4. Seventy-Seven
Through a neighborhood of immaculate brownstones, I wandered afterward, the tree-lined streets seemingly emptied at the day's events. Over the low eaves to the east, I could see colorful floats of Franklin, Washington and others passing to the south, the sun glimmering through the leaves in the afternoon breeze. About them the taller rises were trimmed with patriotic flare similar to the floats, red, white and blue bunting that had nothing to do with its American cousin. Amid those skyscrapers I noticed pairs of rails suspended midair, moving along their lengths wooden box cars.
Skylines.
America had its railroads...Columbia had these. Here and there off building sides the rails were anchored to cantilever beams, but for the most part these rails seemed to hang midair. I'd stopped in the middle of the road.
Ahead to my right I heard people singing, the strains of a song I didn't recognize. "Goodnight, Irene" came the chorus, wafting into the air. As I approached several hundred stood assembled in a grassy park at the bottom of a wide stone stair, while the words "Augney Amphitheater" loomed large overhead in iron grille work. To the left my road bent backward towards the parade, vanishing in a throng of cheering onlookers. In my trek southward, it had become obvious that not all of Emporia's residents had attended their Prophet's address. Now I realized most had not...they'd been assembling the parade route for hours. How the on earth was I going to get to the Monument? There had to be at least a million people in my way. I glanced the path beyond the assembly, down more stairs and curving beneath the buildings above. It had to be the Augney.
Descending the stone steps, unexpectedly I passed a man I recognized from the park, seeing occasionally now familiar faces. The day had warmed and passed near the rear of the gathering in the shade of high oaks, intent on being missed. Frustration egged my mind...Columbia was a lot larger than I'd reckoned for and I'd not even gotten to the damned tower yet. How had these people made it so quickly from the park? Amid fanfare a man took the stage, the same top hatted fellow that had introduced Witting and Comstock in the Gardens. With shirtsleeve I wiped my brow and continued south, spying along that descending footpath a gold on black wooden sign calling out "Ronald Augney Memorial Underpassage." About that time a pretty blonde in white blouse and blue skirt sidled up to me as she had been doing others, wicker basket of baseballs in hand. She smiled, offering me a pick. Reluctantly, I took one in hand. '77,' it read. I rose, scanning the citizenry as the announcer proclaimed that Columbia's 14th Annual Raffle would now have its draw. I didn't care, but as I slipped away I heard my number called and cringed.
For a moment I thought I might still elude this fate, but beside me a woman shouted, "There he is...there's number 77!" Suddenly hundreds of eyes turned about toward me.
"Well, go on up!" A white-haired lady said at my side, men and women alike encouraging me to front and center. Glacially I turned and approached the stage. To my right an Assemblyman introduced himself as Buford and shook my hand, grinning ear to ear. On stage even the presenter was smiling.
"Well, son, this is your lucky day!" What's the name?" The announcer said.
"Smith. John Smith." I answered, taciturn, eyes scanning the crowd nervously.
"Well, Mr. Smith...you've won Columbia's annual Raffle!" As he beamed two stagehands drew the stage curtains back, revealing prop cutouts of palm trees, jungles and garish smiling monkeys hanging upon them. One wore lip paint. Another, hanging prominently from a branch, seemed to be a Minister. The bridal march began to play, and off to the sides I could see stagehands pulling ropes to draw the faux foliage away. A white man and black woman emerged from the backstage upon a moving platform, dressed in a threadbare mockery of a groom's tuxedo vest and burlap sack. The Negro woman couldn't have been more than twenty. Both were tied to posts, pleading for their lives.
The announcer and Buford grinned at me. "You get the first pitch, son...make it a good one!"
They expected me to throw the ball at this couple, and by the egging of the crowd I knew I'd walked into a modern-day stoning. New York had its posher neighborhoods, and things such as this were generally frowned upon in moneyed society...but it wasn't a lynch mob like the Deep South. I'd been other men's executioner before, and suddenly came the flash of my Winchester going off at the Rocks watching the hairy-chested man's face as he fell. I felt my temples get red. Not again. With his waxed handlebar mustache and beady eyes, the gleeful announcer seemed a far better target. Rearing back, I winged it into his bony forehead and knocked him right out from beneath his glossy stovepipe. The announcers jaw dropped. A gasp rose from the crowd of would-be murderers.
A woman had cried out, shielding her children from my "heinous" act. Men were standing in shock. Through the crowd a Constable approached then another, vengeance in their eyes. Spying 77 bloody upon the grass, I snatched it in hand and whipped it into the nearest. Bracketed by the gob smacked crowd, he had nowhere to turn. Like the announcer, the ball struck him in the face to a spurt of blood.
Arms grasped me from behind and more Constables were on the way. I'd been here before...I still heard the gunfire echoing. As the next two olive jackets approached, I stepped backward on one leg and took my grappler to the ground.
"My God, its him!" I heard the other cry out, pointing at my hand. In the melee my right glove had come off, revealing the brand upon the back of my hand. "It's the False Shepherd!"
"Get him. GET HIM!" I heard from the advancing crowed. I was an idiot. With an elbow to face I knocked the first Constable back, rolled the grass and came up with my revolver in hand. The next had one of those skyline hooks spinning before him, intent to jam it in my face.
My gun went off with a crack. Across the grassy basin people screamed and turned to run. As they fled the man dashing at me fell forward...I'd have said face forward, but by the time he hit the foot-trampled sod he no longer had one. Slumping to the grass in a pool of blood, his demise chastened the fellow after him, who drew back...again with one of those hook things. Holding my weapon upon him, I glanced back towards the stage. "Let them go." I said evenly at the men in the gathering who'd opted not to join the stampede. Instead, the cop spun that nasty hook with his hand, thinking he'd somehow intimidate me. As he lunged, I shot him dead. Now those remaining decided that joining their panicked peers was a better option and turned for the stairs. Striding toward the man who'd introduced himself as Buford, I leveled the gun at his forehead. "Now let's try that again."
"Who...who are you, False Shepherd?" Buford rasped, and I could see his lip quivering over a blood-stained black bowtie.
I placed the gun between his eyes…cocked the hammer. "If you don't do what the hell I say, I'm your angel of death. Untie them now." In sheer terror, Buford rose and scampered clumsily to the stage.
As he untied the man the freed couple looked to me like some miracle had occurred. It had...for Columbia. I'd just taken a winning hand and flushed it down the crapper.
"Thank you, Mister." The woman said as her boyfriend undid her bonds. Behind them Buford had backed away, glancing at the carnage below before tending to moaning marshal of ceremonies on the stage.
"Get the hell out of here." I groused, bending over to retrieve my strayed glove, in no mood for adulation.
"Where will we go!?" She cried. In the direction of the parade route, I heard sirens wailing...growing closer.
"How should I know?" I grumbled and began to walk. For some reason I stopped...closed my eyes.
The man took the girl in his arms, looking about. "Oh, for God's sake..." I finally said. "You have to have some friends here in this damned city. Go to them."
"Like this?" The woman cried, distressed by their state of clothing. "We'd not make it fifty feet!"
Friends…friends who knew this city.
Without them, I was the one who wouldn't make it fifty feet. Seeing one of the constable's automatics upon the grass, I reached and picked it up, thinking it a Mauser C96...the .45 caliber man killer I'd become so indebted to in the Philippines. Upon perusal it bore the script "Broadsider" upon its grip. A Columbian knockoff. Figuring myself low on ammunition, I hastily gathered a holster from the man who wouldn't be needing it any longer and stuffed my snub nose beneath my vest. "On second thought, let's go."
"You'll...let us come with you?" The man asked, the woman's eyes like his suddenly hopeful.
"For the time being..." I began to jog. "If you can keep up."
#
Within the underpass lamp lit darkness encompassed us, the horns and commotion outside keeping our pace swift. As the sidewalk turned further and angled deeper underground, I saw not the upswing to the boulevard's other side but a receding passage.
"Whoa!" I said, skidding to a halt. "This isn't what I was expecting."
"What were you expecting?" The man said, looking anxiously behind us toward the emptied amphitheater and corpses. "This is an underpass."
"I was expecting to see the other side of that parade's street up there."
"It's an underpass of Emporia." He said, blue eyes darting. "It leads to the rapid transit lines...underground trains and water mains. There are dozens of reservoirs down here along with physical plants, steam plants, just about..."
"How do you know this?" I asked. Before me I began to see signs.
"I'm a Civil Engineer. I help maintain it."
Trains, I thought, and cocked an eyebrow. "Well, that's convenient. Maybe you can help. I'm, uh, trying to get that angel on the other side of..."
"Monument Island." The man completed eagerly, running his hand through pale hair with a glance to my hand and strange…almost eager…look upon his face. Looking behind us too, I decided the tunnel ahead was better than the dozens of police who'd soon be swarming my handiwork.
"Then what Comstock preaches is true..." The woman added in similarly ecstatic appreciation of my person. You're after the Lamb."
"The Lamb?" I stopped and turned to face them. "Look, I don't know who you are, but..."
"James Cavanaugh." The man answered. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sir!"
"Claire Greene." Replied the woman as I shook her man's hand, who at a noise behind turned back to gaze into the daylight.
"It's all right." He said, hugging her too him.
Not having time for lovey-dovey bullshit, I walked faster. To either side the path was wide enough to pass an automobile, and a breeze at our backs. "Look, I don't know nothin' about any Lamb. I was hired to pull this girl from this tower where she lives, nothing more."
"That's the Lamb." Greene said, eyes very white in the pale underground illuminance. I rolled my own.
"So, you say you're some sort of Engineer?" I asked Cavanaugh. Despite their lack of shoes, the pair were keeping up...fear did that. Luckily, these sidewalks were well kept...no trash or debris to damage their bare feet. They would, however, need a washing.
"Yes. I...I worked for Mr. Benefield, the Mayor."
"Comstock's not the Mayor?" I asked, not bothering to look back. Ahead the lights seemed to converge at a station, and I could see people milling about. Silently I raised my arm and steered us into an alcove.
"No, but one would be forgiven for thinking he was. He's, well, obviously you've seen."
"Yeah. What about you?" I asked the girl.
She looked to Cavanaugh. "Claire worked for me in the firm as a cleaning lady...a tremendous waste of talent if you ask me."
"I'm good with numbers." She said and Cavanaugh smiled.
"She's more than 'good with numbers.' Once I realized she was interested in my engineering, I started teaching her. I quickly found she was a fine prospect…she has an innate grasp of...things."
"I was interested in you." She said with an abashed smile.
"That's a station up there, isn't it? I doubt we would do well by barging in there. Is there another way?"
"From here on Ninth? No, that's the first north-south connector...no other way through unless you want to use the sewers."
"Sewers?"
"They carry Emporia's wastewater and run off outward where it's released into the sea."
"Hmmm." I said, not relishing that prospect. "What else?"
"Upward."
Daylight was wasting. At this rate I would never get anywhere. "Look, I need some help here. Do you know anyone around here that might not only be willing to assist you but be, uh, favorable to my mission? I'd be much obliged to get a bit of help."
Greene glanced to me then back toward her man. "James, what about Archie and Evelyn?"