The Best Alternate History Stories Of The Twentieth Century Part 19

"Hey there-where you going?"

"To get something to eat. Anything wrong with that?"

I felt him looking suspiciously at me in the darkness. "All right. But don't keep us waiting. We'll be ready to go in twenty minutes."

"That's right," added one of the others. "Don't want to keep the horse waiting. We're kind to animals, ain't we, Chuck?"

I found a lunchroom where I gorged on fish and potatoes, happy to get away from the unvarying bread and heart. My enjoyment was tarnished though by the knowledge that I was not through with the night's adventure. What freight Sprovis and his companions were loading in the van now, I had no idea-except that it was nothing innocent.

When I turned the corner into 26th Street again, the shadowy ma.s.s of the horse and van was gone from its place by the curb. Alarmed, I broke into a run and discovered it turning in the middle of the street. I jumped and caught hold of the dash, pulling myself aboard. "What's the idea?"

A fist caught me in the shoulder, almost knocking me back into the street. Zigzags of shock ran down my arm, terminating in a numbing pain. Desperately, I clung to the dash.

"Hold it," someone growled, "it's the punk who came with. Let him in."

Another voice, evidently belonging to the man who'd hit me, admonished, "Want to watch yourself, chum. Not go jumping up like that without warning. I mighta stuck a shiv in your ribs insteada my hand."

I could only repeat, "What's the idea of trying to run off with the van? I'm responsible for it."

"He's responsible for it, Chuck, see," mocked another voice from the body of the van. "It ain't polite not to wait for him."

I was wedged between the driver and my a.s.sailant; my shoulder ached and I was beginning to be frightened now my first anger had pa.s.sed. These were "action" members of the Grand Army; men who committed battery, mayhem, arson, robbery and murder. I had been both foolhardy and lucky; realizing this, it seemed diplomatic not to try for possession of the reins.

We turned north on 6th Avenue; the street lights showed Sprovis driving. He was one of those who thought a horse was a mechanical contrivance for getting somewhere quickly, regardless of the weight he was pulling or whether he was tired or not. On several counts our speed was stupid; if nothing else it called attention to the van at a time when most commercial vehicles had been stabled for the night and the traffic was almost entirely carriages, buggies, hacks and minibiles.

It was the monotonous chuffing of a minibile coming slowly close behind us that formed the subconscious pattern of my thought; when we turned eastward in the Forties I exclaimed, "There's a minibile following us!"

Even as I spoke the trackless locomotive pulled alongside and then darted ahead to pocket us by nosing diagonally toward the curb. The horse must have been too exhausted to shy; he simply stopped short and I heard the curses of the felled pa.s.sengers behind me.

"Only half a block from-"

"Quick! Break the guns out-"

"No guns, you fool! Hands or knives. Get them all!"

It was not believable that this could be happening in one of New York's best residential districts in the year 1942. Nor was the speed of the whole incident normal. The tempo was so swift that if there were any spectators in the bordering windows or on the sidewalks they didn't have time to realize what was happening before it was all over.

Four men from the minibile were met by five from the van. The odds were not too unequal, for the attackers had a discipline which Sprovis and his companions lacked. An uneven, distorting light made the action seem jumpy, as though the partic.i.p.ants were caught at static moments, changing their att.i.tudes in flashes of invisibility between.

Their leader attempted to parley during one of these seconds of apparent inaction. "Hey, you men-we got nothing against you. They's a thousand dollars apiece in it for you-"

A fist smacked into his mouth. The light caught his face as he was jolted back, but I hardly needed its revelation to confirm my recognition of his voice. It was Colonel Tolliburr all right.

The Confederate agents had bra.s.s knuckles and blackjacks; the Grand Army men had knives. Both sides were intent on keeping the struggle as quiet and inconspicuous as possible; no one shouted with anger or screamed with pain. This m.u.f.fled intensity made the struggle the more gruesome. I heard the impact of blows, the grunts of effort, the choked-back expressions of pain, the sc.r.a.ping of shoes on the pavement and the thud of falls. One of the defenders fell, and two of the attackers, before the two remaining Southrons gave up the battle and attempted to escape.

They started for the minibile, evidently realized they would not have time to get away in it, and began running down the street. Their indecision did for them. As the Grand Army men closed in around them I saw them raise their arms in the traditional gesture of surrender. Then they were struck down.

V.

For the next days my reading was pretense. I used the opened book before me to mask my privacy from Tyss while I pondered the meaning and extent of that night's events. From sc.r.a.ps of conversation on which I eavesdropped, from the newspapers, from deduction and remembered fragments I reconstructed the picture which made the background. Its borders reached a long way from Astor Place.

I have explained how the world had waited for years, half in dread, half in resignation, for war between the German Union and the Confederate States. Everyone expected the point of explosion would be the Confederacy's ally, the British Empire, and that at least part of the war would be fought in the United States. Apparently we were helpless to prevent this.

The Grand Army's scheme was evidently a far-fetched and fantastic attempt to circ.u.mvent the probable course of history. The counterfeiting of Spanish money on a large scale represented an aspect of this attempt, which was nothing less than trying to force the war to start, not through the Confederacy's ally, but through the German Union's-the Spanish Empire. With enormous amounts of the spurious currency, the Grand Army was planning to circulate it by means of emissaries pa.s.sing as Confederate agents and thus embroil the Confederacy with Spain in the hope the war would commence and be fought in the Spanish Empire. It was an ingenuous idea, I see now, evolved by men without knowledge of the actual mechanics of world politics.

The second delivery had represented the less extravagant and romantic side of the Grand Army. Embarking, as they had years before, on activities of violence, the fine distinction between crimes undertaken to advance a cause and allied crimes undertaken to supply the organization with funds had become obscured. Relations of increasing intimacy were established with ordinary gangsters. The a.s.sociation was convenient to both, for the Grand Army often supplied weapons and information in return for more immediately political favors.

Thus, Sprovis had been engaged in comparatively innocent gunrunning to a gang which probably had no other connection with the Grand Army, when Tolliburr and his friends waylaid us in the minibile. Undoubtedly what they wanted was proof of the counterfeiting scheme, but they had overlooked or somehow missed the rendezvous on 26th Street-disastrously for them.

Any lingering sentimental notions I might have entertained about the nature of the Grand Army disappeared with the certainty Sprovis had killed his prisoners. At the first opportunity I used the card Tolliburr had given me, but the suspicion and lack of information with which I was received at the address confirmed my idea. No bodies were found and there was no mention in the newspapers of the disappearance of any Southrons. Naturally the Confederate government would call no attention to their fate, but I had no doubts.

Even as I reproached myself for the weakness and moral cowardice which had prevented me from refusing to be an accomplice to these crimes, I looked forward to my release. I had not seen Enfandin since his offer; in a week I should leave the bookstore for his sanctuary, and I resolved my first act should be to tell him everything. And then that dream was exploded just as it was about to be realized.

I do not know who broke into the consulate and was surprised in the act, who shot and wounded Enfandin so seriously he was unable to speak for weeks before he was finally returned to Haiti to recuperate or die. He could not get in touch with me and I was not permitted to see him; the police guard was doubly zealous to keep him from all contact since he was an accredited diplomat and a black man.

I did not know who shot him. It was quite probably no one connected either with the Grand Army or the gang to whom the guns were delivered. But I did not know. I could not know. He might have been shot with one of the revolvers which had been in the van that night, or by Sprovis or George Pondible. Since the ultimate chain could have led back to me, it did lead back to me.

The loss of my chance to escape from the bookstore was the least of my despair. It seemed to me I was caught by the inexorable, choiceless circ.u.mstance in which Tyss so firmly believed and Enfandin denied. I could escape neither my guilt nor the surroundings conducive to further guilt. I could not change destiny.

Was this all merely the self-torture of an introverted young man? Possibly. I only know that for a long time-long as one in his early twenties measures time-I lost all interest in life, even dallying at intervals with thoughts of suicide. I put books aside with distaste, or indifference-which was worse.

I cannot say precisely when it was my despair began to lift. I know that one day-it was cold and the snow was deep on the ground-I saw a girl walking briskly, red-cheeked, breathing in quick, visible puffs, and for the first time in months my glance was not one of indifference. When I returned to the bookstore I picked up Field Marshal Liddell-Hart's Life of General Pickett and opened it to the place where I had abandoned it. In a moment I was fully absorbed.

Paradoxically, once I was myself again I was no longer the same Hodge Backmaker. For the first time I was determined to do what I wanted instead of waiting and hoping events would somehow turn out right for me. Somehow I was going to free myself from the dead end of the bookstore-and I wasn't going to escape into indenture, either.

All this was pointed by my discovery that I was exhausting the possibilities of the volumes around me. The ones I now sought were rare and it became more difficult for me to find them. With the innocence of one who has not been part of academic life I imagined them ready to hand in a dozen college libraries.

Nor, to tell the truth, was I any longer completely satisfied with the second hand, the printed word. My friendship with Enfandin had shown me how a personal, face-to-face relationship between teacher and student could be so much more fruitful and it seemed to me such relationships could develop into ones between fellow scholars-a mutual pursuit of knowledge which was not compet.i.tive.

Additionally I wanted to search the real, the original sources, the unpublished ma.n.u.scripts of partic.i.p.ants or scholars, the old diaries and letters which might shade a meaning or subtly change the interpretation of some old, forgotten action.

Ideally my problems could be solved by a fellowship or an instructorship at some college. But how was this to be obtained without the patronage of a Tolliburr or an Enfandin? I had no credentials worth a second's consideration. Even though the immigration bars kept out graduates of British, Confederate or German universities, no college in the United States would accept a self-taught young man who had not only little Latin and less Greek, but no mathematics, languages, or sciences at all.

For a long time I considered possible ways and means, an exercise rarely more practical than spinning daydreams without contriving any steps to attain their consummation. I knew I was waiting to be acted upon, rather than attempting to initiate action on my own account, but it seemed to me impossible to exercise that free will of which Enfandin had spoken.

At last, more in a spirit of whimsical absurdity than in sober hope, I wrote out a letter of application, setting forth the qualifications I imagined myself to possess, a.s.saying the extent of my learning with a conceit which only ingenuousness could palliate, and outlining the work I had projected for my future. With much care and many revisions I set this composition in type. It was undoubtedly a foolish gesture, but not having access to so costly a machine as a typewriter, and not wanting to reveal this by penning the letters by hand, I used this transparent device.

Tyss read one of the copies I struck off. His expression was critical. "Is it very bad?" I asked hopelessly.

"Should have used more leading. And you could have lined it up better and eliminated the hyphens. It's things like that-the details-which make a machine to set type, that inventors have been failing to invent for so long, impractical. I'm afraid you'll never make a first-cla.s.s printer, Hodgins."

He was concerned only with the typesetting, uninterested in the outcome.

The government mails being one of the favorite victims of holdup men, and pneumatic post limited to local areas, I dispatched the letters by way of Wells, Fargo to a comprehensive list of colleges. I can't say I then waited for the replies to flow in, for though I knew the company's system of heavily armed guards would insure delivery of my applications, I had no antic.i.p.ation that any of the recipients would bother to answer. As a matter of fact I put it pretty well out of my mind and divided my attention between my work for Tyss, my reading, and a fruitless endeavor to devise some new scheme.

It was several months later, toward the end of September, that the telegram came signed Thomas K. Haggerwells. It read, ACCEPT NO OFFER TILL OUR REPRESENTATIVE EXPLAINS HAGGERSHAVEN.

I had sent no copy of my letter to York, Pennsylvania-where the telegram had originated-nor anywhere near it. I knew of no colleges in that vicinity. And I had never heard of Mr. (or Doctor, or Professor) Haggerwells. I might have thought the message a mean joke, except that Tyss's nature didn't run to this type of humor and no one else knew of the letters except those to whom they were addressed.

I found no reference to Haggershaven in any of the directories I consulted, which was not too surprising, considering the slovenly way such things were put together. I decided that if such a place existed I could only wait patiently till the "representative"-if there really was one-arrived.

Tyss having left for the day, I swept a little, dusted some, straightened a few of the books (any serious attempt to arrange the stock would have been futile) and took up a new emendation of Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles by one Captain Eisenhower.

I was so deep in the good captain's a.n.a.lysis (what a strategist he would have made himself, given the opportunity!) that I heard no customer enter, sensed no impatient presence. I was only recalled from my book by a rather sharp, "Is the proprietor in?"

"No, ma'am," I answered, reluctantly abandoning the page. "He's out for the moment. Can I help you?"

My eyes, accustomed to the store's poor light, had the advantage over hers, still adjusting from the sunlit street. Secure in my boldness, I measured her vital femininity, a quality which seemed-if such a thing is possible-impersonal. I recognized an insistent sensuality (I think I have indicated my susceptibility to women; such a susceptibility I'm sure acts as an intuitive, a telepathic device) as I recognized the fact she was bareheaded, and almost as tall as I, and rather large-boned. There was nothing immediate or related to myself about it.

Nor was it connected with surface attributes; she was not beautiful, certainly not pretty, though she might have been called handsome in a way. Her hair, ginger-colored and clubbed low on her neck, waved crisply; her eyes seemed slate gray. (Later I learned they could vary from paleness to blue-green.) The fleshly greediness was betrayed, if at all, only by the width and set of her lips and the boldness of her expression.

She smiled, and I decided I had been wrong in thinking her tone peremptory. "I'm Barbara Haggerwells. I'm looking for a Mr. Backmaker"-she glanced at a slip of paper-"a Hodgins M. Backmaker who evidently uses this as an accommodation address."

"I'm Hodge Backmaker," I muttered in despair. "I-I work here."

I suppose I expected her to say nastily, So I see! or the usual inane, It must be fascinating! Instead she said, "I wonder if you've run across a book called The Properties of X by Whitehead?"

"Uh-I... is it a mystery story?"

"I'm afraid not. It's a book on mathematics by a mathematician very much out of favor. It's quite scarce; I've been trying to get a copy for a long time."

So naturally and easily she led me away from my embarra.s.sment and into talking of books, relieving me of self-consciousness and some of the mortification in being exposed at my humble job by the "representative" of the telegram. I admitted deficient knowledge of mathematics and ignorance of Mr. Whitehead, though stoutly maintaining-truthfully-that the book was not in stock, while she a.s.sured me only a specialist would have heard of so obscure a theoretician. This made me ask, with the awe one feels for an expert in an alien field, if she were a mathematician, to which she replied, "Heavens, no-I'm a physicist. But mathematics is my tool."

I looked at her with respect. Anyone, I thought, can read a few books and set himself up as an historian; to be a physicist means genuine learning. And I doubted she was much older than I.

She said abruptly, "My father is interested in knowing something about you."

I acknowledged this with a gesture somewhere between a nod and a bow. What could I say? She had been examining and gauging me for the last half hour. "Your father is Thomas Haggerwells?"

"Haggerwells of Haggershaven," she confirmed, as though explaining everything. There was pride in her voice, and a hint of arrogance.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Miss Haggerwells, but I'm afraid I'm as ignorant of Haggershaven as of mathematics."

"I thought you said you'd been reading history. It's odd you've come upon no reference to the haven in the records of the past 75 years."

I shook my head helplessly. "I suppose my reading has been scattered. Haggershaven is a college?"

"No. Haggershaven is-Haggershaven." She resumed her equanimity, her air of smiling tolerance. "It's hardly a college since it has neither student body nor faculty-rather, both are one at the haven. Anyone admitted is a scholar or potential scholar anxious to devote himself to learning. Not many are acceptable."

She need hardly have added that; it was obvious I could never be one of the elect, even if I hadn't offended her by never having heard of the haven. I knew I couldn't pa.s.s the most lenient of entrance examinations to an ordinary college, much less the dedicated place she represented.

"There are no formal requirements for fellowship," she went on, "beyond the undertaking to work to full capacity, to pool all knowledge and hold back none from scholars anywhere, to contribute economically to the haven in accordance with decisions of the majority of fellows, and to vote on questions without consideration of personal gain. There! That certainly sounds like the stuffiest manifesto delivered this year."

"It sounds too good to be true."

"Oh, it's true enough. But there's another side, not so theoretical. The haven is neither wealthy nor endowed-we have to earn our living. The fellows draw no stipend; they have food, clothes, shelter, whatever books and materials they need-no luxuries. We often have to leave our work to do manual labor to bring in food or money for all."

"I've read admiringly of such communities," I said enthusiastically, "but I thought they'd all disappeared 50 or 60 years ago."

"Have you and did you?" she asked contemptuously. "You'll be surprised that Haggershaven is neither Owenite nor Fourierist. We don't live in phalansteries, practice group marriage or vegetarianism; our organization is expedient, subject to revision, not doctrinaire; contribution to the common stock is voluntary and we are not concerned with each other's private lives."

"I beg your pardon, Miss Haggerwells. I didn't mean to annoy you."

"It's all right. Perhaps I'm touchy; all my life I've seen the suspiciousness of the farmers around-sure that we're up to something immoral, or at least illegal. And the parallel distrust of the conventional schools. Detachedly, the haven may indeed be a refuge for misfits, but is it necessarily wrong not to fit into the civilization around us?"

"I'm prejudiced because I certainly haven't fitted in myself. Do you... do you think there's any chance Haggershaven would accept me?" Whatever reserve I'd tried to maintain deserted me; I knew my voice expressed only childish longing.

"I couldn't say," she answered primly. "Acceptance or rejection depends entirely on the vote of the entire fellowship. All I'm here to do is offer you transportation to and from York. Neither you nor the haven is bound."

"I'm perfectly willing to be bound," I said fervently.

"You may not be so rash after a few weeks at the haven."

I was about to reply when Little Aggie-so called to distinguish her from Fat Aggie who was in much the same trade-came in. Little Aggie supplemented her nocturnal earning around Astor Place by begging in the same neighborhood during the day.

"Sorry, Aggie," I said, "Mr. Tyss didn't leave anything for you."

"Maybe the lady would help a poor working girl down on her luck," she suggested, coming very close. "My, that's a pretty outfit you have-looks like real silk, too."

Barbara Haggerwells drew away with anger and loathing on her face. "No," she said sharply. "No, nothing!" She turned to me. "I must be going-I'll leave you to entertain your friend."

"Oh, I'll go," said Little Aggie cheerfully, "no need to get in an uproar. Bye-bye."

I was frankly puzzled; the puritanical reaction didn't seem consistent with Miss Haggerwells' character as I read it. Had I been mistaken? "I'm sorry Little Aggie bothered you. She's really not a bad sort, and she does have a hard time getting along."

"I'm sure you must enjoy her company immensely. I'm sorry we can't offer similar attractions at the haven."

Apparently she thought my relations with Aggie were professional. Even so, her att.i.tude was peculiar. I could not flatter myself she was interested in me as a man, yet her flare-up indicated a strange kind of jealousy-impersonal, like the sensuality I attributed, rightly or wrongly, to her-as though the presence of another woman was an affront. I might have been amused if this were not one more obstacle to Haggershaven.

"Please don't go yet. For one thing"-I cast around for something to hold her till I could restore a more favorable impression "-for one thing you've never told me how Haggershaven happened to get my application."

She gave me a cold, angry look. "Even though we're cranks, educators often turn such letters over to us. After all, they may want to apply themselves some day."

I slowly coaxed her back into her previous mood, and again we talked of books. And now I thought I felt a new warmth in her voice and glance-as though she had won some kind of victory. When she left I hoped she was not too prejudiced against me. As for myself I admitted it would be easy enough to find her desirable-if one were not afraid of the humiliations I felt it was in her nature to inflict.

VI.

This time I didn't offer Tyss two weeks' notice. "Well Hodgins, I made all the appropriate valedictory remarks on a previous occasion, so I'll not repeat them, except to say the precision of the script is extraordinary."

It seemed to me Tyss was saying in a roundabout way that everything was for the best. For the first time I saw him as slightly pathetic rather than sinister; extreme pessimism and vulgar optimism evidently met, like his circular time. I smiled indulgently and thanked him sincerely for all his kindness.

In 1944 almost 100 years had pa.s.sed since New York and eastern Pennsylvania were linked in a railroad network, yet I don't suppose my journey differed much in speed or comfort from one taken by Granpa Hodgins' father. The stream ferry carried me across the Hudson to Jersey. I had heard there were only financial, not technical obstacles to a bridge or tunnel. These had never even been suggested except by impractical dreamers who believed its cost could be saved in a few years by running trains directly to Manhattan.

Nor was the ferry the only antique survival on the trip. The cars were all ancient, obvious discards from Confederate or Canadian lines. Flat wheels were common; the worn out locomotives dragged them protestingly over the wobbly rails and uneven roadbed. First cla.s.s pa.s.sengers sat on straw or napless plush seats; second cla.s.s ones stood in the aisles or on the platforms; the third cla.s.s rode the roofs-safe enough at the low speed except for sudden jerks or jolts.