Three Days Before the Shooting ... (170 page)

W
HAT A TERRIBLE SACRIFICE
for a father,
Hickman thought, and in a scene evoked by the incantatory rhythms of the old Native’s voice he imagined the old Chief standing alone on the mountain as he gazed into the sky above an ancient, bloodstained pyramid such as those Millsap once described after a trip to the Aztec region of Mexico. Then, hearing the clatter of trolley cars passing in the street blend with the drone of a plane overhead, he found himself standing dangerously
close to railroad tracks along which a tandem of two huge locomotives were speeding with a train of rumbling boxcars.

It was strange, yet here he was, pinned on the wrong side of the track with boxcars sweeping past to a rhythmical pounding of wheels on rails; while there, far in the distance, where the tracks curved to the left, the two engines were speeding toward a trestle which spanned a wide-yawning gorge. And looking back to the void out of which the train was emerging he could see boxcars still flying toward him while smoke pouring back from the engines swirled in the air above them like a message being written in retrograde. And now as he took a quick look back to the trestle toward which the engines were plunging he seemed to be standing nearby and watching the gorge stretch ever wider and wider in what appeared to be a race between locomotive and chasm, engineers and time—then, with an earthshaking rumble, the locomotives raced over the trestle, and he found himself back at the crossing and thought,
Hickman, at the speed it’s tooling it’ll soon be past, so get set to get going—
but as he stared at the cars sweeping past he froze with uncertainty.

For suddenly increasing their speed the cars were hurtling past so fast that the signs and symbols displayed on their sidings seemed to hang in the air: A shield striped with the red-white-and-blue of Old Glory, a buxom white woman with a white banner displaying the words noli me tangere streaming from her shoulders, a smiling young Indian named “Snookums” who held a large ripe orange in his hands, a green Gila monster, a bronco, a bull moose, a hump-shouldered bison, a white haloish circle in the center of which a black cross tilted at a precarious angle, a Christian cross blazing with flames, and a figure dressed in a white robe and a hood that had black holes for eyes—all flying so fast that they appeared to move without moving.

And now, as the wheels of the cars began to screech and lose traction, the names and shapes of regions and states, and the initials and symbols of nationwide railroads hung before him like a multicolored map which the highballing engines were creating in a headlong plunge across a landscape which was being rapidly girdled with copper and steel.

And just as he thought in despair,
Not even a veteran hobo could find his way through all this confusion
, the boxcars gained traction, and with a blues-like blast from its engines the train shot ahead in a jubilant crescendo of whistles and bells. And now as he whirled, wondering what would follow, he saw the red caboose flying toward him. And now, seeing a brown-skinned man wearing an engineer’s cap leaning out of a window he stared in wonder. For while the man sat in the hindmost car of the freight train his posture was that of a skilled engineer. Then, with the caboose flashing past, the man threw him a salute and roared with laughter—whereupon the scene became even weirder.

For now the rails over which the train was advancing were no longer affixed to the roadbed but spurting backwards to land under its wheels as though being
extruded by the frantic exertions of the engines which were now far in the distance and rounding a curve. Then, seeing the caboose skip up the tracks like the tip of a whip, he thought with a sigh,
So now you can get on to wherever it was you were going…
.

But just as he moved to cross over the roadbed the scene vanished, and with a start he found himself sitting once again in the old antlered chair … from which, now, Love was sadly intoning, “That’s how it was….”

And to which, sitting up in surprise, he heard himself adding, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be….”

Then, in the silence that followed, Love’s account of the Chief and his son began echoing in his mind with implications so increasingly personal that he snatched off his glasses and leaned forward, listening with a sense of dread for Love to sound some amen of resolution that would confirm or deny the mounting confusion of dream, reality, and dread through which his memory was stumbling. But Love remained silent, and through moist eyes he watched the old Native gazing out into the tops of the trees behind them.

Hickman
, he told himself,
not only is
he
tired but if
you
don’t get out of here you’ll embarrass yourself—
and was interrupted by the clear call of a bird, sad, sweet, and lonesome, which was quickly lost in the clatter of a trolley car passing in the street beyond the courtyard. And at last he saw the owl-like turning of Love’s braided head.

Then with the old eyes focusing upon him, he heard himself saying with strong emotion, “What a pitiful thing to happen to such a good man and loving father, it was terrible!”

“Aye,” Love said, “but it’s the duty of men of our profession to take part in experiences that are not only sad but ridiculous. And by now we both know that if any story continues long enough even the happiest has to end in the sadness of death and dying.”

“Amen,” Hickman said, “and that’s why it’s our duty to try and understand how such terrible things can happen. But even when we can’t we’re still bound to provide the sufferers whatever relief we can offer. Was that what you were doing for the young man?”

“If you say so,” Love said. “Yes, I was trying to warn him obliquely, to divert his mind to other possibilities. To suggest different paths and remind him that no matter how long or short, happy or sad, pitiful or terrible it happens to be, all life finally ends in what State people call a death sentence. Therefore he should stop and think about his condition. That he should weigh it, and weigh it calmly. Because now he’s still trying to pressure his vague feeling into an idea, and that is a danger to himself and to others….”

Leaning forward, Hickman grasped the arms of his chair.

“Why do you say danger?”

“Because now his are the ways of the white State folks, for whom ideas are
things to be approached with fear and distrust. So when they’re called for they leap to turn their feelings into action. And violent actions at that. Now he is one of those who would rather act than think, so instead of thinking and arriving at a state of reasonable resignation before what’s hounding him he’ll keep searching for a target. And when he’s found one he’ll blacken or whiten or redden its face and press his attack. That is the danger, because when he thinks he’s found his target he’ll shoot from the hip. And even if it happens to be in a steel-plated room he’ll ignore the fact that bullets can ricochet and bring down the gunman.”

“I hope not,” Hickman said. “Even if it’s only a figure of speech, I truly hope not.”

“My words speak of the possible,” Love said, “so since he’s only prowling through the past of this town there’s room for hope. But remember that he is now of those who try to solve every problem with guns and machines. They turn to guns and machines as in the movies they use Gatling guns against the People who were armed only with knives, tomahawks, and rifles. And in peacetime they kill with telegraph wires, newsprint, and the radio—Yao!—and with cash registers! But as I say, for him hope remains possible.”

“Well,” Hickman said as he replaced his glasses, “I hope you’re a good prophet, because I had no idea of what was going on out here. And now that I’ve talked with you I’m truly worried.”

“Why now, more than before?”

“Because when Janey wrote me I thought that she was just imagining things, and that the boy probably came back because he remembered his life with her and simply wanted to see her again. But after talking with her in person, and now with you, I see my mistake. Which leaves me lost in the woods without a compass and up the creek without any sign of a paddle.

“So you tell me, Love: What’s
bothering
this young fellow? What’s got him so upset? I’m sure you understand how important it is for me to learn all I can. So even though you must be tired I’m still asking you to give me a few more minutes of your time, and then I promise to leave.”

“Hickman,” Love said, “are you signifying that I’m too old to go on talking?”

“Oh, no! But while I’ve been listening I realized that if
I
had to preach a sermon even half as long I’d have my associate minister, the presiding elder, the head deacon, and a bunch of stalwarts sitting on the mourners’ bench to fill in the pauses and help me. But while you’ve done the talking all I’ve been doing is listening and trying to understand what happened.”

Gazing into the trees, Love grasped the chain of the swing in his ancient hands and set it gently in motion.

“Okay, Hickman,” he said, “this boy is really upset because something which began bugging him back when he was living with Janey has returned to haunt him. It showed up first when he was still a yearling in the use of words, but it wouldn’t give him its name. But when he was taken to live in the East it went
along with him. And there like the young of the cicada, the seventeen-year locust, it burrowed so deep in his young mind that he could ignore it. But that nameless thing didn’t die, it just lay in the underground of his mind like a larva, a maggot. And there it underwent a slow series of molts and gradually took on a new form which drew its strength from the confusion bred by his rebirth into a scrambled experience—why are you smiling?”

“Because you speak of his being reborn and I hadn’t thought of rebirth in the context you give it….”

“Well, think of it now. Men are born as old as the hills and the oceans from which they evolved, yet when they put it into words they say they arrived on earth as newborn babies. But have you ever taken a good long look at a newborn baby? Hell, man! Those little wrinkled things look
old!
Boy or girl, male or female, they look as old as the earth from which they sprang! Many look older than they’ll look when they die, but still we call them ‘babies’ and term their arrival ‘birth’—Yao!—when it’s clear from their looks that they’re only setting out again on a journey that they’ve taken before. And I mean a journey through which they’ll go from being old to being young to being old once again—if they’re lucky. And each leg of the journey marks a new beginning in which new sightings must be taken, and new strategies devised for coping. Each stage of the journey has its own revelation and surprises, its own rewards and its dangers. Therefore the initiations that men undergo are endless. So when a child is snatched from a way of life to which he’s been adjusted and set down in one that’s quite different it’s like he’s being born again.

“That’s what happened to the boy. When he landed in the East he underwent a second childhood during his childhood. Because out here he lived in the brightness of Janey’s darkness, her blackness. But now he was living in the shadow that goes with his whiteness. And being forced to learn how to make his way with black-seeing eyes while undergoing the pressure of becoming a white child.

“This took much time, so for years the unnamed thing left him in peace—yes, but soon he became a young buck of a man. And then some smell, or sound or sight, some taste of food, echo of memory, or shape of shadow roiled up the underground of his life with Janey and that which was sleeping awoke….”

“… So it awoke,” Hickman said, “but what then?”

“It awoke, that’s right, and like the cicada, the harvest fly, it surfaced….”

“… Which means that it crawled to the surface and left its old shell clinging to the branch of a tree like the shell of a locust….”

“Yao! It split the back of its shell straight down the middle and climbed out beside it. Then, stretching its wet limbs to dry in the sunlight, it began buzzing and humming….”

“So in the East it took on new life?”

“Yao!”

“… And found its voice and began singing a bebopping song like a mockingbird?”

“Aye! And because the boy was now vulnerable to the ghosts of the past he heard it….”

“… He heard it!”

“Yes, and he heard it
loud
, but by no means did he hear it clearly. So with that his white life took on some of the color-feeling that’s described in a song I’ve heard you State Negroes sing….”

“Now wait, man,” Hickman said, “what song would that be?”

“Just listen, Hickman,” Love said, “and since you’re turning this into some kind of a medicine man’s prayer meeting, why don’t you go on with your medicine and use your mind? What else would it be but the one about the blues jumping on the back of some rabbit-assed rascal and riding him ten thousand miles?”

Slapping his thigh, Hickman laughed.

“Now that one I deserve,” he said, “even though I was trying to give you a little old-time Baptist support. Even so, you have
got to
be kidding!”

“Me, kidding? Haven’t you heard that us Native Americans have no sense of humor?”

“Oh, yes, but those who have some of my down-home blood in their veins are different.”

“Maybe so,” Love said, “but what you’re hearing is the jibing of words, the joke that comes mixed up in language. So listen to
me:
This thing out of the boy’s past has jumped him exactly the way the blues jumped the rabbit. And once in the boy’s white skin of a saddle it dug in its spurs and took off hell for leather….”

“… Riding like a cowboy …”

“Yao! And with a grip of steel on the reins and the bridle. And by now it’s been spurring his white skin of a saddle so hard that he’s almost decided that getting rid of his skin is more important than having the protection and comfort it brought him.”

“I hate to admit it,” Hickman said, “but at the rate you’re going I can’t tell the horse from the saddle, the saddle from the rider, or the rider from the whip and the spurs. But if I’m anywhere close you’re saying that the boy’s in a bad, bad way. Which in my down-home idiom means that spiritually his head is knotty, his nose is snotty, and his butt is dragging the ground….”