The Last Hellfighter

by Flowers, Thomas S.

  Ben gazed out over the lumber yard, the stacks and stacks of cedar and oak and pine that had been hauled in from out west by train. He watched as laborers moved around, in teams of five on each side, hoisting large round logs and placing them in various locations. Beside each stack, two men worked a long saw, as one pushed, the other pulled and vice versa.

  "Ben? What're we doing out here if we ain't buying from the mill?" James pressed, the tension in his voice more obvious. James had only a small taste of Jim Crow on his journey out west, and it was only a small taste indeed. He hadn't seen the true horror segregation brings out in people. And he had no intention of finding out today.

  "Ben?"

  Ben held up his hand to silence James. His gaze fell on a short, muscular, barrel-chested white man that strode out into the lumber yard. He wore dark brown slacks and a white shirt with suspenders. The white stained with sweat and bark that had most likely rubbed off on him while timbering. His neck was thick and nearly non-existent. His chin squared. Under his nose a thick, curled black mustache. On his head, bald as a baby, though most days like now, he wore a round straw hat. Since they'd met soon after Ben and Mina's arrival to Champagne, Caleb Leslie had always reminded him of a strong man in a circus.

  Smiling, Ben gave a short honk from his pickup's horn. The large short man turned their way.

  "What are you doing?" James nearly shrieked.

  "Stop worrying, Leslie's a friend." Ben opened his door and climbed out. He met Leslie and the two shook hands.

  James climbed out of the truck cautiously.

  Leslie glanced his way. "Who's that?"

  Ben turned and glanced behind him. "That's my brother James. He's come out from Harlem to stay."

  Leslie nodded knowingly. "How's city life?" he asked James.

  "Miserable." James stood an inch behind Ben to his right.

  Again, more knowing nods. "I'm sure. Out here, it is better, no? Out here we have plenty."

  James said nothing, he simply stared.

  Leslie clapped his large mitten hands. "Well, my friend, what can I do for you?"

  Ben patted his overall pocket and produced his corncob pipe. "We're thinking of adding on to the farmhouse." He found his pouch of tobacco and pinched a loaf, stuffing it into his pipe.

  "I suppose you would." Leslie glanced at James. "A man should consider himself lucky to see his family grow. When is Mina due?"

  Ben lit his pipe and puffed, blowing clouds of smoke. "Not for a few months still, but I'd like to get started now before she gets along too far."

  Nodding knowingly, Leslie said, "Yes. Yes, of course. A few bundles of plank ought to do the trick, yes?"

  "And nails, if you have them."

  "Of course, my friend...and how will you be—"

  At this, Ben produced a roll of bills from his overall pocket.

  Leslie smiled wide and snatched the roll of money. "Excellent, my friend. I'll be right back with your wood and nails." He turned, his gaze still on the green, and trotted off to where the two loggers had finished a stack of planks.

  James came up beside Ben, staring out at Leslie. "Good friend, huh?"

  Ben puffed on his pipe. "Better than most."

  James put his hands in his pockets. "Because you paid him."

  Shaking his head, with his corncob pipe between his teeth, Ben said, "Everyone gets theirs. Better to have a friend like Leslie than to do without, you understand?"

  "Sure, whatever you say, brother."

  * * *

  They'd loaded the bundles of wood planks without much conversation. In the end, Leslie tipped his round straw hat and walked back to the lumber yard grinning and giggling as if he hadn't a care in the world. The one scarce and sacred commodity in No Man's Land besides rain was wood. Everyone had to pay twice, sometimes even more, than its worth—especially if the color of your skin happened to be darker than most. Most locals ended up without and lived in dugouts instead of what the civilized world call real homes. Ben would have none of that. After what he lived through in the war—and for Mina's sake, and their unborn son or daughter, he would pay handsomely to provide what they had whispered about together back in Harlem, back with the city closing in around them and the guilt of what happened with Renfield.

  On the drive home, the brothers said nothing. Each no doubt caught in a web of their own thoughts. The windows were down, and the wind felt strangely cold on this summer day.

  James rubbed his arms. "Where'd this chill come from?" he asked absently.

  Ben shook his head. He flexed his fingers, feeling on the tips an odd electrical charge like little shocks when he touched the steering wheel.

  Suddenly the road ahead grew dark as if the sun had decided to set early.

  "What the hell?" Ben leaned forward, staring unblinking out on the horizon as the sun and sky and land was swallowed whole by a mountainous rolling brown sandy cloud.

  The pickup shuddered and whined and finally gave out.

  Swerving, Ben pulled to the side of the road.

  James gawked at the approaching mass of dirt and wind. "What...what is it?" he whispered.

  "Roll up your window," Ben yelled as the wind picked up around them, shaking the truck back and forth.

  James obeyed. "Benjamin, what...what is this?"

  Ben shook his head and held his breath as this first wave of the brown rolling clouds rocked against the pickup. Suddenly day became night—and it was a darkness he could feel touching his heart.

  Chapter 24

  "I need to get back to Mina."

  "How long can this—storm last?"

  "I don't know. But I can't wait forever. I need to know she's okay."

  "I understand, but..."

  "What?"

  "In this storm...how will you see where you're going?"

  Ben stared ahead. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he knew James was right. The dust storm, if that is what this storm was, had been going for at least an hour or more, or so it felt. Completely shutting out the sun as it roared and screamed around them, blanketing the sky in a sort of harped mist of dirt and sand.

  Wisps of earth blew through the vents inside the blue Chevrolet causing James to cough, a look of desperation contorted his face. "Ben, don't go."

  "I have to."

  "Mina is home. She's fine."

  "You don't know that." At this, Ben pulled a rag from his pocket and wrapped it around his mouth and nose. He looked at James who seemed on the verge of panicking. "Stay here, okay. Don't breathe too much of this stuff in. Wait it out. I need to make sure Mina is okay. I've got...I don't know, a bad feeling I guess. Whatever it is, I can't sit here and wait with you."

  James looked around at the endless thick rolling brown as it whipped around the pickup. He looked back a Ben and nodded. "If you feel like you're getting lost, come back to the truck, okay?"

  Ben agreed with a nod and then opened the driver side door. Climbing out, he slammed the door shut as quickly as he could. The wind and dirt whistled by him, blowing through his tough hair, grating against his dark skin. It was hard to see, especially having to squint through the blowing sharp grains. He looked back through the driver's side window at James who now looked like nothing more than a dark shadow.

  The sooner home the better, he thought, and started down the road.

  He walked several paces, he was sure, though it was hard to tell how far he'd really gotten in this mess. The wind was constant. And the dirt and sand unceasing. The whistling reminded him of the mortars that fell in France, except here it never stopped. The high pitch just kept going and going.

  He took a few more paces and stopped.

  There was something ahead.

  No.

  To the side.

  No.

  Behind.

  No.

  Everywhere. It—they were everywhere.

  Red glowing eyes flashing around him through the dust storm. And a laughter he had not heard for nearly fifteen years. A cruel, gravely la
ugh, the kind children trick themselves into hearing, the sound coming from an open closet or from under the bed, a sickly giggle, malicious and hungry for flesh or bone or blood or all.

  "No..." Ben whispered.

  And just as quickly as the storm had appeared, the dust and dirt drifted away, and the sun shone brightly through in rays of light until all there was was blue cloudless sky.

  Chapter 25

  They were able to crank the engine now that the storm had passed. But the drive back home was slow going. Dust and dirt covered most of the road and piled along fence posts in drifts like snow in a freak squall. Except this wasn't white; it was brown, it was earth, the very thing they had planted their seeds to grow the harvest—now they were choking on it.

  "Benjamin, has this happened before?" James was asking from the passenger seat.

  "No." Ben gripped the steering wheel tight, turning his knuckles white.

  James rubbed his hand through what little hair he had. "I ain't never seen nothing like that. It was like a blizzard, except it wasn't. And the wind...it was like there was voices out there. Scared the daylights out of me, I'm not afraid to admit." He glanced at Ben. "Did you hear it?"

  Licking his lips, Ben kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the earth covered road. "Yeah, I heard it. It was just the wind...just the wind..."

  * * *

  They pulled up to the farmhouse, the newly white paint a shade darker now—more tan. Dirt and sand shot from the porch steps in a plume followed by Mina holding a broom, her smooth dark skin gleaming from sweat in the sunlight.

  Ben jumped out the driver side door and ran to her.

  She met him at the bottom of the porch steps.

  "Mina, thank God you're okay." Ben took her into his arms and held her tight.

  Mina giggled, "Of course I'm okay, it was just a dust storm, Ben." She held him back to look in his face. She frowned at what she saw. "What's the matter?"

  Ben looked to the ground. "Nothing, its just...I was worried is all."

  She smirked, her usual expression when she didn't believe something Ben told her. Half-truths, as her mother used to call them. She glanced at the truck. "I see you were able to get the wood, but what about the package at the Post Office?"

  Ben looked over his shoulder at the truck, and at James already unloading the bundles of planks. He turned back to Mina. "Sorry, we didn't make it. The storm caught us on our way into town."

  She turned back to the porch, broom in hand, sweeping. "Well, I'm fine here as you can see. You go on back to town and get my package from the Post. Leave James if you feel someone needs to watch over little helpless me if you want."

  From the truck, Ben could hear James coughing. "I think it would be the other way around," he said.

  Mina smiled at that.

  Ben smiled as well.

  "Go on now," Mina shooed. "Be back in time for supper."

  "Yes, ma'am." Ben watched her for a moment, resuming her sweeping. Back at the truck, James, with his great docking working strength, had already finished unloading the wood.

  Ben told him he'd be back soon.

  And then he went into town.

  * * *

  Ben rolled into the main heart of Champagne, his window down, elbow resting on the side of his driver's side door, his corncob pipe gripped between his teeth, blowing smoke out the corner of his mouth as he watched the residents working as Mina had been at the farmhouse, sweeping dust and dirt from the insides of the buildings. He knew most of them by name, though most only in passing. Though Champagne was tolerant enough not to run the Harker's out of town, a good many didn't care to have the only negro family in their shops and stores. Even today, Mina had to do most of her shopping through the damn Sears catalog. Supplies and perishables were purchased behind the store, as the saying goes, and usually for twice the asking price. This was a hidden intolerance. The only store that actually hung a sign that clearly spelled out Whites Only was the General Store—the owner was in relation to the Westfield's, and the Westfield's were nigger-hating honkies if Ben had ever seen even one. As for the other places in Champagne, signs were not hung but upon entry all eyes had a funny way of following him and or Mina—and now James, though James was less prone to come into town than Ben was. James liked the farm and preferred to keep to it.

  No signs were posted, but they knew they were not welcome.

  Mina had once tried getting her hair done at Bab's, only to be completely ignored. Eventually she left, followed by a hateful kind of snickering from the lady folk.

  Ben never bothered with the General Store, for obvious reasons, but he'd gone into Dell's once for a cold glass of beer. The bartender, Dell he presumed, simply glanced at him, looking as if he'd swallowed a lemon, and quickly looked away. The ladies of course next door at the large four-story Red Building didn't care what color Ben's skin was, they took customers of every creed—but Ben was married and would only blush and hurry away.

  Most of these buildings were newly painted, all but for Dell's, a hard contrast against the brightly painted red of the Red Building. Now, as he drove past on his way to the Post, they were dingy, yellowed by the freak storm.

  Slowing a bit as he passed Madame Westenra's, he watched—with a kind of raw curiosity most men have regarding women of such provocations—as the ladies shook rugs and blankets, dangling them over the railings of each floor porch. Madame Westenra herself was standing in front of the entryway smoking a long-stem cigarette. She was talking with a man even Ben in his segregated isolation knew too well as Sheriff Holmwood. Westenra looked to be complaining, perhaps because of all the windows being left open when the storm came through.

  She noticed Ben and waved.

  Holmwood followed her gesture.

  Ben sat more rigid and accelerated a little faster, fixing his eyes ahead of him.

  All the same, the town seemed fine—despite the storm, and all thoughts of those red burning eyes and that horrible laughter faded from his thoughts as nothing more than a passing hallucination, a trick of the mind conjured from the swirling blowing dirt and sand.

  The Post was on the other side of the train station platform. A marginally sized building with an even more marginally sized store. He parked the old blue Chevrolet pickup and went inside. Above him Ben read two signs designating two separate waiting lines, one said "Whites," and the other "Negros." He sighed and shuffled to the "Negro" line—knowing deep in his heart that this sign most likely never existed until Mina and he had moved to town. The whole separate but equal law seemed to him to be nothing more than some cheap lie politicians told as bedtime stories to make themselves feel diplomatic. Ben saw things differently than most, he witnessed first-hand on the battlefield everyone bled red. The only thing he believed that separated anyone was the character of the soul, and not the color of the skin. But his way of thinking was reasonable and homely and too often ignored.

  All the same, he waited until the Post Master called him forward.

  He gave him his name. "Harker, package for Mina Harker."

  The Post Master checked his ledger and nodded, growling as he did, as if he had something stuck at the back of his throat. Without looking at Ben he said, "Yes, good size crate. Wait here." He turned and went into the back room. After a moment, he returned, wheeling out on a dolly a five-foot by three-foot wooden box.

  "What in the heck is this?" Ben gawked, marveled by the size of the package. Mina had told him she was excepting something, but he had assumed it was a letter or some other small parcel. Certainly not this.

  The Post Master sneered as he set the crate in front of Ben. "Says New York City on the postage, not that its any of my concern." And with that he turned and walked away without so much as offering to help Ben load the crate into his truck or offering the use of the store dolly.

  * * *

  The farmhouse smelled of garlic and pepper and roasted chicken and fresh baked biscuits waiting for the gravy to be poured over the flaky crusts, but Ben would
not rest until he discovered what on earth his wife had ordered from New York City.

  "What is it?" Ben asked, standing next to James in the living room. Both men scratching their chins as they marveled at the large crate.

  Mina giggled from the kitchen.

  "Come on, Mina."

  Mina sighed playfully. "Well, go on then and open it. I suppose you won't leave it alone until you do."

  James already had a crowbar and went to work.

  Ben pried away the loosened boards.

  After several minutes of hard labor, the crate was finally open, spilling onto the wood floor and rug dry straw that had been used as packaging material.

  Both Ben and James stood as they had before.

  "What—what is it? Cabinet of some kind?" James asked.

  "Doctor Caligari's?"

  "What?"

  "Nothing—its from a movie, a Boche picture."

  "Oh."

  Mina came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. "It's a Victor Talking Machine," she said matter-of-factly.

  Ben looked over at her, a boyish smile itching on his lips. "No..."

  She gestured at the cabinet-looking record player. "Go on, see for yourself."

  Ben needed no more invitation. He went to the cabinet. Opening on hinges, a brass plate glimmered in the low living room light. "His Master's Voice," he read, studying as if he were still a boy in school at the etched drawing of a dog listening to a phonograph. "Victor" was spelled out above the dog. Below, the cabinet opened, revealing several slots for records.

  "Play us some music while we have supper, Benjamin Harker." Mina handed Ben a record.

  Ben took the sleeve and read the label, "On the Sentimental Side." He looked at Mina who was handing James a broom to clean the packaging mess with. "This is Billie Holiday, ain't it?" he said, his voice a tone of awe. "We listened to her at the Cotton Club before moving out west. It was our last night out in the city."