Those Across the River (19 page)

There were more than he wanted here. He sent Old Man Gordeau home because he had a bad cough, and Gordeau fought him on it until Estel pointed out that his hacking would make it impossible to get the drop on anybody. He sent home a young widower who had kids, and he tried to send Saul Gordeau home with his daddy but Saul wouldn’t have it.

“Now, Lester here is twenty and one and that’s alright, but you ain’t but seventeen and this might get rough. Probly it will.”

“Reckon it already has,” Saul said. “Sons a bitches burnt up my dogs and dug up my daddy’s uncle.”

He said it just like Old Man Gordeau would have and it got a yellow little laugh out of them.

“I’m just sayin you’re young for this and it don’t set well with me.”

“Sir, I might be young, but I don’t shoot young.”

I noticed the rifle Saul carried was an American Enfield, the doughboy’s rifle. My old rifle. Bolt action, six shots, deadly, deadly accurate in the right hands, and, since 1918, cheap. I later found out that no fewer than nine households in Whitbrow held copies of that rifle. After the war, a man in a navy peacoat had come around and sold them out of the back of his truck for ten dollars apiece. Harvey at the Drug Emporium had one, but never shot it. Hal the butcher kept his slung under the counter. It was the gun Tyson Falmouth had carried when he went to check on the pigs.

Saul looked like a child, but he was only a little younger than I had been when Uncle Sam had stuck an Enfield in my hands and nearly shut me in a coffin.

I had only been a passable marksman.

Not Saul.

Estel Blake assessed the slight blond boy who was standing with his feet planted, holding the big rifle like it was part of him.

“It’s true,” Lester said. “He’s better’n I am or ever will be. You remember that rabbit he hit on the run when we went huntin last year. You were joshin him how it was luck, but I’m here to tell you it wasn’t.”

“Alright, young man,” Estel said. “But if you change your mind out there and want to get on back, there ain’t no shame.”

“Same goes for you, Sheriff,” Saul said.

We left.

We numbered fifteen.

 

 

 

“WE’RE LOST.”

“We’re not lost. I know I seen that before.”

“Knowin you been somewhere before and knowin how to get back is two different things.”

“Well, when did we leave the path? When was the last time someone saw somethin they knew was on the path?”

“Hour ago we seen them pine trees with the cuts in em.”

“Yeah. Hour ago.”

“Now, what is this? Anyone know if this has got a name?”

“Won’t be hard to remember. Looks like that leanin tree is a ole man tryin to push that big rock uphill.”

“Alright. We’ll call this Uphill Rock. Let’s keep walkin straight east. Frank, keep tight on that compass.”

“Sisyphus.”

“How’s that?”

“Sisyphus. He was condemned to roll a big rock uphill every day, and when he got it to the top it would roll back down and he’d have to start all over again.”

“Seems like I know that feelin.”

“What was that fella’s name again?”

“Sisyphus.”

“Think I’ll just call it Uphill Rock if it’s all the same to you.”

BUSTER SIMMS BROKE up a big, round wheel of corn bread his wife had made and handed some around to the ones closest to him, myself included. I was quickly sorry I took it because my mouth was too dry to eat it. Walking armed through the forest with a party of armed men, not knowing when there might be gunfire, was driving me apeshit. I had one foot in these Georgia woods and the other back in the Argonne. Birch trees reminded me of the birches there, with their tops missing and caked in mud from shellsplatter. I was straining to listen for sounds I was no longer capable of hearing; branches snapping, hushed words in German, the cocking of a weapon. I rubbed my hands on my pants and looked around, wondering if anyone could tell how hard my heart was beating. Nobody seemed to notice.

It was mid-afternoon now and the others were tired and hot and ready to see anything that would break up the routine of marching forward through these woods.

I hoped we wouldn’t see anything.

My anger at those who had desecrated the dead and traumatized Dora had been eclipsed by barely containable feelings of panic and a strong desire to sprint out of these woods for good.

I felt that we were being watched, but then I second-guessed myself and reasoned that it was just the memory of that feeling kicking up silt. Gooseflesh went up my left side as I remembered what had been watching me the last time I was here. Jesus, was I just as scared of that creepy boy as I had been of stumbling into a machine gunner’s sights? Maybe. Even with a party of armed men around me, I didn’t want to see the boy with no pants again. Not ever.

But there was no way I was turning back.

The watched feeling got more urgent.

I went up to Estel Blake and put my hand on his arm to get his attention. His arm was tensed and stiff like wood.

Estel turned and whispered something to me; I saw his mouth make the words
I know
.

He had heard something. I now sensed how tightly wound the others were and knew that they had all heard something. They were jumpy. And they were bunched up.

I touched Estel’s arm again.

“Get these men in a line,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Put these men one behind the other and space them out before they shoot each other.”

Estel nodded and went from man to man until it was done.

But we went on like that for a long time before anyone fired a weapon, and only one of us saw what was in the woods.

 

 

 

IT WAS MAYBE half past three when we discovered the bones of the horse. The horse had died some time ago, and my first thought was that perhaps we had stumbled across the battlefield; that this was one of the many Confederate horses who died beneath or on top of their masters that day in 1864, its topsoil perhaps washed away in hard rain. But the ground here was high and the topsoil well anchored by roots. And this horse had been eaten. The smaller bones had been cracked open and the marrow licked out. I saw the scowls on the other men’s faces and knew that my face was expressing the same contempt. There’s something in a man that loves a horse and hates to see one desecrated.

The sheriff was the most affected, and I can only venture that the sight of those gnawed bones reminded him too sharply of the boy he had so recently found beneath the locust tree. He muttered something to himself, or so I thought until I saw by the way he closed his eyes that he was remembering his Psalms again.

“What the hell is out here?” Lester said. “That ain’t no dog. Dogs did not do that.”

“I don’t know,” Estel said, “but we gonna find out.”

He said it, but nobody believed him. Nobody wanted to meet what made those deep grooves. Not in his heart. Not if he was honest.

About four o’clock something moved and several men shot at it. Estel stopped them and they watched the smoke clear and several of them went in that direction to see what they had hit.

“What are you doin? Dammit, get back here!” Estel said, but they went anyway.

The brush was thick and soon the men were out of sight.

“Hey!” Estel said, but stayed where he was and the remaining men stayed, too. A long moment passed.

“Where are you?” a voice called.

“We’re here!” the sheriff said. “Follow my voice.”

“Here-here-here-here!” Buster said.

“Keep talking,” a voice said.

“Here-here-here-here-here!”

The men came back and rejoined the group.

“Did you see anything?”

“Nothin.”

“Who shot? Lester, did you shoot?”

He shook his head.

“Well, since you know how to keep your britches on, you and me are goin to walk up front. How about you, Mr. Nichols? You fire?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why don’t you take up the back.”

“I would do better near the front. Man in the back needs good ears.”

“That’s fine, then. Buster, you shoot?”

Buster shook his head.

“Alright, you take the rear.”

“I was afeared you was gonna say that.”

It was only when Buster almost tripped over Saul’s rifle that they realized Saul Gordeau was missing.

He had been the last man in the rear.

 

 

 

WHEN HE SAW that the boy was gone, Estel began to fall apart. We all knew that’s what was happening, but nobody tried to usurp what was left of his command because nobody else knew what to do either. It was getting late enough so we had to leave soon if we wanted to make the river by dark. Everyone wanted to make the river by dark. So we abandoned all pretense of stealth and shouted the boy’s name until all of us were hoarse. We tried to retrace our steps. We saw no sign of him. He was gone utterly and did not answer his name. I think many in the party were quietly glad to be moving back towards the river, and as long as search and retreat were both served by the same heading, there was no contention in the group.

When some of the men felt they were near the place of the shooting they slowed down and began to look more carefully. I proposed that we should walk in an ever-widening circle and keep a close eye out for blood or dropped items, and Estel nodded his assent. We called the boy’s name again and again until all the meaning washed out of it and it became like any other syllable, more related to salt or sod than to Lester or their father.

Estel touched his face a lot while we searched. I had the impression he was remembering flies, fearing to find another boy walked on by flies.

Nothing happened except that the light got weaker. One man suggested that the boy had gotten scared and headed back west. This made sense to other men who were eager to head home. A majority soon formed that professed to believe the boy had turned back, and would be waiting for them by the river or back in Whitbrow. Members of this same majority also pointed out that they had only one light, no food and very little water. By way of easing the general conscience, one suggested that if the boy wasn’t already home they could renew their search tomorrow. Lester nearly hit the man who said that. Buster came between them, but argued Lester’s part, saying if Saul was hurt they would be killing him to leave him out all night.

Estel spoke up then, saying, “He’s probably crossed the river. I’m sure he’s crossed the river home.”

And if he hasn’t, I can’t bear to find him,
I could almost hear him thinking.
My steps are heavy with the fear of bumping a foot into him; I will shake myself to pieces, Selah. Lord give me one night of rest before I see anything else that makes me see Thy throne empty and my own death close and final.

Those who wished to leave grabbed at the sheriff’s weakness, tried to hide their own behind it. They were sure the boy was home. They promised to come back tomorrow.

I was as scared as any of them, maybe more scared.

But still I spoke up and said,

“Who volunteers to tell the boy’s father?

or do we let Lester do that?”

“I ain’t leavin without my brother,” Lester said.

“Now it seems we got to all go or all stay,” Buster said, “and I’m for all stayin.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“You damn fool, the boy’s gone home,” one man said. One of those who shot.

“That’s right,” another said. “He’s waitin on us.”

“Who’s goin to tell our wives if we stay?”

“And if he ain’t home, you gonna look your wife in the eye and tell her you left a boy in the woods? Cuz I will.”

The man wanted to say something back to Buster but didn’t.

His friend said, “Now, I ain’t no coward, but I ain’t no fool neither. Seems to me if they ain’t nothin bad out here, the boy’s alright. But if they is, they’s goin to give us hell tonight an us with no light or nothin.”

“I’d rather be a fool,” Buster said. “If we start now we can pick good ground and make a fire. Camp here and start first thing in the mornin stead a wastin all that time walkin home and back.”

I said, “Whatever we do, I agree that we should do it together. We’ve got good enough numbers now to discourage an attack, but if we divide, the smaller party will be . . .”

“Shit out a luck,” Buster finished.

“Well, I ain’t leavin,” Lester said.

“And I ain’t stayin,” one of those who shot said.

I saw that the sheriff was gone to pieces and where a good leader might have kept the group together, there was none. God, I did not want to stay out if the group was going to split, but I saw that Lester would stay and I couldn’t leave the boy alone.