The Winter Family (24 page)

The men fell quiet. The knock was repeated, deliberate but jaunty.

Seven notes.

Shave and a haircut, two bits.

“It can’t be,” Jan whispered.

Shave and a haircut.

A clear voice cried out with childish fury, “Let us in, you pack of floppy goat cunnies!”

Charlie’s eyes flew open wide. “Well kiss my grits!” he said.

“Lukie!” Johnny cried, barreling toward the front door.

The air seemed to grow colder, and sounds more distinct and clean. The fingers of light coming in from between the cracks were particularly bright and well defined against the darkness.

Stop him, Jan wanted to say, but his throat was frozen.

Johnny threw open the door, and Winter was standing there.

“Auggie!” Johnny howled, throwing his arms around Winter.

“Jesus,” Dusty whispered. A cast-iron frying pan he was holding slipped from his fingers and clattered on the floor.

Charlie jogged toward Winter. Reggie glanced at Jan, looking
ashamed and a little confused, like a dog after its owner has pretended to throw a stick and instead hidden it behind his back.

Lukas Shakespeare popped out from behind Winter, shrieking greetings to everyone he recognized.

“What the fuck are they wearing?” Dusty asked.

Jan still could not speak, could not move. Laughter was building inside him, trying to get out, but he was afraid that if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Winter was wearing a crisply pressed cream-colored suit. His tie and handkerchief were pink, his hair was heavily styled into curls, and even across the room the smell of his aftershave was overpowering. He wore white gloves and shining white leather shoes, and he was carrying a long cane with an ivory handle.

He has lost his mind, Jan told himself. He has gone insane.

But if he had gone mad he had not done so in pedestrian fashion. It was a new kind of madness, a kind of alternate sanity, a different way of reacting and fitting into the world.

Quentin rushed up and shut the door behind the new arrivals.

“Shit, Jan,” Dusty said. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“Go back in the kitchen,” Jan said.

Jan and Dusty moved into the kitchen and closed the door behind them. A moment later it opened again and Johnson came in.

“How did he find us?” Jan asked.

“Don’t sound like you were too inconspicuous out there,” Johnson said. “Acting casual was never your strong suit.”

“What’s Quentin doing?” Jan asked. “His brother said …”

“He’s talking to them. Telling him his brother don’t want them here. But he won’t make Winter leave.”

Jan put his hand on his mouth, then glanced from Dusty back to Johnson.

“The Empire brothers?”

“They think he walks on water since he took the fall for them in Mississippi. If they only knew.”

“Knew what?” Jan asked.

Johnson just shook his head.

“I know you don’t like me,” Jan said. “And I know you and Winter went through a lot during the war. But he can’t join us.”

“Not after he rode with the goddamn Klan, he can’t,” Johnson said.

“We’ve got to watch that kid,” Dusty said. “He’s the fastest draw I’ve ever seen.”

“I am more worried about Winter than a boy,” Jan said. “Fred, we can’t do it without you.”

“I ain’t afraid of him,” Johnson said.

The door to the kitchen opened again and Jan’s hand dropped down to his gun. But it was only Bill Bread.

“Are you with us, Bill?” Jan said.

“What are you going to do?”

“What do you think?” Jan said. “He is going to cost us our pardon.”

After a pause, Bill said, “Jan. You know there is never going to be a pardon.”

“What are you talking about?”

Bill shook his head. “Nothing.”

Johnson looked at Bill very carefully, then said, “You know he’s got to go. Riding with the Klan? After all we fought for?”

“What do you think we were fighting for down there, Fred?” Bill asked. His hair stuck up at a funny angle and he smelled, but his eyes were calm. “What do you think we’re fighting for here? Really?”

“This isn’t the time for your Indian shit,” Dusty said.

“We have to move quickly,” Jan said.

“I’ll take care of Winter,” Johnson said. “Jan, you make sure you’ve got the kid. Dusty, you cover the Empire brothers and the rest. All right?”

“Yes,” Jan said. “Certainly.”

“Motherfucker riding with the Klan,” Johnson said, “and showing his face around here.”

They walked back into the main room. Winter was sitting at the head of a large table near the front door. He was smoking a cigarette in an ivory holder and blowing inexpert smoke rings in the air, to the delight of the Empire brothers.

Winter’s pale yellow eyes locked on Johnson the minute he stepped into view and tracked him all the way across the room. A
dribble of smoke slipped through his lips. The boy Lukas tilted his head back and narrowed his eyes into slits and put his hands on his pistols.

As their group came closer, everyone fell silent.

“Good morning, Freddy,” Winter said. “Now how do you do.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, Winter?”

Winter paused, and then said, “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Johnson said. “And you know what I’m talking about.”

Johnson grabbed a chair and dragged it toward Winter’s table. Jan slipped around behind Lukas and drew his revolver. Winter made a movement with his hand and there was a loud bang. Jan cried out in pain and his weapon hit the floor.

Lukas drew both his pistols and brandished them at Johnson. “Jesus, what was that?”

In Winter’s hand there was a two-shot derringer, a palm pistol smaller than a deck of cards, a girl’s gun. Its handle was ivory and matched the rest of Winter’s outfit. Jan raised his wounded hand to his mouth and sucked the blood.

Johnson didn’t move. The derringer was pointed at him now.

“Why don’t you sit down, Fred,” Winter said, “and we’ll talk this over. Do it real slow now.”

Johnson stared at Winter with his big brown eyes, unafraid, unyielding. He carefully lowered his powerful body into the chair, settled back, and kept looking at Winter.

“You too, Bill,” Winter said.

Bill had crept up with a sawed-off shotgun and had put himself in a position that gave him a clear shot at Winter and the backs of both Empire brothers.

“You first, Auggie,” Bill said.

“No,” Winter said. “You first, Billy.”

Bill braced the weapon against his shoulder.

“Come on now, Billy boy,” Winter said. “It’d have been easier for me to put that shot in Jan’s belly than his pistol. Ain’t no one else going to get shot here. And we both know you’re going to back down before I do. Don’t we?”

Another second, and Bill lowered the shotgun.

Winter made a quick motion and the derringer disappeared up one of his immaculate sleeves. “Now that’s better, isn’t it?” he said.

He did not smile. Instead he looked directly into Johnson’s eyes and remained silent. Lukas still had his guns out. No one else had moved.

“Why don’t you let me know what this is about?” Winter asked.

“You know.”

“Go on. Say it.”

“You joined the Klan. You went to the other side.”

“The other side?” Winter said.

“Yeah,” Johnson replied. “And you ain’t welcome here no more. A derringer ain’t going to stop me from throwing you out.”

Winter lifted his cigarette holder to his mouth and inhaled and then leaned back in his chair. He looked at Johnson through a veil of smoke.

“Freddy, you’ve known me almost ten years now and you know I ain’t in the habit of explaining the things I do. I generally let people take me as they like and if there’s a problem I sort it out. But you saved my life in Georgia and a few times since then and so this one time, and only this time, I’ll explain myself to you.”

Johnson didn’t move or respond.

“There’s a lot of talk about what happened in the South, in Mississippi. The truth is, right now, in the South, the war’s still going on. Any civil war is a battle of wills. We won the war because we had the will to do some terrible things, and they didn’t have the will to stand them. They gave up the war because of what we done to them in the Shenandoah, in Georgia and the Carolinas.”

Winter stopped, and his face crinkled in deep thought, as if he was trying to put some kind of feeling into words. The cigarette smoldered in its holder. His expression cleared and he resumed speaking.

“Well, all right. We saved the Union. But now we’re fighting another war, to see what kind of peace we’re going to get. There’s a war going on right now, about what’s going to happen to the freedmen down south. And there’s a lot of talk going on about it up here. But the will is gone, Freddy. There ain’t no will to win the peace like
there was to win the war. That’s why they turned on us after Mississippi.”

Winter sucked on his cigarette and exhaled two streams of smoke through his nostrils.

“They were women and children. But they knew where Captain Jackson and his Klansmen were riding and they wouldn’t have told us if I’d kept the gloves on. Hell, most of them chose to die rather than talk.”

“Did you ever think that the ones who didn’t talk might not have even known?” Jan barked.

“Well, how many colored lives did we end up saving?” Winter asked. “Two dozen that night alone? But what did that matter to them? After all their talk? You mark my words, Freddy. They’ll turn their backs on your kind. They’ll give you up. They’ll leave you to your fate. Just like some men here wanted to hang you for killing your master.”

Johnson’s eyes flicked away.

Winter glanced over at Jan, his expression cold, and then turned back to Johnson.

“Did I ride with the Klan? Sure I did. Our little company had disbanded. Some hard words were said. So I met up with these boys who were hitting a train. You ride with the Klan and you rob the federal government, the people won’t talk about it. We all learned that the hard way, didn’t we? What’s more, the courts won’t prosecute. I took away a thousand dollars for two days’ work. I’d do it again in a fucking heartbeat. And you’re giving me shit for it? After all we been through?”

Johnson looked back at Winter, but the force of his will was gone.

“Here’s the thing, Freddy. Not everyone in this room is smart, or handsome. Ain’t nobody in here a good person. But everyone here has fought together. Everyone here has put his life on the line for everyone else. Everyone here was out in the woods together, out in enemy country, with bushwhackers looking to take our scalps and Klansmen looking to burn us alive. Everyone here put everything he had in the pot. Everybody. Now that’s not talk, Freddy. That wasn’t just words, wasn’t just noise and air. That was real.”

Winter shifted his gaze over to Bill.

“Real,” Winter repeated. “There’s your explanation, Fred. Now I don’t ever want to have this talk with you again. Dusty, pour Freddy a drink.”

Dusty poured a shot of whiskey in a teacup and passed it to Johnson. Winter already had a glass and he lifted it.

“Pick it up,” he ordered Johnson.

Johnson didn’t move.

Winter’s face seemed to lengthen. He shifted forward in his chair and stared down at the cup and then looked back up at Johnson again.

Slowly, Johnson moved his hand down and took up the whiskey.

Winter smiled a little. His eyes flicked to Jan.

“Get the sergeant a drink too,” Winter said.

“I won’t drink with you,” Jan said.

“Oh, sure you will, Sergeant Müller,” Winter said. “You’ll go along with everyone else, like you always do. Better to have me in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. Ain’t it?”

Someone pressed a glass into Jan’s hand.

“I’m tired of all the talk,” Winter said. “I’m going to get down to brass tacks. Any man who sticks with me will never need to watch his back.”

“To brass tacks, then!” Quentin said. He looked at Jan and smiled apologetically, but his eyes were dancing.

“Brass tacks,” Charlie said, with satisfaction.

They all drank. All of them.

The pain was like a needle behind the bridge of his nose. Noah kept seeing little winkles of light in the corners of his eyes, sparkling like gemstones. One of the terrible headaches he remembered from his childhood was coming on. He hadn’t had one in years. Not since before he had gone to Harvard with Quentin. It was the loss of control that was doing it. He had not felt this powerless even as a child.

And so, in the tunnel between his hotel and his restaurant, he stopped walking, placed the lantern on the ground, and put his hands to his forehead, pressing his temples.

“Just stop,” he whispered. “Just stop.”

Eventually he gathered himself and quickly jogged up the creaking wooden stairs and emerged in the kitchen.

Inside the dining room the men were scattered around at various tables.

“Brother,” Quentin said. “You don’t look well.”

Indeed he did not. Noah was pale green, almost waxen. His suit seemed particularly ill fitting and his hair was standing up in clumps.

“They’re trying to have me arrested for hiring you,” Noah said.

“What’s their evidence?” Quentin cried.

“What do you think, Quentin?” Noah said. “Archibald Patterson’s affidavit.”

That silenced them, to Noah’s satisfaction. All of them, except for one.

“Who is this Patterson?” someone wearing an expensive white suit said.

Noah barely glanced at the speaker.

“He was the waiter my brother was bribing to take you out on your visits to the brothel.”

“Is that right?” the man in the suit said. “Well, where’s he at? I’ll take care of him tonight.”

Noah looked at the newcomer. Had he been a more sensitive man, he would have noticed the tension in the room. “Are you mad?” he said. “He’s already sworn the affidavit. You can’t kill him now.”

The man in the suit was putting a cigarette into an ivory holder. He was quite a dandy, Noah noticed, with a boutonniere in his lapel.

“Well, you can’t say that we can’t kill him,” the man said. “Because we could. We could do it tonight. If you don’t want to, that’s all right. It’s your dime. You can swear all the affidavits you like. Up to you.”