The Blood of Heaven (42 page)

Ask my ass! Reuben called back. And you, you think you want to be a part of this grand glory, eh?

If I can have a clear shot at dogs like Kneeland and—

Reuben blocked the way ahead. Seems to me you take your shots by ambush anyway, and you can do that anytime.

What are you saying?

I’m saying that you are a bone-picker and a sneak-man. Reuben squared to me and stepped close. You hide and skulk and don’t have the stomach or the skill to make a fight square.

Fuck you, I said. Where was your noble ass when we were in Baton Rouge?

And you couldn’t win that one because you’re too damned stupid! All you can do is murder by surprise.

You telling me that, foreskin-cutter? You plan to whip a confession out of me?

For Christ’s sake, he said. The foreskins were a show. None of it was real, nothing in the jar but pigs’ knuckle skin. It started as a joke we liked to tell each other while we courted, but everyone was fool enough to believe it, that’s all. . . . See, I am not like you. I’m no fiend for slaughter.

Right, I said, you’re just a liar. And a coward.

Reuben had me by the shoulders and I took him by the coat and in our struggle we toppled the coffee-stall, hit the pavers so that the breath was knocked from me by his weight. I was growling and swinging at his face, knuckles glancing the wounds I wished to split anew. His monstrous weight was upon me and his hands smothered my face, squeezing my head as though to crush it like a coon-box. It was like when we’d gone into the river, bound together but fighting each against the other; and likewise as the blood hammered in my ears and even Reuben’s cusses were drowned out by his fingers digging at my skull I felt Samuel was there, twisting away on his own end of the rope. I felt the plates beneath my hair unhinging and my jaw set open as I tried to give him a knee to the bollocks but failed; and from out the dimming corner of my eye, rounding onto Bourbon, there came a light.

I brought my knee up again but to no use and the light grew brighter, turning onto the street, and at once a great bright haze but also a collection of many pinpoints which only became one when I was squinting with the pain as Reuben let loose his grip and turned to see the light engulfing us. Slowly, knee to foot, he stood, and from the wreckage of the coffee-stall I sat up and saw the light was candles, held in the hands of a procession of Negroes. I lipped the blood from beneath my nose and lay my throbbing head against the busted boards, tried to stand but couldn’t. Only Reuben had his feet, facing now the flame-point river and the dark faces it lit—too dark to be free, and in cast-off black suits with their collars pulled high for the chill and drizzle, hiding ragged work-day clothes, their candles fighting against them. And only when the bearers passed, shouldering the coffin, did my half-mashed mind come to understand it was a funeral.

The Negroes were utterly silent, not the ever-singing dance-abouts the world would have them be. A fine, solemn function; and I thought, watching the last of their train go by, that this was a good way to go to ground. Reuben didn’t move, nor did I—we were fixed like a monument to the white man’s bafflement, and the funeral-goers took no notice of us. At the end were children holding pine knots and nubs of wax-melt molded into candles their own size. Even these were silent. I drew out my pistol and aimed it at his back, leveling the gun in my blasted sight while he contemplated the tail of the procession. When darkness returned and Reuben stood round, I cocked the hammer.

Well, little brother, is this the end you wish to make?

You tried to kill me, I said.

That may be the difference between us. I try and you do.

And don’t
little brother
me.

I haven’t treated you as a brother? he said. If not, then shoot.

Reuben would have been a hard target to miss; he ate up all my vision as the shouts and calls that a killing was commencing began to issue from about the street. Of course we hadn’t been alone. From out the trash-heaps and the rain-barrels and the bottom-floor brothels people peeked out or gave voice, the bored encouraged and the frightened alarmed.

Christ, he said, enough. But Reuben’s voice bottled up in his throat and he stopped, bending to retch out the courses of Workman’s fine meal. Spit strung from his lip to the ground and I was laughing as he shuddered out the last of it.

I put my pistol away and Reuben stayed bent, contemplating the cat-pile he’d left on the ground. I would have had to walk around it, there was so much, but he took it in one stride. And his voice, continuing, was fat with breaths straining not to bring up more.

All this shit, he said. That’s what it’s worth. Burr and Workman and Smith.

The Pukes? I said.

Reuben grunted a laugh, then staggered off to vomit again. The second time he was finished, I went on, saying, I’m still for it. I want to win.

Wiping his mouth, Reuben said, And I want it too, but not with these men. I was wrong to fall in with their like.

It’s all the same, like you said. If sinners can be used for a holy purpose, then why not?

I’m not all that sure it’s all that holy, but you would know, he said. But then again it seems the Lord only comes up when you need Him.

Isn’t that His way? I said. He comes to me only when I’m in need.

I meant to justify, he said, whatever fool or rotten design you’re after. That makes me think it’s less the Lord’s will and more yours.

They’re one and the same, I said. I’m but a vessel.

Christ, said Reuben, choking back another bout. I guess he’s picked worse.

If their plans show promise come the fall, I said, I’ll join in with them.

I swear to God I’ll stop it, he said.

How’s that? I said.

Spread the word, he said. I’ll go all the way to Washington if I have to.

If you’re so sure it’ll fail, then why bother?

That’s the thing, he said. I’m afraid for it to work. Then instead of the Pukes we’ll have an empire of Smiths and Workmans.

We’ve already got that, I said.

Stop, by God, trying to convince me.

You were so hot for vengeance, I said. But now you’ve softened.

Reuben arched his fingers so the knuckles popped. No, he said. And I’m not giving up on our retribution. That’ll come in time. But I don’t want me, or you, or Sam caught up in this disaster.

So it’s gone from being foolish to a disaster, has it?

You more than most should know how one can lead to the other.

Sam’s for it, I said. It’ll be hard work for you to change his mind.

I brought him into it, he said, and I can bring him out.

All he’s ever wanted was to do right by you. It’s why he came down here in the first place. Back in Chit all he could talk about was you.

Reuben heaved his shoulders as though the weight of his brother’s admiration rested there. And what about you? Why’d you come down?

What did I say about the Will of the Lord? I heard it and I followed.

Reuben rubbed at where the scars began, or ended, at the hair of his temples.

And what if Jefferson himself supports the enterprise? I said.

Then I’ll know where I stand, said Reuben. We’ll know.

And even as he went from clerk to clerk over the next few days, paying off his bondsmen so that we could leave the city, he tried to ply me to his side. I had stoppered my rage and began to think coolly. Whatever his aims were, I wouldn’t have to smash them; all I’d need to do was work the loose threads at the seams. Let him holler and spout; I would be quiet and calm and watchful. If Reuben did go crow at the capital then Burr would know before he left Mississippi. I’d make sure of that. I began to think of how to put it into cipher, slipped into the coded world again.

VI

Many Returns

May 1806

The Safety of Home

Pinckneyville was late awake the night of our return, high spirits for a Tuesday in early May. From upcountry there had come a group of strangers, ten or so, who brought with them brindled fighting dogs and coops of roosters to pit against the local talent. When they arrived in town that morning Samuel was well enough to rent them the lot behind the tavern—where they dug a great pit to hold their exhibitions of animal violence—and to sell them scrap timber which they quickly threw together into tiered benches filled by afternoon with townsfolk screaming out their bets. There was also a brisk business in Blight, so Samuel said, the strangers having agreed not to sell their own drink. In exchange, Samuel had given them a pittance price to set up their camp a mile or so down the road, on Randolph’s patch of land where years before the Reverend Morrel had struck his last revival. They said they didn’t want to sleep in town, and if things went well there’d be more festivities to come and they would need the room.

When I left, said Samuel, pairs of men had broken off and were boxing even while the dogs fought.

And they say
we
ruined the character of the town, I laughed. We were at Randolph’s table—I still considered it his though he lay months-dead and Samuel had taken up residence in his as-yet-unspoken dealings with the widow—the three of us brothers, Polly beside Samuel, and my Copperhead close to me, holding my hand under the table. We’d put the boy to bed soon after I arrived. I supposed he was glad to see me, though he didn’t return my kiss and I had to lift his limp arms to hug them round my neck when I picked him up. Red Kate squeezed my hand and sidled closer, the handle of her leftmost pistol knocking against mine, the wooden thunk of our armed matrimony just as reassuring as the sound of dishware being set upon the table or bed-linen being beaten for fleas.

Reuben grunted, stretching the crick which had developed in his neck on our journey up, made worse by what Justice Baker had said to him when we’d stopped in Woodville the day before. We left the Cotton-Picker in New Orleans and traveled overland for just this reason—his preparatory go at raising the alarm over the designs of the Association. At first the justice feigned surprise, said he’d heard similar rumors, made half-hearted promise that he’d look into the matter. But when Reuben kept on pressing him for what actions he would take, saying that he himself intended on going to Washington, Justice Baker stiffened and said that he did not recommend such a course. Growing flustered, Reuben demanded to know why, and the justice looked at me, then back to Reuben, and replied, Didn’t your brothers tell you? We’ll have a fine new country here before long.

This sent Reuben into a rage, and he stormed out of the justice’s chambers, leaving me to exchange a nod with the man, to let him know that I too was a believer. The look upon Justice Baker’s face, the strained arch of eyebrow and the tilting head, before I hustled out after my cussing brother, said, You’ll have to stop him. Even ranters and ravers are given credence on occasion in the houses of power.

And I wished the justice had tried a little harder to keep up his original lie, for all his honesty did was steel Reuben’s resolve, buckle it with anger—his great motivator. What I saw behind that look did trouble me all our way home, the knowledge of it galling even at the table with the sound of cock-call and barking and shouting men coming from outside.

You should see their dogs, Samuel said. Their eyes are different colors. One blue, one green. They look like demons.

Where are they from? I said.

All over, Samuel said. That Kentucky kind. Tennesseans. I didn’t ask much. They’re just traveling hucksters.

The way we used to be, I said.

Before I liberated your asses, said Reuben, who was spreading and rolling his shoulders in his frustration. And it seemed to work on Samuel a bit, for he gave his head bow and cast at his brother a grateful smile.

Samuel said, I don’t think they’ve got a head man. From what I can tell it’s democratic.

We’ll need to be sure they’re not stealing niggers or horses, I said.

They seem to be content, he said.

We were quieted by still louder barking, then a piteous squeal that lasted far too long and was terminated by cheers.

No one ever is, Reuben said. Right or wrong, every man is always stretching for what lies just beyond his reach. Isn’t that right, brother?

Reuben meant me, though he stayed facing Samuel and the yawning widow Randolph, barely cutting his eyes in my direction.

I’ll have to plug my ears with wax to sleep a wink with all this racket, Polly said.

Samuel leaned close to her, saying, You’ll sleep fine.

Red Kate’s hand pumped mine and I knew she had things to tell me, to add some flesh and blood to what I already knew. I wasn’t eager for it, knowing that I’d have to hear the same things from Samuel when we were alone. Truth be told, I didn’t care much for my brother’s need to have the widows of his late friends, but I wanted the hearth and kitchen talk of women more than I could stand to hear Reuben go into the Burr business again, which he proceeded to do, speechifying for Samuel’s benefit. So when my wife turned to me, blinking slowly so that her nose, flat like those of the boxers now pummeling on each other down the way, wrinkled and arched its freckles into a bunch, I rose with her and we left.