A Book Of Tongues (10 page)

They were fighting hard over some sand-bar, one day, with
mortar-fire felling trees in the distance. Rook found himself
trapped by the coattail behind an overturned stagecoach that Kees
Hosteen had set flame to, in order to create a brake and cover their
retreat. As the older man tugged at his sleeve, a pair of Northerners
managed to spill overtop and came down thrashing, blind, out to do
whatever damage they could. One spitted himself on Hosteen’s buck
knife, knocking him to the ground, where they scrabbled around in
gruesome play — Hosteen carving out loops of gut, as the man tried
hopelessly to stuff them back in.

Meanwhile, Rook wrestled with Bluebelly Number Two, the both
of them too entangled to do each other much damage, yet unable
to quite break free. As Rook laid the man up against the stage’s
undercarriage, he saw him glance up, and followed the eye-line to
see a new gun barrel pointing downwards, right at his head, wielded
by yet another suicidal Abolitionist.

“Die, you secesh fucker!” this one spat out, then slumped face-forward, his eye a red mess of ruin. Rook’s dance partner eked a
garbled name, but fell silent when Rook cross-punched him in the
throat, freeing himself up to look back — and catch Chess Pargeter
maybe forty paces behind, gun still a-smoke, smiling at the damage
he’d done.

“Best keep alert, Rev,” he called. “Odds are, there’s more where
that one come from.” A thin, hungry grin: “Sure
hope
so, anyhow.”

And turned away once more, with a rakish tip of his blood-spattered hat-brim and both guns up, already discharging fatally in
two entirely new directions.

At his feet, Rook could hear Hosteen breathing ragged, almost
like he was sobbing. “C’mon,” he said, scooping him up, kicking the
disembowelled soldier aside, “your boy’s right, and so were you.
Better fall on back.”

Hosteen nodded, shoulders heaving. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Why’n
the hell did I ever come here — why’d I even join up? To kill
them
, or
get
myself
killed?”

“Little of both, I expect,” Rook replied, dragging him along.

Much later, when the fire and drunken joshing had both died
down, Rook heard whispers, and opened his eyes to see Chess deep
in negotiations with the old Hollander. They muttered together a
while about the varying utility of knives and such, from what little
Rook could make out, ’til Chess finally said: “Okay, fine, that’s
settled — now take them down, and be done with it. I ain’t got all
night.”

Hosteen cleared his throat, and looked down. “That . . . ain’t what
I want, this time.”

“Oh no?” Chess’s voice hardened. “Well, best be careful, old
man — sure hope you ain’t forgot so soon about Chilicothe and his
pals, for your own sake.”

“Chew coal and shit-fire, Chess, don’t take on — we all of us
remember Chilicothe, the Lieut included. God
damn
, but you can be
a mean little bastard!”

“Got
that
right.” A pause. “What
do
you want, then?”

Hosteen bent to Chess’s ear, voice dipping too low to follow.
Chess listened, then snorted — half a hiss, half a snicker. “You’re an
ill old buzzard,” was all he said.

Hosteen’s face fell, comically swift. “Just ’cause
some
of us got
human feelin’s. . . .”

“Yeah, yeah. Cry me a river, grampaw. I want that knife first
thing tomorrow, handed over in front of God and everybody, the
Lieut included — like we bet for it at whist, all legal.”

“It’s yours.”

Chess huffed, lips twisting. “Oh, men really are fools, like my Ma
always says,” he announced, to no one in particular. “Dogs, too. Do
any damn thing they take a mind to, long as they think they’ll get
what leaves them feelin’ happiest, after.”

Here he pushed Hosteen backwards, without warning, ’til he had
no option but to let Chess
sit down on him
— one hard shove, far too
quick for Rook to quite take it in. And straddling Hosteen’s lap just a
shade primly, almost side-saddle, he admitted, with a further smirk,
“And as for me . . . I’m certainly no exception.”

Then he twined his fingers in Hosteen’s shaggy grey hair, letting
the man draw him close enough to kiss and met him open-mouthed,
without restraint, tongue-first.

Oh
,
Rook thought, numbly.
So
that
was it.

He didn’t stay to watch much longer, merely turned away, as
quietly as possible. It seemed more than a bit uncouth — almost
impolite — to treat their revelry as a sideshow. Particularly since
it struck him as not so much
revelry
as maybe . . . necessity, on
Hosteen’s part. Maybe even kindness, on Chess’s.

It did startle Rook a bit, however — as a Christian — to realize that
he hadn’t previously thought Chess might have any real kindness in
him.

Later, in his journal — just notes scribbled down in an
aidememoire
, leather binding sewn ’round a tablet of block-paper — Rook
wrote:

His fine looks and indubitable skill aside, Pvt. Pargeter lives most
securely in a state of nature, which is, as we know, also a state of sin.
Yet does the prospect of damnation really hold any terror for one so
utterly unrepentant? He seems almost soulless, and happy to be so,
like an animal; guiltless in his actions, and thus (perhaps) blameless
of their consequences.

Much later still that same night, Rook woke suddenly, so stiff in the
trousers it made him sore — thinking on Private Chess Pargeter’s
green eyes, his freckled shoulders, that smooth dip where his belly
met his belt. And thought:
Ah, so my sin — my liking for the Other, in
any form —
has
come upon me, even here. . . .

He lay there quite some time with both eyes open, searching the
sky for stars, and finding none.

“Oh, Pargeter’s a harlot in trousers, to be sure,” the Lieutenant said,
dismissively. “The very worst sort of Sodom-apple. Rumour has it
his dam’s some ’Frisco lily-belle — and she certainly must know her
business, too, for that son of hers has managed to sully more than
half my men, distributing his favours without qualm. That a thing
like that should seem so outright
made
for war, meanwhile. . . .”

He trailed off, shaking his head, before concluding: “Well, it’s
a conundrum I simply cannot fathom. But there’s no sentiment in
the creature, thank God, sparing us all the usual fluttery Grecian
nonsense inherent in such attachments. So while we have need,
we’ll gladly pay the fee to use him . . . as is traditional, no doubt, in
his family.”

“No doubt,” Rook said.

“Private,” he spoke up, around noon-time, as Chess passed him
by, toting a pair of looted shotguns, “might I speak with you a
moment, perhaps, tonight?”

“Well, that depends. What on?”

“A matter of Scripture?”

Chess turned back at this. “Really,” he said, and narrowed his
eyes, then broke out into a wide smile.

“Well hell, Rev, why not? You may’ve grilled the Lieut on all my
bad habits, but you never peached on old Hosteen — that’s worth
somethin’.”

“So . . . you knew I was there, the whole time.”

“You’re a damn man-mountain, Reverend Rook. Whenever you
walk, it’s like a tree movin’ ’round, no matter how quiet you may
dream you’re bein’.”

“You don’t seem too upset I asked the Lieut about you, though.”

Chess stretched the smile into an outright laugh. “Oh, you’ve
probably already figured out just how much of a damn I give what
people think of
me
.”

Predictably, however, there was no single part of that evening’s
personal sermon which went anywhere near the way Rook’d hoped
it might, when he’d first issued Chess that fateful invitation.
He came prepared, with all the relevant sections of his Bible premarked; preached mightily on Lot’s visitors and the destruction
of Gomorrah, on it being better to marry than burn, on trouser-wearing women and other such unnatural oddities. But Chess just
sat there while he gesticulated — interested but unimpressed, with
the same tiny smile playing about his lips that’d annoyed Rook since
the day they’d met.

Rook paused, finally, and sighed. Then asked: “Is
any
of this
getting through to you?”

Chess shrugged. “Not much. But feel free to keep on talkin’,
anyhow, ’cause I sure do admire how your lips move.”

“What do you mean by — ”

“Oh, Rev. Just what in the hell d’you
think
I mean?”

For a second, Rook almost convinced himself he didn’t
understand.

“I’m . . . flattered, Private Pargeter,” he said, at length. “But even
leaving the strictures of my calling aside, I’m really
not
that way
inclined.”

Chess shrugged again. “Oh no, course not. Man of God, and all —
what was I thinkin’.”

“I very much hope you’re not mocking my faith, Private, because . . .”
Rook trailed away. “Have you even
read
the Bible?”

“Enough to know it ain’t got too much to do with me, or them
that’s like me. I’m a bad man, Rev — that ain’t debatable. So I don’t
aim to debate it.”

“
Leviticus
, then — how ’bout that. Ever heard of it?”

“That’s the part of your Book says all queers should die, ain’t it?”

“Essentially. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Seein’ how I’m funny as Union script?” Chess snorted. “Look,
Reverend. Anyone wants to string me up just for who I’m drawn
to dance with, I invite them to go ahead and try. If I can see them
comin’ and they still manage it, then it was probably my time. ’Til
then . . .” Another thin grin. “Well, you’ve seen me at my exercise.
What’s
your
opinion?”

“I think you’re the best pistoleer I’ve ever come across, though
I’m sure the Lieutenant’d say your soldiering leaves a bit to be
desired. What I don’t understand is why pursuing this line of . . .
abomination means so much to you, ’specially at the risk of your
immortal soul.”

“Where I’m from, we’re all born bound for the Hot Country. I
ain’t lookin’ for no chariot to Glory, not even if you’re offerin’.”

“What about those others you’re pullin’ down, though? Can’t you
see you’re draggin’ any man you let take advantage of you straight
into the fire along with you? Hosteen, for example. You
seem
to
care — ”

“I don’t ‘care’ ’bout shit but me, myself and I, thank you kindly.
As for the rest — I never put a damn gun to anybody’s head to get
them near me, and they sure weren’t complainin’, either.” He turned
back. “Oh, and speakin’ of which:
God’s
the one made me this way
in the first place, Reverend. Maybe you should just take it up with
him.”

Rook sighed. “Hell doesn’t have to be a foregone conclusion,
Chess, that’s my point. Salvation — that’s God’s promise, open to
all who want it, no matter what they may have done beforehand.
There’s no sin so black it can’t be washed away, if you only ask for it
to be.”

“Yeah? Thanks for that, anyhow.”

“The option to be redeemed? That’s God’s, not mine.”

“Naw, that you can keep — probably wouldn’t take, anyhow. But
thanks for callin’ me by my given name, Reverend. Maybe you’ll
even let me return the favour, one of these days.”

Flirting with him, still. The man was damn well incorrigible. Yet
Rook found himself smiling back, all the same.

“Maybe,” he heard himself say.

Things continued bad, shading fast toward worst. There were
rumours everywhere — that recent action at Five Forks and Sayler’s
Creek had left the Confederacy crippled, that General Lee himself
was on the verge of surrendering to that drunken farm-burner
Ulysses S. Grant. That Lincoln had been either assassinated or
elected king by popular acclaim.

That afternoon, the Lieut received one last message, read it, then
broke the pigeon’s neck, before crumpling the offensive cipher up
and throwing it into the fire.

“It’s official,” he told Rook, a tic in his brow fluttering wildly.
“The rats have infiltrated. All further communiqués must from now
on be reckoned a mere tissue of Abolitionist lies.”

“Yes sir,” Rook said. “I’m very sure that you’re right.”

That night, he dozed off, then came to, to find himself restrained by a hard little set of limbs, as somebody hissed: “Sssh!” in his ear.

“Damn, Rev,” Chess Pargeter said, shifting to pin him closer.
“You want to get us both swung?”

Rook breathed out through his nose, slow, while simultaneously
struggling to resist the urge to see exactly how far he could kick the
smaller man, if he only gave it a good enough try.

“Get off of me, Private,” he replied, finally.

The same snicker again. “That an order? Hell, Rev, you’re three
times my size, at least. What is it you’re ’fraid of, exactly?”

“Of . . . hurting
you
, mainly.”

“Uh huh? Well, that’s nice, but don’t worry yourself overmuch —
it’s been tried.”

“You want to talk? Then let me up.”

Chess shrugged. “Okay,” he said, and moved back.

“So,” Rook said, once he’d regained his dignity. “What was it you
had in mind, Mister Pargeter? Besides the obvious.”

“Oh, I wasn’t even thinkin’ of
that
,” Chess lied. “All seriousness,
though . . . you do know the Lieut’s gone stark starin’ crazy, right?
How he’s probably right now dreamin’ on the best way t’get himself
killed for the honour of the South, and take us all along with him?”

“I don’t see what either of us can do about it, saving desertion . . .
or worse.”

“Like blowin’ his brains out in his sleep? Yeah, I’ve thought
’bout cuttin’ his throat, too — or maybe smotherin’ him, since that
wouldn’t leave much of a trace. But I ain’t got anything on me exactly
suitable to the purpose, more’s the pity.”

“Private!”

“Aw, Rev, I was ‘Chess’ just a week back. Can’t we try for that
again?”

“Not if you’re counselling murder, we can’t — ’cause I won’t stand
for that sort of cold-blooded mortal sin, not even as a joke.”