Walk Through Darkness (29 page)

E
IGHT
“What are you telling me?” William asked. He had been listening to her. He had heard her reaching back into his past and uttering names of the dead and moving events around as if she would revise the story of his world. He heard her, but he couldn’t form a new whole of her words. Fear crept over him like ice forming on the skin of a lake. “Just what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that man’s kin to you.”

“What kind of kin?”

“What’s your daddy’s name?”

William looked away from her, suddenly gone shy. In all their time together he had never shared this simple fact of family history. He knew the name. It was instantly in his head, but when had he ever uttered it? When had anyone other than his mother asked him of such things? It hadn’t mattered. He was dead. He was white. William was as content to be fatherless as any of the millions who shared his skin tones were. He looked back at Dover, no guile in her face, no mirth, no judgment. Just the question. “Lewis,” he said. “Lewis Morrison.”

The woman closed her eyes and let out a breath. Her lips trembled and then went calm. She held up the square of paper and opened her eyes. “He gave you this.”

William, confused for a moment, stared at the note as if it had been delivered of a ghost.

“Gave it to me fore he left. Said you should read it.”

Still staring, his hand rose up and took the note, both their fingers firm on it for a second. Then hers opened and the document was his. “Did you read it?” he asked.

Dover shook her head. “That’s for you to do. Don’t tell me you don’t read. I know you learned. Know they tried to shame the learning out of you, but you’ve still got it. I’ve seen it in your eyes sometimes, you looking at words and them meaning something to you. You never could put on a dumb face. Not to fool me, at least.”

William held the note between his fingers. He didn’t want to read it. He didn’t want to, but he knew that not wanting whatever it was the letter would tell him had little to do with it. He lifted it and held it trembling, folded it open, turned it over and placed his eyes upon the unsteady loops and curves of the script. He felt Dover’s hand on his thigh and was thankful for it. He read.

Andrew Morrison,

You going to be surprised to get this and maybe not all that happy either. Seen Mr. Moser out here and he said he seen you in Saint Lewis. Said he might well see you again and if he did he would deliver of you this message. So I writing this down. That probably surprise you but this old negress can write it took my whole life to learn it. Just hope you old Scot can read. I gonna pass on soon to the next world but had to say my peace afore then. You know how I am. So here it is.

After you left out of here and Lewis went in the ground I did have a chile. A boy massa named William. I brought this boy up and told him bout his daddy Lewis, and about the country he come from and tried to make him proud a something. Don’t no if I seeded in that. Other thing is that that was a lie. Lewis not his daddy but you are. I no that cause I felt you in me and dont ask me to explain it. He your son. I no this to be true though I cant explain why. But youll feel its true when you read this. It will ring inside you and that all the proof either one of us needs. Aint it?

Now, I got two things to ask of you and if your a Scots man youll do them both to honor your brother and the family what come before you. First you need to come on out here and take William from here and see him to freedom. Your own son a slave and now you no it. So take him out of here. Tell him the truth as you no it to be. You his daddy, but that boy come out of the love between Lewis and I and that is a greater truth even than blood. Between you and I was something but it was not love. Let the boy come from love. Teach him bout his daddy. Make a truth out of the crime you done to Lewis and me.

Thats all now please see to it.

Annabelle.

Having read it, William let his head fall back against the bedding. His gaze drifted across the ceiling for a moment, and then he closed his eyes. He heard Dover move beside him. She cleared her throat. He knew this was a sign to him but he still did not answer. It was too much. He needed a few moments. A few moments to restructure everything he believed of his life. He had a father. He had seen his face.

N
INE
The sky grew light in the pre-dawn. There were no signs of the sun itself, no crimson hues stirring fire into the firmament. There weren’t even any colors in the dank alley, only blacks and grays and the shades in between. But the day was stirring. Morrison sensed it, and so did the men sleeping in the warehouse at his back. Somebody awoke with a string of sneezes. Some heavy metal object clattered down against the stone floor. A chorus of groggy voices called out in protest. The calls faded into a silence which tried to be as it had been before but which was not. It was quiet for some time, but the night was broken. Soon the men seemed to grudgingly acknowledge this fact. They stirred and cleared their throats of phlegm and greeted each other in grunts that slowly evolved into true dialogue. Morrison rose and flexed his fingers, trying to ease the stiffness out of his old joints. He climbed atop the crate and peered through the sooty glass. The hound lifted her head and watched.

The men inside had kindled a fire on the stone floor of the warehouse itself. They now huddled around it, waiting for the kettle that had been set precariously atop the boards that served as fuel. Morrison’s eyes floated over them, taking inventory, touching on each man. While he cared little for these weak-willed men it was not them that he was after. Satisfied of this, the old man climbed down and resumed his wait.

He sat recalling that in an earlier time he might have stridden right into the warehouse, rifle leveled. He would have taken out whoever moved first and kept going, swinging the rifle itself as a blunt weapon and then tossing it away and using his hands. He would have spun among them and understood exactly the distances between them and known instinctively each man’s speed and intentions. He would have seen the fragments of their bodies at which to strike as if a light had been pinpointed on them: that nose to be shoved upwards under the eyes by the base of his palm, a larynx to be crushed against the fat of his hand, the knee joint to be taken from the side by his heel. He would have asked for death and therefore it would’ve escaped him. This was what he was good at, his violent gift. No matter how much time passed between these savage episodes he knew that gift was still his.

Though there was a part of him that hungered for this abandon at that moment, he knew things had changed. He wouldn’t ask for death anymore. He no longer wanted to die. He couldn’t imagine quite what the future might hold, but for the first time in twenty-some years he wanted to see the morrow, and the day after that, and on. He wanted to sit with that young man and see what they could learn of each other: Morrison with his translucent pale skin and William with his stained, umber tones. The two of them talking, searching each other, finding meaning in what the other could add to their lives, and to the lives of those no longer with them. It was a strange notion, yes, one his father would never have imagined, but his father was dead and long decayed in another country entirely. That old man had lived and died as a poor peasant in an ancient place. He had never known the world beyond Scottish shores. What could he ever have known of his son’s life? This country was a strange one. It pushed men in directions formerly inconceivable. It made a mockery of traditions held sacred. But—Morrison was just coming to believe—this nation also allowed the creation of new meanings, of new symbols, of new definitions of race and creed and blood. There was something rare in this. Humanity had yet to fully understand it. Strange that it took him twenty years to realize this. Strange that he only now felt his mind clearing.

Humboldt’s voice snapped his attention back. It broke into the murmurs of the others, rose above them and pressed them down to a hush. He must have arrived from the other side of the warehouse. As usual, he entered full of purpose, loud and bold. Morrison scrambled up to a crouch, eyes up toward the eaves, on the thin sheen of darkness that was the window. He could hear the men rouse themselves more completely. He imagined them shaking the sleep from their heads and digging at their eyes and slurping their coffee. The hound rose, disconcerted by the man’s strange posture, but Morrison hushed her with a clicking tongue. He placed the rifle flat before him and climbed onto the crate.

Inside, the men had gathered loosely around Humboldt. He was a clear target at the center of them: the massive expanse of his chest, his teeth and eyes catching sparks from the fire, arms gesturing with an energy no other man displayed. He spoke loudly, though his words seemed ill timed to the movements of his lips, disjointed like those of a puppet in unskilled hands. He was bareheaded and some quality of the light exaggerated the effect. His balding scalp glimmered unnaturally, red and yellow and orange as he moved, a devil’s halo.

Morrison set his feet at shoulder width, bent and lifted the weapon. It seemed heavier than before. For a moment he thought something was hung up on it but this was not the case. He was simply tired, fatigued and stiff and ready for this all to be over. He felt vaguely the irritation that some men would think him a coward for his plan. But this was simple practicality. It was strategy, a voice of reason newly risen in him. They didn’t all need to die, even if they deserved it. He didn’t have to risk everything, nor did he have to comport himself to other men’s notions of manhood. What use was manly decorum to rabble such as those gathered in the warehouse? Would he duel with Humboldt? Could he gain satisfaction through the ceremonies of antiquity? He could not, for those men didn’t abide by such outdated notions. And, anyway, Humboldt had long ago given up the right to a proud death. He had whipped a man better than he, with older, nobler blood. Despite his poverty, Morrison thought, his own father would never have let such an offense go unpunished. And neither would he.

The hound let out a faint whine.

Morrison ignored her. He lifted the rifle and placed the muzzle near to the glass. He drew the hammer back and felt it click into the first notch. The hound voiced her complaint again, but Morrison shushed her, his attention focused on the weight of the weapon. The muscles in his shoulders ached already. One of his biceps twitched; a pain radiated from the back of his other hand as if a pin had pierced the flesh of his knuckle. He had to see through these things, he thought. Past them. His damn body would not betray him now, not now that he cared. He brushed his nose with the backside of his hand. It was this motion that allowed him a glimpse of what the hound was trying to communicate to him. Morrison froze.

The hound rose.

A man appeared in the mouth of the alley, some forty yards away. He stepped out of the shadows and into the pale gray light. For a second Morrison thought the man had spotted him and in that second he imagined the entirety of his goal to be lost. He couldn’t see if the man was armed, but he knew what he would do whether he was or not. His rifle was no longer a weight in his hands. It was as light as dry driftwood. His body was burned clean of fatigue and if it was the last thing he would ever do he would not fail at this. His finger caressed the trigger, pulled back just enough to feel it catch, that familiar pressure point just this side of chaos. He held it there, knowing all he had to do was turn his eyes back toward Humboldt and complete things. But he didn’t yet take his eyes from the man in the alley, and because of this hesitation the moment passed.

The man walked on muddled feet, clearing his throat, one hand grabbing his crotch in a wad and scratching. Morrison recognized him, not a man he had spoken to, but one who had joined Humboldt just before the assault on the ship. They’d gone into the hull of the ship together. This one had been nervous in his work, silent and somewhat tremulous. He had been following orders then, but now seemed purposeless. He walked in a tight circle, pausing to stretch and then standing mute, taking in the ground before him like an idiot. The man finally
found his desire. He lent one arm against the warehouse wall. His other hand fumbled with his trouser buttons, at it some time before he loosed himself and began urinating. The liquid splashed upon the stones, loud in that chambered corridor.

The hound stepped forward and paused, one paw in the air, nose uplifted, eyes tight on the man, back hairs curling. Her ears pulled back over the crown of her head, flat and taut. She glanced up at Morrison but the man gave no guidance. She knew the man was aware of her, and so she held back, waiting for a sign, a call to action. She set her eyes back on the newcomer, annoyed at the man’s presumption, angered that he should choose this alley to mark and to mark so exhaustively. A growl started low in her throat and rose into her jaw.

Whether the man heard the hound or whether some other sense finally stirred within him Morrison was not sure. The man looked up. His gaze settled on Morrison, on the shape that must have been barely visible in the shadows. He stared and then cocked his head to the side and then pulled his hand from the wall and wiped at his eyes. Only after that did he give way to frenzy. He cursed under his breath. He pinched the flow of his urine and tried to shove himself back inside his trousers and began to shout. His words made no sense in his excitement, but they were enough that they needed to be dealt with.

Get! Morrison said. The hound jumped at the command. Morrison turned away and attended to his goal. He yanked the hammer back to full cock, aimed and fired straight through the glass. The whole wide pane went white and then to dust and then fell away. For a second Morrison could see nothing but a sparkling brilliance. He feared his eyesight had betrayed him. But then the scene came into view, and with it Humboldt. The man was staring at him, one hand pressed against his chest, surprise etched on his face. The other men ducked and bolted, stumbling into each other, coffees thrown down, chairs kicked out of the way. Humboldt alone stood still, one hand covering the hole that had just been torn into him, the entry point of a lead ball that had shattered his ribs and torn through his heart and lodged snug against the vertebrae of his spine. His face still held the same twist of surprise as he stumbled over something
on the floor and began to fall. His mouth opened and he seemed at pains to say one last thing. Before he could gravity yanked him down by the shoulders and he was gone. Morrison stared a moment longer but the man had fallen out of sight and there was nothing more he could do. It was done. He ducked out of the window and leapt to the ground and stumbled into a run toward the mouth of the alley. There he received yet another shock.

The hound and the man had been engaged at close quarters, but they were still now, the two of them a jumble on the stones. And then there was movement, but it came not from the hound but from the man. He rose from the paving stones, stunned, arms dangling like two ropes, one of them ending in the silver silver of a knife. His penis hung from the opening in his trousers, limp and fatigued as if it too had some part in this work. He stared down at the hound. For a few seconds she writhed on the ground in an attempt to stand, but she quickly gave up this effort and lay still. The man was so fascinated by what he saw below him that he didn’t notice Morrison’s approach until it was too late.

The tracker smashed his nose with the stock of his rifle, sending slivers of bone up into his skull. Before the man even hit the ground, Morrison was on his knees. He scooped up the hound. Her body was limp against him, and he knew that the wetness on her was her own blood. He turned with her pressed to his chest and strode back down the alley into the shadows, chased by the shouts of the men and clatter of their feet on the stones and pistol shots sent after him. But he didn’t stop to answer them. He had no more fight to give. He just ran, burden in his arms.