Gravity Box and Other Spaces Page 6

  The ridge above the house looked as if it had gone bald, but by the following spring he saw green dotting the gray-brown crown. Egan walked up to the top once a week, anxious and expectant, not sure how he could do what he wanted to, whether he had it in him to stand in the way of fierce momentum, not even sure what it was he intended.

  Love, protect, and teach, he thought. Of course, yes—

  And when he saw the woman walking down the slope, through the adolescent saplings, on the first day of spring the fifth year after the fire, he knew that this is what he had waited for, why he had stayed, and the source of everything new that he felt. She was naked and clean and whole and everything he thought he could aspire to equal.

  Love, protect, and teach. Of course, yes, yes—

  “Do you want me to leave?” Bert asked, watching him.

  Egan looked at her, puzzled, then shook his head.

  “No.” He held his hand out to her. “Things are going to be done differently this time. I mean, what did Saletcroix ever do to deserve this kind of treatment?”

  Bert laughed sharply, took his hand and waited with him. They shared a vague sense of accomplishment, diluted by a distant anxiety that, having come this far, they now had to do something new.

  By Other Names

  Devon had wanted to reach Cheyenne County and see the Republican River, to see what chaos the Depression caused there, but the bulls rousted everyone outside the town of Achilles, and he jumped off in company with four others to sprint into the formless night; the hissing of the train behind them mingled with the shouts of railroad cops with sticks and the cries of slower ’bos.

  Branches caught him across the face as he ran, and he shoved his roll out before him to act as a shield. Running like this, into pitch black, was always a risk, especially over new ground, but Devon felt confident as he always did when circumstances forced him to act. He broke through into tall grass and turned, dropping to one knee to look back toward the train. Others ran past him; he heard their heavy tread and panicked breathing. He waited to see if any bulls would follow. They rarely ever did, but once in a while, if the train was going to be at rest for a long stretch, they came out with flashlights and lanterns, shotguns and bats.

  Nothing. He waited until the train pulled out, slowly leaving Achilles, free of its unwanted, nonpaying passengers. He laughed from the exhilaration of the moment, soaking in the delight of danger. Devon thought about running back and hopping aboard again. He stood and gauged the distance and how much noise he could get away with, unheard over the iron breathing of the train, and the odds of grabbing hold without being seen.

  Then—

  Somewhere to the left, back down the line, he felt—

  There was a dip in the land where—

  He stopped, raised his head as if to sniff the air, unsure if he should trust the sensation now drawing him. It had been so long since he had felt it, like a tremor in the deep substratum, unnoticed by all but a few, recognized by even fewer.

  One of us? he wondered, or something a-borning—

  A tingle of expectation in his belly, Devon slung his roll over his shoulder and started walking; no place could he think of that he would rather be just now than where he was going. The train gathered speed in the other direction, filling the night air with its alien scream, crowding out the crickets and cicadas and the hushed ripple of wind through grass. Devon smelled the smoked tang of oil, hot metal, coal, and beneath that, close by, the summer reek of hot asphalt, tar, and creosote. Devon strode over dry earth toward the better odor.

  He almost missed the camp. It was only a faint brightness off to the left, dusting a ridge of bare rock with orange light, too dim to compete with a sky full of stars overhead. But a sound caught his attention, an indistinct, human sound, like a ladle stirring in a pot, and he looked.

  He stopped on the edge of the drop. The camp spread down the shallow slope of a dry wash. Maybe ten people gathered loosely around a fire that snapped weakly within its circle of stones. They looked up at him with some expectation, like refugees dispossessed by flood, fire, or earthquake waiting to be told they could go home now, but knowing there was no home left to them.

  “Ho,” he said just above a whisper.

  A couple of people nodded agreeably; a few more raised a hand.

  A tiny, frail cry came from somewhere outside the firelight. Devon’s heart swelled. He glanced in the direction of the receding train and thought vaguely of Cheyenne County. It would still be there. He would still see the Republican River one day. It would keep another for another time, another hundred days, another thousand. There was time to see it all.

  Devon reached into his pocket and pulled out a can of peaches. He came down into the camp, holding it out. One of the men closest to the fire stood and accepted it. He waved at the spit and pot.

  “Plenty o’ rabbit,” he said, voice gravelly. “We got coffee.”

  “Coffee. That’s—”

  “Folks ’round here ain’t too bad, long as we don’t come into town often. Soonie over there, he does carpentry. He goes in.” He ducked his head briefly, his eyes sliding past Devon and on into the dark. “Then there’s—well—he’p yourself—”

  “Devon,” he said, extending a hand.

  The hobo took it in a light grasp, barely closing his fingers, ready to let go immediately. Devon tightened his grip and—Devon drew sensation through the skin, tasting it finally on the back of his tongue. The hobo started, eyes large, surprised. The fear permeated every other feeling Devon read in the man, but the rest was still there, from better times and worse.

  The connection moiled between them, spreading and unnamed, part Devon’s gift, part an energy he had not felt so richly in decades—

  “We got a new one,” the old man told him, pulling his hand away. He nodded toward the shadows. “Just arrived last night. Set up such a holler, we thought it’d bring the sky down.” He frowned, then, as if puzzled that he was telling a stranger this.

  Devon stared at the man, smiling. He wanted to ask him what he was so afraid of, but the fear had stepped back a few paces and for the moment he was free of it. Devon did not want to disturb that, not yet, not till he knew whom he was here for. He looked where the man indicated and saw the vague outline of a hovel, out near the extreme edge of the camp.

  “Coffee?” Devon asked.

  “Um—yeah—” The old man hefted the can of peaches. “I’m Jeffin, by the by. Good to know you, Devon.”

  From the awkward way his face twisted, Devon guessed that it had been a long time since Jeffin had smiled easily, unencumbered by suspicion and doubt. But Jeffin seemed unwilling to give up his grin as he led Devon to the fire.

  An assortment of tin cans served as cups and Jeffin dipped a makeshift ladle into the big pot and filled one with black liquid. He held it gingerly by the rim and passed it to Devon. Devon pulled a rag from his back pocket and wrapped it around the can before he took it from Jeffin. He could feel the heat even through the fabric. The coffee smelled acid and bitter.

  “Thanks.” He took a tentative sip and winced at the bite. “Where did you say?”

  Jeffin pointed toward the shadow-hovel. Devon moved toward it.

  The hovel was made from a collection of boxes, boards, and a single metal sign whose message had been effaced by rust. From within Devon could hear the small sounds of new life working at maintaining. Devon knelt by the opening, pushed up the flap.

  “May I come in?”

  He heard no reply and ducked his head low to crawl inside.

  A kerosene lamp glowed in one corner, illuminating a brief landscape of blankets and rags. A young face peered at him, her hair dirty, kinked across her brow in dried-sweat tangles. Her eyes were two bright points catching the yellow lamp light.

  Her shirt was open and Devon saw a smaller head held breast high, turned from him, unaware of anything beyond the nipple at which it hungrily sucked.

  “Hi. I’m Devon.”

  “I’m Lu
cy.”

  He studied her face. She was wary but unafraid, perhaps too tired to be scared. She had been scared before, for a long time, and it had worn at her. She held her baby gratefully, as if it were a reward for everything she had been through. But another face seemed to peek at him from behind this first one, a younger face that showed none of the small, etched traceries of sun, road, and abuse, one with large, curious eyes and a smattering of freckles. Devon glimpsed it, like a memory overlaid on the present, and for a moment the two faces merged in an expression of expectation and hope—

  “No,” he said. “Not Lucy. Now maybe—but—Elle—”

  Lucy stared at him. “I ain’t—Lord, it’s been years. I ain’t heard that name since—” Hesitantly, she smiled. “I used to have a friend, Peg. We’d go swimmin’ every summer, twice a week, ‘whether we needed to or not’ she’d say, and she’d call me Elle. I asked her why she never called me Lucy. That was my name, and she said no, it weren’t. It was just a tag my parents give me so they’d remember I was theirs. ‘Elle,’ she said, that was what I shoulda been called, ’cause she seen it in a magazine story about a woman livin’ in Paris, and I reminded her of that woman—I ain’t thought of Peg in too long.”

  Lucy Elle looked at him with damp eyes. “You know Peg?”

  “No, sorry. You should go by Elle, though. It’s what you are.”

  Elle nodded and sniffed. “I forgot—” She gazed down at her baby for a time, then looked at Devon. “I ain’t named her yet. Would you—?”

  Devon scooted across the blankets until he sat beside Elle. She turned so the light fell on the baby. The small face was compressed with concentration, its mouth firmly attached to Elle’s breast. Devon prodded one tiny hand and felt it reflexively close around his finger, felt the jolt leap through his nerves.

  “A name’s no small matter,” he said, gazing at the small face. “Got to be careful. A name can give direction, make a life, change the world.”

  The flap over the entrance to the hovel snapped back then and a face glared in.

  “What are you doing?”

  Devon could not look away from this new face. It seemed incomplete, soft, and yet unmalleable at the same time. Formless strength. The eyes, widespread, caught no light from the lamp, and looked like empty holes punched in the fleshy cheeks. The short hair lay limply on the round skull, and the chin and jaw formed a kind of parenthesis lying on its side. The only feature that possessed any solidity, any distinction, was the mouth: small, petulant, it reminded Devon of the florid lips on Renaissance statues. The skin seemed gray even in the wan yellow light.

  “Lucy?” the man asked. He spoke softly, but Devon heard the suspicion, the barely confined confusion. It twisted the voice so that it sounded like a threat.

  Devon heard the girl swallow. “My name’s Elle,” she said, managing to keep the quaver out of her voice.

  The man blinked then smiled at Devon. “I see.” He crawled the rest of the way into the hovel.

  He was a small man, Devon saw, although in the confines of the Hoover Hotel he seemed enormous. The lamp was inadequate to properly light him, but Devon wondered if even bright noonday sun would be enough. He studied Devon and suddenly all the features coalesced into an expression of pleased recognition.

  “Welcome,” he said. “I been lookin’ forward to meetin’ you, Name Giver.”

  “I’m Devon.”

  “Sure you are.” He extended a hand. “Pleased to meet you. Can you guess my name?”

  Devon looked at the hand. “If I thought about it long enough.”

  “Who am I, then?”

  In the uncertain light Devon imagined the hand larger, resolute, and scaled. Long fingernails gleamed ivory, yet beautiful for all their alien topography. The flickering lantern threw its shadow across the cardboard and rags and set the space apart from what happened within it, as if it were only a backdrop to a stage. Devon looked up at the man’s indistinct face.

  He waited expectantly, not at all impatient for the time Devon took, knowing that in the next second or the one after that everything he wanted from Devon would come into that calloused paw that he held out with palm upturned, less in greeting than in request. He expected Devon had something, and he expected it to be handed over; perhaps it was something of his, something till now he had gotten along without, something he had managed to work around, something which would, once obtained, make his life much easier, bring his goals closer, give him form and purpose and energy.

  “I don’t know,” Devon said and moved toward the draped opening.

  A hand closed on his coat, and Devon felt himself thrown back against the blankets. The hovel trembled precariously. The man landed on top of Devon.

  “Jude!” Elle cried.

  The man—Jude—hesitated. Devon closed his own hands around Jude’s and pulled them free of his coat. Suddenly Jude laughed, patted Devon on the face playfully, and drew back. He gestured at Elle and the infant.

  “What do you think? Looks like her mother, doesn’t it? We haven’t named her yet. Seems we were waiting for you.”

  Devon sat up uncertainly and tugged at his lapels, watching Jude. “‘We?’”

  Jude cocked his head to one side, watching, a question in his eyes.

  “Jude’s been takin’ care of us,” Elle volunteered.

  Devon looked around for his can of coffee and found it overturned near the entrance. He reached for it, and Jude snatched it up.

  “I’ll get you some,” he said and backed through the flap.

  Devon looked at Elle. She gave a little shake of the head. “She ain’t his,” she said. “He’s been havin’ me, but she ain’t his. I’d know.”

  “Then he doesn’t get to know her name.”

  Elle looked at him anxiously. “Do you know her name?”

  “I—”

  The flap went back and Jude ducked inside with the can refilled. Steam wafted from the liquid. “Here you are.”

  Devon accepted the cup.

  “Where are you heading, Devon?” Jude asked.

  “I was going into Cheyenne County, but we got rousted off the K.T. & S.F.”

  “You have people there?”

  “Not specifically.”

  “Specifically.” Jude whistled with mock awe. “I love a man who’s good with words, knows just the right ones to use at the right time.” He shook his head. “Harder times get, railroad bulls get less and less understanding. They don’t care who you are or where you’re going; they toss you off like a sack of spoiled meal.” He grinned. “Speaking of which, Devon, there’s some food you’re welcome to out by the fire.”

  Devon locked eyes with Jude in the dim light. Suddenly Jude was a blank wall, no more than he appeared to be, a tolerant ’bo willing to share resources with another, no less suspicious, but no more willing to act on unsubstantiated fears than Devon himself.

  Devon glanced at Elle but found no solution there. He nodded and crawled out of the hovel.

  The moment he straightened, hands closed on his arms and shoulders. He lurched briefly, but at least four men held him. When he stopped struggling, they carried him away from the fire, into the darkness beyond the pitiful camp.

  “Hey—” he grunted.

  He smelled their sour breath, sweat and fear and the innumerable odors of smoke and sage—

  “—wait—”

  —bad food and oil and dry hay—

  “—damn it—”

  —blood and bile and broth—

  “—let go!”

  —unwashed cotton and hot rubber and old cracked leather.

  They made small grumbles and exhalations as they carried him along, as though working hard at a simple, necessary task like chopping wood or scrubbing floors, long hours of which would earn them a meal and a blanket. But their grips were painful and their movements quick, one step ahead of conscience.

  They stopped without warning and kicked his feet from under him. Devon knelt on hard earth while they tied his hands
with a thin cord of old, frayed rope that burned and cut. Then they pulled him back to sit and gathered around him in the darkness to wait.

  A short time later a light approached. Jude stepped into the circle carrying the lantern from the hovel. He looked around at the men, who, in the uncertain yellow light, all looked mildly embarrassed. One of them was Jeffin, Devon saw.

  Jude placed the lantern just beyond the reach of Devon’s feet and crouched down before him.

  “I need a name,” he said.

  “You’re Jude,” Devon replied.

  Jude shook his head. “No. Not quite. It doesn’t work. Almost, but—I need a true name!” He scowled. “How hard can it be? You gave Lucy hers. You know the baby’s, why not mine?”

  Devon did not look away. In the shifting light, Jude’s face seemed to waver and melt, change age, settle for a moment and then, fluidly, become another.

  “I guess you’ve been looking for a long time,” Devon stated. “Asked a lot of people?”

  “Smarter men than you, ’bo.”

  “Then—”

  “And every one of them more obsessed with his own intelligence than aware of his talent!”

  “Who was the first?”

  Jude’s eyes narrowed.

  “Let me guess,” Devon said. “Kircher?”

  Jude snorted.

  “Horapollus, then.”

  “That’s a good a place to start as any,” Jude allowed. “He’s way too early though. I don’t remember much from back then.”

  “Tell me about it. Maybe I can help.”

  Jude glanced around at the other hobos, who all seemed to be pointedly ignoring the conversation. He glared at Devon.

  “How do you do it? Tell me.”

  Devon felt himself shrug. “I look. It’s clear. It just—comes.”

  “That’s what Francis said—” Jude stood. “I came out of the Levant, starving and faceless. I didn’t have any idea what year it was, what day. I couldn’t tell noon from midnight. I just walked from place to place. People ignored me for the most part, but some tried to kill me, run me off at least. I felt like I had this smell or something that they just knew, and they couldn’t help it. They reacted. ‘Not their fault,’ I said, ‘they don’t know any better.’ Times came, I went weeks without food, but I never died.”