Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (67 page)

Lymon Pugh was holding the reins. "Drive you somewhere, Adam Hazzard?" he asked.

A few trucks and carriages passed us as we rode up Broadway, all of them headed away from the burning Egyptian quarter. A brisk wind blew steadily along the empty sidewalks, lofting up loose pages from the special edition of the
Spark
 and inconveniencing beggars in the darkened alleys where they slept.

Sam's parting words had touched me, and I have to admit that Julian's unexpected letter caused some turmoil as well. I supposed he had his reasons for doing as he did. Or at least imagined he had good reasons. But it was hurtful that he hadn't lingered long enough to say goodbye face-to-face. We had survived so many harrowing turns together, that I thought I was owed at least a handshake.

But Julian had not been himself lately—far from it—and I tried to excuse him on those grounds.

"He was probably just in a big hurry," Lymon Pugh said, divining something of my thoughts.

"You saw the note?"

"I carried it to Sam myself."

"How did Julian seem when he passed it to you?"

"Can't say. It was handed out from behind that curtained box of his. All I saw was a gloved hand, and all I heard was his voice, which said, 'See that this gets to Sam Godwin.' Well, I did. If I unfolded it on the way, and had a quick read of it, I guess that's your fault."

"My fault!"

"For teaching me my letters, I mean."

Perhaps it was true, as the Eupatridians believed, that the skill of reading shouldn't be too widely distributed, if this was the general result. But I passed over his indictment without comment. "What do you make of it?"

"I'm sure I don't know. It's all above my station."

"But you said he might be in a hurry."

"Perhaps because of Deacon Hollingshead."

"What about Deacon Hollingshead?"

"Rumor among the Guard is that Hollingshead holds a personal grudge against Julian, and is hunting him all over the city, with a body of Ecclesiastical Police to help him."

"I know the Deacon is hostile to Julian, but what do you mean by a
personal
 grudge?"

"Well, because of his daughter."

"The Deacon's daughter? The one who famously shares intimacies with females of her own sex?"

"That's more delicate than I've heard it put, but yes. The girl was an embarrassment to Hollingshead, and he locked her up in his fancy house in Colorado Springs to keep her out of trouble. But Deacon Hollingshead's house was blown up during the trouble with the Army of the Californias. The Deacon was safe here in New York, of course. But he blames Julian for his daughter's death, and means to take his revenge on Julian directly. A noose or a bullet, it don't matter to the Deacon, as long as Julian dies."

"How do you know these things?"

"No offense, Adam, but news that circulates in the Guard barracks don't always reach the upper echelons. All of us that Julian hired to be Republican Guards are fresh from the Army of the Laurentians. Some of us have friends in the New York garrison. And talk goes back and forth."

"You told Julian about this?"

"No, I never had an opportunity; but I think the rogue pastor Magnus Stepney might have said something. Stepney has contacts among the po liti cal agitators, who pay attention to questions like this."

Or it might all be hearsay and exaggeration. I remembered how, back in Williams Ford, a head-cold among the Duncans or the Crowleys became the Red Plague by the time the grooms and stable-boys told the story. Still, that was unhappy news about Hollingshead's daughter. I had always felt sympathy for the girl, though all I knew of the situation was what I had learned from Calyxa's pointed verses at the Independence Day ball a year and a half gone.

"Any particular reason we're heading back to the Palace?" Lymon Pugh asked, for that was the destination I had given him.

"A few things I want to pick up."

"Then off to South France, I suppose, or somewhere foreign like that?"

"You can still come with us, Lymon—the offer stands. I'm not sure what your prospects are in Manhattan just now. You might have a hard time drawing your wages after to night."

"No, thank you. I mean to take my wages in the form of a breed horse from the Palace stables, and ride the animal west. If any horses remain, that is.

The Republican Guards are fond of Julian, and remember him as Conqueror, but they can read the writing on the wall as well as the next man. Many of them have pulled out already. Probably some of the Presidential silverware has gone with them, though I name no names."

We call people rats, who desert a sinking ship; but in some cases the rat has the wisdom of the situation. Lymon Pugh was correct about the looting and the reasons for it. Ordinarily the Republican Guard is a non-partisan group, and survives these flurries of Regime Change without much trouble simply by transferring its loyalty to the next man in the chair. But Julian had made the current Guard his own animal, and it would sink or swim along with his administration.

We came to the 59th Street Gate. Apparently some members of the local chapter of the Army of the Laurentians had heard about the sacking of the Palace, and felt they ought to be allowed to join in, since their northern comrades would be marching on Manhattan any day now. A group of these vultures had gathered at the Gate, and were clamoring for admittance and firing pistols into the air. Enough Guardsmen remained on the wall to act as warders, however, and they kept out the mob; and the mob retained enough respect for the Presidential Seal to allow us to pass through, though they did so grudgingly and with some shouted sarcasm.

I asked Lymon Pugh to make two stops on the grounds of the Executive Palace. One was at the guest- house where, until this evening, I had lived. Calyxa had packed up our most trea sured possessions days earlier, in anticipation of the necessity of flight, and these had already gone to the docks. Only a few odds and ends remained behind. One such was a box of souvenirs and me-mentos, which I had put together without Calyxa's knowledge, and I took it out of the sadly empty building with me.

From there we went to the Palace itself. Lymon Pugh had been correct in his description of the Republican Guard's paradoxical behavior. Some men still occupied their traditional places at the portico, stubbornly "on duty," while others sallied freely up the marble stairs, and down again, burdened with cutlery, vases, tableware, tapestries, and every other portable object. I didn't blame them for it, however. As of to night they were effectively unemployed, with poor prospects, and entitled to back pay in what ever form they could get it.

I hoped no one had already taken what I had come to retrieve. In that regard I was lucky. Few of these men (some of whom gave me a sheepish salute as I passed them) had ventured into the underground section of the Palace, which still had an unsavory reputation. They had not breached the Projection Room, and the master copy of
The Life and Adventures of the Great NaturalistCharles Darwin
 was just where Julian had left it, divided among three pie-tins, along with the score, script, stage instructions, etc.

I didn't linger once I had retrieved these things. I suppose, if there had been a prisoner in the Palace's underground jail, I might have paused to release him. But there weren't any prisoners to release. The only prisoner Julian had kept was the one he had inherited—that is, his murderous uncle Deklan—and Deklan had since taken up a new residence: in Hell, or atop an iron post, depending on how you look at it.

Lymon Pugh was waiting when I emerged from the Palace. He had made good on his word, and taken a pedigreed horse from the Palace stables, and fitted it up with a fine leather saddle and saddlebags; and I could hardly rebuke him for the theft, for he had brought along a second horse just like the first, and similarly equipped, for me.

"Even if you're only riding as far as the docks, you ought to ride in style," he said.

The saddlebags were a con ve nient way to transport the three reels of
Charles Darwin,
 as well as my other souvenirs, and I packed these things carefully. "But I'm not going straight to the docks," I said.

"No? Where first, then?"

"Down to the rough part of town—a certain address."

He was interested in this plan. "Won't that be near the fire?"

"Very near—perilously near—but still accessible, I hope."

"What's there?"

I shrugged. I wasn't ready to confide my awkward hopes in him.

"Well, let me ride with you at least that far, what ever your purpose is."

"You'd be putting yourself in danger."

"It wouldn't be the first time. If I get ner vous I'll shy away—I promise."

It was a welcome offer, and I accepted it.

Just before we remounted I fetched from among my own goods a spare copy of
A Western Boy at Sea
(I had packed half a dozen) and gave it to Lymon to keep. He marveled at it by the light that leaked from the Palace doors.

"This is the one you wrote?"

"It has my name on the front. Just up from the Octopus. The Octopus doesn't appear in the book."

He seemed genuinely moved by the gift. "I'll read it, Adam, I promise, just as soon as I come to a slow spot in my life. Here," he said, reaching into his pocket, "here's something for you, in return. Something to remember me by. Call it a Christmas present."

I accepted his gift, which he had made himself, and solemnly thanked him for it.

We nearly had a disastrous adventure even before we left the Palace grounds. On the way to the 59th Street Gate we rode through the Statuary Lawn, where sculptures and relics from the days of the Secular Ancients were preserved. It was an eerie place even by daylight, and eerier still in the diffuse night-glow of the city, with the copper head of the Colossus of Liberty listing perpetually to the south, the Angel of the Waters gazing in solemn pity at Christopher Columbus, and Simon Bolivar frozen in a cavalry raid on the Needle of Cleopatra. The road twined among these bronze enig-mas from ancient times as through a maze. We seemed to be alone in it.

But we were not. A small group of men on horse back, who must have forced their way through one or another of the Gates, was lurking among the statues, perhaps on the theory that they could rob any Eupatridians or unaccompanied Guardsmen departing the property with loot; and I suppose they imagined they could get away with this outrage, in the general atmosphere of chaos and abandonment.

What ever their plan, they saw us coming and rode at us from their hiding place in a tight group. I counted six of them. The lead man did not disguise his intentions, but pulled a rifle from his saddle-holster. "This way!" Lymon Pugh cried, and we spurred our mounts; but the thieves had calculated their attack very finely. They were about to cut off our escape route, and probably kill us for our modest trea sure, when the rifleman suddenly looked past us, his eyes wide, and shouted an obscenity, as his horse reared up under him.

I turned in my saddle to see what had frightened him so.

It was nothing hostile. It was only Otis, the el der ly bachelor Giraffe, who liked to spend his evenings among the statues. All the night-time activity at the Palace had made him ner vous, I suppose, and when Otis was ner vous he was apt to charge, which was just what he did—he came out from behind Liberty's battered diadem with his long neck swaying majestically, and galloped straight at the bandits. I think he would have roared, if nature had blessed him with such a talent.

The thieves scattered in several directions. Lymon and I took the opportunity and fled the scene without looking back, not slowing until we saw the lights of 59th Street.

I heard some gunfire as we passed out of the Gate. I don't know whether Otis was injured in his confrontation with the bandits. I believe he was not, though I can't produce evidence. Giraffes are as mortal as any other creature, of course, and entirely vulnerable to bullets. But I didn't think Otis would let himself be killed by such low men as those—it wasn't in his nature.

I didn't tell Lymon Pugh our destination until we were much closer to it, for I was constantly unsure of the wisdom of going there; but I thought Julian deserved a final opportunity to change his mind about staying in Manhattan, especially now that the city was burning down; and if I found him (or so I reasoned) I could ask him why he had not offered his farewell by some means less impersonal than a short, scrawled note.

I wasn't entirely sure I
could
 find him; but I had a firm hunch as to his whereabouts, and I calculated there was enough time left to pursue the matter, if only just.

If anything would stymie us it would be the fire in the Immigrant District, depending on how it had spread. As we crossed Ninth Street we were nearly borne back by a tide of fleeing Egyptians. They were a troubled people, despised by the majority. Many of them had left their native country to escape the poverty and warfare of Suez and the sickness that haunts the terrible ruins of Cairo. They had seen destruction before, and they didn't seem surprised by this fresh catastrophe, but were resigned to it, and trudged along with their packs on their shoulders and their carts dragged behind them as if it were not the first apocalypse they had witnessed or the last they expected to see. They paid us no attention; but we were riding against a human avalanche, and it slowed our progress.

Soon we could see the fire itself, leaping above nearby rooftops. The flames had already consumed most of the Immigrant District, where the flimsy houses, often appended to old concrete ruins and built from what ever debris could be dug out from makeshift excavations, burned like tinder. All Manhattan's fire-wagons and water- engines had been brought to bear on the problem, or so it seemed. The pumpers took their water from the Houston Canal, a freight canal, and from the Delancey Canal, a sewage canal—though in practice there was little to choose between them. Debris of the most noxious sort often plugged the firemen's hoses; and the stench of smoke, char, and boiling human waste nearly turned us back. Fortunately Lymon Pugh had brought along an assortment of paper plague masks (some dipped, as was the Eupatridian custom, in oil of opoponax); and we each donned one of these, and they were modestly useful in impeding the unwelcome odor of the conflagration.