Haints Stay (8 page)

“You were saying, Bud ?”

“Bird,” said Bird.

“You were saying, Bird ?”

“They died, my parents. They were killed. Two men killed them. For money.
They were killers, the men. They stabbed me and left me for dead and I wandered
until I wound up here.”

Martha shook her head. She closed her eyes.

“The evils in this world abound,” she said.

She tilted her chin toward her lap. When she opened her eyes, there was a
softness to them that hadn't been there before. She reached across the table and
took Bird's hand. He flinched at first, then accepted the gesture. “Child, you'll
live with us until they find and punish the men who did this.”

John nodded.

“Do you know anything about them ? Their names ? Why they
hurt your family ? What they looked like ? Where they were from or where they were
headed ?”

“No.”

“It's okay,” said Mary.

“One of them had a handkerchief, I guess. He was slightly round about the
waist. Soft features. A hanging chin. He was the younger of the two.”

“The other ?” said John.

“He was much bigger. Muscular. He had… a rough look to him.”

“Oh,” said Mary.

“He had stubble, like you,” Bird pointed to John.

“It's been a long weekend,” said John.

“And they carried knives in their boots.”

“You said they did it for money ?” said John.

Bird nodded.

“How did you know ?”

“They… brought parts back. They were planning to make some sort of trade,
I guess. I heard them. They… they put my mom's head in a gunny sack and my dad's
hung from the side of the saddle.”

“Whoa,” said Mary.

“Now Bird,” said Martha, “I know you've been through some kind of hell,
but you've got to do your best to keep this thing civil. I won't have Mary waking up
with nightmares for weeks to come.”

“Sorry,” said Bird.

“Sorry ?” said Martha. “Sorry what ?”

“Don't mess with him, Martha. He's telling a story.”

“Sorry for… saying what I said,” said Bird.

“She wants you to say ma'am,” said Mary.

“I'd like a bit of respect at the dinner table, is all,”
said Martha.

“Don't mess with the boy,” said John.

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” said Bird.

“Thank you, Bud,” said Martha.

“Bird,” said Bird.

“Thank you, young one.”

The top-hatted man was named Jim. The other riders had made it
clear enough, in spite of their efforts to hide it. Brooke was keeping quiet now,
learning what he could from their scattered conversation, and mulling over the news
they'd delivered what felt like half a day before. They were deep in the country,
deep in the desert. It was cold. Brooke could see his breath. The stars were out and
the moon was bright enough to reflect the edges of the enormous rocks articulating
the wide expanse in either direction. They were following a thin stream, headed for
the arc where two large rocks met. If he was lucky, they would camp and maybe he
would see Sugar. If he was unlucky, they were going to bury him in the hollows.

“Jim,” said Brooke.

The man turned to him, but did not answer.

“How did you know about Sugar ?”

“It's plain as day, rat.”

“I'd like you to be kinder,” said Brooke. “I've never condescended to
you. I'm only asking for basic human treatment. I'm not asking for pardon.”

“It doesn't matter what you're asking for,” said Jim, “or what you're not
asking for. It's us who's running things, bloodhound. We'll handle you how we see
fit.”

The carriage lurched to a halt then and the driver leapt
from his perch.

“Get your guns,” he whispered.

“What's happened ?” cried one of the men.

“Shut it or I'll shut it for you,” said the driver.

“Put him in the bench,” said Jim, signaling to the men on either side of
Brooke.

They lifted him, opened the seat beneath them, and before he could
protest with more than a jerk of his bound wrists, he was bent over the mouth of the
opened bench and stuffed into a curled-up position. Then he was sealed off. It was
all darkness. He pushed against the wood above him. It bowed outward but did not
open or burst.

He heard voices then. He heard hooves and the crack of a rifle. He heard
yelling, more gunfire. Every sound was amplified by the rocks rising up around them.
It echoed out like the first battle of creation. Like life was forming right there
in the opening of that hollow.

Then there were bodies on the wagon. It rocked and Brooke slid an inch
one way and then an inch back the other. There was the clinking of metal clasps,
sacks dragged and dropped. It was a robbery, or they were abandoning him. Everything
was flying off the wagon and the men were crawling around on it like spiders,
looking for anything and everything to take with them.

“No passenger,” said a voice.

“As he thought then,” said another.

After only a few moments, the wagon went still and he heard the thuds of
boots on sand and then the hoof-falls of horses fading into the distance. He pushed
against the wood above him. It bowed again, loosed a little light this time,
revealing the unfinished edges of the box around him. A bit of sand slipped in and
stung his eyes. He turned his body, pushed with his knees, and
was able to get the lid up about an inch or so. He kept at it. With knees and bound
hands, then his forehead, he pushed against the lid and bowed it outward until it
began to crack. The latch holding it shut would not budge. It was new, though the
rest of the bench was splintered and worn. The lock was purchased, maybe, for this
particular event. A small honor. The age of the wood was apparent enough. It croaked
and creaked as he bowed it. It bent and shuddered and finally broke in a jagged line
at the edge of the shining new latch.

He was up then and surveying the damage. The wagon was empty. He could
see nothing through the window. He looked around for something sharp, a blade or a
bit of broken metal, to remove his bindings. There was nothing. He opened the door
of the wagon with his toe, slowly at first. When nothing happened and no sounds
came, he pushed it open with his body and he stepped out and onto the foot ladder,
lowering himself then down to the sand. The horses had been cut loose, and were
gone. The still bodies of his captors decorated the landscape. They were shot, each
and every one of them.

Brooke checked them, one by one, for a pulse. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Then Jim. Brooke set two fingers to the body's neck and Jim startled, met the other
man's eyes with his own. He was pained but had strength left.

“We'll just keep coming,” said Jim.

“I know,” said Brooke.

“If you can get out of the desert, we'll find you.”

“I know,” said Brooke.

“We'll hunt you down until — ”

Brooke set his boot to the man's throat then, shutting him up. He ground
down for only a few seconds before Jim stopped
struggling against
him. When Brooke reached to check the pulse again, he was met with no
resistance.

“How old are you then ?”

Sugar did not answer.

“You're an abomination. You know that. A creature.”

Sugar did not speak.

“You know that, right ?”

The woods were thick around them and thickening. It was dark out and
getting darker. They were approaching midnight. Approaching smells that Sugar knew.
A kind of air that was familiar.

“You and your brother, you are no more than beasts.”

The man opposite Sugar had been talking the entire ride. Nothing could
shut him up, not even a direct request from one in his party, though each had tried.
The man was needling Sugar, trying to get a response, trying to get a rise. He
wanted something from him, but Sugar would not give it. He was thinking only of
Brooke. And occasionally of Bird. He figured Bird was dead ; if not by the knife
then by the power of those horses. But he could not be certain. Brooke would be
dead. If those men didn't kill him, Sugar would fight him and one of them would
lose. It didn't matter who lost. Every day now with Brooke was all lies and more
trouble. And now this. Now he was sick with something rotten in his gut and the
whole world making a point of telling him how different and horrible he was.

“And what you got in you is going to be worse than a creature,” said the
needling man. “It's going to be one of those lumps licking salt off the walls of the
barn. You'd be better off drowning it in a bucket than carrying it to term.”

Sugar did not answer. He watched the man. He wore a blank
expression.

“It'd make better horse food than person. You'll probably die squeezing
it out of you. It will probably claw at your insides like a mountain lion.”

The wheel of the wagon rode violently over a large stone. The sounds of
insects swelled the distance around them.

“Normally, in such a situation, we'd like to have a go at our catch. Out
here in the woods alone. It would even be sort of romantic,” said the needler. “But
you aren't worth unbuckling for. I wouldn't climb inside you with ten extra miles of
dick skin.”

Two of the corpses had knives in their boots, and the other two had
sheaths where knives should have been. The guns were gone. The only shells in the
sand were spent. There was no food. No sacks or cases left on the wagon, except for
an empty one. It was rawhide and would do to hold water. Brooke took that, as well
as the broken bits of leather strap that had once held their horses. He took the
bench's wood too, and what he could pry from the walls of the wagon. It was steel
and oak, the wagon, so he could only pry enough for maybe two fires, if he was
careful with them. He worked as quickly as he could, confident the other men would
not return but not wanting to test that theory. When he had gathered what he could
gather, he went to the stream and set himself on his stomach before it. He drank for
several minutes, cupping the water into his mouth, then lowering his cheek to the
sand to breathe a few calming breaths. Finally, he gathered water in the sack, tied
it off, and made for the gap between the rocks — right where the wagon had been
headed and the best
chance he had for catching a path toward wherever
it was they were taking him and, it was possible, his brother.

Mary was a good companion. She told stories about bobcats and wild
horses. Her father took in animals and nursed the sick ones. They'd owned over a
dozen dogs in her lifetime, and she was just now twelve. They currently owned three.
One was all black and had lost a paw.

“Just like you,” she said.

They were leaning against the horse fence and watching the ponies. They
had two mild ponies her father had discovered at a stream near a canyon.

“He saved them,” she told Bird.

“I'd like to get it back some day,” said Bird, examining his bandages.
They were white and clean, rather than soaked in brown and yellow as they had been
the day before.

“You won't get it back some day,” said Mary, “if I know anything about
anything. It's okay, though. Nobody around here minds and there's still plenty you
can do.”

“It does not always feel gone,” said Bird, eyeing approximately where his
hand would have been.

“Oh,” said Mary, “that's something I read about. That's a special trick
your mind is playing. That's interesting. Will you describe it to me ? What's it
like ? How real does it feel ?”

“Very real,” said Bird, “all the way.”

“Isn't that something ?” said Mary. “You are like a soldier returned from
war. I am like your patient wife who has been waiting all along for you to return.
But I am not really like your wife at all, I suppose. You are one of the things John
brings home, not exactly a husband.”

“I could be a husband,” said Bird. “I could be
anything.”

“Not really,” said Mary. “Plus, you are young and a cripple now.”

“I'm not,” said Bird.

“I don't mean anything by it,” she said. “I love the dogs and ponies
alike. Dad brings home good things and makes everyone's life better.”

“What's that one's name ?”

“I call him Little One.”

“Because he's the littler.”

“Yes.”

“And the other ?”

“Friendly,” said Mary, “but he is not exactly friendly outside of the
name. It is more a joke my dad and I make.”

The ponies kept their distance of the fence and Bird quickly lost
interest. The project of the day was to learn Mary's chores, to follow her around
and see what she was responsible for and how he could help, eventually.

“You're healing now,” John had said, “and we're happy to care for you
until you've got back your strength. After that, everyone who can help out around
here, helps out around here. It's only fair.”

Bird was learning, though, that Mary didn't take her responsibilities as
seriously as one might, given the family's low numbers and all that needed to be
done. Her jobs were fairly simple too. Feeding the horses was a matter of sacks and
proper distribution. She dragged the sacks instead of carrying them, spilling their
contents indiscriminately. She gave the animals ears of corn in unequal amounts.
Some got none. She was to feed the dogs too, but she told Bird they mostly fended
for themselves. She assured him she would put the scraps from each meal in
their bowls, in case they came sniffing around, but there was no
need to worry too much about it. They were ungrateful anyway, the dogs. Sometimes
they knocked her over if she lingered at their dishes too long. So she made a habit
of steering clear of the dogs when she could and pouring kitchen scraps over the
back porch, aiming more or less for the dishes below.