John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

“My mission brought me,” I answer’d, wincing at the inevitable rush of shame. “Every Mormon is given one, sir, at eighteen years of age. I came here with my cousin Alva.”

“Of course! Your mission,” the Child said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “To bring grace to the Indians, was it?”

“We call them ‘Canaanites,’ sir. Scripture holds them to be the descendants of the sixth of the Lost Tribes—”

A low mewling wail rose up in Parson’s throat. “The Canaanites?” he hiss’d. “What would you & your clutch of beef-fed bigamists know about them, boy?”

The Child heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Let the boy answer, Parson.”

“I’ll show you Lost Tribes, kitten,” Parson said, rising to his full height & opening his mouth wide as an oven-grate. My own mouth flew open at the sight & a thin squeak of terror escaped from it. The freakishness of the two figures before me — the doll-sized man in the great yellow armchair & the rattling skeleton beside him — caused me to go momentarily blind from panic & I heard myself, as if from the bottom of a well, pleading with them both—

“Please, sirs! Please, sirs! I’m the man you want!”

This declaration gave them pause very briefly — even Parson clapped his dreadful mouth shut & blink’d. I can account for it only by saying that I’d renounced my previous life before stepping into that rooming-house, before hearing the Child’s speech, before so much as setting out for Onadee. I had no intention of returning to Wallace’s depot ever again, not even to collect my horse & wagon. What I wanted was a new mission, a new vocation— something definite & profane. I was ready & willing to indenture myself to the Child — all I ask’d was that Goodman Harvey, peddler of chicaneries, constitutionals& penny-dreadful hymns, be burn’d away to ashes.

The Child was suitably impress’d. “So you’re Our Man, are you, Harvey?I reckon’d as much.” He privileged me with a nod. “Let’s not waste precioushours, then, but rather put you straight to service—”

“Just tell me what you want,” I said.

The Child look’d me over like a green-grocer appraising a head of lettuce.

“Go & find Mr. Kennedy. You remember Mr. Kennedy, don’t you?”

I nodded as frankly & demurely as I was able.

“Perhaps you can be of help to him on his rounds.”

I was on my feet in an instant. “Where can I find him, sir?”

The Child looked out of the corner of his eye at Parson. “I’d start at Hennington’shot-house,” he said. “That’s where he commonly takes his ease.”

Being Friday, there were a good many people in what passed for the main street of town, most of them face-downwards in the muck. The street was lit only by a scattering of windows & the coach-lanterns of the saloons; little heaps of men — whites & Indians together — gave the curbs a queer, boulder-strewn look in the dark. Moans arose here & there as I made my way among them, broken by shouted imprecations, laughter & the occasional burbled prayer. I was not in the habit of spending my weekend nights in Onadee. If Kennedy was on the street I failed to find him there.

I spent the next hour looking into every saloon & bawdy-house I knew of. The simple mention of Kennedy’s name — or the Child’s, for that matter — got me summarily ejected from the lot. By midnight my shirt-front was the color of a stable floor, my face was cut & muddied, & I wanted nothing more than to crawl back to Wallace’s depot on all fours. Outside the Palace Hotel I began to weep, convinced in my innocence that a man could sink no farther. It was then that I heard Kennedy’s voice coming from the alley.

I shaded my eyes & peer’d into the gloom. The alley, which ran for perhaps forty feet along the south side of the hotel, was lit only by one third-story window. Directly beneath that window two figures stood huddled together. Their faces were hid from my view — it seem’d to me that they were kissing. They spoke & sigh’d together softly.

I moved haltingly toward them. Their voices hush’d as I came nearer. After a long spell of quiet the first voice spoke again — angrily, it seem’d to me now—& I fancied that I understood it.

“Look at us,” the voice said. “Look at us, you Jezebel!”

I was certain now that it was Kennedy. I drew closer still, no longer tryingto move quietly, confident in my mandate from the Child. Just as I reach’d the alley one of the figures slid onto its knees & let out a soft, wet gasp, like an Indian choking on a drink. The sound stopped me short. I must have made some sort of noise, however — for the standing figure froze. There was no sound for a time but the gurgling of the other.

“Parson?” Kennedy said, his voice oddly penitent.

“It’s Harvey, Mr. Kennedy, if you please. Goodman Harvey. The Child sent me to ask whether I could be of service—”

“The Mormon,” Kennedy said. Perhaps he said it to himself, perhaps to the figure on the ground. “Come over here, boy. You’ll not help me much in the muh! muh! middle of the street.”

It was a man on the ground, I now saw — a slender-bodied man with a shock of pale hair. He was on his knees in the muck of the alley with his head tilted to one side & his face push’d hard into Kennedy’s belly. Kennedy himself was crouch’d stiffly over, his left hand covering the other’s mouth. Between two fingers of his right he held a jack-knife, its blade filed down to the merest sliver.

“Mr. Kennedy—?” I bleated. “Mr. Kennedy, what on earth—”

“Make yourself handy, Mormon,” Kennedy grunted, seizing me by the collar. “Come around here. Tuh! tuh! Take ahold of him. Not there, you damn fool. There. By the scruff of him.”

I stood still for perhaps an instant longer, fighting the urge to run, then took hold of the stranger’s hair. The desire to please, to make a favorable impression, once again conquer’d my reserve — I felt a grown man, suddenly, & bold. The hair was coarse as thatch. “Here?” I said.

“Ay,” said Kennedy. “Hold him tight.”

“Look,” I mumbled, though my own eyes were half-closed. “Mr. Kennedy — look here—”

“I’m looking, boy,” Kennedy said gently. “It’s all right.” He nodded his head approvingly as he spoke. “I see.” All at once he took the man’s jaw firmly in his grip & thrust the knife between the teeth, throwing his head & shouldersback, driving the thin blade in with all his strength.

“OUU — GAAWGHH,” said the man. “ORRAAAGHH.” Kennedy pull’d the blade free & clamp’d his hand over the mouth, muffling it as one would a bugle.

“Right! That’s fix’d it, you bed-wetter. Back on your mother’s milk again.”

“Kennedy—” I said.

“Back on her tuh! tuh! tits,” said Kennedy, whistling through his teeth. “Mother’s little carrot-headed bundle of piss. Mother’s little bread-crumb.”

The man in my arms reek’d of hominy gin, an old stand-by in my elixirs. He made a pitiful attempt to free himself, then sank back against me, senseless. The pants clung to his legs in stiff, jet-colored swaths.

“Let him drop,” said Kennedy, cuffing me lightly on the shoulder. “We’ve got his thirty bits of silver.”

I did nothing. Kennedy watch’d me for a moment. “Let him drop, boy,” he said again.

I open’d my arms & the man slid limply to the ground. To my astonishment he began to snore as soon as his face touch’d the dirt — seeing him splay’d out at my feet like a sleeping calf, untroubled by the violence done him, I suddenly understood the appeal my tonics held for the Indians.