The Tinsmith (37 page)

Darkness came. Candles flickered around the table as the stars emerged. The air was colder but still putrid. Now the doctor's fatigue was clear; his hand became less sure, the knife cuts ragged. John could not bring himself to point these errors out, but he found that when he lightly coughed or shifted his body, the doctor seemed to come awake and realize what he was doing. Once, when John saw that the doctor was cutting away a great deal more tissue than usual, he had no choice but to speak before the damage was done.

The doctor shook his head and ran his bloody forearm across his eyes.

“Could you lower the candle,” he said. After a brief pause, he sighed and went on. “Thank you. You've just saved this man a great deal of grief.”

John did not think that he'd ever felt so alive. Despite the blood and the stench and the fatigue, despite the pitiable pleading of some soldiers to have their limbs cut off, he was almost euphoric. From time to time, meeting the doctor's dark eyes in the candle glow, he almost believed he was helping Caleb. As the hours passed, this belief deepened, until at last he could not keep his past or his purpose back; both rushed at him in sudden waves that he tried in vain to fight off. He paused, listening. A continuous low rumble spilled out of the night—the sound of troops on the move. All at once his own stillness seemed wrong, a terrible mistake. He was meant to go forward. It was the only way that the brutal memories would not overtake him, the only way that the overseer and the mulatto and his own parentless past would not strike the decisive blow. He had a disturbing sensation that the overseer, too, would move in the night. He couldn't explain it; it wasn't a matter of reason, it was a stirring in his blood, a prickling along his nape. He looked one last time at the doctor. He was exhausted and bloodied, yet he kept on. The doctor was white and from the North, he already had freedom. So what was he driving himself for? The doctor's will suddenly seemed even more miraculous than his own. For a few more moments John remained at the man's side; it seemed, oddly, the safest place he'd ever known. But the overseer was on the move. He could see him riding. And the image fired his dormant hatred. The letters burned. When the doctor stepped over to the pile of bloody limbs, John quietly slipped away.

Twenty minutes later, he ascended a hollow and approached the house. The closer he drew to it, the more he felt the overseer's presence, which seeped like a stain out of the walls and across the ground and further blackened the night. John's mouth was dry, his brow and hands cold. He could not quiet his blood; it rushed in great currents that swept him on. In the yard, moving at a crouch, he suddenly stopped, realizing that he had no plan and no weapon. It was likely he'd be confronting two men—two men long conditioned to being on their guard. They would probably be better fed and rested too. He did not move. His breathing and his heartbeat were too fast, too loud. He forced himself to see the overseer's face, to hear his voice, to smell his skin greasy with goose and pork fat. He needed the hatred even though it only increased the pounding of his blood.

A light flickered in the parlour window. He crept closer, needing to be sure. Before he even peered through the glass, he knew. His whole body told him. At the table the two faces hung side by side in the faint candlelight, almost touching, the overseer's rounder and flaccid, like a melon gone to rot, the mulatto's just the same as ever, round but hard, the forehead ridged and prominent, hanging above the deep-set eyes and full mouth. The two men were tearing into a cooked chicken. John could smell it. The grease of the meat made the overseer's face shine. Silently the two sets of jawbones worked up and down, almost in unison. He watched, unable to pull away. To kill them seemed as impossible as it was desirable.

Done with the chicken, Orlett lifted a small sack off the floor and dropped it on the table. The mulatto nodded like an excited dog. Orlett began to remove the contents—coins and folded bills. There was a great deal of money. The two men bent so low to the table that they seemed to be lapping water off the surface.

John stared at the shine of the silver and gold as if he was seated at the table, as if the wealth belonged to him. And then he realized that death was not enough, that it was not a practical compensation for all that he'd suffered and witnessed. All his life he'd been property, even when the fact wasn't so brutal as it had been for the past two years. Suddenly the wealth heaped in front of him was more of his future than the overseer's death. But the one had to happen so that the other could begin. He began to pant and knew it was starting.

But before he could pull away from the window, he saw Orlett and Cray stiffen and look toward the window. Just then, something struck the glass. A ferocious barking ensued. John fell back, the dog's teeth inches from his own. He scrambled to his feet and ran. The barn loomed in front of him. Inside, he looked desperately around. If he hid in the hayloft, he'd be trapped there like a treed raccoon, especially if Orlett came out with the dog. He decided instead to crouch in a dark corner behind a barrel. Picking up a shovel from the ground, he hurried into his hiding place, his mind racing. They might not come out with the dog. After all, this was a war zone; the night was tense, they might not bother to check every time the animal barked. He fought to still his blood. A minute passed. His hands clenched the handle of the shovel. Thin shafts of moonlight fell between him and the open barn door.

Then he heard the horses. Smelled them. They were stabled across the dark. He took a chance and sprinted over. If the overseer came with the dog, then a horse would provide a useful means of escape.

John approached the animals cautiously but without fear. He had worked with horses; their power had often seemed to contain a promise, as if they, too, would one day break free of their bondage.

There were only two of them. He recognized the overseer's bay, but the large white charger was unfamiliar. He stroked the horse's necks. Both were warm, the mouths frothed. Then Orlett and Cray had very recently returned. Had they even checked on the blacks in the cellar and attic and found them gone? Likely not. He stood between the horses, his panic subsiding. Something in the animals' calm clarified his thoughts. He was much taller and thinner than two years before, and he wore the uniform of a Union soldier; if he kept his face hidden, they might not recognize him until it was too late. The element of surprise might not have been lost. If only he had the courage and calm . . .

The night remained still. The dog's barking had faded away. Several minutes passed before he allowed himself to believe that Orlett and Cray were not coming out to investigate the dog's alarm. Confirmed in that belief, he yet remained unsure of his next move. Somehow he would have to separate the two.

Then he heard a faint sound. Someone was crossing the yard. He returned to his hiding place and watched as the mulatto entered the barn and headed for the horses. He untethered the bay and walked it toward the door. When Cray had gone through it, John followed, hardly able to believe his good fortune. If the mulatto rode away, leaving the overseer . . . John stood just inside the barn door as Orlett left the house and crossed the yard; the dog was not with him.

“They won't have gotten far,” the overseer said. “I'll join you when I can. If they're with the Federals, you tell the officer in charge whose they are. We'll have them back. Tomorrow I'll get a start with the contrabands if I have to.”

Then he put his two hands to the side of the mulatto's great head and shook it roughly, the way a man does to a favourite dog.

Cray mounted.

“I'll get them,” he said. “Don't you worry, honey.”

For a long moment, John was alone with the overseer in the same yard where Orlett had given Caleb the whipping, where Caleb's blood had dripped into shining pools. The stars were many but dim, the moonlight faint. For a long moment, his body tensed; he almost ran out, risking all. But something held him back, some instinct of patience that had developed in the long, sun-scorched hours in the rice fields. He looked past the overseer to the house rising beyond like a black cliff. He'd spent most of his life there, but the house held almost no emotion for him except numbness, a numbness that quickly became rage. His old master was dead, buried in the family graveyard. Daney and Caleb were dead. Jancey and all the children were gone. He had nothing to attach himself to this place but his hatred. And he knew his hatred would have to play out inside the house.

When Orlett finally walked toward it and pulled the door shut behind him, John followed. He still had no plan, but the mulatto's absence came as such a gift that he believed the night would contain others, that he would be given the courage and strength he needed if only he did not weaken. On the ground near the door, he saw two large rocks. He pocketed one and clenched the other in his fist. With luck, maybe he could separate the dog from the overseer, shut it in one room while he took on its master. If that luck didn't come, maybe a well-placed throw of the rock would at least stun the animal until he could escape it. The overseer would be armed; he always was.

For another moment, John hesitated, wondering why he had not taken a weapon from the battlefield. But he saw his hands around the overseer's throat just as he had seen them there a thousand times and knew that the killing would be intimate; that's why the idea of a gun or knife had not even occurred to him. From the moment Caleb had been tied to the whipping post, John had watched the overseer's face redden, his eyes bulge, his tongue flail in his foul, rotten mouth. It would happen that way or it wouldn't happen at all, he was sure of it.

He opened the door and slipped inside, tensed for the dog's bark. It didn't come, so he continued to the staircase, thinking that he'd hide upstairs and wait for Orlett to come up alone. But a heavy boot fall told him that the overseer was already above. Now a ferocious barking broke out from the parlour behind him. With relief, he saw that the door was shut, heard the dog scratch at the wood. He looked up the staircase, debating whether to go up or to hide somewhere and wait for Orlett to come down and check on the dog.

In the end, he couldn't wait for the strategic advantage of remaining downstairs to unfold. His blood decided him, drove him on. His fate had begun at last, it was on his lips like salt. He needed to get upstairs before the overseer started down. The rock was cold in his palm, rough like grizzled skin. He took the stairs at a sprint, his feet barely touching the wood.

The blow fell before he'd even stopped running. It glanced off his skull and sent him sideways into the wall at the top of the case. On his hands and knees, facing the floor, he struggled to stay conscious as a lantern light puddled around him.

“You'll find nothing here, soldier,” Orlett said. “Better forage among your dead comrades.”

A breech clicked.

“You're lucky I don't kill you and drag you out there with them. No one would know the difference.”

He laughed.

“Didn't expect a dog, did you? Thought you'd slip in and take the fine silver? Get up!”

He could feel the overseer's shadow heavy on his back. His vision blurred, came clear again. Then his hand closed around the rock's cold. Slowly he began to rise, Orlett's rank smell in his nostrils. He'd be grinning, almost panting, his rotten breath, the shine of grease . . . John threw the stone and rolled to one side as the gunshot blasted into the ceiling. Orlett had reeled back, dazed, and kicked over the lantern. In a flare of pale light John saw the blood on the overseer's forehead before the blood and the man vanished. The shot echoed in the dark. Bits of plaster and dust floated whitely down. John leapt forward, his hands already closing in a tight circle. The dog howled below, scratched frantically at the door. John struck nothing. There was a flurry to one side. He ducked as the overseer's gun swung toward him. But he did not avoid the kick. It hit him hard in the stomach. He collapsed to his knees, bent over, gasping. Then his head was yanked up by the hair and the overseer's fist struck him only a glancing blow as he found a burst of strength to pull away. At the same time he reached out and grabbed the overseer's leg and jerked him off balance. In seconds John was on top of him, his knees pressing into his chest, his hands on his throat. But he did not close them tight. It was too soon. Orlett didn't even know who he was; he thought he was only a soldier out foraging. John struggled to control himself. He kept a firm pressure on the overseer and said, “I'm not a soldier.”

The overseer's eyes swept across him. Suddenly his body relaxed. He grinned. His lips pulled back from the rotted teeth.

“Welcome home, bright boy. You've grown since I saw you last. What did you do to your cheek?”

He laughed hoarsely, and John had to increase the pressure to stop the sound.

Orlett gasped. “Go on. What you waiting for?”

He squeezed harder. Now he heard only the dog's howls and his own quick breaths. It was what he had wanted, it was everything, he needed only to shut out Caleb's voice, but you're not a killer, John, dat ain't your way, he needed only to bring his hands as close together as possible, to cuff them to the overseer's throbbing blood. Why couldn't he do it? He had to; there wasn't a choice. So why couldn't he squeeze harder? Why had his grip weakened?

Orlett said in a rasp, “Goddamn ignorant not even a nigger you're not even . . .”

“What?” John eased the pressure a little.

The overseer's lip curled. “Sold by your white trash . . . not even a nigger . . .”

“What?”

“You heard. He told me. Bought you in Baltimore. Poor white trash. But I made you a slave. More of a slave than any nigger. You think you'd know.”

He wheezed laughter between his rotten teeth. “You'd think a body could just tell something like that.”