400 Boys and 50 More (32 page)

“What about you, Wolfgang?” Parkes said. “You worked hard, you must be hungry. Go ahead.”

The German was crouching by the stove. Now he rose and retrieved two loaves.

“Ah,” said Parkes, “I knew you must be ravenous. A big fellow like you.”

But with a swift double-gesture, Wolfgang tossed one loaf to Charlie and raised his carbine with the now-free hand, aiming it at the captain.

“Damn you!” the captain cried, struggling to his feet. “I knew you were trouble from the first. You’re a criminal, aren’t you? Faced with imprisonment or military service, eh? Well, you’ll be rotting in a cell before this war is over—that, or rotting in the earth.”

“If so, I wouldn’t be the first criminal turned soldier. . .captain.”

These words from the German were utterly shocking to Charlie, who sat with the hot loaf of bread clenched in both hands, not yet daring to eat. Shocking because they were delivered with a clear English accent.

Charlie was not the only one surprised by the German’s speech. The captain sputtered and turned to look one way, then the other. At last he faced Wolfgang again. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that you’re a murderer.”

“If you call killing in battle murder, then I suppose I am.”

Wolfgang smirked. “What would you call killing a defenseless girl? Valor?”

“Who are you?” the captain said.

“I am justice, your nemesis, sealer of your fate. I entered that room after you’d left it. I found my sister dead. No one would have believed me had I accused an officer of such a crime, and you were sailing the next day. I thought that if I followed you, I might someday have a chance to avenge her far from the English courts, which would only protect someone of your class. I sailed as a mate on a ship of the line, and once here it was easy enough to steal a blue coat. Even easier to get you to take me on. You’re so eager for slaves, you’d accept any story.”

“He’s mad, Parkes,” the captain said.

“If so, the rape and murder of my sister drove me mad.”

“That’s right, you’re mad,” Parkes chattered. “You think you have the upper hand, but that gun is useless, as you should know, in all this damp.”

Wolfgang shook his head. “The Indians have a way of keeping the powder dry. I learned it.”

“He’s bluffing,” said the captain.

“You’re welcome to see for yourself.”

No one moved. Wolfgang settled down, carbine fixed on the captain, propped on his knee. He nodded at Charlie.

“Eat,” he said. “I’ll do nothing else until you’ve eaten.”

Charlie looked down at the cooling loaf in his hands. It was flaky, baked hard on the outside, but soft within. He turned it over, and saw something that gave him pause.

On the underside of the loaf, strange designs had been baked into the bread in bas relief. He saw part of a five-pointed star, a few curls of twisting vine, a stylized eye. They’d been imprinted on the bread by the oven floor.

He pushed the loaf away from him. To eat it would have been like supping on the dead.

“I can’t,” he said. “It’s wrong.”

Wolfgang’s eyes narrowed. “What is?”

In that instant, the captain threw himself at Wolfgang. The carbine fired. Parkes screamed, leapt up, staggered backward into a tree with his hand clapped over his eye and blood leaking through his fingers; he slumped and made no further sound. The gun fell spent and useless to the ground.

Charlie jumped to his feet and rushed toward the two struggling men. He tried to lift the stone door of the oven, thinking he could crush the man’s skull, but it seared the skin from his fingers, as though only that moment removed from the flames. He whirled to see that the captain, besides his sword, was armed with a dagger. Its tip lay at Wolfgang’s neck, just about to dig in.

“Please!” Charlie screamed. He didn’t know who he was begging.

But a transformation came over the captain, at first indistinguishable from rage. His eyes widened, his mouth gaped, the dagger dropped from his fingers. Releasing Wolfgang, he dropped back into the grass, probing at his flesh with trembling hands.

While Charlie and Wolfgang stared, tiny lines of blackness snaked out of the captain’s mouth, like bloodworms or swift growing vines; they swiftly veiled his face. Deep incisions appeared in his flesh, as though hot, invisible brands were pressing into him. The symbols were all too familiar to Charlie: stars and eyes and triangles, and everywhere those gripping tendrils. They glowed with a fire-flecked blackness. The captain screamed, once with all his voice, then a second time, when his throat was choked. A black growth filled it. He writhed as though caught in a net, but the net was inside him and nowhere else.

He staggered to his feet, turning blindly to run. His fatal plunge carried him straight into the mouth of the oven.

Charlie gasped and moved away from the sudden smell of burning flesh. Wolfgang bent to the granite slab that served as an oven door. Scarcely seeming to feel the heat that had fused Charlie’s fingertips mere seconds before, he forced the door into place, sealing the savories to bake in the oven. Then he too moved away, toward the trees. At the last moment before vanishing into the dark, he turned back toward Charlie.

“I know where to find a boat,” he said. “I’ll bring you along, if you’ll show me how to find General Washington. I wish to join the American army, if they’ll take me.”

“Oh, they’ll take you,” Charlie said. “We need more men like you.”

In the oven, fat sizzled and spat.

* * *

“Loaves From Hell” copyright 2011 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in
The Weird Fiction Review, Vol. 1
(2011), edited by S.T. Joshi (though written many years earlier).

HIS POWDER’D WIG, HIS CROWN OF THORNES

Grant Innes first saw the icon in the Indian ghettos of London but thought nothing of it. There were so many gewgaws of native “art” being thrust in his face by faddishly war-painted Cherokees that this was just another nuisance to avoid, like the huge radios blaring obnoxious “Choctawk” percussions and the high-pitched warbling of Tommy Hawkes and the effeminate Turquoise Boys; like the young Mohawk ruddies practicing skateboard stunts for sluttish cockney girls whose kohled black eyes and slack blue lips betrayed more interest in the dregs of the bottles those boys carried than in the boys themselves. Of course, it was not pleasure or curiosity that brought him into the squalid district, among the baggy green canvas street-teepees and graffitoed storefronts. Business alone could bring him here. He had paid a fair sum for the name and number of a Mr. Cloud, dealer in Navaho jewelry, whose samples had proved of excellent quality and would fetch the highest prices, not only in Europe but in the Colonies as well. Astute dealers knew that the rage for turquoise had nearly run its course, thank God; following the popularity of the lurid blue stone, the simplicity of black-patterned silver would be a welcome relief indeed. Grant had hardly been able to tolerate the sight of so much garish rock as he'd been forced to stock in order to suit his customers; he was looking forward to this next trend. He’d already laid the ground for several showcase presentations in Paris; five major glossies were bidding for rights to photograph his collector's pieces, antique sand-cast
najas
and squash-blossom necklaces, for a special fashion portfolio.

Here in the slums, dodging extruded plastic kachina dolls and machine-woven blankets, his fine-tuned eye was offended by virtually everything he saw. It was trash for tourists. Oh, it had its spurts of cheap popularity, like the warbonnets, which all the cyclists had worn last summer, but such moments were fleeting as pop hits, thank God. Only true quality could ever transcend the dizzying gyres of public favor. Fine art, precious stones, pure metal—these were investments that would never lose their value.

So much garbage ultimately had the effect of blinding him to his environment; avoidance became a mental as well as a physical trick. He was dreaming of silver crescents gleaming against ivory skin when he realized that he must have passed the street he sought. He stopped in his tracks, suddenly aware of the hawkers’ cries, the pulse of hide drums and synthesizers. He spun about searching for a number on any of the shops.

“Lost, guv?” said a tall brave with gold teeth, his bare chest ritually scarified. He carried a tall pole strung with a dozen gruesome rubber scalps, along with several barrister’s wigs. They gave the brave the appearance of a costume merchant, except for one morbid detail: Each of the white wigs was spattered with blood . . . red dye, rather, liberally dripped among the coarse white strands.

“You
look
lost.”

“Looking for a shop,” Grant muttered, fumbling Mr. Cloud’s card from his pocket.

“No. I mean really lost. Out of balance.
Koyaanisqatsi
, guv. Like the whole world.”

“I'm looking for a shop,” Grant repeated firmly.

“That all then? A shop? What about the things you really lost? Things we’ve all lost, I'm talking about. Here.”

He patted his bony hip, which was wrapped in a black leather loincloth. Something dangled from his belt, a doll-like object on a string, a charm of some sort. Grant looked over the brave’s head and saw the number he sought, just above a doorway. The damn ruddy was in his way. As he tried to slip past, avoiding contact with the rubbery scalps and bloodied wigs, the brave unclipped the charm from his belt and thrust it into Grant’s face.

Grant recoiled, nearly stumbling backward in the street. It was an awful little mannequin, face pinched and soft, its agonized expression carved from a withered apple.

“Here—here’s where we lost it,” the brave said, thrusting the doll up to Grant’s cheek, as if he would have it kiss or nip him with its rice-grain teeth. Its limbs were made of jerked beef, spread-eagled on wooden crossbars, hands and feet fixed in place with four tiny nails. It was a savage Christ—an obscenity.

“He gave His life for you,” the brave said. “Not just for one people, but for everyone. Eternal freedom, that was His promise.”

“I'm late for my appointment,” Grant said, unable to hide his disgust.

“Late and lost,” the brave said. “But you’ll never catch up—the time slipped past. And you’ll never find your way unless you follow Him.”

“Just get out of my way!”

He shoved the brave aside, knocking the hideous little idol out of the Indian’s grasp. Fearing reprisal, he forced an apologetic expression as he turned back from the hard-won doorway. But the brave wasn't watching him. He crouched over the filthy street, retrieving his little martyr. Lifting it to his lips, he kissed it gently.

“I’m sorry,” Grant said.

The brave glanced up at Grant and grinned fiercely, baring his gold teeth; then he bit deep into the dried brown torso of the Christ and tore away a ragged strip of jerky.

Nauseated, Grant hammered on the door. It opened abruptly, and he almost fell into the arms of Mr. Cloud.

* * *

He next saw the image the following summer, in the District of Cornwallis. Despite the fact that Grant specialized in provincial art, most of his visits to the Colonies had been for business purposes and had exposed him to no more glorious surroundings than the interiors of banks and mercantile offices, with an occasional jaunt into the Six Nations to meet with the creators of the fine pieces that were his trade. Sales were brisk: his artisans had been convinced to ply their craft with gold as well as silver, supplanting turquoise and onyx with diamonds and other precious stones; the trend toward high-fashion American jewelry had already surpassed his highest expectations. Before the inevitable decline and a panicked search for the next sure thing, he decided to accept the offer of an old colonial acquaintance who had long extended an open invitation to a tour of great American monuments in the capital city.

Arnoldsburg, DC, was sweltering in a humid haze, worsened by exhaust fumes from the taxis that seemed the city's main occupants. Eyes burning, lungs fighting against collapse, he and his guide crawled from taxi after taxi and plunged into cool marble corridors reeking of urine and crowded with black youths selling or buying opiates.

It was hard not to mock the great figures of American history, thus surrounded by the ironic fruits of their victories. The huge, seated figure of Burgoyne looked mildly bemused by the addicts sleeping between his feet; the bronze brothers Richard and William Howe stood back-to-back, embattled in a waist-high mob, as though taking their last stand against colonial lilliputians.

Grant’s host, David Mickelson, was a transplanted Irishman. He had first visited America as a physician with the Irish Royal Army, and after his term expired had signed on for a stint in the Royal American Army. He had since opened a successful dermatological practice in Arnoldsburg. He was a collector of native American art, which had led him to deal with Grant Innes. Mickelson had excellent taste in metalwork, but Grant had often chided him for his love of “these marble monstrosities.”

“But these are heroes, Grant. Imagine where England would be without these men. An island with few resources and limited room for expansion? How could we have kept up the sort of healthy growth we’ve had since the Industrial Revolution? And without these men to secure this realm for us, how could we have held on to it? America is so vast—really, you have no concept of it. These warriors laid the way for peace and proper management, steering a narrow course between Spain and France. Without such fine ambassadors to put down the early rebellion and ease the co-settling of the Six Nations, America might still be at war. Instead its resources belong to the Crown. This is our treasure house. Grant, and these are the keepers of that treasure.”

“Treasure,” Grant repeated, with an idle nudge at the body of an old squaw who lay unconscious on the steps of the Howe Monument.

“Come with me, then,” Mickelson said. “One more sight, and then we'll go wherever you like.”

They boarded another taxi, which progressed by stops and starts through the iron river of traffic. A broad, enormous dome appeared above the cars.