by Neal Barrett
The rider was a copy of the others, but somehow not the same. And no one had to tell Howie it was Colonel Jacob. He rode straight and silent, without looking to either side, letting the horse make its own way. It seemed forever before he touched his reins and stopped just before the spot where Papa stood.
“Milo,” he said, “it’s been a long while.”
“It has,” said Howie’s father.
There was something in Papa’s voice Howie hadn’t heard before. Whatever it was, the Colonel heard it, too, and looked at Papa a long moment without moving his eyes. He was an older, thinner man than Howie remembered. A face gone to leather, and a body tight and hard as stone. The eyes, though, were the same—and he remembered how they’d looked at him, and at his mother, and what he’d seen there, even being twelve and not knowing much at all. And when Jacob’s glance touched him again, he stared straight back and didn’t turn away.
“The boy’s grown some,” said Jacob.
“He has.”
“Looks a little like you in the face. Got Ev’s color, though.”
Papa didn’t answer; Jacob shifted in his saddle and looked up at the low clouds. “The little girl. She coming all right?”
“Carolee went from us,” said Papa. “At the Choosing.”
“Well, now. That’s fine, Milo.”
“I guess it is.”
Jacob nodded and shifted his gaze to Howie. “You sure have sprung up, boy.”
“Yes, sir,” said Howie.
“Be big enough to serve, soon. You know that?”
Papa looked up sharply. “If he chooses, Jacob. Don’t know as he’s given any thought to soldiering.”
Jacob shrugged. “Maybe. Might come to something else though, Milo. It’s a terrible war out there. Men dying in frightenin’ ways. Or gettin’ sick and wishing they had a clean bullet in their bellies ’stead of filth and pollution.” He shook his head. “You got to see it to know what I’m saying. See it, and wash your hands in a man’s blood, and smell his corruption.”
Papa stood tall and still, his gaze staying right on the Colonel. To Howie, it seemed as if Jacob’s eyes had gone different while he talked—like he’d been somewhere a long way off a minute, and just come back. -
“The war,” said Papa. “You said somethin’ about the war. How it might come to—somethin’ different. I don’t reckon I understand that, Jacob.”
Jacob gave him a weary smile. “Simple as rain, Milo. Soldiers are dying out west faster than boys are joining up. War’s got a awful appetite, I’ll tell you. Eats up armies like corn in a field.”
“Then you might better stop your war, I’m thinking.” “Can’t do that. Not now.”
“Can’t. Or don’t care to.”
Jacob’s smile faded. “You haven’t fought,” he said stiffly. “You’re out of line, Milo, if you ain’t been there.”
“Maybe,” said Papa. “And maybe folks that like fighting so much ought to do as they please. And leave those that don’t to themselves.”
Jacob stared at him and laughed out loud. “You haven’t changed a damn bit, Milo! A simple man with simple answers.”
“Suits me well enough,” Papa said darkly.
“Suits you, is right. But not the world, not anymore. The world’s changing—it’s not a simple place anymore, Milo. It chews up simple men and spits ’em on the ground.”
“Like Jess, you mean.”
Jacob’s face went hard and the two men just looked at each other, neither backing away. Howie figured he could measure the silence between them. Finally, Jacob sat back in his saddle and shook his head.
“Lordee,” he said, letting out a long breath, “that was a bad thing, Milo. A real bad thing. It ain’t easy to do what you have to do. Sometimes, though, a war jus—”
“Have to do!” Papa exploded. He stared up at Jacob and the cords of his neck went tight. “Damn, man, what’s happened to you? You talk like you hung a stranger from that tree!”
“He was a stranger to me,” said Jacob.
“He was a man you grew up with, Jacob. Jess and you and me and the rest. Right here. The same dirt, the same—”
“No. That’s not so, Milo.” He looked at Howie’s father with no expression at all. “I was a boy here and that’s true enough. I grew up out there. With men that ain’t anything like you and Jess.” He seemed to lose himself in thought a minute, then his eyes went tired again. “Hell, Milo. We go back a long way. You know that?”
“We do, Jacob.”
“War’s hard on a man. You got to understand that.” “I reckon that’s so.”
“A man don’t figure on changing, but he does. It’s not something you got much say in. You…” He looked at Howie, and ran a dry hand over his mouth. “You got some cool water in there, boy?”
Howie looked at his father.
“Get him some water, Howie.”
“No, no.” Jacob held up a hand and raised himself in the saddle. “Reckon I’ll walk in with you. Give me a chance to iron out the wrinkles. Ev inside?”
“She’s inside,” Papa said evenly.
“Well, then…”
“She’s feeling poorly, Jacob.”
The challenge in Papa’s voice was clear enough. Jacob gave him a curious look, then eased back in his saddle. “You’ll tell her I asked, Milo.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Well…” Jacob looked up at the house, then back again. “A lot of years’ve gone by, ain’t they?”
“They have, for certain.”
“Things change…”
“I guess they always will, Jacob.”
Jacob touched his reins lightly and the mount skittered to one side.
“This business, Milo…” He gestured over his shoulder toward the grove. “It’s something that’s got to be done.”
Papa didn’t answer. Jacob studied him a moment, then turned his horse smartly, kicking up dust, and galloped back to the grove.
Papa watched him go. He stood where he was until the wagon was loaded, the stock gathered, and the long column of soldiers had followed Jacob back over the hill the way they’d come.
In the afternoon Howie’s mother came downstairs and sat at the big oak table. Papa tried to get her to eat some hot bread or take a bowl of soup, but she said she wasn’t hungry at all and would just as soon have a little honeywater to sip on. Howie wanted to cry looking at her. She seemed so frail and tired, like all the life had gone out of her. In a little while she asked Papa if he’d mind seeing to supper, something Howie couldn’t remember her ever doing before.
“Papa,” he asked later, when she’d gone back upstairs, “she’s going to be all right, ain’t she?”
“Sure she is, Howie.” His father forced a smile. “The day’s been hard on her, is all. It’s over and done with now, and there’s nothing more to worry about. She’ll see that in the morning.”
“For certain, Papa?”
“For certain, Howie.”
Howie had a lot more questions about the day, but he could see Papa didn’t want to do much talking. He went about his chores, wisely leaving his father to himself and his thoughts.
Everything might be over and done like Papa said, but you couldn’t tell by the way he acted. His mind was still out in the high grove of trees and over the dark horizon. Through the long afternoon, he left Howie more than once to stalk about outside. Just standing, out on the porch or in the yard, his face matching the brooding sky.
Late in the evening, after they’d shared a cold supper, Howie went to bed by himself, leaving his father alone. And when he woke deep in the night, he went to the window and found Papa outside, a dark figure listening to the silence.
“Howie…”
He woke smelling first dawn, heavy with sleep then suddenly awake, seeing his father there and feeling the strong hands on him.
“Howie. Don’t talk, boy, just listen.”
A cold chill gripped him. There was something awful in Papa’s eyes and he didn’t want to see it.
“Papa…”
“Listen, boy. Take that little gully as far as you can, where you can kinda stoop over good ’till you get near enough to the woods. After that…”
“Papa. I can’t!”
“Howie…” Pap’s voice broke. “You got to!”
He felt the tears well up and Papa gripped him hard.
“I ain’t got time to explain, boy. I just know. He let it show right there in his eyes, and I know, Howie. I felt it then, an’… son, for God’s sake!”
Howie moved without thinking. For a moment, his father was behind him, then he was gone. When his mother saw him and what he meant to do, her eyes went wide and full of fear and he knew she was going to cry out and he’d have to stop her.
She flailed against him; he pulled her along, hurting her, and not thinking about that, either. When they were halfway to the woods through the shallow ravine, he became suddenly aware of where he was and what he was doing. He didn’t dare look at her, then. If he had, he couldn’t have gone on doing what he had to do.
He heard the sound behind him and turned and saw them. Two men on horses coming fast, gray against the first raw touch of dawn. He knew there was nothing he could do because they were cutting the angle between the gully and the woods. He had a quick second to hear the hooves drum over soft ground and see the bright flash of fire at the man’s shoulder. He thought his mother ought to be there somewhere but he couldn’t be sure…
Chapter Nine
A long time later he’d go through it again and feel it just like it had happened and know that was the time he’d passed being a boy.
But this wasn’t the time. There was no feeling or understanding now. It was as if he stood just outside himself and watched another Howie go about his business and do the things that had to be done. Like a little piece of time had been neatly lifted out of the day and set aside on a shelf somewhere. All the minutes and seconds and hours staying just as they were until he was ready for them, the way tiny bits of seed and stone got caught in pond ice, and slept there until the Spring let them go.
The clouds were breaking up and moving away to the east when he opened his eyes. From the light he could tell it was nearly noon and that meant he’d been out at least four or five hours, maybe more.
When he sat up he felt the pain, sharp and clean like a hot knife. He touched his head gingerly where the rider’s bullet had creased a neat furrow across the side of his skull, taking away flesh nearly to the bone. His hair was crusted with blood. There was blood on his face and down his chest but it was all dried and the bleeding had stopped some time ago. He decided he must look pretty awful. Which was probably why they’d left him there and hadn’t bothered to make sure he was dead.
He pulled himself to his feet and stood in the ravine, holding to an old root until the nausea went away. He was tired and stiff all over. He stood there a long time just looking anywhere but toward the house. That was when something else took over in his head and, for a while, put everything behind him.
They’d gone quickly through the kitchen, mostly just breaking things and tearing up whatever they could find. There was flour everywhere and sugar grated under his feet. Pots were shattered and the pieces ground into the floor until you couldn’t tell what they might have been. He reached down and picked up something white and shiny. It was part of a cup, the one with the flowers painted on it that had been his mother’s favorite. He looked at it a minute, then laid it carefully on the table.
In the room upstairs where Papa and his mother slept he found her. Her clothes had been stripped away and her wrists and ankles were tied to the head and foot of the bed with coarse wire. The wire was buried in flesh and he couldn’t see it except where it wound around the posts. She had fought a lot, for a while, anyway. The blood made red bracelets around her wrists and ankles and the skin was torn and swollen there. There was blood in a lot of other places, too, where they’d done things to her. He couldn’t see all of her face because the long black hair was tangled about her features, but he could see the small dark hole in her forehead, ringed with a faint aura of blue.
He thought about cutting the wires loose and finding one of the sheets or blankets that hadn’t been torn too bad and covering her with that. Instead, he turned away and closed the door and went downstairs again.
Papa was halfway up the front steps. He still had on the heavy checkered shirt but his trousers were gone, and Howie saw them bundled up in the yard. He had crawled about ten yards over the hard ground and Howie could look behind him and see the trail he’d made trying to get to the house. He hadn’t used his arms, because his hands were pressed tight against his belly where he’d tried to hold everything in long enough to get there. They’d cut him badly. One raw slice across the bowels, deep, from hipbone to hipbone. There were other cuts on his thighs and between his legs where they’d taken everything away.
Howie looked at him, studying the expression on his face for a long moment.
In his own room, he reached up between the eaves and found his bow and quiver of arrows still there. He rolled up his extra work pants and another shirt and his jacket. Downstairs, he picked through the wreckage in the kitchen and added half a loaf of bread and some dried meat to the bundle. Outside he filled a clay jar with water and stoppered it with a dry plug. Then he walked to the grove of oaks where the War Tax goods had been stacked, squatted down, and studied the tracks of men and horses and wagons. He followed the wheel ruts and the hoof prints with his eye and saw they’d gone west, across his father’s land, toward the river road. That meant they probably didn’t mean to pick up any more goods just now, but were headed for Cotter, which was just outside Bluevale and used a lot by the army.
He looked back once at the house and the barn, then past them to the fields and the stock pits and the green shadow of the woods. There was no sign of old Jaro or any of the other hands. The stock pits were empty. They’d taken everything, as he’d figured. He guessed there were still goods in the barn—there was more there than you could carry away.
He turned and searched the horizon west. On horse a man could go faster, but they had the wagon, which was slow, and the stock to drive along. They’d just make the river, then. They’d have to stop there and rest the stock for the night, even if they felt like pushing on in the dark. He figured he could make it by maybe two or three in the morning. And that would be a good time to get there.
Howie Knew he would have to take care and go slowly. They were soldiers and knew their business; you didn’t just sneak up on men like that and figure they’d hold still and line up nice and easy like meat. They’d be fast and alert, and more dangerous asleep than most men full awake.
There were the guns to reckon with, too. A man with a gun had it all over a man with lesser weapons. At least, in a lot of ways he did.
There was a quarter-moon with enough light to see how the low Spring grasses had been flattened where they’d left the prairieland and angled off down the hill to the river. The hollow there was thick with big oaks and cottonwoods. He spotted the red sparks of a dead fire just to the south, twenty yards or so from the river. They’d set up camp in the shadow of the trees, then. The stock would be further down, but well away from the trees so none of the herd could wander off. And since they were on the road, and weren’t likely to build pens or dig pits, they’d do what you always did on a drive— keep watch around the meat in shifts.
Howie wasn’t sure what you did with horses. But he was near certain you didn’t have to watch them or anything. That meant—what? With a herd that size, three men, at least, to stand watch. And maybe two others for the camp itself, if they bothered. And he had an idea they were in the habit of that. Five, six men awake, then. The others asleep. He crawled down the side of the hill and moved quietly through the
edge of the forest.
It took a good hour to circle the camp. There were three guards instead of two. Three others watched the herd. Six slept. Colonel Jacob was on the far edge of the camp, away from the fire, and close to the river. The other troopers were dark lumps scattered about him.
Howie stayed just on the skirt of the camp a long quarter hour. Belly flat against damp forest floor, hardly daring to breathe, his eyes taking in every trifle—how the grass bent, and where the dim moonlight touched the ground.
There was a guard between him and the Colonel. He stood just outside the small clearing, quiet and almost invisible against a broad oak. There was a little cover noise from the river, but not enough. He’d never get past the man without being heard. He inched back down the bank, passing the guard and coming up again higher, behind a thick bed of fern.
He lay still on his back a long moment, fitting the arrow quietly to his bow, acutely aware of the man only yards away, and knowing what the slightest sound would do. Coming up slowly, he brought his eyes just over the foliage. For a moment, his heart stopped, thinking the man was gone. Then the body took shape again; he let out a long breath.
Howie knew he had to go for the head or no place at all. Anything less than that and the man could cry out. He didn’t let himself think about missing. The bowstring sang and a shadow dropped quietly to the base of the tree. When he crawled forward his hand touched the rifle and a broad cartridge belt the guard had left at his feet. There was a pistol in his belt and he took that and the other things and laid them where he could find them again at the base of the bank. Then he turned back to the clearing and went in for Jacob.
He’d thought about how to do it. He knew even a grown man used to moving fast couldn’t stop a quick knife across his throat. Only that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. He knew that, too. It had to be the other way or it wouldn’t be right.
A few feet from Jacob a man turned over and groaned in his sleep. Howie froze where he was, part of the earth and shadow, then inched forward until he could touch the Colonel. He slept with his mouth open, one hand across his chest. Howie slipped the bone knife from his belt. He’d already wrapped the butt with thick layers of cloth from his extra shirt. Grasping Jacob’s hair with one hand, he brought the padded hilt down solidly, just above the ear. Jacob stiffened slightly, but made no sound at all.
