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

“Surely it’s not illegal to carry a sign, even under military occupation.”

“It wasn’t the sign-carrying that got them arrested. The mob she was with ran into a pair of backwoods ruffians who had some grievance against them, and gunfire was exchanged. She was found to be carrying a small pistol, which she had fired.”

The backwoodsmen, I suspected, were none other than Job and Utty Blake, her murderous siblings; but Sam couldn’t confirm it, since he had confined his inquiries to Calyxa’s particular circumstances. “Will they let her out, then?”

“Not without orders from headquarters… which is a problem, since the leadership of the Army of the Laurentians is in a state of flux, and trivial matters are being ignored. It could be months before the situation returns to normal.”

“Months!”

“Obviously we need to retrieve her sooner than that. But it might take delicate maneuvering, and perhaps some forgivable chicanery. May I suggest a plan?”

He did so—and it was an admirable plan, which I will describe in its enactment—but it required that we function as a group, and some question remained about Julian’s health and fitness. The nurses refused to discharge him, but they couldn’t physically prevent him from leaving… which is what he did, standing up, a little shakily, and demanding his uniform, which was presently delivered to him. He was pale and perilously thin, but seemed to improve as soon as we stepped into the sunshine. The season was young yet, with Easter still a week in the future, but Montreal was pleasantly warm under a cloudless, breezy sky. We proceeded to a tavern, where we rented a room to store our possessions; and we waited there while Lymon Pugh went off to seek Theodore Dornwood once again.

It wasn’t Dornwood we needed but the use of his typewriter. Mr. Dornwood had been reluctant to allow it, Lymon said on his return; but Lymon had cited urgent necessity, and flexed his enormous arm muscles in a conspicuous fashion, until the journalist relented.

“It was lucky I caught him when I did,” Lymon said. “He was packing up. Says he’s been called back to Manhattan by his newspaper. Another hour and he’d have been gone by train.”

“But you got what we needed from him?” asked Sam.

“Here it is.”

Lymon Pugh unfolded a piece of paper, and placed it on the table before us.

“This isn’t exactly the text I requested,” Sam said.

“Dornwood wouldn’t consent to type it—I had to pick it out myself. And I couldn’t remember quite everything, at least not the way you said it.”

The message as printed said: HEADquaRTERS ARMy of the LORENSHENStO THE ARMY JAIL MONTReALL PleASE RELEASE to the BARER OF this NOTEone PRISONERof the naME OF Calixa BLAKEBein a Female Person of Athletic BuildCurly blacK Hair ThiCK ANKELS BY ORder of Colonel SAM SAmSON, signed.

“Is it all right?” Lymon asked anxiously. “I wrote ‘Colonel’ as you wanted me to, Sam, though the spelling seems irregular to me. That machine is a menace, Adam, I don’t know why you crave it so—it took me most of an hour to peck out the letters on it. Writers must suffer as badly as beef-boners, if they’re attached to such a device all day.”

“The spelling’s not important,” said Sam. “The night guards at the prison are almost certainly illiterate. The printed letters are what will impress them, along with my rank, or so I hope.” In order to further impress them Sam had purchased a bottle of blue ink, which he spilled onto a cloth napkin; then he took a Comstock dollar from his pocket and pressed the side of it bearing the image of Julian’s uncle into the ink, and used the coin on the paper as a sort of stamp or imprimatur, which indeed looked very official, and would have fooled me if I had been less schooled in reading.

After that it was only a matter of waiting. We ordered meals of cut pork and kidney beans all around, to brace us for the evening, and to advance the cause of Julian’s improving health. Those of us who drank spirits took beer or wine. I took plain water, as usual, though I added a small amount of red wine to the cup at Sam’s insistence, to discourage any microscopic disease germs flourishing therein (for the cholera had not spared Montreal ). It was a medicinal, hygienic precaution; and it did not make me drunk, or even count as a sin, as far as I could see, though perhaps the angels account it differently.

We waited until well after sunset, and then until the evening crowds had abandoned the streets and all but the overnight torches had been extinguished. Then we left the tavern and walked as a group to the prison where Calyxa was unjustly confined.

The prison was a building with thick, ancient stone walls. It had been divided into a habitation for the guards and staff, on the top floor, and cells for the inmates, on the ground floor and in a basement below. Perhaps the building had served a civic purpose at one time; but the Army of the Laurentians had made the building their own, and draped it with military banners, and posted guards at the rusty iron doors. Our sole advantage, Sam said, would be in our confident bearing. We had to present ourselves as men assigned a necessary but unexciting duty; so we were not to speak furtively, or cast around nervous glances, but to play the role “to the hilt.” Colonel Sam led the way, of course, his bar of command freshly sewn to the shoulder-strap of his overcoat (useful now that the day’s heat had evaporated), while “Captain Commongold” acted as his adjutant, and Lymon and I as ordinary soldiers.

The guards at the door glanced at Sam’s insignia of rank, and briefly at our counterfeit note, before allowing us inside. We came into a kind of anteroom, where a sleepy-looking officer of the guard regarded us from behind a desk.

He was surprised to have visitors at this late hour, and his expression wasn’t welcoming. “You have some business to conduct?” he asked.

Sam nodded regally and presented him with the certificate Lymon Pugh had printed on the typewriter of Mr. Dornwood.

The guard looked it over. He was a skinny man not much older than myself, aspiring to a beard. He gave the note back to Sam and said, “I have misplaced my eyeglasses, Colonel—best if you read it to me.”

Sam did so.

“This is an irregular hour for a prisoner transfer,” the guard said.

“I don’t care that it’s regular or irregular,” said Sam. “I’m here to do a job, and if you have to wake your commanding officer before I can do it, then wake him, please, and do it promptly.”

“I don’t know as that’s necessary… as long as you’ll sign for the prisoner.”

“Of course I’ll sign for her! Where is she?”

The head man did not bestir himself, but called one of his underlings from door duty. “Packard, show these men to the cellar. Take the keys.”

We followed Packard down a set of stairs into a dimly-lit and stinking arrangement of iron-barred cells—a man-made Hell, I might even say, except that it was rather more cold than warm at the moment. I looked around this awful place for any sign of Calyxa, but what I saw was something much worse: the unhappy faces of Job and Utty Blake.

The two villains jointly occupied a single cell. Our passage had waked them up, and they gazed at us with sleepy suspicion. I did not doubt they were the Blake brothers, though I had only seen one of them before, and then only the top of his head. That one was Job; and if he recognized me by the dim light of the guard’s lantern he showed no sign of it.

Both brothers possessed the family signature, which was a crown of bushy, curly hair; but Job’s incarnation of it had been altered by my prior encounter with him. At the top of his forehead a wide swatch of hair was gone, replaced by a conspicuously scarred and wrinkled divot where my pistol shot had creased his skull. I cannot say I took pride in the sight of the wound I had inflicted on this terrible man… but it didn’t entirely displease me.