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The Night Road
by Galen Peoples
Part Three
In the chamber where Christopher's journey had started, Molly lay sleepless. The wind was moaning and things were flapping and clapping in it. She did not like to think of him being at its mercy. As she concentrated hard to blot out the noises, a ghost in nightgown and nightcap appeared at the edge of the partition. She shut her eyes, feigning sleep. When she opened them the ghost was gone.
It re-appeared two seconds later. She shut her eyes again and did not peek as she heard it move past her. She guessed from the sound that it was throwing down the covers of the neighboring bed. The pillows had looked too much like an otter, after all.
"I know you're awake," said Candy, "so you can stop pretending." Molly turned to her. Candy asked where her brother was. Molly said she did not know. "I can tell when you're fibbing too."
"I'm not! I don't know." But absolute truthfulness impelled her to add, "...exactly."
"And inexactly?"
"He went to find that horse."
Candy dressed as fast as she could. At the foot of the street she met Emily heading in the same direction. Ben also had gone out to Irontown and was not home yet and ought to have been. "You don't think anything's happened to them?" she asked. Candy tried to put the possibility out of both their minds. They hurried up the street in tandem, capes blowing behind them.
On the plateau the black man continued to watch the white horse, who had returned to his grazing. Christopher began to wonder as much about the watcher. He was wearing a knee-length canvas coat, black flannel shirt, red bandana, and dun woolen pants with buckskin wedges on the insides of the legs. His clothes looked as though he might have sewn them himself; certainly he was far too tall to fit into store-bought. Under the trees stood his kit: a single-cinched saddle with long hangings at the sides, a bedroll wrapped in canvas, and a sugar sack that served as a carry-all. Along the side of the saddle ran a leather scabbard which cradled the biggest axe Christopher had ever seen.
The man continued to speak softly. "He's used to my scent," he explained, "but not yours. Get too close, he's liable to bolt and I'll have to go traipsin' after him again–'ceptin' I wait here for him to come back."
The two of them studied him as he stood equipoised on both pairs of legs while his jaws pulled at the grass, tail blowing from side to side like a palm leaf. "Then he's not a devil horse," said Christopher.
"Find that out soon enough," the big man said with a chuckle.
Christopher did not know what he meant and was not sure he wanted to. "You live up here?"
The man laughed. "Nobody lives up here that I know of." He had a thought. "'less you do." Christopher's decisive shake of the head made him laugh again. "Me, I stop below once a year to visit a friend of mine. Maybe you know him–he's round about your age. Charlie Bates?"
Christopher had suspected the man's identity but could hardly believe it. "You're Ox!" Then he remembered. "Sorry–Mr. Bates."
Ox smiled. "Either'll do. More I thought on it, more I come to reckon the ox as a highly respectable critter. Not his fault he was made a beast of burden." His face grew grave for a moment. "Not his fault no way."
"Charlie told me about you. I thought he made you up."
Ox laughed the hardest he had so far, momentarily forgetting about the horse, who perked his ears and bounded farther out into the meadow. "Maybe he did, at that," Ox said. "Just maybe he did."
Christopher recited from memory: "Lay 'pon one, job get done. Lay 'pon two, job yet to do. Lay 'pon three, you won't catch me." He looked at Ox. "Charlie said he learned that from you. That how it goes?"
Ox grinned. "That's how it goes." Christopher grinned back, pleased to have found a tie, however slight, to his new acquaintance. The two of them regarded each other with about equal curiosity. "Most white boys'd be shy around a man of color," Ox said, "but not you. How come that is?"
Now it was Christopher's turn to laugh, but he remembered the horse's presence and checked himself. "Mister, I'm from New Bedford. There's bushels of free blacks in New Bedford. Always have been."
Ox's eyes lit up. "New Bedford! I know that place." He slid over and rummaged in his bag, from which he took out a book. Christopher crawled to his side and bent to peer at the scarred brown calf cover. My Bondage and My Freedom, it read. Ox told him the author was Frederick Douglass. Christopher's eyes lit up. "Learned to read so's I could read this," said Ox. "One of the two books I've read clear through. Other was The Pilgrim's Progress. That's about a black man too–a man with a burden." Christopher, who had read some of it in school, thought of correcting him and then wondered if he might be right, after all. Ox opened the use-worn volume and turned quickly to the desired passage. As he read, it sounded as if he were half quoting from memory:
Lying at the wharves and riding in the stream, were full-rigged ships of finest model, ready to start on whaling voyages. Upon the right and the left, I was walled in by large granite-fronted warehouses, crowded with the good things of this world.
He shut the book. "That's New Bedford."
"I met him!" said Christopher. Only politeness had restrained him from breaking in before.
"Met? Who?" Then, amazed: "Frederick Douglass!"
The story poured out in a flood. His big sister had taken him and his other sister to hear Mr. Douglass give a speech. He was the finest speechifier Christopher had ever heard; even finer than Jason Bolt. Ox smiled, remembering Jason. After the speech they had gone up and shaken his hand.
Ox wiped his own hand on his shirt. "Sir–don't believe I caught the name–" Christopher gave it. "Mr. Pruitt, will you permit me to shake the hand of a New Bedford man that's shook the hand of Frederick Douglass?" Behind the mock-solemnity he was genuinely impressed, and this flattered Christopher no end. "Shook the hand of Frederick Douglass," Ox repeated wonderingly, staring at his own which had now, at it were, done the same at one remove.
Presently he returned his attention to the horse. Christopher asked what he planned to do with him. "Mount him," said Ox. "Tried twice before but one of us wasn't ready."
"You aim to ride him? A wild horse like that?"
Ox explained he was not entirely wild–"half or three-quarters maybe, now." His feet were shod; he was a mustang, a stray. Probably he had belonged to the cavalry, who could not handle him, and he had run off, or been let run off. "Some critters can't be broke. Men too. Him and me's a pair that way. I don't claim it as a virtue. Times I'da give in if I could, spared myself a whipping. 'spect he'd say the same if he could talk." Ox had been moving with him ever since the night he had woken to find him nosing in his campfire, grazing on the charred leaves at its edges. When he had attempted an approach the horse had run off but had returned the next day. "Not sure if I'm sticking to him," said Ox, "or the other way about." A couple of times, the horse had eluded him; those were the times he had been seen in Seattle.
"People say he's a ghost horse."
"He's no common horse. You've had nightmares, ain't you? This is the night stallion that chases 'em. Runs 'em up the canyons of midnight." He said it like an incantation.
"People say when he comes someone dies."
"Could be it's the other way round and he can sniff out death. Critters know things we don't. Could be his rider died on him and he goes where death is, looking for him–hunting a dead man."
"Are there other horses with him?"
"Could be they're hid up in these mountains somewhere. But I don't believe he runs with a herd. That's another way we're alike."
Christopher had been so far absorbed in his chase and in learning all he could from his new acquaintance that he had forgotten he ought to be sleepy. Now his body reminded him of it by seizing him in a profound yawn. He tried to put up a fight but could not keep it up: his vessel had been boarded and surrender was inescapable. "You go on and sleep," Ox told him. "I won't be sleeping tonight." Christopher compliantly tipped over, legs bent up to his chin, one arm pillowing his head. Ox removed his coat and laid it over him. "'night, New Bedford."
He was not asleep yet but the view before his eyes rippled and shimmered. He shut them, and opened them a moment later–was it?–to see Ox (holy sakes, he was tall!) loping out into the meadow, saddle slung over his shoulder, a bridle cut out of a trousers belt dangling from his free hand. When he got to within eight or nine yards of his destination the horse's ears crooked toward him. He stopped, lowered the saddle quietly, and sat on it facing the horse, hands under his chin. Then the view turned to blackness.
When Christopher next opened his eyes–had he been asleep?–Ox was at the horse's nose, rubbing an iron bit against the teeth. To Christopher's vague surprise, the jaws parted to receive it. Blackness again; then a last glimpse (if he did not imagine it) of the coffee-colored man astride the ridge of the white back, firmly holding to his seat as the animal arched and kicked and then shot off like fury over the tall grass kicking up clods of dirt till he disappeared into the blackness; the blackness that now overtook Christopher utterly.
When he woke again the night was damp, and colder than it had been. He looked around. The man and the horse were gone. He was scared. He was not sure if he would be able to descend as he had ascended or, if he were, in what direction home lay. He walked out to the middle of the field and made a full circle as he surveyed the perimeter. In his fretfulness he did not hear the pounding on the earth behind him, which began far off and grew nearer and nearer till it was upon him and he felt the ground shudder under the swift, steady blows of those hooves. As he turned, a black figure riding a white wave bent and swept him up in one arm and plumped him down between himself and the saddle horn to nestle against the warm flannel of his shirt behind the bobbing, blowing mane. He felt as if he were being borne on the wind in surging leaps with short lulls between as they galloped toward the edge and then over, a little leftward of where he had climbed up. He was sure they would fly off into space but instead they tipped down, so sharply and suddenly his stomach left him and he was afraid he would be catapulted into the chasm, but he held fast to the pommel and the man's large legs pressed on his, holding them, as down they rode and down, back to the world he knew.
In that world where men lay asleep, two were roused by a pounding at their door only a little less importunate than the pounding of those hoofbeats. "Is it dawn?" one of them asked groggily. He knew otherwise as soon as his eyes took in the darkness of the cabin.
"What imbecile would come knocking at this hour?" said the other.
"Jeremy!" a girl's voice called in. "Wake up!"
"Shoulda known," said Joshua. When Jeremy showed no sign of life he answered the door himself, throwing it wide open to reveal his new red long johns. That would show Cancan, as he liked to call her (though only behind her back); serve her darn well right.
The additional, less familiar presence, he had not expected. "Mrs.–ma'am!" he said, his cheeks reflecting his suit. He pulled the door shut far enough to hide his nakedness.
"Christopher's missing," said Candy, trying to peer past him. "Is Jeremy here?"
"Ben too," said Emily.
"They were going to Irontown. We looked there–"
"At this time of night? That was stupid."
Jason decided it was time for him to take over. "Soul of tact, my brother," he said, shoving Joshua aside. He reopened the door, revealing himself in his nightshirt. But he did not mind who saw. Emily noticed again what a fine-looking man he was–though she personally did not care for the type, she reminded herself. Nevertheless she lowered her eyes out of temptation's way (which she had not bothered to do for Joshua). "Did you ask in Irontown if they'd seen them?"
"Everyone was in bed," said Candy. "We didn't like to disturb them so late."
"Just us," Joshua noted.
"I'm certain there's nothing to worry about," Jason said. Did anyone ever say so when it was so? his brother wondered. "What with the wind, they probably asked to be put up for the night."
"At Lucinda's?" Emily asked, frowning.
"No," Jason said soothingly, "not necessarily at Lucinda's. With one of the men." He urged them to wait at home (out of the way) and promised he and his brothers would let them know as soon as there was anything to be known.
"All of you?" asked Candy, whose eye had at last discerned Jeremy's inert form.
"Yes, all of us. Up, wee bairn!"
Emily obtained Candy's consent to wait with her at the dormitory and they returned down the hill while the two Bolts changed clothes, punctuating the action with holloas aimed at their lifeless third. "Astounding," said Jason.
"Observe and learn," said Joshua. He leaned down and crooned in Jeremy's ear. "Have a care, brother. Candy's gone out for a buggy ride with that handsome new logger."
Jeremy's lids parted. "She wha'?" Joshua grinned smugly. Jeremy sat up with a grunt. "What time is it, anyway?"
"Too late," Jason informed him. "Your young lady just came calling."
"Candy? Why didn't you wake me?" His brothers stared down at him. Since the urgency of the moment precluded their acting on the suggestion Joshua advanced–to smother him with his own pillow–Jason simply told him to hurry and get dressed.
While Emily sat in Candy's kitchen taking a cup of cocoa (the strongest libation she permitted herself) her husband was making his way back to Seattle at a pace that varied with the dispositions of his mule and the wind in whose teeth he was driving. He smiled regardless all the while, musing on the workings of providence.
What had happened to him was this: At the crossroads where one arm led to Duwamish, the fingerboard that normally pointed the way had blown down, leaving no clue which was right. "Dang!" said Ben. He had the directions to Miss Bell's nephew's from the store at Duwamish but they presumed he could find the town. He thought it lay to the left, but on the other hand it might be to the right. He had not been there, he guessed, in ten years. He sat a while considering and eventually decided, waveringly, on the left.
A mile or so farther the mule halted. Ben began to drive her on, then stopped as he saw the reason: a dead oak, felled like the signboard, barricading the path. "Double dang!" he said. He climbed down and made an effort to move it, which proved hopeless unaided, let alone with the wind champing at him. He could have driven around it but the forest on both sides was too shrubby and the ground too humpy with roots for him to be sure of getting through. He could continue on foot if the wind permitted but he could not swear he was on the right road and he might end up nowhere. Yet if he turned around and took the road back past the crossroads in the other direction he might still end up nowhere. For that matter he might be nowhere now.
But no; through the trees on the right he could see a light, like the light of a window, only multicolored: red, blue, green. Must be an illusion, he thought, some reflection off a creek or pond. If it were a house, he could ask directions. But he did not like to do that.
Not that he was shy of asking help from strangers. He had done so often on his buying trips in the old days–that is, before his marriage. Emily had not liked his being away so long; she had not said so but he could tell. He believed she doubted his power to resist the allurements of the metropolitan panoply, or perhaps the doubt was his own. Anyhow, nowadays what buying he could not accomplish through catalogs or drummers, Aaron or Jason did for him when their own business took him to the city, and the arrangement satisfied him overall. But every so often he would feel the urge to go again and shake hands and talk familiarly with other men of business and feel himself part of their gang. He would go for sure, one of these times.
And when he did he might again ask the way of strangers, who as always would be happy to oblige, and as always he would enjoy being seen in the role of a sophisticated commercial traveler. Yet this evening he was hesitant. He was not proud of the reason but admitted it: he dreaded asking because he dreaded being asked whom he was going to see. Miss Rose Bell? he imagined some farmer saying (some farmer who looked and sounded a lot like Adolphus). Why, don't you know she's–
"Need help?" came a shout from the trees, the same trees through which shone the mysterious light and in the middle of which now appeared a nearer and clearer light, belonging to a lantern.
Ben shouted back over the wind. "The tree won't budge. Not a dang lick!"
"And I bet that was just the way you were needing to go."
"If it'll take me to Duwamish."
"No, no, that's the other way. Not far, though. Not far." The man had nearly cleared the wood. "There's folks from Duwamish in my congregation."
The light, as of varicolored glass, and the white band showing at the man's neck as he stepped out from the thicket united in a flash of revelation. "You a preacher?" Ben would never have thought to consult a preacher, but now that one had presented itself–that is, himself–"I could stand to talk to a preacher."
He had never sought a moral philosophy; for him it was enough to work out each difficulty as it arose. But this business of cheating folks–how had that happened? The seed of it had been planted in his talks with the boys, he knew, but there was nothing wrong with talking. Nothing wrong either with protecting the town's good character; Emily worried about it enough. He recognized flickeringly that there was a difference between her behavior and his, but having got so far he refused to go farther, like the mule he had been driving. After all, he was not a bad fella, he just went along from day to day doing his best, yet this time things had got mixed up in his mind and were still mixed up. Why? A preacher could sort it out for him.
Only this one, as the lantern revealed beyond the possibility of mistaking, was black. Ben exclaimed despite himself. Only once before in his life had he seen a black preacher. "Oh, sorry"–why was he sorry?–"I didn't know...."
The man stopped a foot from him. "Know what?" After a moment he understood. "That this is a black ministry? It isn't–not altogether. The congregation includes three Salish, two Russians, and the occasional commercial traveler like yourself. I minister to all who have a need." Ben's face was all squints and tics as different feelings moved him one way and another. "But if you'd feel more confident of your prayers being heeded in another church–"
"It's not that. It's...." He had a sudden insight. "You know a Miss Rose Bell?"
"She's one of my congregants."
"Well, I'll be–oh, Reverend, sorry. Reckon you could point me the way to her place?"
"What you want with Miss Bell?" Did he sound mistrustful or only curious? Either way, Ben could not easily tell him the truth. The preacher studied him for a little. "Pardon me, I'm not the one to say, but could it be the Lord guided your steps to this place for a purpose?"
Ben pondered. "It is the only black church I've seen in these parts." That had sounded like an insult. "I didn't mean–"
"Only one in three hundred miles," the preacher said, and then laughed. "Listen to me–talking as if a want of churches was something to brag about."
Ben was still pondering. "You know, if it wasn't for the sign bein' down–"
"Again? I'll see it's put back up."
"No, but if it wasn't for that I'd never have got lost in the first place." He looked toward the colored window. "Only one in three hundred miles. Almost like–"
"Like you weren't lost at all." The preacher nodded. "You can take that for a sign. Whatever you got to tell–and it's plain it's rattling the bars inside you–time you let it out."
"You won't want anything to do with me after you hear it."
"Then I'd best hear it."
They retired out of the wind to the church: a smaller church than Seattle's but somehow more solid, as if it had put out roots. Side by side on a pew, Ben told his story and the preacher listened. When it was done he sat frowning. "You must take me for a pretty ornery fella," Ben said miserably.
"No, sir," the preacher said, "no, sir. What strikes my mind–you'll pardon me for saying so–is what a measly excuse for a sinner you are. Goin' to all the trouble to cheat people, and all you got out of it was a lousy eight bucks! Hardly seems worth the trouble." He did not sound much like Reverend Adams in Seattle. "You offer that up at the gates of Hell thinkin' it'll be your ticket inside and Satan's apt to kick your sorry hindquarters back upstairs. Wouldn't even earn you an overnight stop." He laughed deeply.
Ben had felt his act might be wicked but not insignificant. Now he remembered Emily had said the same. "Don't amount to much, does it?"
The preacher had risen and was pacing with his hands behind him. "Let me ask you this. When you saw this man–Obie Brown?–lyin' dead in the road, were you happy about it? I know you wouldn't tell me." He crooked a finger skyward. "Tell Him. He'll know if it's so."
"No!" said Ben, shocked at the suggestion. "Obie was a fine man."
"Fine man. I see, I see. And you were wanting him run out of town?"
"Not him. Well, not exactly."
"I see. His wife, then–pardon me, his widow. Was it her?"
"No, she's a princess. An honest-to-golly one from Africa."
The preacher scowled. "Not sure I hold with princesses. But then I never met one. Was it her you wanted to be rid of 'cause she don't keep to her place? Is that how it was?"
"No, I told you! She's just folks, once you get to know her."
"What about their neighbors? Low-down kind of people, are they?"
"I hardly know 'em. 'ceptin' Gabe. He's a good fella."
The preacher stopped pacing. "Then I'm confused. Yes, sir, I am mightily confused. Fine man, good fella–and a princess." He ticked them off on his fingers. "You said you wanted to clear out the bad element. Who was that exactly?"
This was beyond Ben's capacity. His mind hurt with the strain of thinking about it. "I don't know. Nobody, I guess."
"That's right!" the preacher said with gusto, pointing at him. "That's exactly right!" He was certainly not like Reverend Adams. "Wasn't nobody at all. Just an idea. Most dangerous thing in the world is an idea with no people in it. And the worst of it is, this one wasn't even yours."
"That's so!" He should have seen it before. "I had nothin' against Obie. I got nothin' against anybody." He felt mortified. "My gosh, Reverend, how'd I get so bad turned around?"
"Son, it's like that sign. Strong enough wind happens along, it can turn it around or knock it down altogether. You have to keep raisin' it back up so it faces the right way."
This advice inspired him to a proposition that would bring home the point and serve the commonweal at the same time. Even with the wind, the two of them should be able to manage it. He took a shovel along and they buried the sign four feet deeper. Only a hurricane could dislodge it now. The preacher invited Ben to sleep over, but though Ben would have been glad of the company–it was almost like talking to Emily–he said he had better get home. She would be anxious, and before seeing her he had to return the mule and the wagon. The preacher regarded their borrowing as doubtful policy but decided to say nothing about it in consideration of the hour and the greater moral lesson just imparted. Ben consigned Miss Bell's packet to his care and he promised to deliver it the next day. Ben left for home, and for Irontown.
Whatever the identities of the small band who were harrying the dwellers there, the patrol had only warded them off for a little. They had retreated to the water's edge north of town and sat there under the moon, waiting.
Someone else sat waiting too, under the trees by the cabins. After the patrollers had separated and most had gone home the blacksmith had circled back to take up watch. He planned to do so all night and every night if need be, sooner than let those men escape. He bore their brand–theirs or their spiritual comrades-in-arms', it made little difference–and bore also the memory of its imprinting. Every time he burned himself, as every smith was used to doing, it recalled the sickening agony of the red iron edge eating into his flesh, into his heart, clear through to his backbone. He had screamed and they had laughed, as they had laughed when they paid off his striker. From that night he had rejoiced every time he heard of a slave uprising. But he had also vowed to himself to do everything in his power to change the moral balance in favor of his people, which included the private satisfaction of hunting down his enemies wherever they showed themselves. Tonight's watch was part of the campaign.
Some time between midnight and dawn the riders descended on Irontown. Their faces were hidden except for the jagged eyeholes cut in the bandanas tied round their heads. They brandished torches whose fiery tops danced in the wind. Till now they had only waved the fire about, content to let the crackling threat of its orange talons speak for itself. But tonight (if it was their doing and not the wind's) they touched off a bush–a burning bush like the one God showed to Moses. The flames lunged sideways, clutched onto a wagon and set it alight, then spread to the nearest porch. All the while the riders paraded back and forth, hooting and screeching behind their masks, the horses squealing in concert.
Men, women, and children ran out of their houses. Rafe was carrying a shotgun. Lucinda shouted a warning at him. The rider who was leading the others had brought out a pistol from under his coat. He had set his sights on Rafe and was close enough to kill, only as he leveled the barrel an axe somersaulted past him so close it sliced through his coat sleeve and carried away a patch of flesh. He cried out, dropped the gun, and fell from his saddle. The axe buried itself in a wall. Lucinda turned to the road from which it had been launched to see a proud black man riding a proud white stallion, both gilded by the fire and silvered by the moon. Even on the stage she had never seen anything like either one. The smoke and the frenzy were spinning round her. She felt herself spinning too.
Ox dropped Christopher at the top of the rise and rode into the clearing. When the stallion shied away from the fire Ox nudged him around it, letting him find his own footing. By instinct he knew the other horses for his enemies. He plunged into the midst of them, squealing and snapping. Ox saw a woman on a porch who looked about to faint. He cantered up and reached out a hand to steady her. She gazed up at their rescuer who had come down like lightning out of the night. "Who are you?" she asked, her breath coming quick.
He started to answer, then stopped and started again. "Bates is the name," he said. "Andrew Evan Bates."
"What good angel brought you?"
He looked back toward Christopher. "Got a report you were having paleface trouble." He grinned. "Came to have a look for myself."
"I'm glad–" she began. But the battle had revived, and Ox (as Christopher still thought of him) was off again. The raiders had been checked by the fall of their leader but now he was back on his feet, although unsteadily, searching for the man who had wounded him. His sleeve was steeped in blood. He spotted the axe in the wall and ran to claim it. Ox goaded the stallion in the same direction with the same purpose. He need not have hurried: the other man could not have dislodged the axe with both arms. Ox drew it out with ease. His adversary saw a smaller one planted in a stump, ran and plucked it out with his good arm, and turned on Ox, who swung out of the saddle to face him and slapped the stallion away, confident he could fend for himself.
By now most of Irontown's residents, with Gabe in charge, were occupied in pumping and heaving bucketfuls of water to fight the blaze. Only Rafe and one other entered the fray. But more allies appeared. A bearded man ran out of the trees wielding an enormous hammer. He swung it into two of the horsemen, knocking them from their seats. Three others dismounted to help them but were stopped by Rafe, who ran at them swinging his gun like a cudgel. A man who had just ridden in, whom Ox knew for a storekeeper, jumped down to stand at Rafe's side. Though he did not show it he had been quite a scrapper in his youth, and his long-disused skill reasserted itself in a rush of righteous wrath. He was joined by two of the Bolt brothers, also just arrived, while the youngest of them ran to help Gabe's party at the pump. The white stallion charged at the enemy horses, now riderless, who jointly mustered the courage to take him on. They were able to dodge his teeth but not, they found, his powerful, surely aimed hindlegs. After a few painful kicks they retreated to the edge of the clearing.
Ox found himself back to back with the bearded man. "Who in blazes are you?" he asked. "I might ask you the same," rejoined the other. They exchanged introductions and shook hands over their shoulders.
One of the intruders was still mounted, and hovering at the outskirts. Christopher saw he was smaller than the others, not much above his own size. The rider circled away as if starting to flee. Christopher ran up and seized his arm. The rider might have been able to strike back had he seen the attack coming but, unprepared, toppled off into the dust. Christopher jumped onto him. His opponent struggled and struck out but Christopher, filled with the heat of battle, outpummeled him easily.
Ox was winning his fight too. A dozen times or more the two men clashed axes, and with each joining of blades the wounded man staggered back farther, his weapon weighing heavier on him, till he saw it beheaded in one fierce sweep. Quailing, he fled toward the gulch. Out of nowhere, as it seemed, the white stallion reared up in front of him. He did not see in it the animal his foe had ridden in; it was the monster of legend, the death horse. He fell back screaming, tumbled into the pit of the valley, and lay still. The Bolts hurried over one at a time, Jeremy first. He skidded down the hill to the body and turned it over. He pulled off the mask, revealing a face none of them had seen before. There was a half-circle cut into the cheek which Jeremy recognized as the mark of a horseshoe.
"The hooves never touched him," said Joshua. "He must have hit a branch."
Jeremy searched the ground. "There is no branch."
The battle was over and the fire was out. Ox had suffered a nick on his hand. Though others had fared as badly, his was the wound Lucinda rushed to tend, wrapping it in one of her scarves. He knew who she was, had heard about her but somehow never gotten around to seeing her before. Well, he had seen her now.
The Bolts bunched the marauders together and ordered them to show their faces. The last to do so was the one Christopher had bested. He looked scarcely older than Christopher. "Anybody know these men?" Jason asked. "Christopher? He a schoolmate of yours?" Christopher shook his head.
"We ain't from here," said the other boy, sounding offended. "We're from Port Madison."
Jason was glad to know they were outsiders. "Heard there were night riders in Port Madison. Suppose that'll be you."
"Shoot, naw." The boy made a noise that might almost have been a laugh. "But they give Jim the idea. In Port Madison we know how to do to folks we don't want."
"Son," Jason said stonily, "so do we."
"He's dead," Joshua informed the boy, with a nod across the road. "Was he your pa?"
The boy accepted the news with seeming ease. "Naw, that was Jim. He was the smart one. He seen after us." Joshua looked around at the ones who had not volunteered speech. Their eyes were dull, their countenances slackly sullen. "It was Jim's idea to ferry over and scare off your coloreds," the boy said. "Do y'all a favor."
Jeremy could not contain his outrage. "You killed a man!"
"Jim never killed him. He tried to unhorse Jim. Jim kicked him down. He never got up. Serve him right for layin' hands on a white man. That was what Jim said. But he never killed him. Only kicked him down. Serve him right."
"Why did you come back?" asked Joshua. "You must have known we'd be looking for you."
"With one dead your coloreds was sure to be scared. We come back to scare 'em some more. It was Jim's idea. He was the smart one. He seen after us."
Joshua looked to Jason, whose expression matched what he was feeling: a compound of anger, pity, and helplessness. "What will you do with them?" asked Jeremy. Jason had no ready answer.
Within the hour he had delivered Ben and Christopher to the women waiting, who nearly collapsed in their relief. The bruises and scratches, the stains on Christopher's clothes–whatever had he been doing?–for once appeared not to worry them. Ben faced Emily shyly. She could tell by looking that his pilgrimage was done. "It's good to have you back," she said.
A tall black man was standing outside. Candy tried to remember where she had seen him before. "Aren't you–"
"Mr. Bates," said Jason. "The man who brought your brother home."
Candy entreated him to come in. The place exhaled a gentility that made him hesitate. He asked if she were sure about that. Christopher, impatient with the whole business, ran out and dragged him in by the arm. "I told you, mister. My sisters and me–we're from New Bedford!"
Ben had one matter of business yet to attend to. Not the window, which had been broken and was being replaced today, for no reason Emily would explain; or the new sign, which he had conceived on the way home and had already painted and nailed up: "A fair price for every customer. If you observe dealings to the contrary, consult the proprietor"; or the introduction of Emily and little Ben to the business; or the restoration of custom, of which he had seen none all morning but for which he felt he had no right to beg.
No, the business he had yet to do involved the two men who staggered in, as he knew they would sooner or later, with the intention of taking up their accustomed seats by the stove. He blocked their way. "Got some things to say to you boys," he began. "First off, I want to thank you for the loan of the mule and wagon. Second, you're welcome to trade here any time you've a mind to. This store is in business to serve everybody–everybody," he emphasized. "But I can't have you two loafing around here any more, being as you're jailbirds and all. Em's going to be working here times and bringing my boy in and–well, it wouldn't be fitting." The boys nodded in doleful agreement. He could have left it at that, but his conscience, now firmly fixed, would not permit it. "Added to which, I just can't go along with your way of thinking. Don't know why I ever took up with you in the first place. You're a pretty sorry pair and that's a fact." They looked grumpy but drifted off without a word. Emily came and kissed him. "You look some pleased," he said, "considering I mighta drove off our only trade."
She smiled. "It's early yet. You'll see."
And by gum if she wasn't right as usual. Soon one of their neighbors stopped in, followed soon after by another, and before he knew it the place was as crowded as it had ever been except at Christmastime. One of the crowd was Raphael, whom Ben was especially happy to see, judging that if he was satisfied everything must be all right. Lottie was there too. She murmured a good morning to Rafe, as if for the second time, and cupped her hand in the cradle of his arm; only for a moment, but one not missed by Emily, who wrinkled her brow and then on further consideration relaxed it. After all, this was her community; hers and Ben's. She went and cupped her hand in his arm.
The two of them were present at Obie Brown's service, along with everybody else who had known him, which encompassed all of Jason's camp and nearly the whole town. It took place on the mountain in the loggers' yard, among the grey slabs that were the last known addresses and only permanent record of his brethren that had gone before. For the eulogy Ben had suggested inviting the preacher from Duwamish (whose name, he subsequently learned to his delight, was the Reverend Benjamin), and the Reverend Adams had also prepared a few words, which he was reluctant to file away in a drawer. So Obie received the distinction, uncommon in his trade, of being eulogized twice. Jason would have made it thrice but chose to respect the temperance of the occasion as befit the honoree.
Lucinda appeared in a black wrap thinly striped in brown and violet, tinged with gold. She led the hymn–that is, what the men of the cloth had expected to be a hymn, perhaps an African one, as her dress promised. Instead she had picked what seemed to her most fitting, Obie's favorite song and, improbably, the thing that had inspired him to take up lumberjacking. The crowd listened intently, the tall coffee-colored man most of all, as she began.
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
The listeners who had smiled at first were swayed by the purity of her voice and the lament it conveyed, not for the tree of the song but for the man who had spent most of his days among trees. She reached out to Joshua, who was standing nearby. He came up, took her hand, and united his voice with hers.
It was my forefather's hand
That placed it near his cot.
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy axe shall harm it not.
Joshua motioned to his younger brother to join them. He knew the lyrics too; everyone who sang at all had learned them at some time. He clasped Joshua's hand and the three sang together.
That old familiar tree,
Whose glory and renown
Are spread o'er land and sea,
And wouldst thou hew it down?
Obie's cousins stepped up and Jason invited himself to link hands with the others, forming a cordon along one side of the pine box.
Woodman, forbear thy stroke
But not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak,
Now towering to the skies!
Next the ministers joined the formation, and after them the others who had known Obie best, each clasping the hand of his neighbor, to make a solid hedge two rows deep around the coffin and the grave.
When but an idle boy
I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
Here too my sisters played.
In escaping from slavery Obie had been parted from his sisters. He had heard later one of them had died in her childbed; the other, he had had no further knowledge of. Tears rolled freely down Lucinda's cheeks and some others', including Jason's.
My mother kissed me here,
My father pressed my hand–
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand!
By now all who knew the song, including Molly and Christopher, were singing in chorus, remembering the man whose favorite it had been and hoping he could hear it. The listening hills echoed it back, bidding their own farewell to the man who had known them.
My heartstrings round thee cling
Close as the bark, old friend.
Here shall the wild bird sing
And still thy branches bend.
The mountainside was their church as they stood beneath its great blue altar, to which their voices rose united in a final release of grief and in hope eternal.
Old tree! The storm still brave!
And, woodman, leave the spot:
While I've a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not.
As the notes died away in their ears they began to disperse. Aaron was always the first to leave any ceremony; this time he found Raphael in step with him. "I'll bring out a crew to help you put your row to rights," he said.
Rafe seemed in an oddly happy mood but was no more agreeable for it. "What makes you think we need your help?"
"You may not," Aaron acknowledged, "but have you considered we might need to give it?"
Rafe looked as if he were considering it, but what he said next was, "I've been meaning to ask you, Stempel–do you like me?"
Aaron stopped and stared at him. "Like you?" Rafe met his stare. Other people were walking into earshot. Aaron hesitated for only a second before answering truthfully. "Not especially, no."
Rafe's face broke out in a smile. "Thank you!" he said. He seized Aaron's hand and shook it vigorously. "And so you know," he added, "the feeling's mutual!" As he walked on, Aaron could not be sure but what he was laughing. After a moment Aaron laughed too. We men of business, he thought, we understand each other.
Ox, as Christopher could not forbear calling him even after Ox told him he was taking the name Bates for good, stayed around longer than intended, performing chores for Lucinda of whose necessity she had lived thitherto unmindful. Sometimes he was assisted by Maclaren, who had taken over the lead from Aaron in setting the place in order. The two talked together, to Lucinda, and occasionally to Christopher, who was there helping too, and out of their conversations and a nostalgia for the limelight Lucinda evolved a plan, which she presented to the men and then to Christopher, who presented it in turn to–
"No!" said Candy. "No, no, no, no, no!" She was speaking to Jeremy this time, having said the same thing to Christopher himself yesterday before supper when he had introduced the proposition and again at bedtime in response to his ceaseless entreaties. This morning he had appealed to Jeremy, who had taken up his cause and was now having a hard time keeping himself out of the orbit of Candy's broom as she swept the porch floor, rather more harshly than it required.
"Candy, if you'll hear him out–"
"He's only a boy!"
"When I was his age–"
"What you may have done or didn't do or got away with or never got around to makes no difference where Christopher is concerned. I'm his sister, and his guardian–"
"And his warden," Jeremy muttered.
"–and I absolutely forbid it!"
"There's a sentiment that does my heart good," said Aaron. He had just arrived from the garden path in company with Jason.
"Tragedy of it is, he's sincere," the latter observed. "What are you absolutely forbidding this time?"
Candy nodded toward the gate. "He can tell you."
Ox was practically ready to leave. The animal formerly known as the death horse (it was as well the council had never passed that ordinance) was waiting outside the fence, loaded with his gear. He was only waiting to say goodbye to a certain woman and in the meantime endeavoring to reconcile his young friend to the necessity (which the friend would not admit) of obeying his sister, whose glance informed Ox he was still out of favor. "There'll be other times," he said consolingly.
In answer to the men's question he unfolded Lucinda's plan. It was for a traveling show, to be composed by herself and taken through the territories the following summer, allowing time beforehand in which to write, carpenter, paint, rehearse, and acquire by some means a magic-lantern device. The program would include slides, songs, dances, recitations, and live tableaux re-creating scenes from history; not just any history but the history of black America. Did they know, Ox asked them (being reasonably sure they did not since he had not known it himself till she had told him), that the second woman ever to publish a book in America had been a former slave whose mistress had taught her to read and (obviously) to write? Did they know that in the same year, 1773, two former slaves had founded the first black Baptist Church, which whites had opposed so strongly it had had to be shut down and one of the men had had to flee to the West Indies? Did they know–
No, they did not, and had not time to hear it all now. Jason warned Ox that if he were not careful he would give away the whole show, and after a long "Ah" of understanding he reverted to general description. The company would consist of four–three, less Christopher, in whose place they would have to find another young man (Christopher aired a moan of protest at this) to work the magic lantern, learn to play the drum, and enact the youthful roles. Ox had received Lucinda's consent to read selections from the life of Mr. Douglass. Maclaren would essay the slaveholding characters and (because of his beard) Mr. Lincoln, and would be useful in keeping order when needed. Lucinda–what would Lucinda not do? The plan, the men could see, had been worked out in considerable detail.
"Isn't it the hare-brainedest scheme you ever heard?" Candy asked as she and Jeremy joined the assembly.
"Well...." they answered in the same breath, and stared in surprise at each other. Neither wished to be the first to contradict her, but taking turns between them, they offered the view, unspooling it little by little, that Christopher was getting to be of an age and was due for some broadening, a chance to experience life outside the family circle, and a bit of adventuring–the last being a thought of Jason's. "Sounds a grand idea," he concluded.
"I hate to agree with Jason so early in the day–"
"It's not early at all," said Candy.
"My point. But I must say I'm of his mind in this."
"Told you," said Jeremy.
"Hush." She tried to adjust her attitude to the unexpected consensus. "You don't think it'll be too dangerous?"
Offered an opening, they all rushed in on her at once. Not dangerous at all; the men would look out for him; Captain Clancey would provision them regularly, look in on him, report on his welfare, carry letters back and forth; and after all, it would only be for the summer. "Well," Candy said in the end, "I suppose...." Christopher let out a whoop. The others smiled.
Aaron's smile was fainter than the rest and disappeared quickly. He asked Ox if he and Jason might have a word with him, obviously meaning a word apart. They moved to a corner of the fence. The two white men looked uncomfortable. Ox wondered if they had bad news for him. "Has something happened to Lucinda?"
"Nothing like that," Aaron said and, having begun, proceeded. "It's about the men in custody. We, Jason and I, are inclined to–well, to let them go."
Ox stared at him impassively. Aaron was doubtful of what to say next. Jason stepped in. "They're practically children. One of them is a child. And as ornery a lot as ever drew breath, but not killers or barn burners, only ignorant and easy led. The man who brought them to this is serving his sentence already."
Ox's face still betrayed nothing of what he was feeling. The next part, they would as soon have passed over, but it was the most important. "There's something else," Aaron said. "He was from Port Madison. And there are night riders in Port Madison. If your part in this were to come out, things could get unpleasant. Not only for you." He nodded toward the street, where Lucinda was approaching. "I'll tell the judge he was frightened by a horse, which is true enough. Jason can bluff the others into keeping quiet–well, can't you?" he said, to the objection Jason was about to make. "No one's likely to take notice of what they say anyhow."
Ox smiled, but the smile was unreadable too. "Sounds like you have it all decided. Why ask me?"
"It's not primarily our concern," Jason said. "It was your fight. It's your call."
More hers than mine, Ox thought; and how would she answer? He regarded her for a few moments and said finally, "Mr. Douglass writes about times when no justice was done. This time there was–some. Best leave it at that."
The others shook his hand. He noticed that their breathing had relaxed. Well, they had a whole town to look after. He had only himself–for the present, but maybe in another year or two....
Lucinda was nearly at the foot of the street. He resolved to meet her. He returned to his horse and climbed–for him it was more like stepping–into the saddle. Before he knew it Christopher was at his side. Unsure of which name to use, he rendered both together. "Mr. B–Ox! You're not leaving already?"
Mr. Box leaned down and shook his hand. "So long, New Bedford. Be back for you come summer."
With that he reined about so abruptly he sent Christopher skittering to the fence, reined back a few yards, and took off at a gallop amid a salvo of dust (it was very well the council had not passed that ordinance). The others watched through the haze. From the trajectory of his ride it looked as if he were set on running Lucinda down. She had stopped in front of the barber shop and stood there waiting: the princess awaiting her knight-at-arms. He was riding taut in the saddle, his steed's nostrils flaring and huffing as he kicked him on, the princess stepped up onto the bench as if by arrangement, and then–how it was done exactly none of them could ever say but he was very tall and she was a dancer–she stepped out into the air unsupported but did not fall, for on the instant he caught her up and swung her onto the saddle in front of him, and his arm held her there and hers clung to his as she turned her head and gazed up at his strong, kind face the color of coffee.
The watchers at the fence applauded–all but Jason, who stood as if pole-axed. "Why, that–that–" He shook his head clear and looked around at the others. "Did you see what he did? Swept her right off her feet like–like–I never saw the like. Did you see, everybody?" Unexpectedly then Aaron began laughing. "What's so funny?" Jason asked. This only made Aaron laugh harder; harder than any of the others had heard him laugh before. First one and eventually all of them found themselves moved to join him. "What's so funny?" Jason repeated. They could not stop laughing long enough to tell him, and if they could have they could not have said. All holy innocence, the man from the mountain stared at the lot of them.
"Blame it, will somebody tell me what's so funny?"
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