Haints Stay (2 page)

Sugar gathered their towels from the hooks and Brooke
backed slowly into his as Sugar opened it to greet him.

They left the bath together, dressed hurriedly in the adjoining room
where they had left their clothes, and sped toward the front door with the air of
practiced men.

They were back in the woods only a few minutes later. They had slid
out of town, uninterrupted. It wasn’t a hard thing to do, to disappear when they
needed to. It just wasn’t what they’d been hoping for.

“I can’t do another night of this,” said Sugar. He was standing, pacing,
looking between the trees.

“At least we got the bath.” Brooke set his head on a small rock at the
base of a tree. It was sundown. The woods were cooling around them.

No one was after them. They’d been given no chase. They were gone and
that was all that mattered. In a place like that, in a time like this, people had
more immediate concerns. All the better if he’d killed the pummeled thug. He was the
only one who might have taken the whole thing personally.

“Have we got another plan ?” said Sugar.

Brooke set his hands palm down where his ribs met his belly. “Perhaps
we’ll live and die in the woods,” he said.

Finally, Sugar sat. The night grew dark. They talked on as their eyes
adjusted. They got along well when there were empty hours ahead. They’d been out for
so long already, it was almost easier for them to talk like they still were, like
they’d never been back. Only things were soured now. They hadn’t the same tolerance
they’d had when headed home.

“We’ll just wait a few days,” said Brooke. “No one’s going
to care in a week.”

“So we’ll wait a week, or a few days ?” said Sugar.

“We’ll just wait,” said Brooke, “until it feels right.”

“Here’s what’s eating me,” said Sugar. “The man you nearly killed. What
was he hoping to get out of approaching us in the bath ?”

“What do you mean ?” Brooke rolled on to his side to examine his
bedded-down brother.

“I mean, was he after you for breaking his nose, or to finish what he’d
started ?”

“The difference being ?”

“The difference being, one agenda is personal. The other was a task
assigned him by the same tiny man who sent us to enjoy his newly acquired
facilities, only moments after you broke the nose of a man in his employ.”

“Okay,” said Brooke, “it’s a question that warrants asking. And yet I
don’t think the answer makes much of a difference. Either way we’ll be in the woods
tonight. We’ll listen for the approach of a man, and if we don’t hear it, we’ll wait
a day or two and then go home. We’ll find a bed and a private shower. We’ll stay out
of anyone’s hair until they need us or come looking.”

“And what if they no longer need us ?”

“We’ve never been without work.”

“Times are lean. You saw the people back there. Not a lot of children.
Not a lot of fat.”

“You’ve got a quality perceptive mind, Sugar. I could listen to you for
days on end.”

“What purpose do killers serve in a town that’s already dying ?”

“And poetic too.”

“People aren’t living like they used to, Brooke.” Sugar
sat up to face his brother.

“They never have,” said Brooke. Then, “The door man.”

“The door man,” said Sugar.

“He was fat.”

“He was muscular, maybe, but…”

“No, fat. He was fat, Sugar.”

“Okay. And he was in the tiny man’s employ. So he’s keeping the town slim
and fattening up his men. An army of giants to protect a child.”

“I miss Henry.”

“We’ll find a new Henry.”

“Henry was special.”

“Henry was a horse.”

“He was a special horse, Sugar.”

“You’re the only one who lost a horse ?”

“I miss Buck too.”

“Well, I miss Buck and Henry too.”

They were silent then. Sugar tilted his body as if to suggest he was
listening for the broke-nosed thug. Brooke opened his eyes and stared into the
brilliant dark. He pressed his fingers into the dirt on either side of him and felt
the stones and teeth buried there.

“How old are we, Brooke ?”

“Why would I know that ?”

“You seem to know so much about our life and how we should live it. I
thought you could answer one honest question.”

“We’ll get two new horses. They will be stronger and livelier than the
old ones.”

“Henry and Buck.”

“Than Henry and Buck, yes, and they’ll serve us well and
we’ll love them as we loved Henry and Buck, and then they’ll die and we’ll get
more horses. And on and on, Sugar. Now sleep.”

Brooke’s hand was occupied by a foreign object. He felt it before
opening his eyes to greet the day, which had rose up around them like a warm fog.
Here they were, back in the woods again and holding one another as they had always
done on cold nights. But Sugar felt different to him that morning. Smaller, thinner.
Cleaner. Brooke felt a bone protruding, sharper than those he knew to be Sugar’s. He
spoke a few casual sounds and received no answer and opened his eyes to reveal a
young boy, hardly a hair on his body, sleeping between Brooke and his brother as
heavily as a dead horse.

“Sugar.”

His brother did not stir.

“Sugar, there’s a boy here.”

Sugar rolled slightly but did not rise.

“Sugar,” said Brooke, and this time the boy was rocked casually in place
before opening his eyes to discover the two men at his flank.

“Who are you ?” said the boy.

“I’d like to ask the same question, and add a ‘How did you get here and
between us ?’” said Brooke. He rose and dusted himself, examined the woods around
them for a set of eyes or ears or a broken nose. The woods were silent but for the
small birds plunging into the pine needles gathered at the base of each enormous
tree. They were utterly alone, the two brothers and their stranger.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. He said it plainly and without fright. He
seemed as comfortable as the leaves around them.

“You don’t know which ?” said Brooke. He kicked Sugar,
finally, to wake him.

“It’s horse shit,” said Sugar, unsteadily, his eyes still shut.

“It’s an escape,” said Brooke. “You’re hiding out ?”

Again, the boy said, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” said Sugar, “who are you ?” He was up finally, watching the boy,
puzzling out how slow he might actually be, or how capable a liar.

“Who are you ?” said the boy. He put his hands to his face, rubbed,
coughed. He brought his hands down and examined the two men. “You’re going to hurt
me ?”

“Let’s assume no one is going to hurt anyone,” said Brooke. “I’m Brooke.
This is my brother Sugar. We’re killers by trade and we’re hiding in the woods after
a rout of sorts.”

“You’re…”

“Killers,” said Sugar, “hiding out.” He was waking up, pacing again and
looking between the trees.

The boy seemed weak, a little slow. Incapable of harm, or at least
uninterested.

“Who… who did you kill ?”

“Which time ?” said Sugar.

“Stop it, Sugar.” Brooke poured something black from a leather pouch into
a tin cup. He handed it to the boy, “My brother is trying to scare you.”

“Why ?” asked the boy.

“Because you’re wrong not to be frightened of two men sleeping in the
woods,” said Sugar. “Especially these two men.”

“When you say you don’t know where you came from or who you are,” said
Brooke, “what exactly do you mean ? Where were you yesterday ? Where were you an
hour ago ?”

“I don’t know.”

“Everyone comes from somewhere,” said Sugar. “Where are
your clothes ? What have you got in your pockets ?”

“I don’t have anything,” said the boy. He was nude and empty-handed.
There was nothing in the piles about them that did not belong to Sugar and Brooke,
that they had not bedded down with the night before. The boy had nothing to him but
his person.

“There’s meat on your bones,” said Sugar. He cracked the bones in his
fingers, one by one, then his neck and back. He rose and stood before the boy.
“You’ve eaten recently enough. You don’t look ill or wounded.”

The boy nodded slowly. “I don’t feel ill or wounded.”

“Hm,” said Sugar. He leaned forward slightly and set his hand to his
waist. He turned and walked into the woods around them and after a few moments his
figure disappeared into the mist. They could hear him crushing leaves and cracking
twigs with his boots. They could hear faintly the sound of his breathing.

“What’s he doing ?” said the boy. “Where’s he gone ?”

“Don’t mind it,” said Brooke.

“Are you going to hurt me ?”

“I don’t think so,” said Brooke. “If you tell us why you’re here. If you
can tell us why we shouldn’t. You can tell the truth, boy. Are you a scout ? A young
gunslinger trying an impoverished angle ? Did you grow up on a perfectly normal farm
with perfectly simple parents who were very casual people and did not bother much
with towns or neighbors ? Were you looking to get out and see the world ? Or did
your people torture you and send you running into the night ?”

“I haven’t done anything,” said the boy. He was crying without whimpering
or whining, letting the tears roll from the
corners of his eyes in
crooked lines down to his mouth. “What’s he doing ?”

“Don’t worry about him,” said Brooke.

“Where’s he gone ?”

“He’s ill,” said Brooke. “We’re not doctors. We don’t like them. It will
stop eventually.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. He’s my brother. It’s always been this way.”

“What’s your name ?”

“Brooke. Now yours.”

The boy examined his palms.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “I don’t know anything.”

“Where were you before ?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you remember ?”

“What do you mean ?”

“What do you remember about where you were before ? What do you picture
in your head when you think about elsewhere ?”

“I picture you and… Sugar ?”

“Sugar.”

“You and Sugar. That’s all I know. And some voices.”

“What are they saying ?”

“I can’t tell. It’s just sounds. From a distance.”

“You don’t remember anything else ?”

The boy shook his head.

“Your mother ? Your father ? What you had for breakfast yesterday ?”

The boy was silent a moment. He examined his palms.

“Can I… can I see your hands ?” said the boy.

“Where are these words coming from then ? What you’re saying ? Who taught
you to speak and speak like us ?”

The boy shrugged. He was crying again.

Brooke put out his palms. They were caked in dirt, a little blood in the
deeper wrinkles, which had run from a small crack in the skin between his knuckles.
The boy slid his hands under his legs, palms down and pressing into the dirt.

Sugar approached.

“What’d you get ?” said Brooke.

“What business is it of yours ?”

“Are you sick ?” said the boy.

“No,” said Sugar.

“Are you hurt ?”

“You’re a curious little egg, aren’t you ? We’re done with this. You need
to get along anyhow. Back to nowhere.”

“Sugar,” said Brooke.

“And if someone comes looking for us tonight, tomorrow, or any day after
this, for that matter,” Sugar leaned in, “we’re going to know where he came from.
Whether or not you actually said something, we’ve got to act on what we know, pursue
reason and statistical likelihood above all else — so we’re going to find you and
the people who matter most to you. Did we explain what it is we do for a living,
son ? Did we make it clear enough ? We’ll go right to work on you, and anyone who
knows your name.”

“Sugar,” said Brooke.

“We’ll erase you. Any trace of you.”

“Sugar,” said Brooke.

The boy was crying openly, his palms still buried beneath his thighs. He
was flexing his fingers and digging into the leaves beneath him, loosing small rocks
and the end of a buried twig.

“I’m telling the truth,” said Sugar.

“You’ve scared him, Sugar. Now leave him alone,” said
Brooke.

Finally the boy brought his hands to his face, tried to turn away from
them. Sugar snapped him up by the wrists and held out his arms as if the boy were
pleading. The boy stared up at him but said nothing.

“Sugar, let him go,” said Brooke, and Sugar held out the boy’s palms to
Brooke and pointed with his chin. The palms were blank, staring back at them. Smooth
as stones.

“Have you ever caught anything before ?” said Brooke.

The boy was on his belly at Brooke’s side and they were watching two deer
hoof their way crosswise up a steep and sudden incline only a mile or so from where
the men had been camped that morning.

“I don’t know,” said the boy.

“Let’s say you haven’t,” said Brooke. “You’re going to feel a certain
kind of pride, a sense of accomplishment. But you’re also going to feel uneasy with
that, as if there’s something wrong with it. There isn’t. It’s as natural as
breathing. That guilt is all fear, anyway. Fear that one day you’re going to be on
the receiving end of a blow, and the sudden wish that no one had to do that kind of
thing ever. You can rid yourself of all that if you just accept what’s coming to you
in the general sense, and work to prevent it in the immediate sense. No matter what
you let live you’re going to die and it’s just as likely it will be of a rock
falling on your head or getting a bad cough as it is that someone will decide they
want you gone. So accept it now and move on.”

“Okay,” said the boy.

“Are you ready ?” said Brooke.

“I think so,” said the boy.

“We’ll wait then,” said Brooke.

The deer worked their way up the steep incline without struggle. As they
neared the top, the boy said, “I don’t think your brother likes me.”

“He doesn’t trust you,” said Brooke.

“Why ?”

“He’s no reason to.”