She asked, and yet she knew the answer. It was the goodness in
him, his need to do right and work hard and take upon his shoulders the burdens he could. She loved him for this, much more than
she ever told him. And because of this she feared what this life
would make of him. She thought how cruel it was for a mother to
give part of herself to these boys, how cruel for them to become men
just like other men, to leave and disappear and so map the world.
But of these things she didn't speak. She took the carcasses from
him and thanked him for his gifts. She set the creatures down on
the board, slit them just so with her long knife, and peeled off their
hides. She tended the fire, gutted the animals, and stripped the
meat from the bones, seasoned the flesh and sewed it into thick
cornmeal pies. As she did all this, she prayed. She asked that her
oldest son hear her and know the love she felt for him. She asked
God to protect him. She challenged him to do better with this son
than he had with the boy's father. Let him live. Bring him home.
Leave him a boy a little longer. Take him not unto thee, for
although thy love is infinite, mine is a mother's. Mine is a mother's love, without judgment, without end.
She looked up from her work, brow dripping, hands spattered
with grease and flour. She exhaled deeply and called her men to
dinner, each of them, especially the oldest son. She called him
home, for he would always be welcome. She called him, although
she feared her voice would not carry far enough for him to hear.
AROUND THREE THE NEXT AFTERNOON they came upon a homestead. It was a simple affair, the house situated close to the river and built mostly of sod, except for the facade, at the base of which a few stone slabs had been laid. The building could have contained no more than one room. There was only one visible window, a low roof, and a simple chimney pipe through which a feeble stream of smoke rose.
The two boys squatted and watched it from a distance of a hundred yards. James asked Gabriel what he thought. Should they ask the homesteaders for some food? Gabriel studied their fields, well-turned plots of crops already into a full and prosperous growth, plants he recognized as tomatoes, melons, potatoes, with one long rectangular field of corn. It seemed a farm intended more for subsistence than for any cash crops.
Gabriel was about to say something when a person appeared from insideâa young woman, followed shortly by a boy child, and just after that by a toddler. The woman's hair was dark, long, and black. It trailed down her back in a thick braid. The toddler followed her on bandy legs, teetering with each step. The woman walked out into one of the fields with a basket, knelt, and worked for a few moments. When her basket was full, she went around to the back of the house, returning a moment later with the basket hanging empty in one hand.
Gabriel nudged his friend. “All right, let's give it a try.” They walked forward shyly. James held his hat in his hands, and Gabriel set his feet softly on the earth.
As they drew nearer, the woman suddenly straightened and stared at them. The loose dress covering her was little more than a formless bag over her adolescent body, but it couldn't hide the rotund shape of her belly. Gabriel tried to hail her with a wave, instinctively bowing his head as he did so, as if such were a greeting familiar to her people. It was not. She dropped her tools where she stood and went into the house, scooping up the toddler and hissing at the boy to follow. Although James called out to them, they'd disappeared inside within a few seconds.
The boys stood, watching the house and frowning. “Ain't rightly hospitable around here, I guess,” James said.
The door to the house swung open again, fast and loud. The first thing to appear was neither woman nor child but the unmistakable profile of a rifle, a thing with barrels more enormous than any Gabriel had seen. Behind it walked a tall skeleton of a man dressed only in worn overalls. His slender arms and protruding collarbone glowed a ghostly white in the shadow of the doorway. He strode toward the boys like a corpse fresh from the grave and bent on retribution. His face was gaunt, his flesh a striated leathery substance that barely disguised the bones of his skull. His eyes, if he had any, were shaded under the cornice of his brows and hidden behind a curtain of limp and graying hair. If this impaired his vision any, it did not show in his actions. With his rifle pointed at the boys from twenty paces, he said, “State your business directly, or you're two dead niggers.”
The boys exchanged glances, as if conferring on just what their business was. James ventured to answer. “Pardon, sir, we don't mean no trespass. We's just walking past your place, and . . .” He paused when the man brushed the hair out of his eyes and studied the boys more closely, squinting one eye shut in the process. “. . . Just wondering might we trouble you forâ”
“No.”
“I mean . . .” James looked at Gabriel for help. “A bite to eat? That's all.”
“I done said no. We don't feed niggers here. Go on about your business or you're dead, sure as Lincoln's a dead son of a bitch. Deadest son of a bitch rotting in hell.” He stepped a little closer. “You think I'd feed a nigger? You come to the wrong man. Had my way, we'd send the whole horde of you back to the filth you slunk out of.” He thrust the rifle toward James's groin. “I'd cut off your nutsacks with my own knife and make oysters, you scum-sucking sons a bitches in heat. Why would I feed you? Shit, I'd rather shoot you dead.”
Gabriel had had enough. His face screwed itself into all the apology he could muster, and he tugged James to get him moving. But James said, “We could pay.”
The man paused. “Pay?”
“Yeah. Show him the coin, Gabe.”
Gabriel cut the boy with his eyes and cursed him under his breath.
The man stepped closer still.
“Show him the coin, Gabe,” James repeated.
Gabriel still hesitated. He took a half step away but froze as the barrels of the gun anticipated further movement. Behind the man, the young woman appeared in the doorway. She watched them with frightened eyes, whether for them or because of them Gabriel couldn't tell. He reached into his pocket, brought the coin forth, and held it up at eye level.
The man resumed his one-eyed squint. “Where'd you get that?”
“What?”
“Where'd you get that?” Without waiting for an answer, the man let his rifle fall from vigilance and strode forward. “Give it to me.” He stretched out his hand and beckoned, like a father about to reprimand a wayward child.
Gabriel snapped his hand into a fist around the coin. He stepped back but thrust his chin forward and looked as hard as he could at the man. “No. I think we'll keep it and move on.”
The man's jaw dropped open. “You'll what?” He swung the rifle back on the job, at chest level. It trembled slightly in his grip. “You trying to give me a reason? That coin's worth more than the both of you. You gonna give it?”
“No.”
“Why shouldn't I pull, then?”
Gabriel held his squinting gaze, all his effort directed. In the man's creased eyes and in the ragged lines that were his eyebrows and in the sour twisted flesh there was an unreasoning and consuming hatred. Gabriel knew that he'd not seen such a hopeless creature yet, for in this man's hatred his life was unredeemable: his procreation a curse, his seed poison, his intentions tainted far back into his past. He saw all this, and he didn't doubt for a moment that the man could shoot them dead. But still, with a calm entirely at odds with the tumult in his head, Gabriel answered the man's question. “Might frighten them.” He nudged his chin toward something behind the man.
“Huh?” The man turned around and, seeing the woman and children, began ranting at them to get back into the house.
Neither boy hesitated for a moment. They both spun and ran upriver as fast as they could. Gabriel waited to hear the gunshot, waited for the impact that must come with it. But only the man's curses followed them, warnings never to show themselves again, damnation brought down upon their kin and their forefathers' kin, promises that he'd shoot on sight next time and make nigger sausage with the remains. All of his words came strangely clear to Gabriel's ears, full, complete sentences that rang in his head even after he'd dropped down beside the river and put the man far behind them.
They moved on a half-mile or so before collapsing on the riverbank, panting and rolling in the dust like two fish fresh from the water, struggling for life. It was some time before James spoke. “I thought homesteaders were supposed to be neighborly. You reckon that old man's the one got that girl knocked up?”
“Probably.”
“He's an evil son of a bitch, ain't he? He'd put Pinkerd to shame. We told him no, though. Didn't we? Old bastard asked and we told him no.” He grinned and nudged Gabriel on the shoulder playfully.
“Yeah,
I
told him no. Fat lot of good it did us.” Gabriel didn't seem as impressed by this fact as James was, although there was an odd, almost satisfied calm in his voice. He opened his fist and studied the coin still held there, moist and shining against his skin. “James, if you ever open your fool trap like that again, I'll wring your neck. I swear to God I will. We ain't gonna spend it unless we have to. I mean
have
to. You hear me?” James reminded him that half the coin was his, but Gabriel slipped it into his trouser pocket and looked back toward the homestead, which was out of sight. “Anyway, what now?”
AROUND DUSK THE TWO BOYS ENTERED THE RIVER fully clothed. The water was shaded just enough to have gone black and was colder than Gabriel expected. He felt his skin tighten as the current wrapped around him and swirled him downstream, gently, slowly, yet with a power conspicuous in its ease. His feet dangled beneath him, and the plains slipped by from this strangest of angles, as if he'd become part of the vein of the world and could look out at the passing skin of it.
They held a tense silence, and as they neared the house, both boys sank up to their chins in the water. At the house, all was as it had been on their initial approach. It was quiet, save for the occasional clink and clatter of dinnertime activities. The front door, while they still had a view of it, was closed, and it appeared that the man and the children were at supper. The stream of smoke had thickened, and with it came the scent of frying meat. This scent alone was enough to firm their plan.
“You ready?” James whispered.
Gabriel nodded, and together they scrambled up the clay bank, slipping and dripping and cursing the slick surface. A few steps from the water, they crouched and listened. All was as before. They slunk forward again, sticking to the worn path by the river, coming up around the back of the house. Gabriel thanked God twice: first when he saw that this side of the house had no window and again when they reached the barrels set against the wall, on which lay several bundles of carrots, tomatoes, turnips, and, most mouthwateringly beautiful, three large melons.
The boys set to stuffing their pockets. This was done in a few seconds. They continued to grab more, wedging carrots into armpits, cradling turnips as delicately as if they were babies, each holding a melon on top of it all. Only when neither could conceive of balancing more did the boys turn and tiptoe away, following the riverbank and keeping to the windowless side of the house. James looked over at Gabriel, a grin splitting his face. He looked as if he wanted to talk, but Gabriel shook his head. A few steps further on, though, and James couldn't help himself. “We did it,” he whispered. “Easy asâ”
“Nigger boys, freeze!”
The call came from behind them. Both boys halted in midstride. Before they had time to confer, the man yelled again, instructing them to turn. They did so, rotating slowly. The man had his rifle aimed dead at them. He held it there for the longest few seconds that Gabriel had yet experienced, those two barrels, the two holes therein, as clear to the boy's eyes as if the space of seventy yards didn't separate him from them.
The man lowered the rifle a moment. He pursed his lips and seemed to consider the possibilities. He looked as though he might talk, then decided not to. He shrugged, said something that Gabriel couldn't make out, then swung the gun up again and shot. Gabriel saw the buck of the gun and the stirring of air at its barrel. The next instant, James whirled as if some force had snatched him up by the head and spun him like a top. The vegetables in his hands flew out in every direction, and he landed spread-eagled on the ground. Before Gabriel could even think what this meant, the boy was back on his feet and flying away.
Gabriel tore out behind him, his booty thrown to the wind. With his runner's stride, he was soon abreast of James, then past him. He didn't question the boy's defiance of death at that moment, but felt only the frantic need for motion, each second, each fraction thereof, too long a space of time, his strides too slow for the workings of his mind. He heard the rifle once more. He thought he sensed the slug's passage above his head, and then he saw the scuff of dust that marked a bullet's impact rise before them. He ran on, unaware of the pounding in his chest or the pain in his legs.
They didn't stop moving until the house had fallen well behind them. This time they were on the far side of it, and they came to rest relieved at this and breathing heavily. James took some time to find his voice. When he did, he showed Gabriel the nick in his left ear, which, despite his worries, was no more than a bruised redness on his earlobe. He replayed the scene, swearing on the body of Jesus that he'd never heard anything as loud as that bullet. It was the force of its sound that had lifted him from the ground that way. He looked at his friend with all seriousness. “These people don't play, Gabe. If he'd've aimed two inches to the left, I'd be a dead nigger, just like he said.”