down its rider who seemed to be naked, burnt to a crisp, caked in dusty blood and carrying a giant rifle. But the stranger passed in the moonlight, racing toward Old Texas. Deputy Loon sighed. He took off his right boot and scratched between his toes. He put the boot back on. He sat for what seemed an hour of time and eventually lay forward on his horse’s neck and entwined his fingers in its mane and closed his eyes and slept and dreamed of a town burning and a horde of women fleeing the flames and overtaking him on the horse, dragging him down, tearing him into pieces. Boy was he glad it was only a dream.
12 THE WAKE
EVAVANGELINE SAT UP. SUDDENLY THIS TALL NIGGER SHE’D NEVER seen before had appeared in the livery room and clamped a cloth to the guard’s nose before she could rise from her stool and sound the cowbell. He let her drop to the hay and peered through the bars. He brought up a long finger for silence and knelt and looked her so hard in the eye it made her fidget in her bonds. He rubbed his chin, like a gambler wondering what his discard should be, then lifted the key off its nail and unlocked the cage and cut her loose and handed her a bundle of clothing and underthings. Up close she could see his coiled white hair beneath his hat brim. The gray goatee. The lines of his face that would tell stories if a person could read such maps.
He nodded at the clothes and turned to give her privacy. She stretched and flexed and stripped from the shift they’d dressed her in and stood naked in the hay and held things up to discern them arm or leg then wormed her feet down the stockings and dress and fitted her fists down the sleeves. When she was finished he crooked his finger for her to follow. On her way out she unstuck the Mississippi Gambler from the wall and concealed it in her dress.
Outside, the widow-guards began to shoot at them but hit nowhere near Evavangeline as she followed the mysterious stranger over a rail fence into the crisp sugarcane leaves and after a time into the woods. The dress impeded her walking so she lagged back and used the knife to cut off the bottom half. Under it the stockings came near to her thigh. The skirt material was pretty and, still following the old nigger, she fashioned a headdress from the cloth. It was too hot to wear, so she left it collapsed over a stump like a bride weeping in the woods. Because the top half of the dress was cumbersome yet, she ripped off the sleeves at the shoulders and rolled them down her arms and left them strung along twigs of knuckled black oak like tunnels of spiderweb. When it was still hard to breathe she unfastened the top buttons of the blouse and then the bottom ones, noticing how the wires in the corset made her tits bigger. She pushed through a brake bush and into the nigger-man’s campsite where he sat smoking a pipe. Arms folded, wrapped in his coat despite the heat. He had a small fire with a pail of something bubbling over it, held aloft by a spit and sticks. But if he was surprised by her appearance it never showed on his face.
I miss the sound of a dog at night, Mrs. Tate said, bound by the bedsheet to her chair. He’d hung a shawl over her shoulders to conceal her confinement and they’d sat for half an hour without a word spoken between them. Once in a while Smonk would elicit a squeak of air from her by tightening the broom handle.
From outside came the sound of gunshots, no surprise as the guard-women were prone to accidental discharges even when they weren’t terrified. Still, Smonk signaled for silence as voices clanged in the street and footsteps clumped over the porch. A breathless guard-widow burst in the parlor and reported that a nigger had stole the girl they’d captured. What should they do?
Unseen behind the door, Smonk touched the tip of his sword with his tongue.
Let them go, Mrs. Tate said. We’ll find them tomorrow.
The widow looked doubtful but nodded and took this order outside.
Meanwhile a flock, or a swarm—or whatever their group designation was—of
Yet somehow unscathed he rose, searching his arms for pinprick bites, worried about the dread “hydrophobia,” sorry that his rifle had been scabbarded on his saddle and sorrier still that he’d surrendered his pistol to the horrific man in the wagon. Also, his sword was missing, as were most of the pieces of equipment from his extra pockets, victim to his being floundered over the terrain. He felt a passing anger at the tailor who’d assured him the pocket flaps were guaranteed “tip-top,” and wondered what the rotund Italian craftsman would think knowing the terrain over which his pants walked tonight.
A quick inventory revealed that Walton had retained only his medicinal flask, magnifying glass, fishing kit and whistle, which he brought to his lips but decided against blowing. Perhaps stealth might prove a better tactic out here in such sprawling wilderness. Even his goggles were gone. His compass as well, so he had no idea which direction he should go. Perhaps he ought to remain here, near the site of his fall, hoping to retrieve pieces of the valuable equipment on the morrow.
Wait! The North Star. Nature’s omnipresent Saint of the Lost. He gazed into the heavens and spotted that beacon of hope glimmering and counted it a small personal success. He wished he had his logbook. He rubbed his backside and thought of the bats and shuddered. Perhaps he’d best make haste. The full moon gave ample light for him to traipse through the “cane,” beyond which he could discern a copse of trees. He made this his target and began to run, hoping the shelter would remove the danger of another bat-attack.
In the copse, he soon lost himself in total darkness and became entangled in a crosshatch of spiderweb, ivy, vine, weed and briar, quite a morass. Walton shoved at the morass but it shoved back and he thought he felt spiders in his hair. In a panic, he began to flail his arms and bat his way through, an immediate mistake as a low horizontal limb at throat’s height laid him flat and knocked out his breath.
When he opened his eyes, he thought he heard voices. He rolled onto his belly, his neck sore and skin burning from its various cuts and abrasions, but his head felt clear, in fact very clear, and he knew the thing to do was steal closer to the voices without giving himself away. Remaining prone, he passed beneath the thickest of the thicket and presently the underbrush thinned to a civil level and he crept forward tree to tree, moonlight beaming through in columns.
Soon he’d spotted a campfire and, after discerning the wind’s direction by licking his finger and pointing in the air, he prepared to come in “downwind.” He’d have removed his hat had he had it. Instead, he separated each metal item from the other to avoid clinking and began to scuttle forward, noiselessly, soon raising his eyes over a fallen log to fix them upon the precocious Negro wagon-driver from before and, seeing her from the rear, what looked to be a bride with her clothing rent.
Walton’s heart began to pound; he forced himself to breathe deeply.
Here. Here was his chance. He raised his eyes to the trapezoids of twinkling sky the forest roof allowed him and experienced the sensation of having arrived at his destination after a long journey. He bore no doubt that he was a fool. A coward. A—there was no other word—fop. Yet what other fop was here, what other coward, what other fool? Who else to help this woman? To save her from the uppity Negro who even now seemed to be thumping her a coin. Attempting to buy this decent woman for a “thrill.”
Well, Phail Walton wouldn’t have it. He’d reached for his pistol but it was gone. As were his sword and rifle. His knife. Here he was on a mission of reconnaissance, armed with a fishing kit, whistle, flask and magnifying glass. Think, Phail, think! What would Mother do?
She’d take a drink. He removed the flask and unscrewed its lid and endured the burning scratch of alcohol down his throat. He endured another. What was he to do, Mother?
But it wasn’t his mother who seemed to lend wisdom: It was his own inner voice. Just calm down, Phail, it said. Take another drink and listen to the people talk. What are they saying?
They gazed at one another over the fire, the old nigger-man so openly, with such appraisal, it made Evavangeline fidget.
What’s ye name? she asked him, finally.
Ecsenator Isaac. Call me Ike. What’s yern?
She didn’t say.
