Retribution Road

by Antonin Varenne

  Is there anyone you trust on this boat? Peavish had pointed a finger. Him?

  As Christian Bufford observed Sergeant Bowman, not a single muscle in his face or body moved. Bowman sat back in his chair and stared into Bufford’s eyes. He did not really see him either. Slowly he reconstructed his memory of Private Buffalo, from the Healing Joy to the junk, from the forest to the widow with whom he drank tea in the cottage at the end of the grounds of the house in Walworth. He had given her money for her husband’s gravestone.

  His face was perhaps a little softer – money had given him a layer of fat, and his shoulders were rounder – but his animal-like neck was still just as thick. Bowman would have liked Buffalo to look ridiculous in his suit, exposing his coarseness and making him look like a man in disguise, the old untutored soldier clearly visible beneath his expensive clothing. But Robert C. Delauney, sitting at the other end of the table, had the sleek assurance of a real businessman. Bufford could have shared a drink with the customers in the pub across the road from the East India House, could have walked with a cane in the City Hall Park in New York, could have sat around a table with Paterson or negotiated a price for gold in an office of a large Colorado mine.

  Bowman turned again towards the grounds and the servants’ quarters.

  “You didn’t have a well dug?”

  The serial killer, the San Francisco mayoral candidate, did not react.

  “Your widow was inconsolable. She said it was the Great Stink that got you. She was right, even if she didn’t know it. She also said that you’d left. Not that you were dead, just that you left.”

  Christian Bufford’s lips opened slightly. His voice was hoarse:

  “Hello, Sergeant.”

  “Hello, Buffalo.”

  Bufford was still deep in his visionary mist, eyes staring, face blank.

  “No-one calls me that anymore.”

  “I imagine. No-one dared, even back then.”

  “Except you, Sergeant.”

  “I was the one who gave you the nickname, Buffalo.”

  One of Bufford’s shoulders rose and fell in a nervous movement.

  Bowman looked at the house’s façade.

  “So you’re the boss now. Did you pay for this with the gold from the mine?”

  Bufford frowned.

  “The gold?”

  “The Gregory mine.”

  The subject seemed not to interest him. He replied as if he were thinking of something else: “It’s the fertiliser that brings in the money. The formula that Kramer discovered.”

  “The fertiliser that was supposed to save Reunion.”

  “Why did you use his name, Sergeant?”

  “What’s the name you’re using, Delauney?”

  Bufford answered mechanically, his mind occupied with other thoughts: “My wife’s maiden name . . . I have three ships now, making trips between San Francisco and Asia. Four hundred employees working in the factories. How did you find me, Sergeant? Was it Penders who told you?”

  “In England, he was the only one I couldn’t find after the murder in the sewers. He was the one I was looking for here.”

  “Erik?”

  Bufford tore himself slowly from his dream. A wrinkle deepened in his forehead.

  “I remember the night he came to that barn. He tried to speak to me, but . . . we didn’t have time. He panicked when he saw the other one, who wasn’t dead yet. I wasn’t able to ask him how he found me.”

  “Who did you throw down the well?”

  “What?”

  “Who did your widow bury?”

  “Some tramp who thought the world was ending because the city was full of shit.”

  “After the death of your son.”

  “Elliot?”

  Bufford leaned forward.

  “Why are you talking about him, Sergeant?”

  “Your wife said you went mad after your son died.”

  Private Bufford looked suddenly concerned. His mouth shrank and he spoke slowly: “Why aren’t you armed, Sergeant?”

  “What good would it do?”

  Bufford thought for a few seconds, strangely concentrated.

  “It wouldn’t.”

  He slipped a hand under the table, pushed his plate back and put a revolver in front of him in a casual gesture, as if he had taken a pouch of tobacco from his pocket, or money to pay for his meal.

  “I don’t understand why you’re here, Sergeant.”

  “Who was it, in the sewers?”

  “A former colonist. When Elliot died . . . I don’t like remembering that, Sergeant. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”

  “Was he the first?”

  “The first?”

  “Of your partners.”

  A smile crept across Bufford’s face.

  “Yes. I needed his money so I could leave.”

  “And then there was Kramer. And six others.”

  His head tilted slightly sideways.

  “You’ve come a long way, Sergeant, but you haven’t been everywhere I went.”

  “I’m sure. You were on the road for a long time, Buffalo.”

  He frowned.

  “No-one calls me that anymore, Sergeant.”

  “I know. Mr Delauney.”

  “Yes.”

  “I changed my name too. Because they thought I was the killer. They accused me of being you.”

  “What’s your name, Sergeant?”

  “Erik Penders.”

  Bufford shivered. His neck muscles moved beneath the skin.

  “He already died once. He’s the only one I saw again, Sergeant, before you.”

  “Why didn’t you die in your bosses’ well, Buffalo?”

  Bufford’s shoulders rose more violently.

  “Don’t call me that, Sergeant.”

  “I don’t understand how I could have made that mistake.”

  “That mistake?”

  “None of the ten committed suicide. How could I have believed that you would have the courage to do it? You, who ate your shit to make them laugh, who fought for a ration of rice, and who cut off my fingers when they told you to.”

  Bufford looked saddened and offended by Bowman’s tone.

  “It was so I could make it through, Sergeant.”

  “I know.”

  “We all did the same.”

  “No.”

  “Not you?”

  Bowman looked at the gun on the table.

  “Not like you. Why wasn’t I looking for you, Buffalo?”

  Bufford blinked.

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Bufford died in London, and I don’t know Delauney. What should I call you?”

  “I don’t know, Sergeant, but not that.”

  Christian Bufford sat back in his chair and wiped the sweat from his chest with one hand. In the lines of sunlight and shade thrown by the reeds, Bowman saw the scars on his torso.

  “I don’t have another name for you, Buffalo, since you tried to kill the preacher. Twelve years ago.”

  Again, his shoulders rose and the veins swelled in his neck.

  “I don’t like the memories you keep bringing up, Sergeant.”

  “What else do you want to talk about?”

  Bufford sat up, a sort of ferocious joy lighting up his face.

  “The future, Sergeant.”

  Bowman smiled.

  “The future?”

  “This country . . . it was waiting for me. I am going to build it, Sergeant. It’s mine.”

  “I know. But it’s also mine now, and I am an objection to your plan.”

  “An objection?”

  “As long as there’s someone – even just one person – to come and look you in the eyes, Buffalo, your plan will remain a dream. It will never be carried out.”

  Bufford’s mood changed again, and he fell back into that misty trance, wavering between concentration and absence.

  “You don’t have the guts anymore, Sergeant, same as Penders. I saw it when y
ou came through that door. I’ve met loads of men like you, men who fell into my arms because they were so scared, when I looked them in the eyes and they could have run away. You too, you’ll beg me to finish you off.”

  “Is that why you killed them? To prove they were as cowardly as you?”

  “When I told them to, they cut off their own fingers. I could sit down and watch them do it.”

  Bowman stared into Bufford’s eyes.

  “But you kept all your fingers.”

  “You think you’re already dead, Sergeant, but you don’t know what it is yet. Your act won’t work on me anymore. There’s no point looking at me the way you looked at Collins on the junk.”

  “You haven’t proved anything yet, Buffalo. You haven’t proved that I’m afraid of you, and you haven’t proved that the rest of the world is as cowardly as you.”

  “That is the last time you will call me that. I’ve sent all the monkeys away – there’s just you and me in the house now. What do you think is going to happen, Sergeant?”

  “That depends on you.”

  “On me?”

  “You haven’t changed, even with your suit and the newspaper articles and your crooked house.”

  “Oh, I’ve changed, Sergeant. You just want me to become the way I was before, but I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

  “You still don’t understand, Buffalo.”

  There was the sound of a gunshot and Bowman fell off his chair. He rolled onto his side and then got on all fours. The bullet had gone through his arm. Bowman slowly got to his feet, put the chair back upright, pressed his fingers to his wound, and sat down facing Bufford again. Private Bufford stared at him, pistol in hand. Grimacing, Bowman put his elbow on the table and looked up at the house’s lopsided façade. Sweat ran down his face. His mouth was dry.

  “Why did you have that house rebuilt? It was because of this house that your son died.”

  “You don’t have a child, Sergeant. You couldn’t understand.”

  The image of Aileen and Alexandra playing in the lake flashed through his mind. Bowman immediately pushed it away and stared at Bufford, who was leaning forward, smiling.

  “You have a family, Sergeant? Is that it?”

  Bowman shuddered. He closed his eyes for a second and opened them again. Bufford was still smiling. His teeth looked like a single tooth: a long piece of ivory embedded in a bed of wood.

  “So you abandoned your family to come here too, eh, Sergeant?”

  Bowman balled his fists. The pain in his arm took his breath away.

  “What did you say to Feng’s little slave, Buffalo?”

  Bufford cocked the revolver and aimed at Bowman’s other arm.

  “What?”

  “I saw you on the junk. You kissed him and spoke to him before you threw him in the river. What did you say?”

  Bufford slowly lowered the pistol, pulled himself together, aimed again, then tilted his head sideways and lowered the gun again.

  “Why are you talking about that?”

  Bowman’s head was spinning. He increased the pressure on his wound, to try to stop the blood loss.

  “You remember Reeves, the captain of the sloop that took us to the fishing village? He gave me money so I could come here and search for you. And he told me that if I found you, I would have to explain to you that it wasn’t your fault. He asked me not to kill you. He thought he was to blame – him and the officers who gave us our orders. He was wrong, but he gave me the money and he died afterwards.”

  Bufford burst out laughing.

  “You think I’m going to kill myself because you found me, Sergeant? Are you expecting a confession?”

  “There’s no need. I’ve known it all for a long time, Bufford. I just didn’t understand it until I read that article and saw your photograph in the newspaper.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying anymore, Sergeant. You’re starting to rave. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Bufford looked at the table. The red stain was spreading, flowing towards him, passing between the pitcher of alcohol and his glass.

  “It’s because you haven’t told me yet.”

  Bufford looked up.

  “What?”

  “The little slave.”

  “Why are you talking about that again, Sergeant?”

  “Did you think about him when your son died, Buffalo?”

  A vein throbbed in Bufford’s forehead, from the roots of his hair to the top of his nose.

  “If I fire again, you’ll lose too much blood and I won’t be able to do what I want, Sergeant. You’ll be too weak. Is that what you want? To die quickly, before you tell me where your family is?”

  Sergeant Bowman’s eyelids kept falling, ever more slowly over his eyes.

  “Did you tell him about your son?”

  Bufford put his hand to his neck again to wipe away the sweat. Bowman knew that itch, when the salt from the sweat ran into the scars. Christian Bufford’s lips trembled.

  “I told him he was called Elliot.”

  “What else?”

  Bufford tried to smile, but he was losing his self-assurance.

  “Why does that interest you, Sergeant? You think you’re going to soften me up, is that it? That I’ll start blubbering and hand you my gun?”

  “What did you say to him?”

  The tone of Buffalo’s voice changed.

  “That I became a soldier so my son could go to school, so he wouldn’t end up begging in the streets or working in the sewers with the other children in London. I have three ships now, Bowman. And four hundred workers. I did what I had to do to succeed, that’s all.”

  “But Elliot is dead. It’s too late. What else did you say to him?” Bufford gritted his teeth.

  “I told him it was over, that I was going to drop him in the water and he could leave. I asked him for forgiveness and then I threw him in the water.”

  “Forgiveness?”

  Bufford sat forward in his chair and yelled:

  “I asked him for forgiveness because you’d wanted to cut his throat in front of us! I told him it was over and he could leave!”

  Bowman looked down and his head fell towards the table.

  “I would have killed him. I wouldn’t have hesitated. And you asked him for forgiveness for me, Buffalo?”

  Bufford stood up and pointed the revolver at Bowman’s head.

  “When I’m done with you, Bowman, I’ll go and find your family.”

  Bowman tried to sit up straight, but instead he fell backwards, collapsing against the chair. He smiled.

  “Reeves couldn’t have known.”

  Bufford looked lost.

  “What are you talking about, Sergeant?”

  Bowman extended his injured arm. The pain almost made him faint, but he lifted his three-fingered hand, covered with blood, above the table.

  “I’ve already saved you twice, Buffalo. Reeves couldn’t have known.”

  Bufford leaned over the pool of blood, dropped his pistol, and put both his hands on the table.

  “You saved me?”

  “When you cut off my fingers to save your own skin, Buffalo. I could have killed you, torn out your throat with my teeth.”

  Bufford wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his suit.

  “You didn’t do anything because you wanted to survive too, Sergeant. You’re no better than I am.”

  “Survive? Is that what you’re doing here, in your big house? Are you fighting to survive, Buffalo?”

  “If you’d tried to defend yourself, they’d have killed you like the others.”

  “But I looked you in the eyes, Buffalo, and I didn’t move, both times, when you attacked my hand. You can’t have forgotten. I looked at you the way I’m looking at you now, Buffalo. Not to scare you, but to help you find the courage not to do it, not to become their minion, the way you’ve become the servant of the rich people you want to resemble. The world is cowardly, Buffalo. Men like me murder children to earn their wa
ges, others like you kill to take revenge on their masters, but they thank you for it, Buffalo. They thank you. You’ve become their manservant, in your rickety house, with your paintings and your negroes.”

  Bufford shouted:

  “You were begging me not to do it, Sergeant, that’s all you were doing! If you’d tried to touch me, they’d have killed you. They would have protected me!”

  Bowman snorted.

  “They were waiting to see who would kill who. They wanted us to do their work for them. Like when they threw one ration of rice for two men, and you bit off Briggs’ ear so you could steal his food. I didn’t kill you, even though it could all have ended there. I looked you in the eyes and I sought the strength not to attack you while you were cutting off my fingers. You know how I did it? I thought about you on the junk, kissing that child that I almost killed. Reeves couldn’t have known . . .”

  Bufford screamed:

  “Known what?”

  Bowman slowly stood up, holding onto the table with his uninjured arm. He grimaced with pain and looked Bufford in the eyes.

  “That I’d already forgiven you, Buffalo. I had to come here to tell you. That I was still there, that you weren’t rid of me, even at the other end of the world, hoping that poor sods like Penders, Peavish or me would pay for your crimes.”

  “Stay where you are, Sergeant. What are you doing?”

  Bowman staggered and grabbed hold of one of the pergola’s posts. Bufford pulled a dagger from under his jacket and caught up with Bowman in two strides.

  “Nice try, Sergeant, but there’s no point anymore. And if you’re still here now, that’s because you too are a bastard capable of surviving anything.”

  Bowman looked over at the far end of the grounds, the widow’s cottage where he had drunk tea while thinking that she was too pretty for Bufford.

  “I just had to know if you remembered the little slave.”

  Christian Bufford put his hand on Bowman’s shoulder, gently striking the blade of his dagger against his trouser leg.

  “Is that all you wanted to know, Sergeant? You left your family behind just for that? So you could come and tell me that you’d already forgiven me? What good is that going to do you now?”