Paradise Alley (72 page)

He had gone to sleep in his tent still possessed of the unalterable conviction that he was going to die. But the next day there had been no mad new charge. The men had been so badly shot up that his company barely existed anymore, and he and Snatchem and Larkins were
rounded up by a major, along with some other stray men and moved in to fill a gap along a farmer's low stone wall on Cemetery Ridge.

Even this forward position actually proved safer, once the rebel guns had started to thunder late that morning. They had thrown nearly all their shells and balls high, over the line, and into the officers' mess, and a few artillery caissons in the back. Tom and his friends, meanwhile, had clung to the trembling earth. The noise shattering, even through the cotton in their ears, the worst bombardment they had ever heard. Yet when it finally stopped, hours later, they had risen up from the ground in the ringing stillness, as whole as the souls on Judgment Day, brushing themselves off and grinning sheepishly at each other.

They still hadn't thought the rebs would come, then—not against them, not against the center of the line, strong as it was. The shells had missed their mark, and no bombardment on this earth was capable of driving them from where they were dug in, with their own guns, behind a stone wall.

Tom had been as surprised as the rest of them when he had seen the rebs marching out, in their perfect parade lines. Trying to overawe them with their numbers, their drill—their casual disdain in dressing their lines, even as the Union guns culled and threshed their ranks.

But they all knew, it was they who would be doing the killing this day. The grey soldiers resorting in the end, when they must have known they were almost within rifle range, to their old rebel yell. Shrieking it louder and higher than ever—that eerie, lunatic, hunting cry. Behind the Union lines, a few of the newer recruits had trembled, but the veterans held them steady, disdainful of all their noise.

“I heard women an' children makin' worse sounds in the cabins during the hunger,” one of the men near Tom snorted. “Would that I had a rifle in me hands then.”

The yells dying out again, by the time the rebs had reached the foot of the ridge. Already shot to hell, most of their officers gone. Both sides understanding that the charge was already doomed, even as the officers gave the command and the blue soldiers raised their muskets to their shoulders. The reversal of their positions so striking that it was immediately understood, on both sides of the wall, when the men on the Union line began to chant their own bitter cry:

“Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!”

The single word reverberating across the field. Until the command to fire rang out, and all other noise was drowned in the sound of their volley.

And how could they know about that? How could they know what war was, these people who used to be his friends and neighbors?

They killed so easily, so thoughtlessly. Hanging men and women from the lampposts, in a Christian city. Screaming for them to join them. Even burning the flag before them, waving the rebels' banner. Yelling to hell with Abe Lincoln, Horace Greeley, the codfish Yankee aristocrats.

How could they know? What he held his allegiance to—

It wasn't for the flag. Or Abe Lincoln, whom he had never seen, except once from a very great distance, when he had come out to inspect the army—a tall figure in a tall hat, riding a little horse. Or to Horace Greeley, whom he had only read in his wife's newspaper and could never make hide nor tail of. Or to any of the Yankees, or the aristocrats. Or the Black Republicans, or the Peace Democrats or the War Democrats or the Copperheads, or anything else like that.

His loyalty was to those other men he fought with, the ones marching beside him now. To his wife and children, here in his City, for whom he would do anything, kill anyone. And beyond that, his allegiance was simply
against
all those who would kill so easily—string up innocent men and women or anyone else, just because they could.

He had seen too much of killing to spare them now.

•
70
•

He had to get back.

He lay against the wall in the darkness, and the still-smoldering heat of the ruined Armory. Squeezing the gun in his palm, feeling the pain course through his splinted leg. Listening for any noise above him then, thinking surely that they must be gone by now. He was about to try raising himself up, and looking for a way out, when he heard it again—the mocking call, as hateful and chilling as ever.

“
Nig-ger, oh, nig-ger!
We're still
heeere,
nigger!”

The same words, the same taunting cry he had listened to since the evening before, and all through the night—ever since he had finally been able to leave the orphans, back uptown at the police station. The bastards were too leery to come down after him, knowing he had his gun—but reminding him, still, that they had him holed, here. Letting him know they were willing to wait until he had to come out—until it was too late anymore.

He tried to think of a way around it, though his head was still bursting with fever.
Some way he could get himself up and out of the basement, and back to his home, with his busted leg.
He had tried to think of something all night, when he was not passing in and out of consciousness. There was nothing he could even try, with them right on top of him like that. But still—

He had to get back.

• • •

His luck had turned now, he knew. It was bound to, after holding up all the previous afternoon. Soon after he had managed to get the Irishers up to the Red Bird stables and get them all on horseback, he had run upon a priest. A Father Knapp, who was chasing what rioters he could off the streets, running after them as determinedly and with as much effectiveness as a child chasing pigeons in a park.

“Father, don't go after them!” he had warned, grasping the priest by the elbow. The prelate's face looking harried and distracted, barely able to focus on Billy at first.

“They must stop,” he had panted at him, all but out of breath, leaning heavily on his arm.
“They will never forgive us.”

Only then had he looked at Billy—seen the color of his skin.

“You must get off the street!” he had urged him. Pushing him into a doorway with surprising strength.

“You must help us—” Billy had told him, hanging on to the man until he could truly focus on him, and pay attention to what he was saying. The priest's eyes finally clearing, though they still looked wild.

“They will never forgive us—”

“They won't even remember it tomorrow. You got to help
me.
”

The priest had been able to lead him to a company of regulars just ashore in the City, to convince them to follow him back to the precinct house. Billy had brought them right in past the astonished-looking police sergeants—right to the cellar door—

“What? Who's there?” The voice of Miss Shotwell.
Foolish to say anything,
he thought
—as if the mob would answer politely back—
but knowing that she was only trying to shield the children.

“Who's up there?”

He had lit the lantern and walked out on the top of the stairs. There he looked down at the hundreds of children crammed into the small basement below him. It was a sight that he would never forget—the best sight of his life, save for the first look at his new son, his eldest. Miss Shotwell was standing defiantly at the foot of the stairs—but all around her, all around the walls and under the stairs, and crammed into every nook and cranny of the police station basement, he could see the eyes of the children.

They blinked defensively in the sudden glare of the light, but were still silent—still willing to endure whatever came next. The dozens of black and brown faces staring up blindly—then creasing into smiles, even wonder, as they saw
him
up there. The armed soldiers behind him looking all the taller, like storybook grenadiers, with their rifles and bayonets.

“Billy!” Miss Shotwell had breathed then. “Oh, Billy, you sweetheart!”

His charge completed then. Paid in full.
They had arranged for a guard of the regulars to take the children over to the East River. From there a gunboat was to ferry them over to Blackwell's Island, where the army was stowing all the Negroes they were able to rescue. The Yankee ladies, Yolanda, and Old Bert, would go with them.

They would be all right there,
Billy had thought, squinting down at the snout-nosed, iron-plated gunboats, steaming up and down the broad river like so many alligators. They were a new type of ship, nearly all metal on the outside. Boats that were no longer shaped chiefly by a man's hand, but tempered in a white-hot furnace.

Not that it mattered. The factories and the iron forges were all white, too, same as the waterfront.

“Why don't ya go with 'em, now?” Sergeant Murphy had asked him, gesturing toward the long line of children, walking doggedly off to the river. “You'd be safe there, till this is all over.”

He'd only shaken his head, though he knew the cop meant well. When he had reappeared with the soldiers, the two of them had greeted him like the true miracle, Lazarus come back from the dead—

But it will never be over,
he wanted to tell him.
Not in his life, or his boy's life, or any age after that. They would never give it up. Not until the hand of God made all skins black—or cast all men into darkness.

“Well, then—take these, at least,” Murphy had nudged him. “You'll need 'em, with what's still goin' on out there.”

He had pressed something into his hands. A new Colt revolver, Billy saw, and a box of shells. He tried to mumble out some words of thanks, but the cop only slapped him on the back again.

“Goddamnedest thing I ever saw a man do, you with those sons a bitches yesterday,” Murphy said, shaking his head.

Billy had stared at him wordlessly, realizing it was the first time he had ever seen a white man look at him with genuine admiration.

“Damn, but it was a bold thing!”

He had let Murphy fill the barrels of the revolver for him. Hiding both the gun and the extra bullets deep in his pockets, not anxious to be seen with them, but ready to shoot his way down to the Fourth Ward if he had to.

“God go with ye,” Murphy was telling him.

Billy had mumbled something in reply, not even sure of what he had said, and started off down the Third Avenue. Ahead of him he could already see burning buildings, their trails of black smoke curling lazily up into the thick summer air. But then he had heard something unexpected, and glanced back to see the orphans going off, hand in hand. Most of them looking back at him, waving with their free hands as they went off. Still singing their hymns as they marched.

Then sings my soul,

My savior God to thee,

How great Thou art,

How great Thou art—

He wondered if he would ever see them again—once they, and he, had fled the City. The rows of boys and girls, marching along in their usual good order. And all around them, the phalanx of soldiers, towering over the children, their rifles held at the waist, bayonets at the ready.

What kind of City was this, where you needed an armed guard to keep orphan children from being lynched?

But there had been no time to think further on it—or how he would miss them, or even what he would do for his back wages now.
He had another charge.
Billy gave them a small, guarded wave in return, and turned toward the south. Hurrying on down into the burning City.

He had managed to reach Twenty-third Street before they picked him up, which he knew was a remarkable run of luck in and of itself. He had made it almost all the way to Gramercy Park—thinking it wasn't too far now, not more than another mile and a half as the crow flies to Paradise Alley, he could be there before night—

Then he had turned a corner and nearly run right into the crowd of white men outside a saloon. It was unavoidable, he had known it from the start, there were too many bars in this town, and he had tried to brazen it out. Trying to dash by before the Paddies outside could recover themselves—

But they had begun to chase him almost immediately, shouting and hallooing behind him as they did, as if they were off on a game, or a hunt. He had tried to just outrun them at first. Running to the east, down a block that he knew was famous for its brothels. Dodging by prosperous-looking gentlemen, still strolling up to the brownstone stoops, who only stepped carefully out of his way.

“C'mere, nigger-nigger-nigger! C'mere, we got somethin' for
you!
”

They were young workingmen, most of them, fast and muscular, and soon they had started to gain on him. Billy felt his legs growing heavy, winded from having already run nearly a mile and a half, with nothing to sustain him for two days, now, save for the short, sweet swig of whiskey the bummers had forced down his throat.

He had slowed then, letting the men come up on him. Clutching the Colt in his pocket, looking back over his shoulder at the lead man.
His mouth dropped open, short brown stubs of teeth leering excitedly in his pink face.
Billy let him draw to within a few feet—then he yanked the Colt out and shot him point-blank in the belly. The man screamed and went rolling over like a ninepin in the street—some of his fellows tripping over him, others stopping to tend to him, shouting with rage.

But it was not enough. The rest of them had kept on, more incensed than ever now, imbued with the courage they had been drinking up all afternoon. When they got too close again, Billy shot another one, right through the lungs this time. But the mob behind him was only growing now—gunshots buzzing past his own head, chipping the stoops and store awnings around him.

He had feinted uptown—then run around the block and turned back toward the south and east. Running on every last breath he could manage now, looking desperately for some alleyway or building he could duck into, maybe hide himself away.

He ran down Twenty-first Street, the mob almost at his heels, right up to the ruined brick hulk of the Armory. It didn't seem to promise much, but it was the only structure left standing on the block. The bullets
were whizzing past him more frequently, and Billy swerved inside, pounding up the steps and through the enormous front door that swung loose, off its hinges.

He rushed through the door—and found himself in midair, his arms swinging wildly, trying to find some purchase. Instead he fell, into the still-smoldering pile of rubble just inside. Cutting his forehead open on the end of a beam, his hands burning and smarting on the still-hot bricks.

He was up immediately, nevertheless. Running on through the Armory, realizing even as he did that it had become an empty shell, its roof and interior floors all burned away. Nothing more than the piles of broken bricks and planks and gun stocks inside—

There was no shelter for him here at all. The building's shell was even a trap. He could already catch glimpses of the mob, cleverly dividing, half of them running over to head him off on the other side of the Armory, surrounding him.

Billy stood in the middle of the burned-out building, not knowing what he could possibly do now. All around him, through the holes in the brick, he could see their flitting shadows, could hear the laughing, singsong voices.

“We got you now, nigger!”

“Come out, come out, where e're you are!”

A rifle bullet streaked past his ear this time, and he had crouched down, and scrambled back through the piles of wood and brick, toward the door again. Hoping that maybe he could shoot his way through, get by them somehow. But his foot slipped on one of the loose piles, and he nearly fell. Hopping back up, trying to get his balance, he came down hard on a loose floor plank. All he could feel after that was the ground giving way beneath him, before he was enveloped in the darkness.

He had awakened all at once, though he did not make a move—afraid to give himself away. He had no idea where he was, or how much time had passed, but to his great relief he saw that he was still in the dark.