Part 20 (1/2)
”Hey!” Cricket wailed now. ”What'choo doin'?”
The dog frolicked in the water, chasing plops of floating shave cream. It seemed to be trying to eat them.
”He's a silly dog,” Mary offered.
”Sometimes real silly...”
Now the dog yipped, thras.h.i.+ng circles in the woods. At one point it stopped abruptly, to defecate. It seemed to look right at Collier.
”He's p.o.o.pin'!”
”I have to go-good-bye,” Collier said quickly and began to walk off.
”Don't go yet!” Cricket objected. ”Don't'cha wanna watch Mary shave her...”
Collier lengthened his strides.
As he made off, he heard: scritch-scritch-scritch He walked straight in spite of the dizziness: half drunk, half hungover. He slowed his pace up the hill he hoped to G.o.d would take him back to the inn. White-trash kids or something, he guessed. Poor, negligent parents, no decent role models. It happened everywhere. Then he thought: Or maybe...
Maybe it was another hallucination.
The finger clips? The dog? A young girl shaving her legs in a creek?
The half-heard sound of giggling stopped him. But he must be a hundred yards away now.
Some perverted gremlin in his psyche made him turn against his will.
And peer back down into the woods.
The girls were still at the creek. ”Dirty dog!” Cricket reveled amid a flood of more giggling that could only be Mary's.
Collier's stomach turned at what he saw, or thought he saw. Then he jogged as best he could for the inn.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
I.
1861.
”Good work, men!” Morris barked to slaves and white men alike. He stood before the work site on the back of the rear guiding car for the pallet train. Then he s.h.i.+elded his eyes and looked down the line as dusk approached. ”I say it looks to me like some mighty good work! Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Poltrock?”
Poltrock stood aside, distracted. He was looking at the numbers: how many iron track rails and fish-bolt plates the crew had consumed since last Friday. Can that be right?
Morris grinned at him, hands on hips. ”I guess Mr. Poltrock didn't hear me-” All the rest of the men, the Negroes included, laughed.
Poltrock snapped out of it. ”Yes, Mr. Morris. Perhaps even better than mighty fine...”
Morris's long hair lifted in a breeze. ”Until Sunday mornin' then”-one of the strong-armers clanged the bell-”we are all off s.h.i.+ft!”
Roughly a hundred and fifty men disbanded from their ranks, s.h.i.+ning in sweat, bent by fatigue, but cheering as they broke away for the campsites. The bell clanged on, jarring Poltrock's brain.
”End of another week.” Morris rubbed his hands together. ”Hard to believe we're deep in Georgia territory now. Goin' on four years, ain't it? Seems like 'bout six, eight months, if you ask me.”
Poltrock barely heard him. Only then did he notice a long side-knife in a tin scabbard flapping on Morris's hip. ”Mr. Morris, what is that thing on your hip? Looks part sword, part D-guard knife.”
The blade whispered when Morris unsheathed the fourteen-inch tool. ”It's called a saber-bayonet, sir. Fancy, ain't it? It's made'a folded steel from the Kenansville Armory. They add somethin' called chromium to the metal-s.h.i.+t won't rust even if ya leave it in a bucket'a water overnight. And the bra.s.s hilt's so hard you can use it for a hammer.”
”Why's a crew chief need a knife that long?”
”Don't really need it at all-” Morris turned the blade till it flashed. ”It's just...pretty, I guess. Women got their fussy jewelry, but men got their guns and knives, I suppose.”
The point had never crossed Poltrock's mind, but it was novel. ”Now that you mention it, I guess I feel much the same 'bout my Colt .36,” he said, and gestured to the revolver on his hip. ”Don't have much real use for it neither, not with this army of strong-armers Mr. Gast's hired on. If the slaves were gonna rebel, they'd've tried that a long time ago.”
”They'd have to be crazy to rebel,” Morris said. ”They'll be free men when we're done. A'course, there are still some Indians who get their dander up. All of us'd be wise to always carry somethin' for protection.”
”Forearmed is forewarned...Or is it the other way around?”
”Speakin' of Indians-” Morris peered out past the work site.
Poltrock saw some figures straggling toward them.
”Beggars, probably. Or maybe some wh.o.r.es for tonight,” Morris presumed. ”But gettin' back to what we were talkin' 'bout-time's goin' by so fast. I wanted to ask how many miles'a track have we laid so far? Bet we're surely past 350, don'tcha think?”
”I only add the monthlies up twice a year, but-s.h.i.+t-yeah. Fast as it seems we're goin' we could be close to 350. We could be.”
”You fixin' to count up the week now?”
”Yes, but don't let Mr. Fecory leave till I get back. Probably take me a half hour.”
”I'll tell him,” Morris said. He was squinting at the slow approaching figures. ”It'll take him more than that to pay the white crew anyhow.” Now Morris slapped some dust from his beard. ”And I am ready for some whiskey tonight. How 'bout you?”
Poltrock closed his notebook, still perplexed by his numbers. ”What's that? Oh, yeah, maybe...”
Mr. Gast gave everyone Sat.u.r.day off, but Poltrock often wondered about the man's choice of days.
Sunday was the typical day of rest.
Nevertheless, things could get fairly wild. Whiskey was brought in, and several head of cattle. And some squaws were allowed on the grounds, too. Eshquas, they were called. Mr. Gast didn't mind some wh.o.r.e tents being set up for Friday nights, for the whites to use to relieve their tensions.
Poltrock's mind snagged on something. ”Wait a minute. Now that I think of it, I remember the quartermaster tellin' me earlier that no whiskey had been delivered today. I didn't see any supply train come in earlier, did you?”
”d.a.m.ned to h.e.l.l. No, I didn't.” Morris appeared as though a bad taste had come into his mouth.
”I know that a coupla times, Mr. Gast bought kegs of whiskey from the nearby towns. Don't make sense to train it in from home every week-”
”In Georgia? s.h.i.+t, Mr. Poltrock. Georgia don't know from whiskey any more than G.o.dd.a.m.n Ma.s.sachusetts knows from cotton.”