Through Darkest America

by Neal Barrett

  “Sure,” Howie shrugged. “I reckon it is.” And what difference did it make, he wondered? The whole business was over and done with. Talking about it wasn’t going to bring Cory back. And they sure weren’t going to hang Pardo for it.

  “You see?” said Lewis. He held his hands open wide. “Answering questions ain’t all that hard. I’m an easy man to get along with. You don’t have to be scared or nothing, Howie.”

  “I ain’t,” Howie lied.

  Lewis grinned and winked at him. “Well, you might be. Just a little. Couldn’t blame you for that. But you sure don’t have to be. Howie, we know a lot more about Pardo’s business than you think we do. We know that he promised to see that meat through, and how he sold us out to the Rebels. We even know how he did it—gettin’ everybody all worked up and scared over false rumors ’bout the Rebels coming down from the north, or up from the south and all. ’Course he planned all along to lead the herd right to the Rebels, before we could get there. And we know somethin’ else, too.” He pointed a long finger at Howie. “We know you wasn’t in on any of that. You didn’t have no use for Pardo, and we know that, too. You was just doin’ what you had to do.” He sat back and folded his arms and gave Howie a secret grin. “We even know you tried to kill him… took out after him with your knife, when you found what he’d done to your friend Cory.”

  Howie didn’t say anything. Lewis leaned forward. “You see? That’s what I been tryin’ to get across, boy. That we ain’t after you for nothing. There’s just things we want to check on… kind of tyin’ up loose ends and all. You got no reason not to talk about what’s over and done with, do you? There ain’t nobody it’s goin’ to hurt, is there?”

  “Don’t reckon there is,” said Howie, trying to sound like he meant it.

  The skinny man was good at what he did. After listening to him awhile you caught yourself almost believing he was your friend, and didn’t mean any harm, and sure didn’t want you to say anything that’d get you in trouble.

  Howie knew better. And he was certain Lewis was aware of that. If he’d really known everything about Pardo’s operation, like he said he did, he wouldn’t be wasting time talking about it. He wanted something, and figured Howie could tell him. What, though? If the man was as smart as he seemed to be, wouldn’t he know Howie was about the last person Pardo’d tell his secrets to?

  He even told that to Lewis. Lewis just smiled and said they knew that and didn’t expect him to have that kind of information. Like he’d said, they were just checking. They really already knew everything they needed to about Pardo.

  When he left, he took the stool with him, and said they’d be talking again soon. Howie wasn’t sure of too much anymore, but he was certain that was so.

  It was a four-day ride from the mesa to the city. No one spoke to him the whole time. He didn’t see the skinny man. Or Kari. He had plenty of time to wonder, though, what Kari was doing there—alive and well, with nearly everyone else in the column dead and gone. The more he thought . about it, the worse he felt. Finally, he tried to put her out of his mind. She was alive, and he was glad of that. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know much more.

  He didn’t know the name of the city and no one told him. They put him in the bare room and left him, and gave him water and a little food—not so much, though, that he wasn’t always hungry.

  He kept count. No one came to see him for eight days. It was peculiar, he thought, but that scared him more than anything. No one was hurting him, or bothering him at all. But every night he figured they’d come for him in the morning. He couldn’t forget what they’d done to Pardo.

  Every day was worse than the one before, until finally it was hard to keep from banging his fists against the door or tearing at the heavy bars on his window.

  No! He decided. That’s what they wanted him to do and he wouldn’t give them the pleasure. Only it was a lot easier to say it than do it. To really keep the fear inside.

  Finally, he even stopped looking out the window. Nothing out there belonged to him anymore. There was only the room. It had a gray, dread finality about it. Like he had come there to stay.

  He almost cried openly when the skinny man came to see him. Whatever happened was better than waiting for it. Even if they killed him, or did something terrible to him, it would be over sometime. He’d know.

  He tried not to show the man his fears, but he knew, all right. Why, that’s why they’d left him here—so he could get good and scared! The thought made him angry and the anger made him feel a lot better. They could only get to him if he let them, he decided.

  Only, that wasn’t so, and he knew it. All you had to do was remember Pardo.

  Lewis waited three days after his first visit. Just long enough, Howie decided, to let him worry a little.

  This time he wanted to talk about Pardo himself: what he was like, what he did, what he said about this and that. He asked Howie where he’d come across Pardo and how he’d gotten mixed up with him. Howie told him, figuring there was no reason not to. He told about getting caught by Klu and Jigger, but didn’t mention Old Chattanooga or the river.

  “And before that,” asked Lewis, casually enough to bring Howie fully alert, “what in the world was you doin’ out wandering around in the wilderness?”

  Careful, Howie told himself. Careful now…

  “I ran away from home.”

  “I see,” said Lewis. “And whereabouts was that?” He shook his head and showed his palms to Howie. “It don’t matter, if you don’t want to say.”

  “No, it’s okay,” said Howie. “It’s down south. On a farm. Only I didn’t want to be no farmer.”

  Lewis grinned sympathetically. “Don’t much blame you. Where down south? Near a town or anything?”

  Howie tried to think of some of the places Aimie had mentioned, but couldn’t. “There wasn’t much of anything around there. ’Cept Harlie. It’s a little ol’ place. Maybe ’bout a hundred people.”

  “Harlie.”

  “Uhuh.”

  “And your folks is farmers.”

  “They raise a little stock, too.”

  “And their name is… what? I don’t think you ever said.”

  Howie felt the knot tighten up in his belly. Did they know? The soldiers had known about him at the river, when he’d first joined the meat herd with Pardo. But that was way back east, right after it happened. Did Lewis know about him? Was he just pretending that he didn’t? Bluevale was a long way off. But a story like that, what he’d done to Jacob…

  It was a moment he’d dreaded for a long time. He had put it carefully aside, in the back of his head somewhere, hoping maybe it wouldn’t come. Now, he silently cursed himself for growing careless and using his real name in Roundtree. He’d thought the world was a lot bigger than it was—that a man could just disappear if he was halfway across the whole country. It came to him, suddenly, that if Lewis already knew who he was, his first name would be enough to hang him. He wouldn’t even need the rest!

  “It’s Kover,” he-said, remembering a neighbor near Papa’s farm. “My father’s name is Joseph, and my mother’s is Kate.”

  “No brothers or sisters,” said Lewis.

  “Just me,” Howie said evenly.

  Lewis made a note, and if his expression changed at all, Howie didn’t catch it. He allowed himself a small breath of relief.

  The questions went back to Pardo. What had Howie done for Pardo in Roundtree? Exactly how had they put the gun shipment together for the Rebels? Lewis had him name the places in Roundtree where the weapons had been put together. He had a list in his hand and checked things off on it, but Howie had no way of knowing whether anything was really on it.

  “You helped load up the guns, then,” Lewis asked, “the night before you took off with Hacker to meet the Rebels?”

  “Yes. Everyone did, just about.”

  “You helped put ’em on the pack horses.”

  “Uhuh.”

  “There was… what? About twelve lo
ads. Twelve horses?”

  “Sure, there was twelve.” Now what was he asking a thing like that for? Howie wondered. He’d know how many horses there were. His troopers had taken them when they got Pardo.

  “I suppose Pardo guarded them horses real careful,” said Lewis. “I mean, once they was all loaded and everything. That was right valuable cargo.”

  “Well, sure he did.”

  “Was you part of that?”

  “What? Guarding the guns? Yeah, I took a watch.” “You recall who else did?”

  Howie tried to remember who had pulled guard that night, and Lewis took it all down. Then he picked up his stool, told Howie he’d been real helpful, and that maybe they’d be talking again.

  For a long time, Howie sat where Lewis had left him, looking at the bare walls and the barred window and the locked door. He thought about the things Lewis had asked him. Most of it was like the man said—stuff everybody already knew, that wasn’t important to anybody. Only, Howie sensed that it had stopped being unimportant right near the end. When they’d started talking about the guns. And why, he wondered, was that? The Loyalists already had everything they wanted: Pardo, the weapons, and a whole troop of Rebels besides. Why did they want to know damn near everything about something that was over and done with?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Whatever else his room might lack, it offered a good view of the city. The building he was in was five floors high, higher than he’d ever been before in a town. And there were several others nearby, just as tall. He knew they had to be left over from the War, which made them hundreds of years old. No one could build things like that anymore. They’d been patched and mortared all over. There was no building he could see that didn’t have half a dozen different kinds of bricks and stones checkered up its sides, but they were still standing.

  Clearly, the people out here didn’t have any fears about living in the old places, like they did back east. But then, this city wasn’t anything like the ruins of Chattanooga, either.

  The more Howie watched, the more he learned. No one had told him anything, but it was easy to see something was going on outside. The work on the city walls continued night and day. There were more laborers on hand than ever—laying stone, carrying big baskets of mortar, and hauling great carts of rock to the wall. It was two floors high in most places already. From the way colors in the rock changed, you could see there had been a smaller wall there all along, but the army clearly wasn’t satisfied with that. They wanted it higher and they wanted it fast.

  It seemed like more soldiers swarmed into the city every hour. They swelled the streets and finally overflowed outside the walls, their campfires ringing the city. There was a constant flow of farmers and merchants through the big wooden gates. The farmers hauled wagons loaded with grain and vegetables, their wives and children bouncing along atop the cargo.

  You didn’t have to know a lot about armies to figure what was going on. Sooner or later, the war was coming right here. If it wasn’t, the city was sure going to a lot of trouble for nothing. And what would happen if the Rebels did attack and take the city? Not much, as far as he was concerned, Howie decided soberly. They didn’t like folks who’d worked for Pardo any more than the government did.

  Lewis came back the next morning. He asked Howie everything he could think of concerning the guns, from the time they left Roundtree until the troopers attacked the column. Howie told him everything he knew, which he didn’t figure was much of anything.

  The skinny man was all business, this time. There wasn’t any fine talking or sugar smiles, or how Howie was a good boy and not to blame for anything. He did what he’d come to do, picked up his stool, and left. Now what was all that about, Howie wondered?

  Right before noon, shouts and cheers brought Howie to the window. He watched a great meat herd coming through the gates, drivers cracking their whips above a sea of sun- darkened backs. The crowds parted to let them through and the herd moved under his window nearly an hour before the last animal was by. It was a lot of meat, he decided, even for a large city. If he’d had any doubts before, he was sure enough now. The army figured they were all going to have to live behind those walls for more than a little while.

  Later, he watched a detachment of troopers leave the city to meet a column coming in from the south. There was nothing unusual about soldiers on horseback, but these caught his eye. Most of the troopers he’d run across on either side were just as shabbily dressed as anyone else, with parts of their uniforms missing or patched, the colors in their trousers and jackets faded by the weather. This group, though, was just as smart as it could be, every man sporting bright parade jackets with white wooden buttons and new feathered caps. He couldn’t see who they were meeting, but it had to be someone special—a big government man, or maybe a general. He didn’t know how many generals you had in an army this size, but he didn’t suppose it hurt to have several.

  The sun was just falling behind the mountains when they came for him. The door opened quickly and before he could turn around the two soldiers were there, pistols raised and ready. Howie’s heart sank. That’s why Lewis wasn’t even pretending to be friendly anymore, then. They were going to kill him—right then and there!

  Instead, one of the troopers motioned him out of the room and into the hall. There was another man waiting outside. From his markings, Howie knew he was an officer.

  They took him down the long flights of stairs clear to the Main floor, then one more, below ground level. Howie could smell his own sweat before they got there. They weren’t going to shoot him, then. It was going to be something worse.

  Lewis was waiting for him inside the room. It was a cold, damp-smelling place with stone-gray walls, floor, and ceiling. It wasn’t real stone, but the artificial kind they used so much in the old cities. There were no windows. Torches lit the somber walls.

  “Howie,” Lewis said without smiling. “I want you to sit down. Right there.”

  Howie saw the chair for the first time. He went cold all over. Lewis nodded at the two troopers. They grabbed his arms on either side and slammed him down roughly on the hard wooden seat.

  “Listen,” Howie said hoarsely. “I didn’t do nothing! What you want with me down here. I told you everything you wanted to know, didn’t I? Everything!”

  Lewis looked at him. “Probably so, Howie.”

  “Huh?” Howie stared. “Then you don’t have to do nothing, do you?”

  “I said probably, Howie.” Lewis shook his head, like he felt bad about it. “Thing is, we can’t be real sure, can we? ’Bout all we can do is go over it some down here, and see.”

  Howie prayed silently that he’d die before they did anything. That God would just kill him right quick and not make him be there when they started doing to him what they’d done to Pardo.

  The chair was heavy oak, bolted to the floor so it wouldn’t move. There were tight straps around his arms, chest, and legs. He watched, frozen in fear, as Lewis directed the two soldiers. A round log, thick as a barrel and flat on both ends, was set up in front of the chair. There were straps nailed to one end of the log. A trooper squatted down beside Howie’s left leg and started taking off his boot.

  “No!” Howie yelled, and kicked the man square in the chest. The soldier glared at him. His companion came to help and Howie’s bare foot was strapped firmly to the log. An extra torch was brought over and set in a bracket close by.

  Lewis leaned over and put both his hands on Howie’s shoulders. “I want you to know what’s goin’ tube happening here, boy,” he said firmly. “Just listen, now, and don’t start no screamin’ or hollering until you have to. What were going to do is make a little cut in the bottom of your foot— not a big cut, just enough to a flap of skin loose. After we do that, we’re going to take hold of that flap with these.”

  Lewis reached back and took something from one of the soldiers and held it up for Howie to see. Howie shrank back from it and closed his eyes. Lewis leaned down and gently for
ced them open. The tool had wooden grips and metal ends. The metal ends curved in upon themselves to form two ugly pincers.

  “Y-you’re goin’ to skin me, aren’t you?” Howie said desperately. “Like you did Pardo. I know that’s what you’re goin’ to do!”

  “Just a little, Howie,” Lewis assured him. “Just a little on the bottom of your foot.”

  “But why!” Howie moaned. “I don’t know anything I ain’t told you!”

  “I know you say that, Howie.”

  “It’s true, damn it… I ain’t lying!”

  “I don’t figure you are.”

  “Then…”

  “But I got to be sure, Howie.” Lewis moved away from him.

  “Just listen,” Howie cried, “listen to me!”

  Lewis turned and faced him. “Howie,” he said patiently, “I done told you this once. It’s something that’s got to be done. I don’t think you know nothin’ and I told you that. I don’t figure ol’ Pardo told anyone anything ’bout what he was up to—an’ I think he told me just about everything that ever come into his head out there on the mesa. I don’t reckon there’s a little tiny piece of Pardo I don’t know about.” He looked evenly at Howie. “Now we ain’t goin’ to do anything like that to you, but we’re going to have to do some. Just yell all you feel like and it’ll be over right soon. Then you and me’ll do some more talking, and see where we go from there.”

  He turned away then and joined the two soldiers by the big log. In a few minutes he felt them start to work on him. He was expecting something terrible.

  But he’d never imagined how bad it would be…

  Chapter Thirty

  He was awake when the door opened. Dead tired, he was afraid to shut his eyes, even for a minute. He’d decided that if he we to sleep, they’d come in and kill him. It was downright crazy, he knew. If they wanted to kill him, they would. He couldn’t stay awake forever waiting for it.