The Blood of Heaven by Kent Wascom

beside me gave me a nudge with his finger, giggling. I had forgotten laughter, and so I kept quiet for the rest of the meal and ate all I could while the talk wore on. I would have eaten more if my stomach hadn’t shriveled into such a small thing. My plate was half-full with pot-scrapings when breakfast ended and Van Nuys rose to go up to his office and begin his lawyering of the day, leaving Samuel twitching with this new encumbrance of knowledge and myself gorged and drowsy.
    My brother’s promise was now across the continent, and even addled with food I could tell that he was melancholy at the thought. But by the time we were brought to the fire, where a pallet and blankets were laid out, he was mumbling to me his new designs before I was claimed by warmth and sleep.
    That night Samuel showed me the village as gusts blew in from off the river and reduced the infrequent streetlamps to cold and darkness in their cages. There was mulled wine sold by vendors from kettles set on tripods over fires built in the streets, and we drank of it and headed for a place Samuel said was called the Licking River Tavern. It was situated near the landing, beneath the second of the town’s seven hills and beside a lone elm tree, which for whatever reason had been left untouched by hewers and stood watch over the waterfront until, later in the month, it was struck by lightning. That night, though, we passed beneath its branches and to the open door of the Licking River.
    When Samuel said his name was Kemper, some boatmen took up a cheer and we were bought spiced gin in pewter cups. And it was there that Samuel first said to someone else that I was his brother.
    He don’t quite have the Kemper look, said one.
    Too small, said a second.
    Naw, said still another, grabbing me by the head and pointing to my eyes. He’s got the ferocity right there.
    With the boatman’s hand upon my head I grinned and glared at them all, trying ferociousness on like someone else’s boots. Let my old Woolsack skin slip, slough off like the scabs of my boils, and be renewed in the hide of Kemper. I felt already like brass tacking to a legend in life.
    See it plain as day, the boatman said. That’s the same eye I saw old Reuben get before he put a Kaintuck man’s head through yonder window.
    I couldn’t muster any words, but tried to maintain the look.
    Samuel, hands hip-wise and nodding prideful, said, Damn right. You can tell a Kemper a mile away.
    One of the dissenters leaned in, saying, And that’s as close as some may want to get.
    Unless you happen to be a girly, said the one still holding my skull, which presently he twisted so that I looked about the room. And here we got ample chance for you to prove that too.
    And as he spoke I saw, fussing in darkened corners, leaning over table-lips, shouldering to the rail, women and girls who smiled and chattered, haggled, enduring the smacks and pinches of the patrons before leading those agreeable to the stairs, where lurked their sisters eyeing men as yet unclaimed.
    Samuel clapped his coat pocket; his father’s coin clinked. I suppose it’s time we spent some, brother. I’ll treat you.
    Now the voices of the women drew upon me loud, a river-roar of bodily commerce. Amid the tales, Reuben’s specter growing to the ceiling, some would come and join us, tapping at my shoulders and taking drinks from my cup. A gurgle of gin in one’s bobbing throat, the sound of drowning. Fleshy, flush, and untiring in their efforts, the whores added inventions of their own to the makings of the family name. Hemmed by bodies, I worked to douse grief and weakness as both story and toast became slurred. A young fool drunk off his feet, unlimbering his new place in the world, casting foggier and foggier glances to the stairs. I did not want them, wouldn’t have one that night or for all that followed while we waited for the thaw to begin our journey south. But I couldn’t curse them either—they sought survival as best