The Buffalo Soldier

by Chris Bohjalian

  His boss, of course, hadn’t meant it quite like that. When he heard about Alfred, he’d nodded thoughtfully, his massive boots resting on the wastebasket beside his desk, and said to Terry, Noble notion, taking in a black boy. But what do you and Laura really know about a kid like that—or, for that matter, raising a kid like that? You ever done anything more with a black person than bust one?

  And he was right. He told himself that he was no more likely to pull over an African-American for speeding or for driving a rust bucket without blinkers than he was anyone else. But how could he be certain? He saw so few, so very few. How could he really know? Moreover, he had to admit that, pure and simple, he didn’t have a whole lot in common with a black boy who’d been born in Philadelphia and then lived most of his life in Burlington. Burlington may not have been a major metropolis, but it was considerably more urban than any place he’d ever lived. When the kid had arrived at their house, he had a line of metal studs in his ear that some sociopathic teen had placed there in a shopping mall men’s room. Terry didn’t even want to know what kind of needle the older boy had used to pierce the lobe and tough cartilage.

  Sometimes he wondered what the hell those SRS people were thinking when they sent a black child to live in rural Vermont. He’d look at the boy over dinner as he and Laura talked about what they had done with their days at their jobs, and he’d realize he didn’t have the slightest idea what he should be telling this kid about the black experience.

  That was his lieutenant’s expression, not his. But he understood what the lieutenant had been driving at. Laura had bought some books on black history, and they’d both read articles on interracial parenting. One afternoon he spent forty-five minutes on the phone trying to find a barber closer than Burlington who would have the slightest idea how to cut the boy’s hair. It was proving to be a real stretch for them both, and most of the time they just tried to be decent parents and hoped the rest would work itself out.

  Unfortunately, it was hard to be a decent parent when the child hardly spoke. He was real big on single-word answers, but downright allergic to complete sentences. And it seemed as if he was way too comfortable disobeying Laura when she was home alone with him. They’d actually had to take the studs away from the kid after the school principal had called Laura at the animal shelter to tell her that Alfred had arrived in his classroom with the line of steel balls back in his ear. And twice Alfred had ignored Terry’s edict that the cruiser was off-limits unless he was present, taking the keys off his dresser and climbing inside. There was a Remington 870 in the trunk, a weapon with a twenty-inch rifle-sighted barrel, and the last thing he wanted was for the lad to discover that little piece of hardware.

  He shuddered when he thought about the lyrics to the songs the kid listened to on his headset, or the fact that he played the music so loud they could hear the low rumble three and four feet away.

  Still, Alfred wasn’t violent, Terry reminded himself, and that was helpful. The caseworker had said some kids were—and everyone in the state knew about the teenage boy who’d shot his foster dad dead despite living under the same roof with the man for three years. During the summer before Alfred had arrived, Terry had in fact feared that because he was a state trooper they’d give them a real problem child. If they’d wanted to, of course, they certainly could have found one for Laura and him. A fire starter, maybe. Perhaps a kid who tortured animals.

  If they’d wanted to, they could have sent the two of them a real curve by giving them a teenage girl. Those kids were an accusation of sexual assault just waiting to happen. Don’t sit on the bed with her when you two are talking. Those were the exact words in one of the manuals they’d received. Or: When the two of you are alone in a room, always keep the door open. This way your intentions will not be misconstrued.

  He sighed. Maybe he was too hard on Alfred. The boy wasn’t particularly trusting, but as far as anyone knew he wasn’t a delinquent, either. He’d done time in a group home when he was five, but that was only because the kid had clammed up so badly—apparently it had been a hell of a lot worse than the mere quiet that marked his behavior right now—after his foster father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he’d been moved someplace else.

  He glanced at his watch and saw it was only a quarter to eight. The general store was open another fifteen minutes. If he left now, he could be there before the place closed for the night and call the house. Talk to Laura and Alfred. Tell them he was looking forward to coming home tomorrow, with or without a deer, and for sure he’d be back by supper.

  He stood without folding the newspaper and told the men at the card table that he was going to the store to use the pay phone to call his family, and he wanted to get there before the place closed.

  Oh, please, Russell said, without looking up from the cards in his hands. The phone’s outside the front door.

  So?

  Store doesn’t have to be open to use it.

  Well, I want to call before it’s too late, he said, but he knew exactly what his brother was suggesting. He figured Phoebe would be there, and he wanted to see her again before he left.

  It’s your life, Russell said.

  He ignored his brother because he didn’t plan on anything other than a little general-store banter with the woman by the cash register. Harmless stuff, completely harmless. Besides, he reminded himself as he zipped up his coat, the real reason he was going was to call his wife and the boy.

  Nothing wrong with that.

  He realized he wanted to brush his teeth, but he knew he didn’t dare. Surely his cousins or Russell would say something to him if he went anywhere near his toothbrush. Fortunately, he was almost certain he’d seen a tin of Altoids on the front seat of his cousin’s moldering Blazer, and he figured he could grab a handful on the way to his truck.

  “It had finally stopped raining and so I went to the river to wash our clothes. I knew how high the water was before we got there, because I could hear it. It sounded like there was a waterfall nearby, but there wasn’t. It was just the river. And then I heard the guns, and I knew the men were coming back and they were in trouble.”

  VERONICA ROWE (FORMERLY POPPING TREES),

  WPA INTERVIEW,

  MARCH 1938

  The Heberts

  Even before she had opened her eyes, she knew he wasn’t in the bed with her. It wasn’t that she couldn’t hear him snoring, or she couldn’t smell the cream he sometimes put on his shoulder at night—that smell, after all, lingered long after he’d left the room. It was the way the quilt felt heavy upon her. When he was in bed, the quilt rose high off her body, more like a tent than a blanket, because of the way he slept on his back with his knees bent into triangles.

  She reached for the little clock and brought it close to her eyes so she could read the numbers. The roman numerals were supposed to glow in the dark, and they still did, more or less, but the hands for the hours and minutes were just too close in length, in her mind. She’d bought it at a yard sale over Labor Day Weekend to replace the digital clock that had to be reset every time they lost power. It drove her crazy in the winter, because they seemed to lose power for a minute or two at least three or four times a week. One good wind, the lights would flicker, and she’d be resetting the digital clock that was plugged into the wall—a clock with digits that somehow managed to move forward at a pace that was downright geologic until they approached the hour and minute she was looking for. Then they’d speed up, explode forward like a rocket ship, and force her to start the process all over again.

  This clock was a little better both because it ran on batteries and because she could set the time with a knob on the back she could control, but it was far from perfect. If only the minute hand were maybe a quarter of an inch longer.

  She figured at four in the morning that Paul was up for the day. The man had never farmed a day in his life, but now that he was in his mid-sixties, he was starting to act as if he had eighty-five Holsteins to milk. He just didn’t slee
p anymore.

  She decided she might as well get up, too, and join him downstairs for breakfast.

  I hope I didn’t wake you, he said when he saw her in the kitchen doorway. He was reading what looked like a magazine at the pumpkin pine table, and when he looked up at her she was struck, as she was often, by the way his head had grown rounder and his skin had grown smoother with age. His hair, as thin and fine now as an infant’s, was whiter than table salt, and it covered his skull like a bathing cap. He was eating cold cereal from a glass salad bowl while he read, and she saw that he had poured orange juice on the flakes instead of milk. She found herself wondering, as she did every morning when she saw the orange and brown mixture, how he could eat it that way. She remembered the first time he’d done it, about two years ago, she had feared it was the onset of Alzheimer’s: The poor man was pouring juice instead of milk on his bran flakes, completely oblivious to convention. No doubt he’d start getting lost in the bathroom any day now.

  But then he had reassured her that he was fine, and explained that his doctor had suggested the juice was merely another way he could cut back on his cholesterol.

  You didn’t wake me, she said now. Did you sleep well?

  For about four hours.

  She opened the canister with the coffee and spooned some into the percolator. She asked him what he was reading.

  One of those touristy history texts we got on the road, he said with disdain. She’d worked as a docent and gallery manager at a small folk life museum in the village of Middlebury once the youngest of their children had started high school, and he knew she would share his scorn for the piece.

  Which one?

  The Pony Express.

  Someday they’ll have one for e-mail, she said. A little e-mail museum.

  When he removed his fingers from the magazine, the pages flipped shut. Too virtual, he said. No bricks and mortar to celebrate.

  She plugged in the coffeepot and then sat across from him. Though he’d been old enough to retire for close to half a decade, this was the first semester that he hadn’t been in the classroom, his first autumn away from the college. It was clear to them both how much he was going to miss teaching and being around young people, and so they’d taken a road trip to make the transition easier. They’d tuned up their ancient Volvo wagon and driven all the way to the Little Big Horn and back. The plan had been to drive to Illinois, visit her mother’s ancestral homestead in Rockford, and then continue west so he could see firsthand the actual places he’d talked about for so many years in his classes. The Corn Palace. Wall Drug. Wounded Knee. He’d taught American Studies at Middlebury and concocted courses that his peers on the faculty considered interdisciplinary nightmares: a muddle of popular culture, American myths (and misperceptions), and irresponsible history. One time, he devoted a whole semester to the iconography of Route 66. Another year he had students read nothing but romance novels that featured white women with men of color: Savages. Slaves. A Chinese immigrant who was helping to build the transcontinental railroad. The students had loved it, and he believed they had learned.

  The two of them were having so much fun on their trip, however, and covering so much ground so quickly, that they decided to head south as well, and wound up making a loop that stretched from Vermont to Montana to New Mexico. They came home via Route 66, driving east along a road that was known best as a route west to California, an irony which struck Emily as eminently logical given who her husband was. Altogether, they made love in seven Best Westerns and four Quality Inns, and had sex in nine states. Emily thought this was mighty impressive for a couple whose combined age was 129.

  By the time they returned to Vermont, they had spent six and a half weeks on the road—forty-five days and forty-four nights—and amassed seventy-seven small bars of wax-paper-wrapped motel soap.

  There’s a light on at Terry and Laura’s, Paul said, pushing aside the nearly empty cereal bowl.

  In the boy’s room again?

  Uh-huh.

  I still say it may just be that he sleeps with a light on.

  This time I saw it go on. One minute the room was dark, then it was light.

  What time was this?

  I came down here about three-fifteen. He got up a few minutes after that.

  You know for sure it’s the boy’s room?

  I do. First night, I saw him pull up the shade and look out the window. There he was.

  He see you?

  Doubt it.

  She listened to the baseboards in the kitchen tinkling as the hot water coursed through the thin pipes behind the metal. Below her the furnace rumbled.

  Maybe the lad wakes up, sees it’s dark, and turns the light on. Then he goes back to sleep, she said.

  Maybe.

  Maybe? There’s no maybe to it, in my opinion. Unlike us, that boy has a body that still needs some sleep.

  Paul wiped his eyeglasses on his bathrobe and instantly regretted his decision. The flannel only made the smudges worse.

  I saw Laura yesterday, she said. Did I tell you?

  Don’t think so.

  She really doesn’t seem a whole lot different than before the child arrived.

  It’s an adjustment.

  She still seems so frail. You almost want to speak in whispers around her.

  And she might always be frail. Imagine how you’d be if something like that happened to Nick or Catherine or Andy—or if something like that happened to all three of them. God almighty, imagine how I’d be.

  This week’s the anniversary of the flood.

  I know. You see the boy, too? he asked.

  Briefly.

  He seem happy?

  Not particularly.

  He say anything?

  Not really.

  I saw him walking up the hill to the cemetery, Paul said. He likes his hat. Don’t know if he’s opened his book. But he likes his hat.

  I’d expect so. He wearing it backward? That seems to be the way the kids do it these days. Have you noticed? They buy a cap with a sun bill and then wear it backward so the visor is worthless.

  I don’t know. Yesterday he was wearing it correctly. Of course there was no sun...

  Meaning?

  There was nothing to rebel against by wearing it backward.

  She nodded. All those years in the classroom had really paid off. Few people she knew understood the mind of a child or a teenager as well as her husband.

  “What makes them think fraternization is even an issue? There is a better chance we will find ourselves befriended by the Comanches and Mexicans than we will by the white settlers we’re here to protect.”

  SERGEANT GEORGE ROWE,

  TENTH REGIMENT, UNITED STATES CAVALRY,

  UNDATED LETTER TO HIS BROTHER

  IN PHILADELPHIA

  Alfred

  In the night he heard Laura crying. He’d woken up, as he had most nights in this house where he just couldn’t seem to get comfortable, and he’d heard her quiet sobs in the bedroom down the hall. At first he had thought he was hearing some wild animal outside the house—a coyote maybe—and then he imagined it was some local dog that had wandered away from the village. For a brief moment he had even wondered if he was hearing a ghost. One of those little girls, perhaps the one in whose bed he was sleeping and whose presence he was sure he sometimes felt.

  But then he understood it was only Laura, and he grew embarrassed for her. Nevertheless, he climbed from his bed—astonished by how cold the wooden floor was on the soles of his feet—and tiptoed across his room to turn on the lamp on the bureau beside the window. He chose not to switch on the floor light near the bedroom door, because that one had a hundred-watt bulb in it and was much brighter: It would be more likely to toss a throw rug of light through the slit underneath the shut door, and alert Laura to the fact that he, too, was awake and had therefore heard her weeping. Then he jumped back into bed and pulled the quilt up over his shoulders.

  He’d never before heard her cry, and he was sure it
had something to do with her daughters. Her children. He wished he knew how to ask her to tell him about them—not because he thought she needed someone to talk to or because he believed he was capable of offering her comfort by listening, but simply because he was interested. How could he not be? When he was alone in his dark room at night, he had the sense that someone was with him—a sense that wouldn’t go away until he’d turned a lamp on.

  He realized he didn’t even know what the girls had looked like: In no room in the house had he come across photos of them either hung on the walls or resting on bureaus.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t imagine how to initiate a conversation about her children, or what he would do if she actually told him any details. And so all he knew for sure was that they had been twins and they had died in the flood some years earlier. But that was about it. He thought they might have been in the third or the fourth grade when they’d died—just a little younger than he was—but he wasn’t positive.

  He decided he would have liked to have known at the very least where they had been when they drowned, because it hadn’t been on the Sheldons’ property. That was clear. The house was too high on the hill, and there wasn’t any water.

  He assumed that they’d been at the river in the village. He’d been living up in Burlington at the time of the flood, but he remembered hearing that rivers all over this part of the state had poured over their banks. He guessed it was possible that they’d just been washed away. But he also knew that the people who had the dairy farm on the other side of the trees had a small pond, and he wondered if they had died there. Maybe the pond had stretched beyond its banks, and they’d fallen in and drowned.

  He was also curious about where Laura and Terry had been at the time. Had they been close enough to try to save the girls—perhaps even seen them go under—or had the kids died alone with no one nearby?