Canaan's Tongue (24 page)

For some minutes he tried, as if slightly pain’d, to check the hubbub in the
hall. Then, in a low voice, hesitantly at first, he embark’d on what sounded
more like a lecture in history than a political speech, let alone a sermon. This
departed even further from the bellowing, whiskey-swilling charlatan I’d
imagined. At no point did he allow the high spirits of the gathering to tempt
him away from his sober tone; in time, out of simple curiosity, nearly everyone
in the Grange had quieted enough to hear him. And in fact the Child grew
more & more bewitching with every word he spoke.

I’ve often asked myself, in the course of the unquiet years that followed—
what was it I found so remarkable in Myrell’s performance that August night
in Onadee? Certainly not the substance of his sermon. He was expressing
anxiety about the future of white settlers in the Territories—no more than that.
Gradually, now, his shyness disappear’d; at times his voice grew strident. He
spoke urgently & quickly. The mood he cast over the revelers was heady & violent,& went far deeper than the speech itself; try as I might, I can’t recall a
single word of it.

But if I can no longer remember specific words, or even clear ideas—I was
soon to learn that the fate of the Territories was of less importance to him than
a wart on a nigger’s heel—I recollect the emotions which fought for dominion
over my heart with a vividness born of a lifetime spent under their sway. Our
tentative beginnings, the Child explained—our scattering of farms & stores
& grain depots & churches—had been built on the very edge of an abyss.
What gave the white settler his dignity was not the greatness of his holdings,
or the respect of his neighbors, but first & foremost his independence; and this
independence, it seem’d, was menaced from all sides. If the hordes of rogue
Sioux & Cherokee did not roll down from the west in a mighty purging tide,
then the corrupt nation at our backs, with its Federalists, its Pluralists &—
worst of all—its Abolitionists, would suck our independence from us like rainwater from a gourd.

What the Child of the New West preached—twenty years before the
fact—was nothing less than secession from the Union. The fact that Arkansas
& Kansas, not to mention Oklahoma, had not even been granted statehood yet
was of little interest to him, or to anyone else that night; by the close of his
speech it was certainly of no interest to me. As he stepped back from the lectern
with a sti f little bow & the brass donation-trays began to circulate through
the hall, my sole desire was to speak with the Child in private.

Once the show was over, the Grange emptied from one moment to the
next; the bulk of the crowd simply cross’d the muddy street to the nearest of
Onadee’s seventeen saloons. A small clot of admirers remain’d to the left of the
stage, forming a ring one-to-two-men deep, through which I caught glimpses
of the Child’s well-groomed head. Wallace was among the men, & I took my
place beside him. My plan was to wait until the group thinned out somewhat—the Child was reputed to lodge and dine alone. There should be ample
time, later in the evening, for a thorough exchange of views.

I can’t help but marvel, even now, at my boldness on that apocalyptic
evening—it would have served me better on countless others. And yet I understand full well why I acted as I did. I needed the attention of the Child; not to
get it was unthinkable. Surprising is only that my gambit worked. But perhapseven that, on reflection, is not so unlikely—my desperation was all the
calling-card I needed.

Within a few short minutes only myself, Wallace, & another man—an
Irishman—remain’d beside the Child. What had begun as a political debate
had taken on an agreeably informal flavor, as though we were attorneys-at-lawrelaxing after a trial. Wallace, in particular, affected a familiarity with
the Child which took me quite aback.

“I’ve brought some new blood, Mr. Myrell, as you can see.”

The Child seem’d to take my measure for the first time. “Duly noted,
Mr. Wallace.” He squinted up into my face. “Help out at the depot, do you,
Mr.—?”

“Harvey,” I said hurriedly, cursing my flusteredness. “I have my own
small enterprise, sir.”

“Oh?”

“In the spirit of the Territories,” I added, giving a crooked little smile.

The Child raised an eye-brow very slightly. “Is that so? You didn’t mentionthat to me, Mr. Wallace.”

The blood rush’d to my face. When had Wallace been telling the Child
about me? It could only have been before I’d join’d the circle. What on earth
could he have seen fit to relate? It was all I could do to keep from moaning
aloud.

“Mr. Wallace thinks little of my work, & rightly so,” I put in, as casually
as I could. “I sell tonics to the Indians.”

To my surprise the Child responded with amicable curiosity. “Is that so?
Which tribes?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, Kickapoo . . .”

“Thirsty devils, the lot of them,” Wallace put in sagely.

But the Child didn’t seem to notice Wallace any longer. “You make your
living off the tribes, Mr. Harvey, & yet you come to hear me speak?”

I had no idea how to answer him. “This is the first speech of yours I’ve
been to, sir. I had no idea—”

He laugh’d at this & I flushed redder than before. He was only having
sport with me after all. “Well, Doctor!” he said, striking an academic pose.
“What was your opinion of my lecture, as a man of science?”

The desire to please him fill’d me like the need to piss. “I thought it was
splendid, sir! Miraculous!”

I could see, in spite of his ironic air, that this pleased him mightily. “Hear
that, Kennedy? Some of these beer-swillers recognize the future when it’s fed
to them.”

“Some of them’s idjits,” the Irishman said, looking at me sideways.

“Nonsense!” the Child retorted. “Mr. Harvey is just the type we’re looking for. Just the very type.”

“I thought so myself,” Wallace put in happily.

The spell of quiet that follow’d, in which each of the three men appraised
me in silence, pass’d with a measuredness that drove me half out of my wits. I
felt so hungry for some further sign of their approval that I all but bit my
tongue in quarters. Was their only aim to torture me? Could they not see my
distress? Or could it be, perhaps, that it brought them amusement?

“Well!” the Child said abruptly, taking up his hat. “The time’s come
for us to repair to Costello’s rooming-house. I’ve a need of putting up my
feet.”

Instantly Wallace’s expression changed to one of pure servility. “Of course,
sir. Naturally. You’ll be needing your rest. Come along, Harvey.” He gave a
nod to Kennedy, whose face remain’d slack, & took me by the sleeve.

“I’d like young Harvey to stay behind,” the Child said, looking at Wallace
with the faintest suggestion of a smile.

For the span of a few seconds Wallace stared back at him in confusion. “Of
course,” he said at last, in the dullest tone of voice imaginable. Clearly he himself had never been vouchsafed such a privilege.

“& there’s one other matter, no more than a trifle.” The Child paused a
moment. “Have you taken to wearing your hat differently than before?”

Wallace’s face went duller still, if possible. “My hat?”

“The angle of it concerns me.”

“The angle, sir?” Wallace said. His lips barely flutter’d.

“Don’t wear your hat cocked down over your eye, sirrah, or thrust back
upon your head. One style is rowdyish; the other is plainly rustic.”

Wallace said nothing to this, looking back and forth between my own hat,
which was tipped back considerably, & Kennedy’s, which hid his pink eyes altogether. Finally he managed to give a nod.

“Good-night, then, Mr. Wallace, & god-speed. We’ll be seeing you
tomorrow. . . ?”

“You will, sir,” Wallace answer’d, but I fancied I saw something more
than disappointment in his eyes: they did their best to conceal a rapidly
mounting bewilderment, even fear. What in the Child’s manner could have brought
about such a change in him? Was he out of favor suddenly?

These & other questions were soon to be render’d obsolete. I left Wallace &
the Old Grange behind & follow’d the remaining two men—both as yet
perfect strangers to me—to a modest rooming-house across the way. Kennedy &
the Child, a pace or two ahead of me, gossiped together in affectionate whispers. The Child’s carriage & demeanor were already greatly changed. Before,
he’d held himself with school-masterly severity; now he slouch’d & shuffled
like a flat-boat rough. For the first time since we’d met, I was able to believe
that we were near to the same age, & that his parentage was no loftier than
my own. If anything, this evidence of his play-acting only awed me further. If
you had more of that gift, Goodman, I thought as we entered the rooming-house, you’d have had better luck among Israel’s lost tribes.

The foyer was empty & dark & the Child lost no time in crossing it on the
toes of his high-heeled boots. Just as we reached the stairs, however, the proprietorappear’d out of the gloom, moving with the unmistakable vigor of a man
with money coming to him. “Ah! Mr. Myrell,” he said shrilly. “I didn’t supposethat you’d retired.”

The Child stopped, turn’d slowly about & worked his features into a
smile. “I was about to, Mr. Costello. The crowd was a trick to turn tonight.”

“I see,” said the little man, pursing his lips. “And you, Mr. Kennedy?
Will you be retiring, as well?”

“Mr. Kennedy has errands to run,” the Child put in before Kennedy could
answer. “He’ll be sure not to disturb you when he comes in.”

“Oh! I wouldn’t object to being disturb’d so much,” the proprietor said,
turning to me—of all people!—& smiling as if to a fellow sufferer. “Particularlyif he saw fit to settle his accounts.”

“Mr. Costello!” the Child said, making a queer clacking noise with his
tongue. “Don’t I pay our room & board each week, as regular as church?”

“I was speaking of the bar accounts,” the proprietor said primly.

“I like your crust,” Kennedy growled, stepping around the Child. But the
Child caught him deftly by the sleeve.

“We’ll have none of that, Stutter. Go & see to your errands.”

“I want to stay,” Kennedy said, fixing his blood-shot eyes on the proprietor.

“Stutter,” the Child said softly.

Kennedy glared at the little man a moment longer, shoved me aside with
his elbow, & left the rooming-house without a word.

“You should be careful of that boy of mine, Mr. Costello,” the Child said,
looking after Kennedy. “He has a temper.”

“So do I,” the proprietor said. “The bill is fifteen dollars.”

I could scarce believe my ears—fifteen dollars was a princely sum at that
time. The Child batted his eyes at the proprietor, sniff’d indignantly at the air,
then sigh’d & produced a roll of fresh-minted Treasury bills. I’d never seen
half as many in one man’s hand. “Fifteen dollars to Mr. Costello,” the Child
said, counting the notes out with great deliberateness.

The proprietor took the bills & inspected them closely, holding them up to
the lamp—he’d obviously not expected to see a penny. When he was finish’d
he gave a little snort of pleasure & turn’d to me. “And who is this young
cavalier?”

“Good-night, Mr. Costello,” the Child said, turning his back on him &
guiding me resolutely up the stairs.

Once the two of us were alone I found it harder than ever to contain my
excitement. The idea that just that morning I’d been no more than idly
curious about the man before me, that I’d known less about him than Wallace’s
negroes did, was almost as incredible as the fact that I was about to enter his
private chambers. That the grand suite I’d imagined proved, upon entering,
to be a three-penny bedroom, its door held shut by a loop’d length of twine, did
nothing to dispel my amazement. My thoughts were set on the coming interview. What questions might he put to me, how on God’s green earth would I
reply? I imagined nothing short of having to give a complete moral & spiritualaccounting of my life.

“The Pharisee’s Suite,” the Child announced, kicking the door open with
his foot.

The room we stepped into was lit by a single window set high in the wall,
the kind more commonly found in cellars; by standing on tip-toe I was able to
discover that it looked westward, over a jumble of shabby roofs & alleys,
toward the better half of town. What scant light remain’d was swiftly draining from the sky, & the room was a tangle of contradictory shadows. I’d
just turn’d back from the glass when the wall to my left seemed to fold over
on itself; I let out a sharp cry & dashed for the door, nearly trampling the
Child in my distress. The Child gave a laugh & caught me by the buckle of
my belt.