Quartet for the End of Time (12 page)

I
T SEEMED
,
DURING ALL
the time that Douglas's father spoke, as though Douglas himself hardly breathed. But now that his father was silent, his breath—evident again in his throat—seemed surprisingly loud, as did the disparate noises of the wood: the chirruping of crickets in the distance, as well as the more proximate sound of the leaves overhead as they were stirred on their branches by a distant wind. Chet's cigarette had long ago been extinguished, but he had not moved. Douglas could still make out the known shape of his shadow, propped up on one elbow, against the surrounding darkness.

Ten minutes or more went by like that before Chet finally cleared his throat.

I guess we'd, all of us, better get some sleep, he said.

Then that denser blackness that was his upright shadow dissolved, leaving only blackness in its wake.

A
S USUAL
,
THE MORNING
came much sooner than expected. The leaves overhead—once so impenetrable—were in fact no match for the sun, which, from its earliest hour, shone through.

Douglas woke to it, then his father and Chet did, too, staring blearily at one another. The terror the woods had inspired in them just hours before seemed, suddenly, very far away.

They exited the woods and easily crossed the field to where the road waited for them, at a distance of only fifty paces. The streets, littered with the refuse of a quick retreat, were empty, and even the establishment they'd fled—when, far more quickly than Douglas imagined to be possible, they once again arrived there—appeared unassuming and innocent, as though it had no idea what had transpired.

Douglas followed behind Chet, who followed behind his father; one after another, they pushed through the swinging door, which hung loose on its hinge. A single gentleman, his hat pushed over his eyes, was sleeping in a far corner, but their entrance did not disturb him. Douglas hovered by the door as his father moved toward the table where they had sat the night before. But it all seemed now so long ago … or perhaps it had not even happened at all. The twin men, the Indian—even, or especially, the murdered man, who had been lifted and carried like a discarded object on the backs of six men! All of it seemed as distant to Douglas now as if it had been a dream. But then, as if in testament to the reality—if not of what had been dreamed, then of the dreaming—Douglas's father reached his hands under the table in the corner of the bar and pulled from beneath it the missing bag, upon which, sure enough, his father's name—which was also his own—was still written in red, uneven letters.

T
HE BAG WAS HEAVIER THAN HE REMEMBERED IT
,
BUT NOW
D
OUGLAS WAS
grateful for the weight as they made their way back to the station. No one in the town had yet stirred—all the houses were still shut tight—but at the station the day had already begun. A crowd of veterans were busy breaking down their makeshift camp. Nearby, an old man sat alone, stirring hot coals in the overturned lid of a barrel. When Douglas's father wondered aloud if there would be empty cars enough to take them all, the old man laughed. Hadn't they heard? The railway men had been attaching extra cars on all the eastbound trains, he said. More than fifty thousand men were now on their way to Washington—expected to arrive before this time next week. How else were they going to get there?

A
S PROMISED
,
AN EMPTY
car was easy to find. They climbed in, Douglas's father and Chet repeating, incredulously, what the old man had said. Fifty thousand men? And even the railway men now on their side? It was not until they had sunk into place against the train wall, their bags deposited beside them—not until, that is, they had given up all possibility of a hasty retreat—that two shadows suddenly flickered and emerged against the facing wall—one of them much larger than the first. Indeed—larger than life. They turned, and—as their eyes adjusted to the dim light—their worst fears were slowly confirmed.

It was the Indian.

And so they continued east. Now in the company of the Indian, John, his pale wife, Aida, and their small, moon-faced daughter, whom they called Felicity. The two of them, the Indian and his wife, were about as unlikely a pair as you were liable to meet, and slowly, over the days and then the weeks that followed, Douglas learned the extraordinary story of how they had first met, and come to know each other.

F
OR JUST ABOUT AS LONG AS
A
IDA COULD REMEMBER
,
SHE SAID
,
HER
father had been working a claim out in Silver Peak, Nevada. Then,
one day—when even the old man hardly expected it anymore—he struck gold. He went into town and came back with four hired men, the Indian among them. They'd agreed to work on credit, but one week turned to two and then a month went by and still the cracked earth yielded nothing more than the single rock the old man had already found. One by one the hired men left—taking with them, when they did, whatever was not staked to the ground. A pot, a shovel, a deck of cards, a spoon. One night, even a framed photograph of Aida's mother—dead by then for many years—was stolen from its place beneath the old man's bed.

It was just to show: nothing was free.

Only the Indian stayed. For by that time, for some alchemical reason that would perhaps now forever go unexplained, John loved Aida, and Aida loved John. When the old man discovered it, however, something changed inside him, too. It was a change so deep that at first there was no outward sign of it—but still, John felt it, and was afraid.

And sure enough, soon after, while the Indian slept (one eye always open now), the old man crept with a knife (the one possession he had managed to protect, and so the one thing he had left to him now in the world) to the spot where the Indian lay. But the Indian had heard the old man approach, and now he saw the blade, and the mad look in the old man's eye, glinting above him with the same cold glare. He recognized that glare; knew, in an instant, that it had nothing to do with him, or with Aida, or even with the old man himself anymore.

A great battle ensued. Even with the Indian's strength, which was the strength of ten men, the old man had on his side that purest, coldest flickering light, which glinted inside him like the blade of a knife. It was not, the Indian felt very certainly then, against the hope or fear of a man, or even of an animal, that he struggled, but of some more remote ancestor—a plant, or a stone. It seemed that nothing would end it, until—finally—Aida herself leapt silently from the shadows with the Indian's knife and felled her father with a single blow. It was not certain if he had been instantly killed, or if some life remained in him still, but in
either case, the old man's body was still and, soon after, the Indian was able to shake himself free.

Taking nothing—not a pot, nor a rope, neither the Indian's nor the old man's knife—they ran. The Indian barefoot, Aida dressed only in her father's coat (pungent even as they plunged through the darkness with his smell). The Indian streamed with blood from a gash in his chest that he would not notice for several hours. The wound left a trail through the woods behind them—but there was no one to follow. When finally they rested, the girl made a bandage with a piece of cloth she tore from the inside lining of her father's coat. Then they ran on, and no one followed. And yet—they were not alone, for the girl was already carrying with them their child.

In the end; something always begets and is begotten by something. To prove the point, the Indian would sometimes raise his shirt and show the mark his wife's father had etched in the middle of his chest. It was a great mystery how, in the chaos of the altercation, which both man and wife described, it had been done; how, with what looked like great patience and care, an almost perfect circle had been drawn on the Indian's skin.

Months later—just weeks before the child would be born—the two would meet by chance one of the hired men who had left the prospector's claim nearly a full year before. He had taken with him the old man's pocket watch when he left, and it was in fact on account of this watch, which he wore like an amulet around his neck, that he'd been recognized. Otherwise, he would have looked like any other man. Nothing was said of the watch, however, or of the past at all. Instead, the thief imparted what he knew of the old man now.

It happened, he said, a month or so back, that the old man had stumbled into town with a rock the size of a fist in his hand.

You'll never believe it, he said. But sure enough. It was gold. Lord knows what he'd been through to find it. Looked like he'd been raised from the dead. One eye gone, leg busted, dragging—hardly any use at all. An ear on crooked. But in he came, and laid that rock down and stared hard with his one good eye as it was appraised of its worth.

And there was no mistake. He was a rich man. Because there was more where that had come from—much more. The rock he had brought was only what he could carry away with his two hands. It was like something had changed under that earth, the thief said. Remember? Turning up nothing but granite and dust? It was like something was lit underneath it to change all of that. Now, everything the old man touches turns into gold.

S
O
— C
HET SAID, LEANING IN
. You went back?

The Indian shook his head. No, he said. Then the child gave a shout, and the jug, which had been going around, got passed, and one after another every one of them, including Douglas, took a swig from whatever was inside. A peace descended over them then, and—side by side, around the low-burning coals of a nearly extinguished fire—they drifted off into a deep sleep—undisturbed by even the most remote and insubstantial flickering of dreams.

M
OST EVENINGS IT WAS
like that. A bottle or two of whiskey or moonshine was acquired, and they shared it freely among the passengers if they were traveling by boxcar, or among those nearby if they were camped in a rail yard, waiting on a train. Stories were told. Sometimes a crowd would gather. There were always more men. Navy men, Army men, Air Force men, Marines. There were privates first class, there were lance corporals, lieutenants—even officers sometimes. It was funny, Douglas's father said once, everyone is equal on the road. Officers just as much as enlisted men were in need of a hot meal, a friendly face, and an empty car. That's what it came down to, in the end, those three things, and perhaps in that order. And every man equal on the road, and in the eyes of God.

Why, I wonder, he would ask on other occasions, is it only over the railway lines that God keeps his watchful eye? Why is it only there he distributes the bread evenly—that each man takes care to lick his spoon as a courtesy for the next? Take that same man, his father would say. Give him a plot of land, or a few dollars in his pocket—and watch—see if that all doesn't, soon enough, fall away.

But it was not always like that. Sometimes God watched the railway line no closer than he watched over the rest of the world. Twice they were robbed. Once, a knife was pointed, unsteadily, at Aida and the child. Without a word, Douglas's father handed over two dollars in coins and John handed him two more and a jug of whiskey and Chet gave him the other half of a loaf of bread they had shared. Douglas looked at Aida, and tried to detect some trace of fear in her face. He thought if he detected any they were lost, but—though she held the child so tightly it was a wonder the child didn't wail—he saw in her face no trace of alarm, and sure enough, after the outlaw had collected what had been offered from the three men in turn, he cleared his throat, lowered the knife, and ran.

There was always the sense, though, after that, that they might not be so lucky again. And always, there was the threat not of what
might
happen, but what already had. When they heard rumors of police on the line, their hearts beat more rapidly in their chests. When they saw an officer in the distance, they steered their course—without acknowledging they had done so—quickly, in the opposite direction. Never once, however, did they speak their fears out loud, or mention— directly, at least—that night they had first seen the Indian. It happened, though, that one evening, Chet—forgetting how close the story brushed the Indian's own—recalled the night Douglas's father had recounted to them the story of Belleau Wood. It had served to strangely comfort them, Chet said. Because—strange to say—it is not always a tale of comfort that comforts a man. After being scared half to death—

Here he faltered, and an uncomfortable silence ensued. Chet looked at the Indian, then at Douglas's father—then back at the Indian. At last, it was Douglas's father who spoke. Who picked up his story where he had left off before, so that soon the Indian and the more recent past were just as forgotten as they had been on that other fateful night— camped outside of East St. Louis, where something less than an hour before the Indian, John—whom they all now knew well—had murdered a man. Though the memory of that night still haunted him (and
would for a long time yet to come) it felt, somehow, remote and strange to Douglas as he recalled it now—as if it, too, had happened under the cover of Belleau Wood. Or whatever other darkness falls over things that happened a long, long time ago.

—

A
FTER
B
ELLEAU
W
OOD
—D
OUGLAS'S FATHER SAID —AND EVERYT HING
else he'd seen, he didn't feel too much like going home. He'd been discharged in June, on account of a wound to his side, but had healed quickly and, as soon as he could, had joined again. So that was how, only a few short months later, he found himself a newly minted member of the 27th Infantry Regiment, and on his way to western Siberia.

Helluva time that was. It would be months before their provisions arrived. They starved, half froze. Thank goodness for Russian women, Douglas's father said. For a time, along with the dirty business of staying alive, they'd proved so distracting the regiment had hardly noticed the
real
problem. There was no enemy in Siberia. And no missions. In short: no war. Life was not, in fact, so dissimilar then from now. They lived on the railroad line, guarding of it whatever section they could. It really didn't matter what you held—or who you had to bargain with to keep it. The Japs, the Jews—the Czechs, even. Just so long as you could hang on to that line, you had something.