Through Darkest America

“Do it… boy…”

Howie jerked up and stared at him. Understanding came and he shook his head angrily. “No! No, godamn you, I ain’t goin’ to give you that, Pardo. Not me!”

No, he told himself flatly. I won’t. It’s too late for that. Cory had to hurt. And Harlie. And everyone else who’s touched him. Everyone’s hurt but Pardo.

“It’s your turn, now,” he said aloud, “and by God it’s a long time coming!”

The eyes pleaded with him.

“No!”

The mouth twisted pain into words again.

“No,” Howie cried, “I won’t, Pardo. You can just quit asking!” His eyes filled with hot, angry tears. He could hardly see anymore.

“You got no right,” he said. “You don’t, Pardo.”

The eyes refused to let him alone. They reached out, holding him.

Howie forced a laugh through his tears. “You can just hurt, ’cause I sure ain’t goin’ to help. I’m… not, Pardo.”

He felt the bone-handled knife in his fist. It burned, like there was fire in it.. His arm was heavy as iron. He remembered the first time he’d seen the knife in the window of the store in Bluevale, and how Papa had said if the meat sold good maybe there’d be enough for the knife, and some sweet sugar candy… .

“Well, now.”

Howie straightened, blinked back his tears. The bright torch blinded him a moment. Then he saw the gaunt face above yellow light, the thin smile. He knew the face. He blinked again. Roundtree. The skinny man in the alley in Roundtree.

The man’s eyes moved down and fell on the knife. The smile faded. “That, was a bad thing to do, Howie. We wasn’t through with him.”

Howie wondered if he could make it out the rear of the tent before the man shot him, and decided he couldn’t. He was too tired to try, anyway. Then he saw the smaller figure behind the man, outside the tent. Slim, with a wide mouth and Kari’s curious eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

His name was Lewis, or so he’d told Howie. He didn’t wear a uniform, just plain clothes like anyone, but you could tell he was important by the way the guards treated him.

Howie didn’t look at him. He gazed past the man across the empty room to the window with the thick wooden bars. It was a bright, clear day outside. White clouds sailed by like big, lazy beasts and he could hear people talking and moving about in the busy street below. If he got up and went to the window he could look down and see them; merchants hurrying from one place to another, women going to market, and soldiers—plenty of soldiers. Beyond were the high walls of the city where swarms of workers labored all the day, and at night under torchlight. And past that, far on the horizon, the dim blue shadow of the mountains.

The skinny man smiled at him and blinked watery eyes. “Sure a nice day, ain’t’ it? Reckon a boy like you’d enjoy being out there takin’ in the sunshine. Maybe squiring a pretty girl ’round or something.”

Howie looked at him curiously. “Well that ain’t real likely, is it?”

Lewis shrugged. “Now you don’t know that.”

“Uhuh.”

“Things can happen,” Lewis assured him. “They sure can?’

Howie laughed out loud. “I figured that’s why you brung me here,” he said dryly, “so you could round up all them pretty girls. That’s it, ain’t it?”

Lewis looked pained and disappointed. “Howie, Howie…” He shook his head and let a shallow breath through his lips. “Remember what I told you back in Roundtree? How you had friends and didn’t know it? How they could help, if you wanted them to? That still goes, Howie.”

Lewis was perched on the only piece of furniture in the room, a three-legged stool. He’d brought it with him and Howie figured he would take it with him when he left. They sure weren’t leaving him anything he could tear up, or get his hands around.

“Why you reckon I’d believe that?” said Howie. “You lied to me about knowing Cory. You never even seen Cory.”

Lewis looked thoughtful a moment. “All right. That’s true enough. I didn’t know him, but I knew all about him, didn’t I? I knew about Cory, and what happened to him, and I’m dead right in saying Pardo killed him—and everyone else who wasn’t in on that deal with him. Is that true or ain’t it?”

“Sure,” Howie shrugged. “I reckon it is.” And what difference did it make, he wondered? The whole business was over and done with. Talking about it wasn’t going to bring Cory back. And they sure weren’t going to hang Pardo for it.

“You see?” said Lewis. He held his hands open wide. “Answering questions ain’t all that hard. I’m an easy man to get along with. You don’t have to be scared or nothing, Howie.”

“I ain’t,” Howie lied.

Lewis grinned and winked at him. “Well, you might be. Just a little. Couldn’t blame you for that. But you sure don’t have to be. Howie, we know a lot more about Pardo’s business than you think we do. We know that he promised to see that meat through, and how he sold us out to the Rebels. We even know how he did it—gettin’ everybody all worked up and scared over false rumors ’bout the Rebels coming down from the north, or up from the south and all. ’Course he planned all along to lead the herd right to the Rebels, before we could get there. And we know somethin’ else, too.” He pointed a long finger at Howie. “We know you wasn’t in on any of that. You didn’t have no use for Pardo, and we know that, too. You was just doin’ what you had to do.” He sat back and folded his arms and gave Howie a secret grin. “We even know you tried to kill him… took out after him with your knife, when you found what he’d done to your friend Cory.”

Howie didn’t say anything. Lewis leaned forward. “You see? That’s what I been tryin’ to get across, boy. That we ain’t after you for nothing. There’s just things we want to check on… kind of tyin’ up loose ends and all. You got no reason not to talk about what’s over and done with, do you? There ain’t nobody it’s goin’ to hurt, is there?”

“Don’t reckon there is,” said Howie, trying to sound like he meant it.

The skinny man was good at what he did. After listening to him awhile you caught yourself almost believing he was your friend, and didn’t mean any harm, and sure didn’t want you to say anything that’d get you in trouble.

Howie knew better. And he was certain Lewis was aware of that. If he’d really known everything about Pardo’s operation, like he said he did, he wouldn’t be wasting time talking about it. He wanted something, and figured Howie could tell him. What, though? If the man was as smart as he seemed to be, wouldn’t he know Howie was about the last person Pardo’d tell his secrets to?

He even told that to Lewis. Lewis just smiled and said they knew that and didn’t expect him to have that kind of information. Like he’d said, they were just checking. They really already knew everything they needed to about Pardo.

When he left, he took the stool with him, and said they’d be talking again soon. Howie wasn’t sure of too much anymore, but he was certain that was so.

It was a four-day ride from the mesa to the city. No one spoke to him the whole time. He didn’t see the skinny man. Or Kari. He had plenty of time to wonder, though, what Kari was doing there—alive and well, with nearly everyone else in the column dead and gone. The more he thought . about it, the worse he felt. Finally, he tried to put her out of his mind. She was alive, and he was glad of that. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know much more.

He didn’t know the name of the city and no one told him. They put him in the bare room and left him, and gave him water and a little food—not so much, though, that he wasn’t always hungry.