain.

  The man pushed his hat back to reveal a round, grinning face. He had dropped his stirrups and was twisting the mule’s bridle in his hands. “Hidy, Cap’n Gault,” he said, and giggled, and climbed down from his mule.

  Ben Luker was a stunning illustration of the possibilities Captain Gault envisioned. He had once been the turnkey at the old jail under Sheriff Julian Bomar. With Bomar gone to the army, Luker and Constable John Talbot carried on as the law in Cumberland. John Talbot was shot down in the street by the wild Kansas troops who occupied the town briefly in ’62, leaving only old Ben Luker. When Colonel Burduck arrived and established martial law, one of his first acts was to seek out for civil liaison, for sheriff, a man so invisible, so inept, and preferably such a coward that he would give Burduck no argument whatever. Ben Luker seemed the perfect choice, and he was already in place, so the sheriff he became.

  Unfortunately for the Colonel, old Ben Luker was now in a situation to serve in ways Burduck did not suspect. Ben Luker had kinsmen with the rangers, had always been sympathetic, and had even ridden with them now and then when the sortie was not too strenuous. So, in the end, he was Gault’s man, not Burduck’s at all. The Captain enjoyed this joke on Colonel Burduck.

  For now, however, he ignored Ben Luker
and turned to Stutts. “The other one’s late—any trouble?”

  Wall Stutts threw his leg over his horse and dismounted. “Yonder he is, you can ask him yourself,” he said.

  The third rider had come quietly and now sat his horse just outside the clearing, hands folded on the pommel of his saddle, watching. Just enough light remained for the Captain to see that the man was hatless, bearded. The Captain did not need the light to detect the uneasiness he pushed ahead of him into the clearing. He was a little too solid, too inscrutable for the Captain’s taste. But that was all right too, for the moment.

  “Don’t be shy,” said the Captain. “We’re all friends here.”

  The rider dismounted, tied the reins to the spiky branch of a dead cedar tree. He walked with a slow, deliberate, rolling gait into the clearing. “I’m late, all right,” he said. “There’s a sentry on the bridge, nights. I had to hunt the ford.”

  “I heard you was jailed,” said Stutts, and spat.

  Carl Nobles looked at Stutts for a long moment. The other grinned in return. At last Nobles turned to the Captain. “I’m here now,” he said.

  Captain Gault was keenly aware of the distance that lay between this hew arrival and the other two men in the clearing. Unlike Stutts and the sheriff, Carl Nobles was a bona fide veteran of a regiment that had served in the East; he had been in great battles, had marched and fought under leaders whose names already rang like mighty bells in the folklore of the region. The Captain did not go so far as to admit that any such contrast existed between Nobles and himself; still, he could not rid himself of a certain awareness of the man and, worse, a covert envy. For the moment, he told himself. Only for the moment. For what he envied in Carl Nobles was, at last, only the means to an end.

  “Tell me the news,” he said.

  Nobles shrugged. “I got some boys interested. It ain’t easy. I ain’t good at this.”

  “How many?” asked the Captain. “A dozen? Twenty?”

  “One,” said Nobles. “Two, countin myself.”

  “Jesus,” said the Captain. He looked away in disgust, knowing he had to control himself.

  “And the other son bitch ain’t got but one leg,” Stutts said.

  “Watch your mouth,” said Nobles.

  Stutts grinned. “Any time you want to shut it, you jes let me know.”

  “Goddammit, man,” said the Captain, turning to Nobles again. “I called on you because I thought you had some influence. What the hell have you been doing?”

  Nobles closed the space between them; without thinking, Gault stepped back, then checked himself and stood his ground. “You listen to me,” said Nobles. “These boys are comin back wore out. They ain’t like your damned peckerwood rangers that never left the country. They are tired of fightin.”

  “What about you?” asked the Captain. “You tired, too? But you are in, it now, sir, and there is no backing away. This is serious business—I could hang for it, and so could you. Don’t forget that.” The Captain stopped then, and made himself relax. When he spoke again, his voice was easy, amiable. “Look here,” he said. “You don’t have to like me, nor Stutts here, nor the men who served with me, but we’re the only chance you have. What you have to do is believe. That’s all I’m asking.”

  Nobles looked at the ground for a moment, then raised his face to the Captain. “Fact is, I don’t much like you,” he said. “But, like you say, that don’t matter. I’m game, and I will keep tryin.”

  “Good man,” said the Captain, and lay his hand on Nobles’ shoulder. Nobles looked at the hand, and the Captain took it away.

  “Just one thing,” Nobles said.

  “And what is that, sir?”

  Nobles looked at Wall Stutts. “It better be for the right reasons,” he said.

  “Freedom,” said Gault. “That is the only reason.”

  Nobles gave a slow nod, then turned, walked back to where he had tethered Zeke. He mounted slowly, crossed his hands on the pommel again. When he spoke this time, he wasn’t looking at any of them. “I am long past bein afraid of dyin,” he said. “Just remember that.” Then he turned the horse and disappeared into the black shadows of the cedar trees. In a moment, they could hear the horse’s hooves in the mud of the road.

  “You gon’ trust him?” said Stutts.

  “Not anymore,” said the Captain. He looked at the sheriff. “Good night, Ben. You keep an eye on things, let us know how the wind changes.”

  “Sure thing, Cap’n,” said Luker. After a moment, he spoke again, diffidently. “You want to know what I think, I—”

  “Good night, Ben,” said the Captain.

  When the sheriff had gone, Wall Stutts cut a fresh chew of tobacco. “What you bring me here for anyhow?” he asked.

  The Captain clasped his hands behind his back, looked thoughtfully at the stars. “We won’t get any help from town—I should have known it all along. But no matter. With or without them, the time is nigh,” he said.

  “I been hearin that for months,” said Stutts, but Gault ignored him.

  “It’s time to make a statement, Wall,” the Captain said. “I have a job for you.” As the other watched, Solomon Gault went to his mount and took a pencil and a leaf of good linen paper from his saddlebag.

  “I ain’t no goddamn mail rider,” said Stutts.

  “You’ll like this delivery,” said the Captain. “It’s right in your line.” Then he sat down on the overturned cookpot and, by the light of the stars, began to write.

  THE MOON, LIKE a guest arriving after the party, rose diffidently, a little shyly, as if it expected to be turned away. It was a three-quarters moon, pale against the spray of stars, but in the lampless dark it gave of a good light, made shadows, sculpted romantic shapes out of ordinary things. By the moon’s light, cedar trees grew ominous, charred timbers and tumbled walls became the ruins of a mysterious civilization, empty windows the eyes of watchful giants. The soldiers’ tents gleamed in the moonlight, and the smoke from their dying fires curled straight up in the windless air. The strident voices of the day and of the twilight were stilled to a thin drone of a cricket here, a katydid there. Great owls hooted in the oaks, and now and then sortied with a rustle of wings to glide across back yards, pastures, the empty black square of Cumberland. Dogs, stirred by the moon’s rising, spoke to one another across the night.

  Colonel Burduck had imposed a curfew on the towns within his reach, so, in the hour the moon rose, the only living men apparent in Cumberland were the sentries. These moved in a studied walk, eyes forward, their bayonets gleaming in the moonlight, guarding the Shipwright house, the boxcar jail, the company streets, Audley Brummett’s old livery where the stores and munitions were kept—guarding all these from the sinister possibilities of the night. But neither curfew nor sentries could deter the wakeful ones who traveled outward over the moonlit roads and into places where the shadows lay dark.

  Molochi Fish did not know about the curfew, and would not have obeyed it if he had. Several times a week, he would leave the dogs shut away in the old pens where his pack used to live, and cross Leaf River at the gravelly ford. Then he would move through the woods and fields to town. He liked to go to town at night. He liked to watch the soldiers from the shadows. He would peek in windows and see what went on there by candlelight, observe the secret lives of people who crossed the street to avoid him by day. He would listen to their talk, their arguments, their love-making, hear the voices of children, the sounds of cooking, the rustle of a shuck mattress as a sleeper turned. He heard them mutter in their dreams, cry out. He watched them stumble groggily to the privy.

  Dogs never barked at him; they would tremble, bare their teeth, back away to the length of their tethers or crawl under the house, but they never barked. Now and then Molochi would choose one, court it night after night until he could lure it out—it would come sooner or later, slinking, fawning, grinning at him—and he would put his hand on it, quiet it, give it a piece of bacon or bread.

  On this ni
ght, Molochi was in town before moonrise. He was moving up the shadowed road when a great owl sailed out of the darkness, intent on some rat or possum. The bird was in Molochi’s face before it saw him, pulled up, startled, and flapped away. Molochi never saw the bird, only the shape of it against the stars, and the soft rustle of it. He felt something about the silence of the owls, the great hunters. He was afraid of them, but he wished men could hunt at night like they could, or like the foxes, moving quiet through the shadows where there was no sun to scald and burn.

  The rising moon found Molochi hidden in the deep shadows of a clump of cedars near the place where old Frye’s Tavern used to be. There was a new tavern now, and every night it was full of soldiers; he could hear them talking, laughing. Now and then he came here to watch them. He saw them come out and fight in the yard, or steal away into the bushes to vomit or relieve themselves. Always he would study them as they moved, singly or in groups, from the tavern to their camp—follow them even, gliding through the shadows at a little distance while they stumbled home, singing sometimes.

  Tonight, Molochi felt something new hovering around the yard. He had come from the creek side, so whatever it was lay across the road where the cedars also grew thick and black with shadow. As he watched, he heard a soft rustle in the sky; he looked and saw the dark birds circling, then alighting one by one in the moon-fringed tops of the cedar trees. They made no murmur among themselves, though Molochi could hear them moving in the branches. From this, he knew that another watcher lay among the shadows across the road.

  Molochi never carried a gun on these excursions, but he always had his knife. It was an old knife—he had forgotten where it came from—crudely made on the Bowie pattern, the hickory handle riveted together, the blade still bearing the marks of the original file but sharpened so often it had all but lost its original shape. Now it appeared in his hand; he could turn it and make it gleam in the moonlight.