Haints Stay (14 page)

“Come out,” said the sheriff. “Toss out the guns and come out.”

“And what ?”

“And nothing,” said the sheriff.

Sugar stepped forward and set himself at the edge of the bar's window.
The tables around him were still stacked with chairs, as if it were the end of the
day. But the door had been unlocked and there was movement from within. So someone
was in the room with him, or someones, and they were keeping to themselves, at least
for now. He peeked around the edge of the glass and saw the sheriff standing there,
alone, his gun held firm on the exterior of the bar.

Sugar examined the bottles lined up behind the bar, checking for
reflection.

“Now,” said the sheriff.

“Don't think I will,” said Sugar.

“We will burn you out,” said the sheriff.

“You may do that, but you'll be burning whoever's in here with me.”

“Who's in there with you ?” said the sheriff. His tone was flat,
uncurious.

“Looks like a young child and two old men,” said Sugar.

“You're a liar,” said the sheriff.

The bartender rose up then, his hands above his head.

“He's not lying, Sheriff,” yelled the bartender.

Sugar trained a second gun on him.

“I believe you are in there, Lloyd, but not the child,” said the sheriff,
from outside.

“You should believe him,” said Lloyd.

“Son of a bitch,” said the doctor, rising from behind the bar as well. He
cast a punitive gaze at his feet then redirected his energy on Sugar.

“There is no child,” said the doctor.

“Roy ?” said the sheriff.

“Yes,” said the doctor.

“It's a little early,” said the sheriff.

“Bold words for the only man among the four of us who has failed to
perform his job this morning,” said the doctor.

“I am doing my job,” said the sheriff.

“That's enough,” said Sugar. “Bring me the child.”

“There is no child,” said the doctor.

“I can see her reflection in the glasses,” said Sugar.

Alice flinched but did not bring herself up.

“You are mistaken,” said the doctor.

“Bring her up and over here now or I will kill you both and fetch her
myself.”

“What's going on in there ?” yelled the sheriff.

“He is threatening our lives,” said the doctor.

“You are drunk and a fool,” said Sugar. “Protect that child's life by
bringing it to me now.”

The bartender gripped Alice by the arm and lifted her.

“You son of a bitch,” said the doctor.

“I do not want to go,” said Alice.

The bartender did not speak but dragged her from behind the bar and over
to Sugar.

“If I see any more movement in there,” said the sheriff, “I am going to
open fire.”

“You'll kill innocent men or a child,” said the doctor, “if you do
so.”

“Quit moving around, then,” yelled the sheriff.

Sugar took Alice into his grip and pulled her against him. He fired on
the doctor and brought him down. Alice tried to run but Sugar held strong. He kicked
open the door and stepped onto the porch, his gun barrel pressed into Alice's blond
hair, singeing it and sending out the most awful-smelling smoke.

“No,” she said.

The doctor was fishing for a rifle or weapon beneath the bar.

The sheriff stepped back to account for Sugar's progression.

“Let her go,” said the sheriff.

“Where's the baby ?” said Sugar. “I want the baby and I will go.”

“Well, I did not expect that,” said the sheriff, “but you cannot have
it.”

“Where is it ?”

“You'll let her go and then I'll bring you to it,” said the sheriff.

“No,” said Sugar.

“I'll not have you threaten that girl's life,” said the sheriff.

“There is no threat if you do as I ask,” said Sugar.

“I won't,” said the sheriff. “Not as you ask it.”

The doctor found a club perched on a row of small hooks hanging under the
far end of the bar. He lifted it into his hands and gave it a few limp test swings.
It was top-heavy and awkward.

“You will,” said Sugar.

Neither man flinched. The mouth of Sugar's pistol barrel was cooling
against the head of the child. The sheriff was aiming at the left side of Sugar's
chest. It was unprotected by the girl's body, and it was possible he could puncture
a lung or even strike the man in the heart if he was steady enough. He pulled the
hammer back and ordered Sugar to release the girl.

Sugar did not oblige and so the sheriff exhaled, steadied his hand, shut
one eye to aim at Sugar's chest, and fired.

Alice collapsed against Sugar, who stumbled back but did not fall. At
first she did not bleed and then she bled profusely from the forehead. The sheriff
flinched and Sugar took only a brief look at the girl before firing his counter. The
sheriff took two bullets before collapsing to one knee. He raised his pistol and
fired again but hit no mark. Sugar, still clutching the limp body of the girl,
stepped toward the sheriff and fired again and again as he did so. Bullets ripped at
the man who slumped forward onto his bent and planted leg, before tipping over into
the dirt. The doctor sprung from the bar then, swinging his club and aiming in a
sort of general way at Sugar. Sugar turned and fired on the doctor, but his pistol
only impotently clicked at the man who did not slow in his advance. Sugar pulled a
third pistol from his belt and fired on the doctor, this time breaking a piece from
the club and finally giving the man pause. He was not fully stopped, but he slowed
to cast a glance at the mangled club, and this allowed Sugar to plant two more
bullets in the bulk of him.
The doctor stumbled but did not fall.
The club slipped from his hand and bounced against the road twice, tapping once its
top end and once its handle, before settling.

The doctor said, “Stop,” and Sugar fired on him again, ending his
protest.

There were no men on the rooftops. The town had no response for what had
just happened. Things were as still around Sugar as they had ever been. Only, the
alleyways were a little safer now. The boxes he would pass, as he went from store to
store and house to house, gathering supplies and ending any objections : these were
safer too.

Doubling back gained Brooke nothing but a little more time. He soon
found the water again, and with it, a few small things to eat. Insects and algae,
minnows and tadpoles. He caught a lizard but there was not much meat to it.

There had also been a man in the woods, but Sugar had not known about
that. Brooke came upon the man while he was sleeping. Brooke was wandering the woods
and discovered a clearing of grass being fed upon by a herd of longhorns. These were
burly creatures. He had heard about them and seen their likeness, but had never seen
one up close. They were formidable. Their horns were more than long. They were
monstrous. The average creature's performed a single curl before branching out away
from its face. They split and thinned toward the end as if they were entirely for
show, rather than weaponry. They shuttered at his approach but did not resist his
hand. He touched one after the other, examining their crunchy fur with his
fingertips and saying hello to one after the other. There was a small campfire on
the opposite side of the herd and a man on his back
with his hat
over his face. He must have been sleeping because he did not startle at the sound of
Brooke's approach. A man like that was too fit for casual robbery to be ignored.
Brooke and Sugar had been in the woods too long for any pretensions toward some code
against the act. Codes of conduct were relevant only in the absence of need. Brooke
set to the man's nearby bag in search of something that might improve their
situation. He found nothing but did wake the man who unsettled his hat and revealed
himself to share a likeness with the man who had driven the horse that vanished
Brooke's wife.

“It's you,” said Brooke.

“I do not know you,” said the man.

“This is a faith-inducing level of coincidence,” said Brooke.

“We do not know each other,” said the man. “I do not know who you think I
might be.”

Brooke was on the man's throat before he could say much more. The man
died quickly and it was no grand affair, but as Brooke sat to his side, reexamining
the bag — a little more thoroughly this time — it occurred to him that he did not,
in fact, view his wife's true husband as a mortal enemy. He was not really an enemy
at all. If anything, Brooke had stolen from the man and the man had only reclaimed
what belonged to him. And Brooke had never really gotten along with his wife anyway,
so he was no worse for the loss, when he thought it all the way through. The truth
was, there was a hostility and a violence in him that was based on no external
source. This was not a man Brooke had wanted to kill. Brooke had merely wanted to
kill, and there was a man. The herd was too fascinating and dumb to suit the
purpose. If the man was who Brooke suspected him to be, there was something
meaningful behind the murder, even if there was no real good in it.

He was thinking about it too much. Spending too much time
there with the body and the bulls. They had not reacted at all to the killing. The
grass was soft and long beneath him. There was a subtle wind around them. This area
did not frost, though it was late in the winter months. He and Sugar had taken the
route through this part of the plains, feeling that, though a great deal longer,
their travels would be more comfortable and they would have a greater chance of
staying healthy and fit for when they came out the other end. Brooke found a small
kerchief at the bottom of the man's bag. Inside the kerchief was a bundle of small
bones held together with a bit of wire. There was absolutely no way of knowing where
it had come from or why, but Brooke assumed it was some attempt made by the man to
keep his leavings to a minimum. Perhaps these bulls had nothing to do with him and
he was on the run. Pursued by men or dogs or men with dogs, and any bit of scent
left behind or too boldly displayed would be his undoing. Or maybe he had been
traveling with the bulls to best obscure his trail. Or maybe it was an icon of some
kind, a bit of religion the man carried with him. Brooke had no religion but knew
enough to know that icons were a part of most Sunday gatherings. These manifested in
very individual ways in people's private lives and he was no one to judge what a man
might carry with him and what it might mean to him. There was a bit of cheese and
moldy bread in the bag too, which Brooke pocketed. There were no weapons and nothing
more of any use, so Brooke abandoned the bag and the bones and the body and said
goodbye to each of the bulls, one after the other.

He loved his brother and they shared nearly everything, but something in
him did not want to go into an attempt at explaining what had happened out there in
the clearing that morning, so he kept the cheese and bread for himself and left the
whole
thing unmentioned. That was the one death he carried
privately. The one death it was entirely possible no one ever knew he was
responsible for, other than himself and the bulls. Whatever happened to the bulls
was impossible to say. It was possible whoever had been after the man eventually did
catch up with him. They would have been disappointed, seeing their work completed
for them, but maybe there would be some condolence in the bulls that were left at
their discretion. If he had been the man Brooke suspected, and the news ever made it
back to his ex-wife, there was even the chance she would guess it was him who had
done the killing. Judging by the man's appearance, he had been out with the herd for
some time. Or out in the wilderness for some time. Brooke had not been able to
determine the man's route, or had not taken the time to, and it was as possible that
he was headed home as it was that he was headed out for good. Either way, if she
heard anything she would likely hear that the man had been strangled. And, being a
sharp lady and somewhat suspicious, she would likely assume it was Brooke. Which
made him happy enough.

At the time, Brooke found it curious that, having had no interest in
pursuing them after those first few days, and certainly giving no real thought after
that to finding the man and killing him, he had simply stumbled onto the man and
into killing him and it was entirely likely his wife would soon hear about it,
however many miles away she was and however little she cared to think on Brooke this
late in life.

There was no logic to life and no road that could take you straight to
elsewhere. Living was all winding around and doubling back. He was walking alongside
his old tracks now, watching the stream grow broad and deep again. The red rocks
where the wagon sat were even visible far, far off in the distance.
He had no idea how long he had been walking, how many days, how many miles, but
knew he was better off now than he had been at the halfway point. He could try to
follow the wagon's trail back to the town, at the very least. Maybe the innkeeper
would take pity on him. Or had she been setting them up from the very beginning ?
Had the whole thing been an ambush ? How was he to know ? How was he to even begin
to guess ? The stream seemed of an entirely different color than before. Or maybe it
didn't. He could not be sure. He tasted it and it tasted like water, but that was no
help in determining if the water had somehow changed or if this was in fact the same
stream.

They had killed a boy once, but Brooke had not wanted to. Children are
stubborn and it is rare that someone else's child will listen to you without being
instructed to do so by a guardian. Boys were worse than girls in this regard, and if
a young boy got it into his head that you were double-dealing him or treating him
poorly, there was no other way of getting around it than to be forceful or to be
saved from force by the appearance of the boy's parent. One such boy had caught
Brooke and Sugar sleeping on his father's property and had chosen to take the
extreme route in addressing the offense. Rifle to collar, he demanded they explain
themselves, which they would not be particularly good at doing, in such a position.
Firstly, they did not like being threatened. No one did. Secondly, their story was
not exactly one to put a frightened boy at ease. They were out to kill someone.
Someone who lived in this area and owned a considerable portion of the land. Someone
who had a son and a sick wife and a slow-witted brother. Someone whose son was
rumored to be a bit of a handful.