Through Darkest America

the horses were for, but wanted nothing to do with them himself. A man’d be a fool to get on the back of such a thing.

When the night came and they stopped for the evening meal, Howie ate sparingly. He told the black man he was much obliged but didn’t want to deplete another man’s rations, when there was nothing he could contribute himself. The man said nothing, but understood it was mostly because of the stock.

They’d stopped for noon under the sparse shade of a mesquite. It was the highest point on the flatlands as far as the eye could see, no other object being more than a foot off the ground from one horizon to the other.

“If I’m askin’ something I maybe shouldn’t, just say so,” Howie said. “What I’m wondering is where all this goes, and what’s after it.” He caught the black man’s eye, and the little touch of caution there. “I wasn’t askin’ where you was headed,” he added quickly. “That’s sure no business of mine.”

“Didn’t figure you was,” the man nodded. He snapped a dry twig and worked it around in his mouth. “North you know better’n I do. And east too, I reckon. I never seen either and don’t want to. South is nothing at all. Just more of this. You start calling it Mexico somewhere down the line. Only it don’t change the land none to call it something different.”

“What’s down there?”

“I said nothing. Or nothing I know of.”

“There’s horses.”

“There’s horses. Nothin’ more than that.”

“And west?”

“West is California. There’s plenty there… none of it much better’n where you come from, I don’t reckon. There’s cities. And people.” His eyes brightened some. “And ships. There’s an ocean there, blue as it can be. And once in a while a ship comes in to port. Long and, dark, with big bright-colored sails. And people that don’t look nothing like me…”

He grinned, “…or like you, either.”

Howie was curious about that. “They ain’t from here, you mean?”

“No. They sure ain’t from here.”

“Where, then? There isn’t anyplace else.”

“Well, I guess maybe there is.”

Howie thought about that the whole day and part of the next. He tried to picture what one of the big ships with colored sails would look like. And people that weren’t the same as either him or the black man. What kind of people would they be? And where did they come from? There were other places in the world before the War. Everybody knew that. But there weren’t supposed to be any now.

The business of the black man’s stock was on his mind, but it wasn’t a subject Howie felt like bringing up again. Where the man was taking them—whatever they might be— sounded too much like asking about the man himself. And that was clearly something the man didn’t want to get into. Howie couldn’t much blame him. If there weren’t supposed to be any black people, and no one figured there were, there might be a good reason to keep quiet about where there were some more.

Once, he’d let the man know real plain about that. “I can take off some other way. Whenever it pleases you. I figure you got places to go that ain’t the same as mhie.”

The black man looked at him a long moment, then said he’d sure let Howie know.

Howie didn’t have to bring up the stock again. The man did that on his own, coming back to the fire one evening after staying a long time in the brush. “One of ’em is pretty sick,” he announced. “Don’t figure he’ll make it for long.” His dark eyes got hard and thoughtful. “Reckon he’s been through enough for anyone, without crossing a place like this. Don’t know as I done ’em a favor taking them on.”

The man’s face, which always seemed to hide a great and silent strength, was suddenly drained and weary. He squatted by the fire, big hands on his knees, and watched the popping coals.

Howie felt he ought to say something, but didn’t know what. Maybe the man didn’t want to hear anything just then.

“Is he the… one that done the talking?” he finally asked. The man shook his head without looking up. “No. ’nother one from that.”

“He still talk to you some?”

The black man raised his eyes. “He don’t like to do a lot of talking. If he talks, he got to think ’bout where he’s been.”

Howie thought about that. “He ever say where that was? Where they came from?”

“Said he didn’t talk a lot, now didn’t I?” The man tossed a stick in the fire. Howie got the message, but couldn’t bring himself to stop.

“Look,” Howie said, “I’m not saying it isn’t so, or that this feller don’t talk, just like you say. But it don’t make sense. If he talks, he ain’t meat. And if he’s people, then someone treated him and the others like they wasn’t. Why’d anyone do that?”

The black man looked pained. Like nothing people did surprised him much. “Why’nt you just get up and go ask him?” he told Howie. “Reckon he’d be the one to answer that.” He stood and gave Howie a brooding look, then walked off out of the light until Howie couldn’t see him anymore.

It doesn’t make sense, Howie thought, and decided he was tired of thinking and saying it all the time.

The black man didn’t talk to him in the morning. Howie followed him across the flat hot land that didn’t seem to end or begin. Then, when they stopped to share sparse swallows of water, the man stoppered his clay jug and looked right at Howie. “Look. My name’s Earl. You can tell me yours if you want.” Howie did, and the man said it once to himself. “I can’t take you where I’m going, Howie, but you can go along some, then I’ll show you how to bear north and west. It’s where the ships come in I was tellin’ you about. You might want to see ’em.”

It was a fine thing for Earl to do, and it made Howie feel better than he had in a long time. “Why, I might just do that,” he said.

It was peculiar how it started, because he was thinking about ships, and the funny-looking fish Earl told him he might see. It came to him slowly, like he was watching the dark surface of a lake for something rising up quietly from its depths. He couldn’t say what it was, but he didn’t feel good about it at all.

When the night came again and supper was done, he made himself walk back to where the others always stayed, a little away from the camp. They looked at him cautiously, but didn’t run. He knew at once that Earl was right. They were dirty and looked like stock, but their eyes told him better. He wanted to turn and go. Until now he could tell himself that Earl was maybe crazy, or making it all up. He couldn’t do that anymore.

“Which one of you is it that talks?” Howie said. They all looked at him. One of the girls was tending the boy who was sick. They were all younger than Howie. “I don’t mean any harm. Earl’ll tell you that.”

“What do you want, mister?” The boy who spoke had pale blue eyes and a nose that had been broken and had healed bad. His voice was thick, but Howie could understand him.

“Who treated you like this?” Howie said. “I want to know that, I want to know who did it.”

“Who are you?” the boy said.

“I’m not anybody at all. My name’s Howie Ryder.”

The boy looked down at his hands. He didn’t face Howie again for a long time. “You’re not one of them, I don’t guess,” he said finally.

“One of who?”

“The guv’munt. One of them.”

“It was the gover’ment give me this,” Howie said flatly. He pointed at the scarred flesh covering his bad eye, then squatted beside the boy. “Is that who it was? Why the hell for?”

“They can do whatever they want,” the boy said simply, as if that explained it all. “Whatever they want to do.”

Howie waited. The boy looked at the others and something seemed to pass between them.

“I want an answer,” Howie said. “That’s all.”

“I don’t have any of those,” the boy said. He stood, walked back to the others, sat with his back to Howie,