Neal Barrett - Through Darkest America

The business of the black man’s stock was on his mind, but it wasn’t a subject Howie felt like bringing up again. Where the man was taking them—whatever they might be— sounded too much like asking about the man himself. And that was clearly something the man didn’t want to get into. Howie couldn’t much blame him. If there weren’t supposed to be any black people, and no one figured there were, there might be a good reason to keep quiet about where there were some more.

Once, he’d let the man know real plain about that. “I can take off some other way. Whenever it pleases you. I figure you got places to go that ain’t the same as mhie.”

The black man looked at him a long moment, then said he’d sure let Howie know.

Howie didn’t have to bring up the stock again. The man did that on his own, coming back to the fire one evening after staying a long time in the brush. “One of ’em is pretty sick,” he announced. “Don’t figure he’ll make it for long.” His dark eyes got hard and thoughtful. “Reckon he’s been through enough for anyone, without crossing a place like this. Don’t know as I done ’em a favor taking them on.”

The man’s face, which always seemed to hide a great and silent strength, was suddenly drained and weary. He squatted by the fire, big hands on his knees, and watched the popping coals.

Howie felt he ought to say something, but didn’t know what. Maybe the man didn’t want to hear anything just then.

“Is he the… one that done the talking?” he finally asked. The man shook his head without looking up. “No. ’nother one from that.”

“He still talk to you some?”

The black man raised his eyes. “He don’t like to do a lot of talking. If he talks, he got to think ’bout where he’s been.”

Howie thought about that. “He ever say where that was? Where they came from?”

“Said he didn’t talk a lot, now didn’t I?” The man tossed a stick in the fire. Howie got the message, but couldn’t bring himself to stop.

“Look,” Howie said, “I’m not saying it isn’t so, or that this feller don’t talk , just like you say. But it don’t make sense. If he talks , he ain’t meat . And if he’s people , then someone treated him and the others like they wasn’t . Why’d anyone do that?”

The black man looked pained. Like nothing people did surprised him much. “Why’nt you just get up and go ask him?” he told Howie. “Reckon he’d be the one to answer that.” He stood and gave Howie a brooding look, then walked off out of the light until Howie couldn’t see him anymore.

It doesn’t make sense, Howie thought, and decided he was tired of thinking and saying it all the time.

The black man didn’t talk to him in the morning. Howie followed him across the flat hot land that didn’t seem to end or begin. Then, when they stopped to share sparse swallows of water, the man stoppered his clay jug and looked right at Howie. “Look. My name’s Earl. You can tell me yours if you want.” Howie did, and the man said it once to himself. “I can’t take you where I’m going, Howie, but you can go along some, then I’ll show you how to bear north and west. It’s where the ships come in I was tellin’ you about. You might want to see ’em.”

It was a fine thing for Earl to do, and it made Howie feel better than he had in a long time. “Why, I might just do that,” he said.

It was peculiar how it started, because he was thinking about ships, and the funny-looking fish Earl told him he might see. It came to him slowly, like he was watching the dark surface of a lake for something rising up quietly from its depths. He couldn’t say what it was, but he didn’t feel good about it at all.

When the night came again and supper was done, he made himself walk back to where the others always stayed, a little away from the camp. They looked at him cautiously, but didn’t run. He knew at once that Earl was right. They were dirty and looked like stock, but their eyes told him better. He wanted to turn and go. Until now he could tell himself that Earl was maybe crazy, or making it all up. He couldn’t do that anymore.

“Which one of you is it that talks?” Howie said. They all looked at him. One of the girls was tending the boy who was sick. They were all younger than Howie. “I don’t mean any harm. Earl’ll tell you that.”

“What do you want, mister?” The boy who spoke had pale blue eyes and a nose that had been broken and had healed bad. His voice was thick, but Howie could understand him.

“Who treated you like this?” Howie said. “I want to know that, I want to know who did it.”

“Who are you?” the boy said.

“I’m not anybody at all. My name’s Howie Ryder.”

The boy looked down at his hands. He didn’t face Howie again for a long time. “You’re not one of them, I don’t guess,” he said finally.

“One of who?”

“The guv’munt. One of them .”

“It was the gover’ment give me this,” Howie said flatly. He pointed at the scarred flesh covering his bad eye, then squatted beside the boy. “Is that who it was? Why the hell for?”

“They can do whatever they want,” the boy said simply, as if that explained it all. “Whatever they want to do.”

Howie waited. The boy looked at the others and something seemed to pass between them.

“I want an answer,” Howie said. “That’s all.”

“I don’t have any of those,” the boy said. He stood, walked back to the others, sat with his back to Howie, and pretended to be doing something else. Howie couldn’t do anything but leave.

Earl was asleep, or didn’t want to talk. The sky seemed alive with stars. The boy hadn’t told him a thing. The government, which likely meant troopers, had treated him like meat. Or so he said. It wasn’t something Howie wanted to believe, but he couldn’t put it aside. They were there and he could see them.

The desert night was chill and he rolled up in his blanket. He wished there was a way you could turn off your head when you liked. When you didn’t want to think anymore. Something like that’d be a blessing.

He wondered about Kari. Where she was; what she was doing now. He guessed the war would go on until it quit. Until one side or the other got tired of dying and gave up. Maybe that’s what had happened in the War way back when. Maybe there was no one left who wanted to fight, nothing left to burn.

He turned over with a start, suddenly aware that he had slept, that the night was nearly gone, that something had brought him abruptly out of sleep. He reached for his knife, then recognized the shadow. The boy was just sitting there, watching, not moving at all.

“Whatever you was thinking, it ain’t that,” the boy said. “You couldn’t know it. Not ’less you been there, you couldn’t. Hadn’t anyone ever got out of that ’cept us. What they do there is use you like they want. You ain’t meat, but you’re by God close enough to it.”

Howie’s throat seemed constricted. “Use you how? What is it you’re talking about?”

The boy worked his mouth funny. “They do it ’cause stock gets weak and don’t breed good anymore. Meat don’t care if it’s humpin’ its sister or its ma, and that makes the blood go bad. You can’t stop ’em doing it, so they put good blood back in the herds. Only it ain’t meat blood. It’s people’s. The boys got to serve the best mares. The girls are put in with healthy bucks an’…”

“Godamn, you’re lying!” Howie exploded. He sat up and stared at the boy. “No one’d do a thing like that! No one! ”

“They can do whatever they want,” the boy said.

Howie was shaken. Supper starting to crawl up his throat. “Someone… someone’d find out. They couldn’t do it without someone finding out.”