Neal Barrett Jr. (16 page)

When he finished with the eyes he looked at Jacob and touched the blade lightly against the man’s thighs. Jacob jerked uncontrollably, nearly pulling his arms out of the sockets. He knew pretty well what was coming. Howie did the best he could, but the fear and the pain were more than Jacob could handle. He quickly dropped into unconsciousness. That was all right, too, Howie decided. He’d wake up and have plenty of time to think about what had happened to him. .

B
y midafternoon he was far to the north, in the midst of deep woods ringed by high, rugged cliffs. He had no idea where he might be, only that he was far from the camp by the river. If the soldiers were after him he didn’t know it, and at the moment he didn’t much care.

He tied the stolen horse to a tree and stumbled through low brush until his legs gave way and he went shakily to his knees. The tears came then, and he remembered Papa and his mother and what they’d looked like at the house. He tried to think of nothing, but his mother was still there. And Papa, looking surprised at dying. He saw Colonel Jacob and what he’d done to him on the riverbank. The hollow eyes and the terrible empty place between his legs. And the bone-deep letters on his chest that would last as long as Jacob and wouldn’t ever go away:

HOWIE SON OF

EV AND

MILO RYDER

He knew he couldn’t stay there. He had to get back on the horse. And he remembered a whole day had gone by and it was April now, and tomorrow he’d be sixteen….

“C
ory, you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m all right, I’m just fine.”

Howie could see her in the pale light, leaning over him, her eyes lost in shadow.

“You were moaning in your sleep. I figured you had a dream.” might have. If I did I don’t recall,” Howie lied. He reached up and touched her bare shoulders. “Come on back to sleep.”

“I got to get up now, silly. It’s real close to morning.”

“It ain’t that close.”

“It is too, she said. Lorene brushed her hands past her cheeks, drawing back her hair. Howie cupped her breast in his hand. Lorene shuddered and closed her eyes.

“Lord, Cory, don’t make it any harder on me than it is. I don’t
want
to go, you know that.”

“Thought maybe you was getting tired of me. Might be thinking about that fine-looking officer or something.

“Cory!” Lorene looked appalled. “Don’t you even tease me ’bout something like that.”

“Well, he sure does moon around you a lot,” Howie said. “Hell, you’re with him all the time.”

Lorene sighed. “What do you figure I ought to do?

M
aybe I just ought to say, ‘I’m sure sorry, Dan. I can’t walk around on the deck with anyone ’cause see I’m making love to this other fella every night.’ “

“That’s his name? Dan?” Howie made a face. “What kind of name is that?”

“It’s just an ordinary name, that’s all. Oh, Cory, you don’t
really
think I care anything about him, now do you?”

“You better not.”

“Well I don’t. I just care about you. My heavens, a few days back I didn’t know a thing about men, and now I’m—doing all
kinds
of things with you every night, things I never even thought about before, and you’re worried about me and Dan Adams.” Lorene laughed. “I sure have come a long way.”

The laughter grated on Howie. “That ain’t funny, Lorene.”

“Honestly,
you’re
the one that’s funny. The way you’re acting. You just—
oh, Cory!”

Howie pulled her roughly to him, thrusting one hand between her thighs. Lorene drew in a breath, tried to squirm free and said she had to get up, that it was getting close to dawn, and then she cried out once and threw her arms around his neck and didn’t say anything at all.

H
owie woke at first light. He couldn’t remember when Lorene had finally left. Lord, that last time was something! Like they’d never even touched each other before. And it was Lorene who’d come at
him
so hard at the end, loving him with a fierce desperation as if she’d gone right out of her head, and it was Howie himself who’d had to stop.

He leaned back and looked at the ceiling and grinned at the spider overhead. For the first time since he could remember, he felt as if everything in his life was going fine. He had Lorene, and he was headed for California. It was far away from any place he knew, far from anyone who’d ever heard of Howie Ryder, and what had happened between him and Colonel Jacob.

And Harriver Mason was there. Ever since Jones had brought his name up again, Howie had given the man a lot of thought. He couldn’t find everyone who’d done those awful things to his sister, but he sure had to do what he could. Anson Slade was gone, and that was one. And Harriver Mason would be at High Sequoia. Ritcher Jones wouldn’t like what Howie had in mind, and Howie felt bad about that. The preacher had sure treated him fine. But there were some things that just had to be. Carolee was dead, and Mason didn’t have any right to be alive. He didn’t have any right at all.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

G
oing back to eat with the others wasn’t easy. The scene he had witnessed on the stern had shaken Howie badly; feelings had rushed in that he’d tried to put away. He didn’t think he could ever watch folks eat meat again without getting violently sick on the spot. Not after that.

For three days he avoided the galley. He told Lorene the seasickness was acting up again.

“Don’t seem to be sapping your strength a whole lot,” Lorene said, with that sly look she knew drove Howie up the wall.

Ritcher Jones accepted this story until word got to him somehow that Howie had made friends with the cook. It seemed he was dropping by four or five times every day for bread and jam, potatoes and soup, and was making quite a dent in the ship’s small supply of fresh vegetables and fruit.

Finally, Jones took Howie aside. “I guess I know what’s the matter,” he said. “I should have guessed it before. —

Howie felt his throat constrict, and tried to avoid Jones’s penetrating eyes. `Uh, I don’t reckon I know what you mean.”

Jones smiled his best preacher smile and laid a hand on Howie’s shoulder. “Now Cory, don’t think I don’t know what happened down there the other day. I might look like I’m jawing all the time, but there isn’t a whole lot I don’t see.” He looked soberly at Howie. “It’s the Garvey boy, isn’t it?”

Howie looked genuinely confused. This was apparently the reaction Jones expected.

“It’s all right, the preacher said. “I didn’t know you were sensitive about your eye, Cory. I guess you just don’t let it show. Children have a way of stepping on feelings sometimes. Here, I got you this.”

With a broad smile, Jones drew something from his pocket and handed it to Howie.

“Well. I’m sure grateful.” It was a tangle of black cloth and string, and Howie wasn’t sure what it was for.

“It’s a patch,” Jones explained. “For your eye. Covers up the scar. Go on, try it on.”

Jones gave him a hand, then stepped back and looked him over. “Well, now. That’s just fine. Real nice, I’d say. Gives you a kind of—
dangerous
look, you know?” He showed Howie a wink. “The young ladies in California will go for that, my boy. You wait and see. Now, I’ll expect you at supper tonight.” He wagged a finger in Howie’s face. “No more of this sneaking around to the cook.”

H
owie didn’t like the patch at all, and the fact that it doomed him to the galley again. Still, there was little else he could do other than share his true feelings with Jones, and he sure wasn’t about to do that.

Little had changed while he was gone. Ritcher Jones preached the glories of peace and High Sequoia, and Garvey argued with every point he made. It suddenly occurred to Howie that the two men thoroughly enjoyed these fiery exchanges, that each would be greatly disappointed if the other gave in and agreed.

Occasionally, Captain Finley managed a word here and there, continuing to spill food down his shirt. Howie did his best to ignore the awful sight and smell of meat. Young Garvey stared at his patch. Dr. Sloan never looked his way; it was as if the incident on the stern had never happened, and Howie was grateful for that.

S
ometimes, at night, when Lorene slipped into his bed, Howie would berate her for mooning over Adams. The subject was always good for a fight, but since neither of the two dared quarrel above a whisper, one or the other would start to laugh at some point and they would end up in each other’s arms. The lovemaking that followed these exchanges seemed even more heated than usual, and both Howie and Lorene began to look forward to the evening’s accusations and denials. The outcome was clearly worth the effort.

T
he ship’s progress was posted every morning, and passengers could learn how many miles they had traveled the day before, and what lay to starboard and port. There were latitudes and longitudes—which made no sense to Howie—and remarks about the temperature and wind.

Ritcher Jones had made the passage south many times before, and delighted in telling everything he knew. Once he pointed out a distant gray mass to the west and told Howie it was part of the Central Americas, lands that used to be nations right below Mexico.

“No one goes there anymore,” Jones said grimly. “It’s a place of desolation. They got hit hard in the Great War.”

Howie asked why that was so, and Jones couldn’t say. It was the same farther down, he knew that. He showed Howie a map of South America. Millions had starved down there in that same terrible war of the past. There might be people still alive, but no one knew for sure.

“America got hit bad enough,” Jones said. “But I don’t guess anywhere near like the rest of the world did. Asia came through like us, but there isn’t anything in the Europes. A ship took a look over there about thirty years back. War’s a horrible thing, Cory. Even a
small
war like the one back home can bring a people down for good. We can’t let that keep happening—it’s just got to stop.”

Howie had seen ruined cities from the past; it was easy to tell how bad things must’ve been. But it was hard to imagine a whole world like that, places all over as big as America where nothing lived at all. He had never heard of Asia or the Europes, and didn’t want to admit that to Jones.

E
veryone knew that the ship would make land right at dawn, and all the passengers were up on deck for the big event. The sun rose to a bright and cloudless day, and a few moments later, Howie could see a shoreline topped with emerald green. Finley passed his spyglass around, and everyone got a close look. Young Garvey swore he could see people moving about, but Howie doubted that. When it came Howie’s turn, he saw a tangle of thick foliage that reminded him of the ’glades. Waves of heat warped the view, and this confirmed what everybody said—that the tropics were about as close as you’d care to get to hell.

An hour later, the ship passed the green shore to starboard, and Jones said they were entering a saltwater passage that linked the Atlantic and the Pacific, that the land on both sides was called Panama Province. Before the Great War, only a few ships could go through this passage at a time, but terrible weapons had been used here as well, and now the way was forty or fifty miles wide, right through to the other side.

“Whatever did that must’ve been a sight to see,– Howie said.

The remark earned Howie a stern preacher look. “Anybody saw
that
, boy, made a real quick trip to the devil or the Lord.”

H
owie could smell the port of Nueva Panama before he saw it. It was a mix of dead foliage, rotting fruit and stagnant water; that, and odors he couldn’t name, all borne on stifling waves of heat. The steamy climate of this part of the earth was more evident now that the ship was barely making way. There was no breeze at all, and great swarms of insects from the shore discovered the vessel and its passengers at once. There was no escape from these hordes of mosquitoes and gnats. Mrs. Garvey fled with her son to their cabin, but discovered soon enough that the room had become an oven, and returned to face the army of bugs.

There were many other vessels in port. Howie counted over a dozen. As the ship made its way through the maze of hulls and masts, he spotted homes and buildings among the trees, one-and two-story structures in sun-faded tones of mustard and pink, lavender and blue. He could make out people on the dockfront now, men scurrying about, moving barrels and crates.

Something caught Howie’s eye, and he strained for a closer look. He was startled by what he saw. God A’mighty, everybody’s skin was dark as pitch. The people on shore were all black!

Jones, standing at the railing nearby, caught his expression at once.

“I take it you’ve never seen such folks before,” the preacher said. “The first time can be a little scary, that’s a fact.”

“I seen a stuffed nigger once at a fair,” Howie said. “When I was just a kid.”

“I would not advise you to use that particular term around these people,” Jones said. “They would take great offense.”

“How come they’re here?” Howie asked. “I thought they all died ’bout a hundred years ago.”

“They mostly did. But some survived.” Jones shook his head. “That was a terrible thing, Cory. A shameful thing at best. All men are the same in the eyes of the Lord—or nearly the same, I’d say. Lawrence had some thoughts on that which I’d be glad to discuss at some time. Suffice it to say, there are black persons here. Panama Province belongs to them, and the city here is quite important as a midpoint of trade. Many ships from California or Alabama Port stop here and off-load, trading cargo in Nueva Panama port instead of making the trip from one ocean to the other. It’s quite convenient. And very profitable for the blacks, since they take a cut of every bit of business that’s done, and charge docking fees, loading fees, and fees for most everything else. They do
business
with us, but they are not overly friendly to persons of white skin. This is simply their way, and there’s little that can be done about it.”