That night, when I ask what role he played in the murders and he greets my inquiry with further silence, I tell him that I too have killed a man. (Many, actually, on behalf of my employers, but only one on my own account, and I consider there to be a difference.)
“He cooked bread for the king, and we loved the same woman. I assume you understand how that is; that love prompts one to act in unusual ways. No? Well, I had not received a great deal of affection in my life and saw this woman as perhaps a unique opportunity to rectify that. Duels are a matter of honor, and so my actions were justified. I felt slightly queasy when I saw the man’s body, for there was some blood, but it was instantaneous and no one blamed me. I recovered. But death is not the most satisfactory solution to a problem. I understand that you may be feeling some guilt at what you’ve done, and this is to be expected. Even when we believe we’re in the right, we have a voice within that knows better; some call it God. Are you religious?”
“Where is she?” He does not look at me, but bends his head down to his wrists, where he sucks the sweat from the rope. “Your wife.”
I feel a shiver of fear, unaccountably. If I believed he was a murderer, shouldn’t I always have been afraid?
“France. I was tired of home life, and she was unfaithful.”
“Will you go back?”
I picture the door opening, her slim figure poised between two steps, her black hair mid-swing. With her husband gone, she must rarely put up her hair, or wear all her petticoats, or powder her face till it’s white. What is her expression upon seeing me? Does it approach gratitude? My bags make a dark sound when they fall to the marble floor. Nothing belongs.
“I have not decided,” I say. I remember my notes. Is alert when others speak of women. “Can I assume, being a man, that you were also wronged by a lady?”
He lifts his head, almost in accusation. To be perfectly frank, I cannot imagine a woman loving him, though his features are regular and he has a trusting, open demeanor. There is simply no fire in him, and if men do not present a little danger in the dance between the sexes, then what’s the good of them? The craftier I’ve been, the more girls have offered their favors; they, like us, merely request some adventure in their lives. Cat, for all his murdering, exhibits a meekness that only a sainted woman could endure. But he did several nights ago mention a wife. Perhaps he once had some wealth and she married him out of greed and pity, and the moment a soldier rode through town, she hopped his horse and bade farewell.
“Bless them all,” he says and, closing his eyes emphatically, turns away.
I try not to record speculations in my notebook — only observations and fact — but I hope one day some other man will tell the stories.
I have tethered him close tonight, calculating the distance between a fully stretched rope and my own blanket so that they are separated by no more than two feet. This is a trial to determine whether, given the opportunity, the white man will gravitate toward any other sleeping body, even that of his captor. As I prepare for sleep, Cat at a distance by his anchoring shrub, I crowd my mind with questions and concerns so as to ensure a shallow rest. I think of the citations I will need to prop up my writing, of the overdue missive to my wife and what this one should say, of curiosity itself and whether it is fundamentally noble, representing as it does man’s taste for knowledge beyond his sphere, or whether it undermines the simplicity of daily life and breeds displeasure. With these clunky gears in motion, my mind is too unsettled to fully abandon me, and every half hour or so my eyes flick open to gauge the placement of my prisoner. Mostly he is awake, of course, lying on his back and scanning the heavens, but close to dawn I feel a new warmth, and there he is, finally asleep, coiled like a crawfish at the farthest stretch of his rope, two feet from me. The poor fellow is an unwitting magnet. At this proximity I feel new concern for his comfort — is he warm enough without a heavier coat? Are those lice causing the scabs around his hairline? So this is what the black man must have felt, this dependency that turns the heart. But any repeatable experiment only verifies a biological trend; there is nothing personal or mystic about a man’s desire for closeness.
WALKING FOR SUCH distances invariably leads to intimacy; if I had not already known it from watching the three men I was following, these days with Cat have proven it. In the mornings he asks to be given some privacy, so I walk him on his lead to a thicket, tie his rope anew, and then allow him fifty paces of distance for his evacuations. He calls me after he has covered his shit with leaves, and we proceed. When the sun has warmed the afternoons, we share the same canteen of water, and any belch or flatulence on the part of one man is heard, without comment, by the other. We stride across land that belongs to neither of us and in this vacuum of possession blooms some primitive fellow feeling. If a panther were to leap from a high branch and tussle my prisoner, I suspect that I would rush to find a heavy stick and beat the creature ruthlessly and when the white man was free, I would attempt to address his wounds. And to all this effort I would go though my intent, unchanging, is eventually to kill the man. I cannot explain this logic, though I make a note of it.
“Tomorrow we’ll find the road again,” I say, over a measly supper of dried ham and meal. I did not pack sufficiently; or rather, I failed to have a sufficient sense of my own susceptibility. But every time I start to squirm at the indulgence of trailing these men so long, I merely glance at my fattening notebook and swallow my half share of salt pork without complaint.
“Are you prepared for your fate?” I ask. “I expect we’ll take you back to Hillaubee for the execution.”
He does not respond, so I pick up some of the food he’s left uneaten.
“It would be helpful to me if you’d speak a little of your history. Did you know the black man and the Indian for very long? You see, I’m writing an account of your adventure to be shared with men on the other side of the ocean, men who are interested in unusual things. If you’ll share your story, I promise to convey it with accuracy.”
“There’s no story.”
“That’s hardly true, since my guess is that you were born without having murdered anyone, and now here you are with at least several souls on your account. Unless I’ve got it wrong?” I offer him the canteen.
“Do you have any whiskey?”
“Pardon?” As it happens, I’ve saved a small flask in my sack for occasions of great need, and I tippled from it once or twice before I found the men, but about half remains. After a moment of consideration, I dig it out and hand it over.
He has to reach up with both hands to take it. Only one sip, and his face tightens into a grimace. His eyes squeeze shut and open wide again, and after this contortion a little peace comes. “Tastes like my father.”
I acknowledge this with a nod. “I did not have a father.”
“They are remarkable unkind.”
“I hear that sometimes is the case.” I stretch out a hand for the flask.
“I have to piss, is why I remembered.”
My face must be blank with question.
“You had a son?” he says. “Who pissed the bed?”
“No, no children.” Not for lack of trying, certainly. There are men who would be concerned about impotence, but I am grateful for the domestic limitation.