Mr. Shivers

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “I’m all right,” said Connelly.

  “Come over here,” Missy scolded.

  Deliah scowled and went over to her mother, but smiled at Connelly over her shoulder. He frowned and drank more. Clark took the bottle out and began passing it around. It lit little fires in their stomachs and made the night bearable and soon they were chattering and talking just as though they had been at home.

  “These are nice people,” said Lottie to Connelly.

  “They are.”

  “It’s a sad thing to see them out on the road. I’d like to see them right. It’d be nice to just stay with them and keep moving.”

  “It would be,” said Connelly.

  “Do you know what I think, sometimes?”

  “What?”

  “I think sometimes that… that every step I take I seem to lose a little bit more of myself. Every step I take chasing that man, I forget what I’m doing. No… That’s not so. Not what I’m doing, but why. Do you know what I mean?”

  Connelly shrugged.

  “Like, back in the jungle,” she said. “When Pike beat that man so he’d tell us where Shivers had gone, I just stood there like it was nothing. It seemed okay to me. And it had, after… after what had happened to the twins. But that night I lay sleeping and I thought it wasn’t more than a year ago that I hadn’t never seen a man get beaten in my life. Not like that. Not like that.”

  Lottie bit her lip and toyed with her hair. She seemed eager to say something, but stopped, smiled, and said, “Pardon. I’ll just be a bit,” and she walked away.

  She was gone a long time. Connelly drank more with the other men. It was the first time any of them had tasted liquor in a while. His head began to swim and the fire became a yellow smear in the night. He wondered where Lottie went, and as he wondered the voices of the other travelers mixed in his head and in the circle of cars he felt trapped, like he had fallen into a hole and was unable to crawl out. He tried to convince himself it was only the drink, but soon it was too much. He stood up and staggered off through the ring of cars and out of the light. Someone called to him but he paid it no mind.

  Soon he was out among the scrub. At night the countryside had become a gray and violet inversion of itself, the pasture stubbled like man’s cheek, the creek a narrow braid of shimmering light. Far up above the sky was filled with an impossible number of stars, some large and shining, some the barest suggestion of light at all. The moon seemed closer than it did in any other place Connelly had ever been. It was so close he felt he could almost touch it, its pockmarked skin the color of honey and wheat. He wanted to touch it and then smell his fingers and see what scent it carried across the sky.

  He looked back. The campsite was more than a hundred yards away. He could not make out their faces. A strange fear came over him as he listened to them sing, their voices carried to him on the wind. He went and sat beneath a lone cedar, gnarled as an old man’s hand, and he watched them. He remembered the gray man turning and speaking his name as the sky was eaten by shadow. Remembered the look of dull surprise on the face of the man he had dragged off the train car, how the man twisted when struck by the next car and the way he seemed to dissolve beneath the wheels. And he remembered Molly. How small and fragile his memory of her was now. It felt dangerous just to caress it in his mind.

  He watched the distant fire and people laughing and sharing one another’s company, and inside of him a voice quietly said: This is not for you. These things are not yours, will not be yours, could never be yours. Not now. Not ever. Not ever again.

  And Connelly listened, and he agreed. The cars fenced him out. He could not go back.

  He fumbled in his coat and took out a cigarette. He lit it and its coarse red ember burned bright in his hands. When he looked up a figure was walking to him across the field, white and fragile in the starlight. He thought it was Lottie but instead it was the girl, Deliah.

  “What are you doing out here?” she asked, smiling. She was wearing a white dress that was so beaten by now it was almost sheer. She came close and he tried not to notice how it gripped her body in the wind. She was barefoot. Pale white feet smeared with dark earth. Each inch of her skin’s texture visible to the naked eye.

  “Having a smoke,” he said.

  “You could have smoked with us. We wouldn’t have minded none.”

  “Just felt like quiet, I suppose,” he said.

  She laughed. “Would you like another drink?”

  He shook his head.

  “Anything?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Come on back by the fire,” she said.

  “No, that’s… that’s all right. I’ve got some thinking to do.”

  “You can think with us if you want.”

  He did not answer.

  “Come on back,” she said. “Please. For me.”

  He shook his head. “That’s… that’s kind of you, but…”

  “But you just want to sit out in a field, huh?” she said, now pouting. She looked him over and sniffed. “Well, fine, then. Sit under this damn tree. I don’t care. Sit here all you want.”

  She turned and strode across the fields. In the faint light she seemed a ghost, each line of her body an ivory curve, each motion agonizingly clear. Her hair glistened and bounced and toyed with the nape of her neck, her delicate hands bunched into fists at her sides. Connelly felt the urge to cry no, no, come back, come back and I will come with you. I will come wherever you ask.

  But he did not. He was silent. He looked down between his feet and when he looked up again she was gone.

  Connelly rubbed his arms, fighting the chilly night. An animal voice cried in the darkness. Somewhere in hills another cried back, answering.

  He looked up at the stars again and considered this spot on the land, this tree he sat under. These empty square feet of land had always been here, would always be here. To this place he was no more than a dream. And he wondered about those who had come before, wandering over the plains, treading this spot. People that came before names. Animals that came before sunlight. Perhaps it had been so.

  He touched the coarse earth. Once something had died here. It was a fact of chance. Some animal had dragged itself to this spot or maybe had fallen, limbs askew, its lifeblood leaking onto the earth. And then perhaps it had lifted its thoughtless eyes to the infinity above, looked at the endless, bejeweled dark, just as Connelly was now, and made some sound, some mewling cry. Asking a question. Begging for a few seconds more. And then expired, maybe leaving its question behind.

  One death, at least. Perhaps hundreds of things had died here. Thousands. Millions. And maybe all had spent their last moments watching the stars swim by.

  Connelly looked at the sky for a long time. He wondered if the stars knew what lived in their depths. If they knew anything at all.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In the morning they readied to leave. Pike accepted the food the Hopkinses could spare, though he denied it first out of politeness. Connelly was looking over the cars and their packs once more when Lottie came to him.

  “We need to talk,” she said.

  They walked away from the ring of cars. She led him down to the creek and said, “I’m not going.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “You do?”

  “Figured as much.”

  “Are… are you mad?”

  He shook his head.

  “I thought you would be,” she said.

  “No. I’m not.”

  She shut her eyes. “I thought you would be. I said I was in this, I said I wanted to see this man dead.”

  “I know,” he said again.

  “Yes, but do you know why?”

  “No. I don’t need to.”

  “But I want you to. Let me speak my peace.” She rubbed her temple. “Back there on the train, did you see?” she said.

  “See what?”

  “When I… When I shot that man, you could see him… Did you see what I… What I…”r />
  “I saw.”

  “Did I… Did I kill him?”

  Connelly thought. He looked at the ground and said, “No.”

  She let out a breath. “No? I didn’t?”

  “No. You missed. It scared him. He moved away and while he was trying to reload he lost his balance and fell.”

  “I could have sworn I-I…”

  “You didn’t,” said Connelly flatly.

  She touched her cheek, fingers caressing where the drops of blood had fallen. She shook herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to kill a man. I don’t ever want to have that on me. If the man we’re chasing was dead and gone it would be all right but I think there’s more killing between all of you and him. Do you know that?”

  Connelly nodded.

  “I was thinking… Connelly,” she said. “You… you shouldn’t go, either. I don’t think I can convince any of the others but, well… I don’t think this is worth it anymore. I mean, you met this family. They’d let us come with them. They’re nice and there’s good things waiting for them. I know. I know it in my bones.”

  Connelly stood for a long time. Then he shook his head.

  “For God’s sake, Connelly, men are dead—”

  “There were dead before this,” said Connelly. “Long before.”

  “But—”

  “We speak for them. We speak for the dead. To do right by them.”

  “And this is the way you’d do it?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be another.”

  “Connelly, nothing good will come of this. There are people looking for you. And if you all keep on like this, more people are going to be after you. More bloodshed. More tears. More dead to speak for. We got a chance at something good here. Don’t pass it by. Don’t.” She smiled. “There are people who like you here, Connelly. That family. They like you. That girl, I think she likes you. And she… she isn’t the only one,” she said softly, and touched his arm.

  Connelly breathed deep, then bowed and shook his head again. “It isn’t good to me.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “That’s the way it is. I look at these people and I just know. I look at you and know these things aren’t for me. Not yet. I-I can’t go back. It’d be wrong to do that, to abandon this and let him go on. To let my little girl’s death go unanswered. But… this family. You. Maybe one day I can have things like that. But it isn’t for me. Not now.” He took a breath. “This is all I got now. This is all I got. All I am. Just chasing him.”

  Lottie closed her eyes, wiped them. “You have a choice…”

  “I know I do. I’m choosing to make this right. And I can.”

  “You don’t want to come with me? At all?”

  “I-I do. You know I have a wife?”

  “I remember.”

  “I’d like to go back to that. One day, to the way things were in the beginning. But I can’t yet. And, Lottie, once this was done, if it was so that I could never find her again or if she wouldn’t welcome me home, then I would come to you. I would. But I have to do this. I have to.”

  She looked at him for a moment longer, then walked back to the camp without saying anything. He waited for a second and then followed.

  It went much as Connelly had expected. Lottie spoke to them a few paces away from the camp so the Hopkinses would not hear. Connelly did not come close, so he could not hear everything that was said, nor did he want to.

  Pike became angry right away. He shouted at her, pounding his fist into his hand, pointing off into the west and throwing biblical language at her alongside curses about the weaknesses of bitchery. This she took without the slightest reaction. Then Roonie wept and she comforted him, holding him in her arms, his crooked fingers playing with her hair. Monk tried to reason with her, blustering and confused, but she simply shook her head. And Roosevelt and Hammond stayed quiet, Roosevelt looking nervous and Hammond standing ramrod-straight, his narrow, handsome features pulled taut, his mouth in a hard grimace.

  Then the words finished. Lottie nodded, then walked back to the Hopkinses with a queenly, steady stride, though as she walked by Connelly he could see her fingers trembling. She spoke to Missy and the other woman listened and embraced her hard, and Lottie hugged her back. The children came down and began bombarding her with questions, spinning around her feet. Connelly watched them. Watched their passion for one another. Their happiness in being one.

  Clark came and spoke to him. “You sure you boys are going to be all right?”

  “I suppose,” said Connelly.

  “We’re happy to have her aboard, you know.”

  “I’m sure she’s happy to be with you.”

  “We could use you, sir. We could use all of you. It’s more mouths, sure, but it’s more hands working.”

  “We have business in the west,” said Connelly.

  “Who doesn’t,” said Clark. He looked at Connelly sadly. “If times were different, I-I…”

  Connelly nodded. “If things were different,” he said.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for. Whatever’s in all of you is burning you up. I can see it.”

  “Maybe so. I think it’s best we all get going. We’re wasting daylight.”

  They shook hands.

  “Maybe I’ll see you again,” said Clark.

  “Sometimes I think I’ll see everyone again,” Connelly answered.

  Clark walked back to the cars and they started up, a small armada of crumbling machinery shuddering in the field. One by one they lurched forward, gravel crunching under the tires, and they made their way to the road. Everyone waved, each car a heap of junk and waving white arms. The children cheered and the men called good luck and the women waved as well. With a great belch of dust the jalopies picked up speed and soon were moving down the road, speeding away, south and west.

  Connelly and the others went north. It was not until nightfall that he realized Lottie had not looked at him once after their discussion, nor had she said goodbye.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Near Privet they saw the dead man.

  As night fell they came into the surrounding farmland to find it empty. No one stirred in the fields and they saw no one in the homes. The streets were empty save for a few stray dogs who fled yelping as they approached. They passed through wondering if perhaps some plague had come and taken all of them away when they heard the noise in the distance.

  “Someone’s yelling,” said Roonie.

  “A lot of someones,” said Connelly.

  They made their way around to a field on the windward side of the hills. There was a large crowd assembled and Connelly thought perhaps it was another traveling carnival until he saw the tree overhead and the strange mass dangling from its branches.

  It was a man. A black man. He was hanging from one of the topmost branches by the neck. His face was swollen and his eyes were red and his tongue hung out of his mouth, lapis blue and glistening. His clothes were tattered, as was his skin, and blood stained his collar and back. A dark stain ran across the front and back of his pants and brown streaks ran down his ankles. His whole body weeping. Beneath him people milled about with torches, chatting and shouting and talking until finally a few of them noticed the strangers.

  “What are you all doing here?” asked a woman.

  “Just passing through,” said Monk.

  “You heard about this here nigger?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Goddamn,” she said, and walked off.

  “What the hell?” Roosevelt said. “What the hell was that? What happened here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Pike. “How should I know?”

  They found an old man who reeked of whisky who told them, “We caught this here nigger rutting about with a white lady. I never heard of such a thing before in my life, not ever. I figured it was rape, but that nigger’d have to be dumber than hell to think he’d get away with such a thing here. She must’ve gone in for it. You ever hear of that?”

 
“No,” said Connelly.

  “Damn it all, it’s astounding. It’s astounding what’s happening to this nation, ain’t it?”

  “You can say that again,” said Hammond.

  “You being smart with me, young man?”

  “No.”

  He eyed Hammond carefully. “I can’t abide nigger-lovers. That wouldn’t be you fellas, now would it?”

  “Just passing through,” said Pike evenly.

  “Lord almighty,” said the old man, and he shook his head. “End of the world come, end of the world go. All souls did burn. No one noticed. Not a one. Not a one but me.”

  They stared at the thing hanging from the tree. The noose had pulled its head strangely, giving it the look not of a dead man but of a man poorly made from inanimate parts. Connelly gazed into its eyes and tried to see what spark was there, what motivation or animation had once dwelt there to give it life, or perhaps a vacancy where it had been. Just a sign that it had once been a man and had walked and talked and perhaps loved somewhere on this fading earth.

  He found nothing. It was a dead thing. It had no history and it had no future. It was just a dead thing, murdered and hanging from a tree. He could no more find a man in it than he could find reason in its dying.

  He wondered where Lottie was.

  “Think… think he had something to do with it?” said Monk as they walked away.

  “Who? The scarred man?” said Pike.

  “Yeah, think… think he caused this?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “It would be easy to blame all the evils of humanity on one madman, wouldn’t it? It’d be simpler. And comforting. But that doesn’t make it so.”

  “Let’s go,” said Hammond. “I don’t want to talk to these people.”

  “We need to. We need to know if he’s come by.”

  “He hasn’t.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “I’ll do it,” said Connelly. “I will.” He left them to reenter the crowd.

  None of them knew the scarred man. No one had heard of him. But Connelly noticed a strange excitement in them, a queer sort of awful joy that made them restless and jittery. It was in how they touched each other and looked at each other and in how they spoke. There was fury and self-satisfaction, a kind of relief. It was as though an enormous celebration was about to begin, but they did not know what they were celebrating nor when the celebration would take place.