The Road to Reckoning Read online

  ‘Go through his bags. See if he’s got any papers from the law,’ he said. ‘Get his rifle and powder. If he moves, shoot him so he can’t walk.’ He put his gun to Henry. ‘And I’ll shoot the boy in the belly with his own guns. And you can watch him die. Might take days if I do it right.’

  I wanted to say dozens of things but I was numb. I moved my frozen face from Henry to Heywood, to the fire, to my feet, and the play went around without me.

  Henry did not move and I watched Silver-hair go to the stud. Henry never looked at me, I was sure. He watched everything but me, his head steady on Heywood, as Silver-hair went through his saddlebags one-handed, his gun still trained with the other.

  Silver-hair pulled out Henry’s leather book, let it fall. It opened out on the ground to show us the discordant pleasing forms within and Silver-hair cocked his head to it.

  ‘Birds!’ He laughed. ‘Hey, Tom! Look at that!’ he said. ‘The old man likes to draw birds!’ His hand went further through the bag and took out the string-bound pencils. ‘He has pretty pencils too!’

  Heywood haw-hawed. ‘Is that ribbons tying them up?’

  Black-coat did not laugh. In his black form he kept his piece solid on Henry, and Henry kept himself straight and patient because of it. I think they measured each other well. In any group there is always one who knows his business.

  But I could hold out no longer. I could do nothing to defend my situation but I found my voice to Thomas Heywood.

  ‘That is my book! My drawings! Little you know about anything, you son of a bitch!’

  Hatband giggled faster and Heywood striped me with the pistol across my head, and my legs went light.

  ‘You little bastard!’ he spat, and raised to hit me harder.

  ‘Hold there,’ Henry said calmly, and Heywood quit his blow.

  Henry Stands took a step.

  ‘We all know you can shoot men in the back and want to kill their children. How are you against a real bastard?’

  He moved farther, ignoring the iron on him. They let him come.

  ‘I know I don’t have a problem’—Heywood leveled the Colt—‘killing an old man.’

  The gun did nothing to stall.

  ‘Yes, I’m old,’ Henry said, and folded his arms. ‘Old enough to have made cemeteries of men younger than you. Killed in wars. Killed in peace. Knifed and shot my way most of my life. Killed Indians and white men with my hands or the guns I took from them.’

  Another step, his arms unfolded.

  ‘I get paid to bring in escaped men that have done worse.’

  One more foot.

  ‘And there is nothing in you that don’t stand thin against me, and you know it. And this ain’t the first time I’ve had guns against me and you know that too.’

  He looked at them all, weighed them all.

  ‘And I’m done talking.’

  He came past the fire, stolidly forward at two pistol mouths and two rifles, and I guess they did not know what to do for they stayed their hands. The two riflemen looked to Heywood, and he answered with cocking the despicable, treacherous Colt again, and though this made no difference to him in his coming on, I would not see Henry Stands cut down. I would not. I would not see such again. I could not help him either. But I would not see it.

  I kicked at Heywood’s shin, as children do. He howled and I broke free. He fired uselessly to the ground. I wrenched myself from Hatband and streaked into the woods.

  I ran.

  I heard shots behind. A booming discharge ringing off the rocks, or the conflagration of Hell striving to claw me back to what I deserved. My rhadamanthine judgment.

  Still, I ran.

  ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen.’ The ringmaster in the tall silk hat circles, his white greasepaint glowing.

  ‘I show you the worst of Thomas Walker’s crimes. His worst testament against. His judgment not for us but for a higher order.’

  He pulls back the curtain and a white lantern shines on a whiter body standing naked and alone and bloodied like the Lord, but dying of more than his wounds.

  ‘I give you his abandonment of Henry Stands for your scrutiny and horror. His savior and guardian. Left to the wolves. Left while Thomas Walker flees for his life.’ He holds out his hat.

  ‘It is only one more cent to see more.’

  I ran and scrambled upward. I could hear voices. My shirt and knees were wet with the ground as I slithered to mount rocks and mud where their horses could not go.

  The wooden thing slipped from my belt and tumbled below. I reached after it but it mocked me with its skill to tumble over itself. I could just make it out against the leaves.

  I could hear nothing, could see nothing except my own body in the pitch, but I knew I was only a shout and one good look away from it all. Leave it. I should leave it. It had been nothing but trouble.

  I slid back down and found it with my foot. I could hear them coming; the trees shook with them. I reached down and brushed the gun clean and tucked it behind me again. Higher was hope. Think of where fat men will slip and curse and convince themselves that boys will get lost and starve alone and forget about them.

  I was on a trail, a path. A wall of rock all along, pale now as the moon came over the hills as I went higher. The stone giant and square with flat tables above. If I could climb up there it could take them hours to follow. They would have to work round with the horses or if on foot, and huffing and slipping, they could not go where boys could. The advantage to the child. Endless energy when fear comes and the whole world just a place to hide.

  The Lord helped me up. I climbed rock formed when he made the earth and yet it seemed each crevice and pattern in it had been designed with careful thought for this night and my escape and the moon just peaking the trees and lighting just enough to show me each step to take.

  I reached the plateau but still climbed forward on my belly for a few yards so I would not be near the edge when I stood to be framed against the sky for a lucky shot. I got up and looked about. The ground before was made up of white broken rock like the metaled road of a titan.

  I stepped, and the stones complained and moved under my foot, but I went on. Once or twice I heard a rattle and changed my footing but kept heading forward for the higher ground and the trees.

  I did not think about earlier. I spoke to myself, talked to my feet and rubbed my arms. I had left my coat and hat, and the wind was flintlike as I went higher, but it would be better in the cover of the trees. Everything would be better in the cover of the trees. I thought only on the importance of the moment, realized that was the way I had got through all things until now. What was important was that my belly was full, I was not tired, and I was alive. That much was right. An hour or so later and I had improved on that even: I was alone. And although I knew that was bad, the trees were my church and sanctuary.

  I had evaded.

  SEVENTEEN

  I had my compass and I talked to it when I did not talk to my feet. I put it close to my face and angled it to the moon’s light. I asked it where I was and it showed me north and so gestured me east and I was not that green to know that if I went down and hit a creek I would hit a river and a town soon enough or at least a grist mill with some kindly gentleman.

  I did contemplate and asked the compass if there was not too much iron in these hills to differ but he reminded me that the moon was going east to west and I could judge him by that.

  But I would need shelter soon and the night agreed with me on that as I felt rain on my cheek and looked up to see nothing above, but over my shoulder clouds were chasing the moon and me.

  I went on, stopped and caught my breath when I needed, for I was still heading upward, which was wearing me down, but the rain caught up on me and despite the trees I was cold and wet by the next time I broke cover. The moon got blanketed and put me in a hole of blackness.

  I stumbled along with one hand feeling along rock, against trunk, and inched my feet like I was stepping on ice, but this was good fo
r I was confident I could not be followed.

  I had put more than a good couple of hours behind me but my woolen clothes got real soaked and I began to shiver against my bones. That would not go well if I did not find somewhere to hide.

  I recalled Henry Stands had described this land as anthracite rich and I had passed a few slits like evil mouths in the rock, not big enough for me to rest in but ably suited for snakes. I hoped for a path that might lead to a mine, abandoned for my best hopes as Henry Stands had said they often were.

  As I thought and hoped on this I slipped and landed my rump hard on a rock. It was a foolish injury that would have brought loud laughter from anyone watching but it hurt like hell and soured me further. Pains on my head from the lumping Thomas Heywood gave me, and now an aching rear and muddied clothes.

  Maybe this was some holy intervention to keep my mind off deeper troubles. Sometimes I guess the Lord can only do little things to ease, and pain is one of those. I rubbed the back of me but the wet and cold gave no comfort and I concentrated on it so much that it was some time before I noticed I was on a dirt path, overgrown for sure, but civilization had been here and my tripping over a wooden track made my heart leap.

  I followed the cart-track and was surprised and welcomed by the rubbing and mewing of a cat at my legs. I walked on and was joined by another, who led me down the track flicking its tail at me. Neither of them seemed bothered by the rain and this encouraged me.

  At the turning of a bush that had grown at head height over the track I came to a sanguineous glowing blanket suspended in midair across the path. Closer and I saw it was a brattice covering across the opening of a mine and a lamp within shining through.

  I hurried forward and then stopped with the cats spiraling around my feet. The lamp meant someone was behind that curtain. My immediate past meant that I distrusted even the natural world, let alone the hands of men in it.

  But Henry Stands had been a good bad man. There could be others. I am sure I had known more good men than bad and you have too so that is how you should measure the world if it came down to numbers, as it might, come Judgment.

  I approached the curtain.

  ‘Hullo?’ I called, and the cats echoed me with their little voices.

  A long drag of silence, then the rattle of pots and a crooked silhouette rose on the curtain and I saw arms bend to a head in a fright.

  ‘Who’s it there?’ a voice croaked. An old voice, and I relaxed but not knowing why. ‘Who’s it there? Them’s my cats.’

  ‘My name is Thomas Walker. I am no harm.’

  The shape on the curtain grew larger. ‘What you want?’

  ‘Shelter. I should like to wait until dawn. I ask nothing else. I am a boy.’

  The curtain whipped across and a bald head and face met mine. ‘Lost? Lost, you say?’

  I had not used this word.

  He was old. And thin. Big eyes like a catfish, too big for his head, which was concave at every bone and swayed on his neck as if too heavy to bear. He wore no shirt but a leather waistcoat that showed his skeletal chest and arms. I was satisfied that he was not stronger than me and very old to boot. His suspicion lightened when he saw I was a boy, and he smiled kindly and I could see the younger man within him then.

  ‘Son.’ He pitied. ‘You are drowned. Come in. My cats have found you. They must think you have bacon about!’

  He took my arm and drew me under the curtain. I thanked him but looked around before proper introduction. His lodging was but nine feet wide, the width of a mine-car and track, and tall as a big man. This was the entrance, the adit, of a strip mine. A strip mine cuts from the mountain rather than being a shaft down into the earth. This old man lived in the slope that might have been the office in its past for it had cupboards and furniture. Another brattice down the slope testified to the mine proper. He had made a good job of it. There were shelves both cut out of the rock and hung, and a canvas cot and a proper stone oven with a rusty tin stack disappearing into a wall. He had food boiling that smelled salty and good and the blue smoke smarted but was welcoming. It reminded of civilization.

  He had oddments and mess everywhere and I could not take much in before he began to straighten his home and be as hospitable as a man in a cave could be.

  I have found that the more humble a man’s circumstance the more he will put himself out and offer comfort. I have sat in great halls and been offered not even a sip of water despite being invited to attend, and I have visited one-room shacks unannounced and been welcome to the first slice of everything and the last finger of whiskey and even a man’s bed. You know I am right about that because it has happened to you too. For the rich folks it usually starts with the words ‘Help yourself,’ but those words are the precursors to ‘but’ and ‘should not’ and ‘we do not usually’ and you get sent out into the wet night hungry and dry throated. There is a reason why they are rich.

  ‘Who you say you were?’ he asked, and I could look at him better now in the isinglass lantern light. He was not much bigger than me but he did stoop so it was hard to tell. He had proper trousers and braces and good boots and never stopped moving, tidying up the place of what seemed like trinkets and charms, stones and Indian-like things, even when he was listening to me.

  ‘Thomas Walker, sir. Thank you for letting me in.’

  He scoffed at my thanks humbly like I was giving him a gift on Christmas Eve and offered me a seat, which was a half barrel upturned.

  ‘But you are soaked, boy!’ he declared. ‘Why you out on your own? Best get some dry clothes. I have plenty. Why out here on your ownsome?’

  ‘I am not alone,’ I lied. This was my defense. I have said before that I distrust anyone who does not have a key to my house and I see no reason no to do so until you see how another fellow travels and courts. It was the same for me with Henry Stands and so it would be with this old boy.

  ‘I went for a walk when it was dry and have become separated from my party. In the morning I shall be fine. I can find my own way.’

  The two cats had become four, of different colors and, in the light, of different stages of missing fur and half-closed eyes or chewed ears. They rubbed against the old man and he stroked and kissed his lips at them as he spoke.

  ‘Well, you are welcome, Thomas Walker. I will get you clothes and dry yours on my coal. I am Strother Gore. Pleased to meet. I am want of company.’

  I nodded, my shivering getting worse with the warmth of the cave, and I could not speak much further for the chattering of my teeth.

  ‘A blanket,’ he said. ‘Yes, a blanket.’ He scurried away and brought one to me. ‘Get undressed beneath, for your shame.’ He laughed and I noted his gapped teeth, which made his chortle like that of an infant and drowned the sound of rain outside the curtain. I thought of speaking of my troubles, a Christian warning. This old man did not deserve the retribution due to me. But my own preservation this night was a hill above my charity. Outside, behind that curtain and through the rain, I was sure I was sought, and if he was made aware Strother Gore might decide that he did not need the troubles of a small boy.

  ‘And clothes,’ he said. ‘I got lots of clothes.’ He laughed away again and carried back from a hidden corner britches and a blue capote shirt. They smelled musty and aged but fitted good, though why he would have such to fit me I did not ask.

  Mister Gore paid me no mind as I changed. He tended to his late supper and shushed the cats away with giggles and admonishments until each knew how good or bad he was and closed their eyes and grinned or ducked and dashed accordingly.

  I thought it late to be eating but I did not know how late. I had eaten hours ago and thought we were now in early morning, but Strother was not eating; he was stirring only and paying even that little mind. I put the Paterson on the barrel and he stared but he saw that its pattern matched the wooden seat.

  ‘That is quite a toy,’ he said. ‘Did your father make it?’

  I looked at the gun. ‘Yes. No. He gave it to me.’


  ‘What is that round bit of it?’

  ‘It is a revolving cylinder of chambers,’ I quoted. ‘For five shots.’

  ‘I have never seen a gun like that.’ But he ended the conversation on that statement.

  He took my clothes and hung them over a cord above his oven, talking to each of my garments in turn with tuts and whistles. I was still wet across my shoulders but the blanket, his stove, and the closeness of the cave had dried the rest of me. I was good again.

  ‘You hungry?’ He leaned over to me with one eye squinting.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I have a stew?’

  ‘I have had supper. Thank you. With my family.’

  ‘How about some johnnycakes? Honey in them now there are bees again. And tea?’

  ‘That would be welcome, sir. I can bring you some tea tomorrow and some other goods for your kindness when I am back to my party.’ This was a lie, naturally, but what harm?

  He smiled with what teeth he had and with a pot already boiling poured me a tea. I thought we had come along enough to ask questions, especially as I was drinking and eating into his stores. He told me as he passed me the johnnycake that he baked them on a shovel, which was why they were so big, and he was not misleading, for it filled my entire hand.

  ‘Do not worry,’ he said. ‘They are good. I am no clay-eater.’

  I chewed and talked. His biscuit was good. ‘You live here, Mister Gore?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ he said, wide eyed and angry, and then smiled as apology for his snap. ‘This is as good a place as any,’ he said. He waved his spoon to his walls. ‘I am happy here. There is no charge and I have lost my interest in towns. This place was a strip mine, as was. It ran out more than ten years gone. I did work it in its prime. It holds enough fuel for my little uses. Not enough worth for anyone to dig further. I think the town has all gone by now.’

  ‘Have you been here long?’ He did not seem to like this question so I changed my line. ‘It is impressive what you have done with it, I mean. It is most comfortable. And, as you say, free of charge.’