Canaan's Tongue (25 page)

“Goodman Harvey, hawker of tonics—our Parson. Parson: Harvey.”

“Parson. . . ?” I said, staring cow-eyed at the man who now emerged out
of the dark, his face tipped sideways into a leer. After a mute, stricken pause, I
shook the apparition’s hand; he was one more wonder in a night of wonders,
nothing more. His hand was smooth & peculiarly elastic, like the pads on the
foot of a pedigreed hound.

“Harvey is an enthusiast,” the Child said, leading me to a straight-backed
chair in the middle of the room.

The apparition smiled.

I sat down in the chair as bidden. My companions remain’d standing.

“Tell us, Harvey,” the Child said, laying his palm ever-so-lightly on
the back of my neck—“Which portion of our lecture did you find the most
a fecting?”

I’d not been touch’d by anyone in ages. The warmth of his hand made my
mouth go dry. “All of it, Preacher,” I murmur’d.

The Child gave a sour little snicker at this. “Did you hear what he call’d
me just now, Auntie?”

Auntie? I look’d to every side. Was there a fourth person in the room?

Parson sucked in a breath, as though he’d only just awoken. “I heard,” he
said.

The Child laugh’d again, more gently. “They ran me out of Louisiana on
a railroad tie, Harvey, for giving myself that title.”

I squirm’d & fidgeted in my chair, desperate to make some sly rejoinder.
The Child gazed wistfully at Parson; Parson’s queer gray eyes bored into me
in a way that made my stomach twist.

“Those people back at the Old Grange thought of you as a preacher, sir,” I
mumbled. “They believed every word you said. I’m sure of it.”

The Child gazed sleepily at the ceiling. “People believe things in this
country, Harvey. Especially if you tell it to them from a well-lit box. Haven’t
you learned that yet?”

“But surely they won’t believe just anything, sir,” I protested. “Not from
anybody. I see no reason why—”

“Because they want to, Harvey. That’s all. They want to, & it’s enough.”

I nodded blankly, looking from the Child to Parson & back again. By
some trick of the light it seem’d to be growing brighter in the room. The smoke
of the candle crept up the wall behind Parson without the slightest flutter. The
Child let his head sink down against his chest, seemingly forgetting me completely; Parson, for his part, neither spoke nor stirred. Seconds went by, then
minutes. The silence grew excruciating. Was my interview at an end so soon?
I refused to credit it.

Between the Child & myself stood a second chair, distinguish’d by a
cushion of yellow silk—a veritable throne in that dilapidated room. I resolved to
break the silence. “Won’t you be seated, Parson?” I inquired.

Parson’s eyes flew open & he straighten’d with a gasp, as though I’d poked
him in the side, or broken wind. “You are a Mormon?” he demanded.

“I was, sir—yes,” I stammer’d, more astonish’d now than ever. No such
information had pass’d between Parson & the Child.

The Child wink’d at me. “Our Parson can smell a believer a mile o f, if
the wind is right. Can’t you, Auntie?”

“They smell like a tart’s monthlies,” Parson replied.

“Mr. Wallace told me far too little of your history, Mr. Harvey,” the
Child said, sitting down in the chair himself. “What was it that caused you to
drift into this godless country?”

“My mission brought me,” I answer’d, wincing at the inevitable rush of
shame. “Every Mormon is given one, sir, at eighteen years of age. I came here
with my cousin Alva.”

“Of course! Your mission,” the Child said, shaking his head as if to clear
it. “To bring grace to the Indians, was it?”

“We call them ‘Canaanites,’ sir. Scripture holds them to be the
descendants of the sixth of the Lost Tribes—”

A low mewling wail rose up in Parson’s throat. “The Canaanites?” he
hiss’d. “What would you & your clutch of beef-fed bigamists know about
them, boy?”

The Child heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Let the boy answer, Parson.”

“I’ll show you Lost Tribes, kitten,” Parson said, rising to his full height &
opening his mouth wide as an oven-grate. My own mouth flew open at the
sight & a thin squeak of terror escaped from it. The freakishness of the two
figures before me—the doll-sized man in the great yellow armchair & the
rattling skeleton beside him—caused me to go momentarily blind from panic
& I heard myself, as if from the bottom of a well, pleading with them both—

“Please, sirs! Please, sirs! I’m the man you want!”

This declaration gave them pause very briefly—even Parson clapped his
dreadful mouth shut & blink’d. I can account for it only by saying that I’d
renounced my previous life before stepping into that rooming-house, before
hearing the Child’s speech, before so much as setting out for Onadee. I had
no intention of returning to Wallace’s depot ever again, not even to collect
my horse & wagon. What I wanted was a new mission, a new vocation—
something definite & profane. I was ready & willing to indenture myself to
the Child—all I ask’d was that Goodman Harvey, peddler of chicaneries, constitutionals& penny-dreadful hymns, be burn’d away to ashes.

The Child was suitably impress’d. “So you’re Our Man, are you, Harvey?I reckon’d as much.” He privileged me with a nod. “Let’s not waste precioushours, then, but rather put you straight to service—”

“Just tell me what you want,” I said.

The Child look’d me over like a green-grocer appraising a head of lettuce.

“Go & find Mr. Kennedy. You remember Mr. Kennedy, don’t you?”

I nodded as frankly & demurely as I was able.

“Perhaps you can be of help to him on his rounds.”

I was on my feet in an instant. “Where can I find him, sir?”

The Child looked out of the corner of his eye at Parson. “I’d start at Hennington’shot-house,” he said. “That’s where he commonly takes his ease.”

Being Friday, there were a good many people in what passed for the main
street of town, most of them face-downwards in the muck. The street was lit
only by a scattering of windows & the coach-lanterns of the saloons; little heaps
of men—whites & Indians together—gave the curbs a queer, boulder-strewn
look in the dark. Moans arose here & there as I made my way among them,
broken by shouted imprecations, laughter & the occasional burbled prayer. I
was not in the habit of spending my weekend nights in Onadee. If Kennedy
was on the street I failed to find him there.

I spent the next hour looking into every saloon & bawdy-house I knew of.
The simple mention of Kennedy’s name—or the Child’s, for that matter—got
me summarily ejected from the lot. By midnight my shirt-front was the color
of a stable floor, my face was cut & muddied, & I wanted nothing more than
to crawl back to Wallace’s depot on all fours. Outside the Palace Hotel I began
to weep, convinced in my innocence that a man could sink no farther. It was
then that I heard Kennedy’s voice coming from the alley.

I shaded my eyes & peer’d into the gloom. The alley, which ran for perhaps forty feet along the south side of the hotel, was lit only by one third-story
window. Directly beneath that window two figures stood huddled together.
Their faces were hid from my view—it seem’d to me that they were kissing.
They spoke & sigh’d together softly.

I moved haltingly toward them. Their voices hush’d as I came nearer.
After a long spell of quiet the first voice spoke again—angrily, it seem’d to me
now—& I fancied that I understood it.

“Look at us,” the voice said. “Look at us, you Jezebel!”

I was certain now that it was Kennedy. I drew closer still, no longer tryingto move quietly, confident in my mandate from the Child. Just as I
reach’d the alley one of the figures slid onto its knees & let out a soft, wet gasp,
like an Indian choking on a drink. The sound stopped me short. I must have
made some sort of noise, however—for the standing figure froze. There was
no sound for a time but the gurgling of the other.

“Parson?” Kennedy said, his voice oddly penitent.

“It’s Harvey, Mr. Kennedy, if you please. Goodman Harvey. The Child
sent me to ask whether I could be of service—”

“The Mormon,” Kennedy said. Perhaps he said it to himself, perhaps to
the figure on the ground. “Come over here, boy. You’ll not help me much in
the muh! muh! middle of the street.”

It was a man on the ground, I now saw—a slender-bodied man with a
shock of pale hair. He was on his knees in the muck of the alley with his head
tilted to one side & his face push’d hard into Kennedy’s belly. Kennedy himself
was crouch’d stiffly over, his left hand covering the other’s mouth. Between
two fingers of his right he held a jack-knife, its blade filed down to the merest
sliver.

“Mr. Kennedy—?” I bleated. “Mr. Kennedy, what on earth—”

“Make yourself handy, Mormon,” Kennedy grunted, seizing me by the
collar. “Come around here. Tuh! tuh! Take ahold of him. Not there, you damn
fool. There. By the scruff of him.”

I stood still for perhaps an instant longer, fighting the urge to run, then
took hold of the stranger’s hair. The desire to please, to make a favorable
impression, once again conquer’d my reserve—I felt a grown man, suddenly,
& bold. The hair was coarse as thatch. “Here?” I said.

“Ay,” said Kennedy. “Hold him tight.”

“Look,” I mumbled, though my own eyes were half-closed. “Mr.
Kennedy—look here—”

“I’m looking, boy,” Kennedy said gently. “It’s all right.” He nodded his
head approvingly as he spoke. “I see.” All at once he took the man’s jaw firmly
in his grip & thrust the knife between the teeth, throwing his head & shouldersback, driving the thin blade in with all his strength.

“OUU—GAAWGHH,” said the man. “ORRAAAGHH.” Kennedy
pull’d the blade free & clamp’d his hand over the mouth, muffling it as one
would a bugle.

“Right! That’s fix’d it, you bed-wetter. Back on your mother’s milk
again.”

“Kennedy—” I said.

“Back on her tuh! tuh! tits,” said Kennedy, whistling through his teeth.
“Mother’s little carrot-headed bundle of piss. Mother’s little bread-crumb.”

The man in my arms reek’d of hominy gin, an old stand-by in my elixirs.
He made a pitiful attempt to free himself, then sank back against me, senseless. The pants clung to his legs in stiff, jet-colored swaths.

“Let him drop,” said Kennedy, cuffing me lightly on the shoulder. “We’ve
got his thirty bits of silver.”

I did nothing. Kennedy watch’d me for a moment. “Let him drop, boy,”
he said again.

I open’d my arms & the man slid limply to the ground. To my
astonishment he began to snore as soon as his face touch’d the dirt—seeing him splay’d
out at my feet like a sleeping calf, untroubled by the violence done him, I
suddenly understood the appeal my tonics held for the Indians.

Kennedy was looking at me keenly. “Well, Smith? How goes it?”

“Smith?” I murmur’d.

He nodded gaily. “That’s you’re name, isn’t it? Sure it is. Joseph Smith.”

A day before—even earlier that night—such abuse of the Prophet’s name
might have brought me to my senses. Now for some reason it pleased me. “I
could do with a sip of beer,” I heard myself say.

Kennedy smiled & clapped me on the back. “Right you are, Joseph!”
he said, steering me down the alley by my shoulders. “A pint of plain for both
of us!”

“Who was that, Mr. Kennedy?” I ask’d, stopping to wipe my hands
against the wall. “I must say, you dealt with him—that is to say, you served
him his come-uppance in the most—really, the most efficacious—”

Kennedy shrugged & blew his nose into his fingers. “He was a dirty cry-baby, Joseph. Best forgotten.”

I nodded matter-of-factly. “What had he done, exactly?”

“He tuh! tuh! traded us, Joseph,” Kennedy replied, shaking his fist at me.
Something in it made a rattling noise, like pennies clattering in a cup. “He
traded us for thirty bits.” He scowl’d at me, then broke into a grin. “Thirty-twobits, actually.”

We’d come to a door leading down into a cellar. Kennedy duck’d in swiftly,
muttering to himself, & I follow’d after. After three or four steps it was black
as fresh-poured pitch to every side.

“Mr. Kennedy!” I call’d, stretching out my arms.

“Over here, Joseph. Quietly.”

After three more steps I came to a row of barrels that seem’d to run
unbroken from one wall to the other. “Mr. Kennedy?” I whimper’d. In the
blink of an eye I was dizzy with fear at the thought of being parted from him.
I did not question this new-found attachment of mine—this filial a fection for
a murderer—against my nature though it surely was. I had no “nature” to
speak of any longer—there was only the act, the abetting, the decision I had
made. Already it fill’d my mind with its finality & sleekness. God could perhaps forgive, but he could never undo what Kennedy & I had done—of that
much I was certain. My fate had been solder’d to Kennedy’s own. Had I lost
him there, in that relentless blackness, I’d simply have laid down & waited to
be lynch’d.