The Webler home was the last one—a sloping mansard roof, three stories of living quarters, and tightly groomed shrubs forming a hedge just high enough to allow privacy but not so much to deter a welcome visitor. From the street Caleb peered up at August’s room, wondering if, as had been the case for so many visits that had preceded this one, the boy might be waiting there for him. Back then, after gazing down and waving, August would vanish, only to reappear on the front porch to lead him inside. But the bedroom was dark. He turned, as if what lay behind him might signal some command of what he should do next, but saw only shrubs. Caleb had considered this moment since he’d been released by the Union soldiers and set off for home. Yet here he was stalled on an ass, lacquered in sweat, as frightful as the day of his desertion.
The voice at the front door calling his name was startling enough to bring both him and Ridley to attention. They looked up together, although the donkey returned to grazing while Caleb was forced to think of something to offer in response. Not that this was new. He had always struggled to speak up in the presence of Wade Webler.
“Howdy!” was all he said, to his great dismay.
“Caleb Walker, as I live and breathe. August told me—well hell, he told me you went and got yourself killed. But that don’t look to be the case. You get over here. Looking like you’re halfway to melting and that sun’s giving us a perfectly polite start of an afternoon. You got way too much of your father in you, I swear. Not a Southern bone in your body.”
Caleb tied down Ridley and walked over to the veranda. Mr. Webler had on an assemblage of formal wear—well-cut trousers, a jacket with tail—yet his silk shirt exposed his pigeon chest, with great cumulus puffs of hair poking out. Caleb had never quite seen the man so exposed and was not sure if he should offer his hand for a shake or let him return inside to tidy up.
“What a sight,” Mr. Webler said. “What. A. Sight.”
They shook, and already his body was tensing up so tight with nerves that part of him wished he might trade spots out front with Ridley and spend the rest of the day eating grass in solitude.
“Are you well? Have you seen your parents? They must be ecstatic.”
“They’re quite happy, sir.”
“Well, it’s a shame you made your return only today. You missed my gala last night, a rousing success, if I do say so myself.”
Mr. Webler motioned inside and Caleb followed him to find Negroes on their knees cleaning the floor and little boys and girls on their rear ends reaching behind cabinets and couches with rags where their elders could not; glasses were still being collected onto trays and although he only glimpsed the dining room as the door closed he caught sight of a tablecloth blotted over with wine. After being led into the parlor Caleb was forced to sit beside a grandfather clock that complained at timed intervals he could not make sense of. Mr. Webler held forth, speaking as if Caleb had come here to see him, and Caleb could discern no means of wriggling out of the interaction without appearing rude.
“I thought it wise to put on something of a fundraiser for the cause. We collected an amount I’m quite proud of that will go toward doing some fine work for this great county. The people here, even in times of emergency, are still as Christian as they come, and you could station all of Grant’s army in this town and we would still preserve our values, our heritage…”
They called the man the freight train, for when the words gained steam he kept his engine stoked with so much liquor and tobacco he could entertain late into the night without a stop to rest. He had never run for office, but often spoke like a pol, and lorded over the town as if he were the mayor. There was talk of a seafood stew, of women dancing as their husbands fell asleep. Indeed, the whole affair harked back to a time when the world was right, and made them wonder if Old Ox might yet escape from the Union’s embrace altogether.
“It’s sounds like quite the ball, sir.”
“Not a ball, Caleb. A gala.”
“I’m not sure I know the difference.”
Mr. Webler grunted and Caleb realized, for the first time, that he was still drunk from the night before. He paused to collect himself, enough to pretend at some greater interest in Caleb.
“Put it aside,” he said. “I’d rather hear of your time. I only know that you got separated from August. Beyond that things are…unclear.”
This was exactly the kind of statement for which Caleb should’ve been prepared. On his way home, after he’d been released by the Union, whenever he was asked by strangers about his service—the battles seen, the toils endured—Caleb had often delivered a line of grand vagueness that tended to silence whoever had posed the question: I don’t wish to brag of the triggers I’ve pulled or the places in which I did so. （Which omitted the fact that he had not pulled any triggers at all.） Yet Mr. Webler would so easily parry his routine that he knew it was wise to avoid it from the start.