by Alex Grecian
He followed Joe until he saw other prisoners running and he joined them, losing sight of his friend in the crush of skin and bone. The crowd had gathered as close to the southern perimeter fence as it could get. It was the section of their little village where criminals were herded. Hundreds of prisoners surrounded a bare spot in the dirt where Duane was facing off against two emaciated men. The men were caked with dirt and their bones pressed against their flesh from inside. Their hair was long and dark and filled with mud and it swung from side to side as they moved. They were so starved that they moved slowly. But everyone was starved and everyone’s perceptions had changed. The action seemed quick to Cal. One of the two men had a stick that was sharpened to a point at one end, and Cal wondered, for just a moment, where the man had got a knife to sharpen it. He realized that the man had probably rubbed it against a rock for days on end and at the same time he realized that it didn’t matter. The stick was pointed at his friend Duane.
Cal glanced up at the guard tower that jutted out of the perimeter fence above them and to the east. The guard was close enough for Cal to see the color of his eyes: pale grey, almost as colorless as the sky. The guard’s rifle rested casually on his shoulder, but Cal knew it was a pose. Grey Eyes was ready to shoot the instant anyone stepped over the dead line onto the eighteen feet of bare earth that was off-limits to prisoners. Crossing the dead line put a man too close to the fence and guards were authorized to shoot, no questions asked. Duane and his attackers were within inches of that line. Cal searched the crowd for Joe and found him near the second of the two attackers, dancing around, out of reach of the homemade spear.
“Bring him back, Joe!” Cal nodded his head toward the guard tower. Joe winked back at him to let him know that he’d heard and understood.
Cal punched the nearest attacker in the ribs and the man staggered backward. Cal’s fists lacked the strength they’d had before Andersonville, but the other man’s rib cage was a xylophone and there was no padding of fat or muscle to protect him. He could tell the blow had hurt. From the corner of his eye, he saw Duane stumble and fall dangerously close to the dead line. And he saw Joe grab Duane’s feet and pull, dragging him slowly away from the line.
The second attacker had wheeled around and was approaching Joe with his spear. Cal reeled toward him, his adrenaline rush fading already and his energy reserves dangerously low. But as weak as he felt, he knew the others were faring the same or worse. He could see that Duane’s attackers were running out of steam now that they’d encountered resistance.
But Duane didn’t realize that the fight was winding down and he twisted away from Joe, staggering to his feet. He pulled his jacket tight around him and lurched across the dead line.
“My jacket!” he said. “Mine.”
The first shot hit Duane in the shoulder and spun him around. He went down on one knee, and for a split second his eyes met Cal’s. There was no understanding in them, just an unspoken question. The puzzlement of a loyal dog. The rifle report bounced off the high wooden planks of the fence, and the sound of the second shot was lost in the echo. The top of Duane’s head disappeared in a purple spray of brains and gore.
Cal looked up at Grey Eyes. The guard had already slung his rifle back over his shoulder and stood casually watching, leaning on the stock. When he saw Cal, he smirked.
Cal swallowed hard and looked around him. Everyone else—the attackers, the crowd, even Joe—had disappeared, had quietly slunk back to their shebangs and their chess games and their endless grooming rituals. Cal and Grey Eyes and Duane were three lonely points in a triangle.
Cal clenched his fists and looked down at Duane’s body. The boy’s foot still twitched. The jacket he had tried so hard to keep was drenched with blood and would be stiff and useless within a couple of hours. Cal couldn’t even move the body because it was over the dead line and out of reach. There was nothing he could do for Duane.
He turned and walked away, and he could feel those grey eyes watching him with every step he took.
—
The gates opened and the dead wagon rolled through at ten o’clock. Duane’s body had been stripped and he lay naked in the mud.
Cal and Joe had divided his clothing between them. The extra layers would help keep them alive during the deadly cold nights. It was the only good thing that could come from Duane’s death. They had tried to wash Duane’s blood out of the jacket, but the waste in the river water had only made it worse. They’d buried the jacket instead. In a few days, they hoped to be able to dig it back up and use it to help fortify their shebang. By then, it was possible the smell might fade.
There were only seven dead this morning. Some mornings there were as many as a hundred bodies waiting for the wagon. Cal waited for the others to pile their dead friends on the wagon, then he and Joe each took an arm and a leg and swung Duane onto the hard planks of the wagon bed. It was a struggle. Duane didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, but it was dead weight, limp and unyielding, and they were weak.
The driver shouted to the horses, and the wagon turned around and rolled back through the gates. Cal and Joe followed after. They had volunteered for wagon duty this morning. It was a coveted job because it got them outside the fence for a few minutes.
Cal walked past Grey Eyes. He could feel the guard watching him. Cal’s fists clenched and unclenched, but he kept walking, kept his eyes glued to the ground. And then he was outside the stockade.
He took a deep breath. The air smelled different out here, away from the crush of unwashed bodies, the shallow holes where the men buried their waste, and the stretch of river that leached filth from the surrounding mud. The clean air was almost solid, like something he could eat if his teeth were sharp enough. He gulped it in. For a moment, and only for a moment, he felt like a man again.
The wagon led them to a long shallow trench, and they unloaded the bodies, pulling each dead man onto the ground with a heavy thunk, hefting him between them and swinging him gently. They gave Duane an extra swing, getting him as high in the air as they could manage before letting go. They watched him fly free, his bony arms and legs twisting gracefully before disappearing over the lip of dry earth to land somewhere out of sight atop yesterday’s dead. Neither Cal nor Joe looked into that trench. Each of them knew the odds. They’d be down among the dead men themselves one day. Maybe soon enough to keep Duane company.
When it was empty, the wagon rolled away. It would return in a couple of hours with the day’s bread rations, stacked where the bodies had been. Cal knew that the wagon wouldn’t even be swept out before the bread was piled in.
Grey Eyes gestured with his rifle, and they turned back toward the stockade. Men rarely tried to escape. They were too weak, from hunger, from thirst, from lack of sleep, and from the parasites living under their skin. They were no match for a rifle.
Cal gulped clean air one more time before passing through the gate. He held it in his lungs and listened as the doors swung shut behind him. He looked at Joe and saw something new in the other man’s eyes. Watching Duane fly had changed something in Joe. He reached out to touch Joe’s shoulder, expecting the ready smile and the wink, some sign to indicate that Joe would be all right, that the prison hadn’t broken him. But Joe only shook his head and walked away.
Cal watched him go. He opened his mouth and finally took another breath and let Andersonville fill his lungs.
—
Cal woke early, but the sun was already peering over the horizon and pale light shone through the flap of the shebang he shared with Joe Poole. Cal had heard something, some noise that had awakened him. He looked over, but the old shirt that Joe used as bedding was wadded and abandoned in the corner. Cal rubbed his eyes and struggled out of the low shebang on his hands and knees. He stood and stretched and groaned and looked around. Few prisoners were moving about yet.
He went behind the shebang and relieved himself, but standing s
till made him feel anxious.
He couldn’t place it. There was a strange smell in the air or a taste at the back of his throat, a tingle somewhere at the base of his brain. Something was wrong. More wrong than the usual wrongness of Andersonville. Without knowing why, he took off at a trot toward the corner of the stockade where Duane had died.
He passed two prisoners who were already playing chess with rocks in the dirt. One of them looked up at him and shook his head, as if he knew what was happening. But Cal understood that he was wasting energy moving so fast. He was a veteran by now of the prison system and should know better than to try to move quickly. That was all the other prisoner had meant with his gesture, but it felt like more than that. Cal didn’t slow down.
Until he reached the dead line.
Joe stood there by the low interior fence with his back to Cal. Cal called out Joe’s name, but his voice sounded soft and low even to him and he was certain that Joe hadn’t heard him. But Joe turned his head and smiled. He had been waiting for Cal. Joe pointed, and Cal looked across the line. Against the wall of the stockade, eighteen feet past the dead line, there was a patch of green against the brown. Cal squinted and the green blur came into focus as a stem with two small leaves that were spread out across the mud. At the top of the stem was a small yellow bud. It was a dandelion. The first growing thing that Cal had seen in five months.
He caught his breath and looked over at Joe, but Joe was already stepping over the low fence, passing the dead line. Cal called out, but the air was caught in his chest and his voice was a whisper.
“Joe.”
Joe didn’t turn, didn’t indicate that he had heard. He walked slowly, confidently, toward the tiny green and yellow plant. The dirt at Joe’s feet exploded, and Cal looked up at the guard tower. Grey Eyes leaned against the low railing of the deck, his rifle pointed casually in Joe’s direction. Cal reached out, but he couldn’t make his voice work, he couldn’t call out.
Grey Eyes pulled his trigger again and the leg of Joe’s filthy trousers parted at the seam, a puff of linen escaping into the air. At the same time, a pockmark appeared at Joe’s feet. He kept moving, seemed not to notice.
Cal reached out to Grey Eyes and the guard noticed him, smiled, and pulled the trigger again. Joe’s shoulder exploded in a spray of gristle and bone. He staggered, but kept his feet. Cal looked back at Joe, and a split second of time extended indefinitely as Joe slowly winked. There was no pain; Cal understood that. Joe smiled and there was something new in his eyes, and something gone from them. Cal understood what Joe was telling him: It was all over. Andersonville wasn’t there anymore. Joe was free. He was flying.
Joe reached out toward the dandelion, his face a mask of joy, and he couldn’t possibly have felt it when Grey Eyes’s fourth bullet smashed his skull and pounded a small piece of his brain into the dirt under the dandelion’s leaves.
Cal stopped himself, his fingers inches away from the dead line, and he looked up to see that Grey Eyes’s rifle was pointed at him. He looked back and watched as Joe’s legs buckled and he fell sideways, already gone, his good shoulder taking the impact of all that useless meat.
Cal closed his eyes and all he saw was Joe, that good man, that good friend, the only person who cared whether Cal lived or died.
Joe was winking at him that one last time.
22
A thin band of clear sky ran across the horizon east of Blackhampton. Above it was smooth grey cloud cover, completely unbroken. The sun rose and was visible for a half an hour from the main road of the village, then passed up behind the clouds and was gone again. Nearly an hour passed before the sky broke and the air filled with billowing pristine white snow, unsullied as yet by the pervasive ash from the mines.
By nine o’clock that morning, the road was invisible. So were the distant trees, the grass, the roofs of Blackhampton’s homes and businesses. Workers at the new seam were sent home for the day. Jessica Perkins didn’t go to the schoolhouse. She knew that parents would have their children working, shoveling snow from front stoops and rooftops before the weight of it could cause damage or even force their houses straight down into the tunnels below (as had happened to the Baggs family home the previous winter). And so no one discovered that the schoolhouse had been put to other use in the night. The grey-eyed American awoke and rolled up his bedding, cleaned and loaded his rifle, and headed out into the storm to find breakfast. At the inn, Inspector Day made a halfhearted attempt to wake his sergeant, but finally decided to let him sleep. Instead he went in search of something to feed his always-hungry baby bird. At the northernmost edge of the village, right outside the depot, young Freddy Higgins shivered in his carriage and listened for the warning bell from the train, which he hoped was still on schedule. He had brought heavy blankets with him, but could not seem to get warm. Constable Grimes passed the giant furnaces and headed out toward the woods, hoping to be there and back before the men from Scotland Yard woke up. Bennett Rose fed the inn’s twin fireplaces. He checked the various charms and wards he had hung around the ground floor doors and windows, and he closed his eyes in silent prayer for the visitors from London. Upstairs, Calvin Campbell lay on his bed and dreamed about his lover’s absent smile, and wondered if that smile would ever return to her face. Down in the deepest old tunnels beneath Blackhampton, a man paced back and forth, staring at an unmarked grave scraped out of the rock and dirt and wondering how things had gone so wrong. He had no idea there was a storm up above, but he had just decided to quit the tunnels and see if there was news in the village.
The storm blew on, howling through the village like a curse, and more than one person shuddered, recalling the children’s rhyme, the horrible singsong warning about Rawhead and Bloody Bones.
23
When Hammersmith awoke later that morning, he assumed it was still sunrise. His bedroom was dark and still. He sat up and spent a few minutes coughing so hard that his ribs hurt and his throat burned. When he had stopped, he rummaged through his suitcase for tooth powder and hurriedly readied himself, brushing his teeth and rinsing himself in the basin. He wiped his face with a clean towel and felt a sharp spike of pain. When he looked at the towel, there were streaks of fresh half-clotted blood. The gash in his cheek hadn’t healed.
There was a knock at his door.
“One moment, please!” he shouted.
He was still in his underpants and vest. He made a quick check of his suitcase and realized that he had forgotten to bring a change of clothing. He cursed himself under his breath. He would have to hope that the previous day’s clothes weren’t too worse for the wear. But his jacket and trousers weren’t in the wardrobe where he’d left them just a few hours before. His shirt hung there by itself. There was no iron in the room, and he’d never used one anyway, so he patted the wrinkles in his shirt with a damp hand, licked his thumb, and rubbed the worst of the dirt and blood stains. He put the shirt on and opened the door a crack, keeping his bare legs out of sight. Day was standing in the hall holding a wooden hanger up so that Hammersmith could see his own jacket and trousers.
“I took the liberty,” Day said. “You were dead to the world when I checked on you earlier.”
“Come in.” Hammersmith looked both ways down the hall and opened the door wider so that Day could enter the room, then he shut the door quickly and took the hanger from Day.
Hammersmith’s trousers had been brushed and pressed. The jacket was spotless.
“My father is a valet,” Day said.
“I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not something I generally mention. But I’ve learned a thing or two from him. There was nothing I could do about your shirt.”
Hammersmith pulled the trousers on and tucked in his shirt. “Thank you,” he said. “Did you grow up on an estate, then?”
“I did,” Day said. “But it was not all one might wish.”
“That seems to
be the way of all childhood.”
“Perhaps. Are you quite all right? I could hear you coughing from my room.”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“Well, at least you’ve caught up to your sleep,” Day said.
“Strange,” Hammersmith said. “I don’t usually sleep much at all.”
“And I usually sleep more than I did. It’s this place, I think.”
“How is your little bird?”
“Mr Rose was kind enough to provide warm milk and bread. The bird’s asleep now.”
“Let’s hope Rose didn’t drug its milk. He seems to . . .” Hammersmith paused and turned his back to Day while he let out another long shuddering series of wet coughs. When he had caught his breath, he gave Day a sheepish smile. “My apologies.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Just the wet air in those woods, I imagine,” Hammersmith said. “We should get moving.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve got another shirt you could wear? That one’s beyond repair.”
“I forgot to pack a change of clothing,” Hammersmith said.
“Forgot? How could you . . . ? Never mind. At least wash your face. We do represent London for these people.”
“But I did wash my face. Does it look bad?”
“You’re straight out of a penny dreadful.”
