C. Morgan - The Sport of Kings

With a sudden whooshing sound, the Forge house goes up in a blaze, and Samuel stops his crying where he lies on the grass, turning his wide, frightened eyes upward. But he’s not looking at the house, only at Allmon, because Allmon’s arms are burning where he’s been fumed by gasoline. In an instant, he’s on the ground gasping and rolling, lashing his arms against the cool, dewy grass, flailing like a crazy man or someone trying to make a baby laugh. Samuel stares at him in alarm, and when Allmon finally rises, gasping and moaning with his own fire extinguished, burned flesh hangs in white tatters from his forearms.

The house drowns out the wounded sounds coming from his mouth. He reaches down and hauls up Samuel, who screams again, wriggling and striking at him. He stares at his own child with burning eyes — burning from the fire or from his mother’s disease, he doesn’t know which.

Now the sweat on his face is mixed with tears. Henry’s howl still echoes in his ears, and Allmon’s head swoons with sudden flashing lights. Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt him — hurt who?

Allmon stumbles sideways a few steps. What’s happening? Is this revenge? There was a plan, but he’s suddenly horribly confused and lost. He had a story to tell, but who will listen — really listen? Kill Henry Forge and they’ll say you’re just another black animal killing a white man. They always tell the same old white story.

But, Reverend, they made me a body!

He begins to sob from the center of his chest. He can’t feel the pain in his scorched arms any longer; it’s as though there’s ice packed against his skin. He looks down at Samuel, his life on the outside. Son. It’s a foreign word on his tongue with a meaning he’s straining to understand.

With a start he realizes that the flashing lights aren’t in his mind but on the road near the drive, and police will storm the property at any moment. He doesn’t have to glance over his shoulder to see them; he knows.

Momma, I can’t, I can’t. I won’t—

Allmon’s hand trembles, and the.45 wavers. The fire is building to an inferno behind him, striving for the stars, and already he can hear voices at the foot of the drive. He looks up confusedly at the night sky with its fishes, lions, serpents, and hunters. He knows they aren’t really there, they’re just make-believe, a story. But the story matters. A story lives forever, longer than anyone’s child.

Allmon’s tears stop.

The lady’s ending is up to him.

Justice is an ancient animal still taking shape in the sky. Draw it with her pen.

With a great, shuddering breath, he finally understands why he is there. They will either hang you from a tree or let you die on a couch or stick you in a prison to rot, but they will get you just the same. The world doesn’t love us. The Reverend says, When they render you a body, they won’t listen to words no more, so you got to let the body speak! Let it tell the terrible tale! Let them that have eyes see, and them that have ears hear!

The distance between Allmon and Henry is not so far; he covers it in a dozen strides to stare down at the bound man. At any moment, the police will surround him. He bends down and places Samuel carefully to the side like a treasure in the dewy grass. With the desperation of a drowning man, Henry strains toward the child but can’t reach him.

Allmon straightens up and says, “You can’t keep what ain’t yours, Forge. I won’t let you.” But Henry won’t look at him, only at Samuel.

The Reverend says, Pray with your every action and be not afraid.

“Look at me, Forge!” Allmon demands.

He raises the gun. Be not afraid be not afraid be not afraid be not afraid be not afraid be not afraid benotafraidbenotafraidbenotafraidbenotafraidbenotafraidbenotafraidbenotafraidbenotafraidbenotafraidbenotafraidbe—

“Look at me, Forge!” Allmon cries so his voice echoes through the night, and Henry finally looks up, his eyes wide.

Four bullets blast a staccato rainbow around Henry’s head — one for Marie, and one for the Reverend, one for Scipio, one for all the men and women who pace on the bottom of the river, their flesh eaten by fish, and the last is for

me, Allmon

the deserving and the broken, the guilty and the gift. I am a sinner. I broke love and sold my child to the highest bidder, but I will ransom his life and his son’s life with my own. Reverend, lay me down gently. Please ask Momma to forgive me. I forgive her. Dress my body in Sunday clothes and anoint my mouth. Let my life speak, then they will finally know me. I am not afraid any longer.

Allmon turned the gun on himself. He left nothing to chance.

* * *

In the dark, there was nothing but the fire. Henry thought he was dead. By all rights, he should have been. But there was a dead man before him, sprawled on the ground, his arms extended wide, palms open to the sky. Figures swarmed around them as night air rushed in from the west, feeding the inferno and all that was left of Henry’s home. The structure was disintegrating before his eyes, the joists giving way, the stories collapsing in great billowing bursts.

Samuel’s mouth was stretched wide with crying where he lay in the grass, but Henry could barely hear him, half-deafened by the pistol reports. An officer spied the child in the tall grass and raised him to her chest, stumbling back from the smoke and crying out, “Whose child is this? Whose child is this?” but Henry made no reply.

Then the earth began to shake as if Nature were banging her fists on plains and mountains. From his perch in the officer’s arms, Samuel abruptly stopped his crying and craned his neck around in curiosity and surprise. The fire brightened with a volley of fresh air. When Hellsmouth bloomed suddenly out of the dark, she was gleaming with sweat and bright red with reflected fire. Samuel screamed in delight as the filly galloped toward them and then sank onto her haunches and reared, her legs cycling as if to turn the very wheel of the sky. She was almost perfect. She was ready for more.

Because he was on the long, moonlit stretch between Millersburg and Maysville, the driver had plenty of time to stop his rig, floating down one gear after another in the thick fog, then gently braking to a forty-ton stop like a conductor pulling his train into a midnight station. John stopped, because even though the figure was wrapped in fog like a man in a dream, he could tell he was a young guy alone in this unforgiving land. It was foolish to stop, especially on a night like this, on a route like this; you never really knew who was friend or foe, but … yeah, it was definitely a young guy. What could you do? You had to help a brother out. He’d been two weeks away from Miranda and was ready to get home; he knew she was lonely and always worried about him when he ran his Southern routes. She’d be making him steak and kidney pie right now on the far side of this fog-strewn night, so he was smiling when the passenger door swung wide and a haunting face appeared, dark, severe, and streaked with black.

John tried to hide his alarm, and his amiable mouth made it easy. It was already saying, “You need some help getting somewhere, my man?”

There was no answer as the young man stepped up into the cab without visible effort at all, as though he were a weightless thing, the mere shadow of a man.

The driver cleared his throat. “I’m Mr. Parker, but you can call me John. And you are?”

There was a long pause, then the man slowly turned his head and stared straight through John with chilly, golden eyes like jeremiads. He didn’t say his name; his face was expressionless. Fear instantly cinched John’s throat. “Hey, no problem,” he blurted with a wave of his hand. “No problem if you don’t care to share your name. I got nothing against a private man. We’ll just hit the road and be on our way. No problem at all.”