Suspension

by Richard E. Crabbe

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Epilogue

  Postscript

  Copyright Page

  For Kim

  Acknowledgments

  I am deeply grateful to my editor, Pete Wolverton. His vision, keen eye, and endless patience have been gifts beyond words and lessons beyond value.

  I can never repay my debt to Rich Barber, my magician-agent, who somehow made selling a first novel seem easy. I am both proud and honored to call him my friend.

  Prologue

  All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys,

  The champions and enthusiasts of the state.

  —HERMAN MELVILLE

  It never varied. Thad’s brother was calling, his voice indistinct and echoing. Franklin smiled back over his shoulder, face shining with the Texas sun. He yelled for Thad to race to the pond. Franklin might have been younger, but he was faster. His feet seemed not to touch the ground, and he opened the gap with every laughing stride. Thad’s feet were lead. Heavy and slow, they moved with exasperating weight. He gave it everything but Franklin pulled away with ease. His brother made no footprints in the tall grass, no mark to tell of his passing.

  The sun was high and bright, closer than he remembered. Its heat filled him with a familiar warmth. He felt just about as carefree as he ever had, running in the sweet, young grass of east Texas. It felt like home. They ran to their favorite swimming hole. Thad could feel the cooling water already. He knew in his dream that he was happy and that maybe this day was the happiest he would ever know, even though his feet were so slow. He looked ahead at Franklin. The sun colored the grass with gold, setting the tips on fire. The sweetness of it made him almost giddy. He filled his lungs, drinking it in. They were getting nearer the pond now, and Franklin called back that he could see it, and to stop being such a slowpoke. A few more strides and he thought he saw it too. Water glistened in the distance, silver, white, and blue through the tall reeds and cattails. Its cold sparkle made the summer sun seem somehow hotter, and it shimmered in the heat waves and drew him on with a cool, wet promise.

  He was running faster now that he could glimpse the pond. He heard a bee buzz by him. It seemed to go right by his ear. He paid it no mind at first, then there was a second and a third. They sounded like someone had kicked their hive. They didn’t buzz, fat and lazy. They just flew right by like they had someplace to go in a hurry. They were fast, so fast he couldn’t see them. But that wasn’t possible. Bees couldn’t fly that fast, not in Texas at least. He wondered if Franklin heard them too. They ran on, but they weren’t getting closer to the pond. It was receding, always out of reach. The bees were thicker too, but Franklin paid them no mind. Thad looked up ahead, just as the glowing ball of the sun cast a sudden fiery reflection off the distant rippled waters. It blinded him for an instant, and in that instant his dream-world changed and became his nightmare.

  The sun exploded with a deafening clap of thunder. It struck him with a shock wave that stunned him. When he looked for his brother, he could see Franklin, still running, but he was a ways off to his left now. Dozens of men were following him, running hard and yelling like demons. Franklin waved his sword and urged them on, pointing his pistol with his other hand. But Franklin wasn’t old enough for such things. There were apples in his cheeks and his legs were gangly, even if they were so fast. But as he looked over his shoulder he saw men following him too. They seemed to appear behind him, materializing before his eyes. He saw Emmons, Watkins, Weasel Jacobs, and the others. He saw his whole company, ragged and splendid, trotting behind. They bent forward, their heads down, leaning into the wind of the bees. But the bees were bullets now. Thaddeus watched in morbid fascination as they bit his men. Puffs of dust and splatters of red sprouted in slow motion. Some men kept going; others seemed to melt into the yellow grass. A few whirled away to fall like leaves in their wake.

  His heart clamped down inside his chest. His lungs were stone. He knew this place, and the fear of it gripped him like a vise. He thought for a moment the fear would kill him, shrivel his heart and wring it out till he lay white as a drum head. But it didn’t. He could turn to his men, call to them and urge them on. He was their captain. They followed. Left and right there were long ragged rows of men in gray and butternut, fading into a blurred distance. Battle flags, scarred and ragged, advanced through the grass. Like ghosts they rose up from the fields and trotted toward the sun on the pond. But as he looked ahead, this too had changed. The reeds and cattails had the steely gleam of bright metal now. They had hardened, into rifle barrels and bayonets.

  His feet were slow, while all around him things moved fast. He couldn’t think. He could only move forward and hope to catch up with Franklin and his men. Maybe together they could break through the line of steel and stinging lead. Ahead, a hill rose up where the pond had been. It was a gaunt, rocky thing. Boulders littered the slopes as if cast aside by a careless child. As he looked on it he knew that this was the prize of all their dreams: Little Round Top, Gettysburg.

  He watched Franklin lead his men, his face flushed and shining. Thaddeus saw his brother as a better version of himself. He was older than Frank, but age was not a good yardstick. From early on Franklin had something special, a presence and a certainty about him that were magnetic. He didn’t have to command respect; it came to him like a birthright, and he wore it like a pair of old boots. His men would do things for Frank, at a word, that other captains could not command with the sword. Thad saw Frank bound ahead, heroic, fearless. It was as if they really were playing at soldiers back home. He himself was so scared he feared he’d wet his pants. The bullets buzzed past with a fury. He found himself crouching low in a fold in the land, catching his breath for the final push. Frank did the same. The lead sang over their heads. Sun sparkling off field glasses on Little Round Top caught his attention. He lay low and raised his own glass. A Union officer was looking down on their attack in desperate concentration. He turned to wave and shout to someone in his rear.

  A battery of cannon and a thick blue line of infantry came pouring over the hill, the musket barrels sparkling through the smoke. It was too late. Thad knew it. It was too late. With a heart that felt like lead in his chest, he called out “Charge.” His sword swung down, pointing at the officer on Little Round Top, as if the blade could reach out and cut the man down. The long line of gray leapt up out of the long, sweet grass raising the rebel yell. It lifted him like a wave. Up out of the fold of ground they rose. The yelling, louder than the guns, propelled them across the fields. Screams, curses, moans, shouted commands, shrieking horses, whining projectiles, and deafening explosions rang in his head. The enemy broke, taking cover amid the boulders. A tide of gray came after, lapping at the base of Little Round Top. Franklin still ran ahead, his feet leaving no mark. His brother called to him again, his face bright, his cheeks red, calling him to the pond where the bees bit only flowers and the cool, deep waters washed away the Texas sun.

  “Hurry up, slowpoke. You’ll miss the fun.” Thad’s legs rustled the
sheets.

  He saw the gunnery sergeant … the lanyard in his hand … yanking it hard … the colonel pointing down. He saw the flash, felt the air compress, the shock wave pass. A rain of lead and steel pelted the line, melting it, bleeding it of life and energy. A moan went up as if from the earth itself. Franklin spun in an awkward pirouette, falling with a puff of dust, like a beaten carpet. Time slowed and stretched. The world moved to a suddenly slower sun. He was at Frank’s side. His brother was crouched low on his hands and knees. A tangle of fat red and gray sausage had fallen from his brother’s coat. He was looking at the mess as if wondering where they had come from.

  “Thad, I’m hurt,” Frank said as Thad reached him. His face was white, eyes wide with shock and fear.

  “Frank!” Thad cried out to the empty walls of his bedroom. He knew in an instant what the sausage was. The horror of it ripped him from the nightmare but not from the memory.

  Captain Thaddeus Erasmus Sangree woke with a start, sweating. Nearly twenty years had passed in a heartbeat. He stared up wide-eyed at the ceiling, still seeing the ghostly image of his nightmare in the darkness. The sheets were soaked. He could still hear his brother: the sound of his voice, the words. Thad thought he was prepared for what he saw when he opened Frank’s coat. But he wasn’t then and never would be. Frank was opened up and all spilled out.

  “Leave me, Thad. Nothin’ to do for me,” Thad remembered Frank saying weakly. His brother had been right, of course. Even now, all these years later, he could still feel the desperation, the feeling of reality slipping from his grasp.

  “Thad,” Frank pleaded. “Can’t put me … together.” Thad could still see the gouts of frothy blood running down Frank’s white cheek into the yellow grass.

  “Thad, I want you … do me … favor. Can’t ask … others,” he’d said haltingly.

  “Anything,” Thaddeus remembered saying. “Anything”

  Reaching out, Frank had gripped the Colt Thad kept tucked in his belt. Thad hadn’t understood what Frank needed his pistol for at first. Frank didn’t say anything, but when Thad had cleared it from his belt, he pulled it firmly to his temple. Belly wounds could be a slow death. It could be hours or days before the wounded got help. Usually by that time they’d get wheelbarrowed to a shallow grave. Thinking back on it later, Thad realized he’d probably have wanted the same for himself if the tables were turned. Yet that didn’t make it any easier. He’d been horrified, unable to even speak or move. Frank just said, “Send me home.”

  Thad was never really sure how it was that the gun went off. He remembered pulling it back. He never intended doing what his brother wanted, though he knew it was right. But Franklin’s grip was strong for a man with his insides turned out. His brother’s hand gripped the long steel barrel, and he’d pulled hard to get Frank to turn it loose. The big Colt exploded somehow, slamming Franklin into the dust, lifeless. Thad couldn’t remember anything for some time after that. In all the years of looking at the ceiling after the dream had come, he never figured out how long it was before he came out of the blackness. The next thing he remembered was that Union colonel staring down at them like bugs under a microscope. He could imagine the man gloating over the spilled life of his little brother, curious to see the results of his handiwork, examining them like insects pinned for study. The hate had boiled up in him then, bringing him off his knees by Frank’s side. He’d stood straight, unflinching, heedless of the spattering lead kicking up dust spouts around him. Methodically he had emptied his pistol at the officer, aiming at the reflection of his field glasses up on Little Round Top. He had fired with a will and a concentration of energy that hardly needed a pistol to project it. But there had been no effect. No bullet touched the man, and the glint of those cold glasses seemed to mock his rage. The focus of his rage had a name. The name was Washington Roebling.

  Countless times he’d sworn his vengeance in the darkness. For him the name had become a beacon. He’d learned it some time after, reading an account of the battle in a northern paper by firelight. Washington Roebling and his brother-in-law, General Gouverneur K. Warren, had figured large in the heroics. Finally his hate had a name. Since then it had become a solid thing, a permanence in his life and a focus beyond all others, giving him purpose, meaning, and a cold sort of comfort in the knowledge that soon now vengeance would be served.

  He thought again of Franklin as the sweat slowly dried on his forehead. His lips moved in the darkness, mouthing the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow he’d come to know by heart.

  He is dead, the beautiful youth,

  The heart of honor, the tongue of truth,

  He, the life and light of us all,

  Whose voice was blithe as a bugle call,

  Whom all eyes followed, with one consent,

  The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,

  Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

  Chapter One

  Sleep sweetly in your humble graves,

  Sleep martyrs of a fallen cause;

  Though yet no marble column craves

  The pilgrim here to pause.

  —HENRY TIMROD

  A silvery sliver of moon hung over the East River, its light swallowed by the choppy black waters. The tide was racing out. The river tugged at ships as they lay at anchor along the shore. The black water folded in oily eddies and swirls around the granite base of the Great East River Bridge as if grudging its intrusion. The blocks of granite were square-cut, their edges not yet worn smooth. They were black below the high-water mark.

  Sitting motionless in the cold March moonlight, three gulls sat perched on a cable of the bridge. Like gargoyles they seemed, formed in stone. The moon shone ghostly pale on still, gray feathers. Lost souls of the harbor, they huddled together in the dark, wing to wing. No lamplight burned to unhood the night. The bridge was not open yet. Construction equipment, piles of wood, coils of rope, stacks of steel beams and angle irons, barrels of bolts, nails, tar, cement, and a dozen other things littered the roadways. The smell of lumber, newly galvanized steel, fresh paint, and wet cement clung to the bridge. It was a good smell.

  Suddenly the sound of metal on metal clattered through the night from somewhere toward the Brooklyn side, reverberating through the steel. Like a length of pipe dropped or thrown, it had a rolling, ringing, bell-like quality. The three gargoyle gulls came to life. Three heads swung in unison toward the sound. Six eyes gleamed in the dark. Wings shifted. A moment later footsteps could be heard pounding hard down the roadway. A shout in the dark and the sound of leather on wood marked the runner as he crossed the footbridge over the unfinished roadway. A few moments later a second set of feet clattered by. The gulls stirred nervously. One man passed below them, his labored lungs huffing. He didn’t dare to look back. A moment later came a second man, cursing in gasps but running hard. The gulls took flight, their shrill screams piercing the silence above the river. The bridge was not safe tonight. The sounds of pursuit dwindled toward New York.

  Two days later it was clear that Terrence Bucklin was dead; that much was certain. He lay in an alley behind Paddy’s bar, number 64 Peck Slip—not a place one would want to be found dead. The body cooked in the early afternoon sun that lit the narrow space between the rough brick walls. The Fulton Fish Market was just a couple of blocks away but smelled closer. Dead man … dead fish. Under the circumstances, Terrence was a very unattractive corpse. His mouth, set in just the hint of a grin, lent him the look of a man who had met his end with a lingering knowledge. Whatever that knowledge was, he took it with him.

  Earlier that morning, at about eleven-thirty, one of Paddy’s more religious patrons had come back into the bar after a visit to the alley. Joe Hamm, the barkeep, discouraged his customers from vomiting in the jakes, so the regulars knew to go out back if the drink started coming out the wrong end. The drunk had announced to all present that there was a corpse out back.

  “Jaysus fookin’ Christ! There’s a corpse in the alley, Joe!”

/>   The bar emptied. Nothing could empty a bar faster than a corpse. Hamm cursed his luck. After the drunk who found the body did his best double-time shuffle out the front door, Joe had gone back to see for himself what the fuss was about. Drunks saw all sorts of things. Joe had regular reports over the years of spirits, leprechauns, animals, and insects of various descriptions, especially spiders. On one occasion, the Prince of Darkness himself. Joe went to the alley expecting nothing more dramatic than a trick of the light. What he found was a hand and a leg sticking out from under a couple of packing crates from the chandlers next door. Hamm tossed the crates aside. He could see immediately that he wouldn’t be pulling any more beers for this one. Joe stood for a moment, looking down at the body in morbid fascination. Maybe next time he’d pay more attention to what a drunk claimed he saw. He turned back toward the bar, dismissing the thought almost as soon as it came.

  When Joe returned The bar was empty except for one man. That man had occupied the corner table at Paddy’s for the last fifteen years. He hadn’t left with the others. He had work to do, trying to finish the job that the rebels had started at Cold Harbor. He had left half his right leg and a sizable chunk of his left calf on the field in Virginia when a Confederate twelve-pounder came bounding through the line. Three years in and out of hospitals and the doctors had pronounced him as whole in body as they could make him. His spirit, however, was something else. Since then he had become a fixture at Paddy’s. He was the sawdust on the floor and the smoke in the air and the smell of beer. Drinking an army pension was a slow death.

  “Saw a cop pass down the street toward the docks a couple of minutes ago,” the veteran observed laconically.

  “Thanks, Bob. You’ve got a cold one comin’ on the house when I get back.”

  “Hurry back, then.” So Joe Hamm had gone in search of a cop. As he was leaving he couldn’t escape the thought that he had really left two dead men in the bar.