Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [41]
Clatter of boots on tarmac, shouts, cries, whistles blowing; trained professional law-enforcers met half-starved rabble, the undernourished bodies easy to knock aside. Ben, swifter, more agile, kept out of the soldiers’ way. Around him, batons came down hard; blood flowed.
It was local people who settled the matter; ordinary, law-abiding citizens noisy enough to be heard; women who yelled at the Guard to lay off the vets, and elderly men in suits banging on the Governor’s door, so that quite soon he changed his mind, called off the boots and batons and sent in state-owned trucks to pick up the marchers, move them on, ‘Outta here. Outta town.’ Out of Illinois at least. Let someone else have the problem. The loaded trucks bumped their way to the state line.
As they blazed the wavering trail of the journey Ben gradually became aware that he was with them, but not quite one of them, as Charlie would have been. Divided by a war; not a vet, after all. The men were reverting to a regimental organism, buddies, moving en masse, in accord, seeming to know each other’s thoughts. And when they reached Mississippi, the cops wore grins; some of them had served in the army. Vets themselves.
‘You guys know how to drive?’
Ben raised his hand. ‘That’s what I do. I drive a truck.’ Other voices joined his: men who could drive, when they had work and wheels.
Not far from the railroad station the road curved to a compound fenced off with chicken wire, the gate padlocked. Behind the wire, a metallic elephants’ graveyard, a scene of desolation: huge steel bodies lined up in rows, grand automobiles. Official loot: beautiful cars confiscated from jailed bootleggers.
‘Okay, guys; they’re all yours as far as the state line.’
The cops swung open the gates, the vets piled into Packards, Buicks, Chryslers, Caddies and set off out of town. Cheering, yelling slogans, drunk on temporary power, at least some of the Bonus Army was running on silk, until the gas ran out. Ben found himself – unimaginable luxury – at the wheel of a Pierce Arrow. He could feel the engine responding to the pressure of his foot; this was class, top racehorse quality, this was Kentucky Derby, Triple Crown stuff, the leather seats soft as a woman’s thighs, the suspension smooth. Bootleggers lived in style, smuggling Scotch from London, selling it on, running illegal breweries, rum ships, all to keep their clients happy. By now the owner of this beauty was probably free, sprung on a technicality and driving some other thoroughbred.
Ben shifted the gearstick, released the clutch and leaned into the movement, the ease, the creamy surge forward. He flung back his head and laughed aloud, running his hands over the wheel. The automobile was the future, right? He always knew that. The sleek lines of the car, the deep gleam of the paintwork were visible even through the dust swirling like a storm . . . Crammed in around him, the men cheered, slapped Ben on the back, drew him into their song. The barrier had melted. Washington, here we come. He wished Nance and Joey could see him as he gunned the engine and the car flew.
19
Resting like a convalescent in the shade of her mother’s tiny porch, Nancy follows the story in the newspaper; reports of men fighting with rail guards, forcing themselves on to freight trains. Others plodding the tracks on foot. Elsewhere, trucks, jalopies slowly covering ground. She senses a murmuring, a surge, a tracking of the land; the homeless on the move. Not all are bound for Washington: some are just on the road. Men walking, women too, children stumbling alongside, crawling like ants, moving east, moving north, from Reno, New Orleans, Kansas City. These moments, these migrations, recur in history. The land seethes: once it would have been men pushing carts, wagons drawn by oxen, mule trains. Go West; the magical words. Go West. But this is the West, and if they keep going there’s nothing but water. Next landfall: Japan.
Even here, she can see slow-moving, solitary