The Winter Family (11 page)

While the others watched the looms burn, Duncan darted out of the factory. Out on the street he looked around for Quentin but did not find him. He had readjusted the bag on his shoulder and started toward one of the fancier houses when Reginald Keller staggered
into the main street, his soaked clothes clinging to his body. Trailing behind Reggie was a little Indian who Duncan did not recognize.

“Hey!” Duncan called. “Babe! Where have you been?”

“Winter and I were captured, but we got loose,” Reggie said. He was shivering and his lips were blue. “We were held by some Confederate Indians.”

“Who the hell is this?” Duncan said.

“His name is Bill Bread,” Reginald said. “He says that he wants to join us.”

“He does, does he?” Duncan said. “Well, where’s Winter?”

“On the other side of the river.”

“What the hell is he doing there?”

“He’s with the nigger who sprung us loose,” Reggie said.

After hearing these words, Duncan felt as a mouse must when the shadow of a hawk passes by.

“Nigger?” Duncan said.

“Sorry, Mister Empire,” Reggie said. “I meant colored fellow.”

“What colored fellow?”

“His name was Freddy,” Duncan said.

“What did he say to you?” Duncan said, coming close to Reggie and putting his hand on the knife on his belt.

Bill stiffened. But Reggie was oblivious.

“He didn’t say nothing. He just turned us loose. Winter’s arm is busted and he couldn’t swim.”

“He didn’t say anything about how he came over there?” Duncan demanded.

“No,” Reggie said. “I don’t know where he came from.”

This one was too dumb to be lying, Duncan decided. Reggie didn’t know about what happened on the bridge. But there was no telling what Johnson had told Winter by now.

Duncan let go of his knife.

“Perhaps I’ll go look for him,” Duncan said. “You go on and find the lieutenant. Take this Indian with you.”

“Yes sir,” Reggie said. He walked down the street, hugging himself and shivering. Bill hesitated.

“Well, go on,” Duncan said. “Do you need a kick in the ass to get you moving, you reb turncoat?”

Duncan loped down to the edge of the water while Bill made his way back to the inn. The front door had been kicked in, the furniture knocked about. The innkeeper was nowhere to be found.

The keg of cider was gone, but after a frantic search, Bill found a bottle of brandy hidden away in the kitchen. The first swallow hit his nerves with soothing fire. He sighed, closed his eyes, and pressed his forehead against the wallpaper. Then he walked back into the common room and sat by the window, where he had a fine view of the burning bridge.

He could see his uncle and Sevenkiller working with the other men to destroy the bridge. For three long years, he had done everything the Confederacy asked of him. Those days were over. He was free of the army, and free of his uncle. Free to drink, finally, drink the way he really wanted to. Without restraint. It was liberating and terrifying at the same time. Where would he go? What place was there for him in the peace?

His mind turned to Winter. He remembered the sound of the arm snapping in the barn. He saw the golden eyes looking at him, the pupils narrowed to black pinpricks, focused and drawn inward with hatred. That force of will. What could you do with will like that? Where would it take you? What could stop you? How would it all end?

Now Winter was waiting on the other side of the river. For what? Revenge against Sevenkiller? And the other man, the one who had asked Reggie
What colored fellow
and
What did he say to you
with his hand on his knife. Why was he crossing the river?

Bill took another drink. Strangely, he was not in as much of a hurry to get drunk as he would have expected. His mind kept drifting away from the drink, across the water, to what was happening there.

The Confederates made steady progress hacking up and burning the bridge, despite the rain splattering down from the slate-colored sky.

It was Early who first saw the slender strand of smoke rising from
the mill. He walked to the edge of the bridge for a closer look and noticed that the mill’s wheel was no longer turning a moment before it toppled over into the water, bobbed under the surface, and began to drift toward the bridge.

“Oh my god,” Early said.

He ran back to Tom and Stoga.

“Captain!” Early cried. “Captain!”

“Careful,” Tom said. Early had come perilously close to stepping through a hole chopped in the bridge.

“Look at the town!” Early said, as he began to cough. “Look what they’re doing to the town!”

“What?” Tom said.

“They’re looting the town,” Early said.

“What?” Tom said. He hobbled carefully around the damaged sections of the bridge to get a better view. “Why?”

“They want you to come down off the bridge,” Sevenkiller said. “To save the town.”

“But there are no soldiers in the town,” Tom shouted. “There aren’t hardly any men, even.”

“Hee hee hee!” Sevenkiller giggled. “Tell them that, sir! You should tell them that!”

Tom balled his hands into fists and felt something hot and sharp rise in the back of his throat. He hated these invaders, who had come to a land where they were not wanted or needed and shattered every notion of what was good and just in the universe.

“This is their idea of war?” Tom said. “Don’t they have any notion of decency?”

“What do we do, Captain?” Early said.

“Yes, Captain,” Sevenkiller said. “What do we do?”

Tears welled up in Tom’s eyes as he saw the church catch fire. “If we lose this war,” he said, “it will be because we refused to stoop to the depths like them.”

“Eee hee hee!” Sevenkiller squealed. “Unless when we get to heaven, it turns out niggers are human beings. Then we’re in for it, eh, Captain?”

Tom ignored the slave and continued. “There’s a lot more towns on the other side of this river, and if we leave this bridge here they’re
all going to meet the same fate. Don’t let anyone on this bridge. We only need a little longer.”

“Yes, Captain,” Early said.

Sevenkiller delivered a mock salute and returned to his work destroying the bridge. So did Tom and Stoga.

Early, too sick to be much help, watched the Union soldiers move through the town. Fires sprang up and houses collapsed. He heard the screaming, the shots, the shouts. Now and then he blinked the tears away, but they returned so quickly there scarcely seemed any point.

Sevenkiller’s callused hand fell on his shoulder.

“Time to go,” he said.

Early stood up, coughing, while Sevenkiller put the machine gun in its box. They made their way back across the bridge, which had been entirely shattered except for a narrow path. The posts and pillars had been hollowed and stuffed with straw and set alight.

Just as they stepped on solid ground the bridge gave way with a suddenness that was astonishing and sublime. There was a trembling, a cracking noise, and then the whole thing was gone, breaking up and drifting south with the current.

Tom said, “It’s done. Let’s head back. We’ll pick up Bill and our prisoners and head to Milledgeville and spread the word about what’s going on.”

They had only taken about five paces toward the woods when a light flashed in the trees. Tom fell backward, grunting in surprise. A moment later, they heard the gunshot.

“Get down!” Early shouted.

Sevenkiller was already on his belly, slithering toward the woods like a snake.

Tom felt a terrible pain in his chest, right around his collarbone. It was difficult to breathe.

“Captain!” Early shouted, and he cradled Tom in his arms.

Tom looked at him but was unable to speak.

The rifle cracked again. Sevenkiller raised his rifle, and returned fire.

“He’s by the oak tree,” Sevenkiller cried. “The pale one!”

Early laid Jackson down on the ground, and then he and Stoga
charged toward the source of the shots, past Sevenkiller, who was approaching cautiously and giving them covering fire. Early sprinted ahead and burst into the trees. He saw Winter reloading his rifle, and he sprang forward, but Fred Johnson came out of the bushes and struck him hard with an iron bar.

Sevenkiller tried to take aim at Johnson, but there was too much movement as the big ex-slave fought the two men, and no clear target. Another flash of light came from the woods and Sevenkiller felt a bullet whiz past. He saw Winter dive back behind the oak tree.

“Hee hee hee!” Sevenkiller said. He circled around with his rifle at his shoulder, hoping to catch Winter fleeing into the woods. Instead Winter leapt out and tackled him, making a sound like a saw biting into hard wood.

“You little black fucker!” Winter shouted.

They landed with Winter on top, pressing his splinted left forearm into Sevenkiller’s neck while his raising a broad knife with his right hand.

Sevenkiller dug his fingers into Winter’s arm, which he well remembered was broken, and Winter almost buckled. Sevenkiller dodged the knife easily by moving his head and then swept Winter off with a quick, strong movement of his hips, ending up on top of him, straddling his chest.

“Goodbye,” Sevenkiller whispered.

He kept squeezing Winter’s broken arm with one hand while he struggled for the knife with the other. Winter tried to buck him off, but it was impossible; the little man stuck close to him.

Finally Sevenkiller pinned the knife arm to the ground with his knee and smashed Winter’s face with his free hand, hissing, “You see? You see?”

Sevenkiller yanked the knife away. But Winter used his every ounce of strength to lift his legs and twist his whole body and pitch Sevenkiller off, howling as he did.

Sevenkiller scrambled to gain his feet, but this time it was Winter who was a little quicker, and his shin connected violently with Sevenkiller’s face. Sevenkiller stumbled back.

“You little—” Sevenkiller said, laughing, and then stopped. He was looking at something behind Winter. Winter turned around. It
was Fred Johnson, breathing deeply, flexing his big hands. He was covered in blood, but very little of it seemed to be his own.

Sevenkiller’s eyes flicked between them and then he ran.

Winter stooped and picked up the rifle Sevenkiller had dropped.

“Forget it,” Johnson gasped. “He gone.”

And indeed Sevenkiller had made it into the trees and was darting from side to side, crouched low to the earth, using every bit of cover he could find.

Winter lifted the rifle to his shoulder and held it there for a long couple of seconds. Finally he fired. From the woods there came a surprised shout of pain. And then laughter.

Winter gave Johnson a brief look, then lowered the weapon and walked into the forest.

“Hee hee hee hee!” Sevenkiller giggled. “Hee hee hee!”

They found him nimbly worming his way over the ground, his black hair plastered to his head and a big red stain blossoming on his shirt. The bullet had struck him in the lower back and he was crawling away over the mud and the leaves and the tree roots as quickly as he could. Surprisingly fast, but not nearly fast enough.

“Hidey ho! Hidey ho!”

Winter jammed the barrel into the back of Sevenkiller’s head.

“I’m free at last!” Sevenkiller screamed. “Free! Free!”

The words struck a peculiar chord with Johnson, so that as the gun fired, he flinched.

Duncan was halfway across the river when the bridge collapsed into the water, the flaming beams cracking and snapping and lighting up the gray autumn afternoon. For a brief time he stopped swimming, kicking against the current and holding his rifle above his head. Then he resumed swimming until his feet were on solid ground.

When he came over the top of the bank he saw the bodies lying at the edge of the woods, and he made his way over there as quickly as he could. There were two: an older Indian and a white man. Both of them looked to have been beaten to death with a blunt object.

The sound of voices came through the trees. Duncan turned his
head and saw Johnson and Winter. They did not notice him. He lifted his rifle to his shoulder, lined up Johnson, and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing.

Fuck, Duncan thought.

In all the excitement, he had forgotten to dry his weapon after he fell in the river the first time. He quickly fixed his bayonet to the end of his rifle and stepped into view.

“Don’t move!” he barked.

Johnson froze. Winter stepped in front of him.

“Get out of the way,” Duncan said.

“No,” Winter said.

“He killed Sergeant Service,” Duncan said.

“No,” Johnson said. “You did.”

“That’s a lie,” Duncan said. “Get out of the way, Winter.”

Duncan took a few steps forward, but Winter held his ground. Johnson tensed and looked as if he would bolt.

“Drop your rifle!” Duncan said. “Do it now!”

Winter hesitated, then let go. The rifle clattered into the dirt. Winter put his hand on his hips and watched Duncan.

“Now get out of the way!” Duncan said, inching forward.

“No,” Winter said.

“You’re taking this nigger’s word over mine?”

“Sergeant Service ain’t got nothing to do with this,” Winter said. “He saved my life, Duncan. I ain’t going to let you hurt him.”

Duncan laughed. “Well, you’re right about one thing,” he said. “Sergeant Service don’t matter. But your new friend here killed his master. The story’s all over the county. And that means he’s going to hang, whether he killed Service or not, whether he saved you or not. You can’t be stupid enough to think they’ll let that go. You know they won’t. So get out of the way.”

Duncan stepped forward again, so that the bayonet was only a few feet from Winter’s chest. Winter didn’t say anything.

“Last chance, boy,” Duncan said. But a hand clapped over his mouth from behind and jerked his head back, and an instant later a knife pierced his chest. Duncan let out an abrupt, surprised noise as he was pulled onto his back.

Bill Bread sat on top of him and jabbed the knife into his chest again. Duncan tried to struggle free, but then Johnson was on top of him too, and the iron bar smashed into his head. Duncan let out a hopeless, agonized wail and then was silent. Bill stood up and wiped the knife on his pants. Winter had not moved, except to pick up his rifle. The three young men eyed one another. Johnson and Bill were breathing hard.