A Moment in the Sun (130 page)

“We have spotted another patrol on the way,” says the Teniente. “We must retreat.”

Bayani is shot in the hip and through one side under his arm, having a tough time breathing. Got a lung, thinks Royal, and hands the Mauser to the Teniente, who has his own rifle and Bayani’s captured Krag as well. Royal turtles down and the Teniente helps Bayani, surprisingly light, onto his back. They wait until there are others climbing and being shot at before they move, Royal almost running uphill with the wounded Filipino till they are behind cover again and he can get his wind back. Bayani clenches his grip tight a couple times but doesn’t make a sound and the Teniente hurries behind them, the rifles rattling on their slings.

“It hurts when we move,” Bayani reports, “and it hurts when we stop.”

When they get back to the camp the American drops to all fours, exhausted, and Diosdado helps the woman from Las Ciegas pull Bayani off his back and lay him out on a mat.

“The other time I was shot,” says Bayani, “it didn’t hurt like this.”

There is not much to do without a doctor. One bullet has passed through his chest and out his back but the one in his hip is embedded. Another wounded man, hit in the jaw, is already there drooling blood on the ground. Diosdado waits for his own men to arrive—Legaspi, then Ontoy, then El Guapo, then Kalaw, then Katapang and Pelaez and Puyat, then Gallego stomping into the camp, furious.

“We have them outnumbered and your
maldito africano
doesn’t shoot.”

“He ran out of ammunition,” Diosdado says to him. “He never had a chance.”

“I’ll give him a chance.”

The American has caused him no trouble and in time might even join their cause, but now Bayani is hurt and they need to get him down to help, so when Gallego has his men drag the
negro
forward, hands him a bolo, and demands that he execute the prisoners, Diosdado does nothing.

The
negro
, Royal Scott, raises the bolo over his head. The prisoner who is a lieutenant of volunteers cries out “No, don’t do it, boy, don’t do it! I got land here, plenty of land and I’ll give you some!” and the other man who is not in uniform tells him to shut his mouth. Royal throws the bolo down so it sticks in the ground.

“Hell with it,” he says. “Yall want em dead you can do it yourself.”

The Colorado lieutenant starts to weep.

There isn’t room for him on the tree, so the
negro
is tied hand and foot and thrown on the ground next to the man with the shattered jaw.

“
He saw his father’s nakedness
.”

The Correspondent only groans.

“
Noah drank of the wine
,” Niles whispers feverishly, “
and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren
.”

The Correspondent, dullard, does not stir.

“It is more than Genesis, though,” hisses Niles. This is important, this is so very important. “There is Leviticus 20:11—
If a man has sexual intercourse with his father’s wife, he has exposed his father’s nakedness
.”

“Lunatic,” mutters the Correspondent.

“He must have been a lunatic, no doubt, to do such a thing and at such a time.
For there were three that copulated on the ark, and all punished—the dog was doomed to be tied, the raven to spew his seed into the mouth of his mate, and Ham, Ham was smitten in his skin, and thus was darkened the face of Mankind.
They are the sons of Ham, the descendants of Canaan.”

None of the tormentors are awake. It is only Niles, Niles ever vigilant, beyond sleep—

“Their blackness comes not from their time in the sun, but the dark source from whence the degraded race sprang.” If his hands were free to gesture he would indicate all of those sleeping about them. “These are the children of vile incest, and thus have been cursed with darkness. Darkness of the skin, of the mind, of the soul. That nigger—it was Fagen, the demon. He was going to smite us but I fixed him with my eye. They cannot abide that. As long as we are steadfast, as long as we do not sleep, they cannot slay us, for we are the children of God. It is written on our faces.”

This is a test. Noah was tested, and Abraham, and poor sweet Jesus on the cross, and now Niles Manigault. He will not falter. He will not fail. He will not pray or plead, for God loves a forthright man, a self-reliant man, a manly man. The nigger with the sword was only a test, a creature from Hell, and I stared it in the eye and it was vanquished. The Hamites are our servants, it is written in the Book and they know it within their hearts. When they rise up, when they rebel, they know in their hearts that He will not let them succeed, for they are the spawn of filth and wickedness.

“On the Ark,” Niles sighs, his heart racing, all his senses open, alive to epiphany. “With his father’s wife. Can you imagine such evil, such bestiality? On the
Ark
.”

“Stark, raving mad,” mutters the Correspondent.

They have men waiting down the pathway to shoot if the Americans decide to climb up after them, but nobody above and nobody on the other side of the mountain. Everybody left in camp is asleep but Roy and the man who was shot in the jaw, who has his eyes closed and is crying. Even the other American prisoners sleep now, heads nodded forward and to the side, the rope binding them to the tree digging into their necks. Nilda takes a small sack of the corn and an American canteen that is almost full of water. Her knife is dull from splitting bamboo and it takes a long time to saw through the hemp around his wrists and ankles. They soaked it before tying so the knots can’t be untied. Roy says nothing and watches her face, which makes her cheeks burn. They have left him at the edge of the camp, far away from the fire, and his hands are cold to the touch. He shouldn’t have to die. None of them should have to die, but they are set on their war and haven’t decided to stop fighting yet.

When he is free, they stay low and walk as silently as possible. There are fireflies dancing all around them, and it feels like magic, like the other men will not wake up as long as the spell continues. In the village there would be dogs but the dogs here in the
monte
have been eaten. She leads when they start to climb, careful not to pull any rocks loose. She can hear his breath behind her. When they are over the crest and starting down the other side she is less worried. The men won’t bother to come after once they’re out of sight.

Once, on the far side when it is very steep, he holds her arm to help her down and it is a strange feeling. She has been inside herself, alone, since Fecundo left her for the last time, saying she was his problem, that you couldn’t bring a village girl to Manila and expect to become wealthy.

Nilda doesn’t know if her parents are still living or not. If they are, seeing her with the dark American will not make them think any worse of her. If she is truly dead to them they will give her what she needs to move on. Nobody wants to live with ghosts.

VARIETY ARTS

The way it works is you got to fill in between one picture and the next. The Yellow Kid is feeling about as bum as a newsie can without he’s croaked on the pavement but the yarn on the screen takes him away for as long as it lasts. A girl in a green dress stands in a spotlight next to it, singing along with a violin, one of those weepers about she misses her Dear One who’s across the sea. Not much of a canary but she’s easy on the glimmers.

It starts out how they always do when it’s a war story, with the soldier boy in his outfit kissing off the old folks and his girl, who is another looker. His old lady don’t stop honking into her snotrag the whole time and his old man who is one of those Mr. Whiskers like they trot out for parades all the time is pounding the soldier on the back and probly saying Go over there, boy, an give em hell. It’s like when you look in through the window displays at one of the swell shops on Broadway and there’s people inside jawing and waving their paws around and you try to suss out what they’re saying. The first picture in the story ends when the soldier marches out the door and the looker throws herself down on the ottoman and hides her head under her arms. These people got such a big room, fit a whole floor of apartments from East 5th Street in it, so you wonder how she’s got anything to kick about.

The canary gives her pipes a rest and the screen goes dark for a second the way it does and then they’re in the jungle, big tall palm trees all around and the soldier boy with a bunch of his pals blasting away with their rifles at something you can’t see. There is lots of smoke from the rifles and they shoot off some firecrackers in the Hall so the pair of old babes sitting right by the Kid with their big hats on blocking the view cover their ears and make with the Oh my oh dearie me and then the soldier boy tells the others to scarper, that he’ll stay back and cover their keisters. So they run off the screen and drums start pounding at the back of the Hall and on the screen this bunch of darkies run in wearing skirts made of palm leafs and nothing else only a couple got a bone in their nose, waving their spears and swords and the soldier boy uses his last shot to plug one of them dead and then they’re all over the guy, grabbing his rifle and one stabs him with a sword and they got him down on his back and start to do the googoo dance while the biggest darky stands over him with a spear ready to finish him off. The Yellow Kid is sweating and his head feels hot, maybe cause it’s the jungle or he’s worried about the geezer gonna get croaked or cause there’s so many people crowded in the seats here even on a Tuesday or maybe he’s just down with the crud. It don’t even help when this doll wearing not much more than the darkies runs in and throws herself on top of the soldier. She isn’t so dark as the other characters, but you can tell she aint white. Still she’s a doll and for some reason she’s telling the one with the spear to hold his water. The Kid wonders if he missed something or if the other paying customers have read about this deal in one of the rags he peddles. Even if she seen him fighting in the jungle at some point a doll, even a Filipino doll if that’s what she’s sposed to be, wouldn’t tumble for a guy that quick. Dolls take some heating up is what Specs and everybody behind the
Journal
building says, you got to blow them to a good feed or do the candy-and-flowers routine before you can lay the first digit on em.

Only this one must be bughouse for the soldier boy, cause even when the big geezer puts the spear to her throat she don’t leave off begging for him to be spared. Then the pit band plays
Hot Time in the Old Town
and there’s more fireworks and the pals who scrammed come blasting back onto the screen, bagging the big one and chasing the rest away. When their smoke clears somehow there’s the looker from back home kneeling by the wounded soldier boy and the pals have got the drop on the native doll. Only then the wounded guy does a lot of palavering and pointing and finally the girl from home falls wise and gives the doll her necklace as thanks for saving his bacon and the soldiers lay off of her. She seems pretty gaga about the necklace, clutching it to her melons and falling on her knees in front of the white girl. The looker from home and the soldier grab hands then and the two old babes start to blubber and the spotlight comes back on the canary in green only now she’s with a geezer decked out like a soldier only you can glim that he’s not the same one, the pair of them looking lovey-dovey and warbling at each other and the Yellow Kid can’t take no more.

He stomps over the old babes’ trotters on his way out of the aisle and makes a beeline for the exit. There is more on the bill, Wheezer and Spats and then The Great Bendo and then Professor Poodle which is what he really come to see but right now he needs air.

14th Street never smelled so good. He feels dizzy but the sun is out and the cabbies are trotting their nags up and down and the moll-buzzers are shuffling by the box office and some old wop with an accordion is wheezing away and the only thing that don’t seem right on the block is maybe the monkey dancing on the sidewalk, and even he is wearing a fedora.

The Yellow Kid sits on the curb and watches the carriage wheels roll past and waits for his head to clear. The evening edition will hit the bricks pretty soon and he’s got to get hisself down to Park Row. When he holds his head in his mitts it is still cooking, which makes it hard to think and is maybe why he missed how the looker gets herself all the way to Googooland just in time to save her boyfriend.

And how did she know to wear her pearls?

It goes by so fast. People shooting and smoke and soldiers with the flag and everybody in the theater cheering and then him flopping round so the horse don’t stomp him. People laughing in the theater when he run off, the white folks like that, and then it is over. He wants to say to Miss Alma that there was more to it, that if they had more cameras looking from different spots they’d of got the whole story. But Miss Alma grabbed his arm when the volunteers charged and he fell down, Jubal sitting with her back where the colored are supposed to, or at least where they always do sit in the theater. They don’t have it marked off up here. It goes by so fast and then they are in Auburn.

Buzzing from the folks when they see the title. When the train runs across the screen in front of the prison wall Miss Alma gasps. It’s her first time seeing a moving-picture show and Jubal is feeling proud he is the one to take her.

There is another view of the front of the prison from high up, nothing moving but the camera, the way you’d swing your head from left to right to look for something, and then they are in the hallway.

“Assassin!” cries somebody sitting up with the white folks. “There’s the assassin!” and sure enough there he is behind the iron bars of the door to the left while the prison guards wait on the right for their orders.