There were skulls lined up on shelves, trephined or saber-whacked or bullet-ridden. Gob began plucking booty from the ceiling and shelves, putting into a sack he’d pulled from his coat the arm bones and leg bones, the finger bones and toe bones and ribs and pelvises. “I need them, Walt,” he said. “I need the bones.” When his sack was full he made as if to leave, but then his head swung around, as if pulled by Mr. Lincoln’s hat, to a place where three human vertebrae were mounted on a stand. Walt lit a match to read the ticket:
No. 4,086—The third, fourth, and fifth cervical vertebrae. A conoidal carbine ball entered the right side, comminuting the base of the right lamina of the fourth vertebrae, fracturing it longitudinally and separating it from the spinous process. From a case where death occurred a few hours after injury. April 26, 1865.
A separate ticket indicated that the bones belonged to Mr. Booth. They looked to Walt to be stained, as if people had spit on them. Gob put them, too, in his sack. He leaned over and whispered in Walt’s ear, his voice sounding almost like Hank’s. “I need the bones,” he said. “I need them for my engine. You see, I’m building an engine to bring them back, my brother and all the rest. A machine to abolish death, to lick it like a cowardly Reb. I need the bones, I need the hat, and I need you, Walt. I need you especially.” Walt tried and failed to imagine the machine that would require such matériel.
That was the last Walt remembered of this very peculiar evening. He did not remember the walk home from Ford’s. He did not remember taking off his coat and shirt, his pants and boots. He woke once before dawn with Gob’s sleeping head on his chest, and then woke again in the morning with his head on Gob’s chest.
Walt sat up in bed. Gob said his brother’s name, “Tomo,” but didn’t wake. Walt looked around the room and saw no bag of bones, but there was a hat placed neatly on the table by the bed. It was an ordinary-looking hat. There wasn’t any tag on it. But it was black, and tall, and made to fit a big head. Walt took it up and put it on his own aching head. Listen, Walt , Hank said. Do you hear it? Walt listened dutifully, and he heard a noise. At first he thought it was Gob’s breathing, low and steady and deep, but then he understood that it was something different, a deeper, mightier sound, like a giant breathing, a noise of distant waves crashing, a noise like the sea.
3
“ LOOK THERE, WALT ,” GOB SAID. “ HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT boat?” It was July of 1870. Walt and Gob were in New York. They’d gone down to the water to watch the Queen’s Cup race, part of a crowd of one hundred thousand spectators gathered on the shores and hills all around the harbor. Walt followed Gob’s pointing finger to a boat called the America.
“It’s the handsomest little craft I ever laid eyes upon,” Walt said, but really he was in love with all the boats, and they all seemed very beautiful to him. Walt watched the white sails flapping in the breeze, and the boats tearing along in the green water, trailing flags and streamers and throwing white spray from their bows. He leaned against Gob and tried to think of nothing, to let the lovely darting shapes command his vision and his mind. But thoughts of Gob began to crowd out the boats—first he imagined sailing with Gob in the America , how it would delight them both to move so fast. And then Walt imagined them moving over the water without need of a boat. Hand in hand, he and Gob ran over the bay, and leapt howling off the tall tops of the waves. It was always this way; it wasn’t enough merely to be with him, being with him inspired thoughts of him even as they were together. Your Camerado , said Hank, and indeed it seemed sometimes that Gob was that, a friend above all friends. Yet sometimes he seemed a stranger, even after a year and more of companionship. Or better to say instead that he was
No. 4,086—The third, fourth, and fifth cervical vertebrae. A conoidal carbine ball entered the right side, comminuting the base of the right lamina of the fourth vertebrae, fracturing it longitudinally and separating it from the spinous process. From a case where death occurred a few hours after injury. April 26, 1865.
A separate ticket indicated that the bones belonged to Mr. Booth. They looked to Walt to be stained, as if people had spit on them. Gob put them, too, in his sack. He leaned over and whispered in Walt’s ear, his voice sounding almost like Hank’s. “I need the bones,” he said. “I need them for my engine. You see, I’m building an engine to bring them back, my brother and all the rest. A machine to abolish death, to lick it like a cowardly Reb. I need the bones, I need the hat, and I need you, Walt. I need you especially.” Walt tried and failed to imagine the machine that would require such matériel.
That was the last Walt remembered of this very peculiar evening. He did not remember the walk home from Ford’s. He did not remember taking off his coat and shirt, his pants and boots. He woke once before dawn with Gob’s sleeping head on his chest, and then woke again in the morning with his head on Gob’s chest.
Walt sat up in bed. Gob said his brother’s name, “Tomo,” but didn’t wake. Walt looked around the room and saw no bag of bones, but there was a hat placed neatly on the table by the bed. It was an ordinary-looking hat. There wasn’t any tag on it. But it was black, and tall, and made to fit a big head. Walt took it up and put it on his own aching head. Listen, Walt , Hank said. Do you hear it? Walt listened dutifully, and he heard a noise. At first he thought it was Gob’s breathing, low and steady and deep, but then he understood that it was something different, a deeper, mightier sound, like a giant breathing, a noise of distant waves crashing, a noise like the sea.
3
“ LOOK THERE, WALT ,” GOB SAID. “ HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT boat?” It was July of 1870. Walt and Gob were in New York. They’d gone down to the water to watch the Queen’s Cup race, part of a crowd of one hundred thousand spectators gathered on the shores and hills all around the harbor. Walt followed Gob’s pointing finger to a boat called the America.
“It’s the handsomest little craft I ever laid eyes upon,” Walt said, but really he was in love with all the boats, and they all seemed very beautiful to him. Walt watched the white sails flapping in the breeze, and the boats tearing along in the green water, trailing flags and streamers and throwing white spray from their bows. He leaned against Gob and tried to think of nothing, to let the lovely darting shapes command his vision and his mind. But thoughts of Gob began to crowd out the boats—first he imagined sailing with Gob in the America , how it would delight them both to move so fast. And then Walt imagined them moving over the water without need of a boat. Hand in hand, he and Gob ran over the bay, and leapt howling off the tall tops of the waves. It was always this way; it wasn’t enough merely to be with him, being with him inspired thoughts of him even as they were together. Your Camerado , said Hank, and indeed it seemed sometimes that Gob was that, a friend above all friends. Yet sometimes he seemed a stranger, even after a year and more of companionship. Or better to say instead that he was
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