Canaan's Tongue (27 page)

“You’ll open the stable, then?” I said.

“I might,” said Wallace, reaching a hand under his pillow & bringing
out a key. He did this so promptly, so obligingly, that I didn’t think to stop
him. If that were a gun, I thought, I’d be blown to Kingdom Come by now.
Then I saw the Colt Dragoon revolver in his other fist.

“I’d never have brought the Child somebody I couldn’t put to bed myself,”
Wallace said, rising spryly from the pallet. “You should have known that
much. But then, you’re new to the Territories. Still in short pants, as it were.”
He jerk’d his head toward the window. “Out there, is he? With the others?”

I held my peace. Wallace gloated for a time, shifting from one foot to the
other; I stared dully back at him, the pistol slack against my leg. He must have
expected me to fire, or else to commence pleading for my life; the longer I did
nothing, the unsteadier he became. Through my numbness I managed to
apprehend that he was deathly scared.

“Don’t worry, Harvey,” he said after a time, coiling the sheet about his
midri f like a Caesar. “You wanted to try on a di ferent suit of clothes, & you
got stuck in them; that’s all it was. I did much the same thing at your age.”

I remember’d vaguely, watching Wallace fidget, that he was said to have
ridden with Hall’s High Valley Raiders. Now he fears for his life, I thought.
He fears for his life—a former outlaw—because of me. The thought did little
to encourage me, however.

“What’s the Child promised you?” Wallace said, taking a step towards
me. “To teach you Canaan’s tongue? Is that it?”

“He might have done,” I heard myself reply. He’d promised no such
thing, of course. But I’d have said anything, just then, to keep the conversationlively.

Wallace roll’d his eyes & groan’d. “You’re a bigger idiot than I supposed.
You think I wasn’t made that self-same o fer?” He came closer still—our faces
were all but touching. “You don’t learn something like that, Harvey, without
forgetting something else.”

“Forgetting what?” I said. I felt unafraid now, almost bold.

“Everything,” Wallace murmur’d, bringing his free hand to his temple,
as if checking himself for fever. “Everything, Harvey. Your entire self.”

I closed my eyes & tried to make sense of Wallace’s ravings. Could the
Child actually help me to forget myself completely? Was he bless’d with such
prodigious gifts?

“How wonderful that would be—to forget myself!” I sigh’d.

This cost Wallace his last composure. “You muck-brain’d ass!” he yell’d.
“Have you not listen’d to a word I’ve told you?”

I smiled at him benignly.

“Your entire self, Harvey,” Wallace said again, panting quietly. His eyes
grew vague & abstracted & he look’d up toward the ceiling. As he did so he let
the Colt dangle & I suddenly recollected where I was. I brought the nose of my
pistol up against his ribs, silently & smoothly, with no more e fort than it takes
to point a finger.

“My name is Joseph Smith,” I said, & fired.

For a fleeting instant Wallace remain’d unchanged. Then he tilted his
face toward the ceiling, press’d both hands to his belly & began to shriek. I
threw him back onto the bed & had his Dragoon in my hands & cock’d by the
time Tempie came stumbling through the door.

“Get on the floor,” I said. I’d done my best to disguise my voice, to harshen
it & slur it over, but Tempie recognized it straight-away. “That you, Mr.
Harvey?” he said, squinting into the dark. “This here old Tempie.”

“Get-on-that-floor, nigger!” I hiss’d, ramming the Colt into his guts.
Tempie bent sideways, his eyes gone liquid & enormous. I brought a second
hand up to steady the gun, wondering whether the Child and the others might
come to my aid, or whether they’d abandoned me long since. No matter, Goodman,I told myself, struggling to keep calm—there are three horses stable’d in
the barn. The key is in Wallace’s hand, or beside him on the pallet, or somewhereon the floor—

When the hammer of the Colt slipped I heard no report; my first thought
was to curse its light action. Then Tempie let out a high, mournful gasp, like
the cooing of a dove, & took a gentle hold of my left leg. I can still feel the
slight, determined pressure of his grip.

At that very same instant, as if in answer to a bell, the Child came in
from the parlor, took the key out of Wallace’s hand, & made to take the
revolver out of mine. But I wouldn’t let him have it.

“It’s mine,” I said. I held the barrel to my chest. “Keep the hell away
from me!”

“Mind your language, Joseph,” the Child said, stepping past me with
a wink.

“I—”

“Yes, Joseph? What is it?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I stammer’d.

“Apology accepted, Joseph. Now let’s have that revolver.”

“It’s mine,” I said again, recoiling.

He studied me a little, click’d his tongue against his teeth, then spun
about & left without a word.

If a saint’s life is judged by his most wanton moments, might the whole
world be saved by the “nay” of one coward?

“Shall I Tell You My Idea?”

THAT SAME DAY I GO TO SEE ABOUT DELAMARE, Virgil says.

The front parlor, until recently the site of the Colonel’s interrogations, has been converted into a make-shift infirmary. Delamare lies on a stiff-looking pallet in the middle of the room, staring up at the plaster-work as though the Fate of Man were writ across it. Clementine is with him but she stands to leave at once. She’ll be out in the hall in a moment, listening.

Delamare’s eyes follow me carefully from the door to the stool beside him. He says nothing as I sit. He says nothing because his lips and tongue are swollen so badly that he can barely take in air. He breathes through his nose in timid, parakeet-like peeps.

“I’m taking over the inquiry, Oliver,” I whisper. “I’m putting the Colonel out to pasture. What do you say to that?”

A poor choice of phrase. He gives me a flash-eyed look that I’m reluctant to interpret. Christ knows what nonsense Clem’s been feeding him.

“You think they won’t let me,” I say. “I agree. That’s why no-one need know of it, for the present, except you and I.”

Delamare lifts his shoulders and lets them fall.

I watch him for a spell. “Bob your head once, Oliver, if you consider me a coward.”

Nothing for a time but sullenness. Then a grudging nod.

“I have a reason for asking. Do you care to hear it?”

He closes his eyes for an instant, then opens them.

“I left Harvey’s letter in Clem’s care,” I say. “I suppose she’s read it to you.”

He nods.

“The last page of it interests me. Do you recollect the post-script?”

Another spell of quiet. Then he nods again.

“ ‘Might the whole world be saved by the “nay” of one coward?’ it reads. ‘One coward.’ That tickles the brain, somehow.”

Now his eyes are fixed on mine. The sharp-eyed look remains—; a vengeful look, it seems to me. I’d best be quick.

“I don’t think that line refers to Harvey,” I say. “At no point does he describe himself as cowardly. Desperate, yes—; even foolish—; but never as a coward. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

I’ve caught his fancy now, I’m sure of it. His eyes are watering.

“I believe that last line, and in fact the entire letter, is a bulletin to us—; to one of us especially. Harvey had no interest in the outside world, and still less in posterity. The letter is a reckoning with the Angel of Death, he says. A ‘reckoning.’ ” I scratch my nose. “What does he mean by that, do you suppose?”

Delamare blinks once, very deliberately, then raises a finger grimly to his mouth.

“Of course, Oliver! I’m sorry. Shall I tell you my idea?”

His sight begins to wander and his head turns toward the wall. Have I come to him too soon?

“It’s only this,” I say quickly. “On the eve of his murder, Harvey told Clem we’d find his letter interesting—; that it was written for us
expressly.
Why? To justify himself to us? Not very likely. None of us were fit to judge him.”

Delamare looks at me coldly, as if to say that he feels fit to judge Harvey and the rest of us besides. But he’s listening to me closely.

I clear my throat. “He meant for us to read his account, but more than that—: he meant for us to
decipher
it. Something’s hidden in the text, I’m sure of it.” I pause a moment. “See if you can follow my reasoning now, Oliver. Firstly—: I take ‘Angel of Death’ to mean Harvey’s killer.”

Delamare bobs his head impatiently. His eyes are watering again.

“If that’s the case,” I say, my voice dropping even further, “then the meaning of ‘reckoning’ becomes clear. The letter is more than an accounting, more than a confession, more than an entreaty to us to discover his murderer—: the letter itself is the
means
to that discovery, buried somehow in the narrative of Harvey’s fall. The story is a cipher, a puzzle, like a parable in the Bible. We have only to solve it.” I bend down and say again, close to his ear—: “We have only to solve it, Oliver, to know.”

Delamare is staring up into my face, intently, feverishly, but whether in enthusiasm or dismay I cannot tell. Never mind which—; I’ll tell my idea to him regardless. Its improbability has made me drunk.

I clear my throat. “It’s beyond what I’d have expected from that little ass-scratcher, I grant you. But I’m convinced of it, Oliver. And I’m convinced of one thing more. The letter may well have been written for everyone in this house—; the last lines, however, were meant for one of us alone.” I sit back on the stool. “I refer, of course, to the ‘coward’ of the post-script.”

Delamare gives no sign of having understood me. But I know he’s understood me. His eyes are wide and starting.

“I daresay you can guess who that coward is, Oliver. You already have. Harvey made particular mention of me, you remember, on his walk with Clementine.”

Delamare’s lips part slightly and I see the blood-slick tongue behind them. He makes as if to speak. To forestall him, I say quickly—:

“I’m the best suited to take up the hunt, and Harvey knew it. I’m the only one here who puts the slightest faith in reason—; in the scientific method.”

Delamare shakes his head wildly. Again he opens his mouth to speak—; again I cut him short.

“Listen to me, Oliver. If one takes the end of the letter—the ‘nay of a coward’ line—as one’s starting point, then one possible approach would be to work backwards from that line.” Delamare rolls his eyes at this, but I press on. “I’ve spent the morning doing precisely that, starting with the killings at Wallace’s depot. And something struck me straight-away—: a term I once heard Morelle use. Perhaps you’ll remember it, as well. It’s the expression ‘Canaan’s’—”

With a great effort Delamare forces his tongue to speak. “Virgil—
Clementine,
Virgil—”

Nothing could have hushed me quicker. I’ve just told him something that ought by rights to have bowled him over, to have stunned him, to have stricken him to the marrow—; instead he calls out for his nurse. Is she so dear to him already?

I stretch both arms out, somewhat stiffly, and force him back onto the pallet.

“All right, Oliver. I’m sure that Clem’s close by. I’ll fetch her.”

I get to my feet, ignoring Delamare’s burbled protests, and step out into the hall. Clem is there beside the marigolds.

“You’ll never manage it,” she says. Her face is dull as a chalk pebble.

“Manage what?” I say.

“To play both sides at once. You’re not clever enough for it, Virgil.” She shakes her head slowly. “You and your blessed ‘scientific method.’ You’re no damned scientist.”

“And you’re no sister of mercy. But don’t let that keep you from playing at one, miss. Not if Mr. Delamare enjoys it.”

I take her hand in mine. It deadens, as I knew it would.

“Love makes you erratic, Clementine.”

“I feel less love for you than for a spider,” she says hoarsely.

“It wasn’t of
myself,
miss, that I was speaking.” I let go of her hand. “Run along in to your boy.”

Regents’ Geographical
Society, 1614.

THE CONCEIT—IF IT PLEASE THE SOCIETY—of the “Nygger”—was in broad usage before that Genus, let alone that species, was unearth’d by the excellent Mr. Cleveland, and taxonomie’d.—Fortunate indeed!—m’lords—that such a beaste was, in fact, discover’d.—It has spared the Chair, in specific;—and the Society, in general;—no small quantity of confusion.

Dodds.

MY NAME CHARLES BALLANTINE DODDS. I standing to the right the grave and Miss Clem throwing in the dirt. Don’t nobody else care to, so Miss Clem do it. Rest of them watches her and grins.

Rest easy, Goodman Harvey.

You sure you didn’t take that walk with Mr. Harvey, Clementine, Colonel hisper.

That dirty Irish, Kennedy, commence to snicker.

Virgil face go white. He gone say some thing, open he mouth and close it. Kennedy look at him like he dearly hope he say it. Colonel stop he smiling now.

Bottom the grave they no lay-box or casket, just a old cloth strippit off Harvey bed. Harvey always kind to me, account of he religion, so I lookit hard for timber but Colonel say leave off it Dodds get that somebitch under. So I dugged the hole four feet deep. Just four feet, account of the clay. Virgil help some but I tolt where Harvey get placed so it were all right. I say We gone plant him past the stable. And sure enough that where we standing now.

Why lay him here, Dodds? Virgil askit while we digging. Just chat-like, not asking truly. There’s a blankety-blank less clay over by the privy.

Mr. Virgil, I say. Please don’t vain the name the Lord.

Virgil look at me some. Dodds, he say.

Yes, Mr. Virgil?

Why put Harvey here?

Sih?

Give me an answer, you old fox. This ground’s hard as nails.

I tap the side my nose.
Old
Marse Trist, Marse Trist’s daddy, tell me something once.

What was it?

One dead nigger smell like peaches.

Virgil look me at me crooked. I don’t follow—

Two dead niggers, now, Marse Trist say.
Two
dead niggers, Charlie, smell like the divil’s own privy-water.

Ah! say Virgil.

Ain’t two white gentlemen gone smell no sweeter.

Ha! say Virgil. No. I don’t suppose they would.

And the Deemer down the privy, I say. As you know.

Virgil quiet a piece. Then he rub his face. What did you think of Marse Trist’s daddy, Dodds?

I look down the hole. Old Marse Trist a fine man, in he time—

I know what you and Mr. Delamare talk about together, Dodds. You can talk as well to me.

I go right on shoveling. I pay no more mind to Virgil as if he was a haunt.

That were yesterday, in the afternoon.

NOW EVERYBODY STAND ABOUT looking down at Harvey thinking what come next.

That’s a mighty poor plot, Dodds, Colonel say.

Couldn’t dug it any farther, Colonel.

Even the privy-pit were deeper that this, Kennedy say. You getting old awful quick, Doddsbody.

Why put him here, Dodds, if the ground is so mean? Colonel say.

I couldn’t be pained, I answer.

What’s that, nigger? Kennedy holler.

Problem with Dodds is, say the Colonel. Problem with Dodds is, there’s no fright in him. He lost it when our Redeemer passed away.

Let’s reaquaint him with it, Kennedy say. L!—L!—Let’s—

Leave off it, Stuts, Virgil say. He take hold of Kennedy arm.

Kennedy look at Virgil, then at me, then all the rest. He shake he head three times, slow and murtherish, like a buck-wild bull.

Best let go of me, google-eye, he say.

Colonel smile and step up.
Mr.
Kennedy—

Back away from me, you blankety-blank mother, Kennedy hisper. He look like he forgotten they anything but Virgil Ball in all the world. Colonel shut he mouth right quick.

I look at Miss Clem. She studying Virgil like she never seen the like. Wouldn’t nobody step into Virgil’s boots at the present time. Not for fifty Union dollars.

Don’t take offense, Colonel, Virgil say. Kennedy’s just sore, on account of we didn’t let him bugger his mulatto. Ain’t you, Stuts?

Kennedy look at Virgil like he half-past dead already. Colonel put he knuckles in he mouth.

Not sore at
me,
Virgil, I’m sure, Colonel say.

Virgil let go Kennedy arm. That’s right, Colonel—you
did
let him, didn’t you.

Kennedy blink but once, quick, then put Virgil in the hole. Virgil come up with mud on he clothes and he good right eye shut—but they a look on his face like he just got elected.

Mr Kennedy, he say, wiping at he face.

Kennedy whistle and spread both arms wide. Come to me, brother.

Just then Miss Clem make a noise and I look up past the hole and spy Parson coming down from the house. Then I near drop the spade account of I see Delamare alongside him. I can’t nearly credit it. Everybody quiet and wait on them to come. Parson give a laugh.

I’ve effected a faith cure, children.

Delamare look straight at Kennedy. I thought you killed me, Irish, he say.

I’ll dig every one of you blankety-blanks
under,
Kennedy shout. Just you come on up!

Everybody hush. Parson stand by with he long coonish hand cross he long coonish face. Kennedy stand twixt of Delamare and Virgil like he can’t recollect who need whipping the most.

Nothing doing for a time. Then Miss Clem commence to cuss and start off to the house and Colonel foller right after. That leave Delamare, Parson, Virgil and Kennedy. I keep quiet as a broom.

I thought you killed me, Irish, Delamare say again. Didn’t you kill me?

Kennedy don’t say much. He look small and crumblish presently, like a crust of weeks-old bread.

All up the sudden he turn and knock me sideways. I smell the mash on you, blacks, he say to Delamare.

And I smell the nigger on you, Irish.

Kennedy laugh, bite he underlip, spit, then off into the woods. Don’t nobody foller after. Nobody blink till he gone clear.

Virgil pull me up to rights. If you’re on speaking terms with the Death-Angel, Dodds, recommend old Stuts to him, would you?

I give a grin. I will, Mr. Virgil. Sure.

No need for that, say Delamare.

Next time he won’t miss, Oliver, Virgil say.

Delamare spits. He had his chance, Virgil. I was ready to get put down yesterday. I was reconciled to it. Eh, Charlie?

Sure, Marse Delamare. Yesterday were the dollar chance.

Men like Kennedy get two chances, Virgil say.

Kennedy is a Catholic, gentlemen, Parson say, making the sign he cross. An idolator of the Heavenly Trinity. As such he always operates in threes.

DELAMARE AND VIRGIL GONE up to the house. Parson watch them like a mother hen. Clucking as he do. In high and blessed spirits.

Is it close enough to the barn? he say after a piece.

I measured it, Parson. I know my business.

Cluck! Cluck! All right, Doddsbody.

I study Parson for a spell. Watch him ruffle he hairy lady face up, then down, then up.

When the next one due? I say.

Parson wave he hand. Tomorrow afternoon.

Where we gone plant him?

Parson give a look. I didn’t say as it would be a he.

That’s right, I say. I rub my eyes. Where it gone get placed?

Back of the tobacco shed. Three feet seven inches. Measure it from the corner.

I’m a broke-footed old house-boy, Parson. Mind I start on it today?

Parson grin. That might look a bit peculiar.

Don’t nobody go back of the tobacky-shed, Parson. You know that.

All right. Anyone asks you, just lay your Doddsbody bit on ’em. Play the holy fool.

Don’t you fret on that, Your Honor. Ain’t nobody gone know blankety blank, alongside of yourself, C. B. Dodds and that old Holy Ghost.

The Ghost will be pleased to hear it, Parson say.