Power in the Blood, Page 2

  The new train having been shunted onto the main line, the orphans’ journey resumed. Reinvigorated by food, they could not fall asleep as ordered by Mrs. Canby. The distraction of a passing landscape no longer available to them, the children found renewed interest in one another, and the car soon was filled with a continuous babble of young voices raised to their highest pitch to overcome the grumble and clatter of rolling wheels and the more immediate din of their neighbors.

  “Cease!” cried Mrs. Canby. “You must be quiet!”

  Zoe wished it were possible to change seats temporarily, just so she could talk to some of the other girls, or even some of the boys. It was wearisome to be forever in the same place, looking at the same faces arranged opposite her, not one of which she liked. It had been interesting at first to listen as Kerwin held whispered swearing contests with the boy beside him, an Irish youth named McIlwray, who could not, despite coaching from Kerwin, learn how to pronounce “fuck” correctly. It became a laughing matter in the immediate vicinity of the swearers, and McIlwray grew irritated. “Fock yew,” he said with genuine feeling, and Kerwin responded in kind.

  But that sport had become boring through repetition, and Zoe chafed at her immobility. Occasional rearrangements of seating were made by Mrs. Canby, usually to terminate cases of harassment, verbal or otherwise, conducted by boys against girls. Mrs. Canby even threatened to separate the sexes, girls on one side of the aisle, boys on the other, if such despicable behavior did not cease upon the instant. The threat was not carried out, to Zoe’s relief. For all that she wanted to sample friendship throughout the car, she would have felt lost without her brothers on either side. Mr. Canby slept throughout the worst of this crisis, his snores the object of much stifled giggling.

  Migration among seats being forbidden, the one place anyone could visit, after raising a hand, was the crude privy built onto the car’s rear platform. In daylight it had been exciting to watch the crossties flashing past under the hole in the plank; it caused a delicious shiver to imagine oneself falling through, to be cut in half by the wheels. After nightfall some of the girls preferred using the privy in twos, comforting each other beneath the inadequate light of a swaying oil lamp while they relieved themselves onto a roadbed made invisible by darkness.

  Sleep was difficult on the unyielding benches. The children sat as they had throughout the day, the next shoulder along providing a bony pillow as the night lengthened. Girls used each other’s soft laps, but the boys were denied this comfort, with the instinctive rejection of physical closeness among their kind. Drew was just young enough to avail himself of Zoe’s thighs without embarrassment. Zoe in turn leaned against sturdy Clay, upright as ever despite his closed eyes, behind which he slipped in and out of dreams that showed him Mama beckoning him further west, further west, until he came to a place where the sun lay like a molten ball of gold, a brilliant puddle on a desolate plain, and Mama was nowhere to be seen. Waking, he allowed himself a brief moment awash with tears that went unobserved in the dim car, now quiet as it swayed along rails into the Pennsylvanian night.

  Breakfast came from the same wicker basket: bread and chicken fat, plus two dried apricots apiece. Mr. Canby, a large man despite his incompleteness, was seen to stare at his portion for some time before eating it, his expression doleful. Lunch saw no change other than the Canbys’ having to reach deeper into the basket. Mealtimes had already become less rowdy, almost sullen occasions.

  In the evening, when the train reached Pittsburgh, there was a treat for all—dinner in the station restaurant. The menu was lengthy, but everyone had soup, Mrs. Canby having protested at the exorbitant price of every meat dish. Mr. Canby spooned soup under his mustache, his face darkened by unknown forces within. Glaring at his emptied bowl, he insisted there be a dessert. Over his wife’s objections, he ordered pie, and then pie again, not one belly having truly been filled. Mrs. Canby refused to look in his direction as they herded their charges back to the car, now hitched onto yet another train. The benches seemed less uncomfortable, an advantage of repletion, which Mr. Canby referred to as “intestinal fulfillment, like a live human’s supposed to feel at least once every twenty-four hours for good health.”

  The morning of the third day revealed Ohio, and now there was real excitement in the car. This was the first state in which it was possible to be selected for adoption. Orphans wondered, silently or aloud, at their chances. Clay was scornful; he told Zoe and Drew they had to hold out for more westerly regions. “Ohio’s just not far enough,” he said.

  In the afternoon it happened. The car was detached from the train and shunted onto a siding at the edge of a sizable town. A council representative approached smilingly to speak with the Canbys and suggested bringing all orphans to the town hall, where a crowd had already gathered in anticipation.

  The Children’s Aid Society was in its fifteenth year of good work, having begun in 1854, and a larger than usual turnout of prospective foster parents had assembled to survey the spring crop of adoptees. A diphtheria epidemic of unprecedented virulence the previous winter had sharpened interest in the children.

  “Plenty of families lost their little ones just recent,” the councilman whispered, keeping his voice from the straggling line of painfully hushed orphans following behind. “These here’ll be snapped up in double-quick time, I guarantee. Folks have come in from a hundred miles around, farmers mostly. They’ll be eager for the younguns, all right.”

  Inside the town hall, arranged on a long bench covered by cloth, without a single chair to impede access, a feast was waiting—a communal celebration of the orphans’ arrival. Anxious adult faces were everywhere, yet these were thrust into the background by the endless table of food, real food, present in variety and abundance. There were cold meats and cakes; fresh bread and pies; an assortment of dried fruit, notably apricots (these would be ignored); jars of preserves with their melted paraffin seals dug out; butter molded into rough blocks of tantalizing yellow; crocks of milk still smelling of the udder. Not a feast—a banquet.

  “Fall to and take your share,” commanded the councilman, and not an orphan hesitated. Surrounded by questing eyes and subtly pointing fingers, they attacked the fruits of central Ohio and set about gorging themselves. The councilman, a student of human nature, gently pushed the Canbys toward the food. “Have at it, one and all,” he urged.

  Mr. Canby held back several seconds more for propriety’s sake, then joined in under the guise of supervisor. “You, boy! Take less of a handful than that! Manners! One mouthful at a time there, laddie. Don’t be eating too fast now, or the cramps’ll follow … No need to shove! Plenty for everyone! Pass me a slice of that ham, missie … thank you kindly.”

  His wife resisted in agonized decorum for several minutes more, then slid among the tempting array, sampling here, ingesting there, all dignity set aside in pursuit of sustenance. This was her third trip west with orphans, and the Society, despite its fifteen years’ experience, still had not properly victualed the party, obliging Mr. Canby and herself to abandon decency before an audience of strangers. It was an unforgivable oversight, and she was determined, as prune pie overwhelmed her soul, to insist on adequate provender should she and Mr. Canby be selected for a fourth sojourn. Next time it would be different, or she would know the reason why.

  Bellies filled, the children became aware of the scrutiny that had attended their meal. As the last of the food disappeared, self-consciousness took hold, and they began studying the ground. Some of the older boys glared at the surrounding faces, daring them, whether to select or ignore them the boys themselves could not have said. The business of the day was at hand, and everyone inside the town hall knew it.

  The process had no formal beginning; men and their wives simply began moving among the orphans, as wary of what needed to be done as were the children they sought.

  Often the topic of introduction was the food that had been consumed during the time of silent appraisal that now was ended. “That peach
cobbler, my missus made it. You kin have more, you come home with us. Be good to you. Lost our own girl, and we need another’n for the family. There’s a sister an’ two brothers for you to be with.”

  Or it might be a dare: “You strong? Look purty strong to me. Got work for a strong back. Figure you’re up to that, boy? Welcome to climb in the wagon and come on home. Decent home. Christian.”

  Or cajolery: “There’s a swing in the chinaberry tree. My husband here made it special for a special someone. Could that be you? I been wanting a nice little girl since ours got took. The Lord taketh. Did he bring you? I suspect he did. You think he might’ve done that, brung you to us? We’re Sullivanses, from around here. Biggest chinaberry tree in the county. Mr. Sullivan’s grampa, he planted it. Got the swing all set, and there’s dresses, real pretty dresses. You’ll grow into ’em right soon. What’s your name?”

  Or painfully casual: “Plan on going further west, boy? It don’t get no better than around here, that’s a fact. That’s why they stopped here and give you a chance to stay. First choice is best choice, they say. Had my eye on you, me and my wife. She’s sayin’ she likes the look of you, and I won’t say no if that’s what you’d like, to come with us. You think about it and don’t rush or nothin’. We weren’t lookin’ at no one else, I’ll tell you. Whereabouts you from, son?”

  The answers came quickly, or not at all; a smile and nod were often enough for “yes,” a nervous sideways glance or lengthy boot-studying as good as “no.” There was little coercion, no real bribery other than the promise of good food and hand-me-down clothing kept like holy shrouds in the closets of the dead, awaiting resurrection. The smiles behind beards or hidden in the shadows of calico bonnets were genuine.

  Sometimes an orphan didn’t know for sure if the people stooping down for an answer were indeed the right ones, but agreed to go with them through instinct, or a calculated loathing of the railroad car’s harsh benches. Some thought Ohio must be pretty far west already, so why go further? Deals were struck with a look, a wink and a smile, an awkward handshake between man and boy, the placing of a woman’s hand on some girl’s narrow shoulder.

  Clay kept his family close by him, flanked himself with sister and brother. His knowledge of geography was scanty, but he knew Ohio was below Lake Erie, and that was nowhere near far enough west. He held Zoe and Drew beside himself and challenged them all, the farmers and townspeople in their Sunday best, with unmistakable sullenness.

  Mr. Canby noted the look. There was one like this boy on every trip, resentful and proud and difficult, made that way by reasons Mr. Canby didn’t really want to know. He hadn’t informed himself of any orphan’s circumstances since the first trip, when the stories, told with matter-of-fact directness, had made him weep after dark. The boy holding on to his own was defying kindness, hedging against selection, building a wall with his eyes. Mr. Canby had seen it all before, and knew who the last orphan on the train would be; the fact was stamped right there on his young brow like the mark of Cain. But Mr. Canby said nothing, offered no advice, knowing this was not the time or place. He would talk with the boy later. Mr. Canby turned away, bit into the last pastry and licked the flyaway crumbs from his mustache.

  They drifted by, those needy couples, and more than once cast interested eyes on the Dugans, but three mouths to feed were many, and above the purely practical considerations of investment in food and clothing and bed space there was the knowledge that three children linked by blood would never be wholly assimilated into a new family. No, they would have to be separated, one from another, to be made dependent upon their benefactors, especially the tall boy with the eyes that dared anyone to come closer and make an offer. No one did.

  3

  His wicker basket was replenished by the town, but Mr. Canby found his charges uninterested in food that night. Their car coupled onto the rear of a new train, the orphans found their number whittled by fully half; there was room for the remainder to sprawl as they wished. Ohio always got the most winsome; those less pleasing in appearance continued west.

  The hundred or so miles after that first stop in Ohio passed quietly, as the unselected asked themselves why it was that they were still on board the train. Even if they had chosen to avoid adoption for some reason, they felt the implicit shame of having passed through that first sieve, the net that gently snared. They felt, with undeserved passion, that they were rejects of one kind or another.

  Most, Mr. Canby knew, would brood over their feelings and submit to whoever invited them home at the very next stop. It would happen on this trip as it had happened before, and the sadness of it made him despair in ways he could never communicate to his wife, whose opinion was that orphans couldn’t afford to be choosy. Mr. Canby felt toward the leftovers the same kind of commiseration he used to feel for himself over the loss of his arm. It made no sense, but that was how he felt.

  When Clay came out of the privy he found Mr. Canby smoking his pipe on the moonlit car platform. Behind them the rails formed a gleaming set of parallel lines receding into darkness and infinity. “Nice night,” offered Mr. Canby, before Clay could escape.

  “Yes.”

  “Fresh air. Shame to cloud it like I do, but nicotine’s a powerful habit. Don’t you be taking it up.”

  “All right,” said Clay.

  “Did your sister and brother tell you how they feel?”

  “No.” Clay thought he meant how they felt about tobacco.

  “They disappointed about not getting picked back there?”

  Now Clay understood. “No,” he said.

  “In my experience, the chances of all three of you getting taken up by a family are pretty hopeless, but I guess you already thought of that. You can hold out forever like you did today, but we only go as far as Missouri, and not even all the way across. Sometimes we don’t even get that far, everyone getting picked before we get there. Don’t be hoping to hold off what has to come, boy. It won’t work. I’ve traveled this line before and seen the direction these things take. Sooner or later you’ll have to tell your brother and sister good-bye. I’m telling you as the oldest, and you need to be passing it on, so they’ll know and be prepared when the time comes. None of my business, you’re thinking, but it is. You think about it now, and tell them tomorrow.”

  Mr. Canby knocked out his pipe against the platform rail and went inside. Clay remained staring into the night, hating the friendly man who’d spoken the very thoughts that had filled him since the car resumed rolling. He stayed on the chilly platform until a girl came out to use the privy; she wouldn’t do so until Clay went away.

  “I don’t want to,” said Drew.

  “He says we have to,” Clay told him.

  “He can say it all he wants,” Zoe stated, “but he can’t make us do it.”

  Mr. Canby’s advice had been passed on next morning, and rejected.

  “Go tell him,” Zoe said.

  Clay didn’t want to but as the eldest, had little choice. He stood and moved along the car.

  “Mr. Canby, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Uh … we don’t want to. We decided.”

  “You won’t split up?”

  “Nossir.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Clay nodded, not trusting his voice. He hadn’t gone against the wishes of an adult male since before his father left Schenectady, four years earlier. His defiance then had earned him a badly wrenched shoulder and lacerations from a heavy belt buckle. He couldn’t remember the exact nature of the offense, but its punishment was probably Clay’s most indelible memory.

  “I guess I can’t make you,” said Mr. Canby. He knew someone who could.

  Clay returned to his seat. “I told him.”

  “What did he say?” Zoe asked.

  “He said he can’t make us if we don’t want to.”

  “There, I told you!” Zoe felt vindicated. “We just have to stay together and someone will take all of us.”

  Clay wasn’t so
sure anymore. Mr. Canby had experience in the orphan business, and if he said it wasn’t wise to stick together, it was probably true. Clay didn’t know if he liked Mr. Canby or not, but he didn’t think the man was a liar. It was disturbing to consider any option other than that which they wanted, terrifying to think they might have to.

  He kept the fear to himself. Zoe and Drew had recovered their spirits immediately; it would be a shame to make them sad again by talking out loud. Clay made Drew surrender the window seat so he could stare at the countryside instead of at his sister and brother; that way he could pretend he was by himself, which would certainly have made life a lot simpler were it so.

  “Andrew?”

  Mrs. Canby was hovering over them in the aisle. She was smiling, a rare and unsettling sight. “Andrew?” she said again, revealing even more gray teeth.

  “We call him Drew,” corrected Zoe.

  “Drew, then. Would you come with me, Drew?”

  “Where?” Drew asked. There was nowhere to go but the privy out on the platform, and his mama had quit taking him on trips of that kind a long time ago.

  “Just to share a seat with me,” said Mrs. Canby. “We’ll just be a minute,” she told the other two.

  Drew went with her.

  “She’ll try and change his mind,” Zoe predicted.

  “Well, he won’t listen.”

  They craned their necks but could see and hear nothing of what transpired on the Canbys’ bench. Mr. Canby, curiously enough, had gone out to the platform, presumably to smoke his pipe. The fact that the man was prepared to walk away and leave the business of persuasion to his wife was shocking, so unexpected it unnerved Clay completely; he simply didn’t know what to make of it, and was not surprised when Drew returned in tears.

  Zoe ignored his distress. “Well? What happened?”

  When Drew could finally talk, he said, “Mama’s watching from heaven, and we shouldn’t do what Clay says or she’ll be sad up there.…” He wiped snot onto his already grievously soiled cuff and looked at Clay and Zoe for consolation, or acceptance, guidance of any kind.