Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (8 page)

I began by saying this was a story about Julian Comstock, and I don't mean to turn it into a story about myself. Perhaps it seems so; but there's a reason for it, beyond the obvious temptations of vanity and self-regard. I did not at the time know Julian nearly as well as I thought I did.

Our friendship was a boys' friendship. I couldn't help reviewing, as we sat in silent captivity in the ruins of Lundsford, all the things we had done together: reading books, hunting in the foothills west of Williams Ford, arguing amiably over everything from Philosophy and Moon-Visiting to the best way to bait a hook or cinch a bridle. It had been too easy, during our time together, to forget that Julian was an Aristo with close connections to men of power, or that his father had been famous both as a hero and as a traitor, or that his uncle Deklan Comstock—Deklan Conqueror—might not have Julian's best interests at heart.

All that seemed far away, and distant from the nature of Julian's true spirit, which was gentle and inquisitive—a naturalist's disposition, not a politician's or a general's. When I pictured Julian as an adult I imagined him pursuing some scholarly or artistic adventure: digging the bones of pre-Adamite monsters out of the Athabaska shale, perhaps, or making an improved kind of movie. He was not a warlike person, and the thoughts of the great men of the day were almost exclusively concerned with war.

So I had let myself forget that he was also everything he had been before he came to Williams Ford. He was the heir of a brave, determined, and ultimately betrayed father, who had conquered an army of Brazilians but had been crushed by the millstone of po liti cal intrigue. He was the son of a wealthy woman, born to a powerful family of her own—not powerful enough to save Bryce Comstock from the gallows, but powerful enough to protect Julian, at least temporarily, from the mad calculations of his uncle. He was both a pawn and a player in the great games of the Aristos. And while I might have forgotten all this, Julian hadn't—those were the people who had made him, and if he chose not to speak of them, they nevertheless must have haunted his thoughts.

It's true that he was often frightened of small things—I remember his disquiet when I described the rituals of the Church of Signs to him, and he would sometimes shriek at the distress of animals when our hunting failed to result in a clean kill. But to night, here in the ruins, I was the one who half-dozed in a morose funk, fighting tears; while it was Julian who sat intently still, as coolly calculating as a bank clerk, gazing with resolve from beneath the strands of dusty hair that straggled over his brows.

When we hunted he often gave me the rifle and begged me to fire the last lethal shot, distrusting his own resolve. Tonight—had the opportunity presented itself—I would have given the rifle to him.

I half-dozed, as I said, and from time to time woke to see the Reservist still sitting guard. His eyelids were at half-mast, but I put that down to the effect of the hemp flowers he had smoked. Periodically he would start, as if at a sound inaudible to others, then settle back into place.

He had boiled a copious amount of coffee in a tin pan, and he warmed it whenever he renewed the fire, and drank sufficiently to keep himself from falling asleep. That obliged him periodically to retreat to a distant part of the dig and attend to his physical needs in relative privacy. We couldn't take any advantage from it, however, since he carried his Pittsburgh rifle with him; but it allowed a moment or two in which Julian and I were able to whisper without being overheard.

"The man is no mental giant," Julian said. "We may yet get out of here with our freedom."

"It's not his
brains
 so much as his
artillery
 that's stopping us," I said.

"Perhaps we can separate the one from the other. Look there, Adam.

Beyond the fire I mean—back in the rubble."

I looked at the place he indicated. There was motion in the shadows—a particular sort of motion, which I began to recognize.

"The distraction may suit our purposes," Julian said, "unless it becomes fatal." And I saw the sweat that had begun to stand out on his forehead. "But I need your help," he added.

I have said that I didn't partake of the particular rites of my father's church, and that snakes were not my favorite creatures. As much as I had heard about surrendering one's volition to God—and I had seen my father with a Massassauga Rattler in each hand, trembling with devotion, speaking in a tongue not only foreign but utterly unknown (though it favored long vowels and stuttered consonants, much like the sounds he made when he burned his fingers on the coal stove)—I could never entirely convince myself that I was protected from the serpent's bite. Some in the congregation obviously had not been: there was Sarah Prestley, for instance, whose right arm had swollen up black with venom until it had to be amputated by Williams Ford's physician ... but I won't dwell on that. The point is, that while I
disliked
 snakes, I was not especially
afraid
 of them, as Julian was. And I couldn't help admiring his restraint: for what was writhing in the shadows nearby was a nest of snakes, scorched out of hibernation by the heat of the fire right nearby.

I should add that it wasn't uncommon for these collapsed ruins to be infested with snakes, mice, spiders, and poisonous insects. Death by bite or sting was one of the routine hazards faced by professional Tipmen, including concussion, blood poisoning, and accidental burial. The snakes, after the Tipmen ceased work for the winter, must have crept into this chasm anticipating an undisturbed sleep, of which we and the Reservist had unfortunately deprived them.

The Reservist—who came back a little unsteadily from his necessaries—had not yet noticed the dig's prior tenants. He seated himself on his crate, and scowled at us, and studiously refilled his pipe.

"If he discharges all five shots from his rifle," Julian whispered tremu-lously, "then we have a chance of overcoming him, or of recovering our own weapons. But, Adam—"

"No talking there," the Reservist mumbled.

"—you must remember your father's advice," Julian finished.

"I said keep quiet!"

Julian cleared his throat and addressed the Reservist directly, since the time for action had obviously arrived: "Sir, I have to draw your attention to something."

"What would that be, my little draft dodger?"

"I'm afraid we're not alone in this place."

"Not alone!" the Reservist said, casting his eyes about him ner vous ly.

Then he recovered and squinted at Julian. "I don't see any other persons."

"I don't mean persons, but vipers," said Julian.

"Vipers!"

"In other words—snakes."

At this the Reservist started again, his mind perhaps still confused by the effects of the hemp smoke; then he sneered and said, "Go on, you can't pull that one on me."

"I'm sorry if you think I'm joking, for there are at least a dozen snakes advancing from the shadows, and one of them is about to achieve intimacy with your right boot."
¹⁰

"Hah," the Reservist said, but he couldn't help glancing in the indicated direction, where one of the serpents—a fat and lengthy example—had lifted its head and was sampling the air above his bootlace.

The effect was immediate, and left no more time for planning. The Reservist leapt from his seat on the wooden crate, uttering oaths, and danced backward, at the same time attempting to bring his rifle to his shoulder and confront the threat. He discovered to his dismay that it wasn't a question of
one
 snake but of
dozens,
 and he compressed the trigger of the weapon. The resulting shot went wild. The bullet impacted near the main nest of the creatures, causing them to scatter with astonishing speed, like a box of loaded springs, unfortunately for the hapless Reservist, who was directly in their path. He cursed and fired four more times. Most of the shots careened harmlessly; one obliterated the midsection of the lead serpent, which knotted around its own wound like a bloody rope.

"Now, Adam!" Julian shouted, and I stood up, thinking: My father's advice?

My father was a taciturn man, and most of his advice had involved the practical matter of running the Estate's stables. I hesitated a moment in confusion while Julian advanced toward the captive rifles, dancing among the surviving snakes like a dervish. The Reservist, recovering somewhat, raced in the same direction; and then I recalled the only advice of my father's that I had ever shared with Julian:

Grasp it where its neck ought to be, behind the head; ignore the tail, however it may thrash; and crack its skull, hard and often enough to subdue it.

And so I did just that—until the threat was neutralized.

Julian, meanwhile, recovered the weapons, and came away from the infested area of the dig.

He looked with some astonishment at the Reservist, who was slumped at my feet, bleeding from his scalp, which I had "cracked, hard and often" against a concrete pillar.

"Adam," he said. "When I spoke of your father's advice—I meant the snakes."

"The snakes?" Several of them still twined about the dig. But I reminded myself that Julian knew very little about the nature and variety of reptiles.

"They're only corn snakes," I explained.
¹¹
"They're big, but they're not venomous."

Julian, his eyes gone large, absorbed this information.

Then he looked at the crumpled form of the Reservist again.

"Have you killed him?"

"Well, I hope not," I said.

We made a new camp in a less populated part of the ruins, and kept a watch on the road, and at dawn we saw a single horse and rider approaching from the west. It was Sam Godwin.

Julian hailed him, waving his arms. Sam came closer, and looked with some relief at Julian, and then speculatively at me. I blushed, thinking of how I had interrupted him at his prayers (however unorthodox those prayers might have been, from a purely Christian perspective), and how poorly I had reacted to my discovery of his true religion. But I said nothing, and Sam said nothing, and relations between us seemed to have been regularized, since I had demonstrated my loyalty (or patent foolishness) by riding to Julian's aid.

It was Christmas morning. I supposed that didn't mean anything in partic u lar to Julian or Sam, but I was poignantly aware of the date. The sky was blue again, but a squall had passed during the dark hours of the morning, and the snow "lay round about, deep and crisp and even." Even the ruins of Lundsford were transformed into something soft-edged and oddly beautiful; and I was amazed at how simple it was for nature to cloak corruption in the garb of purity and make it peaceful.

But it wouldn't be peaceful for long, and Sam said so. "There are troops behind me as we speak. Word came by wire from New York not to let Julian escape. We can't linger here more than a moment."

"Where will we go?" Julian asked.

"It's impossible to ride much farther east. There's no forage for the animals and precious little water. Sooner or later we'll have to turn south and make a connection with the railroad or the turnpike. It's going to be short rations and hard riding, I'm afraid, and if we want to make good our escape we'll need to assume false names. We'll be little better than draft dodgers or labor refugees, and I expect we'll have to pass some time among that hard crew, at least until we reach New York City. We can find friends in New York."

It was a plan, but it was a large and lonesome one, and my heart sank at the prospect of it.

"We have a prisoner," Julian told his mentor, and we escorted Sam back into the excavated ruins to explain how we had spent the night.

The Reservist was there, his hands tied behind his back, still groggy from the punishment I had inflicted on him but well enough to open his eyes and scowl. Julian and Sam spent a little time debating how to deal with this encumbrance. We could not, of course, take him with us; the question was how to send him home without endangering ourselves needlessly.

It was a debate to which I could contribute nothing, so I took a little slip of paper from my back-satchel, and a pencil, and wrote a letter.

It was addressed to my mother, since my father was without the art of literacy.

You will no doubt have noticed my absence,
 I wrote.
It saddens me to be awayfrom home, especially at this time (I write on Christmas Day). But I hope you willbe consoled with the knowledge that I am all right, and not in any immediate danger
.

(That was a lie, depending on how you defined "immediate," but a kindly one, I reasoned.)

In any case I would not have been able to remain in Williams Ford, since Icould not have escaped the draft for long even if I postponed my military ser vice forsome few more months. The conscription drive is in earnest; I expect the War inLabrador is going badly. It was inevitable that we should be separated, as much as Imourn for my home and all its comforts.

(And it was all I could do not to decorate the page with a vagrant tear.)
Please accept my best wishes and my gratitude for everything you and Fatherhave done for me. I will write again as soon as it is practicable, which may not beimmediately. Trust in the knowledge that I will pursue my destiny faithfully andwith every Christian virtue you have taught me. God bless you in the coming andevery year.

That wasn't enough to say, but I couldn't spare time for more. Julian and Sam were calling for me. I signed my name, and added, as a postscript:
Please tell Father that I value his advice, and that it has already served me usefully. Yrs. etc. once again, Adam.

"You've written a letter," Sam observed as he came to rush me to my horse. "But have you given any thought to how you might mail it?"

I confessed I had not.

"The Reservist can carry it," said Julian, who had already mounted his horse.

The Reservist was also mounted, but with his hands tied behind him, as it was Sam's final conclusion that we should set him loose with the horse headed west, where he would encounter more troops before very long. He was awake but, as I have said, sullen; and he barked, "I'm nobody's damned mail-man!"