Текст книги "Dominion"

Автор книги: Calvin Baker

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

Caleum moved to dodge this blow, and was almost safely beyond reach, when Jupiter’s blade found his leg and dug in very deeply, teaching him well the agony of metal conquering flesh.

Wounded, they fought on from strength of will, long past when other men would have expired. Each was inspired by the other’s resolve, and each was determined to leave the field of battle with another victory, another day of life.

Jupiter’s wound was to his vital section, though, and he soon sucked and gasped for breath.

Caleum was also hobbled and fought with his weight pressing down on what was no longer a sound limb. And, as they drew up for one last thrust and parry, their eyes met. They lunged again; Jupiter fell upon Caleum’s sword. When Caleum withdrew it, the other man lay dead before him.

The rest of the British had already abandoned the field to nightfall, leaving their dead and wounded all around. When Caleum killed mighty Jupiter, he knew the man deserved to be delivered back to his home at Mashpee, or at least deep into the silent earth there, but such was not possible. He barely left that field himself, as a pair of friends led him off to the medical tent so his leg might be attended to – if there was still hope left to save it.

Although the pain was unbearable, he insisted on leaving the field under his own power, limping slowly with a wince round his eyes each time the afflicted limb touched the ground. It took toward an hour, but they finally gained the doctor’s attention. The scene all around that place was ghoulish and filled with moans as night thickened. Men of all ranks lay willy-nilly, nursing their injuries from the fight. Some were only modestly hurt, while others were too far on death’s journey ever to be brought back and died in the afterglow of victory instead of on the field of battle. They themselves could scarce tell the difference, except that on the battlefield someone might have given them a friendly blow of mercy, while here they died slowly.

Several camp followers came round, bringing water to the men or administering rum to those who were about to have surgery. Between those who had only suffered shallow wounds and those whose death was certain, Caleum waited his turn for treatment.

His comrades who had brought him bandaged his wound themselves with rags they found in the infirmary. They then left to report back to duty – as there was more fighting to be done the next day – leaving Caleum among those other war claimed. He felt fatigue creep through his entire being then, although the pain in his leg kept him from sleeping, as it did almost that whole night through.

As he listened to his fellow soldiers’ moans the only thing that gave him solace was to remove his coat, which was cold with sweat, and stare at the scene of Stonehouses his wife had embroidered into its lining long ago. It comforted him as he saw his uncle and aunt, then wife and child, although all were older in life than in the picture. It was a magical thing Libbie had made, even if her craft could not hold up against the movement of time. Young Rose was five already, and conversing about all she saw around her, and they already had another who was no longer so small. Why their father was gone was hardest for them, but they understood he did something very important and was any day going to return. Staring then at all of them from Stonehouses, even from so long ago, he was filled with all the universe of love. It was this alone that gave him comfort in his pain and allowed him to suffer through that night without succumbing to the well of grief that claimed those who were injured and did not hold on so strongly as he. Through all the hell of that night, it was the only tether that kept him fastened to the world.

He suffered there in the medical hall for four days, as the surgeon let Nature work upon his wound. Each one was a greater agony for Caleum than the one before, and he dreamed feverishly during this time of all manner of things. By the fourth day of the ordeal he could bear it no longer, as his wound had begun to fester and the pain tossed his mind like some small play toy. He saw himself in a dark cavern that last night, descending endlessly.

When he finally reached the end of his descent, Jasper Merian was waiting for his grandson before a massive gate. He took from Caleum his old sword, which the living was at first hesitant to relinquish, and handed him a carved stick to help him walk. He bid Caleum to follow, and led the way through the entrance. They emerged in one of the gigantic rooms of that place, and soon after reached an open field. When they came into the field, there was a great swarm of people, some in the most tortured positions and others very content. Jasper Merian pointed out each group and explained all the men and beasts there to his grandson as the two of them walked along the bank of a river that flowed through the field, dividing it in half. One of the demi-spheres was hung with dark clouds, while sunshine and abundance ruled over the other. It looked to Caleum like one of the scenes from his sword, and he strained to see all he could, and to understand it.

On an island in the center of the river was a great assembly, and Jasper pointed at those gathered there, as they looked back at Caleum with keen interest and longing. His own curiosity was unbearable, and he wanted nothing more than to hear what each had to say, but Jasper would not let him cross over, although from where he stood their voices were just beyond comprehension. Among them were two who needed no explaining, as they looked at Caleum and he at them for a very long time – all wanting speech and communion: Purchase Merian, his father, and beside him his wife, who Caleum knew to be his own mother, though he had not seen her since he was a tiny boy. Each of the others was also either an ancestor or descendant of Caleum himself; Merian explained who each one was who came before him but said little about those who would come after, except to point out how many of them there were and to say some would achieve great things in their day.

How he craved to cross the water then, but Jasper Merian still held him back and began to lead him away from the shores of that river and out of that meadow.

When they reached the gates again, Jasper concluded his conversation with his grandson and bid good-bye to him until it was his time to join them there, and was instantly gone from his side. Caleum, who had been warned to take care, stood straight and marched back through that tableau of misery, until he reached the cavern he had first come down. He began to climb endlessly against those sharp walls, until he was finally back in the air and light of the earth.

He sought to stand then, thinking he had some mission to accomplish, but a brace of men stood over him, holding him down. It took all of them there to keep him from moving, for the agony he felt next filled him with inhuman strength, as the physician began cutting at his fetid wound.

He had felt pain before in his life, but nothing had prepared him for the anguish of that day. He struggled at first against the hands holding him down, but soon had no choice but to relent and bite down upon the musket ball the surgeon placed in his mouth, as he continued cutting away the skin and flesh that had gone bad. When he finished with that, the real pain started, as he took a saw and began to cut through the bone.

After the surgery was done the doctor covered the wound with flour and lint, then wrapped it in cloth to keep it dry, and moved on to the next man down the line. The hands that had been holding him came off; there was no fear of his standing anymore – for that he had not strength to do, or means by which to do so.

He lay upon his cot, with his greatcoat pulled close beneath his chin, but shivered nonetheless, as he could neither find comfort nor stop the coldness that clung to him that night. When he looked at the picture inside his coat he turned his head away, not wanting to see, for sorrow he might glimpse himself from before.

For two weeks he stayed there, healing from the surgery. When they changed the dressing over his stump, at the end of the first week, he was told it was going nicely. He no longer cared. He only wanted to be able to move around again under his own power, and he longed to go away from that place.

By early November he was able to stand at last, and they gave him a pair of crutches to hold himself up with. He wrapped his coat around his shoulders and moved himself out of the tent – for how he did it he no longer considered to be walking.

It was three years since he had first signed up, and his natural term of enlistment would soon be over. He himself counted it done, and that he had fulfilled his terms of service. The tide of war had turned with that fight at Saratoga, and the army had moved on, and he was alone in the world again.

There was one place on earth he belonged to and ought go, and his mind was locked hard upon it. He had in his possession money enough, and this he used now to hire a coach to carry him down to New York City, where he might get a fast boat back to Stonehouses.

two

It was late in the evening when his hired coach finally reached town. The streets were all deserted, and he took his trunk from the driver in the darkened lane, uncertain where he would sleep the night. The coachman had suggested the hotel they were standing in front of, but, looking up at the shabby building, he knew it was not a place for him. He hoisted his trunk over his shoulder, with a rope tied to both ends, and started up Pearl Street on his crutches in the failing light. The weight of the trunk and the unevenness of the paving threatened several times to steal his balance, but he held fast and at last came to an elegant building with a small plaque on its door that seemed suitable. He turned the brass handle, entered the foyer, where a small desk stood on top of an Oriental carpet, and approached the man sitting behind it to request a room. When the proprietor asked how long he would be staying, he answered that he did not know. He only knew it would be until he had concluded his business there in the city. “A week seems right.”

The clerk stared at him, as if trying to make some determination. Caleum looked straight ahead, reached into his purse, and retrieved two gold pieces, which he slid across the counter. When he saw them the man seemed to decide quickly and stood to show the new visitor to a room.

As he clambered up the stairs, Caleum was filled by a small burst of rage each time he lifted his stump upward. What point did any of it serve? he asked himself, in this mood. Although it was being claimed that Saratoga had changed the momentum of the war, he could only curse the master of the dead that so much toil and suffering should gain so little – other than the fulfillment of its own form. This much blood shall be let and this much death meted out, because these are the terms.

When they reached his room, the clerk put his trunk down and asked whether he required anything else for his comfort. He did. He asked the man who the best carpenter in the city was and how one might find him.

“Jacob Miles,” the clerk answered, without hesitation. “He is a shipwright by trade, but there’s been little building since the British occupied the city.”

“Send around for him first thing tomorrow,” Caleum instructed.

The man lit a lantern for his new guest, nodded, and withdrew, leaving him alone in his rented chamber. Caleum stood looking at himself in the glass over the washbasin after the clerk left, and could see plainly how much his bearded face showed the strain of the last several years. He had also lost weight during his time in hospital and found that he barely recognized himself. He was grown old, and looked what seemed to him to be half possessed in the lantern light.

He washed the dust of travel from his body in the basin, put on a clean shirt, and donned his fraying greatcoat, before leaving to go find dinner. As he made his way through the streets of the town, he was still not completely used to moving himself with his arms instead of his legs and sometimes took too ambitious a piece of ground with the crutches. He had to pause then, as if before a jump, to make certain he ended up even with his arms again and not on his backside. He propelled himself down Broadway in this fashion until he came to an inn emitting a glow that seemed to him warmer than the others on the street, and so chose to venture inside.

The room was filled with the sound of men laughing and the smell of pipe smoke, both of which he found welcoming and familiar, and he was shown to a table near a latticed window facing outside. He ordered pot roast from the menu and sat looking out on the streets of the island as he ate. It was the first satisfying meal he could remember in many months, and when he finished he was one of only a few customers remaining. Still, he was not yet ready to go and wished for the first time in his life that he smoked a pipe, so he might sit in that room a while longer, looking out on the city. However, without an excuse to linger, he paid his bill, stopping on his way out to tell the owner, a smallish Negro in a gray waistcoat, how much he had enjoyed his dinner.

“Well, you must join us again, sir,” the man replied cordially. “I will save a place for you.”

“Thank you,” Caleum said, smiling and content with the hospitality that had been extended to him. “I might do just that.” He walked back into the cold air and made his way slowly up Pearl to his hotel.

He slept well that night for the first time since his surgery and was embarrassed to be found still asleep when one of the hotel staff knocked on his door the next morning.

“Mr. Merian, Mr. Miles is here to see you,” the man announced, when Caleum at last opened the door.

He struggled to recognize the name, but then remembered his conversation from the previous evening and informed the attendant that he would be downstairs presently. He dressed quickly and took up his crutches to go meet the carpenter.

When he went downstairs, the proprietor of the hotel directed him to a room he had provided for their meeting. By the time he entered the buoyancy of the previous evening had left him entirely, and he sat down very gloomily.

“How long have you been at your craft, sir?” he asked Mr. Miles first off, wanting to know to whom he was entrusting himself but also simply to master the man and let him know what type of service he intended to have.

“Twenty years, sir,” Mr. Miles answered, although he looked to be the same age as Caleum.

“And where did you learn your trade?”

“Here in New Amsterdam. I started first as apprentice to a ship’s joiner.”

“Have you ever crafted a human leg before?” Caleum asked him, getting to the point.

“I daresay I have,” the carpenter answered. “It’s not so uncommon as you would think. I’ll only need your measurements.”

“I didn’t ask how common it was but how often you had done it.”

“Please, sir, your measurement.”

Something in the man’s voice was reassuring to Caleum and he stood up, allowing Mr. Miles to take his measure with a length of cord he took from his pocket and marked expertly with a piece of charcoal.

“What sort of wood would you like it to be crafted of?” he asked when he finished.

“What is the best and strongest you have?’ Caleum demanded.

“For strength, it is probably lignum vitae. To my mind it is harder than iron. If you don’t mind me saying, though, it’s very dear, sir.”

“Are you paying from your purse?” Caleum asked, before giving the man a gold piece weightier than any Mr. Miles had held before. “Will that be enough?”

The carpenter nodded like a mandarin. “You’ll be very pleased, sir.”

“I’ll be all the more pleased the better it fits and the sooner I have it.”

“For fit I can promise you will be satisfied. For the time it takes, sir, I make no promise, it being a leg, after all, and more art than handiwork. I will let you know as soon as it is done.”

Upon hearing that the man could not give him an estimate of how long he would have to wait, Caleum grew more irate but tried his best not to be rough with him.

“You’ll do your best, I’m sure of it,” was all he said.

“Yes, sir,” Miles answered, feeling pity for his customer. “Nothing leaves my workshop, Mr. Merian, before it reaches the highest standards.”

“Which standards are those?”

“My own, sir.”

“Good day, Mr. Miles.”

“Good day, Mr. Merian.”

The carpenter left, and soon after a lad of twelve appeared. “My father wishes to know, would you care for something to eat?” the boy asked.

It was nearing noon, and Caleum had not eaten since the night before but had little appetite. “Just a bowl of porridge,” he answered.

“Yes, sir,” the boy replied crisply, running off to tell the kitchen. He returned a short time later in a great rush, and Caleum was amazed at the gracefulness with which he managed to lay the table before withdrawing.

When he was finally left alone, Caleum ate his meal faster than was his custom, wanting to get out into the fresh air before he lost too much more of the day. He finished, put his spoon down on the tray, took up his crutches, and set out on a path of no particular choosing into the city.

After maneuvering his way first through a group of businessmen, then a brace of soldiers, he found himself on a wide bustling street, which was crowded with gentlemen leaving their offices for the midday meal. He moved himself against the onslaught of people and continued on to the foot of the street, where he came to the market, which was on the waterfront and guarded by its own cannon. Along the pier he paused and looked out over the East River to Long Island, staring down to the farthest visible reaches of its shore.

The last time he was here he had seen only the opposite view, the island floating on the other side of Brooklyn, unattainable to them as they tried to defend their position on the heights. After they were routed, he watched the cannons and smoke rise over the river as they retreated through the forest, so that it appeared the whole city was on fire. If it were any other town, everyone knew, they would have burned it long ago themselves instead of leaving it to the British. Instead, they had strict orders to preserve it at all costs, and so relinquished the place to the enemy. It being more important than the outcome of the war, as it was so vital to the commerce of the entire world – just as the river mingled universally with all the waters of the ocean, carrying whatever flowed on it out into that same ocean as lapped the shores of Europe and Africa.

That night it had seemed the city would burn nonetheless, and when he woke the next day he was amazed to see it still standing. It was indestructible, he thought then. It was an opinion Stanton had later confirmed, during one of his last conversations with him.

“Wheresoever there are coffeehouses that serve the brew of Speculation, and men gather to buy at one price, hoping to sell at another or else turn Information into Profit, or Time into Assets, or are in any way otherwise engaged in the Free Trade of Goods and Ideas, they are doing the business of that town, and it is useless to try to stop them in that, because it is how Free Men everywhere have conducted their affairs since the rise of civilization. None but a Tyrant would seek to suppress it or think to slow its march. If anyone ever attempted to burn it, however – a thing that must be preserved from happening at all costs – what one would find very quickly is that there is another New York beneath the first, and another beneath that. And so on. Further, beneath the very last New York is a City that floats not on water but on the very air and it is indestructible, being the inheritor of all Free Cities before it and all their inspirited dreams. And so with great Boston. And so with Philadelphia.”

Now that he had the chance to see it up close, he could only look out the other way, though, as the ducks also swam against the current on the dark water, and the reflection of the clouds made it appear that ice had already formed here and there.

In his free-floating state he could think of no place else he should be at that moment other than the city that would not burn. He thought how, because of that, the Brits had been spared as well from swelling with so many more dead.

He could also think of no other place, with the exception of Philadelphia, where men from so many nations gathered for so many different purposes that one would not know they were at war with each other at all, except for the blockades locking the harbor waters shut to the vessels that normally plied them – and even many of these still managed to get past the inconvenience of war and on with their business.

Strange that he should share a sidewalk with those he had only recently engaged in combat. Yet even when he had passed British patrols walking through the city, he did not feel they were at war against one another but merely men on separate errands. That strangeness turned to bitterness, though, as he turned from the river and leaned on his crutches again.

He had been told in the beginning, and was inclined to believe for a time, that he was fighting for some noble spirit in his country, or else in nature itself, and some inalienable right of that spirit. Now he saw he had fought only so the colonists might better control their own wealth. As for liberty and the rest, he thought, they were freer all before. What liberty could be claimed here in the market but the freedom of traders to collect profit no matter who ruled? Or, better still, the liberty for them to rule themselves, according to their needs alone, and collect as vast a profit as could be gotten from nature? He turned and walked back up Wall toward the North River.

When he reached Broadway, the street began to slope downward and he grew tired before he knew it, being unused to navigating different types of terrain with his crutches. He changed his intended route and turned south instead, until he was on a narrow street with many pubs lining its sides and thought to go into one in order to relax and take a proper meal.

All along that way a stream of men from every walk of the city flowed, and each broke off like a little tributary through that doorway best suited to men such as himself – either because of religious affiliation, station, mother language, or trade. Caleum stood watching awhile until he discovered a doorway that seemed less a cohesive whole than a collection of those who did not belong to the other tributaries. Into this he himself went, following with the general current and certain that even if he was not as comfortable as he could possibly be, neither would he be uncomfortable.

He was proved correct when he crossed the threshold, as the clientele of that place could be described as neither rich nor poor, nor was it old or young, or even British or American, but just what it had seemed from outside.

Behind the counter a tall dark man served beer and conversed with his customers. It was not refined as the inn where he was sojourning, but it was far more convivial for that sea of company, where no man could claim to be lost. He took a table by the window, so he might look out onto the street, and waited to be attended.

After a short while the serving girl came round and asked what he wished for.

“What do you have today?”

“Same as every day,” she answered. “But if I was you I’d take the shepherd’s pie.”

The only time he had ever eaten that before was in the army, when they would cover horse’s meat with a layer of thin dough. He entrusted himself to her suggestion, though, and nodded. “Then shepherd’s pie it will be.”

He was surprised when she returned from the kitchen with a plate piled high with a thick dish that gave off steam as she carried it through the room to his table. When he cut into the shell it was flaky, and filled with succulent meat and vegetables that had not yet lost their bite. The food warmed him as he stared out on the street or else took in his immediate surroundings. The room was loud with conversation by then, but not so loud so as to intrude on his own thoughts, and Caleum took pleasure in hearing pieces of these conversations from time to time without having to listen until they became wearisome, as he would in company. There were also quite a few others who sat by themselves, either reading or daydreaming or else still engaged in their work.

He was glad he had chosen that establishment over the others, and when he finished his meal, took out a pipe and pouch of tobacco he had acquired on his walk. As he smoked and thought about the events of the last months, the crowd slowly disappeared, until he found he was the only person left in the room. When he realized this he grew slightly embarrassed, thinking he might give the impression of being an idler, which he had never been. It was only that his particular business at the moment was only to wait.

When he saw the girl pass, he caught her attention and asked her to bring his check.

“Leaving so soon?” she asked.

He only nodded and smiled at her.

To his surprise she smiled back, and he allowed himself to notice how beautiful she was. He wondered whether it was only a courtesy of her profession or whether her attention was meant for him, or if it was the habit of all young women in the city to always be so friendly.

“You should come back tomorrow,” she said. “Mother always makes something special at the end of the week.”

Again he could not read her intention, but to have an invitation at all made him feel thankful and welcome. He could grow accustomed to such. At least it might give him the comfort of having a routine.

“If my business allows it,” he said, “I will.”

With that he pulled himself up and balanced to put on his coat. When he reached for his crutches, though, he found them missing. He looked around until he saw the serving girl standing on his other side, thoughtfully holding them for him.

“Thank you,” he said, accepting the kindness of her gesture without protest.

As he walked back to his inn he wondered again what her interest in him was. Perhaps it was exactly as it appeared, he told himself. He had not known such affection in a long time and was heartened, thinking for the first time that perhaps his new condition was not so disastrous as he had thought in the beginning.

He was glad then for his respite in the city, but he knew there was only one place for him and he must get back to Stonehouses soon. As the sun disappeared, casting the island in shadow, he pulled his coat up at the throat to keep out the cold air and carried himself just a bit faster, wondering if perhaps the carpenter had called while he was out.