Dreadful Skin (17 page)

XV.

Eileen, Evening - July 10, 1881

We only have until tonight, if we have even that long. The winds are changing in this little strip of wood and weeds. Dust blows in the streets, now that the streets are dry. Horses whinny and strain at their tethers, and the tame mongrel dogs that live on scraps keep themselves low to the ground. They hide beneath porches and behind stables, and outhouses. They know the night is up to no good. They can smell the things that are coming.

The pretense is almost up.

There was a fit and a fight, almost this afternoon. The sheriff, or mayor—or whatever weird authority holds sway in places like Mescalero—he told Daniel that there would be no nighttime meeting out by the creek. He told them that no one was coming, and that there would be no prayers or hymns.

What a bold old fellow!

He’s tall and lean, and probably as old as I am, though he shows his age where I do not. All his hair is gray, from his eyebrows to the curly tufts on the back of his hands. I have not spoken with him yet, but I’ve seen him pacing back and forth along the main street, under this window. Oh, he knows there is peril in the air tonight. He can smell it as well as I can.

***

The point remains, he sent them away. Leonard witnessed the exchange when he went to find his dear Melissa. And he found her, too. He brought her back to the hotel like a damn fool.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw, when first I laid eyes upon her.

She’s a perfectly pretty and soulless little thing who has been stretched beyond the limits of her endurance. There’s hardness around her eyes and a flinty set to her face. Her body is rigid when it moves, all tension and preparation. She lives as a woman braced for pain, moved by invisible strings.

There’s intelligence there, too. There’s a plot in her eyes, and hope that’s been soured by agony.

She hardly speaks, even when I am gentle, and even when I am firm. Melissa shares what she thinks might help, and she holds the rest back. I can guess the things she doesn’t wish to say, and I think Leonard can too—though he’s happy to pretend otherwise. Let him. She’s right, and he wouldn’t know what to do with the information if she gave it to him.

At this point, it means far less to her than it would to him. Good girl. Keep it down. Lock it up and put it away. He’s burdened enough as it is.

God willing, there will be time for her to pour her sorrows into some other vessel someday. But now, it is her duty to hold herself together. When Leonard had gone from us for a few minutes, I sat beside her and whispered.

“Use it,” I said.

She looked up at me with those beautiful eyes of hers, so full of hatred and anger, and she nodded.

“Use it, hold it. Wield it like a weapon when the time comes. If your rage is the hardest thing inside you, pull it out. Hold it up. Make it a shield. If it’s the deepest well of violence from which you can draw, then lift up the lid and drink your fill. You’ll need it, tonight. You’ll need every ounce.”

She nodded again. Yes. Good girl.

Keep it down. Lock it up. Put it away. And when you’re called upon, pull it out from behind your back and use it to
strike
.

XVI.

Eileen, July 11, 1881

We didn’t have time to go to them, but it didn’t matter. They would come to us, as soon as the sun was down and they were stronger for its absence. We all knew it. We felt it in our very bones, we felt it moving beneath our skin, the dreadful pull of circumstance. The creeping alarm of certainty.

When I looked out the window, I saw the lawman alone, ambling back and forth in his black boots with the pointed toes. Here and there I saw other men too, closing doors and dimming lamps.

They’re all going to die
, I thought.

Everyone I see. Every soul who lingers in this stretch of desert. Everyone who lives here, or who has nowhere else to go. Everyone who works late, or who lingers at the pub after a double-shot too many.

Leonard, who had been sitting quietly—holding Melissa’s hand—saw me staring outside under the shade. “Is McKenzie still out there?”

“Is that his name? Yes, he’s there. Pacing about.”

“Good. I like him.”

“I like him too,” I agreed, though I’d never actually met him. “It makes me think I should do something for him.”

“Like what? Warn him?”

“Something like that.”

“We ought to run,” Melissa said. It was her first sentence in an hour, and she didn’t sound like she meant it very much.

“To where?” I asked. “Into the desert? Into the mountains? Where do you think we can run, that they won’t follow? Better to meet them here, before they have time to grow their ranks any further. If we’re ever going to have a chance against them, it’s now—when they don’t expect to be met with any real resistance.”

If she agreed or disagreed, she didn’t say.

“It’s going to be a massacre,” I said. “We have to do something before it gets any darker. We have to…evacuate them. All of them. The whole town.”

“How would you recommend we do
that
?” Leonard asked.

I didn’t answer him. I was thinking. I was staring out the window at the only town official I’d ever heard of in Mescalero. “Wait for me,” I said.

“What?”

“Just wait for me.”

I left them there in the room with all the blades I’d been able to get my hands on that day. I had two scythes, a plow blade half as big as I am, and a pair of
navaja
clasp knives I’d found at the general store. The woman behind the counter made big eyes at me, but didn’t ask what I planned to do.

I took the stairs two at a time and pushed the front door open. McKenzie stopped his pacing when heard me. I ran up to him. He put his hands on either side of his waist.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

“I doubt it. But I hope that I can help
you
. You’re expecting trouble tonight, and you’re right about it.”

“It’s that damned camp meeting, if you’ll pardon my language. Those men I’ve seen here, they’re…I don’t like it. Have you seen that poor woman they drag around with them? She left with some young fellow today, I hope he’s—”

“He’s a fine lad. Name’s Leonard. He came here with me, with the specific intent of rescuing her. I wish I had more time to explain,” I said, as I found myself speaking so quickly I feared he might dismiss me for a maniac. “But she’s been a prisoner for months now. We came to reclaim her, but sir, I must warn you—it will come at a cost and I don’t know if any of us will survive this night. That’s why I must beg your help. The whole town is in danger, and it’s because of us—it’s because of this girl, who they’ll never allow to leave them.”

“Ma’am—”

“Sir,
please
. If there were any safe and hasty way to evacuate this place, what might it be, and would you help me?”

He took a deep breath, removed his hat, and scratched at his head. He looked over my shoulder, then back over his—glancing up and down the street and seeing no one at all but the pair of us.

“I was thinking about starting a fire, myself.”

I took a step back and stared at him.

“Unless you’ve got a better idea, that is?”

“I—I haven’t. Wait, I beg your pardon?”

It was then that he reached into his jacket and pulled out a badge. “Ma’am, I’ve been following these folks since Snyder, Texas. I don’t know what they’re up to exactly, but I’m getting some mighty strange ideas. There’s going to be trouble tonight, and I don’t think there’s a soul in this sad little strip that needs to be caught in the middle of it.”

“This isn’t Texas.”

“They killed people in Texas.”

We stared back and forth at each other for a minute. He sized me up like a man about to buy a horse. I don’t know what he saw. I don’t know what he guessed. “What are we going to do now?” I asked.

“They’re coming, aren’t they? When it gets dark out?”

“If not sooner.”

“There’s a stash of gunpowder back in the basement of the general store. Let’s start with the saloon. There’s enough alcohol in there to send the place back to Jesus. By the time it gets caught and burning good, the few folks left here will come running out to see or help—but it’ll spread before anyone can do anything. I figure this place’ll go up like a tinderbox. Except, you know…” He inclined his head to indicate the last stop before the town ended and the wilderness resumed—the one building set apart from the rest.

“Except the church.”

“You go on up inside and get your friends. Get them to the church. It’s a little thing, but it’s sturdy enough. It’ll be better than leaving them in that matchstick hotel you’re hiding in now.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Hurry,” he called behind me.

I ran back up inside with a new sense of purpose. I felt invigorated, I felt hopeful—honestly hopeful—for the first time in days. I was afraid, yes. I was terrified for the lot of them, and for us. But there was someone else here too. Someone else knew the score and was fighting with us, instead of against us.

I pushed the door open and Leonard and Melissa were sitting exactly as I’d left them.

“McKenzie is a Texas Ranger,” I blurted at them. “He’s been following the meetings. He knows—well, he doesn’t know everything, but he knows enough to be a good help to us. Get your things together. Arm yourselves. Get a blade, get something you can carry and use. We’re leaving.”

Leonard rose quickly, pulling Melissa to her feet behind him. “Where are we going?”

“To church,” I answered. “Quickly now. Move.”

***

Church was a tidy, square building with a steeple that leaned slightly to the right if you stood on the front steps and squinted. By the time we reached the doubled front doors, the sun was nothing more than a gold-pink line on the horizon—and blackness crept up from the other side of the sky.

The doors were locked. I pushed my shoulder against them and lunged, and they caved inward.

Melissa’s eyes widened. I didn’t understand why until I looked at the doors as I pushed them shut behind us. They were thick and oak. They’d been braced with a fat peg lock that shouldn’t have broken beneath a woman’s shoulder.

***

I lead them inside, into the blue-gray interior lined with plain pews. Leonard gazed up and around, holding Melissa’s hand. I felt a stab of fear for him there, standing with a large reaper’s knife in one hand and Melissa in the other. He held the knife like a child holding a kitten up by one foot—like he had no idea what to do with it.

Outside I heard a slight commotion, something moving down at the end of the street. I recognized the ranger’s steps, and by the sounds of things he was still alone.

I closed the door anyway. He’d knock. I’d know.

“You broke the—” Leonard began to say.

“We’re going to start moving things around. Making barricades.” The church was lined with long, slim windows that were wide enough to let a body in, but not much ider. They were four to a side, except for the front and ack behind the pulpit—where there was only one indow and it was square, with an inlay of the cross done in colored glass.

“The pews,” Melissa said, letting go of Leonard’s hand.

“Good,” I told her. “Leonard, help her. Prop them up, yes. You start on that side, I’ll start this side.”

I wrapped one arm underneath the nearest bench and lifted it, pried it up and leaned it forward against the window. A corner went through the glass, breaking it, but it wasn’t enough. I pushed harder, lodging the pew in the frame and leaning on it until it stuck. Behind me, I could hear my companions following my example.

One by one we plugged the windows. The glass broke, the wood splintered, and the floors creaked beneath us. The night was a symphony of small destructions.

Beyond the walls of the church, a new glow swelled and warmed the edge of the desert. I smelled the metal-tasting sting of gunpowder and smoke before Leonard raised his voice to announce, “There’s a fire!”

“There’d better be,” I said.

And as if to assure us that yes, here it comes—a bright
pop
sounded and was followed by the pattering rain of splinters, glass, and kindling dropping from the sky.

“Fire! Fire!” McKenzie was shouting. “Fire, and it’s spreading! Everybody out! Everybody move, everybody get out!”

There was a faint sizzling beneath the commotion. I heard it crawling in a line, along the street. It made me think of a fuse, and when I cracked the front door, a lean trail of powder was sparking, sprinting along the streets, and up the steps, and around the porches and beside the walls of the tinderbox town.

At the other end of the street, the saloon was ablaze and men were emerging to address the situation, but they were confused and disorganized.

“Water!” someone demanded.

“Forget it!” McKenzie ordered. “Run. Grab what you can and make for Tularosa. This place is going up, and there’s not enough water for a hundred miles to stop it!”

From out of the inn I saw the desk man and his wife stumble. The wife was screaming, the desk man was swearing. The first tongues of flame were brushing up against the foundation of their quarters.

The ranger held aloft a big gun, a rifle with a barrel half as long as a broomstick. He fired it into the air and the percussion was as hard and heavy as a brick wall.

“Evacuate!” he bellowed. His shape was all angles and black pitch, framed against the orange and white of the growing blaze behind him. I could not discern his face, but I knew he was looking at me, at the church. He dipped his head, a gesture I could only see by the shifting of his hat’s shadow.

He was coming.

I checked over my shoulder and saw that our job was more than half finished. I pushed my thigh against the door and dashed to the front of the church. The square window behind the pulpit was still uncovered.

Its cross was yellow, I realized when I came close enough to see it clearly. Behind it the moon was in motion.

I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and crossed myself.

The front door opened and McKenzie entered, taking off his hat and throwing it into a corner.

“Sir,” Leonard began.

“Save it, son. We’ve got problems barreling our way. I’ve got a rifle, two revolvers, and enough shot to hold myself for a while.”

“I’ve got a Colt,” I added. “And bullets.” I ducked down for the spot where I’d stashed the weapon.

Leonard steeled himself, as if seeing a woman reaching for her knickers was a tremendous burden that Christ was asking him to bear. “Do you think the fire will reach the church?” he asked, trying to change the subject or give himself something else to think about.

“I hope not,” McKenzie drawled. “Unless it crosses the street, we should be all right. I didn’t put down any powder that way, so let’s just say our prayers and settle in. They’ll be out before long, won’t they, ma’am?”

He directed the question at me, so I responded. “Any time now. Is the town cleared out?”

“As cleared out as it’s gonna get. They don’t want those fellows anyway, do they?” He peered meaningfully at Melissa, who shook her head. “Well, we’ve got to catch them sometime. Now’s as good a time as any.”

“It’s going to have to be,” I breathed, because even while he was still speaking, I heard a shocking, sharp howl.

The girl heard it too. As the canine tone whistled through the air, over the crackling of the burning town, she twitched a delicate shudder. She fought it back, and down. She had resigned herself to something. But I had not. I’d not resigned myself, or any of them, to
anything
. The night was just getting started. We were all together, and unharmed, and prepared.

A second howl joined the tail end of the first.

A third chimed, harmonizing and clashing with the same threatening vowels, the same blood-curdling chorus.

Leonard was going pale. I wanted to urge him to sit down, but I didn’t. No one was going to sit down, not yet.

One of the remaining pews was lying on its back. I went over to it and stepped on it, as hard as I could. It splintered and split. I grabbed the back plank and carried it to the door, where McKenzie helped me jam it onto the supports—replacing and reinforcing the bolt I’d broken to let us inside.

“Will this hold them?” he asked.

Melissa said, “Not for very long. Kill Jack, though. The rest will leave.”

“Do you think?” I asked.

“They fight one another all the time. They’ll scatter without him.”

I couldn’t decide if I found that thought reassuring or not.

The window behind the pulpit—it was still uncovered. I was reluctant to disturb it; the cross there comforted me, even as I knew it was a weakness in our fortress. I hesitated, but Melissa did not.

Made bold, or simply inspired, she walked to the pulpit and pushed it with all her might. It rocked, and she pushed it again. The heavy old thing teetered and fell backwards, flat through and against the cross, pushing it out into the dirt, in pieces.

I did not realize until she’d plugged that gap how much light the window had provided. We didn’t dare light a lantern, not with the gunpowder and not with our own selves now nearly trapped inside. But with the last window broken and covered, the shadows within went jagged.

We looked at each other with a new wariness, a new resolve. Our faces were more hidden than revealed, and our movements were harder to track, but we were our own pack now.