Jacob's Way (22 page)

“Like a small, skinny dog. A fox maybe. The only time they're dangerous is when they go mad.”

They stood there on the porch, both of them soaking in the sounds of the night air and the coolness of the fall wind. Finally Driver said, “I owe you, Reisa.”

“No. Not really.”

“Yes, I do. I've done wrong a lot of times, but I always like to pay my debts.”

“Please don't worry about that, Ben.”

And then as they suddenly faced each other, Ben was caught again by the strangeness of this woman who stood before him. He had noted before that she was a woman of depth and also of pride and capable of great emotions. Her lips and eyes usually were carefully controlled as though she feared to reveal herself. Now suddenly he saw a break in her reserve, and she looked at him with her eyes full open—the eyes of a woman in all her fullness and mystery and beauty.

Without thought Ben reached forward, took her shoulders, and pulled her toward him. Her soft form rested against his chest, and his lips fell on hers. Driver had kissed other women, but somehow this young woman seemed so innocent and so virginal. Her caress sent something almost like an electric shock through him. He felt her return his pressure for a moment, and then she put her hands on his chest and pulled away. He saw that there were tears glistening in her eyes.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please—don't ever do that again!” She turned and left, going back into the house.

Driver stood in the darkness, wondering why this woman had the power to stir him so much. He did not know what was happening, and he was not a man who liked mysteries.

Reisa went to her room without another word. When she got inside her room, she shut the door and leaned her head back against it. She was thinking,
That's twice I let a man kiss me. First Benjamin and now Ben
. She shut her eyes tightly, compressed her lips, and then she whispered, “Am I a bad woman? Oh, God, don't let me be bad!”

Sixteen

T
he following morning when Sam Hall came out of the house, he found Driver leaning up against the large elm tree that shaded the yard. Something about Driver's expression and his posture brought a question to the mind of the small man. He moved over toward him. “How's it goin', Ben?”

The sun was bright overhead, but the wind was turning cold. Mid-September had brought cooler breezes, and the sky overhead was a light blue and looked hard enough to scratch a match on. Driver lifted his head, and his voice was tense. “Getting restless. Reckon I'll be moving on.”

“You ain't ready to be movin' nowhere. You need to put some meat on your bones.”

As he spoke, Sam studied the figure of Driver. The tall man was wearing a pair of worn jeans that had belonged to Phineas and a gray cotton shirt from the same source. Phineas was a heavier man, and his legs were not as long as Driver's, so the clothes were ill-fitting. Boots had been another problem, for the cheap shoes that Driver had arrived in were not suitable for working. Phineas had found a pair of worn boots and had patched them together as best he could. All in all, Driver did not make a prepossessing figure. Still, he was stronger now. His neck had filled out, and the hollows in his cheeks were gone. The one eye which was a startling bright green, and sometimes seemed to have light blue around the pupil, was alert. Sam had watched Driver shave, stripped to the waist, and noted with approval that the muscles were building up. He was a lean man and never would be fat, but he was still not over his bout with sickness.

“I'm going into town. Why don't you go with me? I get tired of my own company.”

“All right. I've got two whole dollars. I may go on a wild spree.”

Sam laughed. “Well, I've got two, so both of us may do the town. Come on, you can help me hitch up the team. With one wing it ain't too easy.”

The team was composed of two ancient blue-nosed mules named Betty and Heck. Sam swore they were owned by George Washington. Quickly Driver hitched the team to a ramshackle wagon. As he got in, it sagged and creaked ominously under his weight. “I hope this thing holds together.”

“More likely them mules will die first,” Sam said cheerfully. He said, “Get up, Heck! Come on, Betty!”

The mules stepped out obediently and did not offer to run away. Driver grinned suddenly. “I reckon they're pretty safe now, these two.”

“They're old friends of mine. If one of 'em died, I expect the other would just up and decide to die, too. They do the best they can, though, and that's all you can say about any mule—or any man.”

The wagon clattered along, and neither man spoke until they got to the small creek. A brisk wind was running its breath over it, and the clear water made a sibilant murmuring as Sam stopped at the water to let Betty and Heck drink. As they sat there waiting for the mules to finish refreshing themselves, a bird suddenly appeared, perching on the branch of a large hickory tree beside the road.

“Listen to that bird,” Sam said, turning his eyes toward the tree. “Sounds like he's saying, ‘Get out! Get out!' I always call him the ‘Get Out' bird. Don't know what his real name is.”

A small smile pulled at the corners of Driver's broad mouth. “Seems like I've been told to get out a few times.”

“Well, who ain't?” Sam shrugged his scrawny shoulders. “I remember once we was gettin' surrounded by a bunch of Yankees, and General Forrest, he said, ‘Men, let's skedaddle! We ain't welcome here!'”

“What'd you do, Sam?”

“Oh, we skedaddled all right. I got to where I wasn't ashamed of runnin' away. There was so many of them blasted blue bellies and so few of us. Guess you felt the same way.”

“I guess I stopped feeling somewhere after Antietam.”

“I wasn't in on most of that. We was guardin' the flanks, but we didn't get into the hard fightin'. I hear it was bad. You wasn't at that bloody angle, was you?”

“Yes.”

The tone of that single word was as cold as an iceberg. Sam shot a quick glance at Driver's face, which was set. The planes of his face even seemed to grow harsher. He removed his hat, and the breeze blew his crisp, slightly curly, auburn hair across his brow. He brushed it back and shook his head. “I don't like thinking of those times.”

“Me neither, most of it. But that's all over now.”

“No, it's not over. Not for some of us.”

“Best to try to put all that behind us, Ben.”

As the mules picked up their pace slightly, Sam studied the fields that spread out on each side—some grown up with weeds and untended, but here and there cotton fields white as the whitest clouds in the sky.

Ben turned to put his eye on Sam. “Sometimes I feel like a man who's in the middle of a bridge, and I've forgotten both ends of it. I'm just standing there looking down at a river and not knowing which way to go.”

Well, that's the most revealin' thing he's ever said
, Sam thought quickly. Aloud he said, “Well, you'll git off that bridge, Ben. Time goes on, and we put things behind us.”

“I was in prison before I came here, Sam. For four years. A man doesn't just blot that out of his life.”

Sam allowed nothing to show on his thin face. Shrugging he said, “You ain't the first to do time, I reckon. But you didn't kill nobody, did you?”

“No, I was in for armed robbery.” Driver put his hat back on and pulled it down over his brow, his one eye searching the landscape ahead as if something dangerous might appear. He had a way of letting his body go lax, but that one green eye would search around never settling on anything, but always looking, expecting some sort of trouble.

“I kept myself from going crazy by reading books. We didn't have many, and I read some over and over again. There was one in there by a Russian called Dostoevsky. He told about a man that was given a choice. Either to die at once or to stand on a ledge throughout eternity.”

Sam shivered. “That gives me the willies. You don't need to be readin' no books like that.”

Driver did not respond, but when they had passed several minutes in silence, he said, “I think I'd rather die than stand on a ledge waiting for something that never happens.”

“You ain't standin' on no ledge. What about your folks? They godly people?”

“Yes, my mother especially. Every time I have doubts about heaven and God and the Bible, the picture of my mother comes to my mind.” He shook his head and murmured, “I can doubt the Bible at times, but I can't question her life.” Then he turned and said with a half smile, “Yours either, Sam. I don't agree with you, but I'll say one thing. You're always the same. Good or bad, storm or calm. You're always praising God even when you don't have much reason to.”

“Me!” Sam said with astonishment. “Why, Ben, I'm plumb fine. I've got my health, I've got friends, I've got a place to stay, an' I got Jesus.”

“That's about what Dov said. I wish I was as simple as he is.”

“Don't put Dov down. He don't say much, but he thinks some stuff that you wouldn't dream.”

“I'm not putting him down, Sam. I like him a lot.”

The two talked intermittently until finally they pulled into the outskirts of Richmond.

“Reckon you know this town, Ben?”

“Pretty well.” Ben did not tell the whole truth—which was that he knew every corner of Richmond, having spent his life there until he had left to join the army. Now he sat loosely in the seat until Sam pulled up in front of a hardware store. “Come on in, Ben. Won't take long.”

“Nope. I'll just wander around a little. Well, I'll probably go over there, find a saloon, and drink up this two dollars that's burnin' a hole in my pocket.”

“I wouldn't do that. Tell you what, let me get my buyin' done, then we'll walk around and maybe go into a cafe and have a real fancy meal. Maybe with a good-lookin' waitress to make up to us.”

“All right, Sam. I'll be around.”

Driver walked the streets of Richmond for a time, shocked at the devastation that had not yet been repaired since the war. Some businesses that he had known were simply cavernous holes in a line of those still standing. He remembered one that had been a clothing store where his father had brought him to buy his first grown-up suit. It was gone now, nothing but an empty hole filled in with bricks and rubble.

The years of Reconstruction he had spent in prison. He knew only sketchily that there had been a fierce struggle between President Johnson and Congress about how best to bring the southern states back into the Union. Finally military governors had been appointed by the federal government. Ben had heard some of the excesses and injustices that went on in the South. Civil rights were often flagrantly ignored, and the legislators of Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana were purged—simply set aside—as were many of the state laws. An army of occupation twenty thousand strong aided by Negro militia enforced this harsh military rule.

Virginia had been reconstructed in the previous year, but still the so-called carpetbaggers could be seen, as were federal soldiers, many of them black, who remained in the South. Grant had been elected in 1868, and already rumors of his inept and even devious plan of leadership were being whispered of in the South.

A faded sign hung over the sidewalk, one that Driver remembered. It said
The Wild Horse Saloon
, and it brought back a sudden rush of memories. He had taken his first drink of liquor in this place, played his first game of poker—and lost every dime he had, sitting at a table with older men. He suddenly remembered the distaste, the cheap painted women that were available, and quickly shoved that out of his mind.

A whimsy took him, however, and he went inside. The place seemed unchanged. The long bar with the mirror behind it still occupied the east side of the building. Round tables for poker and blackjack were scattered around, with mismatched chairs and a few men sitting at them. There were no women, for which he was glad. He stood for a moment and then walked over to the bar. A burly man with a bright yellow shirt and blue arm garters said, “Help you?”

“Whiskey.”

The bartender turned, pulled a bottle from the shelf, grabbed a tumbler, and poured it full. “That'll be two bits.”

Ben pulled out a dollar. When the bartender started to make change, he shook his head. “Give me another.”

“Right.” The bartender filled up another tumbler and left it in front of Ben.

He stood there at the bar, his mind filled with memories of these past days. He remembered a fight that he had and touched the scar beside his cheek where Juke Powers had left his mark on him. He had staggered away from the fight bloodied and bruised, but he had beaten Powers, which was quite a feat in those days. He had only been sixteen when that had happened. He was too young to be in a saloon, but he had been a wild boy.

And then abruptly, he thought suddenly of his brother Matthew.

Four years older, Matt had been steady and the pride of his father's heart. Matthew had wanted to be a lawyer, but left school to join the army. He had served with his father, becoming a captain, but had been killed at Cold Harbor. Not only had Matthew died, but some of his father died with him. Ben had always realized that. Now he thought of Matthew and wondered why it was that he, Ben, was left, the profligate, the jailbird, while Matthew, the upstanding citizen and pride of his family, had been shot down in a senseless battle.

Driver stood there staring down into the amber liquid, taking it in sips. The liquor hit his stomach quickly, burning its way down. And by the time he had finished the second glass, when he had tapped the glass on the surface of the bar, there was a numbing sound, and he knew that he did not need anything more to drink. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the one dollar that was left, and then looked across the room. He had been watching, intermittently, a blackjack game dealt by a short fat man with a red face and a pair of cold blue eyes.

Might as well try it.
He moved over to the table and sat down.

“Howdy. My name's Chandler.”

“Ben Driver.”

“Glad to know you. New in town?”

“Yes. Pretty new.”

“You want to take your try?”

Driver was good at poker, but blackjack was not his game. A dollar was not enough to get into a poker game, however, so he nodded.

He looked at the nine on top and when he turned it over he found another nine. “I'll stand on these.”

“I'll take another.” Chandler turned the card over and shrugged. “You win.”

“Let it ride.”

Once again the dealer busted himself, so now Driver's wealth had grown to four dollars. He played one, lost, and then played two and won.

He began to pay more attention. He needed a stake, and aside from robbery the only way he knew how to get it was gambling. He settled down in his chair, his green eye fixed on the cards and on Chandler's expressionless face. Finally he said, “This is pretty slow. How about a hand of poker?”

“Suits me.”

They gathered a group of four other men. Driver won the first two hands, lost a small pot, then won three in a row.
Maybe my luck is changing
, he mused. He bought another drink, leaned forward, and put his mind on the game.

Glancing at his next hand, Driver said, “I'll stand fast.”

The man to his left studied Driver, then threw his hand in. “I'm not chancing it.”

The other, a tall dignified man, said, “I'll take one card.” He took the card, and a flicker of disgust washed across his face. He was not a good poker player, which Driver soon discovered. There were, in fact, only two good poker players—Driver himself and a man called Ridley. Ridley was a young man no more than twenty, Driver guessed, but he had sharp gray eyes and played his cards well. His stack was about the same as Ben's. The two were winners, the others were losers.