Canaan's Tongue (20 page)

IV

He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion
of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and
walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because darkness
hath blinded his eyes.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.

—1 John, 2:10–11, 5:21

Geburah Plantation, 1863

OUT FROM THE GREAT HOUSE, Parson says. Into the oaks. Virgil is gone from us. Virgil, the most inquisitive, the most tender. Rebellious Virgil. Sent to fetch the mulatto, Virgil has instead gone promenading. The three of us watch him from Harvey’s window, entering the orchard, the mulatto at his side. The beautiful mulatto. The three of us sit and watch and bide, with only Harvey’s whitening corpse for company.

The Colonel is for following them, placing them under house-arrest, discovering what they know. Kennedy is for killing them both at once. Poor dead Harvey is forgotten.

What are
you
for, Parson? asks the Colonel.

I keep my face close to the window. Me, Colonel? I answer. I smile at him. I’m for leaving well enough alone.

A Gun-Fight.

I OUGHT TO HAVE LEFT WELL ENOUGH ALONE, Virgil says. That strange and consequence-less night, the night of the Redeemer’s murder, is bright in my mind as Delamare and I take our promenade. Since we found Harvey dead, Morelle has never left my thoughts. I should be locked in the smoke-house at this very moment, awaiting my hanging-trail for Harvey’s murder—: everyone knows what I did to Morelle. Somehow, however, I remain at liberty. It’s as if they’ve forgotten what I did, Parson and Kennedy and the Colonel—: forgotten it, or dismissed it out of hand. It’s Delamare they want. I’m a Jack Fetchit to them, nothing more. Of interest only as an errand-boy.

It’s enough to bruise my sense of dignity.

“Fetch the mulatto,” the Colonel told me, and I went. I went happily. The sight of the three of them licking their chops over Harvey’s left-overs was beginning to affect me. They were altogether too pleased to have him laid out like a cat-fish at their feet. It was beginning to put ideas into their heads.

Instead of fetching the mulatto as I was told to do, however, I’ve taken the mulatto on a stroll. The fact of it makes me feel dangerous and sly.

Delamare moves sullenly, fingers working in his pockets. “They all want me under-ground,” he mutters, glowering at his shoes. “I’ve come too far in this business for a nigger. They’ll hang Harvey on me, you can bet.”

“You didn’t kill anybody, Oliver,” I say, passing my arm through his. “Poison—even coyote poison—wouldn’t suit your temperament.”

We stand together by the orchard gate, at the head of the path snaking down to the river. On less adventurous mornings the gate marks the end-point of our stroll—; today, however, Delamare is feeling restless. Watching him worry at the gravel with his boot-heel I make a guess, more or less idly, as to this morning’s destination. The cedar park, peradventure, or out to the property line? Farther still, to the old shanty-town? Delamare leans to one side and looks me over, itching to ask about the Colonel.

The shanty-town today, I think.

“I did it, Virgil. By Old Wheezy’s reckoning, at least. Why else would he send you out to fetch me?”

“I wouldn’t say you’re the
chief
suspect,” I say, pushing open the gate. I wouldn’t say it, but of course he is. It’s Delamare they want.

“Of course I am,” he says. “Who’ll they hang it on instead?”

I hesitate. “Parson left his room last night. The Colonel and I both heard him. Some words were passed between the Colonel and Parson. Funny looks.”

“Ha! I don’t doubt
that.
”

“And Kennedy seemed more bilious than usual.”

“Kennedy,” Delamare says, looking out at the river. “One day I’ll be chief suspect in
his
retirement. I’ll say that much.”

“Then there’s me, of course.” I pause a moment. “I found the body.”

“That’s right, Virgil—; there’s you,” Delamare says fondly. “Shall we walk on?”

I’m a trained bear to all of them, even to Delamare, who knows me best—: trained and coffled to a stump. Though I stuffed the Redeemer’s body down the privy and relieved myself on his remains (and this in full sight of Dodds, the house-boy), I’m not thought capable of murder. I was the Redeemer’s opera-glass, his faro-chip, his marble—; and so shall I remain, in the eyes of my associates, forever.

“Where to?” I say, pulling the gate closed after us.

Delamare is already sashaying down the bluff. “I thought possibly the shanty-town,” he says. “I’m in no hurry to have my head picked by that old horse-buggerer.”

The path to the shanty-town winds down from Geburah through clusters of holly and smoke-bush—: malnourished, anemic-looking trees barely able to make shade. In better days it was a proper road, wide enough for a hitched team of oxen to travel on in comfort. Now we walk in single-file. Storm and high water have swept away all traces of humanity but this narrow groove of earth. The country here feels little tenderness toward posterity.

When the town shambles into view it comes as a disappointment, even a shock, as though the current has left its work unfinished. Each time we take this walk I nurture the hope that the huddle of ugly, bow-backed shacks will have been swept away at last. Finding it there time and again, at ease in its pocket of quiet, is enough to make a man lose confidence in the river.

“This was a Choctaw settlement,” Delamare says, leaning against the door of one of the less decrepit shacks. “The darkies put the natives off—; then the Yankees drove the darkies away.” He smiles. “
Coaxed
them away, I suppose.”

I duck into a shack I’ve not been inside of yet. This theme has long since become familiar to me from our walks, and I no longer credit it. Anyone can see these shacks have been empty for years, since well before the Union came snaking up-river from the Gulf. I feel a momentary urge to poke at Delamare’s self-assurance—; against my better judgment, I give in to it.

“They didn’t have to coax them too hard, Oliver, it seems to me.”

Delamare’s head appears in a window-frame with the morning light behind it. His silhouette, topped by its wide-brimmed planter’s hat, is that of the finest Southern gentleman—: as always, President Davis comes to mind. “What would
you
know about it, Virgil Ball?” he says.

The answer I give has a natural, plantation-bred obsequiousness to it that Delamare—whether he’d admit it or not—is grateful for. I taught myself this voice for dealing with men of property up and down the river, but it works on him better still. “Not
much,
Mr. Delamare, I guess.”

His face disappears from the window. I find him crouched by a scattering of ash and food-tins, picking through them like a relic-seeker. “Did your Choctaw eat salted okra?” I say, taking up a tin.

He stares raptly at the ground. “This is a recent fire, Virgil.”

A moment passes before I take his meaning. “What of it? This has been a fishing-hole for ages. You can’t expect the local boys to leave off—”

“This country’s been lousy with blue-coats for over a month,” Delamare says, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You know that as well as anybody. Now shut your mouth!”

He’s right, of course. “I’m sorry, Oliver,” I say quietly. “You must think me quite the innocent.”

Delamare squints at me an instant longer, then shakes his head. “I don’t suppose you are,” he says. He takes the tin from my hand and sniffs at it. “Do you have no fear they’ll catch us?”

“Oh! They’ll catch us, Oliver.”

“And that doesn’t put you out of sorts?”

“The certainty of it has a calming effect,” I say. “You might try it yourself. It does wonders for the liver.”

“Not in my nature, I’m afraid,” Delamare says, allowing himself to smile. “In point of fact—”

Just then a rustling drops down on us from the trees and two men come into view, framed picturesquely against the slope, scrambling with all possible speed up-hill. Delamare is on his feet at once. “You! Boys!” he calls out in a leisurely voice, as though the confirmation of his fears had immediately quieted them.

The two men are clothed neither in freed-men’s rags nor in the sack-cloth britches of the boys from town. They are grown men in open white shirts and trousers of Union blue, and their arms and necks where they emerge from the cotton are the color of fresh-turned soil. Their arms jerk in unison as they make for the cover of the pines.

“Those are your people up there, Oliver,” I say, moving to stay Delamare’s hand.

But his Sam Colt Peacemaker is already out and leveled. “They’ll never know it,” he says, and fires three shots in the western style, his left palm fanning back the hammer. The lower of the two figures stumbles as they pass into the trees. Then all is quiet and bright.

We take cover behind the nearest shack, harkening for any sound above the river and the breeze. “You’ve buried us, Oliver,” I say at last.

Delamare grunts. “I have no sympathy for turn-coat niggers.”

“They had no idea who we were, damn you! Not the slightest notion.”

He puts his repeater by. “They moved as if they did.”

“A couple of scullery-boys to the infantry, that’s all. Most likely we caught them after a dip.” I curse him under my breath. “Now we’re partisans.”

Delamare privileges me with a look of serene contempt. “Some of us always
have
been, Mr. Ball.”

I brush this grotesque utterance aside. “Think what you like. If we’d let them run—”

“
If
we’d let them run
we’d have been something less than men,” Delamare says, the blood rushing to his face. “Don’t confuse my role in this back-water comedy of errors with your own. I suffer invasion no more calmly than the next Confederate.”

“The next Confederate won’t be
hanged
by his country-men on sight, you blessed ass. There’s a price on your head, Oliver. You don’t have the luxury of playing Jefferson Davis any longer.”

Delamare regards me dully for a time. When at last he speaks his voice, normally so sovereign and mild, is greatly changed. All at once I remember that I’m in the company of a nineteen-year-old boy.

“I don’t believe you’ve talked to me that way before, Virgil,” he says. “I was unaware, in fact, that you spoke that way to anyone.” The repeater hangs slackly at his side—; his hand clenches and unclenches on its grip. “I must tell you it may jeopardize our understanding.”

“You’ve most likely just doomed us all with that damn fire-cracker of yours,” I answer, passing a hand over my eyes. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t remain in character.”

“Of course, Virgil! Naturally.” Delamare starts back up the path, to all appearances satisfied with my reply. As I come alongside of him, however, I see that he is knitting his brow together and slapping the barrel of the repeater lightly against his thigh. His face has taken on that expression of noble worry which has served him so well since his adoption by the Trade.

“Have I endangered your cause in the interest of my own, Virgil?” he says finally. “I apologize. But I thought you’d reconciled yourself to the inevitable.”

A sigh escapes me. “I thought so, too.”

He smiles. “But now you’re not so sure?”

“The end will come soon enough, I reckon.” I look up the bluff toward Geburah. “It came for Goodman Harvey just this morning.”

“Goodman Harvey,” Delamare says thoughtfully, pursing his lips. “It’s no wonder someone ran out of charity for that little sniveler.” He coughs softly into his sleeve. “I nominate Kennedy. He’s easily the most murderous of our bunch.”

“He’d like to murder
you,
Oliver. That’s sure.”

“I know it well. It’s the Confederate in me.”

“It’s the nigger in you,” I say softly.

Delamare slows a moment, cocks one eye at me, then lets out a melancholy laugh. It’s a dangerous thing to call attention to his delusions—; but I’ve become a practiced hand at it.

“Oh! I know
that
much, Virgil,” he says good-naturedly. “But it’s not as simple as you think. Were I not aware of my birth-right as the son of a Dumaine Street gentleman, fully and
indefatigably
aware of it—; were I a lazy, whip-scared niggra boy, Kennedy wouldn’t hate me half as much.”

I mull this over. “It doesn’t help your case, I grant.”

“It’s the Southerner in me, first and foremost, that old Stutter hates. That’s why I take such comfort in his loathing.” He rubs his hands together. “Now! What other irredeemable whore-son might we hang it on?”

“Well—”

His voice goes grave. “Not Miss Clementine, I hope?”

No sooner has he said this than my sight grows dim and the ground begins to shudder under me. I know what is going to happen next and feel no terror or surprise, only a mute excitement. An instant later a wheel of transparent fire rolls up the path, still steaming and sputtering from the river. It stops less than a pace from us, near enough that I can feel its heat. The wheel turns silently in place, then slips into the gap between our bodies, resolving before my eyes into a quivering, weeping, scintillating heart.

I should have known that the mention of Clem’s name would bring on a sign. My eyes begin to water from the beauty of it. The second fire-sign of the day—: this night will end in violence as sure as I’m alive.

“No. Not Clementine,” I say.

The wheel sheds a last fiery tear and rolls off into the trees. Delamare grins at me. “Of course
you
wouldn’t think to blame her, Virgil. You revere her, after all. But Clementine has her natural share of cunning—; all accomplished doxies do.”

If there is malice in this utterance I choose to overlook it.

“Perhaps it was the Colonel himself,” I offer.

“Poison doesn’t suit old D’Ancourt’s character, either—; but I defer to you, of course, being your junior in years.”

Delamare’s bravado has returned to him completely—; the two colored soldiers have been cast aside like corn-husks. Has he decided, then, that his act will have no consequences? It seems as if he has.

He watches me covertly as we walk. Some queer look must have crossed my face, for he says very softly—: “I’ve no further interest in your Clementine, Virgil. I give you my word.”

I keep my balance admirably. “What interest did you ever have in her, sirrah? I’d thought you were the son of a Dumaine Street gentleman.”

But Delamare will not be swayed. “The love of a man for a woman, Virgil, is not to be made light of. I know this, vain and selfish as I am. I won’t trifle with it twice.” He sighs. “There’s little enough to approve of in this nest of vipers.”

“I wasn’t aware, Mr. Delamare, that you had trifled
once,
” I say.

Delamare flinches at this—: an honest flinch. “I must tell you, Virgil, that she courted me,” he says. His steady brown eyes do not waver.

The sky behind Delamare pales momentarily. I make a great effort, tuck my hands into my pockets, and manage to return his friendly look. “When was it?”

“This Thursday last.” He frowns. “I don’t pretend to know what sport she’s having with you, Virgil. I do own that it surpasses cruel.”