The king of shadows, p.23
The King of Shadows, page 23
“Where is he going to go?” Hester asked. “He’s fourteen years old.”
“When I was fourteen I’d been workin’ a coal shaft for two years!” Keeler growled. “That don’t mean nothin’!” His anger-swollen face turned upon Enoch. “What do you have to say?”
The Black Crow’s tongue flickered out to moisten his lips as if preparing himself to speak, but no words emerged, and he stood there as dumb and silent as the dark gray stones that studded the cemetery where the miners lay when their time or their luck had run out.
“I’m gonna speak,” Oxley announced. “As sheriff, I’m makin’ a decision. Hester, will you and Enoch have the boy ready at first light?”
“We shall.”
“That’s good enough for me. Our time’s done here, mayor.”
“You’re wrong, Oxley! Makin’ a big mistake and by God you’ll pay for it!”
“I’m givin’ ’em the night,” the sheriff said, his tone resolute now that his mind was made up. “I’m sorry for Davy, and Guthrie will give his judgement when he comes around next month, but our time here is done. Let’s go … and I don’t want you comin’ back here without me tonight. Hear it? I mean what I say, Jerrod. Come on, let’s leave ’em be.”
Now it was Keeler’s turn to continue his raging, but like the Black Crow he was struck silent, for as powerful as the mayor was in the community the sheriff had the last word and the final authority. Oxley went to the door, opened it to a windswept evening, and held it for Keeler, who said to Hester, “First light, woman!” before he went out. The door closed, the fire crackled softly in the hearth, and only then did the ragged, strained voice speak.
“Stand up.”
“Enoch! Leave him alone! Hasn’t he—”
“You hush your mouth! Lord God, look at this trouble we’re in! Stand up, I said!”
Adam pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. His first instinct was to drop his chin in submission, for the mad moment was upon his father and the smell of it was nearly like the reek of burning oil spilled from a broken lamp, but instead he kept his face up and stared into the enraged, red-rimmed eyes in the pallid countenance that filled his vision like a distorted moon.
“You,” said the Black Crow through the tight line of his mouth, “have shamed us. Worse. You have brought doubt to this house. My house. My church. What do you think the people here will say about us—about me—between now and next Sabbath? Do you think they are going to listen to me, when they know Enoch Black’s son has such violence in him? Don’t speak!” He put a hand up almost in his wife’s face, for indeed she had opened her mouth to protest. The hand trembled, turned into a fist and fell back at his side. “Did you hear what Keeler said? Devil in the blood. Did you hear that, boy? You can be sure by first light that he won’t be the only one saying that … thinking it … making them doubt that I have the strength to command my own family. Do you know what you’ve done? The harm you’ve done to every man, woman and child in this town?”
“I was attacked,” Adam said. “I had to defend—”
“YOU HAD TO DO NOTHING!” Enoch roared, his own violence causing the spittle to fly from his mouth and his watery eyes to bulge in their sockets. “YOU ONLY HAD TO WALK AWAY!”
“I could not,” came the calm reply. “Walk away.”
“You could! Lord God, what would it matter if they did throw you in that damned lake! Oh Jesus … oh Lord … what have you done, and you still don’t even know.” Enoch put a hand to his damp forehead. He wavered on his feet, and to this sign of instability Hester said, “Enoch … please let him—” But she was made abruptly silent by the hand on the Black Crow’s forehead suddenly gripping her throat, and with a choked gasp she pulled away, stumbled over her own feet and nearly went down upon the boards. She drew back, where the shadows lay the deepest in the room.
Enoch spoke to his wife while staring at his son through eyes blank and dead: “Fetch the strop.”
She hesitated, both hands clasped to her throat, and then she retreated a few more unsteady steps into a corner and pressed her back against the stones.
The Black Crow strode past her to the wall hook where hung the three-foot length of leather. He lifted it off and commanded his son, “Remove your shirt and turn around.”
Adam realized he had come to a place in his young life where he must recognize what was true and what was false. Strangely, he felt so calm—so in control of this situation— that his heart was hardly beating hard. It was his choice what to do next, and his alone. He looked at his mother cowering in the corner, then into his father’s face; he saw their anger and disgust, but not an iota of love. No. The Black Crow might skreech a multitude of words during his six-hour Sabbath tirades that was meant to stir the fear of a destructive God in his congregation, but not one word would the small and frightened man speak to the mayor and the sheriff in defense of his son.
No. He would no longer abide by this coward’s commands.
And Adam spoke the word, his elongated face placid, his voice quiet: “No.”
“What did you say?”
“I’ll repeat it, if I must. I said: no.”
“How dare you!”
“Yes,” Adam said. “I do dare you.”
At this, Enoch Black gave an audible gasp. He staggered back a step, as if he’d been struck across the face by a sharp-edged rock. But he righted himself, clenched his teeth, wrapped twelve inches of the leather around his hand and fastened it with the hook attached in the proper place to hold it steady. He said, “As you’ll have it, then.”
The first strike went across Adam’s left shoulder. The second was a backhand blow across the right. The third, again across the left shoulder and the fourth stinging the right arm.
Adam shivered from the pain, but by sheer force of will the boy kept upon his face a half-smile, half-grimace. He would be damned if he shed a single tear. He said, “Is that the best you can do, father? I think God might be disappointed in you.”
With that remark the next strike went across Adam’s chest, as did the backhanded blow after that. When the boy stuck his chest out in further defiance, the Black Crow gave a muffled grunt of increased rage and his pallid cheeks flamed. He reared his arm back and brought the leather across the left side of his son’s face.
“Enoch!” Hester shrieked in absolute terror. “Stop, I’m begging you!”
But begging was not enough, and the penalty for such wickedness … such evil … such devil in the blood that so stained the family and likely had already ruined forever any chance of Enoch Black’s advancement beyond the poor churches of the mining towns must be paid.
The vicar swung again. The strike across his son’s left cheek staggered Adam backward but the boy gripped hold of the table’s edge and did not fall. Again the leather gave its low whistle of promised pain, and delivered across Adam’s right cheek. When Enoch lifted his arm for another blow Hester suddenly leaped out of the corner and grabbed hold of his wrist. For a moment they struggled as Adam watched with the taste of blood in his mouth. Then his father pushed his mother away, turned toward the boy to continue the punishment but found his son’s blank stare so totally devoid of repentance or fear of the strop that it unnerved the whipping hand. Enoch raised the leather; the boy cocked his strangely and disturbingly elongated head to one side, and when Adam gave a chill little smile there was blood on his teeth.
The Black Crow started to strike … wanted to … but dropped his hand and stood breathing hard in the little room as the fire popped and hissed and Hester sobbed quietly in the corner she had returned to.
“What hath God wrought?” he asked the boy, his own voice near broken.
Adam returned his own question, precocious for even an intelligent fourteen-year-old as himself: “What have you made?”
Enoch nearly lifted the leather once more, but his hand only rose up so far before it fell down again, all the fury gone, nothing left but to retreat, to hang the strop back on its hook, to pray with the Bible in hand, to think … no, not to think … but to pray with the Bible in hand and follow the word of the Lord God where it should take him.
He stared into the fire, and seemed there to see capering shapes that mocked not only his authority but the entire journey of his life.
“Give the boy … a sugar cake,” he said listlessly to his wife. And to Adam, as always night after night: “Eat it in …” What was the next part of it? He was so damaged in the mind by the day’s horrific events that he could not follow his own well-worn trail.
Adam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “You eat it.”
Then he went to his small little gray-walled room, pulled the canvas curtain in place that separated his world from theirs, lit his candle, lay down upon the pallet that was too short for his full comfort by three inches, and stared up at the old timbers that in the morning would be replaced by the ceiling of the town’s gaol.
This night, no one came in to lead him in a rambling and meaningless prayer.
And for that, he thanked God.
Nineteen
It was a quiet sound, that of the canvas sliding back on its rod, but Adam instantly heard it from his shallow pit of sleep. Before he could sit up or focus on the figure that came toward him carrying a candle in its holder, a hand pressed against his mouth.
“Shhhhh,” his mother whispered. “No noise. Your father only fell asleep a little while ago.” She removed her hand. By the meager light Adam saw that she was wearing the same patched dress she’d been wearing the night before, if it was indeed past midnight, with the addition of a woolen shawl. He had been unable to find much rest, due to his impending journey to the gaol and the stocks, and also for the constant irritation of the stinging welts across his shoulders, chest, and cheeks.
“I wanted to tend you,” Hester said, still whispering. “He wouldn’t hear of it, and I feared giving him any more anger to chew on. I’m sorry.”
“What time is it?” Adam asked.
“Two hours ’til sunrise. For me it’s been a long night. Now listen to me: I’m going to bring a bag in for you. It already has some money and food in it. I want you to get up and pack some warm clothes, and I want you to be very quiet.”
“Pack? Why?”
“Because,” she answered, “you’re going to your Aunt Sarah’s. While you get ready, I’m going out to the barn to hitch Mavis to the wagon. You know the way to Sarah’s, don’t you?”
He nodded. They’d visited there a few times, though not for over a year. “But … it’s nearly forty miles.”
“No matter. You have to get there. Most important … you have to leave here.” She touched one of the welts on his right cheek with a tentative finger. “I’ll not have my son punished any more than you already have been. No gaol, no stocks. No magistrate. Now get up and I’ll fetch the bag.”
“What about father?”
“What about him?” Her voice was dead. “He’ll be even more angry.”
“I’ll manage that. Get up and get moving.”
She brought the bag into the room and took the light. He lit his own candle and began to put clothes—warm breeches, two shirts, stockings, a pair of gloves and such— into the bag. He had slept in the same clothes from the incident at the lake, so he took the time to change into a shirt that was not spattered with Davy Keeler’s blood. He put on a woolen cap and his brown jacket, as the October morning would be chilly, and as he was leaving his room he heard his father thrash on the straw-filled mattress not fifteen feet away and cry out something that sounded like Godhelpme in the strangled voice of a drowning man. Adam froze where he stood, knowing that the Black Crow often cried out in his sleep and fought his own merciless devils, but he did not move until he heard more tortured but undecipherable utterings die down and be silenced in the depths of the soul.
Then Adam went out into the cold dark, and followed his mother’s candle where it shone within the vicar’s small barn. “Help me with this,” she told him, having trouble with the harness on Mavis the old mare. As they worked, she said, “Don’t go through the village. Go along the road past Frazier’s farm. It adds two miles to the post road but it’s a safer path.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” he replied. “What will happen when he finds out?”
“He’ll find out soon enough if you don’t get on the road. I know how much of a bully the Keeler boy is. He’s learned it from his father, and Lucy is no prize peacock either. No, I won’t have you imprisoned for defending yourself. Cinch that tight over there. I won’t have my son put in the stocks like the lowest criminal. No matter what happens from this morning on … I won’t have it. Done there?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“All right. Up you go, and gone. Don’t push Mavis too hard, but don’t let her fool you into thinking she can’t keep a good pace.”
Before he climbed up into the wagon’s seat, the boy had a question to ask his mother and he could not depart without hearing some kind of an answer. He asked, “Doesn’t he love me?”
She bowed her head and seemed to be contemplating the floor of dirt and hay that lay beneath them, as if it was the beginning and end of the earth. “He wasn’t always like this,” she said very softly, and very sadly. “Many years ago … he was so different.”
“Before I was born, you mean.”
“No. I mean before he began to believe too much that God hated his own creation. Before he began to believe that all men but himself would be destroyed in a second fit of God’s rage.” Hester lifted her face, her mouth twisted to one side. “If that sounds like I am dooming myself to Hell, so be it. To answer your question, it is a question I cannot answer … for I ask myself the same about him, and I have no answer for that either. Now give me a hug and know that I love you, and as long as I breathe I will have no harm come to you.” She embraced her son, he felt the start of tears in his eyes but realized that crying must wait because time was of the essence. He kissed his mother’s cheek, climbed up to the wagon’s seat, took the reins and urged Mavis out of the barn. The wagon creaked, the wheels turned, and with a final look at his mother holding the candle to light his path he concentrated on turning Mavis to the left in order to reach the back road that ran past Henry Frazier’s farm.
All day the mare pulled Adam Black forward on the post road toward the town of Leeds, where lived his Aunt Sarah and her husband Neville. Adam stopped several times to allow Mavis a rest, but otherwise he tried to keep her to a steady pace. The distance would not be conquered in one day, nor in two and likely not three. Where he might sleep tonight was a problem he would solve when darkness was complete, and water and grass could be found easily enough for the horse.
The post road was mostly deserted beneath a dark-clouded sky. Three wagons passed him going in the opposite direction before the setting of the pale sun, but that was all. Soon after the fading of the light, rain began to fall. Within minutes it had become a downpour, and in the deluge water slammed down upon Adam and Mavis, drenching them both. He looked for someplace to pull the wagon off the road, possibly into a field where trees might offer a measure of shelter. The rain was so heavy he could barely see five yards ahead, and thus it was that with a high whinny and an unsure step Mavis slid into a ditch, the wagon slewed to the left and Adam heard the sickening crunch of a rear wheel on that side breaking. The wagon lurched to a stop, the rain thrashed down upon the boy with a thunderous roar, and that was that.
He sat with the reins in his hands, water pouring over his face and dripping from the point of his chin.
He sat there, knowing he was many miles from home, and what was there to do?
There could only be one decision and direction, and it was forward. He climbed down into mud, checked the splintered wheel—a disaster—and spent a moment calming the skittish horse. Mavis’ legs seemed to be all right, but this storm and the misstep had her shivering. Shelter must be found for both of them. He pulled the sopping wet collar of his jacket up around his wet neck, hunched his shoulders and started trudging south along the road, scanning the tumultuous dark for any glint of a lantern or candlelight.
There was none for what he thought must be the first mile, nor the second. His shoes sank into the mud and the wind blew hard rain into his face. He might as well be walking at the bottom of the sea, for all he could tell of the landscape around him. One thing was for sure: there were no lights and likely no farmhouse anywhere near, which meant no help for the wagon and no barn to beg shelter in.
He might have slogged on another two miles into the unrelenting storm before he perceived a small light off to his right. It was moving, and thus he changed his direction and began walking across a swampy field treacherous to the shoes and balance. And by this time not only was he soaked beyond soaking but the night’s chill had arrived and was gnawing at him with bitter teeth.
The light disappeared. But from the gloom appeared shapes that in another moment of approach he made out to be brightly painted caravan wagons of the sort he’d seen gypsies in, passing through Colquitt. The glint of the light caught his attention once more. He followed it to another shape that revealed itself to be a large tent. Whoever held the light had gone inside. Adam steeled himself for whatever might happen next, pushed aside the tent’s flap and entered. Dark figures moved and rumbled within: a number of horses tied to posts, with bales of hay and buckets of water within their reach. The storm was working on their nerves, for as the wind blew ripples across the tent’s fabric the animals snorted, whinnied and pulled at their ropes.
“Settle down there, Dollop! Lauretta, mind your manners and don’t get your friends so jumpy! Whoa there, Miser! What’s gotten into you?”
It was a male voice, but strangely high-pitched and childlike. It was coming from just beyond the nervous group of horses, and along with hearing the voice Adam again saw what must be a lantern light in that direction.
