Deserter (7 page)

Jake realized that everything he'd gained from killing the insane scavenger was the result of someone else's loss. The saddle and jerky had no doubt been the property of a Pennsylvania family whose farm the Confederate army had swept past—with the scavenger following it. The rifle may have belonged to a soldier. The pistol wasn't military issue, but that meant little. Men on both sides carried weapons they owned into battle. Even the horse Jake rode wasn't his. Beyond the occasional ripe melon from a neighboring plantation's patch, Jake had never stolen anything. Now things were different—totally different.

Sinclair switched hobbles on the mare, the new set
giving her a few more inches between the restraints, making walking easier, but still precluding any gait beyond a walk. He threaded his belt though the loops of his pants and the cut in the sheath of his bowie knife. The blade had been at his side so constantly that he felt less than dressed without it.

The saddle fit the mare well. Her withers were wide and accepted the saddle well. She flinched as Jake drew the unfamiliar back cinch, swung her head back to see what the strange-feeling thing was, and then, satisfied, forgot about it. The blanket that had been under the military saddle on the mare's back, Jake realized, was a bit small. It'd do for now, but he'd replace it as soon as he could.

The release the whiskey provided was welcome. Jake tipped the bottle again and again, but was quite surprised when he noticed that it was empty. He hurled it across the stream onto the far shore, where it struck sand, rolled a few feet, and came to rest, reflecting the bright sun in spikes of light that hurt Sinclair's eyes. He drew the .44, considered blasting away at the bottle with it, and decided against doing so. He'd already attracted one crazy—why draw another with gunfire? He aimed down the barrel of the pistol, enjoying the weight of it in his hand, acutely aware of the potential power it possessed. He spun the cylinder to hear the oiled whir, which reminded him for some reason of the workings of the silver-cased watch his father had carried in his vest pocket.

He eased down onto his back, put his right hand, still holding the pistol, on his chest, and slept soundly, dreamlessly.

It seemed to Sinclair that the damned heat would never break. The sun had a good start on the day when he awakened from his drunken sleep, the pistol still resting on his chest. A shaft of white-hot light through the canopy of leaves and foliage above him pinpointed his left eye as soon as he opened it, skewering his brain, setting off spasms of headache pain he suspected would be with him for several hours, if not for most of the day. He shifted his head to avoid the spear of sunlight but couldn't avoid the heat. A greasy sweat had already broken on his face and neck, and his body felt like it was wrapped in a thick, damp blanket.

His mind took him back to when he'd first experienced the effects of sapping, unremitting heat. Jake and his pal Todd St. David had, for a couple of nights, snuck out of their beds well after midnight, met halfway between their respective plantations, and visited the slave quarters beyond the main barn at Todd's place first, and then the quarters on Jake's father's
land. They'd rained handfuls of pebbles on the shanty roofs and raced between the shacks, moaning eerily. The highly superstitious field hands and their families had been paralyzed with fear. After the second night of haunting, many of the slaves had nailed dead chickens to their doors to scare off the evil spirits. After huddling in corners shivering with fear all night, the field workers were lethargic in the hundreds of acres of cotton the next day. Overseers reported the problem to the fathers of the boys, and night guards were posted at both plantations. Jake and Todd were identified as the spooks. Their punishment: two full days each picking cotton with the field laborers. No special treatment of any kind was to be given to them—they'd work sunup to sundown with the slaves they'd frightened. Both boys discovered what the field hands already knew: Hell existed on earth. It was August in the endless expanse of cotton in Georgia.

Jake had dropped before noon the first day. A white overseer—under strict orders from Jake's father—had doused him awake with a splash of tepid water and put him back to work. A hand working alongside the boy offered him a misshapen, falling-apart woven straw hat that was already sopping wet with sweat—Negro sweat. Jake had thanked the laborer but turned the offer down. After passing out a second time, Jake wore the hat, Negro sweat and all. It kept him on his feet the next day and a half.

He remembered the heat as an evil force—more evil than the stingy cotton bolls that tore his fingertips and left them raw and bleeding. More evil than the powdery dust and grit that fouled his eyes, his throat, his nose, his ears, that made a deep breath impossible
and generated an unquenchable thirst that refused to yield to the scoops of water a boy brought around every couple of hours. The sun had pounded at him—at all of those in the fields—relentlessly, without mercy. Jake staggered, sweated, puked, and picked—for two eternal days he dragged his sack up and down the symmetrical rows of cotton plants, hating each one a bit more than he hated the plant before it.

Todd St. David was carried back to his mansion bedroom the morning of the second day, his skin sallow, dry, all its moisture gone, where he stayed in his bed for almost a week. Jake finished his two days.

He remembered his conversation with his father the evening of the second day.

“Long days, Son?”

“Yessir. Real long. One of the hands gave me a hat. At first I didn't want to wear it. Then I did.”

“So I heard. That boy went without a hat for the rest of the day, you know.”

“Yessir.”

Jake's father sipped at his bourbon and branch water. “What do you think of that, Son?”

“It was nice of him, Pa. Thing is, they're used to it, used to picking all day, the heat, the dust, all that. Still, it was awful nice of him.”

“Used to it, Jake?”

“Sure. Todd's pa said slaves have thicker skulls and smaller brains and the heat can't penetrate as much as it does on white people. And their skin—it doesn't get as hot as ours does. He said they like it out there, singing and carrying on.”

Mr. Sinclair considered for a moment. “You ever listen to the words of those songs the hands sing, Jake?”

“Well . . . some, I guess. They're sure not happy songs. A couple are about dying and being carried away to heaven. There's one about a river that's cool and sweet, too.”

His father leaned forward in his chair, closer to his son. “It's my belief that those Negroes suffer from the heat and dust as much as a white person, Jake. That they experience the same pain you did, the same muscle ache, the same thirst—everything.”

“Then why do we put them out there, Pa?”

“Because the cotton must be picked, Jake. Because someone has to pick it. And because they're slaves. Slaves are supposed to sweat for their masters. The Bible tells us that. The South didn't invent slavery—it's been around for thousands of years, and it'll be around for thousands more. And—our way of life has its roots in slavery, Son. The South as we know it was at least partially built by slaves. We need them, just as they need us to look after them, feed them, keep them safe.”

“Kind of tough on the slaves, though,” Jake observed.

“Maybe,” Jake's father said. “But it's not your place nor mine to question the Bible, Son. What is, is.” He looked into his empty cut-glass tumbler. “I believe I'll have another toddy this evening,” he said, holding the glass out to his son.

When Jake returned with the drink he handed it to his father and took his seat. “Todd's pa says slaves are animals—maybe a step up from a horse or a dog, but not people like we are. Is that true, Pa?”

Mr. Sinclair took a long drink. When he looked back at his son his eyes were strangely sad, as if he'd just heard some very bad news. “You go on out and look in
on the horses, Jake—make sure the hands gave each of them fresh water. We'll talk again about this.”

Jake swallowed the questions he had. On the way to the barn the scent of roasting pork reached him from the mansion's kitchen, and two of the cook's young children chased one another about, naked, laughing, as carefree as a pair of puppies.
The Bible and the way of the South are good enough for me,
Jake thought.
Good enough for all of us. Maybe some things a fellow just doesn't question.

Jake moved sluggishly, carefully, keeping his throbbing head as still as possible. He stripped at the shore of the creek, waded out to the center, and sat down, his body and head completely submerged; the sudden, sharp chill and the pressure of the current were almost orgasmic in their intensity. The rushing water not only washed away the sweat and dirt; it lessened the pain in his head to a barely noticeable dull throb. He spent a half hour in the stream, alternating between sitting on the bottom and whooshing into the sun to gulp air. When he left the creek and stood on the sand, dripping, squeezing the water from his hair, the residue of the whiskey in his system had been scrubbed away. As he dressed he noticed that some meat-eater had gotten to the corpse of the scavenger. Jake turned away quickly and didn't look back.

He led the mare from where she'd been foraging to the stream and let her drink before he saddled her. His hunger didn't amount to much and the sight of the partially ravaged dead body hadn't helped. Jake ate a handful of beef jerky, washed it down with stream water, and mounted up. Picking a true course through a
dense forest was impossible, but he rode generally west, becoming acclimated to the saddle, marveling at the quality of it: There was no squeaking of leather that there would be in a lesser piece of gear, and the cut of the seat and placement of the stirrups felt as if the saddle had been crafted specifically for him.

Mare—he'd begun calling her by that unimaginative name—proved to be a superior trail horse. Agile and smooth-gaited, she moved through the patches of thick brush and trees surefootedly, head up, alert, ears in almost constant motion. Jake gave her all the rein she needed to wend her way, checking her rarely to keep her pointed west. About midday they crossed another stream, this one smaller and narrower than the other, and not flowing as rapidly. Nevertheless, the water was clear and cold, and man and horse drank thirstily. It was about then that Jake's hunger began to nag at him.
A rabbit would be good—or a pheasant, or even a damned old woodchuck. I have matches. I'd chance a fire without worrying about smoke. I haven't heard nor seen a sign of civilization in two days.
Another thought struck him.
And so what if someone does see smoke and show up at my camp? I'm just a drifter passing through—no more and no less.

Jake lifted the flap on the holster and drew the pistol. Again the weight of the weapon felt good in his hand, the bone grips warm. He reholstered the .44 and urged Mare ahead, following the shore of the creek, noticing the tracks of small animals etched in the sand. When he came to a wider spot, about the size of a good, big dinner table, he urged his mount fifty yards into the trees, struck a small clearing, and hobbled her there, leaving her free to graze. He loosened the front
cinch before walking back toward the stream. He left the rifle he'd taken from the scavenger in the saddle scabbard. It wasn't a Sharps, and it—and any rifle other than a Sharps—would never feel right, never perform right. He decided that he needed to learn to use the pistol, at least well enough to pot supper with.
How difficult could it be? Aim and squeeze the trigger—that's all there is to it. Hell, I'm a sharpshooter.

Jake found a good spot behind a scramble of blackberry bushes and scrub growth, twenty-five feet or so from the sandy spot. The tangles were too thick to shoot through: They'd easily deflect a well-aimed bullet. He shifted himself along in the dirt to where the bushes and weeds diminished to a height of a yard or so and settled in, pistol in his right hand, resting in his lap, legs extended in front of him. It wasn't long before forest sounds resumed.

The first creatures that approached the water were a mule deer doe with a stick-legged fawn at her side. The mother stopped before entering the clearing, one front hoof raised a couple of inches above the ground, as she surveyed the area around her. There was no breeze; Sinclair's scent didn't reach her. Satisfied she was safe, the doe left the cover of the trees, crossed the clearing, looked around again, and then lowered her head to drink. The fawn watched her for a moment and then mimicked her stance, face plunging a bit too deeply into the water. A smile tickled at the edges of Jake's mouth. The fawn shook its head and tried again, this time finding drinking depth.

An image of a haunch of venison dripping fat into a roaring fire flashed in Jake's mind, but there was no real temptation to take the doe. For one thing, the
meat would rot before he could use even a quarter of it, and secondly, the fawn would starve to death without its mother's milk. He watched as the two deer finished drinking and crossed to the far side of the stream, the mother gracefully, the baby clumsily, tripping over submerged and slippery rocks. They entered the woods and were gone.

The rabbit was summer-fat and edged into the clearing without a whole lot of regard for predators. Most animals that would take him for a meal were nocturnal, and the sun was barely past its peak for the day. Jake raised the pistol slowly and sighted on the round, paunchy abdomen of the rabbit. He knew that the tiny
click
as he eased back the hammer would grab the animal's attention, and it did. The apple-sized head with the inquisitive ears turned to him and Jake fired. A spout of sand erupted a foot to the rabbit's left and more than a foot short of where the animal stood. The white tail flashed and Sinclair's meal was gone.