Neal Barrett Jr. (14 page)

H
owie came quickly awake, unsure for a moment where he was. The cabin was filled with peculiar light, a pale luminescence that washed against the walls. Be heard the faint night sounds of the ship, a rope stretched taut, the wind catching in the sails. That, and something else, a presence and a scent that had nothing to do with the sea….

“Cory?”

Howie sat up straight. “
Lorene!
My God, you near scared the life out of me.”

“Hush, Cory.” Lorene came quickly to the side of his bed, a finger to her lips. She bent low to kiss him, and her long hair brushed against his chest. The touch burned right through him; he could feel it clear down to his toes.

“Voices carry something awful on a ship,” Lorene warned him. “You’re going to have to think about that.”

“Lord, Lorene, you sure smell good.” He reached out to hold her. Lorene suppressed a laugh behind her hand and slipped quickly away.

“My goodness, Cory, you just take a girl’s breath away.”

“Yeah, well, you’re playin’ hell with mine,” Howie said. Just from looking at Lorene, his mouth was dry as sand. The girl was purely a vision. She wore something white, the same color as the light from the moon. The gown came down to her ankles, and that excited him all the more. He couldn’t see a thing, but he knew what was there. Every lovely inch of Lorene was etched forever in his mind.

Lorene stood away from the bed, just out of reach, her hands clasped behind her back.

“Lorene, you want to come on back over here?” Howie said. “I can’t hardly see you in the dark.”

“The way you been looking, I reckon you can see me just fine.”

“Lorene—”

Lorene looked at the floor. “You—kinda frighten me some, Cory. You know?”

“What are you talkin’ about?’

“You. And me too, I guess. Cory, I never
did
anything like that. Not before you. I guess I
thought
about it sometimes. I know I wasn’t supposed to, but I did.” Lorene hesitated, then looked right at him. “I guess I’m trying to say I’m scared,”

Howie was alarmed. “You saying you don’t want to do it anymore?

“No, now I’m not saying that.” She came close again, placing her hands on the rim of the bed. “I got to tell you the truth, Cory. I want to do it something awful. That’s the thing—I haven’t thought about anything else. What I’m vowed to do for God and High Sequoia, how a Sister of the Church is supposed to act. I haven’t thought about
any
of that. All I’ve thought about is you.”

“Oh Lord, Lorene!” Howie ached to hold her, but he held himself back. He could see the confusion in her eyes, and the longing there too. He figured she was fighting things out, thinking on sin the way religious folks do.

“I was so worried about you,” Lorene said. She laid a hand on his chest. “Brother Jones didn’t tell me a thing. He just sent someone to get me and say we’d be leaving a day or two sooner than he’d planned. Said it had to do with you. He wouldn’t say what till we got on board.” Lorene looked away. “He said you—killed a man, Cory. That’s why you’d be going on with us to California. Oh, Cory! Tears filled her eyes. “I was so ashamed. I didn’t even thing about you taking a human life. I was so relieved
you
were all right!”

“Lorene, I had to do it. I didn’t have no choice. I couldn’t do nothing else.

“I know. That’s what Brother Jones said. He believes in you, too.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I didn’t much figure he did.”

With Lorene so close, the smell of her skin nearly driving him crazy. Howie hadn’t thought about Jones. He thought about him now.

“It’s all right you bein’ here, ain’t it? I mean, I don’t know how close the preacher’s cabin is.”

“It’s not close at all,” Lorene said. “But mine is, Cory. Just down the hall. And Brother Jones sleeps like a log. He says a man who’s at peace with the Lord is a man who’ll get a good night’s sleep.

Amen to that, Howie thought.

“So you don’t have to worry,” Lorene assured him. “ ’Course, we’ll have to be careful. And when I see you during the day …”

“I already thought about that. I been workin’ on a real polite look. Like I think you’re a right fine person but nothing more than that.”

Howie showed her his look, and Lorene had to bury another laugh.

“Don’t overdo it. You look like you’ve flat passed out, Cory. I think you ought to work on something more natural, you know?”

“Acting natural with you’s a real chore, Howie said.

“I
guess I know that. You think I haven’t been wondering what
Fin
going to do, nodding hello and eatin’ slipper and such? We’re just going to have to try, that’s all. Do the best— Oh,
Cory!
“

Lorene’s eyes went wide and she jerked her hand away. She had started out absently stroking his chest, but as they talked, the hand had strayed south, reaching the only spot in that direction.

Howie grinned at Lorene. “You ought to not be real surprised. You done that to me before.” He reached out gently and took her hand and brought it back. Lorene didn’t resist, but he could see her blush even in the dark.

“Oh Lord, Cory!” Lorene closed her eyes tight. Howie felt her hand tremble, but she didn’t let go.

“I can’t get used to it, is all,” Lorene said. “I mean, when we went ahead and did it, the first time, the way that was, and you gettin’ like
that—oh,
I don’t know
what
I mean!”

Lorene stepped away from the bed, grasped the gown below her waist and slipped it quickly over her head. Her skin was stark white from the moon; she tangled her legs on the rim of the bunk, sprawled on Howie, and laughed against his chest. The bunk was so narrow, barely made for sleeping and not meant for loving at all, that Howie was certain they’d both be battered and bruised before the dawn, and he didn’t much care if they were.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“H
owie . “

He woke up smelling first dawn, heavy with sleep, then suddenly awake, seeing his father there and feeling the strong hands on his shoulders.

“Howie, don’t talk, boy, just listen,” Papa said. “Get up and go in quick and get your mother. Get her downstairs and out back. Over the field, Howie, and don’t make no noise at all.”

“Papa—”

“Listen, boy.” Papa gripped him hard. “I ain’t got time to explain. I just know. Jacob let it show right there in his eyes. I know, Howie. I felt it. Son, for God’s sake, you got to do it!”

Howie moved without thinking. For a moment, his father was behind him, then he was gone. When his mother saw him and what he meant to do, her eyes went wild and full of fear. He pulled her along through the dark, hurting her some, and not thinking about that, either. When they were halfway to the woods through the shallow ravine, he heard the sound behind him and turned and saw them. Two men on horses coming fast, gray against the first raw touch of the day. He heard his mother cry out and he stood to face the riders, saw the bright flash of fire and felt the darkness closing in….

When he sat up straight he felt the pain, sharp and clear like a knife. He touched his head where the trooper’s bullet had creased a furrow across his skull, and knew the men had figured he was dead.

He didn’t want to go back, but he knew that’s what he had to do. He could hear Papa telling him he had to be a man, and he didn’t feel anywhere close to being that.

They had gone through the house, breaking things and tearing up whatever they could find. There was flour everywhere and broken glass. In the room upstairs where Papa and his mother slept he found her. Her clothes had been stripped away and her wrists and ankles were tied to the head and the foot of the bed with coarse wire. She had fought a whole lot. For a while, anyway. The blood made red bracelets around her wrists and ankles. There was blood in a lot of other places too, where they’d done things to her. He couldn’t see all her face because her long black hair was tangled about her features, but he could see the small dark hole in her forehead, ringed with a faint aura of blue. He thought about cutting the wire loose and finding all the sheets and blankets that hadn’t been torn too bad and covering her with that. Instead, he turned away and closed the door and went downstairs again.

Papa was halfway up the front steps. He still had on the heavy checkered shirt, but his trousers were gone, and Howie saw them out in the yard. He had crawled about ten yards over the hard ground, and Howie could look behind him and see the trail he’d made trying to get back to the house. He hadn’t used his arms, because they were pressed real tight against his belly, where he had tried to hold everything in long enough to get back to the house. They had cut him up bad. One raw slice across the bowels, deep, from hipbone to hipbone. There were other cuts on his thighs and between his legs where they’d taken everything away.

In his room he reached up between the eaves and found his bow and quiver of arrows still there. He rolled up his extra pants and a shirt and his jacket. Downstairs, he picked through the wreckage and added half a loaf of bread to his pack and a clay jar of water. Then he walked outside to the grove of oaks where the War Tax goods had been stacked, squatted down, and studied the tracks of men and horses and the wagon. They’d gone west, across his father’s land, toward the river road. He started walking, then, and never looked back at the house….

Howie didn’t feel sick in the morning, but the thought of the day before was still there, and he didn’t want to do that again. Ritcher Jones was right—a full belly seemed to help, and Howie vowed not to ever let his stomach get empty till he stepped onto solid ground again.

The bed smelled pleasantly of Lorene, a musky scent of love that got him hard all over again. Lord, he’d have to wait till night to get her back in the bunk. That was an awful long time.

He stayed in bed another minute, savoring the smells and the memory of the night, then dressed quickly and made his way to the main deck. The sea was vibrant blue touched with green, a color he’d never seen before. White gulls squawked noisily about the masts. The boy named Jimmy who’d brought him bathwater and soup the night before told him how to get aft and then below. There was a place called a galley, and that’s where everyone ate.

Howie found the place with little trouble, stumbling through a wrong door only once. The proper cabin was marked “galley” in gold painted letters. When he stepped inside, several people were gathered about a wooden table. A man with a full gray beard sat at the head of the table, a younger man to his right. Both wore ship’s uniforms. There was a well-dressed man and his wife, a boy about ten, a thin, balding man with bad skin. Howie didn’t know anyone there except Jones and Lorene. When Howie stepped through the door, everyone stopped eating and looked up.

“Well now, Cory!” Jones offered his best preacher’s smile, as if Howie’s sudden appearance were the most important event of the day. “I am pleased to see you looking well,” Jones said. “Thought we might lose you yesterday.” He winked at the others. “My young friend here had a touch of the seasickness. I swear I never seen such a terrible shade of green on a man’s face.”

Everyone laughed politely. Howie took a seat, and Jones introduced him to Captain Finley and Mr. Adam the captain’s second-in-command. He met the Garveys and their boy, and Dr. Sloan.

“And of course you’ve met Sister Lorene,” Jones said.

“Sure, real nice to see you,” Howie said. He looked a good six inches past the girl, not anywhere close to her eyes.

“I am pleased to see you again, Cory,” Lorene said primly.

Lorene seemed properly distant, and Howie approved. At any rate, it was clear the whole act between them was lost on Ritcher Jones, who was absorbed in other things. Jones didn’t need a church to preach; the small breakfast crowd would do fine. When Howie joined the others, Jones simply thrust him into the sermon with little effort at all.

“You take young Cory here now,” Jones said, taking up where he’d left off. “The boy bears the scars of this godless war, like many another lad. Taken from his home and rushed into bloody battle, likely in a place he never heard about before.”

Jones raised his fork, jabbing it in the general direction of the heavens. —And for what, I ask you? Thousands of maimed and dead in this war, and not a one of those boys could tell you why.”

“I’d say the answer’s clear enough,” said Garvey. “They fought to keep Lathan from taking over the country. That’s the best reason I can see.”

Ritcher Jones seemed delighted with this remark. “Ah, yes indeed. Then the purpose of the war is to keep the Rebels from ruling the nation.”

“Well, of course it is. What do you think, man?” Garvey’s tone said he thought Ritcher Jones was a fool.

Garvey reminded Howie of one of the big swamp frogs he’d seen in the ’glades, creatures with large bulging eyes that seemed continually surprised and ill at ease. A frog in a fancy suit and tie. The man was flat ugly, Howie thought. There wasn’t any other way to put it.

“And what would happen in this country,” Jones said, one eye nearly closed in thought, “what would happen if Lathan’s army should win?”

Garvey made a noise in his throat. “I don’t care for that kind of talk, sir. Smacks of treason, it does to me.”

“N
o offense,” Jones said. “For the sake of argument, my friend.”

“The country’d be in ruin, that’s what.”

“But Lathan has said from the start that he feels his cause is just. That he merely wants to bring about needed reforms.”

“He’s a liar,” Garvey said bluntly. “What do you expect him to say? He wants to take over is what he wants to do.”

“There, now.” Jones let his eyes sweep the table. “I believe Mr. Garvey has come up with the proper answer to our question. The Loyalists—that is, those in power now—wish to retain that power. Lathan and his followers wish to take it from them. Not a particularly new story at all. The government is in power and Lathan’s not. Lathan says he can do a better job. He does not say he, ah—wishes to change the names of the states, make everyone wear a blue hat—” Jones winked at Garvey’s young son—”paint little boys green, or make any other outlandish gesture.”