Beautiful Dreamer (9 page)

He decided on the bridge because he couldn't think what else to do. If he kept on going, they would catch him for sure, slowed down as he was and with no one to help him now. Whatever the danger, the railroad was the only way out. Even granted that they were up there waiting for him, it was better to go that way where there was still some chance, no matter how small, than that other where there was none at all, except just keeping ahead of them for a few more hours, running yourself ragged like a deer that knows no better, that doesn't know it makes no difference how long you run because the dogs will get you and a bullet can move faster than you run. He had been told once. Fire a rifle parallel to the ground and the bullet will hit the ground a mile off before the shell case hits it by your feet. That's how inevitable a bullet is. You don't get to dodge them, like in the movies.

The bushes gave way to trees which cut down on the cover but made it easier to move. The land was sloping up already and he had to keep in mind where the bridge was, now that it was out of sight. Also, he was beginning to feel his shoulder. As he moved, so he heated up and was glad the round had gone clean through or he might have lost the shoulder out here where there was no one to treat it. And as he thought that, he realized that he was thinking of surviving. With the warmth came the pain, but with the pain came a new confidence. They might be cunning but they weren't over-bright. And perhaps they had had no time for the dogs. They had come so fast that maybe there was just the men themselves, or even just the one of them. After all, the two at his home had had no dogs. So maybe there was just the one, come on ahead, confident he could track them, taking a chance on where he was heading and swinging ahead as he would have done if he hadn't had to keep out of sight.

It was steeper than he had thought and the cold had left him numb. His skin had started to pink up. He was maybe halfway up when he looked back where he had come, looked back to the river and saw the bank just beyond where he had got out himself. And it seemed to him, suddenly, that there was something there, lying like a slug maybe, where the bushes thinned. He tried to make out what it might be, knowing already what it was. He had missed him because of the bushes, because he hadn't wanted to take time to look around. But it was him all right, the boy, lying there, dead maybe, dead for a certainty because if it was a miracle that he could have walked away, it would have been a double miracle for them both to have walked away, baptized and risen again.

And now he stood there, not knowing what he should do. Time was everything. If he could reach the bridge before they did, not knowing how far he had come or how long ago they had watched him fly through the air into a river they maybe thought had drowned him, maybe there was still a chance. Thing was, he didn't know how long he had. Then that thought caught up with him. Why would they think he had survived? The river was as wild as he had seen it. The storm had swollen it so it looked alive, and they had seen him take the bullet. Maybe they would reckon him dead, call it evens, be on their way. He knew right away it was false. They would need to see the body, need to carry it back to show they had done what they set out to do. There was no getting away from them as easy as that.

To go back for the boy would be suicide. His one hope was to make for the railroad. And besides, he was dead, or looked such just lying there. But he had lain there himself and here he was on a hillside and hurting like hell. He stood, undecided, knowing deep down what he was going to do but having no reason for doing it. What was the point? Why would he do that? And then he was descending, as he knew he would, heading back to the last place he should have gone, down toward the river where they would be looking for him if they weren't waiting for him up above, if they weren't watching him even now and lining up their sights to finish the job. Even so, he went on down, walking easier going down. He came to the bushes and crouched, though it wouldn't do any good because the boy was out in the open. Even so, he crouched as if he were an Indian tracker, until he came to where the scrub died back and the boy lay limp on the ground.

The first thing he did was to take hold of him with his good hand and drag him back into the bushes. Time enough to see if he was dead when they weren't out there where they would be dead in a second if there was anyone to see. He pulled him face down, his legs digging two trenches in the soft mud, trenches that might be seen from above, though who would have known them for what they were, trenches dug by the feet of a dead boy? Except he wasn't dead, or not quite, it seemed. He flipped him over on to his back and knelt down beside him as if offering a prayer.

His eyes were closed and his neck seemed to flop over when he turned him, like a hen caught for the pot. He was unsure how to tell whether life had left him or not, whether he had breathed in the cold water so that his veins were full of death. He crouched down and put a finger on his neck, not knowing where to feel, not knowing whether the faint pulse he felt was in his finger or the boy's body. He leaned forward, putting his wrong hand to the ground and pulling back suddenly, hugging the hand to him as though it were a baby to be comforted. Then he leaned forwards again, his ear to the boy's mouth, as if he could hear anything as quiet as a breath with the river running by. Then something welled up in his own throat, a kind of smothering feeling of urgency. He knelt up again and put both hands underneath, easing him over, despite the pain that shot through hand, chest and shoulder. He turned his face so that it was no longer staring down into the earth's core, and sat astride him, pushing down with both hands, though one hand felt like fire and the bruise of his broken ribs pressed into him with each downward pressure. He had seen it done before, not done it himself but watched as they tried to bring a child back to life in the Fishers' pond, pressing down as though they were pushing it into its grave, as well they might have been since that was where it went the following day. He pressed down and watched the lips to see if the water would vomit up. And after a while that was what it did, like a pump lifting water from the still, black depths. But still no sign of life. He flipped him over and thumped him with his good hand, thumped him hard between the shoulder blades and then again, lower.

When a minute or three or four had gone by, he slid his hands underneath again and turned him so that he was on his back again. Then he leaned forward and put his mouth over the boy's mouth, his white mouth over the black mouth, to breathe his own life into the boy as if sharing might redeem him, though if asked he could not have said why he chose to share in this way. He breathed in and then lifted away, looking for a spark, listening for a sound. And at last one came, a sudden cough, an ooze of water and then another choke that seemed to start him into life like a truck teased into going when all thought it broken for ever.

And could he have done such a thing for his wife? The thought came to him even now, as he knelt in the mud by the side of a river, his mouth wet with a nigger's spittle. Could he have brought her back as he had this boy, taken the long sigh that ended her life and sighed it back into her so that his life would have been different and the world maybe, too? Why hadn't he thought to do it then? But the thought was gone in an instant, faded back into that dull regret where he stored everything he couldn't use but that wouldn't leave him alone until he found somewhere for it to go.

He lifted his leg back over him, easing away so that the boy would not know what he had done, waiting for him to open his eyes, confident, now, that he would do so, as he did, staring up into the blue sky and then letting his head fall to the side so that he could see the man who had brought him back to life, though he wouldn't know that was what he had done, neither then nor later, but simply imagine he had come to at last after crawling from the water he had no memory of entering until, after a moment or so more, he did feel again the shock of the cold and the old man's hands around him, pulling him down.

‘We got to shift,' said the man, bending toward him as though sharing a secret. ‘They still around. We got to be going.' He could see, though, that he would have to give him time, so he sat beside him and looked up at the hillside, watching for a flash of light or a sudden movement. He sat beside him until the boy's choking ended and he saw that his eyes had cleared.

They stood up, the boy and the man, the boy less steadily than the man, and began to retrace the steps the man had taken before he stopped and went back for the boy who was dead. Again the ground lifted away from them so that they had to lean into it, neither of them fit for it now, having been battered against rocks and shown the gates of glory. They climbed, none the less, aching and pained, the boy damaged now, as the man had been, and both plunged into the same purging water.

The trees thinned out a little toward the top, so that there was no real cover once they had broken the skyline. Speed mattered more than anything, because once they were seen, there was nothing to be done. The man said nothing, figuring the boy was bright enough to understand the state of things, and they struggled side by side until at last they stepped out on to the edge of the railroad track where it shot out into space across the river. There was no one there. Not that he had expected them to be standing in view. They would be back in the trees, sighting along their rifles.

He pulled the boy back.

‘Lie down. We got to wait till a freight comes along. Then we got to get on board. Only one chance, and me with an arm that's useless.'

It was no more than the truth, because how was he going to pull himself up and on to a wagon or into a box car with only one good arm? But thinking about it did no good. Some things you did when the time came because there was nothing else to do. Even so, he could see the difficulty of it and somehow speaking it aloud made it seem more real.

He wanted to edge out and lay his head on the line to see if he could hear the engine off in the distance, rumbling toward him, wheels turning, bearing down on the line; but it was too big a chance. Suppose the men weren't there before but were there now? How could it be worth the risk? To tell the truth, he was surprised they weren't there already, hitting him again with another round. But maybe that was the point. To watch him try and fail, or pick him off as he ran like a fool, imagining he could get away, him and the boy who they would like to get as much as him. More, even.

The heat was up and the air like molasses. It was an effort just to breathe in and out. The track itself was laid on white granite chips that dazzled and reflected so that the world seemed to waver and jump. He glanced across at the boy, who looked exhausted. He was the one that got hit. On the other hand, the boy got pulled back from the other side and that must have taken it out of him, he figured. Take the shine off the shine.

Then, in the distance, came a mournful cry, like a wolf crying for its mate. It was a train climbing the gradient, where the hill fell away toward the south. By the time it came to them, it would be going slow enough to get on board, if the boy had got his strength up and if his arm held out, as he doubted it would. He had fixed his mind on the train as the way out for them both, but it had been no more than an idea. Even the sound of it climbing the hill and a twanging from the rails as if it spoke to them didn't make it real enough to know he could make it. He nudged the boy.

‘Wait till it level and then run beside it. Match your speed to it. You won't get but one chance. Odds are, the box cars will be closed, so try for the wagons. Make sure before you jump or you'll lose your legs. Don't care nothing about them others. They's there or they's not and ain't nothing neither you nor me can do about that. Our job is to climb aboard. And if you make it and I don't, you keep on going. Don't think nothing of me. Keep on going as long as you can. Put some space between this place and you. Ain't nothing for you here no more. Ain't nothing for me, neither.'

The words spilled out as though they had been stored away, cascaded like water down a mountainside. And as he said it, so the truth of it came home to him for the first time. When he had left the cabin, he had thought that was the end. Now he realized he had been hanging on to something, just the same, though he couldn't say what that could be, except, perhaps, two graves that might open again on Judgement Day, the Judgement Day in which he was sure he did not believe. But the sight of the railroad lines and the sound of the engine closing in on him told him it was over. Telling the boy did it, too. He spoke to the boy, but he was speaking to himself.

The train swung into sight, the cow catcher on the engine like a splayed hand. It rocked from side to side under the effort of climbing the hill. It must have a long load, he thought, glad that he would have time to get on board if he could only manage it, feeling as he did, with a boy just wrung out from drowning. It pulled toward him, sun flashing on the windows of the engineer's cab as if they were eyes, searching him out. The whistle blew again, rising and falling, fading away like a memory. The road bed seemed narrow, suddenly, where he would have to run alongside, and, though he felt a surge of energy, his body preparing for what was to come, he knew, too, just how weak he was. So he was sure he knew he could never make it, the train rocking from side to side as it did like a ship at sea or a sailor on land. It closed on him, looking slow enough from where he was, head on or slightly to the side, shifting itself on the tracks as if it might leave them, roll right on over him where he lay. The clang of metal on metal receded into the distance, passed down the length of the train, like a message. Then it was beside him, looking large, towering above him. They were crouching down lest they be seen, close to the ground, hands flat on the granite chips. He had heard stories of men being beaten by conductors, tossed off if they made it or just as they tried, falling, sometimes, under the wheels, legs severed, hands sliced off. All this as he prepared. All this as the engine passed and the first of the wagons, hard iron on hard iron, and a breeze, suddenly, raising the dust. He wanted to lay there for ever, head down, eyes fast shut, telling himself he could stay where he was, knowing that if he did, it would be his grave. But then he was on his feet and tugging at the boy, feeling his weight at first, pulling him along, then letting go, and they were running. They had no more than two hundred feet or so before the track narrowed to take the bridge, narrowed so that there was no place to run but into the tangle of girders and struts, that or down again into the rushing cold of the river below and even that near impossible to do.