The rain started late in the afternoon. Adam huddled under his oilskin, waiting for the dark to come, and when it did he walked through the dripping night into the town of Valdosta. His black hat was pulled down over his eyes and his yellow oilskin was strapped tight against his throat. He made his way to the station and peered through a rain-blurred window. The station agent, in green eyeshade and black alpaca worksleeves, leaned through the ticket window, talking to a friend. It was twenty minutes before the friend went away. Adam watched him off the platform. He took a deep breath to calm himself and went inside.
2
Charles received very few letters. Sometimes he did not inquire at the post office for weeks. In February of 1894 when a thick letter came from a firm of attorneys in Washington the postmaster thought it might be important. He walked out to the Trask farm, found Charles cutting wood, and gave him the letter. And since he had taken so much trouble, he waited around to hear what the letter said.
Charles let him wait. Very slowly he read all five pages, went back and read them again, moving his lips over the words. Then he folded it up and turned toward the house.
The postmaster called after him, “Anything wrong, Mr. Trask?”
“My father is dead,” Charles said, and he walked into the house and closed the door.
“Took it hard,” the postmaster reported in town. “Took it real hard. Quiet man. Don’t talk much.”
In the house Charles lighted the lamp although it was not dark yet. He laid the letter on the table, and he washed his hands before he sat down to read it again.
There hadn’t been anyone to send him a telegram. The attorneys had found his address among his father’s papers. They were sorry—offered their condolences. And they were pretty excited too. When they had made Trask’s will they thought he might have a few hundred dollars to leave his sons. That is what he looked to be worth. When they inspected his bankbooks they found that he had over ninety-three thousand dollars in the bank and ten thousand dollars in good securities. They felt very different about Mr. Trask then. People with that much money were rich. They would never have to worry. It was enough to start a dynasty. The lawyers congratulated Charles and his brother Adam. Under the will, they said, it was to be shared equally. After the money they listed the personal effects left by the deceased: five ceremonial swords presented to Cyrus at various G.A.R. conventions, an olive wood gavel with a gold plate on it, a Masonic watch charm with a diamond set in the dividers, the gold caps from the teeth he had out when he got his plates, watch (silver), gold-headed stick, and so forth.
Charles read the letter twice more and cupped his forehead in his hands. He wondered about Adam. He wanted Adam home.
Charles felt puzzled and dull. He built up the fire and put the frying pan to heat and sliced thick pieces of salt pork into it. Then he went back to stare at the letter. Suddenly he picked it up and put it in the drawer of the kitchen table. He decided not to think of the matter at all for a while.
Of course he thought of little else, but it was a dull circular thinking that came back to the starting point again and again: Where had he gotten it?
When two events have something in common, in their natures or in time or place, we leap happily to the conclusion that they are similar and from this tendency we create magics and store them for retelling. Charles had never before had a letter delivered at the farm in his life. Some weeks later a boy ran out to the farm with a telegram. Charles always connected the letter and the telegram the way we group two deaths and anticipate a third. He hurried to the village railroad station, carrying the telegram in his hand.
“Listen to this,” he said to the operator.
“I already read it.”
“You did?”
“It comes over the wire,” said the operator. “I wrote it down.”
“Oh! Yes, sure. ‘Urgent need you telegraph me one hundred dollars. Coming home. Adam.’ ”
“Came collect,” the operator said. “You owe me sixty cents.”
“Valdosta, Georgia—I never heard of it.”
“Neither’d I, but it’s there.”
“Say, Carlton, how do you go about telegraphing money?”
“Well, you bring me a hundred and two dollars and sixty cents and I send a wire telling the Valdosta operator to pay Adam one hundred dollars. You owe me sixty cents too.”
“I’ll pay—say, how do I know it’s Adam? What’s to stop anybody from collecting it?”
The operator permitted himself a smile of worldliness. “Way we go about it, you give me a question couldn’t nobody else know the answer. So I send both the question and the answer. Operator asks this fella the question, and if he can’t answer he don’t get the money.”
“Say, that’s pretty cute. I better think up a good one.”
“You better get the hundred dollars while Old Breen still got the window open.”
Charles was delighted with the game. He came back with the money in his hand. “I got the question,” he said.
“I hope it ain’t your mother’s middle name. Lot of people don’t remember.”
“No, nothing like that. It’s this. ‘What did you give Father on his birthday just before you went in the army?’ ”
“It’s a good question but it’s long as hell. Can’t you cut it down to ten words?”
“Who’s paying for it? Answer is, ‘A pup.’ ”
“Wouldn’t nobody guess that,” said Carlton. “Well, it’s you paying, not me.”
“Be funny if he forgot,” said Charles. “He wouldn’t ever get home.”
3
Adam came walking out from the village. His shirt was dirty and the stolen clothes were wrinkled and soiled from having been slept in for a week. Between the house and the barn he stopped and listened for his brother, and in a moment he heard him hammering at something in the big new tobacco barn. “Oh, Charles!” Adam called.
The hammering stopped, and there was silence. Adam felt as though his brother were inspecting him through the cracks in the barn. Then Charles came out quickly and hurried to Adam and shook hands.
“How are you?”
“Fine,” said Adam.
“Good God, you’re thin!”
“I guess I am. And I’m years older too.”
Charles inspected him from head to foot. “You don’t look prosperous.”
“I’m not.”
“Where’s your valise?”
“I haven’t got one.”
“Jesus Christ! Where’ve you been?”
“Mostly wandering around all over.”
“Like a hobo?”
“Like a hobo.”
After all the years and the life that had made creased leather out of Charles’ skin and redness in his dark eyes, Adam knew from remembering that Charles was thinking of two things—the questions and something else.
“Why didn’t you come home?”
“I just got to wandering. Couldn’t stop. It gets into you. That’s a real bad scar you’ve got there.”
“That’s the one I wrote you about. Gets worse all the time. Why didn’t you write? Are you hungry?” Charles’ hands itched into his pockets and out and touched his chin and scratched his head.
“It may go away. I saw a man once—bartender—he had one that looked like a cat. It was a birthmark. His nickname was Cat.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Sure, I guess I am.”
“Plan to stay home now?”
“I—I guess so. Do you want to get to it now?”
“I—I guess so,” Charles echoed him. “Our father is dead.”
“I know.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Station agent told me. How long ago did he die?”
“ ’Bout a month.”
“What of?”
“Pneumonia.”
“Buried here?”
“No. In Washington. I got a letter and newspapers. Carried him on a caisson with a flag over it. The Vice-President was there and the President sent a wreath. All in the papers. Pictures too—I’ll show you. I’ve got it all.”
Adam studied his brother’s face until Charles looked away. “Are you mad at something?” Adam asked.
“What should I be mad at?”
“It just sounded—”
“I’ve got nothing to be mad at. Come on, I’ll get you something to eat.”
“All right. Did he linger long?”
“No. It was galloping pneumonia. Went right out.”
Charles was covering up something. He wanted to tell it but he didn’t know how to go about it. He kept hiding in words. Adam fell silent. It might be a good thing to be quiet and let Charles sniff and circle until he came out with it.
“I don’t take much stock in messages from the beyond,” said Charles. “Still, how can you know? Some people claim they’ve had messages—old Sarah Whitburn. She swore. You just don’t know what to think. You didn’t get a message, did you? Say, what the hell’s bit off your tongue?”