May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (27 page)

And then, the evening sky got to lookin’ quite nice out over the Blue Ridge. He poured a bucket of water over himself, took his shirt off and did it again. Pulled another bucket out of the well, took off his pants, dipped them and the shirt into it. Swished ’em around some. Squeezed ’em some and laid them over the side of the well. Took another bucket and poured it over himself again. Then stood there in just his bottom underbritches, looking out over the Blue Ridge. Seeing the sea of green reaching up to the edge of the sky. And a breeze came across the field, cool against his wet skin. Making him think of far-off places for just a moment. ’Til he couldn’t do that to himself no more. ’Til it was time to go inside and hope sleep came all in a rush. So there wouldn’t be any more thinking of far-off places.

Next day started as it always did. Making the breakfast and so on. Dunmore dropped him off, gave him a good whack with an open left hand. The kinda whack that said worse’d be coming if he didn’t finish by midday. Like he needed reminding.

And then it was back to work as always. Cutting the last of the upper hayloft support joists. Then the braces. Then hauling everything up both ladders. The first joist fit so well it looked like part of the original construction and not a patch job. Still, he took a minute to look over his work. Not admiring it so much as deciding if there was anything that wasn’t just like it should be. Then he moved on to the second one.

As he shifted the ladder, he could see a man in a blue suit standing by the livery doors. Watching him like Dunmore never did. Like the livery owner never did. Like no man who knew what kinda work he did ever had to. And he stayed there as Micah put in a second joist and then a third. Then he was gone, only to come back with the livery owner and stand there some more. Pointing up to the work he was doing. Nodding his head some. The livery owner pointing over to the work Micah’d done on the other side of the loft the day before. Even pointed up at the roof Micah’d patched the year before. And the man in the suit looked puzzled. Like he couldn’t tell where there’d ever been a hole to begin with. And the liveryman nodding, smiling, like that was the whole idea.

Dunmore came back around midday. All kindsa pissed at havin’ to leave the Blue Spruce while the Embrys was just getting started buying rounds. And the man in the suit was following behind him, the livery owner alongside. Then the men got to talking. Only Dunmore mostly shouted.

Yep, learnt from me … don’t come cheap … two dollars a day …

The man in the suit did some talking now.

Sell off my meal ticket?

Then some more talking.

Gonna take more’n that!

Some more talking. Only Dunmore was ’bout as happy now as Micah’d ever seen him.

Turned out the man named Mr. Longley was from Richmond. Saw what work Micah’d done and paid twenny-two hunnerd dollars for him.
Twice what yer broken-down Daddy gone fer
. Dunmore was thrilled about the deal he’d made. Thrilled enough to buy three bottles of whiskey with labels on ’em. Thrilled enough to have the Embry boys come over that afternoon. Then the real fun started.

They spent the first few hours knocking off the whiskey without any trouble. Sat on that tiny front porch that barely fit the three of them. Started firing their guns at a tree out front. Then the fence post on Hinkley’s place across the dirt road. Hinkley just about wet himself any time he saw Dunmore, let alone with the Embry brothers alongside him. Wasn’t likely he’d do any complaining about getting his fence post shot up. Shot
at
, was more like it, drunk as they were. Never hit the damn thing once. They were well into the jug by the time it was dark. Micah’d cooked up the steaks Dunmore bought. Panbread and the trimmings too. They about licked the plates clean, then passed the jug around again. Micah came out to get the plates, ask if there was anything else Dunmore needed.

Got a lil goin’ away presen’ fo’ ya
. Tom Embry said.

And Albert Embry walked up to Micah and ripped his shirt off him. Dunmore only laughed. Then Albert wrapped his rope around Micah’s wrists and pulled him to the post a few feet from where Dunmore sat. Tom walked to his horse and took the whip from his saddle. Snapped it in midair, once, twice, three times.

Get’m hitched nice’n tight
. Tom said to Albert.

Then Albert laughed and stepped aside, and Tom wound up the whip, cracking it a few more times while Dunmore laughed harder.

Here we go!
Tom Embry said. And Micah braced for the pain. Heard the whip winding up and then only a thud against his back. Not the harsh tearing of the leather strands against his flesh. But the blunt weight of the handle instead. Then the three of them, the Embrys and Dunmore, laughed more than they had all night.

Good’n Tom
. Dunmore said between belly laughs.
He’s ’spectin th’real thing, pissin’ his trousers
.

I still wouldn’ min’ addin’ a few more stripes to this’n here
. Tom said.
Never did like this’n
.

Uh-uh, twenny two hunnerd dollars I got comin’ tomorra
. Dunmore answered.
Can’t put no more stripes on’m than he already got
.

And once he was done laughing Albert Embry untied the rope around Micah’s wrists. Looked him square in the eye from just a few inches away. Meaner and colder than even his brother or Dunmore could be. Then walked back to his seat on the porch. Leaving Micah to pick up the soiled plates and bring them inside. Cleaning them in the half-bucket of water left over.

How you figger that slicker pay you so much?
Albert Embry said, loud enough so Micah could hear it.

Gotta be th’war
. Tom answered.
Bet he’s figurin’ on makin’ five, maybe ten dollars a day wit’ all that new construction they got goin’ on now ’at Richmond gonna be the capital of th’whole damn Confederacy
.

Don’t care ’bout none of that
. Dunmore said.
All I know is I’m gonna be a rich man come tomorra
.

And there wasn’t even the anger in Micah that such an idea might’ve once stirred in him. Just the rest of the cleanin’ on his mind. Then finally to sleep on the pile of straw in the corner.

For one more night, anyway.

And the idea of a new Massa and a new home not even something he let himself think on for long. Just hoped a dreamless sleep would come to him soon. All he ever hoped for.

Anymore.

It was a strange sorta thing working for Massa Longley insteada Dunmore. Just as much work, more even, since Richmond seemed like it was growin’ by the minute. But right from the start, Micah had a one-room cabin all to himself. Two sets of workin’ clothes. Plenny to eat. And about forty other slaves living right there all around him in the quarters behind the sawmill.

Of course Micah didn’t hit it off with them from the start. Once they heard how much money got spent on buyin’ him. Once they saw how Massa Longley drove along with him on those first few jobs. Once they saw how Micah kept to himself just by his nature. Like he was better’n them, they musta figured. And not like he wasn’t used to havin’ people to talk to for some time now. So life stayed mostly the same for him. Work sunup to sundown six days of the week. Only now with Sunday to rest some. And be alone.

It was his fifth job that was unlike anything he’d done before. Massa Longley told the man who owned the place that Micah’d built an entire house all by himself back in Charlottesville. Which wasn’t altogether true. But the man who owned the shop and the one next door to it musta believed it ’cause Micah was there very early the next morning. The shopkeeper’s name was Kittredge, but he didn’t do none of the explaining about what was to be done. The man just stood there alongside as his wife pointed out to Micah what she wanted. Closin’ off most of the storeroom to make two smaller fittin’ rooms, whatever that was. Then opening up the storeroom and adding on to it out back so it was even bigger than before.

Micah figured it’d take two weeks at least, but then Mista Kittredge explained one more thing. Said it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to be workin’ around the shop when all the ladies were there. Said he’d planned it out with Massa Longley that Micah’d work from sunup ’til ten o’clock, when the shop was opened. Then come back after it was closed, and work ’til ten at night by the light of the oil lamps. During the day he’d be free to rest and make whatever cuts were necessary back at the sawmill. Or so Mista Kittredge said. But Micah knew
Massa Longley’d find some other jobs in town for him to do in the hours the shop was open. So he set his mind right there to three four weeks at least of workin’ sixteen seventeen hours a day. At least. And that night in the cabin he thought for one minute that the one good thing about Dunmore was that he was a lazy man. Too lazy to do anything more than wait for folks to come and hire Micah out. But it seemed like Massa Longley had his mind set on riding this mule ’til it dropped.

The next mornin’ was all the measuring and writing down the cuts and lumber he’d use during the first few days. He was sure to use only numbers or pictures. No words, of course. And when it was done he waited ’round back of the store and out of the way, like Mista Kittredge told him. Waitin’ on Massa Longley to come and get him. And prob’ly take him to some other job to fill up the next few hours.

Then he saw her.

She walked along the cobblestone path like she wasn’t walkin’ at all. Such easy steps that didn’t disturb her dress more than an inch to one side or the other. Straight-backed and chin held up to let the world know she was there. Graceful. And beautiful as anything he’d ever seen. Like the sun dippin’ down over the Blue Ridge in the distance. Demanding, with a whisper, that a man stop and take notice at what God had done here.

And just as she reached the storeroom door she saw him standing by the corner of the alleyway where Massa Longley’d told him to wait. She did nothing at first ’til she got to the top of the steps. But then she turned toward him before opening the door. Smiled enough to make it seem like more than just good manners. And she curtseyed. To
him
. With something in the action that made him reach for his hat, take it off, and bow slightly. Forgetting for that moment that he’d ever felt like just a mule. ’Til she was gone inside. And the hundred feet or so between the house set back off the street and the storeroom door became hallowed ground to him. To think that he might see such a thing each morning for the next three four weeks. At least.

Jesus I’ve never seen so many people in one place in my life, Finny says. I heard one of the Wall Streeters sayin’ there was probably a hundred thousand.

He looks over at Ethan for confirmation of the estimate, as if he’s an expert on such matters. But Ethan looks back at Finny with wide eyes and a shrug of his shoulders and a
how the hell am I supposed to know, Fin
, look on his face, and the two of them go back to scanning the crowd.

Can ya see the Sumter flag over there? Ethan asks, and points to the opposite end of the square.

They look over at the mounted statue of George Washington, the one that’d just been put in five years or so ago, with the makeshift flagpole and the giant scarred flag that had flown over the fort in South Carolina that none of them had even heard of until two weeks ago. Now there are a hundred thousand people assembled in Union Square just to get a glimpse of it in their fervor of righteous indignation. One hundred thousand people who were ready to secede themselves now gathered around to support the Union; one hundred thousand people who became Lincolnites the minute the guns opened on Sumter; one hundred thousand people who, for now anyway, want nothing more than to teach the Reb bastards a lesson.

I knew we shoulda got here earlier to set up by Old General Washington there, Ethan says. Now it’ll be nothin’ but shots of the crowd with the Sumter flag a ballfield away in the distance.

And Finny paints the metallic solution over the plate and hands it to Ethan, watching closely as he inserts it into the side of the box camera, then lowers himself beneath the curtain around back again.

I don’t know ’bout that Perfessor, Finny says while Ethan focuses in on another shot. Seems to me the story’s not so much about the flag … or about Sumter even. I mean, who gave a rat’s arse about either one of’m a coupla weeks ago? Seems to me the story’s ’bout the hundred thousand folks ready to string up the Reb bastards that shot
holes
in th’damn flag.

There is the click of the shutter lens and then Ethan lifting himself
out from the curtain, a smile upon his face as he slides the new glass plate negative into the black cloth sleeve in Finny’s waiting hands.

Fin, Ethan begins, with a triumphant sort of look, you’re absolutely right! That poor old fella over there’s gonna have nothing but a picture of a flag mounted on a statue. We’ll have the hundred thousand who came to see it. These’ll sell for five dollars apiece easily. Gimme another plate Fin …

And they spend the next half an hour lining up all manner of photographs to be taken from every imaginable angle along the Washington Square, with Fin counting out what twenty percent of Ethan’s fifty percent of Mr. Hadley’s enterprise might be. There are speeches, and bands playing, and vendors all along the square selling little flags and
God Save the Union
buttons, and such, ’til Smitty finally finds them up on the steps of this house beside the square.

I saw a line of about a hundred lads over on Sixteenth Street waitin’ to sign up for their ninety-day hitch, Smitty says. Saw a coupla dozen more that looked like they were headed up to the all-Irish regiment up on Twenty-Fifth.

And Ethan and Finny know immediately what that could mean. Lincoln’s only called for seventy-five thousand recruits from the entire Union, and if there are a regiment’s worth of them at either of those places, they might miss out on their chance. They’d only talked about it for the first time the night before, and all of them figured they could get away easily enough from their jobs for such a cause, though Smitty was in the stickiest spot, being married and such. Still, every one of them liked the idea from the start … Finny and Smitty mostly for the adventure, Harry because
no Reb bastard was gonna get away with that
, and Ethan for altogether different reasons … thinking that there were perhaps grander principles hidden amidst the vengeance and escapade, though he hadn’t been able to find the words to express them.