Read Online Arc D'X by Steve Erickson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Steve Erickson
Tags: Literary, Historical fiction, Science-Fiction, Historical, Literature & Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Genre Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Alternative History, Cultural Heritage, alternate history, Dystopian
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rumors; the greater the controversy grew, the more his allies pressed him to answer and deny, the more his daughters now used this turn of events to try and banish Sally from their lives forever, the more he kept his silence. However he may have been haunted by the rape of Sally and the betrayal of his conscience, he would not compound these things by denying her.
One night, as she slept in his bed, the door opened and she turned and saw his silhouette in the light from the outer hall.
"Yes?" she asked.
"I'm elected" was all he said. Then he went to the window of their bedroom and sat in a chair in the dark, and was still there when she finally drifted back to sleep.
He was gone when she woke the next morning. She got up from the bed and drifted through the house, where the day had already begun; she was a little alarmed at how late she'd slept. "Have you seen Thomas?" she asked everyone, but no one had seen him at all. He didn't return in the afternoon or the evening.
He didn't return the next day, or the day after, or the following day. She stood on the porch late into the evening, staring out at the road and the wooded Virginia hills. The other members of the household watched her and whispered to each other. Visitors to the house were turned away with the news that Thomas wasn't home. The weeks passed, and then the months.
A year passed, and then another. Sally struggled to keep the plantation together but everything began to dissolve in the mists of ruin and decay. The walls of the house smeared like colors in a hot steam, and everyone at the plantation became more inert. One night she announced, "I'm going to find him." James loaded her a A R C D'X • 50
small wagon of supplies including food, blankets, the black box with the rose carved on top full of her jewelry, and the carving knife she'd wrapped in one ragged red Parisian glove. Leaving her children in the care of her mother, she set out with the wagon and two horses, down the road she'd watched so many evenings waiting for his return.
For a brief moment it occurred to her perhaps he'd returned to Paris. But Paris had been all terror and Bonaparte in the years since they'd left, and nothing was there for him anymore. She drove the wagon westward as its supplies slowly dwindled. Sometimes she slept in those inns that would give a black woman a corner to stay in; usually she slept outside. She could feel the eyes of the Indians watching her from the hills but she worried more about being raped by frontiersmen or seized by whites as an escaped slave. Finally the supplies ran out and all she had was her jewelry box and her knife. She abandoned the wagon and rode one of the horses. She tried to sell the other horse to two men in a tavern one night; when she overheard them asking each other what a lone colored woman was doing with two horses she became frightened and left, without the other horse.
Everywhere she went she asked people if they'd seen Thomas.
To her great alarm she was surprised by how many said he was dead. She was shocked by how many insisted there had never been such a man. Every once in a while someone claimed to have spot-ted him, perhaps even recently; someone told her he'd been seen with the Indians, a thin giant shadow walking with them along the ridge of the mountains.
She did what she had to do. When there was no food left she worked for those who would feed her. When there was no work she begged on the road until her voice was gone. When there was nothing but her body to give for a place to sleep then she gave it.
Twice she was captured as a slave when she couldn't produce proof of her freedom, and twice she escaped because both times her captors expended themselves in the pleasure of her. She hated both of them enough to kill them with her knife, but as she'd grown older she had become shrewder about the politics of murdering white men, about the relentlessness with which white people would hunt her down for it. So she
One night, as she slept in his bed, the door opened and she turned and saw his silhouette in the light from the outer hall.
"Yes?" she asked.
"I'm elected" was all he said. Then he went to the window of their bedroom and sat in a chair in the dark, and was still there when she finally drifted back to sleep.
He was gone when she woke the next morning. She got up from the bed and drifted through the house, where the day had already begun; she was a little alarmed at how late she'd slept. "Have you seen Thomas?" she asked everyone, but no one had seen him at all. He didn't return in the afternoon or the evening.
He didn't return the next day, or the day after, or the following day. She stood on the porch late into the evening, staring out at the road and the wooded Virginia hills. The other members of the household watched her and whispered to each other. Visitors to the house were turned away with the news that Thomas wasn't home. The weeks passed, and then the months.
A year passed, and then another. Sally struggled to keep the plantation together but everything began to dissolve in the mists of ruin and decay. The walls of the house smeared like colors in a hot steam, and everyone at the plantation became more inert. One night she announced, "I'm going to find him." James loaded her a A R C D'X • 50
small wagon of supplies including food, blankets, the black box with the rose carved on top full of her jewelry, and the carving knife she'd wrapped in one ragged red Parisian glove. Leaving her children in the care of her mother, she set out with the wagon and two horses, down the road she'd watched so many evenings waiting for his return.
For a brief moment it occurred to her perhaps he'd returned to Paris. But Paris had been all terror and Bonaparte in the years since they'd left, and nothing was there for him anymore. She drove the wagon westward as its supplies slowly dwindled. Sometimes she slept in those inns that would give a black woman a corner to stay in; usually she slept outside. She could feel the eyes of the Indians watching her from the hills but she worried more about being raped by frontiersmen or seized by whites as an escaped slave. Finally the supplies ran out and all she had was her jewelry box and her knife. She abandoned the wagon and rode one of the horses. She tried to sell the other horse to two men in a tavern one night; when she overheard them asking each other what a lone colored woman was doing with two horses she became frightened and left, without the other horse.
Everywhere she went she asked people if they'd seen Thomas.
To her great alarm she was surprised by how many said he was dead. She was shocked by how many insisted there had never been such a man. Every once in a while someone claimed to have spot-ted him, perhaps even recently; someone told her he'd been seen with the Indians, a thin giant shadow walking with them along the ridge of the mountains.
She did what she had to do. When there was no food left she worked for those who would feed her. When there was no work she begged on the road until her voice was gone. When there was nothing but her body to give for a place to sleep then she gave it.
Twice she was captured as a slave when she couldn't produce proof of her freedom, and twice she escaped because both times her captors expended themselves in the pleasure of her. She hated both of them enough to kill them with her knife, but as she'd grown older she had become shrewder about the politics of murdering white men, about the relentlessness with which white people would hunt her down for it. So she
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