The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War by Howard Bahr

Author:Howard Bahr [Bahr, Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical, General, Literary, War & Military
ISBN: 9781504050548
Google: LUxODwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2018-04-23T22:00:00+00:00

THEY WERE ON the gallery again, smoking and drinking coffee, though the afternoon was hot. Sunday dinner had been tense; Aunt Vassar was in a brown study, more or less ignoring them all, even old Harper, who rhythmically tapped his fork against his plate through the whole meal until Gawain thought he might go mad from the sound. The possum had not gone far among five people, though Priam got a double portion: his own and most of Stribling’s. By tacit agreement, the confrontation at the church had not been mentioned, but Stribling brought it up now. “You played hell with Gault,” he said. He was sitting on the balustrade; Zeke, still wearing his tack, was grazing in the yard.

“I know,” said Gawain, “but there it was. I thought maybe I could get it over with.”

“You are a brash and hasty man for a scholar,” said Stribling, sipping his coffee, Gawain had no answer. In fact, he was deeply embarrassed by the episode and wished Stribling would change the subject. He said: “Where’d you get off to this mornin? I looked for you to go with us.”

“I went to a funeral,” said Stribling. Then he told about those he had seen at the burying ground. Gawain listened in astonishment. “So Gault was there,” he said. “And those other boys—Nobles and them. Are they that starved for amusement?”

“I can’t say it was all that amusing to em,” said Stribling. “Or to Molochi Fish either.”

“Molochi was there?”

“He wasn’t just there,” said Stribling. “He was standin right next to me. He came out of nowhere—upwind, so Zeke never smelled him. Old Molochi is quite a talker when his dogs ain’t around to distract him.”

“Well, everybody was there but me,” said Gawain. “What did you all talk about?”

Stribling told how at first Molochi Fish had ignored him completely. “Then all at once he pointed to my glass and wanted to know if you could see afar off with it. Then he wanted to borrow it. I don’t mind sayin I was reluctant, him with those rheumy eyes, but I give it to him, and he looked a long time, then he said some peculiar things. I tell you, Gawain, he is as crazy as a Chinee with the Holy Ghost. He hears things out in the woods at night, people talkin to him, dead ones mostly.”

“Dead people,” said Gawain. “Well, what do they tell him?”

Stribling set his cup on the balustrade. His hat was off, and a breeze ruffled in his long hair. Zeke lifted his head and pricked his ears, as if the same breeze had brought some message to him. But the yard was peaceful, the road empty. “He looked a long time,” Stribling went on, “movin the glass back and forth, then he give it back without so much as a word. I said, ‘What you know about this Gault?’ He chewed his gums awhile, then he told me a story. He said a dead boy came in his yard one night.

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