The Judas Field

by Bahr, Howard;

This house was neat and orderly, the fence whitewashed, the gate hung properly on its hinges. The yard showed the remains of last summer’s garden, and laundry—white sheets and a counterpane—hung on a length of plow line propped up by a forked stick. Muddy white chickens pecked at the dirt, and a white rooster strutted among them. A goat, also white, was tethered by the back steps. From the half door of a shed, a brown mule, head and neck caked with mud, watched the visitors with mild interest. A bottle tree stood just inside the gate. The bottles, of blue and brown and pale green glass, once held ink and elixir; now they were thrust over the stobs of a cedar post to catch wandering ghosts. Lucian was about to remark on the bottle tree when Cass opened the gate and plucked off one. of the blue bottles and put it to his ear.

  Alison said, “What can you hear, Cass?”

  Cass was startled by her voice. He turned, and Lucian saw that he was embarrassed. “There’s a spider in this one,” said Cass, and slipped the bottle back on its stob.

  Lucian crossed the lane, mud pulling at his shoes. He gripped the fence palings and peered at the house, trying to remember. “This is not the place,” he said finally. He shook the fence. A rabbit shot out of the dead grass and darted away. Lucian said, “This is not the one. It was further down the line.”

  Cass was frowning. “I think it was,” he said.

  All at once, Lucian had a thought. “It’d be better if it was raining,” he said. He turned to Alison, who was hanging back in the center of the lane where the mud was deepest. “It was a cold rain,” Lucian said. “We carried them through the field—I mean, they did—I only walked behind. I couldn’t hear a God damned thing.”

  “Mind your tongue, lad,” said Cass.

  “It’s all right,” said Alison.

  The mule snorted in his stall, and the goat bleated, and they all looked that way. A boy, carrying a bucket of corn, appeared around the corner of the barn. He looked to be about thirteen; he had red hair, and his face was all befreckled, and he wore jeans trousers and a shirt too big for him. For an instant, Lucian thought he was looking at himself.

  When the boy noticed the visitors, he set the bucket down and stood questioning, hands at his side. “Hidy,” he said.

  Cass said, “Hidy, yourself.” He indicated the bottle tree. “You-all troubled by spirits?” he asked.

  “A right smart of ’em, sir,” said the boy. “Daddy keeps hoping to catch ’em, but they are wily.”

  Cass said, “Well, what kind are they, mostly?”

  “Well, sir, they are spirits from the battle,” the boy replied. He smiled and added, "Like yourself.”

  “Hah!” said Lucian. He shook the fence again, but.it was sturdy and stood fast. He said, “The boy knows what you are, Cass.”

  Alison said, “No!” She crossed the lane. “Come here, boy,” she said, and crooked her finger.

  The boy looked toward the house, then came and stood with his thumbs hooked in his galluses. Alison took the boy by the shoulders and searched his face. “What is your name?” she said.

  “Peter,” said the boy.

  “Peter, where’s your folks?”

  “Mama run off, ma’am,” said the boy. “Daddy’s been out on the railroad since two days.”

  “Ah,” said Alison. She looked away for an instant, then tightened her grip on the boy’s shoulders. “Why would you say such a thing about spirits?” she said.

  “I seen ’em,” said the boy. “I seen shadows out in the field, nights, in the fog, and things like lanterris moving back and forth—that’s the rebel soldiers searching for the dead. I told Daddy, it ain’t no bottles going to hold ’em, but he is from way down south where they believe in such foolishness. I seen one this morning, early, but he wouldn’t of fit in no bottle I ever saw. I wasn’t scared, though.”

  “This morning?” said Cass. “You saw a spirit this morning?”

  “Yes, sir. He was dressed like you-all, beg pardon, not fit for any work. I always thought, if I seen one in the flesh, he’d be dressed like a soldier; but when I seen this one, I thought, I don’t know what a soldier looks like, so maybe that’s why. Anyhow, he wanted to borrow of a shovel, so I leant him one. He said I should look for others to follow behind, and”—he made a little bow to Alison—“and a lady with ’em.” He pointed down the row of houses. “Said he was going to dig up some men you-all buried after the battle. Them was his very words. I told him—”

  “No,” said Alison, and shook the boy. “Why do you say he was a spirit? Why?”

  The boy seemed about to cry now. “He come across the field, same as you. I was looking to my rabbit snares, and he come up sudden, out of the fog. He walked past me, looking at the house, and I said, ‘Hey,’ and that’s when he turned, and—”

  The boy stopped and ducked his head and jammed his hands deeper into his pockets. Alison let go of his shoulders and touched the back of his neck. “And what, Peter?” she said, soft now.

  The boy cried out. “I could see right through him!” he said.

  “No!” said Alison. She grabbed the boy again and shook him hard. “No, you couldn’t!”

  “Easy,” said Cass. “Sometimes the fog plays tricks.”

  The voices went on, but Lucian had quit listening. A leaf had turned, and he was no longer in the lane at all, but back in the mean woman’s yard in Decatur, Alabama, talking to a man he thought was a general, that he didn’t know yet was only Cass Wakefield. Then some other men came that he didn’t know yet. One of them said, He doesn’t look like much, and they all laughed because that’s what men did. Then another leaf turned, and the same men were burning a house because of what the people had done to the boy Lucifer; and another leaf turned, and the snow was drifting through the trees, falling white and silent, and Mister Lewellyn said, You can ask the dead ones. They know better than us.

  It wasn’t the fog playing tricks, Lucian thought, and it was no spider Cass heard in the bottle. Lucian felt light and airy, like he might rise up into the branches of the trees. He held tight to the fence and studied the backyard. The mule was banging around in the shed, the chickens pecked and scratched in the dirt, the laundry hung limp in the still air. It was all so ordinary and peaceful, and Lucian thought he wouldn’t mind being down under the earth with the years turning over him and the generations passing. But it was no good because even then he would dream of what happened here, and he would have to rise and walk the fields again, looking for lost comrades in the dark. He thought, Maybe Cass is right—maybe the pages are better if they are empty. Trouble was, Lucian didn’t know how to make them empty, and he didn’t think Cass or Roger did, either.

  The pages went on turning back and forth in time, colors fading year by year but the pictures still sharp as if they were drawn yesterday: snow falling, a ditch crowded with dead men, the long walk through the dark, a great brick house where God Himself was mourning—Too much hurting, Lucian thought. It was too much pain there—and in the fence corner, Roger Lewellyn’s face in the firelight, his hand reaching down—Get up, lad. Get up. We have to go now—Then another house, one that still smelled of Janie Wakefield that he never knew, that Cass had promised would take care of him, and again Roger Lewellyn’s face, lit by the twilight this time. He sat in a rocking chair with a cup of tea beside him, reading Hamlet aloud so Lucian could hear.

  Another leaf turned. It was yesterday, and Lucian was at the depot in Cumberland, about to board the northbound train. He heard his name, and turned, and there was Roger Lewellyn, wrapped in an opera cloak, his face red from the cold wind. You shouldn’t have told me, Roger said. If you didn’t want me to go, you shouldn’t have told me.

  You’re right, said Lucian. The train was about to leave, the air brakes groaning as they went slack. I shouldn’t have told you. Cass shouldn’t have told me either. Lucian jumped on the bottom step as the train began to move. Roger made to follow, but Lucian pushed him away. It was easy; Roger was like a bundle of sticks. You can’t do no good, said Lucian. He leaned out from t
he bottom step and watched as Roger Lewellyn stood by himself on the platform, growing smaller and smaller until he was gone.

  Now the voices came from someplace outside, demanding that he listen, and Lucian found himself in the lane again with Alison’s face close to his own. She said, “Why did you tell Roger! What was the use in it!”

  “Easy,” said Cass.

  Lucian tried to pull himself into the light. He said, “I told him he couldn’t do no good.”

  “Never mind all that,” Cass said. “Roger is come, and we got to find him.” Then, to the boy, “Now, listen here, we are not spirits—you understand? That was a man you saw. His name is Roger Lewellyn.”

  “Don’t let him fool you, Peter,” said Lucian. “We been dead a long time,” he said. “I am still a boy like you, Cass is still a soldier, and Miss Alison”—he waved his hand toward her—“Miss Alison is still young, still wearing her green and yellow dresses, waiting to hear—”

  “Be quiet,” said Cass.

  “Everything stopped right here,” said Lucian to the boy. “Right here at the great Battle of Franklin. Oh, there’s plenty happened since then, but no matter. We are froze right here in this field, boy. That’s us you see in the fog at night—me and him and Roger—”

  “Shut up, Lucian,” said Cass.

  “I won’t! You said it your own self—‘That’s us out there,’ you said. Death and hell and grief—that’s us, every time!” He took out his bottle of Black Draught and waved it in Cass’s face. “You want some of this? No—you got your own medicine. I forgot.” He pulled out the glass stopper and dropped it in the grass. “Let’s see what happens.”

  Cass reached for the bottle, but Lucian ducked away and drained it in a single swallow.

  “Drank it all!” he said. “Just let’s see what happens.” He slid the empty bottle over a stob on the cedar bolt. “Now, that ought to fetch ’em,” he said. “If they don’t like that—” He stopped, and laughed at the idea of spirits on laudanum, like the time Cass gave some whiskey to a squirrel. That was pretty funny for a while, until the squirrel passed out and died. Lucian looked at his companions, but they were not laughing. “What’s the matter?” he said.

  Cass moved close and took hold of Lucian’s collar. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he whispered. “We got no time for this.”

  “I want to be ready,” said Lucian, pulling away. “I want to help Roger dig up that whole God damned yard. I want to see all them skeletons laid out, feet together, hands folded, just the way Ike taught me, and I want to say to ’em, ‘Why, boys, you just don’t know what you been missing all these years—

  “But it ain’t no skeletons,” said the boy. “I told the other feller that, but he wouldn’t pay any mind.”

  Cass turned suddenly away, and Lucian was left wavering, holding tight to the fence. Cass said, “What you mean, boy?”

  Peter seemed about to cry again. “It’s a good many spirits, but—see, Daddy told me it’s all what’s left behind. He told me Miz Caroline McGavock took them poor fellows over to her own graveyard afore I was born.”

  “You mean the men are gone?” Alison demanded.

  “They been gone for ages,” the boy said. He was talking quickly now, waving his hands. “Daddy told how Miz Caroline McGavock had gangs of niggers going all over town, out in the fields, digging any place a soldier was laid. She couldn’t find all of ’em, but them she did find is in her cemetery over to the big house where she lives. I seen it once—rows and rows of little wood markers, and every one with a number. It’s mighty peaceful. She wouldn’t let the soldiers lie forgotten, and the names are all wrote down in a little book—”

  McGavock, thought Lucian. He remembered a kind woman there. She wore a dress bloodstained to the knees, and she gave him a drink of water. Her place wasn’t peaceful then. Maybe it was now, and maybe the soldiers were all written down in a book, but it was unlikely they rested quiet.

  Alison stood up and leaned against the gate post. “How come I never knew this?” she said.

  Lucian could tell the disbelief in her voice. What would they do now? Search forever, wandering from cemetery to cemetery until Resurrection Day, seeking the particular dead. Lucian thought that made sense. He was ready. But no—they would only have to hunt in one place. Lucian thought, The Book of the Dead. That was where he was written down—him and Cass and Roger, all of them.

  “How come I never knew this?” Alison said again, and this time Lucian heard not just disbelief but disappointment.

  Cass touched her arm. He said, “But now you do know. Now you can rest easy. We can go see them anytime you want.”

  “No!” she said. “I want to see the place where they lie!” She was crying now and pushed away from the gate. She stumbled, shaking the bottle tree, and Cass took her by the arms as if she, too, might rise into the branches.

  “It’s not here,” he said. “Not anymore.” He looked at Lucian. “You-all stay here, and I will fetch Roger.”

  “You believe this boy?” said Alison, her voice drawn tight. “What does he know?” She pulled her arms away and struck Cass in the chest with her fists. “What does a boy know!”

  “We got to find Roger,” said Lucian. He was worried now. “We got to go back to the ditch and find him, Cass.”

  The boy said, “That Roger knows something by now, I guess, if old Ambrose is home.”

  Cass turned on the boy. “What the hell does that mean?” he said. “Be quick!”

  Roger knows, thought Lucian. We got to get back to—Then all at once the ground swept up around him, and he was on his hands and knees in the mud. Time left him altogether then, and he was in a black, empty place like a cave. Away off, the boy Peter was speaking, his words falling one by one through the dark: Mister Ambrose is a bad man. I ain’t allowed to go down there. Then Cass’s voice: You tell me, boy. You tell me. And the boy again: He was a fierce Union man and went off with the yankee army. He come home from the fighting, and when Miz Caroline McGavock told him they was rebels in his yard, he wouldn’t let the niggers dig. He dug up all them boys hisself and flung the bones all over, what Daddy said. Old Ambrose ain’t nobody to trifle with, and he don’t let nobody come in his yard. I told that feller, but he wouldn’t listen—

  That’s enough! said Alison.

  What happened to them? said Cass. What happened to the bones?

  Miz Caroline came and got ’em, said the boy. She brung the sheriff—

  The voices got all jumbled up then, and Lucian couldn’t tell what was happening, only that Cass’s voice was louder than the rest. Pretty soon, he forgot about it and was on the square in Cumberland again, going down to the hotel for dinner, glad to be home. But Cass ruined it. Cass snatched him by the collar and pulled him up. “You stay here,” said Cass, his voice tight with anger. He jabbed his finger at the ground. “Don’t you move from this spot till I come and get you.”

  Lucian thought he said no, but he couldn’t be sure. He rubbed at the mud on his palms and stood unsteadily in the lane. It was hard to keep a balance. The boy was running for his own back porch, and Cass and Alison were moving down the lane. Lucian let them get a little way ahead, then followed behind, listening to their sharp voices.

  “That boy was wrong,” said Alison.

  “I am tired of this,” said Cass. “I wish you-all would stay here, but you won’t, so I will show you the place and dig up the whole yard if you want. I guess Roger has a head start anyhow. ”

  “Father is still there,” said Alison. “Perry is still there.”

  “All right,” said Cass.

  They came to a house at the end of the row and stopped. Lucian saw the house all at once, clearly, and knew it was the right place, though it was almost hidden by chinaberry trees now. An old dogtrot, piled with firewood and scrap lumber, still ran down the middle—through it, Lucian could see the trees by the river beyond—but the place had accumulated a second story on one end, and an ell on the other, and various chimneys here
and there. All these accretions seemed to argue with one another, and all needed paint and repair, hardly unusual in the South. But even the poorest house could possess a quality that gave it life, even an air of contentment, even happiness, like an old person who had seen too much but was stronger for it. This house gave only of sorrow and defeat; it huddled among the chinaberries as a beaten old woman might hide behind the bed.

  Gray rags of curtains hung in the open windows, some draping over the sills, some moving in the little breeze. Beyond the curtains was only darkness. A thin finger of smoke rose from one of the chimneys. The gallery sagged, the steps had long been rotted away, and a great stone rolled in their place. The yard, littered with junk, lay beyond the leaning ruins of a fence.

  It is not the Garden of Eden, thought Lucian.

  “Well, boys, this ain’t the Garden of Eden.” Cass had left his hat and coat at the ditch, and the rain was running down his face. He had unbuttoned his waistcoat, and his watch chain was caked in mud, and his shirt was a gray rag stained with mud. Lucian watched as Cass pulled a picket from the fence, the nails squawking. Other soldiers had done the same, and there was a line of them waiting to get theirs painted, and Cass fell asleep in the line and would have lost his place if Lucian had not punched him awake. Finally, they were next. A man named S. Cragin Knox was sitting in the dogtrot in a cane-bottom chair, painting the names. Knox was one of those who were playing marbles back in Decatur. He was in a daze from the battle and was suffering a bad cold besides. He was huddled inside a civilian frock coat too big for him, which seemed to anchor him to the boards. Knox wore a cap; the bill was creased and cracked, the strap gone, the faded crown adorned with a little brass star. At the moment, he had the cap turned backward, and his curly hair stuck out in all directions. When Cass and Lucian approached, Knox looked up, peering over his spectacles with red, watery eyes. “Hey, boys,” he said, and sneezed, and wiped his nose on his coat sleeve. “’Scuse me,” he said. “I wish I’d get better so’s I could die.”

  Lucian was getting his hearing back. He heard Cass: “Don’t be sayin’ that. Not today.” Cass sounded like he was under water.