1824: The Arkansas War tog-2 Page 8

  "What are they doing here?" asked Sheff 's mother.

  The Cherokee sucked his teeth for a moment. "I guess you could call it recruitment."

  Sheff 's mother immediately frowned. "I don't want my boy signing up for no army!"

  The Cherokee smiled again. But said nothing.

  Less than an hour later, sitting behind his mother on a stool in a large office in New Antrim's largest bank, Sheff was mightily confused about most everything. But he understood why the old man had smiled.

  "It's not fair!" his mother exclaimed. The words were half a protest, half a wail.

  The man sitting on the opposite side of the biggest desk Sheff had ever seen just shrugged his shoulders. "No, I suppose not. But what's 'fair' got to do with anything, Mrs. Parker? You wanted your freedom, and you got it. But what 'freedom' means, right now, is the freedom to starve."

  Sheff was too fascinated with the man himself to pay much attention to his words. His name was Henry Crowell, nothing spectacular. But to Sheffield Parker he was a living, breathing dragon, testifying in person that this new fantasy world was real.

  First, because he was black.

  Second, because he was the biggest man Sheff had ever seen.

  Third, because he was wearing fancier-looking clothes than anything Sheff had ever seen anyone wear except a few of the richest white men in Baltimore.

  Finally-most glorious of all-because he was the president of the bank.

  He owned it!

  Well, half of it, anyway. From what Sheff had been able to understand of the man's introductory remarks, the other half was apparently owned by the same Patrick Driscol who'd become a mysterious legend to Sheff.

  "It's not fair!" Sheff 's mother repeated, trying, this time, for more in the way of sternness rather than simple misery.

  Next to her, Sheff 's uncle shrugged. "I don't really mind, Lemon."

  Mrs. Parker swiveled her head to glare at her brother. "So, fine. You're a full-growed man, Jem. What about my little boy?"

  The man behind the desk chuckled, causing his immense chest to ripple the fancy cloth. "Don't look so 'little' to me, ma'am. He's not too tall, but he's powerful wide in the shoulders."

  Now she glared at the banker. "It isn't fair!"

  Crowell sighed and sat up straighter in his chair. Then, planting two huge hands on the desk, he leaned forward and spoke softly. Softly, but very firmly.

  "Mrs. Parker, there is no magic here in Arkansas. 'Less you believe in the voudou business, but not even Marie Laveau claims she can conjure up food and shelter out of spiderwebs. You came here with nothing. No money, no tools beyond a few knives and such, no capital, no livestock, not much at all beyond the clothes on your backs-and those, meaning no offense, you couldn't sell even if you wanted to. They're not far removed from rags."

  Sheff 's mother set her jaws. "We was poor to begin with. Then, what with havin' to leave Baltimore so sudden:"

  "I am not blaming you, Mrs. Parker. Just pointing out the facts of life. How do you propose to survive while you start making a living?"

  She started to say something, but Crowell cut her off.

  "Never mind that. 'Survive' isn't the word I meant. I don't doubt you could 'survive,' but you'd be so dirt poor you'd be nothing but an anchor dragging behind this community. We don't need that, Mrs. Parker. The last thing Arkansas needs is dead weight. Meaning no offense, but that's what dirt-poor people are. Dead weight."

  He pushed himself back from the chair a little. "Patrick established that as the very first rule, here-and all of us in the Iron Battalion agreed with him. Black people are welcome in Arkansas, but they've got to pull their weight. That's the main reason we set up this bank in the first place, back then. We'll loan people money to get started, but they've got to put up collateral. And if they've got nothing but able-bodied men in the family, then those men have to agree to serve a term of enlistment in the army."

  "What if we were just women?" his mother asked, her eyes narrowing. "Did you and this fancy 'Mr. Patrick' set up a whorehouse, too? Loan us money if we put up our cunts for collateral?"

  Uncle Jem winced. "Lemon!"

  But all Crowell did was chuckle again. "No, Mrs. Parker. Patrick and I are running no brothels in this town. There are a couple, I'm told, but they're strictly private enterprise. To answer your question, if the borrowers are females only, we'll accept a job in one of the local workshops as collateral. But the terms aren't as good."

  "What are the terms, Mr. Crowell?" Sheff 's uncle spoke a bit hastily, probably to keep his sister from another outburst.

  The big banker looked at him. "Good as you could ask for. We'll loan any family three hundred dollars for every man who enlists, two hundred for every woman or boy or girl in a workshop. The interest is five percent, compounded annually. The loan has to be paid back monthly-but we'll waive the interest for the whole family as long as at least one man is serving in the colors. And for every man who completes a term of service satisfactorily, we'll knock a percentage point off the interest."

  He glanced at Sheff 's mother and sister, and then at Sheff. "In your case, that means we'll loan you a thousand dollars even. No interest accumulates as long as either you or young Sheffield is still in the colors. Once both of you have finished your terms of duty-assuming you were discharged honorably-we'll start charging you three percent on whatever the balance is. The truth is, you can't find a better loan anywhere. Either here or in the United States."

  Sheff had no idea if he was telling the truth or not, since what he knew about banking was that:well, it was a white man's business. He'd never known a black man who even went to a bank, much less owned one.

  From the dubious expression on her face, it was obvious his mother was just as ignorant. But his uncle seemed satisfied. Not, probably, because he actually knew anything. But just because, as with Sheff himself, he was inclined to trust Mr. Crowell.

  Crowell was famous, too, after all. And if most of that fame was due to his horrible mutilation, there wasn't actually any sign of it on the man himself. Not visibly, anyway, covered with that fancy clothing. Maybe he was a little fatter than he would have been otherwise. But it was hard to know. Men that big usually ran to fat, some, once they got a little older.

  Sheff thought he was a nice man, though. Not that it really mattered. Even if Crowell had been poison mean, Sheff would have been inclined to take his word for something. The man was a banker. The only black banker Sheff had ever heard of.

  "We'll do it," said Sheff 's uncle firmly. "Be quiet, Lemon. You've had your say, and you ain't my mother, even if you are older than me."

  "I'm Sheffield's mother."

  His uncle smiled, and nodded toward Sheff. "And so what, girl? I mean, look at him. You tried to stop your son, he'd just run away and enlist anyhow."

  Sheff tried to look innocent when his mother gave him a sharp glance. It wasn't easy. He'd spent a good part of the past half hour trying to decide between two different ways he could run away and join the army. Daytime or nighttime.

  There were advantages and disadvantages, either way. Daytime would be harder to make his getaway without his mother catching him, but he could probably enlist on the spot. Wherever the spot was. Nighttime, he'd have to wander around some in the dark.

  "Would you do that, Sheff?" his mother demanded.

  "No, ma'am. 'Course not."

  She just rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in defeat.

  By midafternoon, Sheff was in a state that bordered on sheer ecstasy. It was all he could do not to bounce up and down like a little boy.

  He had a uniform!

  True, it was too big, and his mother insisted the tailoring was poor, which it probably was. The cloth was pretty stiff and rough on his skin, too.

  Sheff couldn't have cared less. It was a uniform!

  His uncle Jem seemed almost as pleased as he did.

  "Oh, stop nagging, Lemon," he said to Sheff 's mom. "They didn't cost us nothing. 'Sides, why don'
t you just do the fixing-up yourself when we get a chance? You're handy with a needle."

  "Needle!" Lemon Parker gave the uniforms a look that was none too admiring. An outright glare, in fact. "Need a knife-no, a spear-to punch holes in that stuff."

  Uncle Jem grinned. "Maybe they're bulletproof, then."

  Before his sister could continue with her protests, Jem turned away from her and examined the room they'd gotten in the big boardinghouse. Now, his own expression took on a look of disapproval. Not deep disapproval-certainly nothing akin to the glares Sheff 's mother was still giving the uniforms-just the skeptical look that an experienced carpenter bestows on the work of lesser craftsmen.

  "Pretty crude," he muttered.

  Even Sheff could see that that was true. The boardinghouse, from the outside, had looked more like a huge log cabin than any boardinghouse or hotel Sheff had ever seen in Baltimore. On the inside, it looked about the same.

  But, again, he couldn't have cared less. He had a uniform! The garment was a magic shield, shedding all the minor cares of life as if they were so many raindrops.

  "Never you mind, Jem!" Sheff 's mother shook her head. "Me and Dinah can patch up what needs it." Shrugging: "It's solid built, whatever else. A lot more solid built than you and my little boy are, when men start shooting at you."

  "There ain't no war going on, Ma," Sheff protested. But, even in his high spirits, he didn't miss the fact that his uncle had grimaced slightly.

  No, there wasn't a war going on. Leaving aside clashes with wild Indians, anyway. But even at sixteen, Sheff knew enough about the world to know that a war was most likely coming.

  He couldn't have begun to explain the politics that would drive that war. He was only just beginning to even think in those terms.

  It didn't matter. All he had to do was look down at that wonderful green uniform he was wearing. Would the sort of men who'd murdered his father just for being a black freedman allow the father's son to wear a uniform?

  He didn't think so.

  But he also didn't care. What mattered was that he did wear the uniform of the army of Arkansas. And he made a solemn vow to himself, right then and there, that he'd learn everything a soldier needed to learn. So that when the men came to murder the mother and the daughter, the son would murder them instead.

  "And why are you lookin' so fierce of a sudden, boy?" asked his uncle.

  Best not to answer that directly, or his mother would start squawking again. "Ah:just thinking of the Bible, is all."

  Uncle Jem smiled. "The Old Testament, I hope."

  "Book of Judges. Book of Samuel, too."

  1824: TheArkansasWar

  CHAPTER 7

  By evening, Sheff 's elation had become leavened by caution. According to the terms of their enlistment, Sheff and his uncle had been required to report for duty before nightfall. Which they'd done-and immediately found themselves assigned to a barracks on the outskirts of the city that made the construction of the boardinghouse look like the work of fine artisans.

  Just a very long empty log cabin was all it was, with a single door at either end. The building had a row of bunks down each side, in three tiers, except for a fireplace on the north wall. The bunks were crammed so close together there was barely room to squeeze between them. They'd have covered up the windows completely, except there weren't any windows to begin with. And the space between the bunk tiers was so short that it looked to Sheff as if his nose would be pressed against the mattress of the man sleeping above him. Unless he got assigned to one of the top bunks, in which case his nose would be pressed against the logs of the roof.

  The air would be horrible up there, too, with this many men crammed into so little space. To make things worse, there was still enough chill in the air at night that the fireplace in the middle of the barracks was kept burning. It had a chimney, of course, but Sheff had never seen a fireplace yet that vented all the smoke it produced.

  There didn't seem to be enough spittoons, either, for that many men, half of whom Sheff could see were chewing tobacco. On the other hand, he couldn't see any sign that the men crammed into the barracks had been spitting on the floor, either, so maybe they emptied them regularly.

  Chewing tobacco was a habit Sheff planned to avoid, himself. It just seemed on the filthy side, even leaving aside the fact that his pious mother and uncle disapproved on religious grounds. Sheff wasn't sure exactly why they did, since he'd never found anything prohibiting tobacco in the Bible, not even in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. He ascribed it to the fact that, in his experience so far in life, he'd found that people who were really devout tended to think a lot of things weren't proper, even if they couldn't exactly put their finger on any one place in the Bible where it said so.

  About fifteen seconds after he and his uncle entered the barracks, standing there uncertainly after closing the door behind them, one of the men playing cards on an upended half barrel at the center of the room looked up.

  "Just joined?" he asked.

  Uncle Jem nodded. Sheff added, "Yes, sir."

  The man exchanged thin smiles with his two fellows at the barrel. There was something vaguely derisive about the expressions.

  "Sir, no less," one of them chuckled. "Lord God, another babe in the woods."

  All three of the men at the barrel were black, but this one was so black his skin looked like coal. The eyes he now turned on Sheff were just as dark.

  "We ain't 'sirs,' boy. We the sergeants of this outfit. 'Sirs' are officers. You salute them and act proper when they're around. Us, you don't salute. And while's you'll learn to act proper around us, too, it's a different set of rules."

  Jem cleared his throat. "And those are:what?"

  "You'll find out. Soon enough."

  The third of the trio had never looked up from his cards. He now spoke, still without looking. "Only bunks open are two in the back," he said, giving his head a very slight backward tilt. "Both top bunks, but don't bother complaining."

  He flipped a card onto the barrel. "I'm Sergeant Hancock. This here"-a flip of the thumb toward the sergeant who'd spoken first-"is Sergeant Harris. The one as black as the devil's sins is Sergeant Williams. He's the friendly one."

  Williams grinned. "And he's the one who tells lies all the time." When he turned the grin onto Sheff and his uncle, it seemed full of good cheer. "I'm actually mean as Sam Hill, you cross me. But I'm sure and certain you boys wouldn't even think of that. Would you?"

  That didn't really seem to be a question that required an answer, so Sheff kept his mouth shut. So did his uncle.

  Williams grunted. "Didn't think so. Go ahead, now. Get yourselves settled in. So to speak. The captain'll be along shortly. Maybe-if you're real unlucky-the colonel, too."

  Sheff and Jem did as they were told, edging themselves and their little sacks of belongings past the three sergeants at the barrel. None of them made the slightest effort to clear any space for them as they went by. From what Sheff could tell, they'd forgotten about the new arrivals altogether and were concentrating completely on their card game.

  As Sheff and his uncle made their way to the back of the barracks, Sheff was surprised to spot three white men among the soldiers. He'd had the impression that the army of Arkansas was all black, except for some of the officers.

  That officers would be white was a given. The only thing surprising there was that Sheff knew some of them were black, even including the colonel who commanded the regiment. But he hadn't expected to encounter white men in the enlisted ranks.

  Two of them were no older than he was, either. Including, he discovered as he came up to the bunk he'd been assigned to, the soldier who'd be sleeping below him.

  The situation was:strange. Confusing, too.

  The white boy on the middle bunk looked away from the book he was reading and gave Sheff a smile. "Got stuck on the top, did you? Poor bastard. But at least you're in a corner bunk. There's enough cracks in the wattling that you'll be able to breathe. Some, anyway. 'Course, you'
ll hate it come winter. But who knows? By then you might be promoted, or dead. That's for sure and certain my plan."

  Sheff wondered how he'd been able to read at all. The space in the middle bunk was so tight that the boy had had to keep the book pressed practically against his nose.

  Now the boy lowered the book onto his chest-which didn't require shifting it more than two inches-and gave Sheff 's little sack a scrutiny. "Won't be no room for that, up there. But there's still some space under the bottom bunk."

  Seeing Sheff 's hesitation, his smile got more cheerful still. "Relax. Bean't no thieves in this company."

  The black man on the middle bunk across from him snorted sarcastically. "You livin' in a dream world, Cal. Plenty of these curries be thieves. It's just that they terrified thieves."

  He rolled over to face Sheff, his shoulder barely clearing the bunk above him. There was no smile on his face, but he seemed friendly enough.

  "He's right, though, boy. You don't got to worry about nobody stealing nothin' here. Not from another soldier, anyway."

  This soldier was much older than Sheff or the white boy. At a guess, somewhere in his midthirties-about the same age as Sheff 's uncle. On his way down the line of bunks, Sheff had noticed that the age spread among the soldiers was considerable. None of them had seemed any younger than him, but he'd spotted one man who had to be at least fifty.

  That seemed a little odd to him, also. But, then, he really knew very little about armies and soldiering.

  Yet, anyway. He planned to learn, applying himself to the task.

  "My, don't he look fierce of a sudden?" chuckled the white boy. "Must be thinking of the Bible. I just hope he don't talk in his sleep, like Garner does. Not sure how much Leviticus I can take, droning in my ear when I'm trying to sleep."

  The older black soldier across from him echoed the chuckle. "Say that again."

  That really did seem like a friendly smile on the boy's face. Sheff felt tension he hadn't even realized was there start to fade away.

  He had other memories of white people beyond those of hateful and screaming faces beating his father to death, after all. One of his closest playmates, growing up, had been a white boy from a family living nearby. Until: