The Drifter

What Became of Gustav Salomex.

They called him Steve White at the Bell County poor farm, and the name fit the way a man fits a coat he has worn too long, threadbare, shapeless, but familiar. Steve White rose with the bell, ate his porridge without complaint, and spoke only when spoken to. He kept his eyes lowered, as if the past were something that might spill out if he looked too far ahead. No one there guessed that this quiet man with cracked hands and a limp carried another name inside him, folded away like a letter never sent.

Once, he had been Gustav Salomex.

The name had weight then. It belonged to corridors that echoed, to land that rolled outward as far as the eye could see, to oil portraits of men with narrow eyes and stern mouths. He had been born under chandeliers, baptized in stone cold water, and taught early that inheritance was both a blessing and a chain. His mother, the daughter of the Sieur de Joinville, loved him fiercely but tiredly, as though loving a difficult child was work she alone had been assigned. His brothers learned to navigate the estate like natural heirs, but Gustav was restless. He broke rules, spoke too quickly, struck too hard.

The night that ended France for him began with an argument over money that was not yet theirs. His eldest brother spoke of duty. The second spoke of appearances. Gustav spoke of freedom. The words turned sharp. Hands flew. When it was over, his brother lay bleeding, and Gustav stood shaking, horror rising in him too late. He was arrested before dawn. The cell smelled of old straw and judgment. He learned then how fast a name could lose its power.

He was freed months later, thinner, reserved, already half gone. His mother wept when she saw him, holding his face as though memorizing it. She died not long after. In her will, she divided her inheritance equally among her sons, but Gustav’s share was placed in trust. His brothers said it was prudence. Gustav heard only doubt. They believed he would return. Gustav knew he would not.

He left France without ceremony. No goodbyes, no inheritance claimed. The sea swallowed him first. On ships where no one asked questions, Gustav became a pair of hands, then a back, then a number on a ledger. He learned English by listening, by necessity, by being corrected roughly. When someone misheard his name and called him “Steve,” he did not object. It felt smaller, easier to carry.

War found him the way it finds all drifters, by making use of their willingness to be anywhere but where they came from. He served under a flag that was not his own, marching for reasons that changed depending on who was speaking. He fought in heat that burned thought away, in sand that crept into wounds and stayed there. He did something brave once, or foolish; he was never certain which, saving a bunch of soldiers while being shot at, and someone pinned metal to his chest afterward. A Victoria Cross, they said. He thanked them and never mentioned it again. Medals belonged to men who intended to be remembered.

Between wars and after them, he worked. Brazil took his sweat. South Africa took his youth. He dug into the earth with men who measured time by paydays and luck by survival. Diamonds passed through his hands like small, cold suns, and he felt nothing. Wealth had lost its shine long ago.

America came last. Detroit first, then elsewhere. He spoke now with an accent no one could place, which meant no one tried. For a while, he found himself among men who organized, who believed in the dignity of labor. He spoke well when roused, and they listened. For a time, he was something like a leader. President of a seamen’s union, they called him. It surprised him how easily people followed a man who seemed certain, even when he was not.

Certainty abandoned him again, as it always did.

Kentucky offered quiet. The Cumberland Mountains did not care who he had been. He found a cave and hid what little he still possessed, as though hiding were a skill he might one day need again. When the loneliness grew too heavy, he walked to the almshouse and asked for a bed. They gave him one. No questions. That, more than anything, convinced him he had chosen correctly.

Years passed like this. Then the radio came.

The announcement crackled through the poor farm, a voice carrying names that no longer felt real. Gustav Salomex. Sieur de Joinville. France. A fortune waiting, untouched, growing quietly with interest and faith. Relatives searching across continents. A brother dead in Roubaix. Another waiting. The words hit him like a punch to the gut.

Officials came. They asked questions. He answered them truthfully, which sounded to everyone else like lies. When they asked if he would return to France to claim what was his, he hesitated long enough for the silence to speak for him.

What he did not say was this: France held a younger man who had believed himself unlovable, who had broken something he could not mend. America held Steve White, who rose with the bell and slept without dreaming too much. The fortune had never been the question. He had already paid for it; in years, in blood, and in the slow erasing of a name.

That night, lying on his narrow bed, Gustav—Steve—stared at the ceiling and felt the importance of both lives pressing on his chest. Somewhere across the ocean, land waited for him. Somewhere nearby, morning would come with porridge and work. He closed his eyes and wondered which life, if any, still belonged to him.

Word Count: 963
Written for: "The Writer's Cramp 24th Birthday" 
Prompt: Heir Found in Almshouse - The heir to a vast French fortune is found living in a Kentucky poorhouse.