“A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed,” John replied coolly, putting the picture back in his
pocket and walking toward the heart of town.
“TAKE heed!” the preacher yelled. “Judgment is near, sinner! Follow ME and God’s Chosen TO the Almighty. THE Kingdom of Heaven. You will not find salvation in a BROTHEL, for I know that with temperance and humility comes chastity!” The preacher pointed to the East. “Be gone from our fair city!”
John Hum spent the last of his money at a nearby drugstore, where the pharmacist’s assistant let him purchase a sandwich and a warm cola even though he was two cents short. He showed the censored drawing to the young clerk afterwards, and added that he was looking for his fiancée. The man’s eyes went wide like the preacher’s did, only he shook his head in silent denial.
After eating, he waited on the sidewalk outside the drugstore until the lunch rush. It was then he was able to ask pedestrians and would-be patrons if they had seen his fiancée. Most of them gave the same wide-eyed look, and a few even patted him on the shoulder, but none of them could point him in the right direction. John was beginning to think the people of Winston-Salem, all of them, were lying to him. Has she passed? Why would they be so clandestine about her whereabouts? Does she even exist, or is she a fabrication of the artist?
As lunch time ended, horse carts and the occasional car retreated from the cobblestone roads, and the sidewalks became mostly empty. He saw a few stragglers; three laboring men who seemed muscular and, somehow, dangerous. John approached them and showed them the picture. One of them grabbed the paper out of his good hand and unfolded it. “Well I’ll be! I’d know those tits anywhere. Take a look fellas, this here is Amber Rose!” John tried to grab the paper back, but the brawny man passed it off to his friend, who replied, “Woooo! Don’t know the face, but I sure do know that ass!” The men laughed together, one of them so hard he doubled over and slapped his knee. John’s atrophied left arm instinctively shot to the front of his belt; it was the first fluid movement his arm made since leaving New Orleans. His one-armed attempts at recovering the picture were fruitless, so he stopped and stood still, his lungs ballooning in and out as he breathed heavily. Finally, one of the men slapped the paper back into John’s chest nearly knocking him over. “Go check the school house on Peters Creek!”
John Hum stood by a grove of willow trees and watched as school children frolicked on the field outside the schoolhouse. Occasionally, a roaming school teacher with a long stride would herd them away from the creek. The school house itself, freshly painted, was as white as the bulbous clouds that hung above the plush green field, which bled into the murky creek. One teacher’s smooth complexion caught the bright Carolina sun as she bent over to break up a fight between two young boys. John heard the one student shout in her face and promptly stomp on her foot. She hopped up and down, yelling at the boys who ran off laughing.
Another teacher rang the school bell, and the students began to scurry like ants whose hill had just been kicked over. After the last student ran inside, the sore-footed teacher with tied-up strawberry blonde hair remained outside. John finally walked over and startled her as she rubbed her temples with her eyes closed. Even though her hair was up, tassels of red fell down to her fair-skinned face and wire rim spectacles. She wore a frilled shirtwaist with a flared, blue flannel skirt. “Excuse me, ma’am” he said. “I am wondering if you can help me?”
“Jumpin’ Jesus, mister, you scared me half to death,” she said. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“I’m very sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” John said, taking off his hat and parting his dirty blonde hair between his ears. “But I was hoping you could help me out with that very question.” He could only look her in the eye briefly. Something, perhaps her enchantment, made him look down at his feet. He had an irrational fear that somehow he could be under her spell for the remainder of his days if he kept her gaze any longer.
She looked at him closer. “Do I know you?”
“I certainly hope so,” he replied.
“I swear to God, if you are looking for—”
He grabbed her arm, his eyes still fixed on the ground. “Miss, I’m afraid I was involved in some sort of accident, the extent of which I am still not sure. But what I do know is that I have lost the better part of my memories.” He took out the picture in his pocket and handed it to her, no longer concerned about folding it.
She swiped the picture and glanced at it. John prepared himself to be slapped.
“Damn—is that me?” she asked. “Wait a just a minute! That is me! You’re that detective fella. I recognize you now. Even that funny accent of yours!”
“Detective?”
“Yeah, that’s right. You drew this!” she said. She looked at the picture again. “Damn!”
It was strange to admire his own work; it would seem most artists would kill for the opportunity to truly gaze objectively at their creation without the bias that comes from creating it. John looked at what was once his dominant arm. He was quite certain he would never hold a pencil again.
“What that hell happened to your arm?” she asked, noticing his gaze.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. Was it like this when you met me?”
“Not that I remember,” she replied.
“What do you remember about me?”
“Oh, let’s see,” she said, looking up to the bright sky. “You liked to draw. You didn’t have a lick of whiskey. You were askin’ about a man named . . .” she snapped her fingers a few times. “Wage Pascal!”
“Wage Pascal?” John finally looked up.
“Yeah. A Cajun fella that had come through ‘bout a month or so before you came around. It sounded as though you were tryin’ to track him down, but he had already left town by the time you got there. Oh,” she said, pointing a finger. “You also asked me about Jonathan Hamilton but didn’t really say why.”
“Jonathan Hamilton?”
“Yeah, he used to be a regular. He runs one of the big plantations just outside of town.”
“Is there any chance you could take me to see him?”
“Hmm, that depends,” she replied.
“On what?”
“On how much you got, detective!”
“I am afraid I haven’t anything at the moment,” John said.
“Now, you left me one of the biggest tips I’d ever had, and I didn’t even sleep with you!”
“Sleep with me?” John quickly looked down again, embarrassed.
“You really don’t remember, do you?” she asked.
“What exactly were the circumstances of our last meeting?”
“Oh, honey,” she said. “Oh honey.” She put a hand on one side of his neck and stroked it soothingly. The feeling struck a chord deep within his fractured mind.
“Everyone I showed your picture to, they seemed to know you but pretended otherwise. Why would they do that?”
She smiled at him, but he did not see it. “Honey, temperance came to town about a week after you left, which put me and Old Horas out of business. They said if I were to continue what I was doing, they’d make sure that I spend the rest of my days in a jail cell, or worse. So I went looking for honest work, only to find that everyone in town wanted nothing to do with me. It was like I’d pissed on every hot stove in town.”
John cleared his throat. “So you were a . . .”
“Yes, detective, I was,” she said with her chin jutted out a little.
“How did you come by all this?” he asked, pointing to the schoolhouse. The footsteps of children echoed inside.
“My auntie, she runs the school. She forces me to wear this getup and these glasses.” She removed the wire-rimmed spectacles from her nose. “They ain’t even mine. Damn things give me a headache, but auntie thinks this will make the people around here accept me, eventually. She says one day I might even get to help teach the little ones their arithmetic. I got pretty damn good at it in my former life.” She winked. John blushe
d. “But for now, I am to have only minimal contact with the children,” she said, mimicking her aunt’s voice. “Parents ‘round here are still not thrilled about my presence. I spend most of my time cleaning up, in, and around those little bastards.”
John wondered for a moment if he could find Hamilton without her help. Surely a detective would have no problem with such a task? Her company would, however, be welcomed after such a long journey from New Orleans.
“Is there a chance you could procure me transportation to Hamilton’s place?”
She looked at him and he finally returned her gaze. “Ah hell,” she said, throwing her glasses into the grass. “I’ll take you down there.”
Wage W. Pascal
August 9, 1914
Thomason Railways Passenger Train
North of Fort Wayne, Indiana
She streaked across the first-class sitting car like a skater across an icy pond. Her backside circularly turned like the side rod cranking the wheels of the train they were on. She stopped promptly in front of a booth. One passenger slept against the far window, his mouth wide open and his slouch hat acting as both pillow and sleep mask. The other, bigger one, read the paper.
“May I join you gentlemen?” she asked. The standing beauty adjusted the sheer white fabric that festooned from her black feathered hat. She wore a long-sleeve black and white lace dress that reached the ankles of her high-heeled boots. Perspiration made her white skin glisten in the noonday sun that shone through the windows. After noticing her, Ol’ Bill crumbled his paper before standing up and taking off his flat cap. He held his hat over his chest. “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said. He looked over at his sleeping companion. “Well, it’s been a long two days for my friend and me, but your company would certainly be welcome.”
“Thank you,” she said with a small courtesy and a smile that revealed unnaturally sharp canines. She sat next to Wage and across from Ol’ Bill. “Your friend seems to be awful tired.” Wage snored as if on cue.
“Oh, well, good ol’ Cap’n Pascal, he’s able to sleep through anything,” Bill replied. “My name is William MacDonough, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Mallory Macy,” she said. “A Captain? Was he in the army?”
“Yes, we both were. A long time ago. Cavalry. Although our horses never quite made it to Cuba.”
“A serviceman yourself?”
“1st Sergeant, yes ma’am,” Bill replied.
“Well, you will have to excuse me; my new husband insisted on getting some fresh air—he gets a bit sick on trains—and I don’t much care for sitting alone. You do understand, don’t you?”
“Of course, of course. Congratulations on your new marriage,” Bill said and bowed slightly.
“Oh, thank you. We are off to Kalamazoo to see his family and take a holiday.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic!” Bill exclaimed. “I’ve been married almost thirty years myself. A wonderful thing marriage is!”
“And where is your lovely wife?” she asked.
“She’s back home in Tulsa. We met when I was seventeen, just before I left for the Army. Been together ever since.” Bill patted the inner pocket to his coat. “Just finished a few letters, and one of them is for her, gonna mail it when we get to Battle Creek.” He reached into his pant pocket and pulled out a small locket. He sprung it open, revealing a small drawing of his wife. The picture was worn from years of caressing it with his thumb. He handed the locket to her.
“She’s exquisite. You must be a very happy man.” She handed back the locket. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Oh, it’s been almost eight months now. We only see each other a few times a year, truth be told. It’s better that way, our relationship, when we see each other so seldom. She’s a . . . difficult women, but I couldn’t picture myself with anyone else. Our love is one that is best conveyed through, well, poetic correspondence.”
“Mr. MacDonough, what’s the longest you’ve ever spent with each other?” she asked.
“My first discharge from the Army, I was thirty-three. We spent a year together back in Tulsa.”
“What happened?”
“Well, she attacked me. With an axe.” Bill added.
Mallory Macy covered her mouth. “Why, that’s awful!”
“She has her spells,” Bill replied. “But my Delilah, there’s no one like her.”
“Do you have any children?”
“It was difficult for us, but we had one, ol’ Bill Jr. Born with the thickest mop of black hair, he was.” He paused and lowered his head. “But he passed away before his first year—fell asleep one night and never woke up.” The tear he shed blended inconspicuously with the thin layer of sweat on his face.
“I am so, so sorry,” Mallory said.
“Not a problem, ma’am. It was a long time ago.” Bill raised his head. “Not a problem at all.”
Mallory frantically changed topics. “You said Battle Creek? What brings you there?”
“My friend and I could use a bit o’ health and wellness. We’re headin’ to the sanitarium there,” Bill said, nodding his head in Wage’s direction.
“Well, I’ve certainly heard interesting things about Mr. Kellogg and his sanitarium. I think many a soldiers seek refuge there,” she said. “And a couple of serviceman like you, I am sure you bring a few burdens to Battle Creek.”
“Maybe a few, but the Army, the service, it was great for me. It was the only thing that brought order to my life. I imagine for Wage, here, as well.”
“Wage?”
“Wage Winchester Pascal,” he said and pointed to his friend. They both took a moment to gaze at the sleeping man with a chiseled jaw and groomed beard, but strangely, they both regarded him as a child. There was something magical about sleep and its ability to bestow, on anyone, the vulnerability of an infant.
“I grew up a rancher in Oklahoma,” Bill continued. “I remember storms, droughts, floods, fires, and all the other natural calamities that would plague our land. I remember tuberculosis taking my brother Jimmy, and a buckin’ Thoroughbred taking my sister Ruth. I never quite understood the unpredictability of life, the cruelty of chance. I’ve only understood order.” Ol’ Bill looked out at the passing terrain. Faded green grass littered with brown, dry foliage met the shores of a cobalt lake and an azure sky. “As a boy on my father’s ranch, I used to watch the sunrise and sunset from the saddle of my horse, like clockwork. The air would cool, turn cold, would warm, and become hot before cooling again. The color of magnolia flowers, the sound of rattlin’ cicadas, the moans of cows during birthing season, the constellations on a winter night. That was the order I knew. As a man, I could only find the same order in the Army. The regiment. Rising, dressing, eating, praying, and sleeping, every day at the same time with the bugle’s call. Receiving orders and executing them. Order and execution—life couldn’t be any simpler.”
“If I may say, Mr. MacDonough, you are undoubtedly a poet. If your letters are half as profound as what you have just conveyed, then I am sure your wife is privileged and overjoyed to read your correspondences.”
Ol’ Bill lowered his head again. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Now, you simply must tell me, where did you meet this Captain Wage Pascal?” she asked.
“He was a young tyke. Could barely grow himself a beard. He showed up one day to camp, down in San Antonio. I didn’t think much of him, to be honest. He was a pompous little shit. Pardon my language, ma’am.” Ol’ Bill laughed as he relived the memory. “But he was tough as a railroad spike. He wouldn’t let nothing and no one get the best o’ him, despite all the punishment he received for his . . . well, failure to comply.
One day, Colonel Roosevelt himself, he comes to me and he says ‘Bill, this kid has potential. He’s smart as a whip. He fights like the devil and can shoot the pecker off a hummingbird. He’s a natural leader and men will fight for him, I know it. Now make him an officer.’” Ol’ Bill looked down for a moment. “Uh, pardon m
y language again, ma’am.”
“Roosevelt? You mentioned Cuba earlier . . . were you Rough Riders? They are quite the legend, I hear.” Mallory Macy unfurled a small fan and waved it briskly in front of herself.
“Hardly anything of legend, ma’am,” Bill replied. “But sure enough, I trained him, and through hell and high water, he made 2nd Lieutenant.”
“The time in Cuba, it must have been terrifying,” she said.
“Oh, it was. Mine and Wage’s platoon infiltrated the garrison on Kettle Hill. It was there we found the Spanish commander, hidin’ away in some underground caves beneath the fort, and Wage . . . well, Wage—”
“Now, William,” Wage interrupted, making Bill and Mallory jump. “You would not be telling this beautiful young lady our exploits in Spanish Cuba, now, would you? There is no need to bore her with nonsensical stories. All she needs to know it that Cuba is hot, humid and littered with every insect ever created or cast out by God himself.” Wage’s eyes narrowed. “There is really nothing more worth conveying about such a forsaken place.”
“Wage Winchester Pascal, I feel like I know so much about you already,” she said. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Malloy Macy.” She held out her hand.
Wage wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger before kissing her white-gloved hand. “Well ain’t you just a diamond. It is most definitely my pleasure, mon chéri.”
Ol’ Bill cleared his throat. “Uh, Wage, Mrs. Macy is newly married.”
“And what a lucky man he must be,” Wage said with a crocodile smile.
“Oh, Mr. Pascal, you have no idea,” she said with a wolf’s grin.
“Well, how’s about you join us for a drink then? I’ll have the porter bring us some of their finest bourbon.”
“I’m afraid I must attend to my husband. It has been a pleasure meeting you Mr. MacDonough. Do wish your wife well for me,” Mallory said.
“I will,” Bill said, standing up and removing his cap once more.
“Mr. Pascal.” She nodded.
Peacemakers (Peacemaker Origins Book 1) Page 19