Through Darkest America

tousled his hair and dropped two coppers in his hand. “We’ll be waiting out here,” he said. “I sure ain’t gonna see it again. Carolee. You hold on to Howie and don’t let go.”

Blankets had been hung inside to form an aisle toward one corner of the room. The rest of the store was empty, but there were bare wooden shelves on one wall, and broken boxes all about. The air was heavy and musty, like the room had stayed wet a long time.

A short man with eyes like a bird took Howie’s coins and pointed him toward the back. A farmer was just coming out, and Howie studied him for some clue as to what they might see. If the man felt anything, though, he didn’t give it away.

Carolee began to cry the minute she saw it. Howie tried to make her stop, but it was no use. She shrieked all the louder and wrapped her arms around his legs and buried her head. Howie was thoroughly disgusted. It was like walking around with a big rock tied to your foot.

He tried to control Carolee, and look at the stuffed nigger at the same time. In the dim light of the lantern, all he could see was a lean body standing stiff against the wall— leathery, shrunken; pleated features under a gray layer of dust. The eyes were closed, but someone had painted bright staring pupils on the lids. For some reason, that seemed to give real life to the thing, and make it more than something that had been dead and dried out for a long time.

Howie jumped when the short man pulled the blankets aside. He glared at Howie, then at Carolee. “Listen, you’re gonna have to get her out of here.”

“I haven’t got to see nothing yet!” Howie protested.

“Out,” said the man. He threw a finger over his shoulder and held the blanket aside. Howie jerked his sister to her feet.

“You went and ruined it,” he said harshly, “I hope you’re good an’ happy!” She pulled away and he wrenched her back, hard enough to hurt. Carolee screamed and broke for the door. Howie’s mother scooped her up and gave him a questioning frown.

“Howie pulled my arm and broke it!” Carolee sobbed. “I didn’t do nothing,” said Howie.

“Son, did you hurt your sister?” asked Papa.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Howie repeated. He stuck out his chin to Carolee. “She made such a fuss the man threw us right out an’ I didn’t even get to see the nigger.”

Howie’s mother soothed Carolee and rocked her gently. “See, Milo?” She looked at her husband through a dark veil of hair. “I said it wasn’t something for a girl to see. You just wouldn’t pay any mind. She’ll have dreams, now, and be up all night.”

“Not ’less you tell her she will,” Papa muttered. “Let’s get on and out of the street. We come to the fair to have fun an’ by God we’re going to do just that!”

Later, he asked Howie, “Well, what’d you think? About the nigger?”

“I don’t know, Papa. It was all shriveled and funny looking. And black.” He looked up at his father. “Why’s it all black?”

Papa shrugged. “I reckon that’s what color they was.” “Why?”

“Don’t know, boy. They just was.”

“You ever see one? I mean, live?”

Papa laughed. “Godamn, boy that was all ’fore the War. Your daddy’s not that old.” He pushed Howie forward and announced they could have sweets if they wanted—red sugar candy or the big loops of blackgum, whichever.

There was more to see than Howie had even imagined. The town was crowded with people. Papa said some had come from as far as High River and across the Ridge at Calliesville and Newpack. Even if there hadn’t been a fair, Howie decided, there was plenty to look at. Bluevale’s main street was lined with wooden stores, some with another floor stacked on top of the first. And all had been freshly colored in reds, greens, yellows, and bright blues. Howie wanted to stop and look at each one. He hadn’t realized you could get paint in anything but white.

There were booths and stalls everywhere. They sold metal knives, and bright clay dishes that had been colored and glazed until they shined brightly in the spring sun. There were strips of glass buttons, bolts of patterned cloth, and a hundred things Howie couldn’t even put a name to. Papa bought his mother a fine set of bone and wood forks and spoons, though she flushed and lowered her dark eyes and said she wouldn’t know what to do with something that fancy. Papa just laughed his big laugh and said she’d surely figure some way to show them off right.

There were smells Howie had never smelled before. Pepper, cinnamon, thyme, and sage. There were booths offering fresh fruit pies and red candied apples and small cakes with white sugar on top. It made his mouth water just to walk by, but he didn’t ask Papa to stop. Carolee, though, wanted one of everything.

Toward noon, his mother took Carolee back to the inn for a nap. This pleased Howie greatly, though he was careful not to show it. Papa was relieved too, he was sure, but he kept his face just as straight as Howie’s. Little sisters were all right, as far as they went. But they cried a lot and got tired easy and were always in the way when there were men things to do.

Howie was proud to walk down the long board sidewalks with his father. Papa seemed to know everybody. Howie noticed, too, that most of the men had to look up a little when they spoke to him. He walked close on his father’s heels so everyone would be sure and know he belonged with this giant of a man with long yellow hair tied at the neck in leather and eyes that were sometimes blue and sometimes the lightest of gray.

Chapter Three

If there was a bow, or a set of metal arrowheads, or a bone- steel knife in Bluevale that Howie and his father hadn’t seen, he decided it wasn’t worth looking for. Papa told him, with a broad wink that said this was not information to be shared with anyone else—meaning his mother—that after the meat market, tomorrow there just might be some extra coppers that could go for a few dozen arrowheads, or maybe even that bluebone belt knife Howie said fit his hand like it was made to lie there.

In late afternoon there were contests on the edge of town—archery shoots at wooden targets and the axe throw at a white circle on a big oak. Howie’s father said it seemed fair enough if a man wanted to pay good money to show off in front of everyone he knew—or make a fool of himself, as the case might be—but as far as he was concerned these were things a man was supposed to know anyway, and it didn’t matter much if someone else knew he could do ’em or not.

Howie wanted to tell his mother all he’d seen in town, but he sensed right away it wasn’t a good time for that. You could tell when she had something on her mind; and when she did, it was best to go about your business until whatever it was had run its course.

Howie’s father knew the signs, too. And usually what caused them. It was an important something this time, Howie knew, because Carolee was left in his charge while Papa and his mother walked a ways toward the river to talk.

Howie was worried. He was twelve and figured a lot of things out for himself, even when they were things he wasn’t supposed to think about at all. This had something to do with the fair, he knew—which his mother hadn’t wanted to come to in the first place. And it had a lot to do with what his mother had said on the barge the day before. About Colonel Jacob. Though what that could be, he couldn’t say.

A small knot grew in his stomach and stayed there until Papa and his mother got back. They were gone an uncommonly long time and every minute gave him the chance to think about maybe not getting to see the rest of the fair— which was the very best part. There was The Gardens, where you ate without cooking anything yourself. People just brought things right to you, whatever you wanted. And then the parade, with government soldiers and real horses. Besides that, there’d be pictures from Silver Island pasted up by the Courthouse. You might even recognize someone you knew, who’d gone there. People from all over won all the time and it might be someone from Bluevale or a farm right next to your own.

Howie decided that if his mother made Papa take them home and they missed everything he’d never say anything to her again no matter what. He took that back right away, though, and told God he hadn’t meant it, and not to write it down anywhere.