Paradise Alley (75 page)

He was through the door then, walking out into the street before the mob. So quick, so quiet and calm and dignified that they did not react at all—at first. Then Ruth ran out after him, still trying to pull him back. Still trying to get between him and the mob.
Even as she was filled with a terrible pride in him, her son—

“Get back in! Get back, the both of you!” she could hear Deirdre yelling behind her—but Ruth was already through the door, standing out in the street with him. Not sure of what she could do yet, but determined to do something, to shield him from them.
My boy—

And that was when she saw
him.
Then she spotted Johnny Dolan, himself out by the front of the crowd—and she knew that she was going to die.

•
72
•

He could see the water opening out ahead of him. The dark effluence of the City rushing out, absorbed into the wider, slower currents of the river.
At last, the mouth of the sewer, right there before him—

It had taken him hours to make his way down the culvert from Twenty-first Street, shuffling painfully along the thin ledge. Again and again he felt himself losing his balance, and had to clutch onto the rough brickwork of the tunnel to save himself. Every few blocks the ledge had been eroded away altogether, and he was forced to swing his broken leg carefully out over the gap—praying that it wouldn't come down upon nothing, and that he would be left to dangle over the dark torrent below.

He had to do almost everything by feel, his hands groping along the bricks like a blind man's. There was no sound but the rushing water, or the stray cries from the street above, and the only light was what leaked through the occasional sewer grate. There were rats that ran along the ledge, too, and he could feel them darting over his feet, even running up his legs before he could shake them off—listening to them squeal, and splash into the water beneath him.

There were men, too, down in the sewer. Most of them passed along the other side—furtive, crouching figures who moved much faster along the ledge than he did. They seemed to take no notice of him, but even so he made sure to keep the Colt at the ready.

Once he had encountered a man on his side of the tunnel. Billy had sensed him before he'd seen him in the dark—smelling the odor of his body, hearing the fumble of his hands along the wall. He had frozen—and when the man heard or smelled him, he had stopped as well. All he could see of him was a dark lump, clinging to the wall; from where he was, he could not even make out the man's color. Just his eyes, watching him in turn, no doubt trying to decide whether to go back or to push on ahead, and knock him off the ledge.

Billy had pulled out the Colt—not pointing it, or saying anything. Just holding the gun up, making sure the other man could see it, in the distant light they had. He watched the man's eyes register it—then saw him begin to move slowly backward, the same way he had come. Billy edging after him—keeping a certain distance, careful not to hurry or provoke him into something desperate. Listening to his grunts and labored breathing, the same groping slither along the brick wall. Only then had Billy moved after him—almost glad for the company, for the small human noises in front of him.

After a few hundred yards, the man had stepped back, into a shallow recess along the wall. He made a quick, curt little wave then, a gesture for Billy to go by him. Neither one of them saying a thing. Billy had pulled the Colt out again, then swung one arm and his good leg past the man. As he did he shoved the pistol deep in the stranger's belly, making sure he didn't take this chance to shove him off the ledge. He heard the man grunt with surprise, but still he said nothing, keeping his hands carefully by his sides as Billy swung his broken leg over. So close now, he could feel his sour breath on his cheek—his eyes staring, carefully blank, into the darkness over Billy's shoulder.

Then he was past, and he jerked the gun back. Still holding it up. Standing still against the wall until he heard the man move off again, in the direction he had been headed in the first place, shuffling and scratching his way back down the sewer.

Billy tried to guide himself by memory of direction, from having decided that the water he had seen first, in the basement of the Armory, was running to the east, and the river. From there, he had inched along down smaller tributary tunnels and streams. Hoping that none of them would bring him up to a dead end, in some tenement basement, or one of the hideouts of the river gangs. Always trying to
move to what he thought was the south and the east
—toward home—
though he understood that he was just as likely to end up high on the West Side, that there was nothing to truly navigate his way by down here, neither sun nor stars nor land.

It was painfully slow work, but he reasoned it was the only way. He could not move very fast aboveground anyway, not with his leg busted. Down here, on the ledge, he was at least the equal of any other creature he was likely to encounter.
While up in the City he would only be blood in the water, a wounded creature, just begging to be finished off.

It was the only choice, he knew it, but still he begrudged every minute of it. Aching to be back now.

And if he made it,
he thought, inching his way along, his face up against the wall of a sewer,
if he could get home, he would not go anywhere. He would hole up with the gun, if that was what it took, and wait for Johnny Dolan or all hell to come and find him. It was his home, such as it was, and he would not run again for anyone or anything.

His home, and his family.
He thought of their faces as he made his way along the endless, darkened tunnels. His children, his smart boy, Milton, in particular.

He realized now that he had thought of them as something so insignificant—in light of what he thought he could have done, the life he could have made for himself. Just more additions to the vast flocks of colored children he saw every day, up at the Asylum, with no better hopes for a life than they had. Destined to go through this world as he had, eaten up by bitterness, by a wanting that could in no way be assuaged.

He thought how much he loved them, now. Ruth, too, that ragged little girl he had found standing in the road, mooning after him.
How long she had cared for him, even when he disappointed her. Giving her nothing in return, only the most grudging portion of his affection. Not even able to tame his greatest failing for her, much as he was disgusted by it himself.

Well, that would change.
He was certain, now, that he never had to have another drink in his life. He would give it all up, try to put some money aside. Live a life that she could respect him for, at least, even if he could not respect himself.

Or maybe they would go, after all—on their own terms. Once the
war ended, if it ever did, and the slaves were really free, maybe then there would be someplace for them to go. Something like the little village, now plowed under the earth. Only bigger, maybe even a city, somewhere he could even use his skills again.

They would deserve that much from him, at least—his family. Maybe he would leave for that, but whatever happened he would not leave without them, he would not be separated from them again.

He had to get back.

There was a thumbnail of light before him. At first he thought it was just another grating, but it grew steadily larger as he edged toward it and he realized it was the mouth of the culvert, at long last, opening up before him. The underground stream rushing out into the deceptively passive currents of the river.

There was a gate of metal bars across the entrance to the culvert there, but he knew the river gangs always kept that unlocked. Sure enough, he was able to swing it open easily enough and pull his way back up and outside, into the sunlight again.

He stood there for a long moment, blinking like a mole. Trying to get his bearings—suddenly feeling how exhausted he was, his lips chapped and his tongue swollen with thirst. He looked around—and saw to his vast relief that he had not been far wrong. He had come out right behind the Shambles, and all he had to do was make his way a couple of blocks down Cherry Street, to the end of Paradise Alley, and he would be home.

He paused only long enough to get a drink from the Croton pump. Gulping down the clean, fresh water until his belly bulged, letting more of it run down his head, and neck and back. Trying to wash off a little of the ash, and the grime from the sewers, though he knew what a sight he must look. Shirtless and all cut up, a gun stock lashed around his broken leg. Grinning to himself, to think how happy Ruth would be to see him anyway, and how she would cry.

The streets around him seemed quiet, and there was not so much as a soul in sight. But he did not let that fool him. He could still hear the shouts and even gunshots coming from somewhere, out in the City—could still smell the scent of smoke. He concentrated on the task at hand, clutching his gun, limping his way down the street, dragging himself back to his home.

•
73
•

He saw them the moment he came on the block. All of it instantly recognizable again, as if fourteen years had just melted away. There was Deirdre's proud, silly house, under the looming double tenement. Its grandness dented now, the front all caved in—

And there
she
was, even, running out of the house right there before him.
Ruth.
And in front of her—a black boy. Not the husband, no, he was not old enough. That one, he swore he would recognize him anywhere from that night in the boat, and he was nowhere in sight.

But the boy, even better.

Dolan understood at once that this had to be her son. A tall, slender black boy, very dark and still maybe in his early teens. And Ruth was running out into the street, right into the jeering, chanting mob, to protect him.

She must have been pregnant already, the bitch. Pregnant, or just after—

He saw his chance, now, to truly hurt her.

There was some madwoman, running about with a pistol, distracting everyone. He started for the boy—

Deirdre.
She ran out of the house, too, after them all. It stopped his heart, slowed him for half a stride, to see his sister.
Still so beautiful,
even after all this time.
Her dress and hair still so carefully arranged even now, covered though they were with soot and sweat.

He would teach her. He would teach them all.

He moved through the crowd, in his crouching, crablike run. Coming up on them before they could see him—going for the boy.