“A vision.”
“I dreamed about the horsemen,” he said. “They were here to fulfill the prophecy.”
“The horsemen?”
“From the Book of Revelation. I dread that book, Brother. Wish it had not been given to us. Though the Lord knows best.” He nodded to himself. “This dream was a hard dream. The horsemen rode among the people, hewing them like the blades of grass. And of these, Death was the greatest. He rode a pale horse. I saw him clear as I see you right now.”
The crudity of his beliefs, this primitive stock in omens, repelled me. Not that I lack faith in the Holy Writ, and we must take the dark texts with the bright. But forty murdered Negroes made no Apocalypse. I wanted facts, not country superstitions.
Oh, I was cross. For selfish is the man.
“I don’t worry on it, though,” the preacher went on. “I put my faith in Jesus. When the trumpet sounds, I will rise up. I’ve been forgiven. No matter how far a man falls, Jesus can reach on down and pick him up. I will rise, Brother.”
At that, he slapped his legs and got to his feet.
“We should go on back,” he told me. “Near time for evening meeting. The hour to praise the Lord. You’re welcome to enter in among us, Brother. You, and that young soldier fellow, too.”
RAINES SAT IN THE DUSK with the look of a prisoner. He had taken off his tunic and waistcoat in tribute to the heat and his shirt hung damp and heavy. I knew he was troubled by the place in which he found himself, and I was glad of it. For I wanted him looking one way while I struck from another.
Tired I was of all their genteel lies.
I sat me down beside the boy, but back a bit so I might watch his profile. The Negroes strolled toward the “preaching ground.” Colorful in their rags they were. A few of them clutched books.
“There is good,” I said. “When people go to meeting on a Monday.”
My companion sniffed.
“Lieutenant Raines,” I went on, “did you know of the child, or did you not?”
He swiveled his head on that fine neck. And I saw he had no inkling of my meaning.
“Let me tell you a thing, then,” I continued. “And then you may tell me if there is more. Captain Barclay’s wife, this Emily, did not leave him in a fit of vanity at his preference for—or shall we say, his unwillingness to break off his relations with—a slave woman. Strong enough she was to win that fight. And beautiful enough, too. As you know yourself, sir. Do not make faces. You are a better man than that. Hold your peace and let me finish. If I disgust you, let that be my lot. Only do not stain yourself with lying. Sit you there and listen.”
He feared what I might tell him next. I saw that plain.
“No,” I said, “twas when she found out Barclay had a child. By the slave woman. Lucy. He had a child by her and let it be counted a slave. That is what your Emily could not bear. That the man she loved would abandon his own flesh and blood to slavery. That is when the ‘Northernness’ come out, see. That is when she saw the gulf between them. And given Barclay’s temper, who can say—”
“That’s a lie,” Raines said, a bit too late to convince. “Billy wouldn’t have done that.”
“But he did. He had a child, a little girl. Pale and blue-eyed she was.”
“He would’ve taken any child—”
“Pale and blue-eyed the child was. Like him. And he found the infant of less worth than a horse or dog. But the mother, the slave woman, loved it. She took it with her when she ran away. With her husband, a man named Jase. The child died with them in the butchery.”
Raines looked straight off, but I kept watch on his features. His face was tight as leather stretched and dried, and he smiled with a shrunken mouth.
“Now what do you have to tell me, Lieutenant Raines? To bring us closer to an understanding of these murders?”
“Billy didn’t have anything to do with them. For the love of God, Jones . . .”
“I did not say he did, nor do I think so. But this is your world, not mine, and I cannot see in from outside.”
“You seem to have done a fair job,” he said bitterly.
“No. I only gather the threads that drop in front of me. And I know that this . . . drama . . . may have nothing to do with the massacre. But something there is in it that will not let me rest.”
“And what’s that, Major?” There was no great respect for rank or age in his voice.
I shook my head, though he could not see me. The gloaming deepened and the Negroes began to sing of going homeward.
“I do not know,” I said. “It is like a burden on my back. A thing that others may see, while I cannot.”
A smirk pruned his mouth. “You really don’t know, do you?” He turned and looked at me then, leaning backward on an outstretched arm. “You don’t even know who this ‘Reverend’ Hitchens is? Now do you?”
“He is a former slave. Who heard the Call.”
Raines rolled his eyes. Then he glanced around us, insuring we were alone. And he leaned toward me. Twas the only time he spoke to me with undiluted venom.
“That’s Martin’s Will, old Colonel Martin’s killer and a damned runaway. You go in any sheriff’s office or government building, any railroad station or what have you between Mobile and St. Louis, and you’ll see that face and that scar sketched on a wanted poster. He killed his master, then killed the men sent to bring him in. He’s nothing but a murderer, a fugitive from justice. That’s who’s leading that little prayer-meeting over there. Martin’s Will, a vicious killer. He’s worse than Micah Lott.”
I did not speak for a time, but listened to the Negroes as they sang. They were exuberant, but lacked the discipline that made a proper chorus. Above the trees, the sky spread pink and gray and indigo.
“Well,” I said at last, “then there are two of us disappointed today.” I recalled, or tried to recall, all that the preacher had said to me. About redemption, about rising from our sins.
Suddenly, I picked myself up. Leaning on my cane to reach my feet.
“I think I will go and have another look at the fellow,” I said. “And pray a bit.” I looked down at Raines, who raged in lovelorn youth. Twas not his old friend’s guilt that chewed on him. I am enough of a man to understand that. It was the mention of Barclay’s wife, the woman he had loved, and whom he loved still. “You are invited, too,” I told him, “and might do well to join me. Prayer is a soothing matter.”
He stared into the thickening darkness. “There is no God. There’s only what men do. And what they fail to do.”
Well, that was hard. But do not judge him unforgivingly. For he was young and crossed in love, and young men speak to wound the world that hurts them. If he survived the war, he would have time to put himself right.
I took me off toward the squalling Negroes, who were doing their best to get the Lord’s attention.
THEIR WORSHIP WAS UNRULY. They never would have done for proper Methodists. We may display emotion through a hymn, but do not gad about. Or interrupt a parson with shouts and calls. We know our place, see.
The Negroes raised their faces to the sky. As if expecting fiery revelations. Torches fixed in the sod lit the meeting, but the flames were no more agitated than the members of the congregation. The shadows cast were huge and wild. I might have been amongst an African tribe. Even Baptists show less agitation.
“That’s right,” Mr. Hitchens called, “let the Spirit come, Brothers and Sisters. Just let it pour on down. Open up your hearts and let Him in. I take my text from Luke, chapter ten, verse twenty-four: ‘For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.’” His voice was near-majestic in the grove. “And I know what I have seen, Brothers and Sisters. And now I’m going to tell you what I’ve seen.”
“Tell it, Brother.”
“I have seen what men see with their eyes. Hah! That ain’t nothing.”
“Testify!
”
“The eye is but the servant of temptation. Hah!”
“Ain’t that the truth?”
“Man sees with his eye, he takes to grabbing. Says, ‘Gimme that, I want me some right now.’ And where’s that lead?”
“I hear you talking, Brother.”
“It leads to sin. Hah! And sin leads to damnation.”
“Lord have mercy!”
“Don’t you trust that eye that got the sin-hunger. No, Brothers and Sisters! You shut that eye against the wicked world. Hah! Don’t you take that wicked road on me.”
“Preach it, Rev Will.”
“That road leads down.”
“Down to the pit!”
“But I will raise up mine eyes. And not those eyes that see and start me grabbing. No, Brothers and Sisters. I’m talking about the eyes down in my heart. The eyes down in the heart of every sinner. Of every yearning sinner on this earth. Hah! The eyes that see the Lord in all His radiance, the eyes that are all closed up in those old prophets and kings. And I’m not going to listen with these ears. That road leads down, too. I’m going to listen with the ears I got in my heart along with them heart-eyes. The ears that are all closed up in those prophets and kings. Cause if I see with my heart, and if I hear with my heart, you know what I’m going to see and hear. Don’t you, Brothers and Sisters? That sweet love! Lord Almighty! The sweet love of our Savior, Jesus Christ!”
“Hallelujah!”
“Open up your hearts, and let that love come on in!” Turned Heavenward, his face shone in the firelight. “Lord, we’re a-waiting! We’re a-waiting on you now . . . come down upon us! Lord Jesus, we’re ready and waiting to go!”
The Negroes sang and shrieked, leaping about. One woman fainted, dropping to the earth in sweating hugeness. She twisted as if seized upon by cholera, alarming me. Until I saw it was a fit of ecstasy.
They raised their arms up, grabbing at the stars.
I could not like their excitability. Yet, joyous they were, and innocent. If the Lord is fair, such faith must count for something.
I SLEPT MIGHTILY after the day’s exertions and woke to insect stings on hands and face. My dreams had been of my mother. I barely knew her, for she died when I was small, but I see her in the night at times. Ever kindly she is, and a comfort to me. My scratching opened my eyes too soon, and I sat up with a dreadful sense of loss.
Raines had his boots on. Nearby, our horses waited. Saddled and ready.
“About time you woke up,” he said, with a thin affability. Anxious he was to put the place behind him. But there were other things he would not escape. The loss of those we love haunts us forever.
I said my goodbyes to the Reverend Mr. Hitchens, whose teeth were bothered with his breakfast leavings. The gash upon his face looked deep and raw. I almost asked about his criminal history, for the man made me curious. I did not think young Raines a liar, but had to wonder if the tale were true.
The man before me hardly seemed a killer. But such questioning would have been rude and, perhaps, unsafe. I did not fear for me, you understand, but for young Raines. Blameless in himself he may have been, but to these people he was a fountain of misery. With that gray coat. Even Christians have their fits of temper.
“And there is nothing else you wish to tell me?” I asked the parson. “About the killings?” For though I had pieced out a muchness around Captain Barclay, I seemed no closer to solving the murder business. I would ride away not knowing where to go next.
“If I have me another dream, I’ll send after you,” he said.
I did not reply directly, but told him, “Look you, Mr. Hitchens. I am an old soldier. And this place does not feel safe to me. You must be cautious. There is trouble about, see. We still do not know why those people were killed.”
Twas his turn to avoid a straight reply. “Lord, Major Jones, wasn’t that a meeting last night? Wasn’t that a meeting? Folks just got the Spirit when you stepped in amongst them. You’re the first Lincoln soldier any of them seen. Though they had hoped to see you come here garbed in a raiment of blue.” He clicked his tongue. “My, my. Wasn’t that a jubilation, though?”
Roland and Cupid led us off. Again, they blindfolded us, only to remove my rag the moment they were sure that Raines was sightless. We passed the poor old blind fellow again. He did not accost us regarding his son, since we were riding outward. He only stood and stared with sightless eyes. Perhaps they were the “heart-eyes” of which the preacher had spoken.
When we passed the defile and reached the marsh, Cupid drew his pistol as before. This time, I saw one of the snakes. Huge it was. Not so long as many a Sindhi cobra, but such are thin. The cobra rises up like a mast, his hood a sail. This snake was brown and fat and six feet long. Its path was low. Slithering off a bump of earth, it curved across a pool of standing water. Though the snake kept a long length off, the horses kicked and splashed.
Sightless, Raines turned his head from side to side at the commotion.
Cupid did not fire and the snake swam off. I have no special dread of the creatures, but would not have sought that “moccasin” for closer acquaintance. It looked a deadly thing. I tightened my grip on Rascal’s reins, waiting for solid earth beneath his hooves.
I did not know the serpent was a signal. My search was done, and vengeance pounded toward us.
THIRTEEN
WE RODE IN CIRCLES, AS WE HAD DONE BEFORE. CUPID kept the lookout, while Roland told me humorous tales of a slave named John and his old Master. Somehow, John always proved the cleverer of the two. It is a marvel how these folk can laugh at bondage. I find them much like the Irish. For his part, Raines maintained a perpetual grimace below his blindfold. I felt him seething.
By now, I had a soldier’s grip on the terrain. Again and again, we crossed the same wild fields, penetrated the same groves and brushed against the edges of the marsh. We avoided hilltops and roads. To look down at our trail, you would have thought a troop of riders had passed, so often had our horses’ hooves slapped the same dust. The Negroes laughed, and now and then I chuckled at their merrymaking. But I only lent one ear to Roland’s tales. I scratched my bites and thought on harder things.
Look you. I had learned much, but not about the murders. It seemed I was no closer to the guilty. Had my task been to shame this Captain Barclay, I might have done that well enough. But who had done the killing I could not say. I fought to think, but the mind is a stubborn machine and will not go until it has got ready.
When I recalled the murder site and all I had been told, it seemed there were but two possible constructions. Either the forty—forty-one—Negroes had been surrounded by a force superior in numbers, preventing the escape of more than one . . . or they had trusted those come to kill them and found themselves betrayed and slain like sheep. Which had it been? And what could be the motive? Or the sense?
Again, I felt the answer perching on my shoulders, there for every eye to see but mine. The truth danced behind me like a teasing boy, making faces. It tapped me and ran off. I am not made for matters of investigation, see. I am too slow. I trust more than I should. I read, but am no educated man. My hands are trained far better than my head.
How I longed to speak with my Mary Myfanwy, who always saw what her stumbling husband could not! Oh, I will tell you: A good wife is the best of earthly gifts. We do our women wrong to slight them. They possess a wonderful muchness that might help more than we allow. Of course, I speak of intellect and talents, and not of self-control or steady character, in which they are not equal to a man.
At last, we turned from our familiar path. Cupid led the way along a treeline. I glimpsed a road below us. Cautiously, our guides turned us into the woods. Heading downward. Our horses wound between slender trunks and fits of briars. The day had warmed, and the air smelled thick with life. But where life reigns, death lurks. Roland told us no more stories now. Both Negroes held their pistols at the ready.
We halted near the bottom of the slope, just above the road. Ocher
dust showed through the trees and I glimpsed ruts cut by wagon wheels. Roland eased his horse ahead until a flowering tangle blocked the animal. Slipping to the ground, he soothed his mount then pressed ahead, picking his way through the undergrowth.
Suddenly, he dropped out of sight.
A minute later, the Negro reappeared. Climbing up an embankment toward us. He waved his pistol at Cupid.
Our guard undid the blindfold from poor Raines. The boy blinked at the force of the light through the trees, wiping invisible veils from his eyes.
Roland trudged back toward us.
“That road down there,” Cupid said. “You go on down and point yourselfs yonder.” He gestured to the left with his pistol. “You’ll get on to someplace soon enough.”
Raines looked sour as a Delhi pickle.
I thanked our guides, then led the way, afraid that Raines was about to start a quarrel. He followed me quietly, if sullenly. I veered to the side to avoid the worst of the undergrowth and waved a last time to the pair of Negroes. Rascal took the bank before I was ready and I nearly pitched head over onto the road.
That got a laugh from Raines, if but a small and cruel one. By the time I had myself back in order, our guides had disappeared.
We sat our mounts in the middle of the track. With Raines giving me a vinegar stare. Twisting his mouth, he clucked his horse to a walk. I followed along in the hardening sunlight. We went perhaps a mile before he spoke, and then he spoke abruptly:
“You think I don’t know we were riding rings around ourselves? Or that they took off your blindfold the minute mine went on? You think I don’t know where we were?”
“I did not think on the matter at all,” I told him, which was true. For I had other thoughts enough to busy me.
A butterfly strayed from a bush, yellow as saffron in a heathen market. It was a yellow day, all sun and dust.
Raines rode with his eyes to the fore like a lancer on parade. Wounded in his pride, he was. Affronted. For though he was a decent sort, twas clear his treatment by the Negroes had humiliated him. Their own long shame could be no consolation. The son of a prince may condescend, but does so at his pleasure.
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