Flying Crows (12 page)

“ ‘The train! The train! Yonder comes the train!' one of the bushwhackers
yelled.

“I looked toward the east and saw a line of black smoke coming. The
bushwhacker drunks went into an even wilder frenzy, leaping on their horses
and rushing toward the depot, where some were already throwing rails and
ties on the track.

“In just a few minutes, I could see the train itself off in the distance coming, it seemed to me, at top speed as if it had no mind to stop in Centralia.
The fool bushwhackers feverishly kept stacking rails and ties on the track. I
figured the brakeman must have seen the barricade because the train suddenly started slowing down. Here it came down the track toward the station,
accompanied by a piercing sound of scraping metal. The wheels were still
turning, but it was obvious the brakes were on. As if God were in the cab, the
train's five cars came to a halt right at the depot, the engine just a few feet
away from the deadly barricade the fiends had constructed. It was a miracle.

“The bushwhackers blasted their pistols at the train cars. I could see pieces
of glass and wood come down on the passengers inside. One of the cars
seemed to be filled with men in blue coats. I wondered if they could be Union
soldiers? If so, why weren't they firing back? Maybe I was seeing things.
Maybe they weren't soldiers. Above the noise of the bushwhackers' pistol fire
I could hear women and children shrieking for God, if no man, to help them.

“Soon the firing stopped, most of the bushwhackers dismounted, and, led
by the man in black I now knew to be Bloody Bill Anderson, boarded the
train. In the express car, the agent, confronted with pistol muzzles in his face,
handed over the keys to the safe. I saw him give them away.

“More than a dozen men joined Anderson in the baggage car, clawing like
animals at the luggage, trunks, and boxes. Was there cash money in there? I
assumed there was and these villains were stealing it all!

“Other bushwhackers scrambled into the passenger cars and wrenched
money, jewels, and anything else they liked from the terrified people who, by
chance and bad luck, just happened to pick this day to ride this train. Oh,
what can one say about fate? What if they had decided to make their trip tomorrow—or yesterday? They would have missed this tragedy. Some of the
fiends even robbed children of their toys, which they then stomped to
pieces. For what purpose? What threat did a child's teddy bear pose to Anderson and his band of bloody brothers?

“In the car of the bluecoats—I was now convinced they were soldiers—I
watched with amazement as they all raised their hands above their heads.

“I was not the only citizen of Centralia watching this terrible show. People, mostly men and boys, were in windows or in corners, like me. I am reluctant to admit even now that at those early moments I felt an exciting rush
of blood through me. It was a drama, horrible and hurtful, yes, but a drama
of a level beyond anything any of us in our little Missouri town could ever
have dreamt of witnessing.”

Josh stopped talking and looked up at the ceiling of the auditorium, as if
asking a benevolent God to hear his confession and forgive the sin of his excitement. Most everyone in the auditorium followed his lead in raising their
heads to the heavens. They always did at this moment in the performance. It
was a crucial step before moving on to the worst.

“Then, back out in front of the train, Anderson ordered all the passengers,
except the soldiers, out and onto the platform. I still wondered why they had
not fired at the bushwhackers, why they had not resisted. A man who
worked in one of the stores, who was hiding near me, said they must be unarmed, probably on their way home on furlough. I was later to learn that that
was, in fact, the case. There were only two pistols among all the soldiers,
many of them on their way to Iowa and elsewhere west. So they had nothing
with which to deter the bushwhackers. I regretted my bad thoughts about
them.”

Again, Josh looked at the ceiling. And again, his audience did the same.

“The soldiers were then told to leave the train on the other side. I and, I
daresay, many other citizens of Centralia, moved to positions from which to
see the sight.

“ ‘Take off your uniforms! Strip!' the bushwhackers yelled at the soldiers.
They unbuttoned their jackets, removed their shoes or boots, pulled off their
pants, and some, in their panic to please, even their underwear. I had never
seen so many naked men at one time in my life. Their skin was all white and
shivery. Was it possible to be scared out of your skin? Maybe so; maybe
that's what I was seeing.

“I counted them. There were more than twenty. Twenty-one . . . twenty-two . . . twenty-three . . . twenty-four. And on to twenty-seven. Twenty-seven naked, humiliated, terrified men, some of them trying their best to hold
their hands over their private parts. There were many people watching
them—most of them men and boys like me. But there must have been
women in windows of houses and the hotels and there were women and
children passengers from the train who, if so inclined, could have stolen
looks from between the train cars and other vantage points.

“Anderson, in a voice that the Devil himself would have admired, had the
station and the boxcars on the siding set afire. Then he told the soldiers to
form a single line across the street. I could tell that these men knew their fate.
Some seemed to accept death. Some closed their eyes and moved their lips.
I assumed they were praying. I wondered what kind of prayer made sense at
a moment like this. ‘Forgive me, God, for all my sins before I die?' Or,
‘Promise me, God, never to forgive these awful fiends for what they're about
to do to me.' ”

Josh paused for a second and then said to the auditorium, his fellow patients and their watchers, “Which one of these prayers would
you
have
prayed?”

Somebody yelled, “Never forgive them!” Then a couple of others
screamed, “Forgive me!” And the room soon was divided almost evenly between those shouting “Never forgive them” and “Forgive me.”

By this time in the performance, Josh no longer needed the bushwhackers
and their Somerset Sluggers to maintain order. He let the thunderous noise of
the competing shouts go on for a couple of minutes and then, with the raising of his right hand, shut it down and returned the auditorium to silence—
and to his story.

“Other soldiers, instead of praying, sobbed and begged for their lives. ‘I'm
too young to die!' one cried out. He looked to be seventeen or eighteen, not
much older than I was. It made me wonder just what was the proper age for
death at the hands of Bill Anderson and his drunken bushwhackers. I felt
sorry for the young soldier and the others, but I also was ashamed for them.
They were soldiers of the United States. They should not have been acting
this way—even if they were naked, even if their pubic hair and privates were
exposed, along with their fear of a horrible death.”

Josh fell silent. The auditorium remained silent. It was not possible to read
that silence as the crowd being either in agreement or disagreement. Silent
was what everyone was supposed to be right now, and they were all behaving as expected.

“The pleas of the men to be spared were answered by vile profanity from
the bushwhackers with words I cannot repeat.”

“Do it! Repeat them! Do it!” Several of the patients yelled. Josh expected
it. Somebody called out.

Josh smiled and waved them quiet.

“They then herded the soldiers over to the front of the store. Two soldiers
refused to move. Anderson immediately shot them dead. I mean, he fired at
one with a pistol in his right hand, the other with a pistol in his left hand. The
shots hit each in his forehead.

“Once the line was formed, one of the bushwhackers asked Anderson in
a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone in town and, maybe, in the
whole state of Missouri: ‘What are we going to do with these fellows?'

“ ‘Parole them, of course,' Anderson yelled back.

“And the bushwhacker laughed heartily. ‘That's what I thought you had in mind.'”

XI

WILL

SOMERSET

1919

There was a handwritten note on Will's desk when he arrived at the asylum one morning. He had assumed something like this would eventually appear. Because it was inevitable, it was almost a relief.

Mitchell:

Please come by my office for a conference upon arrival. Thank you.

Mayfield

Will knew it was about Josh.

“For eight long, tedious, wasteful months, including many a Saturday and Sunday, you have attempted to get this man to relive his horrible experience,” said Dr. Mayfield, always the professional in his white coat over a white shirt. “You have not only
not
helped him deal with his severe lunacy, I believe you have made it worse. Your theory, that reliving the experience in the extreme will help him recover from his lunacy, is absurd and you have proved it so.”

“Maybe it takes more time,” Will mumbled. In a burst of anger, he added, “Trying to help him is better than killing—”

“Help him?” Mayfield interrupted. “As a physician, Dr. Mitchell, you are, in fact, violating the first rule of our calling. You are doing harm.”

Will could not argue that point. Yesterday, like most days now, just the sight of Will had thrown Josh into a screaming fit. The poor man still had yet to utter a regular normal word. Except when he was yelling, he remained mute. Will knew he was not qualified to help lunatics, and he had proved it beyond any doubt with Josh, a pathetically sick man.

Dr. Mayfield's large windowless office occupied a corner in the basement off the treatment and other infirmary rooms. It was painted pale green and outfitted in furniture that matched that used by the patients. The big desk and five or six chairs scattered around were all cheap, institutional. So were the bookcases and the coffee table where Will was now sitting, across from Mayfield. There were a couple of books and a folder on the table. Will was sure they related in some way to him and to Josh.

“I have asked you here this morning, Dr. Mitchell, to give you a lecture—not in any hostile or disciplinary way, however,” said Dr. Mayfield. “I want you to learn from this experience. I want you to understand what you have done.”

“As I said, I tried to help the man, that's all I've done,” said Will. He was not interested in any kind of lecture.

“I would take you back a step, Dr. Mitchell. Do you believe you helped him in saving him from a beneficial death last year?”

“Yes. I am a physican committed to the premise that any life, even that of an incurable lunatic, is always worth saving.”

“I would submit that, by
saving
him, you denied him the right to be useful.” Dr. Mayfield picked up one of the books on the coffee table. It was dark brown, the same color as his tie, and about the thickness of a dictionary. “This contains a glimpse into what the future may hold for the treatment of lunacy. Some impressive research results are beginning to point to chemical imbalances in the brain as being a primary cause. That might mean a future that could involve merely prescribing medicines for the treatment of ailments such as the one that afflicts your man Lancaster. It's a future that must be realized as fast as possible. This institution and hundreds more like it are filling up and brimming over with the hopeless and the damned, in this country alone. We have no time to waste, Dr. Mitchell. We must work as fast as possible, using every means at our disposal. And that requires the use of expedited research on those diseased brains that—”

Will jumped to his feet. “Thank you for the lecture, Dr. Mayfield,” he said. “I appreciate your sincerity and I'll admit I have been unable to help poor Josh—not in eight months, at least. But killing people, even in the name of expediting the treatment of lunatics, is murder under the laws of the state of Missouri and of God.”

“You will have nothing more to do with Joshua Alan Lancaster unless it is to treat a physical ailment,” Dr. Mayfield said. “Is that clear?”

It was clear. Will left the office.

He was tempted to gather up what few things he had in his room at the doctors' residence and get the hell out. Forget the rest of his two-year commitment. Forget this interesting experience. Move on to the practice of normal medicine on normal people in normal Kansas City, Missouri.

With no particular destination in mind, Will bounded up the stairs to the first floor of Old Main and turned in the direction of the library. He had no intention of reading anything; he just wanted to sit in a corner and think.

In looking for such a corner, he came across Josh. Joshua Alan Lancaster. His conversation with Mayfield was the first time Will had heard Josh referred to by his full name.

Josh was sitting at a table surrounded by books.

“Hey, Josh,” he said.

Josh blanched. His whole body cringed.

“Relax, please,” Will said quickly. “I'm not here to do anything to you. I was just passing through. May I sit down?”

Josh remained stolid, unmoving. At least he didn't scream. That's progress, thought Will, as he took a seat across the table.

He glanced at what Josh was reading. It was a little green pamphlet called
Thrilling Record
by a Sergeant Thomas M. Goodman. Down in the corner, Goodman was identified as “the only survivor of the Centralia (Missouri) Massacre, September 27, 1864.” On the table next to it was
History of Centralia, Missouri
by Edgar Thomas Rodemyre. Also
Quantrill's
War
by Duane Schultz,
They Called Him Bloody Bill
by Donald R. Hale, and
Bloody Bill Anderson
by Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich. Every one of the five or six books laid out in front of Josh appeared to be about the same thing: the events in and around Centralia, Missouri, during the Civil War. All Will remembered from his high school history class was that these men were pro-Confederate guerrillas, called bushwhackers, who roamed the state committing unspeakable acts of violence against pro-Union people and their possessions.

Josh seemed to be using all the books at the same time. How could that be? And his lips were moving, even though no sound was coming from them.

Will decided to try to get Josh to talk one more time. Maybe there was something going on here with these books.

“What's the worst thing those bushwhackers did?” Will asked, figuring that getting an answer from a man who hadn't spoken a calm word in almost fifteen years was at least worth another try.

“They scalped some of the Union soldiers they murdered at Centralia,” Josh said, in a direct, articulate, modulated performance voice. “Before Centralia, they cut off the noses and ears of their victims, too.”

Will couldn't believe
his
ears. This patient on the other side of this table was speaking!

“Tell me more about what happened at Centralia,” Will said, as calmly as he could, afraid to let too much excitement show in his voice.

Josh told him the story of the Centralia massacre in detail without referring to a note or a page from any book. It was a recitation, almost an act. He spoke as if there should be quotation marks around each of his sentences. He had clearly memorized passages from the books in front of him and strung them together to form a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Will was astonished—stunned—at the accomplished way Josh recited the story, changing the tone and inflection of his voice to fit various characters.

“That was most impressive,” Will said, when Josh finished. “You spoke just like a real actor would.”

Josh smiled. “Well, to tell you the truth, doctor, all of it does come from these books, mostly word for word. I've done very little else except read these books ever since I got here. The words are pretty much a part of me now.”

“Why? Why did you do this?”

“It was something to do, something to keep me occupied.”

Will wondered if Josh realized what he had just that moment done. He had had a conversation! In addition to the memorized sentences, he had spoken real ones of his own.
Four
real ones.

“Congratulations, Josh. Congratulations, congratulations. You have broken your silence. Memorizing those words about Centralia broke your silence.”

Will saw a look of wonder on Josh's face. He shook his head and gazed down at the books. “Yes!” he said in a whisper. “I'm talking!”

Will Mitchell, ordinary MD, was then struck with an idea that might help Josh even more. “Have you ever tried to think of the Centralia massacre as you went to sleep?”

Josh shook his head. “No,” he said tightly.

“Maybe the only way to deal with your own massacre is to think about somebody else's. Give it a try, Josh. Close your eyes right now and think only of Centralia—from the beginning—just like you told it to me.”

Josh, clearly skeptical and fearful, kept his eyes wide open for one second, two, three, four. . . .

Then he suddenly closed them.

He kept them shut for a minute . . . and another minute. . . . When he finally opened his eyes four minutes later, they were filled with tears of joy.