John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

The figure is a field scout for the Union Army. He’s dressed in a sea-blue uniform, neat and well-tailored, and when he comes level with the house he looks back over his shoulder, clear-eyed and expectant as a faun. You understand his look at once—: there is a company of infantry not a quarter-mile behind him. That gives you perhaps ten minutes, certainly no more, to return to the house and get Clementine away. This is your only thought, and it arrives in your mind luminous and fully formed. To your great relief you find that you are fatally determined. This once, this last time, you will not be late.

The scout moves behind the first of the out-buildings, advancing playfully, his rifle cradled loosely in his arms. You guess from his stride that he is very young. As soon as he’s out of view you fall headlong into running.

As you run you curse your muddle-headedness of a few instants before. You have no pistol, no rifle, not even a scrap of pier-glass. But the scout has not yet seen you, and the scout is young and full of careless pride. You smile to yourself. That is worth more than a pistol.

You run to a stand of choke-cherry-bushes mid-way across the lawn. A moment goes by, then another. The scout comes into view between the stable and the kitchens. You neither move nor close your eyes nor draw a breath. The scout’s face is fixed retriever-like on the house. He’s perhaps ten yards away—: a pebble’s toss. You have just enough time to see the Colt in his left hand before he passes out of sight.

Left-handed, you think, dashing forward. Bad luck. The scout is behind the kitchens, the last point of shelter before the house. You reach the kitchens yourself and lay your hands against the brick. The solidity of the wall is a balm to you. You rest your face against it. The weight of the thing you are about to do is on you now and you feel frail and close to death.

There are windows set into the wall, six in number, with an unhindered view through the kitchens. You’re mindful of them as you scuttle forward. As you draw nearer to the scout, you think of him for the first time as a reasoning creature. Is he scouting a route, or a billeting-place? Is he searching for Foster? Will he steal back to camp after circling the house, or will he go inside? You remind yourself that there is no camp, only a power of soldiers on the march. You glance across the lawn at Geburah. It looks benevolent and mild. Its windows are blank and shutterless, oil-colored where they catch the light. No military force is stationed there—; that much is clear. In fact it shows no sign of life at all.

“Damn!” the scout says suddenly. “Hell and damnation!”

He’s stumbled over something—: a loose brick, perhaps, or a splinter of crockery. He’s no more than three paces off, just around the corner. His voice quiets somewhat but you can still hear him clearly, muttering feverish encouragements to himself. You were wrong to think of him as prideful. He can’t be more than sixteen years of age.

Being Virgil Ball, being set against yourself, you feel an urge to embrace the scout when he comes round the corner—: to reassure him, to relieve him politely of his gun, to send him sternly but affectionately about his business. He’s as skittish as you are, as easily bewildered, as anxious to please his betters. You can hear it in his muttering, in his cursing, even in the way he breathes. You feel accountable for the scout, indulgent toward him, concerned about his future and his health. And at the same time you know that you will kill him if you can.

The muttering gets shriller now, angrier, more urgent. In a matter of seconds it will carry the scout forward. Your grip on the wall tightens, then goes tighter still, as though you mean to bring it down on top of you. All at once a brick under your right hand comes away, smoothly and without the slightest noise, as though it were eager to be of service. You gaze down at it in wonderment. For a moment it’s agreeably heavy in your hand, warm and undeniable and rough, and the next it has dropped the scout to the ground with a sound like wet plaster dropping off a beam. His eyes roll upward, then cross, as if a wasp had landed on his brow. He lies quite still. You bend down, thinking to question him, perhaps, or even to beg his pardon. But his face has gone vacant as a cow’s.

You leave the scout where he lies and walk back to the house. The verandah door is three-quarters open, exactly as you left it. You cover your dead eye, as if to ward off further visions, then slip inside.

Good-bye to you now, Virgil Ball. The house has let go of me and I would not return there. An answer of a kind awaits you to the mystery you cherish, the one that sprang god-like from your brow, fully-grown and hungry. I’m high in the air already, curling heavenwards like smoke. Parting from me is as simple as taking in a breath.

A SMELL HANGS IN THE ROOM, says Delamare.

When Virgil comes back he doesn’t see that anything has changed. I don’t see it either. My eyes are closed, shut tight. But I can hear him, him and the others, and picture the abomination clear. My eyes are shut because I don’t have need of them any longer. The smell is enough to send me to my grave.

Virgil comes into the room, into the smell of it, like a worm crawling into a cankered fruit. He’ll close his own eyes soon enough.

He’s distracted, short of breath, and sees nothing out of place. Parson is there but Virgil steps right past him. “They’ve finally come,” he says. “I caught a scout. I killed him.”

Nobody breathes.

“I’m taking you,” he says. “Get up.”

He says these five words, gentle as a thrush, to Clementine’s body in the middle of the floor.

Clementine moves. I don’t need to see it. Clementine’s head turns creakingly on her neck. Virgil stops short. His lips open and flutter. Now he sees it clear.

“What have you done to her?” he says.

Parson hums and clucks.

“Clem!” says Virgil. “Its time for us to go, Clem! Do you hear? There’s a company of infantry a quarter-mile—”

Her mouth snaps open.

“You should have seen them coming ! Shouldn’t you, Kansas? With your magical, fantastical, virginal white eye!”

Her mouth snaps shut. Her teeth click together like carpet-tacks.

The voice that spoke was the Redeemer’s.

BELIEF IS A RIVER, Virgil says.

Belief is a river and it has drowned me. I was swept up like a bird’s-nest in its rushing gray immensity. I vanished into it like a house-boat into a squall.

If I’d truly had a gift, the gift of foretelling, the gift of mystic sight, or even — most impossibly — the gift of natural courage, might I have changed the course of this river? Might it have shifted its banks slightly, carved itself a new chute, and simply passed us by?

No. It never would have passed us by. There is no changing the course of this river. There is no overcoming its current and its weight. This river has no beginning and no end—; it seems, to those swept up in it, to cover the entire world. It seems as final as the sea.

But the river has limits. It has banks. Escape from the river is possible.

To escape I had only to stop believing. I had only to stop believing, but belief is my great and only gift. Morelle said my dead eye was charmed and I believed him, deferred to him, though the whole of my conviction spoke against it. Barker told me in Memphis about the deathlessness of the Trade and I believed in that, as well. I believed Clem’s lies and Asa Trist’s delusions and Dodds’ mush-mouthed testimonials and the Colonel’s half-truths. I believed each fiction Parson fed me, till I saw ghosts in every wrinkle of his skirts. Belief was poured into me like water into a weir.