“Wade Webler is exactly as selfish, and as callous, as you, or I, or any man or woman who desires this or that from me. Yet he was the first to greet me when I entered this town. The first to tell me who might help me with our common aims. I might add that in a moment of great personal need, when I needed money for a relative in dire straits, he assisted me without question. His generosity has been unmatched, Mr. Walker.”
“You’re in his pocket,” George muttered, but Glass went on as if he hadn’t said a word.
“Not until today, in these past few months, has Mr. Webler ever asked of me anything in return. And the one thing he has now requested is that I recuse myself from this business with one dead freed Negro, lest there be grave trouble riled up. If that is the lone requirement to maintain peace amongst the citizenry of this godforsaken town, to keep my superiors happy, and to aid a man who has helped me dearly, well, I will happily turn a blind eye.”
At this, Glass returned his attention to the papers on his desk and did not deign to acknowledge George.
“I’ve strived for this town to be a model for others in the state,” he continued, “and when the Freedmen’s Bureau arrives, I believe they will see it as such. This sorry fellow will help make that possible. If you ask me, his is a sacrifice with more resonance than many who died on the battlefield. Be content knowing that. However sad it is.”
George had failed to notice the soldiers standing at attention, waiting for their superior’s ear—for George’s own departure. There was something in their eyes, neutral and dispassionate, that translated as belittlement. This pitiful stranger flailing wildly before them, denied all he sought. He’d embarrassed himself.
“I suppose it’s as you said at the saloon, then,” George said. “We have no further business between us.”
Glass looked up, confused, it seemed, that George was still in his presence.
“General Glass,” George said, already turning to take his leave.
*
He thought of visiting Ezra but couldn’t muster the energy to weather any kind of reprimand; instead he took himself to the furniture warehouse, still in a sour mood. He had to slip past a toilet—a rusty tin can beneath a splintered wooden stool—and a baby carriage just to reach the front door, and inside it was mostly just a collection of more unwanted goods. The path to the register was defined less by any clear direction than by the absence of obstacles barricading the walkway. At one point, George turned and ran straight into a globe the size of his waist and followed this by nearly tripping onto a feather bed, which at the time felt like an acceptable end to his afternoon.
By then the proprietor, a man in a white shirt and black vest who reeked of tobacco, had found him. When George stated his purpose, he led him to the back of the store where the coffins were housed.
“They don’t tend to put customers in a spending mood if we keep them out front,” the man explained.
Having spoken with Prentiss and gained his approval, George requested a birch coffin.
“I got walnut trees out behind my house,” the man said. “So I sell walnut coffins.”
There would be no gain in protesting.
“Lined, trimmed, and raised,” the man said. “All for the price you’d pay for a decent cask of sherry. It might not be birch, but it’s a steal.”
George eyed him, but the man only returned the look, and so he simply paid and asked for assistance in carrying it to where Ridley was tied up.
“It can be arranged,” the man said. “But I’m afraid the labor is extra.”
“It’s only a hundred yards through town.”
A long silence hung between them, and in the small bends of light that reached the back room the ancient dust of the place milled in the air. The man lit a cigar and stood there idly.
“Oh, good Lord,” George said. He pulled out all the bills he had left and put them on the table. “Just grab an end and help me already.”
“Jessup!” the man yelled.
From the back door appeared a boy dressed identically to the man—white shirt, black vest upon it, a ghoulish look transposed upon him by his surroundings.
“Yes?” the boy said.
The man pointed his cigar toward George. “Help this man carry his coffin.”
It was heavy for one but tolerable for two. They walked outside with it and down the steps, but George told the boy he needed a moment and they set the coffin down. Hackstedde’s horse was gone now, along with Tim’s—Webler’s as well. No life stirred behind the curtained windows of the brick building.