John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

They are quiet for a moment, pondering this.

“Election coming up,” says Jubal.

“Well I wish it was already past,” says the old man, shaking his head. “White people start actin skittish, you got to step lightly.”

Jubal offers him a ride but the old man is almost home and cuts off into Campbell Street, still shaking his head. Dan whickers and farts as they cross over the railroad tracks on the Hilton Bridge. Mostly it’s the foals you got to worry about with roundworm, eat their whole insides up. A mule Dan’s age has had em more than once, and they don’t usually suffer too much with it. That’s just life, is what Uncle Wicklow says, whatever bad happens to you, you don’t ever lose it. Just learn how to carry it inside.

He turns at Princess, and then again on Seventh, crunching on the shell road now, passing little Jessie Lunceford who his brother is so sweet on, walking alone, dressed pretty and wearing a face like she lost her last friend. He calls out to her but she doesn’t seem to hear him. Jubal pulls Dan’s head to get them off the main street, then stops the dray crosswise to the rear of Turpin’s Pharmacy like they asked. Mr. Kenan is there waiting.

“We not going far,” says Mr. Kenan, winking, “but this here’s a load.”

Jubal has never liked a man, specially a white man, to wink at him, and it makes him uneasy when Mr. Turpin and Mr. Kenan commence to joshing while he helps them lift the big crate out.

“Boys at the Armory gone preciate this,” says Mr. Kenan, winking again. “After this party done, they be some young men wish they had n’t.”

But the crate is way too big and way too heavy for liquor, dead weight that staggers the three of them getting it out from the back and onto the dray. The springs complain when they thump it down.

“Yes sir,” says Mr. Turpin, “there be some heads hurtin fore this wingding over.”

Jubal just smiles the way they like and shoves the crate farther onto the platform. No need to tie it down with the Armory just about around the corner.

“Whatever you gennemen got in there,” he says, “they’s a good deal of it.”

Mr. Turpin throws a tarp over the crate and goes back inside. Mr. Kenan rides beside Jubal on the seat, looking glad there isn’t nearly anybody around, and hops down quick when they pull up behind the Armory. Mr. Kenan was the Customs House man, where they say you make more salary than the governor. When they give it to John Dancy, who is colored, a lot of people thought there would be trouble but so far it’s just noise.

“Get us some more hands,” says Mr. Kenan, and hurries inside.

Jubal pulls the tarp off and tries to peek between the slats of the crate but it’s covered in there too. Sure as hell aint no whiskey bottles. Mr. Kenan comes out with Colonel Moore and another man Jubal doesn’t know, young man with blisters on his nose. Colonel Moore won’t hardly look at him but then he is one of them die-hard Confederates, marches with the Klan and still hasn’t give up the emancipation war for lost.

Jubal climbs up and kneels and puts his shoulder to the crate to get it sliding, while Mr. Kenan and the white boy take the weight of the back end. He hops down to take a corner but Colonel Moore shoulders him away.

“We got it from here,” he says.

So Jubal holds the back door open for them and when they’re through Colonel Moore calls, “You shut that, boy.”

He’s got to wait to be paid then. It’s always better if you help them carry it in cause then you just stand there in the way till somebody notices and pays and usually give you a tip on top of it. When they leave you outside there’s no telling, you just wait and even if they have forgotten about you they act like you done something wrong if you knock to remind them.

But Mr. Kenan hurries out and gives him an extra twenty-five cents even though he didn’t help them bring it in, and winks.

“Don’t be careless how you spend that, now,” he says. “Don’t let the devil get it all.”

Dan is pulling his lip up and farting more as they roll empty back to the stable, but keeps on pulling strong and steady, and every time they pass a white man Jubal sneaks a look at their face to see if he can guess what they up to. Mance is right, he thinks. Acting strange and skittish.

Not knowing what their problem is, Milsap has to lug both boxes of tools, but it’s just a short walk to the Armory. It used to belong to the Taylor brothers’ family and is more a clubhouse for the Light Infantry and their friends than a real fortress like in Raleigh or Charleston. There’s a long wait after he knocks and then it’s Mr. Kenan who answers the door and pulls him in.

“He didn’t tell you to come to the back?”

“No sir.”

“Least you’re here. Come on.”

Kenan leads Milsap to a room in the rear and there it is, laid out in pieces on a tarp on the floor, beautiful. Colonel Moore is there and a young fellow, maybe one of the Shiner clan from over in Dry Pond, who they don’t introduce to him.

“It’s got an instruction sheet for assembly,” says Colonel Moore. “But we didn’t want any slip-ups.”

The cylinder is already put together, ten blued-steel barrels, smelling of oil and metal shavings.

“Look like it come straight from Hartford.”

“We thought it was heavy,” says the boy, “but they just thrown all the ammo in the same crate with it.”

Colonel Moore holds out the assembly sheet for Milsap but he steps past without glancing at it.

“They done most of it for you,” he says. “Just kept a few things apart to pack easier.”

He sits and opens one of his toolboxes as the men look on, excited. He saw one pulled behind a wagon once when he was a boy, but it was a yankee parade and his father wouldn’t let him go closer. It is one of those inventions that once you see it makes perfect sense, that plenty of people had thought of only the machining wasn’t up to it then or the cartridges weren’t uniform or any of the dozens of little things that have to fall in place at the right time.

“The beauty of this,” he says, cradling the cylinder and beginning to attach it to the frame, “is each barrel got its own breech and firing-pin system. And by the time you crank her around again, your spent cartridge has fell out of the ejection port and a fresh one has slid in from the hopper. What’s this take?”

“Krag rounds,” says Mr. Kenan. “You work it right she’ll put out six hundred a minute.”

“That’s some monkey-buster,” grins the boy, who surely resembles a Shiner.

Milsap sets the brass crank in the socket, gives it a turn to check the action, then begins to secure it.

“It’s a Peace-keeper,” says Mr. Kenan. “Best way to keep the peace, you let the other side know what you capable of, militarily speaking. Deters any ideas they might get about disruption.”

“Or voting,” says the Shiner boy.

“You gone roll it into place?” asks Milsap.

“Haven’t decided yet,” says Colonel Moore.

“Well, it’s best you mount this plate on first — shipboard, wagon bed, wherever you want, get it rock solid, and then bolt the apparatus on top of that. It’ll tolerate some cant, but the more level the better. And if you expect to be firing a good deal,” and here Milsap looks up to Mr. Kenan, “you best put some plugs in your ears. Don’t want to end up deaf like me. Imonna put these on now so you can move it easier.”

Colonel Moore and the Shiner boy lift the assembly up while Milsap wrestles the carriage wheels onto the axle, tightens the nuts on the hubs. When he is done they all step back to behold what he’s put together, silent for a long moment. There is nothing in the magazine yet, the boxes of cartridges stacked against the wall, but there is no mistaking the purpose of this machine. There is God in this design as well, thinks Milsap, the God of swift and terrible retribution. He realizes he is in a sweat, though it’s the others who done all the lifting.