John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

They gamble, dice and cards and side-bets about what time it is going to rain or how many insects will they find in a plate of beans or anything that comes to mind, many of the men owing next month’s pay and the one after that, gamble, Hod included, because so far they have only time to kill and nothing to save for.

“Fifty-centavo minimum,” says Grissom, “and if one of our Mariquina googoos picks you off before you settle your debts we don’t pony up to bring the body back.”

Manigault steps in then, and Sergeant LaDuke nudges the wine bottle behind his body.

“As I assumed,” says the officer, looking over the spread of cards and pesos on the ammo crate. “Uncle Sam’s finest issue, ever vigilant, girding their loins for battle.”

“We’re rarin to go, Lieutenant,” says LaDuke. “Only the coons have decided to take the night off.”

He was not popular in training or on the ship, Manigault, the men going through “that cracker peacock” and “Niles Manlygoat” before settling on “Lieutenant Tarheel” when he was out of earshot. Opinion improved on the day of the so-called invasion, Niles striding out in front of the company with a malacca cane in hand, seeming to grow more cheerful with every flurry of sniper fire.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” he says, tapping the cane twice on the edge of the crate. “I had the opportunity to visit headquarters today, and from what I was able to glean—” he winks to the men, a hint of conspiracy in his voice, “—I wouldn’t wander too far from your weapons.”

They’ve been sleeping in their boots for a week, but other than insults tossed across the two hundred yards the forces are ordered to maintain between each other, there has been no action. Hod feels it coming again, stomach churning, but holds to his seat.

“Merely a suggestion to the more prudent among you,” says the lieutenant, raising his eyebrows, then sees Runt.

“Runyon, if I recall.”

“Yes sir.”

“I thought I cashiered you in Denver.”

Runt grins. “But I caught on with the Minnesotas. Some real fighting men.”

“With real officers,” adds Hod, “from what I hear.”

Manigault moves to stand behind Hod. “Insubordination is not looked upon kindly, McGinty. Even in the volunteers.”

“He’s Atkins,” corrects Big Ten. “I’m McGinty.”

Manigault narrows his eyes at the Indian. “I am acutely aware of what you are, Private.” He turns to the others. “None of that wine had better end up in your canteens, gentlemen. I miss nothing.” He gives Hod a smart tap on the shoulder with his cane and steps out into the darkness.

“What’s with the shavetail?” asks Runt when he is gone. “Is that the real goods?”

“They like to start rumors. So’s we don’t become lax and undisciplined.”

“As if the little monkeys would dare start anything.”

“Who says they’ll be the ones to start it?” says Big Ten.

“Give me something to shoot,” declares former corporal Danny Donovan, “or send me the feck home.”

If respect is not forthcoming from the lower ranks, one must settle for fear . Niles strolls toward the entrenchments, the night beginning to cool, startling a private so overcome with the sprue that he has dropped his trousers to do his business at the side of the path.

“Name and company,” Niles barks as he steps around.

“Bollinger,” says the sweating youth. “Company I.”

Niles only nods curtly and continues. He may or may not pursue the matter. Unpredictability is a valuable tool, even the worst dullards forced to attend, to remain vigilant. Jeff Smith was the master of unpredictability, his moods, genuine or feigned, keeping his pack of thugs and grifters on a very short leash, his pistol always prominently displayed and judiciously brandished. Niles reflects that his own sidearm, an Army Colt ransomed from a pawnshop on lower Larimer, is rather plebeian for an officer of his caliber. It is not a gentleman’s weapon.

“Who goes there?” calls a sentry at the Cossack post, whirling around.

“Lieutenant Manigault,” he answers. “Had I been a skulking googoo, you’d have been dead three times over.”

Command suits him, thinks Niles — he seems to have been born to be a leader of men. The Colorado Volunteers are a ragtag outfit, true, with a criminal element personified by Hod Brackenridge and his redskin cohort, but such a group demands a finer, firmer class of officer to be effective. When this Philippine fracas has petered out he will look in on the political situation in Wilmington, and, if it is still impossible, offer his services to the Regular Army. Colonel Manigault, at least.

Niles strides past the discomfited sentry and climbs up on the earthwork wall that faces the enemy — no, they are not yet that, officially — the Fili pi no lines. Conversation, in their atrocious ning-nong dialect, drifts across the no-man’s-land with the sound of a guitar being strummed. If, when, the reckoning comes, they shall not prove an estimable foe.

There is a man standing on the opposite earthworks.

He is wearing boots and a short-peaked cap, sporting a pistol on his hip. He sees Niles and mimes pulling the sidearm, pointing it at him and pulling the trigger. It is too dark, the distance between them too great, to see if he is smiling or not.

Niles lifts his hat and gives the nigger a stiff bow.

Soon enough for you, my friend.

The keys have changed their pattern. Jessie stares at them, trying to remember, trying to let the music in. She feels like her body is sinking, heavy, into the floor as her head floats dizzily above it. The Conservatory is in Virginia, not far from Hampton where Junior went to school, and if she can be the first colored girl accepted there, living away from her parents—

“Jessie?” calls Miss Loretta, the voice, echoing in the near-empty hall, a shock.

“Yes, M’am,” she says. The white man’s eyes challenged her when he said hello, his steady gaze asking Just what do you think you’re doing here? , and at the moment she has no answer for him. Usually she has only to lay her fingers on the keys, all in their proper pattern, and the music is there.

Royal can come to her in Virginia, they can have the ceremony, and if this is what she dreads the most, everything will be made right. She will be forgiven. She only has to survive this test, to prove herself worthy.

The white man clears his throat, impatient, out there somewhere in the staring rows of seats with Miss Loretta. Jessie looks at the sheet music, notes drawn on lines, swimming.

G-Minor, she thinks, and wills her fingers into motion.

It isn’t wrong, really, just not what is accepted. Miss Loretta sits on the aisle, a few rows behind the Maestro, and can’t help but try to read his reaction from the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head. It has been such a trial to convince him to come up, and she worries she may have overstated Jessie’s abilities. What is outstanding in Wilmington may not impress Atlanta or Charlottesville, though her ear and her intuition have not deceived her before.

“Another Hottentot prodigy,” the Maestro smiled tightly when she met him at the station. “You’ve become something of a missionary.”

He is listening, though, eyes closed as always, fingertips of his right hand gently pressed against his temple as if the music is being played inside his head. Jessie has chosen her favorite ballade, and though it is meant to begin in a pensive mode there is something — not tentative, exactly, for the girl’s fingers know where they’re meant to be — something other world ly about her playing as she begins. The caesuras are much too long, Jessie listening to each phrase, pondering it, before proceeding with the next. The massive hall is cool, as always in the early afternoon, and Miss Loretta realizes she is shivering.