Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

He frowned over this idea, taking up his rifle again and finishing its assembly.

Then, as he set aside the last oiled rag, he brightened. “I guess I can tell you how to make a fine Knocker.”

“That might be a good example, since I don’t know what a Knocker is.”

“Oh, well,” (warming to his subject), “I guess anyone can make a crude sort of Knocker―you’ve probably done it yourself, though maybe they call it by some other name in Athabaska. A Knocker, Adam, you know: the thing you use when you want to knock someone about the head.”

“Perhaps if you described it.”

“Put a stone in the end of a sock and you have one. Swing it in a circle and bring it down on the skull of your enemy: bang !”

I was startled by his violent exclamation. “Do you need to do this―very often?”

“Did in the Valley. Most of us boys did, if we wanted to make any money outside of the slaughterhouse, by taking it from drunks, for instance, or when we set to fighting each other. But a stone in a sock is a poor sort of Knocker, the very worst.”

Here Lymon Pugh launched into an exposition of the way to make a superior Knocker, of which the owner might justly be proud. You begin, he said, by cracking a chicken egg, “only not in the usual style: you must crack it very fine at the narrow end, to make a small hole, and then empty out the soft parts and let the shell dry. Then you melt some lead―an old candlestick, a handful of bullets, or some such thing. Bury the shell up to its hole in sand and pour the molten lead inside. You let it settle overnight; then you dig it out and peel away the shell, and what’s inside is a good smooth heavy slug in the shape of an egg. Then you make a sling for it―an old sock won’t do for a respectable man―of pressed leather or strong hemp, and tie it with a leather thatch, and stitch on a bead or a brass button if you’re feeling artistic. The whole assembly tucks into your pocket real neat―it’s not bulky―but a Knocker like that will crack a man’s head just like an egg.”

“Thus bringing the process full circle, ” I said, slightly appalled.

“How’s that?”

“Never mind. That’s a fine piece of knowledge, Lymon, and I thank you for it, and I consider myself paid in full, though I don’t have any use for a Knocker right at the moment.”

“That’s all right,” said Lymon Pugh, grinning. “I don’t have anyone to write to, either, except maybe the grocer, or any books to read. But you never know when the Alphabet might come in handy.”

“Or a Knocker,” I said; and then the mess call sounded.

It must not be assumed that our adjustment to the military life was easily made. Many were the nights in that camp on the prairie when I fell asleep with tears trembling in my eyes, thinking of what seemed like a carefree existence back in Williams Ford. If I had been scorned by other boys, or treated roughly in the stables, or nipped by a brood mare now and then, those memories receded, so that all my previous life appeared as one lazy summer on the banks of the River Pine, where squirrels fell from the trees like tropical fruit, and I was forever a-doze in a sun-dappled glade, with a book open on my chest, dreaming of pleasanter wars than this one.

My thoughts turned, too, to the gentler sex, who were in scant supply at the moment, and I wondered if I would ever again be allowed to gaze on a smiling face or examine a pair of feminine eyes from close proximity. The male urge was not dormant in me, and I was afraid I might grow as lonely and desperate as some of my fellow soldiers, who dispelled their lusts in obscene and indescribable pursuits. A copy of Acts Condemned by Leviticus circulated furtively among the men, and I confess I glanced at it once or twice, out of curiosity.

But in general we were kept too busy to feel sorry for ourselves. For many of these men the Army was a marked improvement on the lives they used to live, and had its compensations in regular meals and the small but dependable pay.

We were paid for the first time shortly before we were due to ship east, where there might be an opportunity to spend some of our geld, especially if we were stationed near Montreal or Quebec―or so the speculation ran. In any case it was a novelty to hold cash in our hands. Many of the soldiers promptly sewed the scrip and coin into secret pockets in their ditty-bags, or hid it in their clothing or in makeshift belts tied about their waists. But because the money was a new thing to me―all I had seen of money in Williams Ford was lease-chits and antique pennies―I repaired right away to the dormitory tent to handle and examine it, where Sam and Julian joined me.

“We’re off in the morning,” Sam said as he came in, “for better or worse. Celebrating Easter in Montreal I think. And then battle―the real thing.… What are you staring at so steadfastly, Adam Hazzard?”

“These coins.”

Of the coins I especially liked the largest, the One Dollar coin. It was not as finely wrought as the coinage of the Secular Ancients, but still very neatly pressed and stamped. The dollar contained a measurable amount of real silver, and had milled edges, and vine stalks engraved around the face, and the words In God We Trust written in letters so ornate as to be all but illegible, and in the middle of all this a relief portrait of a stern-looking man with small eyes and a pointed nose. There were silhouettes on the coins of smaller denomination, too, some of which I recognized from illustrations in The Dominion History of the Union as the historic patriots Washington, Hamilton, and Otis; but the face on the Dollar was unfamiliar to me, and when I showed it to Julian he laughed. “So the old villain’s vanity finds yet another expression! That’s my uncle, Adam―Deklan Comstock, or a flattering facsimile of him.”

“He’s on a coin now?”

“A new coin for a new year. And plenty of them, I imagine. The Mint must be working overtime to pay for the war effort.” Julian directed my attention to the obverse of the Dollar, on which was written DEKLAN COMSTOCK POTUS , [President of the United States] and the year 2173, with a representation of two Clasped Hands, signifying the concord of the Armies of the East and West, alongside the stamp of the Boston Mint, and the ambiguous but vaguely threatening legend NOW AND FOREVER.

“Let me see that,” Sam said, and on examining the coin he remarked, “Yes, that’s him, a flattering-enough likeness. He could drill holes in wood with that nose of his. It was Bryce who got all the looks in the family.”

Here we approached territory which I had not dared to explore―that is, the subject of Julian’s family. But I was not a stable-boy right at the moment, and Julian was not an Aristo. We were both soldiers, and would so remain, at least for the duration of our involuntary enlistment. So I dared to ask, “What was your father like, Julian? Did you know him well before he died?”

Sam and Julian exchanged glances.

“I knew him well enough,” Julian said in a softer voice. “I was but eight years old when he died, and he went to war two years before that. To be honest, Adam, he’s more an impression in my mind than a solid memory. He was always kind to me. He never condescended to me, though I was a child, and he was patient enough to explain what I didn’t understand.”

“And your mother?”

To my surprise it was Sam who answered. “Emily Baines Comstock is as fine a woman as you’ll ever meet,” he declared, “and perhaps you will meet her, someday. She’s exactly the kind of woman a man like Bryce Comstock deserved to have at his side, and she loved him dearly, and was inconsolable for a long time after his death. Emily’s more than just beautiful―she’s clever and resourceful.” And here he reddened, and cleared his throat.