“Yes, they are. I use that tunnel to get back and forth from town. It’s actually a more direct route than the road. It also helps me hide my movements from the sheriff.” There’s a metal gate separating the hallway from the lab, and Mr. Gideon unlocks it with a key around his neck. He holds the gate open until I pass through, and then secures it behind me. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do, and I suddenly feel very nervous being alone with him. It ain’t just that it’s improper, which it is, but the last time I was alone with a boy was Jackson back in the day, and despite my fearsome predicament a wave of loneliness overwhelms me.
I miss my momma and Auntie Aggie, and Big Sue back in Baltimore. I miss Jackson and his stupid plans and little Ruthie and her nothing-but-fluff braids. I miss Miss Duncan and her make-your-arms-mush scythe drills. I even miss Katherine, which I never thought I’d be saying.
Mostly, I miss being hopeful. There ain’t a lick of hope in Summerland from what I can see, despite the advertising, and the drudgery of it all is enough to make a girl just lay down and die.
I collapse on a long bench before a table a good distance away from the lab equipment. Mr. Gideon goes to a cabinet and removes a jar, returning to the table and sitting on the matching bench on the other side.
“Here. I’m afraid I don’t have a fork, but at least they’re tasty. My mother sends them along, since we haven’t gotten around to planting trees yet out here.” Mr. Gideon slides a jar of peaches across the table at me, and I pick up the Ball jar and twist off the two-piece lid. The scent of the peaches hits me, and I dig in with my fingers, pulling out a peach slice and shoving it in my mouth. It’s sweet and juicy, and I’ve eaten half the jar before I remember my manners enough to offer Mr. Gideon some.
He waves me away with a smile. “I’m good, thank you. Our rations haven’t been cut like yours have.”
I think about Ida, back up in the bedroom, and I refasten the lid, saving the other half of the jar for her. She’s been kinder to me than anyone else here, mostly keeping me out of trouble, and it’s the least I can do for her.
“So,” I say, once I’ve wiped my fingers on the front of my raggedy shirt, “tell me about them shamblers you’re keeping in that cage.”
Mr. Gideon sighs heavily and sits down. “Well, first of all, this wasn’t of my making. I had an idea, and the result is a gross perversion of it.”
“So what was your idea, then?”
“Technology! Innovation! A modernized state in which all Americans—Negroes, whites, Indians—could live together.” He jumps to his feet and begins pacing. “Summerland was supposed to be a shining beacon of hope, a noble Egalitarian vision for the future, a place to carve out a new idea of what our country could become, risen from the ashes of oppression and death.” He waves his hands around before running them through his hair, and there’s something about watching a man talk with that much passion that makes me sit up and take notice.
“Electricity was at the heart of my vision,” he continued. “It would keep the town safe, and perform labor. Electrified fences. Electrical appliances to wash clothing, to cook food. The war ended slavery; electricity could lay the foundation for an automated settlement where we could continue the march toward a fair and equal society. I worked for a time with Mr. Edison in his compound in Menlo Park; when I returned home to Baltimore, I told my father about my ideas and he got the notion of me going west to improve some of the frontier towns. He convinced me to discuss the plan with a small group of his political allies. I needed financing, and it was my hope that they might see the potential in the idea. They did, and my father took steps to put it in action. But when I arrived here, it was nothing like what I had laid out.” He finally stopped pacing and sat down. “My idea was to locate a town near a natural resource to run the generators: a river, a stream, coal veins. This area has no viable power source, but they had already established the foundations of the settlement, with dozens of people living here.”
I think back to the night of Mayor Carr’s dinner party—the electric lights on his house, the newspaperman who was mysteriously bitten. “Hence, that contraption I just saw back there.”
Mr. Gideon sits next to me on the bench and pulls a piece of paper and some charcoal toward him. He sketches out a drawing. “It’s a simple Faraday machine. The wheel turns, making the magnets shift, and causes power to flow down the wires. In an effort to keep the town from collapsing, I retrofit the generator to run on physical labor. The undead never tire; they don’t need much in the way of sustenance to maintain locomotion, they need only be replaced every once in a while . . .” He grimaces as I give him a look. “I’ll admit it’s not one of my best ideas. It runs the lights, and that’s about all, to be honest. The idea was to have the electricity power a barrier fence, much more deadly and effective than bobbed wire or even the brick wall. Something that would last much longer, and keep undead out of a large area. But the single generator could never power a viable perimeter fence, if we even had the manpower to finish building one. So, there are electric lights, and a wall to keep the deathless out. The town looks pretty, but in the meantime, we have the same society we did back east, one that subjugates and kills more than half its population to guard the smaller portion. What is the point of that? How is this progress?”
I know why the tinkerer is frustrated, but I don’t have an answer to his question, and just shake my head.
He continues. “So, here we are. Shamblers—I mean, the undead—are generating the electricity in the town, such as it is. We might be able to create more power if we could build more generators and improve the electrical infrastructure, but the Negroes and roughnecks have their hands full maintaining the barrier, and the Snyders refuse to make the whites within town work on the fence. They just waste their time having tea and drinking.”
I frown. “Mr. Gideon, I beg your pardon, but this all makes absolutely no sense. Shamblers, here, within the walls?”
He leans forward, a shine in his eyes that I’m pretty sure ain’t entirely from the electric lights. “With my help, they’ve turned this place into a Survivalist nightmare. They believe the undead, like the Negro, were put here to serve whites, and that it’s our place to guide, but not to labor. Meanwhile, the Survivalist drovers and laborers are tired of being forced to tend the fields. They believe it should be their turn to enjoy the good life. But the interior fence isn’t even finished, and it’s only the patrols that are keeping us from being overrun.”
“And all the people over there in the town? The fancy ones? They’re Survivalists, too?”
Mr. Gideon leans back suddenly, his expression shuttering. “Not all of them. But that’s all I’m going to say about that, Miss McKeene. The hour is getting late, and while I worry for the future of Summerland, it isn’t going to fall tomorrow. You should get back to your bed before the sheriff and his boys finish sleeping off last night’s revelry.”
I climb to my feet, clutching the jar of peaches. “Thank you for the food.”
“Don’t mention it. The town is headed for a reckoning, and I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.”
I hesitate a moment before I reach into my waistband. Tom Sawyer was the last gift Jackson ever gave me, and I haven’t finished the book just yet. But I hate owing anyone a debt. And who knows, maybe if everything works out, I can find myself another copy. “Here. For the peaches.”
Mr. Gideon takes the book uncertainly, turning it over in his hands. “I . . . thank you.”
“Sweet dreams, Mr. Gideon,” I say over my shoulder as I climb the stairs.
“Sweet dreams, Jane,” he says, his voice far away.
I let myself out of the lab and slip past the outhouses and the abandoned hotel. The sun is just starting to hint at its rise over the horizon to the east, but it’s still mostly dark, and I’m almost to the saloon when I hear the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking.
“Well, hello there, Jane,” Sheriff Snyder drawls. He stands just a few fee
t behind me, grinning, and I’m once again reminded of the stories I’ve heard of alligators. “I do believe you are breaking curfew.”
I open my mouth to come up with some story to excuse myself, but the sheriff has a hell of a left hook, and I go down before I can utter a word.
It’s sad news that our neighbor to the east, Mr. Berringer, has been overrun. We’ve taken in twenty of the Negroes who lived on his land and a nasty old overseer named Duncan. I have a feeling that Duncan is not going to last here in Rose Hill. I must say that it is curious that so many of these men who subscribed wholeheartedly to the peculiar institution are turning shambler.
Chapter 27
In Which I Have Had Enough
When I come to, Sheriff Snyder and Bill have me by either arm and are dragging me through the dirt of the street. I try fighting, but that punch from the sheriff has me seeing stars and I’m no match for two grown men.
I’m tied to the whipping post in front of the sheriff’s office.
I try to climb to my feet, struggling against the ropes, alarm and a powerful headache both clanging in my head, but there’s no getting free. I’m dizzy, but whether it’s from taking a hit or the combination of exhaustion and hunger there’s no telling, but I fully recognize that I am not in a very good place.
Next to me comes a low chuckle. Bill is leaning against the pole, whittling and whistling, looking like he ain’t got a care in the world.
“You think you’re smart, doncha? Told ya you were going to learn some manners here. And it looks like the sheriff is just about ready to dispatch that lesson.”
“Bill.” The voice behind me is raspy. “Go round up the flock. They’ve slept enough, and this sermon requires sinners.”
“Yessir,” Bill says. He moves off, and the preacher shuffles nearer.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, Jane. You’re scared, and that’s natural. You’re wondering how you ended up here, if there wasn’t some kind of thing you could’ve done differently to avoid this whole mess.”
My heart pounds, loud enough that I’m sure he can hear it. I can’t see him, so when his breath tickles my ear, the scent of him filling my nose, I flinch.
“The reality is that you couldn’t do anything. This is all as God wills it to be. In the wake of the punishment laid down by the Lord are His laws laid bare. All His creations are not equal, but we are all His children, all with our place. The rapture, such as it is, is here, on earth. The white man ascends; his dark counterparts are His servants, laying the stones in the pathway to Heaven. That we ever thought otherwise, that we once entertained the notion of equality for all of God’s children on earth, that we fought and killed one another over it . . . well, we know how that turned out.”
He rests a hand on my shoulder, patting it affectionately, and his touch nauseates me. “This punishment will be brutal, my dear, but your mortal flesh will bear it, because it must. Take comfort that in reaffirming His order we give Him thanks.”
He backs away and coughs, the sound wet and phlegmy. “Trust in the Lord and He will guide you through this hardship.”
From behind me comes the sound of footsteps and murmurs. I try to twist and see who it is, but I cannot turn that far around.
Under my shirt, my penny has gone to ice.
“Oh, don’t worry, girly. You’re gonna have quite the audience,” Bill says, back from rousing the patrols. “The sheriff is a fair man, but he knows an instigator when he sees one. No different than dogs, really. And every now and then you just get a bad dog. Maybe it’s poor breeding, maybe it’s poor training. Only thing you can do is punish him and hope he learns who his master is. And if not, well . . . sometimes you’ve just got to put a bad dog down.”
His footsteps echo on the wooden boards of the walkway as they move away from me, and I test my bonds to see if there’s any way to wriggle free. Panic digs its broken fingernails into my soul.
I remember the day I’d asked Auntie Aggie what it was like back before the shamblers walked, back before the war. “It was bad then, Janie. A different kind of bad, but bad all the same. I once saw a man whipped to death for stealing a loaf of bread from the mistress’s kitchen. Not your momma, mind you, but the missus that came before her. Overseer took the skin clean off of him till there wasn’t nothing but meat left. So don’t let nobody tell you any different about the old days. Life is hard now, nothing but suffering, but some kinds of suffering is easier to bear than others.”
I’d never asked her again about the bad old days, but now, with my hands secured to the whipping post, I wish I had.
Behind me the sounds of footfalls and murmuring rises, and this time when I crane my neck around I get a glimpse of the crowd, gathering in the first bit of sunlight. Right now it’s mostly Negroes, a few drovers mixed in here and there. I don’t recognize many of the faces and I figure it must be the night crews. I stop straining against the bonds securing my hands, since there ain’t no use to it and all I’m doing is giving myself a fine rope burn.
After what feels like hours but is actually only a few minutes someone exclaims, “Jane, what are you doing?” I twist as far as I can. Behind me Ida stares with wide eyes. “I told you not to get caught!” Her voice carries all the fear and panic eating at my middle, and I squeeze my eyes shut like I can somehow hide from what comes next.
But I can’t.
I’ve never been scared of death. Everyone dies, and I don’t like wasting energy fretting about certitudes, but Aunt Aggie’s words keep echoing through my brain: whipped to death, took the skin clean off. The fear is so powerful that I can’t do anything but stare straight ahead, gaze locked on the wooden post in front of me.
Behind me someone clears his throat. “Listen up, y’all. The sheriff has a few words to say.”
Boots echo on the boardwalk in front of me, stopping just a little off to the side. I look up, and the sheriff squints down at me. His expression is blank, but there’s a glint of something in his eye. Satisfaction? I turn my gaze back to the wood post in front of me.
“Summerland is a place of laws and order, and I am the long arm of that law. Our goal here is not the glorification of the individual but to create a harmonious community that can serve as a model to the chaos of those cities in the east. Just as the Israelites left Egypt for the promise of a better life, so have all of you. But for that harmony to be achieved, each of us must know his place. You don’t let a dog pretend to be a horse, and the same it must be with our dark cousins. There is a natural order to things, as the pastor tells us, and when that order is not obeyed, disaster rides hard on its heels.”
There’s no comment from the crowd, no murmur of dissent, no valiant objections on my behalf. The only sound is of someone coughing far off. I know that if I’m going to say anything, this might be my last chance. People deserve to know about the danger festering underground. “You have to listen to me! Back in town, these men have built a—”
A crack comes across my jaw, hard enough to shake my brain something terrible, and Bill steps back, shaking his hand and cursing. Blood fills my mouth, and I fall silent. It’s no use. The sheriff continues.
“This darkie broke curfew. That transgression calls for a minimum of twenty lashes. It gives me no pleasure to hand down this punishment, but hand it down I will.”
I half expect him to start praying, but thankfully I am spared that blasphemy. Someone, likely Bill again, steps close to me, and I jerk in surprise as the back of my shirt is grabbed. There’s a tearing sound, and then a gasp as my garment is torn in half. I roll my shoulders forward, suddenly modest. The air is warm on my bare back, and my breath comes in short pants, my embarrassment almost overriding my fear.
“What’s this?” Bill asks, leaning close. He reaches down the front of my shirt, and I jerk away from him, fearful that he’s reaching for my bosoms. Instead his hand comes up with my penny. He yanks the cord hard enough to break the leather thong. “Don’t think you’ll be needing this,” he says, his breath hot
and rank on my cheek.
The sheriff steps down from the boardwalk into the hard-packed dirt of the street, standing behind me. I can almost see him slowly uncoiling the whip at his side, relishing the drama and anxiety of the crowd.
“Bill, would you be so kind as to keep the count?”
“Of course, Sheriff.” The satisfaction in his voice makes me long to put a bullet in him.
The whip whistles through the air before it carves agony across my back. I inhale sharply and arch away from the pain, my chest slamming into the post.
“One.”
The second lash comes too quickly, stealing my air and making my muscles tighten.
“Two.”
The whip comes round again, and I’m trying to think of something else, trying to be anywhere else, but I am bound to my cursed flesh, and tears make their way down my cheeks as the whip tears into my back again, and again, and again.
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Five.”
“Five.”
My heart nearly stutters to a stop when Bill counts five twice in a row. My back is a fiery mess of agony, and when the whip comes across again a sob tears out of me.
“Six.”
I’m shaking from the pain, delirious with it. With each crack of the whip I make a new promise to the Lord Almighty. “I will never lie again if this stops.” Crack. “I will dedicate my life to your good works.” Crack. Either the good Lord is unimpressed with my offerings, or he thinks I deserve this, just as the preacher told me.
Bill has just counted off the eleventh lash when the crowd behind me begins murmuring. I can’t think, the pain robbing me of whatever wit I possess. I’m crying and muttering, half-mad with the pain. Nine more lashes, and that’s if Bill keeps the count correctly. Somehow, I know he won’t. He’s enjoying this as much as the sheriff.
“Stop, please, stop!”
Katherine’s voice is unmistakable, and at first I think my ears are deceiving me. But the sheriff pauses and says, “Miss Deveraux, this is no place for you. You should go back to your home. What brings you here?”
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