Alexander C. Irvine
Page 23
“Where are you going?” he asked Gatty.
“Dixieland. New Orleans and octoroon whores for us, and you too.”
“Going straight there?”
“River’s never straight, friend, but we’ll get there fast as anyone. Shake.”
Archie did. Working passage it was, then. The more he blended in with the stream of river traffic, the less obvious he’d be to the chacmool and Riley Steen. Or so he hoped.
“Welcome aboard Maudie Gatty cried as they approached a small, boxy single-wheeled steamer. Maudie measured perhaps sixty feet in length and thirty across her beam, with a small cabin on the starboard side toward the stern, just behind the boiler. A slanted lean-to roof descended from the base of the rusted stack to the cabin’s eaves, sheltering a small group of Negroes asleep on the deck. The center of the boat was taken up by the boiler and several cords of firewood along the port rail, between the boiler and the wheel. Nearly every square foot of deck space was taken up with cargo stacked neck-high under fraying canvas tarpaulins.
Maudie looked tired, Archie thought. Strips of white paint peeled from her hull, and the roof of the cabin was blackened and sagging. At her stern was a manual rudder that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Roman trireme; seeing Archie notice it, Gatty shrugged and said, “Wheel’s broke. She’s a working boat. Hope you don’t mind her paddle’s on the left; some men won’t sail with me on account of that.”
“I’m—not a superstitious man,” Archie said, but he remembered what he’d told the dry-goods proprietor about his knife.
“Then I guess old Maudie’s name won’t bother you, will it, Gator?” Gatty guffawed and slapped Archie on the shoulder.
Unsure how to respond, Archie gave what he hoped was a hearty laugh.
“Rufus!” Gatty shouted as he stepped onto the deck. Archie followed, looking for a place to stow the valise while the crew was otherwise distracted. “Rufus, roust the niggers and let’s move!”
The cabin door opened, and a narrow squinting face topped by spiky gray hair peered around it. Rufus came out onto the deck and scratched at his patchy beard, squinting at the late-morning sun. Standing erect, he was a good deal taller than the cabin door, but he appeared to have some difficulty maintaining an upright posture. A brown clay jug dangled from one bony hand; Archie judged it was nearly empty from the way he swung it in small circles. He tipped the jug up and drained it, then flung it into the water.
“Morning, darkies!” he sang, making his unsteady way to the sleeping blacks and prodding each in turn with the toe of his boot. “Time to move along!”
Gatty joined him near the boiler. “Rufus, Archie. He’s signed on for this trip.” Rufus looked surprised, then shook his head and muttered something about being too far upriver. Gatty laughed and elbowed Archie. “Old Rufus was expecting you to be a nigger, Archie. He done forgot we ain’t in Dixie no more.
“Keep your nose clear of the mash until you show Archie around a bit,” Gatty said to Rufus. “We got to make time today. MacGruder’s cabinets are late, and he ain’t a patient man.”
As the three blacks stood and stretched, Archie saw that each was shackled about the ankles, forcing them to shuffle as they moved to their stations. They were dressed only in shirtsleeves despite the weather, and holes gaped at the knees of their trousers. Archie had the uncomfortable feeling that when he stepped aboard the Maudie, he’d crossed a border of some sort, one that he hadn’t really known existed.
Two of the slaves began loading wood into the boiler and shoving it away from the open door with a long poker. At least that should keep them warm, Archie thought. That poor fellow taking hold of the rudder there must have been glad they spent the winter in the South.
Rufus climbed onto the cabin roof, taking care to stay near the edges. “You, Archie, pole from the bow. Keep us clear of the damned rowboats,” he called as Gatty settled into the captain’s chair, at the front of the boiler behind the useless wheel. Gatty opened the throttle and Maudie’s paddle began to churn up the muddied dockside waters, moving the boat slowly out into the current.
Archie hurried to take up the long pole leaning against the bow railing. He dropped the valise between his feet and set the pole against the dock, keeping Maudie clear until the dock was too far away to reach. Gatty opened the throttle further, shouting for more steam, and Maudie pushed through a gap in the traffic. The rudderman leaned hard to his right, and the boat swung southward into the main channel, picking up speed as pressure mounted in the boiler. Archie kept his pole at the ready, looking out for other craft that might veer too close.
He was weary suddenly. He still hadn’t eaten since the packet boat had been loaded onto flatcars in Hollidaysburg, and he’d ridden all night with Maskansisil. When did rivermen sleep? On the Cabin roof, Rufus appeared to have fallen into a stupor, but the other four members of Maudie’s crew were still watchful. Archie had always read of rivermen as a lazy, shiftless lot of drunken brawlers, but that had mostly been in the Herald. The reality, at least thus far, seemed to be very different.
And that was true not just of river tales. Whatever Archie’s basic sympathies toward abolitionists like the earnest pastor bleeding, and yolk-smeared on Nassau Street, seeing real living slaves shook him to his soul. Until that moment he had only seen the free blacks who clustered in the Five Points and the Fourth Ward slums, and he had thought of slavery as somehow another, Southern, version of their poverty. A problem, certainly, but just that. Another problem.
Even that perspective put Archie in a minority among his circle of acquaintances. Bennett, like most of New York’s newspapermen, tirelessly wrote proslavery editorials excoriating “niggerist” attitudes, and had even gone so far as to brawl with a rival who held the oposite opinion. And Archie’s friends, including Udo and poor Mike Dunn, had been adamant in their belief that the “peculiar institution” benefited not only the Southern economy but the slaves themselves.
Thay never saw shackles on a man who hasn’t committed a crime, though, Archie thought. That was real in a way that pennysheet columns and biergarten conversations weren’t. Gatty’s three slaves were barefoot in March, for God’s sake.
Archie raised the pole as a heavily laden flatboat hove near Maudie on the port side. “Get your damned raft clear, Hoosier!” Garry howled from his captain’s chair. “Or I’ll run you down!”
“Run this down!” cried a man in the rear of the flatboat. He dropped his trousers and slapped his hairy buttocks as Maudie drove by. A burst of laughter rose up from the flatboat’s crew, and Archie could see the two stokers exchanging glances and suppressing smiles as they shoveled wood into the boiler.
Archie’s own surreptitious grin faded as Gatty charged to the port rail in front of the stacked firewood. “Show me your ass again, Hoosier, and I’ll shoot it off!” he screamed, veins bulging in his forehead. Then he drew a revolver and emptied it in the direction of the receding flatboat.
A chunk of the flatboat’s rudder burst into splinters, and the laughter of its crew turned to surprised shouts as they dove behind their cargo, leaving their boat to drift in the current. Gatty’s antagonist tripped over his trousers and scrambled quickly out of view.
Archie stood dumbfounded, nearly dropping his pole into the river. He didn’t think anyone on the flatboat had been hit, but that wasn’t really the point; only a madman would react in such a way to an insult he himself had provoked. For a moment he considered jumping into the river and swimming for the nearest bank; enough madness plagued him without the addition of berserk riverboat captains.
But the shore was too distant here, at the confluence of the Three Rivers, and Archie had barely learned to swim as a boy. Being on a boat with a lunatic, as bad as it might be, was certainly better than drowning. There’s Jane to think of, he told himself. Remember you’re a father still, and do what it takes to avoid antagonizing Gatty.
“Lord, are we attacked by Indians?” Rufus was sitting up, bleary-eyed and confused.
“God Almighty, Rufus, but you missed a funny sight, that nancy Hoosier tripping over his britches!” Gatty slapped his knee. “Ha! He pissed himself for sure.”
He lifted a jug from under his chair and took a deep drink. “Archie,” he said. “You ever see any such thing?”
Archie shook his head and tried to smile. “Guess not,” he said.
” ‘Course not! That’s because I’m the only man on the river with balls big enough to give a Hoosier what he deserves. Any son of a bitch who’ll show his ass deserves a bullet in it.” Gatty waved the jug at Archie. “Stroll back here,” he said, “and let’s welcome you aboard. How’s the water, Rufus?”
“Clear enough.”
“Ha!” Gatty roared. “I’ll wager it is. Well, let’s have us a dram, then, boys. In honor of Hoosiers who can’t sit down.”
They are coming.
“What?” Stephen rolled over, thinking that Charlotte had inumbled something in her sleep.
“Hmm?” she murmured, feeling sleepily behind her until she cought Stephen’s hand and drew it to her breast. He nestled into herr, feeling her heart beat, inhaling the warm bed-scent at the back of her neck. Then she was asleep again, her breath settling slow and deep.
The breath of a sleeping woman is one of the things love is made of, Stephen thought. If I was a poet I’d write that down.
Moonlight spilled through the window, glazing Charlotte’s skin with a drowsy sweetness. To sleep in this bed, to love this woman—that was all a man could do. Stephen slipped back toward sleep.
They are coming.
He blinked and raised his head, and the moonlight was the color of bones turning to dust.
They are coming, and you must prepare.
Stephen squeezed Charlotte’s hand and sat up, brushing the balls of his feet on the cold wooden floor. He stepped into his trousers and found his shoes. Macehuales imacpal iyoloco, he whispered, and Charlotte made small and frightened noises in her sleep.
The cave breathed around him like a sleeping woman, waiting to be awakened by his touch. Stephen ran a hand over the statue’s fanged mouth, smelling rain and feeling a tremor in the terraced walls around him.
Why so timid, Stephen?
Stephen tried to lie and found the words caught in his throat. “I’m … not sure,” he said, feeling each word being siphoned from his mind. “Not sure if this is what I want.”
Men waste lives being uncertain. Have you forgotten the promise I made you?
He thought of Charlotte, sleeping in a two-room shack, thought of the months he’d spent with pick and shovel widening the road that led to the hotel whose front door he couldn’t walk through. Thought of Dr. Croghan saying You’re too valuable to lose.
Was he really a man just because he’d jumped the broom with Charlotte, another slave Croghan had bought at the Louisville market?
Again the quiet pressure, forcing words through his throat. “What do I have to do?”
First you have to understand. Lie on the stone.
Stephen sat on the altar stone, facing the dancing statue. He placed his lamp carefully between his feet and lay backward, feeling the chill of the pitted limestone seep through his coat.
Extinguish the light.
Stephen hesitated. Putting out an oil lamp, you ran the risk that it wouldn’t light again.
To understand you must trust, Stephen. Extinguish the light.
He did, and lay faceup on the stone as blind as if he’d never had eyes. The darkness had a kind of weight, a presence that Stephen could feel on his skin. It was a feeling of being near something so vast that its true size couldn’t really be understood.
He thought he heard the statue chuckle approvingly. Now you begin to see.
A delicate scent tickled his nose, and Stephen felt warm sun on his face. He opened his eyes and saw mountains rising around him, green mountains creased by sharp ridges and capped by a dusting of snow. He was standing in a wide valley filled with flowers of every description, flowers he didn’t recognize. A broad slow river meandered through the valley, and standing knee-deep in its waters was the most beautiful woman Stephen had ever seen. She wore only a skirt of carved jade, wrapped high around her hips and forming a V beneath her navel. Reflected sun from the water played across her naked skin and burnished the perfect blackness of her hair.
“Walk with me, Stephen,” she said, beckoning him into the water. He walked to the river’s edge, feeling a gentle breeze on his own naked body. She was magnificent, that was the only word, magnificent like the mountains looming behind her or the grand beauty of a waterfall; so breathtaking and yet so remote that Stephen couldn’t imagine touching her like a woman. She seemed like a feature of the landscape, a human form created to match the perfection of the valley.
The water sent a pleasant shock up through his legs as he joined her in the shallows. The woman took his hand and raised her other arm in a sweeping gesture that took in everything around them. “Tlalocan,” she said, smiling with pride. “Across the mountains, where the sun hangs low, is the city. This is the land of the dead.”
“Are you dead?” Stephen asked. “Am I?”
“No,” she replied. “You live, and the question has no meaning for me. I am Chalchihuitlicue. These waters are mine, just as the waters in the sky are Tlaloc’s. All names are human names, though, different faces put by men on faceless things. When men wish it, I can be Tlaloc himself.”
Stephen pictured the massive bas-relief in the chamber beneath Bottomless Pit, the chamber where he must be sleeping. “The face called Tlaloc …” He couldn’t find the words.
She smiled. “That is the most ancient face, and it bears the marks of thousands of years of men’s fear. But fear is only lack of understanding, Stephen. Walk with me.”
They walked together upstream, the smooth stones of the river bottom giving way to larger slabs of bare rock as the current swiftened and the river narrowed to a jubilant mountain stream. They moved easily through the rushing current, and soon came to a spring high in the mountains, on a flat saddle of land between two towering peaks.
“Wait,” Stephen said. “Is this a dream?”
“Of a sort.” Chalchihuitlicue stood beside him, lifting her face to the wind. She breathed deeply and spread her arms. Stephen imitated her, closing his eyes and letting the clean wind fill his lungs.
He caught the biting scent of smoke and blinked, stepping away from the spring. “The city,” Chalchihuitlicue said. “The dead still worship their god.”
She led him to the far edge of the grassy saddle, where the land fell away to a forest far below. In the middle of the forest lay a lake like a shining silver coin, and on an island in the center of the lake a huge city stood out like a scar.
Chalchihuitlicue let him gaze down on the city for a moment before she spoke. “Gods exist only as long as men worship, Stephen. And for centuries now, the dead have been our most devout. You find the sacrifices horrible?”
Stephen nodded, unable to look away from the city of the dead.
“Gods hunger, and if they starve the world falls to ashes. What they hunger for is belief. Tlalocan is beautiful because here we are sated—the dead believe.”
“What does cutting the hearts out of children have to do with belief?” Stephen said, the words leaping from his mouth before he could stop them.
If Chalchihuitlicue was angered, she gave no sign. “The people who enslave you tell you their stories, Stephen. You have heard of Abraham and Isaac?”
“But God stepped in,” Stephen protested. “Abraham only had to be willing. That was enough.”
“The lesson was learned, though, was it not? Your king David had that lesson in his heart when he killed those who did not believe. And Cortés, too, ground a civilization to dust because belief
was more important than life.”
She turned to face Stephen, the blissful smile gone from her face. “Was not your Christ a human sacrifice, Stephen? To die yourself is easy. The thrust of the knife, then paradise. The true believer is that man who will kill another in the name of his God. This is what gods feed on, life spilled in the name of belief. Yollotl, eztli, ompa onquiza’n tlatkpac. Cortés, though he murdered our priests and burned our cities, made us stronger. Now it is time for us to return to the world of the living. Now the sun turns, and a new world may be born from the ruins of the old.”
Her eyes burned like the fires in the city below. Fire is light as well as heat, Stephen thought. A new world… “But what will be different?” he whispered.
“What would you kill a man for, Stephen? To save yourself? To save Charlotte?” She stepped closer to him, until her breasts brushed against his skin and passion exploded through his body like an electric shock.
“To be free? Would you kill to be free?”
He thought of the two-room shack, of the bed he’d built himself. Of gypsum flowers, growing beautiful for ages until greedy visitors broke them off for mantelpieces. “Kill who?” he said.
“Answers change,” Chalchihuitlicue said. “Questions are what you must remember. Remember, too, that freedom is bought with hearts and blood, and it is kept with hearts and blood.” The sun was low over the city now, bloated and reddened by rising smoke from sacrificial fires.
Something tickled Stephen’s calf. He looked down to see a black ant working its way up his body. He raised his hand, then let it drop again. Even with the smoke of dead souls smearing the sunset, it seemed wrong to kill anything in a place so beautiful as this. This paradise.
Chalchihuitlicue—Tlaloc, really, Stephen thought; am I actually speaking to a god?—had turned away from him. Giving me time to think, like John Diamond did. I took the mask from him, and this woman, this god, must realize that. Why is she showing me all of this? Why doesn’t she just force me to do what she wants?