The Missing

After he walked back to the boat, he went to the kitchen and asked Elsie if Ted had brought any weapons with him. She told him about his knife and pistol, and he looked at the floor and shook his head.

“You didn’t expect him to go off without so much as a penknife, did you?” She picked up a crewman’s order and headed for the out door. Then she stopped and studied his expression. “You think he’s been hurt?”

“No. Not that. I bet he went ahead to Memphis. The train I met was packed full of Confederate veterans coming in for the two-thirty trip. He might’ve been forced to ride the main line all the way up. I wouldn’t worry until tomorrow, or whenever it is we get to Memphis.”

She set the plates down. “You checked for telegrams?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose we could call the law down there and see if there’s been any trouble?”

The calliopist on the roof began to belt out “Camptown Races,” the whistles calling out over the county.

“The law down there isn’t real law,” he told her. “And the Skadlocks live where hawks couldn’t find ’em at noon.”

She closed her eyes. “I’m so scared.”

“I know. We’ll talk after I go down and play some Stephen Foster for the veterans.”

She shook her head, roused herself. “All right.”

“This time I’ll let the right hand know what the left hand’s doing.”

She didn’t smile. “Okay, Lucky.”

There was no one on the dance floor for the afternoon trip, the old soldiers staying as far away as possible from the music so they could retell their legends. Sam saw many one-legged fellows crowing about in long white beards. Some of them drew maps in the air with their crooked fingers to bring old battles back; in their brittle memories they rode horses dead so long their bones had gone to powder in the deep clay fields of northern Virginia.

The band knocked off, the musicians set free to wander with the customers, and as he walked along the starboard rail, Sam noted the missing arms, the eye patches, the nervous twitches. Most of the men were animated, wore their old uniforms or some version of those gray markings, but he wondered about the ones who’d stayed at home, who wanted nothing of the remembering, who’d gotten in the mail a two-cent postcard a

“What?” Charlie had gasped.

“Bad dream, bud?”

He was quiet for a moment, gulping deep breaths of the stale air in the little cabin. “The worst,” he’d said.

THE MOONLIGHT carried eight hundred, and Sam studied faces at the stage plank, not sure what he was looking for, maybe nothing, maybe Ninga Skadlock stumping up the ramp. Later, on the dance floor, he saw a surly crowd stand well back from the bandstand and regard the black orchestra with bovine mistrust. No one from the scowling, slouching group danced for two numbers, and then the musicians seemed to size them up and began “Down Yonder,” played straight hotel-style but with a subtle African jounce that drew out first the young dancers and then, pair by pair, some of the others. The captain ordered the lights turned down, blackness receding into blackness, the mood of the deck graying out, rhythm, for a time, overcoming hate.

Chapter Fifteen

TED’S FLESH SHRANK back against his bones like cooked meat. He was lying in the half-light on what felt like a wood floor. An old woman was pressing a bandage on the top of his head and he smelled the cooking on her, the coal oil, and the sweat. It occurred to him that he might have been unconscious for days.

A man appeared above him. “He’s coming around,” the unshaved face said.

“Leave him be.”

“He can hear me.” Ralph Skadlock bent down. “Hey, son of a bitch. You shot my dog in the hip. I ought to tie a sash weight around your neck and throw your ass in the river.”

Ted was astounded by the pain in his head, back, and hands. He raised his left and found it to be a throbbing thing crusted in blood. Blinking, he tried to remember the reason for all this hurting. “Where’s my little girl?” His voice sounded as if it were coming from under the floor, and his vision began to fail again.

“Listen,” only a voice close to his ear said, “I’m going to bring you to the damn train. If we ever see you again, I’ll cut you like a October hog. You understand me?”

His sight brightened, and he looked at the beaded-board wall, at the cloudy windows. He could hear the rasp of wasps in the room. Next to him was some type of copper device and a burner, a still. Outlaws. He was among outlaws. “Where’s Lily?”

“Come back here again and I’ll fix you good.” Ralph Skadlock looked up at the old woman. “You know, they’d never find him back in here.”

“How many times I got to tell you, we got to send him out. Otherwise somebody might come lookin’ for him.”

Ted parted his lips to say something, then even his ears failed, and he passed out.

WHEN NEXT he opened his eyes, he was on the freight platform of a tiny board-and-batten railroad station out in the woods next to a single set of buckled tracks ru

The man folded up a piece of paper and stuffed it back into the opening of Ted’s shirt. “Hey, I come up a few minutes ago to catch the local and here you be with a note stuck in your shirt.”

Ted opened his mouth but nothing came out. On the second try he said, “I hurt.”

The man held up a forefinger and bobbed it. “Judging from the sight of you I reckon that’s a fact. This here note is to the Fault agent to put you on the baggage coach for the Memphis hospital. Says you got money in your wallet.”

“Fault agent.” Ted thought it a mystical phrase.

“He ain’t here yet. This station’s called Fault. His name’s Toliver and he don’t come to work but two hours a day, morning train and afternoon.”

“Which one is this?”

The man looked around as if to verify this for himself. “Afternoon.” He nodded. “What happened to you anyways, get stomped by a bull?”

“Some people named Skadlock-”

Suddenly, the young man stood up as though he realized he was near grave contagion. “Well, my gra

“Where am I?”

“Fault, Louisiana. Used to be called No Gun Switch, except they took out the switch five years ago.”

Raising his head a bit, Ted glimpsed only a poorly graveled lane crossing the tracks. “Can you get me some water?”

“I’m sorry, old son, ain’t none around here.” He pulled out a nickel silver watch, fobless, from his yellow pants. “Toliver’ll be here in a minute.”

Shortly, a Model T’s aspirate spitting sounded at the edge of Ted’s hearing. The station agent appeared in an open pasture adjacent to the one-room station. The middle-aged agent, bald, wearing thick glasses, got out and stepped up on the platform, standing over Ted and looking him over. “You get blowed up in the sawmill?”