Benjamin followed Davis onto the passenger car. He looked delighted by the chanting, yelling crowd—amused, as if he might break into applause at the unexpected entertainment. He doffed his hat, and then hustled up the steps.
After the big men disappeared through a door, the mob gathered strength and yelled death threats at Davis and called Benjamin every epithet for Jew in the English language, at least all such words known in the South. Moment by moment they built nerve to loot the train with support from gutter whiskey and the hortatory skills of angry drunks.
Lights in the passenger car stayed unlit, windows black. The train stood still. Some problem to do with the locomotive kept it from rolling away into the night. Steam built and released and rebuilt, and the train stayed still.
The cadets were a gang of boys unused to liquor in quantities greater than a raw taste of cheap rum on the tongue, all of them splinter-thin from a forced regimen of only two meals a day, mostly shreds of off-smelling salt pork and hardtack wetted with false coffee. Sailor food, the officers called it. The boys just called it shit. On the rare occasion they ate vegetables, their insides rebelled and they suffered the runs for days, their bowels working in the manner of a strong woman wringing water out of a dishrag. But, on the other hand, they were left calling their own orders. So they hung together arrogant on the rail platform, claiming a space between the mob and the train. They carried their newfound rifles and shotguns slung over their shoulders on straps, revolvers holstered on their slim hips or just shoved down their belts. They were not in a patient mood for outside opinions on how this next few minutes ought to play.
The mob roiled within itself until it found leaders.
A man in a plaid suit separated from the huddles and walked three steps their way.
—You better move along, he said.
A man in a greasy canvas coat stepped up beside him and flippered out both handbacks loose-wristed, like shooing cattle. He said, Get on, young’uns.
The crowd focused and quit milling and aimed all in one direction, at the boys.
The cadets had not considered themselves guardians of the Confederate Treasure Train or of the old men who had led them to this point of collapse. They looked at each other in confusion.
Ryland, real flat and slow and disgusted, said, Well, shit fire.
The man in the plaid suit said, I mean it. Stand aside.
Somebody else shouted, Don’t let Jeff Davis and his gang ruin us all and then get off with the money too. The Federals will be on us by dawn, and they’ll steal everything not screwed to the floor.
Shouts went all through the crowd.
—Get what we can get.
—Get it while we can get it.
—Get it now.
Pushed from behind, the front line of the mob staggered forward a few feet toward the boys.
At that, Ryland and several other cadets unslung rifles and shotguns, and some filled their hands with pistols.
Ryland—rum bold—said, You bunch aim to try us? Really? Y’all?
He said it like there were certainly people who could try them and succeed, but not this particular bunch under any range of imagination.
The men paused.
—Oh hell yeah, Ryland said. Try us. Come on. Get some.
He didn’t shout to the crowd but spoke only to that first row of mobsters. He said, Y’all old men just step up, front and center. See who gets cut down first.
He tipped his head toward Bristol and said, This one here? Best shot among us. Still a kid, but he sure hell can shoot. Not just the fastest, but the best. Bang, bang. Sound like one shot. And you’ll have one neat hole in the middle of your forehead and two bullets blowing mess out the back.
That was a gross exaggeration. Bristol was better than average shooting paper targets with a rifle, but was no pistoleer and had not ever fired at a human being. But he played along. Bristol held his arms crossed in front so that his right forearm rested across his left forearm. His right hand holding the Colt’s navy pistol drooped all relaxed and calm. He squint-eyed watched the mob for the first sign of bad intention.
A woman in the crowd hollered, You’ns sorry drunks gonna let those children face you down? Whoop ’em and run ’em back home to their mommas.
The mob surged again. Voices cursed God and Jefferson Davis equally for the pain they had rained down on the South.
Ryland raised his pistol and fired a single ceremonial shot into the air like the start of a horse race.
Five or six men on the front row of the mob broke to run, among them the man who had flipped his hands. He and two others stepped on each other’s feet and then a half dozen fell in a pile, scrambling against each other like a trapful of blue crabs. Some of the cadets laughed, and then some of the mob laughed.
Loud enough for everyone to hear, Ryland said, Hey, do all us idiots need to be killing one another? We all bet on the same broke-down racehorse.
The steam engine came alive with a grind of metal. Long iron rods and pins and joints worked against the drive wheels until the whole train jolted forward a few inches. And then, shiny steel wheels spun two squealing turns against the rails until friction bound them together. The train began moving at a crawl and then accelerating.
Secretary Benjamin opened a window in the passenger car and stuck his head out. He yelled, You boys jump on. Be quick.
Quick was what Ryland and Bristol did best. They dashed toward the blue boxcar and tossed the long weapons before them into the open door and tumbled in laughing and whooping like they’d robbed a bank and gotten away with all the gold. Then they realized it was only the two of them. The other boys straggled slow and lost behind.
BRISTOL AND RYLAND let their eyes adjust. The slaves sat in a corner lit by the yellow glow of two candle lanterns. The woman held her baby close and her man reached his arm over her shoulders, and they looked only at the baby. The other two men looked only at Bristol and Ryland.
The train reached the pace of a strong canter, and then settled in for the ride south. One of the men looked less than thirty, very dark, wearing a gray suit and white shirt and with hands less beat from work than Ryland’s and Bristol’s—so housework. The other man was a little older. He had a large, round head and had gone bald halfway back. His skin was sort of russet color, and three pale, horizontal scars marked his forehead like old razor cuts. He kept rubbing and squeezing his temples with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand like he had a throbbing headache. The whites of his eyes had gone yellow. He was a big, strong man but looked like half the strength had been worn out of him.
Ry made a one-finger eyebrow salute toward the corner and said, Evening, folks. What’s you’ns names?
The family paid no attention. The scarred man said, Cleon. The man in the suit just kept looking at the boys.
Ryland took a chug from his bottle and passed it to Bristol. After Bristol sipped, he reached the bottle toward the two men, but they declined with sliding level motions of both downturned hands.
Ry took the bottle back and swigged.
—Ah, he said. We’re gonna need us a bunch more of this. They say all the smart people are heading to Havana, and I can see why. Swing in hammocks under palm trees, smoke cigars, and drink rum all day long.
—Cuba, Cleon said. Land of Paradise. Rum and cigars make their own selves down there.
—Not the night for scoffing, Ryland said. This is the time for hope. Everything’s changed. We’re all cut loose. Possibilities whichever way we look.
The two men looked at each other and then they looked out the wide door. The city stretched across its hill and along the river like burning red hell itself.
—Yeah, Cleon said. Keep talking. You know everything.
—I know I never owned anybody but my own self, Ryland said. And half the time, all I can do is half-ass manage me, much less make a bunch of other people do my bidding.
The couple with the baby were putting together sandwiches of pork belly and day-old corn brea
d.
—Wouldn’t care to share that pone, would you? Ryland said. Belly too? A bite?
The man in the suit said, We’ve got little food.
—Break off a burnt edge, Ryland said. I won’t complain. Remember, we offered to share our liquor with you.
Cleon looked at Bristol and then looked back at Ry. He said, If we’re all cut loose and free to do as we please, then we might sell you some food.
Ryland and Bristol both laughed. Bristol said, We’ve not been paid in six months.
—White people all rich, Cleon said. But they sure go around poor-mouthing.
Ryland said, We’re not rich. For a whole year, we been fed worse than a general’s bird dog.
—Beefsteak and loaves of white bread, then? Cleon said. Great wedges of chocolate cake.
The man in the suit said, Pork tenderloin roasted over a wood fire and potatoes buttered yellow and then the whole plate covered with brown gravy.
Both men laughed.
—Not hardly, Bristol said.
—So no money at all? Cleon said.
Bristol said, I’ve got five dollars.
—Eight and pocket change, Ryland said.
—What I said, Cleon muttered. Rich.
—But which money? the other man said.
—Dixie paper, Ryland said.
—Hell, Cleon said. You boys nothing but truly broke. But I’d trade you some food for one of those pistols you’ve got stuck down your belts.
Ryland said, You’ve probably not had experience with firearms. They get you in trouble quicker than they get you out.
—Hey, Cleon said. Everybody else has got ’em. We want one too.
The other man said, Besides, they’re simple. I used to care for the guns when the big man went hunting. Load, aim, pull the trigger. Unless you’re drunk, and then you just pull the trigger. That’s the way he did it.
—What’s the worst pistol we’ve got? Ryland asked Bristol.
Bristol pulled a pepperbox with a broken grip out of his coat pocket. Ryland reached it to the men and they handled it and tested out the mechanism that turned the five barrels and then reached back corn bread sandwiches.
After they all finished eating, the man in the suit said, You boys expect this is truly the end?
—End of what? Ryland said.
—End of the war for you. For us, the Federals coming and setting us free.
—True fact, Bristol said. Sunrise tomorrow, new world coming for everybody. Day one.
—Y’all ever study the Testaments? the man said.
Ryland said, Naw. My momma and daddy was normally feeling so raw from Saturday-night drinking they couldn’t bother with Sunday morning.
The man lifted his hand toward the open door and said, That city on fire, there’s a story in the book of Daniel. About the night Babylon fell.
Bristol said, Please don’t say you’re a preacher?
The man said, No.
Ryland said, Proceed, Reverend.
—Well, the preacher said, what I was about to tell was about a big wild party in Babylon. A thousand of King Belshazzar’s men and whores eating his food and drinking his liquor, all of it made by his slaves. Pretty barefoot slave girls walking around serving drinks and fancy food off of big silver trays. Round about midnight—when everybody reached the point of drunk where you drink a bunch more or else there’s nowhere left to go but down—right in front of all these witnesses, a ghost hand appears in the air, clear as day. It’s holding a piece of charcoal. A giant hand, charcoal the size of a singletree. It scribes strange words on that plaster wall where Belshazzar stood. Letter after letter lit by candle flames or maybe pine torches. Letters jagged and crossways as a bundle of spilled kindling. Everybody gets quiet and spooked, and they watch close. When the hand gets done with what it has to say, it turns into smoke. Poof, gone. King’s men, they’re all full drunk and his whores too. But they’re all scared, and they start sobering up a little. They try to study the words, but nobody can read the writing on the wall. About then, Belshazzar’s main wife shows up. She comes in cool-tempered, not a bit mad at all the drunks. She gives the wall a quick look and says she knows a man, the best of all the magicians and palm-readers and dream-readers. Mojo man named Daniel. Knows the invisible world like the back of his hand. If he can’t read the writing, nobody can. Belshazzar sends out orders to get Daniel, and pretty soon big police haul him in. The king promises scarlet robes and gold chains and a job as foreman of all the king’s lands and slaves if he can read the writing. Daniel says, No. Not interested in the king’s fancy clothes and fancy job. But says he can read the writing clear as day. Words from a tongue ten thousand years old. Words for gold and silver, brass and iron. The names of the gods that the king and his men and whores praise above all. Things you can weigh on a scale or measure by a ruler or add and divide and count out piece by piece in order to sell. Daniel says that right that minute, the one instant they’re all living in, it’s the king getting weighed and measured and counted. And Belshazzar comes up short. He’s been using the wrong scales, the wrong ruler, wrong numbers. Daniel says to Belshazzar, You’re going to die before the night’s done, your kingdom burned down and a new kingdom growing up to take its place.
The preacher paused to draw breath, and Ryland said, I never heard this one before. Does it just go on and on?
—Nope. What Daniel said happened. That night Babylon burned down, kingdom done and gone. Daybreak, Belshazzar woke up dead in hell.
Ryland said, Can you read the Bible for yourself?
The preacher paused and then said, Yes.
—Who taught you?
The two men glanced at each other. The preacher said, I’m not saying.
—Law, Cleon said.
Bristol said, Probably that law’s not gonna apply after the sun comes up. A lot of others too.
They all sat quiet. Out the door, the burning city behind them had become nothing but a pretty amber glow in the sky. The train rolled toward Petersburg, and the night swept by in blurred gray shapes of houses and barns and cornfields and cow pastures. All they saw of Petersburg was the wrecked landscape of a lost war. The government train didn’t stop at the station, just tooted the whistle. But crowds stood around in the lamplight of the platform watching it roll past, hope bleached out of their faces. Soon after that, nothing but black pinewoods on either side of the tracks.
Ten or fifteen miles south, the train slowed for a curve, taking it at a little above a trot. The preacher looked at Cleon and nodded. They didn’t say a word to each other, but both stood and picked up their carpetbags and underhanded them out the door. Then—like jumping down a well or taking a leap of faith—they ran three strides and disappeared into a future that looked nothing but dark and red at the moment.
Fourth Sunday
Saratoga Springs
AFTER BREAKFAST V SITS BY THE WINDOW READING A NEW novel, The House of Mirth. She prefers books set in New York or Europe—anywhere except the South—because they don’t bring unwelcome memories.
Laura wanders in, turns back the covers, and climbs into V’s bed and immediately falls asleep.
When she wakes she asks, What time?
—Ten.
—Wake me at eleven? I need an ally. My mother’s coming for lunch.
—Are you asking me to join you?
—Please, Laura says.
She turns her face to the wall and sleeps again.
V WAKES HER AND SAYS, Dear Girl, if we’re going to meet your mother, you need to dress.
Laura swings her legs over the edge of the bed and looks at the floor.
—She’ll be horrible. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want you to see it. She can be nice for half an hour, and then it’s always horrible.
—Oh, I doubt she’ll be too bad, and if she is, I’ve seen enough that I’m inoculated. If I can be a comfort to you, I’ll come along.
—Really? You’d do that?
—I stood in the real White House arguing toe
-to-toe with one of the more corrupt presidents of the United States, at least up to that point in time. So let’s go back to your room and pick out a pretty dress.
They choose a summer frock, sky blue with tiny yellow flowers. V wipes Laura’s face with a wet washcloth and powders her cheeks lightly and pats her hair into slight order, the way it looks best. As they walk to the lobby, Laura clutches V’s hand.
Laura says, Please don’t be frightened.
—That much I can promise, V says.
—My brother will be there too. He steals money from my inheritance and thinks I’m too dumb to know. I come from a lineage of crooks dating back to the Mayflower. I’m supposed to be proud, but I just imagine a very long card game down in the lower decks. Sharks all eating each other for months at a time.
—Long passage back then. Imagine all the different purses their coins fared through. The sleights of hand, dealing from the bottom.
—Exactly. But they were all so religious.
—Except about money.
—Mother claims they came for freedom, Laura says.
—Freedom to do exactly what they wanted without anybody getting in their way.
—I’ve had relatives so crooked they nearly went to prison, but if you have money you never actually go. They make you think it for a while, and that’s your punishment.
—My husband was in prison for two years. They tried to make us think they were going to hang him, but they didn’t.
In the lobby, V stops and asks Laura, When my friend arrives I’d like for him to join us.
Laura says, The bigger the group the better she behaves. And I’ll make sure she gets the check.
V walks to the desk and writes a quick note and seals it in an envelope.
LAURA’S MOTHER LOOKS LATE FORTIES. She dresses expensively, and her eyes rest in her head hooded as a snapping turtle’s. She rises from her seat at the table and kisses Laura on the cheek and then holds her by the shoulders and studies her at arm’s length for an uncomfortably long time. Laura squirms.