Coal Black Horse

by Robert Olmstead

  “He’s a very important man,” the daughter was saying, impressed with the major, his staff and attendant military trappings.

  “Not down here he ain’t,” the old woman said, her voice betraying the truth and depth of her bitterness.

  The major turned on the blabbing women and then smiled broadly to let them know he could hear their imprudent hallway whisperings. They fluttered at how unsettled they were made by the gaze of his clear blue eyes and the knowledge they’d been found out.

  “It’s a young heart that beats in this old body,” he told their fleeing backs, and then he saw Robey and his guard and gestured with the wave of his hand that they should enter.

  When they made their way into the room, there were two tall guards standing inside the entry and another officer lounging crossways in a reclined chair, his legs slung over an arm. This officer wore the gold braids of the cavalry and of all the men in the room seemed most secure in himself. His hair was black and glistened with oil, as did his tall shiny boots. He held a gold-framed hand mirror and scissors and was trimming his elaborate waxed moustache. On the floor beside him was a half-eaten bowl of buttered popcorn.

  “I am tired to death,” the major said to no one in particular, and turned back to the fire that was reddening his face.

  The guards took this as a sign, for they smiled and shifted to stand at their ease again. Then propping his arms on the chair back, the major turned his eyes on Robey and said to his guard, “Who is this young man you have for me and why so urgent?”

  “He’s a peculiar one,” the soldier said, prodding him forward with the stock of his rifle. “I sketch him a spy.”

  The cavalry officer could not contain his laughter. “A spy,” he scoffed, and caught his image laughing again in the mirror glass.

  “Don’t be shy,” the major said to Robey. “Can I offer you a drink on this wet night?”

  “It might help warm me up some,” Robey said, and gave off a shiver at the suggestion of how chilled and thirsty he might be.

  “He talks,” the guard said, as if it were a suspicion confirmed.

  “He talks,” the cavalry officer mimicked, and then made a sound of disgust in his throat.

  “Has he not talked before?” the major asked.

  “Nope, not a word come from him.”

  “Then how do we know he is a spy?” the reclining cavalry officer said, without breaking concentration with his mirror.

  “Are you a spy, son?” the major asked, looking again at the watch he held cupped in his hands.

  “No sir,” Robey said.

  The major continued to ask questions as if his aim was to ask a certain number in the shortest amount of time and the substance of the answers did not much matter to him.

  Robey didn’t know how to reply after the first question and so he clasped one hand in the other and said little more.

  The major looked up from his watch and, seemingly taken by Robey’s face, caught his eye and smiled and would not let go the stare. The major held the stare, looking him straight in the eyes and Robey met his gaze and would not turn away and before long it was as if neither one of them was located in the room. It was no longer night or day and neither of them was in the environment of war. The major was somewhere else—another place and another time and that’s where he was seeing Robey.

  “Have you had any formal schooling?” the major softly asked, and when Robey did not answer he explained how before the war he’d been a schoolmaster in Connecticut and he had taught boys much his own age and how much it saddened him to now see them in uniforms and carrying swords and rifles and slaughtered in battle.

  Robey thought for a moment as to what he might say to this man who was experiencing an occasion remote and ruminative. He folded his shoulders and out of respect he looked down at the worn carpet beneath his feet. The cuffs were worn from his trousers and the fabric ragged and thready. He’d not realized how tattered he’d become and had the odd thought it was time to find another pair of trousers. He was learning that fear was like danger and passed by those who faced up to it. The straying thought lingered: new trousers. He thought this day would not be his end. He decided he feared nothing from these men and looked up. He looked straight at the major, unmoved by the old man’s rheumy solicitation.

  “Well,” the major said, draining his whiskey glass and clumsily setting it to clatter on the stone floor of the hearth. “So be it. What do you have to say for yourself? Nothing at all?”

  “I am searching for my pap,” he said.

  “He is a liar,” the soldier bawled, and to this the major shrugged, still holding his gaze as he let the watch dangle on its short fob.

  “Son?” the major said.

  “I am to find my pap and bring him back to his home.” His voice became no more than a whisper on his lips when he said, “I were shot right here in the head and my horse were stole from me.”

  “The bastards,” said the cavalry officer trimming his moustache. “They’ll take the eyeballs right out of your face.”

  Again the soldier guarding him called him a liar and the major informed the soldier that he was no longer needed. Disgusted and long since tired of the duty he’d assumed, he shouldered his rifle and stamped out of the room.

  “Sit down,” the major said, pocketing his watch. “Let’s have a chat.”

  “It is the truth,” Robey whispered without moving.

  “You wouldn’t be pulling my leg?”

  “No sir.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “A tiny little fellow back down the road. He was swum with skin fleas and dressed in women’s clothes he stole’d off a woman he killed. He shot me here in the head,” he gestured, “and stol’d my horse. It was a very fine horse black as coal.”

  “By gawd, that’s the boy’s horse,” the major shouted, and punched his fist into the palm of his open hand. “We found the fellow who stole your horse. He’s in the hoosegow as we speak. He’s one of ours and I assure you in no uncertain terms, he will be taken care of.”

  “How do we know it’s his horse?” demanded the cavalry officer. The mention of the horse had caused him to set aside his mirror and scissors and lunge to his feet. As he spoke he cut the air with his hand.

  “No,” the major said, wagging a finger at the cavalry officer. “The boy speaks the truth and you, sir, are working on my last nerve. I think you like that ill-tempered horse better than you like people. The story is impossible to contrive. You will give the boy his horse.”

  “I will not.”

  “You will give back to the boy his god damn horse and you will do it now and that will be the end of the matter.”

  What was between the major and the cavalry office was personal and what had been smoldering now burned hotly. The major was clearly pleased with his display of anger in command. In a sulk the cavalry officer shook down his trouser legs and, hands clasped behind him, looked to the ceiling as if in supplication. After enough delay to communicate that the final decision was his and his alone he left through the door, the guards snickering at his back with full intention that he should hear them.

  “I will write you a letter,” the major said, “explaining your purpose and signed by me.”

  “I had a letter before this happened,” Robey explained, “and it didn’t do much good.”

  “It is the best I can do,” the major told him, and when he gestured the young officer with the leather book of papers stepped forward, opened its cover, and laid out a clean sheet of paper, a pen, and bottle of ink on a stand. He then held the book as a surface to write while the major dipped the pen and in flourishing script stated Robey’s business and his steward-ship of the coal black horse. He periodically cursed as ink spurted from the scratching pen and from time to time raised his hands that it should be blotted.

  “Just sit quiet, son,” the major said to the book of papers as he wrote. “It won’t be long and you’ll be on your way.”

  While they were still si
tting by the fire the woman of the house ushered in a man and his wife. She said outside it had begun a plague of rain and the parlor was full and asked if the major would agree to sharing the fire with these itinerants, and to this he consented.

  “Will my broiled chicken be much longer?” the major asked as he continued to write.

  “There is a terrible downdraft,” the woman said, and then told him the fire was being fickle, but it was apparent that she had completely forgotten about the major’s chicken.

  She sat the man and his wife by the door where they maintained themselves in mute sadness. The man was bare-legged and carried a large bundle on his back. The woman carried an infant less than a year old, wrapped in a blanket, and the presence of the baby seemed to soften the major. Clearly, he himself was a fond father and Robey could only conclude it’d been a long time since he’d seen his children.

  The child was placid in the woman’s arms, making not a sound, and still she spoke to it, saying its name. They were both wet and chilled and about them was the mystery and awe of hunger. The major ordered for them a mug of hot cider, then entered into conversation with them while he continued to improve his letter on Robey’s behalf.

  The man stood when the major addressed him and listened like he was used to it. The man told how he was by trade a weaver and his wife was the great-granddaughter of the Reverend Mr. Lamb, formerly minister of Baskenridge Church. They had been burned out and were traveling west to escape the hostilities.

  “You travel a long way from home,” the major said.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Is Emily your daughter’s name?” the major asked, glancing down at the watch he again palmed in his hand as the young officer folded and enveloped Robey’s letter of safe passage.

  “It is,” the weaver said.

  “It’s a beautiful name,” the major said. “I also have an Emily.”

  “God bless you,” the woman said.

  “Satan especially hates women,” the major said with an exaggerated wink of his eye.

  He then took out a purse and gave the woman a silver dollar, telling her it was for the infant child, which overcame them both with gratitude. He called to the maid and ordered for them coffee, bread, butter, and honey, if there was any to be had. He then crossed the room and pulled back the curtains to let his knee rest on the sill and peer out at the street.

  “Why haven’t you joined up to fight for your country?” he asked the weaver, still staring out the window.

  “They won’t take me,” the weaver said.

  “Why not?”

  “I have a black heart.”

  “Oh, Christ,” a sentry mumbled, letting the butt of his rifle knock on the floorboards.

  “What is it that constitutes a black heart?” the major asked, without the least interest and as if in reply came the haunting banshee wail of an oncoming train whistle.

  “He has a mind disorder,” his wife said with some panic in her voice.

  Then came another long blast from the quills and the sound of exploding exhaust. The men in the room came to life as if from a long rest. Then was the sound of the engine’s volcanic eruptions bouncing off the hillsides and splitting the wet night with their echoes, with great back blasts of soot, as the engine hammered up the last grade and began its run into town.

  At that moment the front door flung open and a soldier yelled down the long hallway, “The train is coming,” and the sound through the smoky and orange lamplight, past the portraits set in gilded frames was raw sound in its coming from some far-off place, booming through the streets and entering the house. The major turned on his heels and made for the open door, his guards following close behind with his coat and sword.

  Robey waited expectantly, but they seemed to have no more concern with him. The woman carried her baby to the window to look out, but she could not see so she unlatched the window and let it swing open. She called out the arrival of the train and when she left the window’s opening the drapes followed her on a wind that would not let them down. The sound increased and the room was washed in a sweep of white light, and he thought it would be a good time to slip away to reunite with the coal black horse. But something was wrong. He felt it before he knew it and then he knew it.

  “Don’t you go out there,” the bare-legged weaver hissed at him, hunching at the window to see into the night.

  “You stay here, boy,” the woman said, shifting the baby from one arm to the next and sliding a revolver from the blanket’s folds.

  Still, he went down the hall to the open door where the old woman was fingering her pearls as she and her maid stood looking off in the direction of the train yard and the major and his guards mounting into their saddles and departing on horseback.

  “Don’t you go down there,” the woman warned, and she reached for his collar to hold him back as he passed her by. He could feel her crabbed fingers at his neck and dragging across his shoulder as he slipped her grasp.

  Already he was leaving through the open doorway and into the chaos of horses and teamsters, officers yelling out orders and cavalry dashing over the cobblestoned street. As he passed through the streets he detected the townspeople watching from behind their fallen drapes and from between the slats of their shuttered windows. Men broke from doorways still stepping into their boots and dragging their suspenders over their shoulders, their shirttails flagging behind them.

  He didn’t know why, but he crossed the square and walked the street in the clear direction of the glistening engine, its rods slowly rising and falling. Shotgun blasts of steam filled the black vault of the night. Frightened horses were rearing in harness and had to be quieted. A shaft of white light still bayed from the tinplate reflector, splitting the wet darkness as white carmine-tinted plumes swept past the reflected light.

  A cavalryman yelled at him and he jumped back as the horse and rider surged over the spot where he had just stood. Inside the light was visible the red star of the headlamp while the iron clapper continued its tolling on the bronze walls of the bell, as if calling to him again and then again: come see what you have never seen before in your young life.

  Robey gazed at the shining steel and copper of the engine that pulsed before him. A red line bordered in gold made a long stripe down its wet glistening barrel. The black-faced men were slowly being herded forward, treading warily, as if they feared they would be fed into the very noise of the engine.

  The doors of the boxcars banged open and lanterns were lit inside the cars and they became incandescent and shown from within as the men collected forward and began handling the boxes and crates from the cars’ interiors and into the wagons. The black skin of their raised arms was wet and silvery in the light and their faces streaked as if they were crying silent endless tears. A red mouth would open or the light would catch the white of an eye, and this would cause a soldier to shift and raise his rifle and yell and then another soldier would yell and the yelling would erupt down the line.

  He turned away and it was then, through a white blast of steam issuing from the cylinder cock, that he saw webbed in the sweeping steel slats of the low pilot the torn and masticated head of the bay horse, its eyes huge and pearly and fixed on the distance forever. He turned over inside himself and felt his jaw fixing and reminded himself of hatred and how anger was more useful than despair. But still that a horse should receive such an outcome, even in death. Then the strangest feeling came into him as he marveled at how powerful the machine and the way it’d cleaned the bay horse’s head from the rest of its body. He found his breath again and thought to find the coal black horse, a revolver, the infested little man who shot him so cold-bloodedly.

  Then a soldier screamed, God almighty, and fell and he could hear a sound coming from the walls and cobbles like hot spattering grease. Then, beside his ear, he heard the crying sound the air makes when it splits. Then another soldier was toppled and then a rider hove up and the word went out that a large force had struck the pickets and they’d been drove i
n. Then came the first of the pickets pouring over the river, the rail cut and in from the countryside, and in the same moment was begun the screaming sound of artillery in the night and in stark detail. It was as if the whole world about him was suddenly flying apart.

  9

  From out of the darkness continued a coruscating gunfire. Spent bullets were flattening on stone walls and dropping to the cobbles below where they hissed in the puddled water, or whining through the leaves of dogwood and cutting the green needled trees and falling to the street like elements of heavy rain. He saw a young soldier boy struck in the hand from a great distance and the force of the bullet seemed to fling the hand from his body and spin him in place until he fell down in the street to dumbly stare at his hand, as if an appendage newly attached and sourced with a baffling pain.

  The horses standing in harness held their heads high as their lathered flanks heaved with every breath. They danced and trod heavily and then they too began to fall onto their haunches and sides but not before eight or ten bullets found their wet-sleeked hides, their withers, their long necks, their ribs, their croup, their powerful beating hearts. It was never the intention to kill the horses, but that was how thick and crossed the fire was in those first minutes of chaos.

  He could see a cannonball striking sparks as it bounded over the rounded cobbles and then slowing and gently rolling his way. He jumped aside, but another soldier, his gaping mouth still gobbed white with a paste of crackers and cheese, held up his rifle as if stepping into water and put his foot out to stop the cannonball and in an instant his foot was gone and blood was gushing out the stumped end of his leg onto the street where his blood showed like red glass in wet sunlight. A second cannonball blew a soldier’s head clean off and continued on to smash another man to death. The headless soldier walked three more paces before falling to the street where his dead body shook fishlike before extinguishing.