Neal Barrett - Through Darkest America

The Gardens was a special place, built for the duration of the fair. There was an open tract across from the Courthouse, between Holdern’s Market and the Metalsmith’s. The land had been scraped and graveled, and wooden picnic benches set about. A string of colored lanterns added soft light, and there was usually a fiddler or two on hand for the diners.

Papa ordered for everyone. There was a fair cut of meat, charcoaled in the open, generous helpings of potatoes and greens, and a cold fruit punch that had been iced in barrels in the river.

“Seems a waste to pay good money for what you get at home,” Howie’s mother said wistfully.

Papa stiffened slightly, and his fork paused just an instant. Then he shoved the bite of meat into his mouth and chewed it savagely. Howie busied himself with eating.

His mother was plenty sore about something. They were both mad, really—they just showed it in different ways. Nobody had said much of anything to anybody since the walk by the river. Howie had watched them from a window—Papa red-faced and chewing his lip, making a lot of noise when he finally climbed the stairs. And his mother walking real quiet, but with her back straight and her eyes right ahead. Even Carolee, who didn’t ever know anything, could tell there was something wrong and managed to keep her mouth shut.

The fiddlers came out of the big tent where the food was fixed and struck up a tune. A few couples sprang up from the tables to dance and everyone picked up the music with their hands. Howie wanted to, but his mother acted like there wasn’t any music at all, so he pretended not to hear it, either. He looked morosely at the last bite of meat on his plate. Everything had tasted real good at first; he wasn’t hungry, now. He didn’t even like the fair anymore. What good was it, if everyone was too mad to even talk to each other?

“Howie . .”

He felt his mother’s small hand, cool over his own. “Howie,” she smiled, “it’d be a gentlemanly thing to ask a lady to dance.”

Howie straightened. “Me?” He felt the color rise to his face.

“Yes, you!” she laughed. She swept her long wings of hair into a single dark strand and looped it with a short ribbon behind her neck. Howie tried to glue himself to the bench, but she pulled him to his feet.

“I don’t even know how! ” he protested. His father leaned back and laughed, and Carolee shrieked and spilled punch down her skirt.

She swept him in wide, graceful arcs through the maze of tables. And because she was a striking beauty, and “looked hardly older than her son,” they said, the people clapped and formed a circle about them. And the fiddlers moved in so close the bows were nearly singing in Howie’s ears.

For the first few moments Howie prayed he’d turn to stone. But his mother’s face was whirling about him, flushed with joy, and boyish awkwardness changed in a blink to young man’s pride. And then it wasn’t his mother who was guiding them through the steps with the small pressure of her fingers, but Howie himself, her hand squeezed tightly in his, a strong arm sweeping the slender waist where he wanted it to go.

The claps and shouts were for the both of them when he brought her through a final turn, and the fiddlers sawed them to a finish.

“Whooooie, Howie!” She laid a hand on her breast and took a deep breath. “You’re going to make quite a man.” Then she shook her head and kissed his cheek. “No, that’s wrong. You’re quite a man now!”

“He dances better’n I ever did.” His father gave him a mock frown.

“Milo, that’s not even sayin’ anything at all!”

Everyone laughed. Papa thanked Howie solemnly, shook his hand, and announced that at any further time when dancing was called for, Howie would take over such duties. Later, when the fiddlers did a tune that was some slower, he caught Papa and his mother looking at each other in a certain way, and knew everything was all right again.

Howie and his family stood atop their table to watch the parade, as did most of the people who’d eaten at The Gardens. Howie held his mother’s hand, because she didn’t like high places. Carolee was in her usual spot, legs wrapped about Papa’s broad neck, screaming she couldn’t see anything, when she was really higher than anyone.

You could hear them long before they turned the corner at the Courthouse—with drums that sounded like big hearts beating and made the pit of your stomach go tight. The tops of the flags appeared then and brought cheers from the crowd. Howie stood on his toes and yelled until he was hoarse. First the flag of Old America, red and white stripes and white stars on a blue field. Then the White Mountain flag of Tennessee—that brought more hurrahs than anything. Though there were plenty of people from Arkansas Territory in the crowd, too, and their banner got ample attention.

After that came a whole company of government regulars—all in green denim uniforms that mostly matched. They wore leaf-colored straws set rakishly on their heads and some of the men had stuck long, black-dyed feathers in their crowns. Their captain, a red-faced man with too much stomach, tried hard to keep his troopers in some sort of order, but when they spotted a friend in the crowd or a pretty girl, they’d jerk longbows from their shoulders and wave and shout. The people loved them and didn’t mind if they couldn’t march right or didn’t want to.

Some wore a ragged red patch on their sleeves and that meant they could do more than march straight. They’d been as far west as Colorado and fought Lathan there in the mountains. And come back to tell about it.

The crowd was all but silent, now, and Howie knew what was coming. He watched, struck with both fear and wonder, as the mounted troopers appeared and he saw his first horse. Lordee, Howie shuddered, they were ugly things to be as valuable as Papa said they were! Big barrel frames on long legs, covered with hair all over. And terrible snouts that ended in little mouths, like sucker-fish. Carolee howled and buried her face in Papa’s hair. And for once, Howie didn’t blame her at all.

The cheers started up again and the noise set the horses skitting about. One reared up on its hind legs and pawed the air. The crowd sucked in its breath and pulled back. The rider laughed, doffed his hat, and made the creature do the same thing again. Finally, the crowd laughed a little at itself.

There was no mistaking Colonel Jacob. There were bigger men in the parade—tall men with proud shoulders, broad chests, and thighs hard as oak posts. Colonel Jacob was lean and spare, and no bigger than a storekeeper. His face was all bone, with leathery skin stretched tight over narrow cheeks and a great beak of a nose. His hair was near white under his cap and everyone knew it hadn’t turned from age. The eyes, though, told you who Jacob was—and where he’d been. And when you saw them, it didn’t matter anymore how big he was.

Halfway down the street those eyes reached out and picked Howie’s mother from the crowd, held for a moment, then flicked away again. Howie saw a shadow cross her face and felt her hand tighten in his. Papa saw it too, but said nothing.

The riders passed directly in front of The Gardens and they were something to see. Each wore the red blood-patch, and blue tabs on their shoulders to show they were officers. Many had hearts cut from purple cloth sewn to their chests. Some had stars over the hearts—meaning they’d been wounded more than once.

Many of the ground troopers wore the same badges and medals, but something else set the riders apart. For each carried a rifle on his back, or a pistol at his belt, and all had broad canvas bands slung across their shoulders. The bands, Howie knew, were lined with brassy cylinders that could kill a man further away than any arrow could travel. He’d never seen a gun before, or the things that went in them, but he was aware they were even harder to come by than a horse.