Through Darkest America

by Neal Barrett

  The fiddler began a slower, prettier tune. The clown pranced daintily about the circle again, stopping first before one child, and then another. And each time he stopped, he pinned one of the long silver ribbons to the child he’d chosen. He danced until all the ribbons were gone, threw a big kiss to children and grownups alike, and bowed his way out of the tent.

  Out of some forty children present, eighteen had been chosen. More than any from Corners in a single year, someone said. Carolee was the fourth child to be picked.

  Chapter Seven

  Spring came early, after a winter that was more like a cold, bleak autumn than anything else. An old hand who worked for Howie’s father said Nature had a way of evening things out and was kind of making up for the bitter season of the year before, which was like two or three winters all bunched together.

  For Howie, it meant you had to get outdoors and work when you ordinarily wouldn’t. Clear days when there was only a little snow in the air were extra blessings as far as Papa was concerned—days when you could get a head start on spring.

  In a way, Howie didn’t mind. The things that used to be fun in winter didn’t matter now. All his life, cold weather had meant extra good smells in the kitchen, hot fruit pies on special days—and at night, huddling about the big fireplace while the chill wind howled outside. There’d be cider, then, spiced with herbs, and the whole family laughing and telling stories about one thing or another.

  Only it wasn’t the same anymore. Since Carolee had been Chosen, the laughter had gone out of his mother. Her eyes didn’t smile—they seemed to be looking at something far away; and the special things she used to do weren’t so important.

  Howie missed Carolee, too. She didn’t seem so much like a wart, now, and he mostly remembered good things. He thought about her often, having fun on Silver Island, and wondered if she knew the girl who had lain on the beach near naked. Probably she did. There were a lot of people there, but you’d get around to meeting everyone after a while.

  The girl had been on his mind a lot since he’d seen her picture at Corners. At night, with the silence outside, he saw her just as she’d been, only she didn’t have anything at all on now. Sometimes he imagined touching her all over, and rubbing up against her—doing things that made him sweat and kick the covers aside, even with the chill outside. Then he’d have to stop the pain that filled his loins, though he didn’t like to do that often. Stock did it all the time, he knew—bucks and mares alike—but people weren’t supposed to. It didn’t much matter what animals did; they didn’t have a lot in their heads to begin with. But it wasn’t supposed to be good for people.

  It was funny, he thought. How you saw things different. He could look at the girl on the beach and think about pulling off the little bit of clothes she had and doing all kinds of things to her. Once, though, it occurred to him that Carolee probably went swimming at that very same place, now. Was she wearing clothes like that? The idea horrified him. He wondered if the girl on the beach had a brother. Maybe he’d look at Carolee the same way. Would that be wrong, if he did? Did that make him, Howie, wrong? It was enough to make a person’s head ache—figuring out what was good and what wasn’t.

  With the early thaw, news of the war came sooner than most people had expected. The mild winter had been good and bad for both sides, they said. It had let the army move against the rebels sooner, but it had also given Lathan a chance to broaden his holdings over good ground, since the earth wasn’t churned to mud this spring like it usually was. There was one thing certain, people said, there’d been plenty of chances for fighting and there were a lot of dead and wounded in both armies.

  One day a traveler from Bluevale stopped for supper and told Papa there was trouble in town with the army, and likely to be more. After the terrible battles out west, many troopers had been sent back to rest up and lick their wounds.

  “They’re hungry and most of ’em hurt,” the man said. “They got no will to fight Lathan anymore, but there’s plenty of mean in them still.”

  And mean, he told them, meant brawling and burning, and a rape or two thrown in. It wasn’t so bad in the countryside, yet—but it would be, soon as the towns got too tough on the troopers.

  There was other news, too, that set Papa’s jaw and turned his face beet red.

  “A War Tax, or that’s what they’re callin’ it,” he grumbled. “You’re old enough to know what’s happening in the country and take some note of it,” he told Howie.

  The traveler had gone his way and Papa sat with his big fists in his chin before the fire. There was still a chill in the air and wood coals glowed on the hearth.

  “Thing is,” Papa explained, “it’s not what you call something that makes it what it is. You can pin a name on a nettle and call it a daisy, but that don’t make it one An’ you can call this tax business what you like—it’s the government getting too big for its britches is what it is.”

  He told Howie that the troopers were going to have to have more food to keep fighting Lathan through spring, because the rebels had stripped the land out west and left nothing but stubble on the ground.

  “And we have to give it to ’em?” Howie wanted to know.

  “Appears that way for now.”

  “Is it a lot? A lot of food?” Howie had visions of soldiers carrying off everything on the farm, leaving them with nothing at all to eat.

  “It’s enough,” Papa muttered. “Enough. And do we have to?” He scratched his beard and looked at Howie. “That’s a yes and a no, boy, is what it is. Something that ain’t been clear settled. Might be the government’ll find they bit off more’n they can swallow ’fore it’s over.”

  “What do you mean, Papa?”

  “Just that anybody with good sense knows it’s got to stop sometime!” His fist hit the table so hard Howie jumped. “It ain’t just the war. It’s other things, too. Things that give a few folks too much say in other people’s business!”

  Howie didn’t understand a lot about the government, or what it did. He knew there were people like the man who came every year at Choosing and talked about America. That was government and so was the army fighting Lathan. And there were real important people, like the president, who told everyone what to do. But all that was pretty far away. It didn’t have much to do with planting crops and tending stock. You couldn’t think a lot about things you couldn’t see—there were too many real things closer by. Only he guessed the government was going to be close enough to think about, now.

  At the end of February the troopers started making their rounds of the farms and ranches in the county, and Howie recalled what Papa had said. It was true enough—a lot of people were thinking the government had bitten off more than it could swallow. They worked hard for what they got and didn’t take kindly to giving any part of it away for something like a War Tax.

  At the Jeffers farm there was a fight between one of Lang Jeffers’ boys and a couple of troopers. One soldier got cut up pretty bad and they tried to take the boy in for trial. They didn’t get far with that—Lang made it clear the soldiers would have to take him and his other five sons too if they figured on taking one and he didn’t think that would be too easy to do. The soldiers were smart enough to see they could easily start their own war right there. They took what Jeffers would give them for the War Tax and went on their way.

  There were similar incidents at other ranches. Word got around about what had happened at the Jeffers place and no one was too happy about it. The troopers soon realized they’d made a big mistake backing down once. They were being run off farms now before they got started. And no one was sending anything to the war they didn’t want to.

  The officer in charge of the troopers was sent back to town and another took his place. The same night that happened Howie and Papa stood out on the porch and watched a red glow light the southern horizon.

  “Jess Clayton’s place,” Papa said soberly. “Can’t be anywhere else.”

  He didn’t say anything more, but he
stood and watched the fire a long time, and after Howie went to bed he heard Papa and his mother talking. Around midnight, Papa took off walking toward the Claytons.

  It was late morning before he came back, and sometime after that before he got around to telling what had happened. Jess Clayton’s house and barn were gone. Burned to the ground. Nearly everything he had had been taken off— food and stock alike. Enough to make up for what Clayton’s neighbors had held back, it was said. And if any others cared to argue about the War Tax—why, they’d get the same. The country had to come first, now. There was no time for greed and personal wants with good men starving and dying-in the west, while farmers stayed snug and happy back here.

  That was what the new officer had told Jess Clayton’s wife and his boys, Papa said. And he’d told them all this while he made them stand and watch Clayton being hung from a big oak right on his own front yard, where he could see his home being put to the torch. Next to that, the worst thing was that the man who’d done all this was Colonel Jacob himself—who’d grown up right on the land with Jess Clayton and Papa and most of the others.

  Papa told that part last. He hadn’t wanted Howie’s mother to know at all, but it wasn’t something you could keep to yourself, he told her, not with the whole county likely to explode over what had happened.

  He told it all quietly, without raising his voice or letting his face change at all. And Howie’s mother just listened, the dark hair partly hiding her eyes, the small white hands folded tightly in her lap.

  And to Howie, that was the worst part of all—to see them both knowing what the other was thinking and not wanting to let anything show. He’d learned that people did that when they had something on their minds so strong they couldn’t bring it out in words, or even let it show through their eyes.

  If his mother had cried and Papa had pounded something with his fist, it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad. As it was, Howie went to bed scared for the first time he could remember.

  Chapter Eight

  He came up from the field by the woods to the back of the house. The last of the mares Papa needed were hobbled between him and old Jaro and causing no trouble for a change. It was a lot easier to bring stock up near the house than it was to drive them back down. They were curious about people and the things they did, and when their attention was on something they forgot about causing mischief.

  “You’d think December was here ’stead of near April,” grumbled Jaro. He pulled his jacket about spare shoulders and cast a despairing look at the sky.

  “Yeah,” Howie agreed, “you would.” It was true enough; spring had gone back into hiding for the moment. Gray clouds hugged the ground, dragging a light, chilling rain behind them. Just wet and cold enough to bring a fine ache to your bones before you knew it.

  Howie left Jaro to pen the stock and walked to the barn for feed. At least, he decided, the weather fit the day. A lazy morning with the sun bringing green out of the earth wouldn’t have seemed right—not with all the somber faces around.

  Jess Clayton’s hanging had started it all. Papa held a meeting, and a dozen or so ranchers walked in at night to be there. Howie was allowed to sit in, though none of the other men brought their sons, figuring too many people tromping about, even after dark, might get the soldiers to thinking.

  “It was a damn fool thing to do,” Papa told Howie’s mother later.

  “Now, I don’t see that it was, Milo,” she said gently. “Men need to get together when there’s trouble.”

  “Men need to do something when there’s trouble,” Papa grumbled. His eyes turned sullen. “You know what the meeting come to, Ev? Truly? It showed us all together what we were too ashamed to admit to ourselves. That there’s nothing can be done. That we can talk all we like about what ought to be—it ends up we can’t do anything at all ’cept what we’re told to do.”

  Papa brought his lips together and looked down at his hands. “’Less we want to get burned out and maybe hung in our own front yards. I’ll tell you, Ev, it don’t make a man feel too tall…”

  They’d meet the War Tax, everyone decided, and not give the soldiers cause for trouble. But that wouldn’t be the end of it. They might not be able to undo what had happened at Jess Clayton’s—not now, anyway. But there’d be a time. The government had gone too far, and there’d be a reckoning, for sure. Just what that would be, and when, nobody said. But it raised the spirit of the meeting some, and no one went home feeling like they’d been whipped and drug across the ground.

  At first, Papa had Howie and the hands gather War Tax goods in the big barn near the house—but it wasn’t long before he stormed out dark as thunder telling everyone to get that stuff out of his good dry barn—that Jacob and his soldiers could just as well do their stealing off the ground. He didn’t intend to take care of what wasn’t his anymore.

  So they hauled the sacks of grain and corn and potatoes, and the bags of stock feed and other items called for, and stacked everything in the open, past the big stand of oaks, fifty yards from the house. The fourteen mares and ten young bucks were kept hobbled in the stock pit near the barn and would be staked out with the rest of the goods when the time came.

  Howie knew the moving had made his father feel better. Like he was doing something, anyway—giving in, but letting the soldiers know he didn’t want to. It was the only time he ever heard Papa get truly angry at his mother. She remarked that it might not be a good idea leaving everything out in the weather—that they could be asking for trouble they didn’t need.

  “Damn, Ev!” he exploded, his face turning crimson, “what’s a man supposed to do—lie down and let ’em stomp you, then turn over so’s they can get the other side? Hell, woman . ..” His hands trembled into big fists. “What you want me to do!”

  Howie’s mother turned ash-white, and her eyes filled with sudden tears. Papa went to her and folded her in his arms, burying her face in his shoulder. Howie left the house quickly and didn’t listen anymore, but he knew she cried a long time after that.

  “When you figure they’ll come, Papa?”

  Howie stood with his father on the porch and followed his gaze to the dark horizon. There was no sunset—the clouds just darkened to match the night and set a chill in the air.

  “I figure tomorrow, maybe,” said Papa.

  “And Colonel Jacob? He’ll be with the soldiers?” “Stands that he will, son.”

  Howie thought about that. All he could remember about soldiers were the ones he’d seen in the parade at Bluevale. They seemed like good, proud men; no one you’d figure on burning barns and hanging people. Maybe they were different soldiers—or maybe it was like the stranger who’d come by said; the war and being hungry did things to people, and they weren’t the same anymore.

  “It’ll be over,” Papa broke into his thoughts, resting his hand on Howie’s shoulder. “It’ll be over tomorrow likely, and we can get back to running a ranch like we’re supposed to.” He laughed in his throat and turned Hovvie’s chin where he could see him. “You figure it’s time we took us a day, boy—say, the first good warm morning that comes—and see what’s bitin’ down to the pool? Would you like that? Just you and me kind of sneaking off for a time?”

  “Yes, sir,” Howie told him, “I’d like that a lot.”

  Only, for the first time he could remember, it was hard to get his mind on fishing. His thoughts kept following his father’s eyes out past the dark stand of trees, where the soldiers would appear in the morning.

  The soldiers didn’t come the next day. Or the one after that. Papa’s mood grew darker and Howie could hear his big steps moving restlessly about in the room below, long after everyone else had gone to bed.

  When they did come, Howie was looking right at them.

  They came silently over the far swell of the land, moving down the furrowed hill against a grey smudge of dawn. He counted twelve mounted troopers in a loose column. A wagon trailed behind, pulled by two more horses—one trooper drove, while another three
dangled their legs off the back of the bed. As he watched, Howie saw a man stretch his arms and yawn.

  Closer, you could tell these men were nothing like the parade soldiers in Bluevale. They were gaunt, shadow men— hollow faces under grizzled beards. There was no fat about them, only hard planes pushing flesh at awkward angles. Their clothes seemed all alike and no color at all. They rode easy on their horses; it struck Howie they might not even know the mounts were there. If he’d heard that men and horses were all one creature grown together, he’d have taken it for fact.

  Howie was aware of Papa standing close behind him, but neither spoke to the other. They watched the men move around under the trees, going about their tasks without talking. The low clouds pressed in upon the earth and swallowed up sound. The day seemed to stop altogether, like the land was caught half between night and morning.

  “We got things to do inside,” Papa said finally. “Ain’t nothing more to see out here.”

  Neither, though, did more than putter about at things that didn’t need doing. And Papa’s eyes never moved far from the soldiers under the trees. Howie’s mother didn’t come down to make breakfast. She was so quiet upstairs it was hard to tell she was there.

  It was nearly noon, but for Howie the day seemed no further along. The hours stretched wearily by and even Papa stopped pretending there were things to do. He sat at the big table with his hands in his lap and looked at nothing at all.

  When the sun was just overhead, though, he did a peculiar thing—something Howie would never forget. Without a word, he got up and walked out the front door and off the porch and into the yard. Howie followed. At the same time, he saw a single rider move out of the grove and start for the house—as if they both knew the other would be right where they were.