Haints Stay (9 page)

Instead of chores, Mary liked to talk and walk and show you things. At
least she liked to talk and walk and show him things. He did not know what she would
be doing if he were not around to soak her up.

“Dad is a minister but does not preach. Mom is a musician and sometimes
she goes to town to play in the church or on a porch near the post office. She used
to not talk at all, when she was younger. Dad took her in. She got normal and
started to talk more. I used to ask her why she did not talk and she said it was
because she did not have a thing to say. It does not make sense to me and seems like
a lie. How can we live in this world and have nothing to say about it ?”

They were in a field. Grasshoppers the size of biscuits bent long blades
of grass back down toward the earth, and sprang up to strike Bird and Mary on the
neck, chest, and arms.

Bird was swatting at them, trying to crush the landed ones beneath his
boot.

“They do not bite,” said Mary. “It's just a hello.”

Bird grabbed one from his shoulder and crushed it in his

hand.

“Gross,” said Mary. “You should be more agreeable.”

Bird apologized. He'd never seen anything like it. It looked like a
creature. He did not like creatures or things he did not know that came at him.

“Lots of things are going to come at you,” said Mary. “It
is only the world saying hello.”

“I don't agree with you,” said Bird.

“Well, I'm right about it,” she said.

“Lots of things are not saying hello. They'd like to hurt you. Every man
must protect himself.”

“I agree with you there,” said Mary. She plucked a grasshopper from a
blade and held it out to Bird in her palm. “But not here.” The grasshopper leapt,
but not before eliminating in Mary's cupped palm. “Oh !” She rubbed either side of
her hand into the billows of her dress. “He's wet my hand.”

That made Bird laugh, seeing her so mildly put out.

“You have a nice look when you're put out,” said Bird.

“That's not a nice thing to say,” said Mary. She was hurt and it showed
in the way she held her face.

“I meant nothing by it.”

“Say I look nice all the time.”

“You do.”

“Say the words.”

“You look nice all the time.”

“Thank you, little bird.”

“You can call me just Bird.”

“I know,” said Mary. “But you are little. You are one-third bird.”

“I won't always be little.”

“But you are little now. Even littler than me and I am the littlest.”

“What do these things do ?” said Bird, nudging the crushed grasshopper
with his toe.

“Eat,” said Mary, “and hop. They don't have much to go on.”

“Then why are there so many ?”

“Because there is room for them, I guess,” said Mary.

When they were finished in the field they went around to the barn and
Bird watched her feed the horses. She made a mess of it. She put no care into it at
all. She obviously did care about the horses, though. She said nice, encouraging
things to them and warmed their noses with her hands. But she did not do an even job
of feeding them and she did not put forth the effort to get each and every one of
the seven an ear of corn of their own. She gave extra corn to the littlest one, and
the all white one, and one she thought seemed in a particularly good mood. She fed
the tan one and the black one with white stockings evenly. Then she got distracted
by their water bucket, how full of slop it was, and she playfully scolded the
stockinged horse for poisoning the others.

“He's a rascal, you see,” she explained to Bird. “He's always up to
something sneaky, but it's because he has an active mind and we keep him locked up
in here all day.”

“I have seen horses before,” said Bird.

“Bully,” said Mary.

“I saw a mass of horses ride through a clearing like hornets from a
nest.”

“You saw a stampede,” said Mary.

“I saw a stampede,” said Bird. “They tried to kill me.”

“There you go again,” she said.

She dumped the sludgy water in front of the barn and took the bucket to
the spigot around back.

Bird examined the horses but did not know what he was looking for. Some
kind of kinship. Something that bound them together and made them all horses in the
same situation. He spotted nothing but similarities in the ways they moved and held
their faces, but even those were fairly distinct from horse to
horse when he really thought about it.

Moths broke the sunlight coming through the cracks overhead. Or bats. He
could not tell because his eyes were focusing and unfocusing as he moved through the
large beams of light striping the barn's interior. He listened for any squeaks or
squeals but heard only the sounds of the horses stepping in the grass and breathing
and those of Mary making her way back around the barn with the water.

“I like it here,” said Bird.

“It is a nice place,” said Mary.

It was a bright night, and everything was more blue and white than
black, but still Brooke could not make out the trail they might have been taking, or
any prints to indicate a proper route. If he'd learned the stars, he could have at
least followed them in some vaguely correct direction. But he had not learned the
stars. He had not even tried. He might have tried more, he thought. He might have
retained a few things here and there, instead of always just doing what he was good
at and never learning anything. He cursed himself for being good at things that got
you by. He turned back from his wide wandering and decided to follow the water
instead. He might have been lost, but at least he would live.

In every direction, it was rock and desert. Small plants cropped up like
lint on the horizon, but there was nothing substantial, other than stone and
vastness, nothing that would lead him to believe food would be coming his way any
time soon. He wasn't particularly hungry, but he would be. For Brooke, it came on
strong, and like a seizure, it gripped him and would not let go.

It was funny to him, to die in this way. Alone and for no
good reason. Nearly every man he'd killed, he'd killed for a reason, however simple
the reason was. And now he would die from bad luck and the world's indifference. It
was funny to him, on some level.

He began to list in his head the men and women he had killed in his life.
One of them or some of them had come back on him and that had brought him here. It
had likely not happened as intended, but the end result would be the same.

There was Jenny's man. The runner. Whatever it was he'd done, Jenny
wanted him gone, and she was a high payer and even a sort of friend. And now Jenny
was gone and her bar was gone and there was nothing left of the sizable deal they'd
made. Taking the man down had not been a particular challenge. They'd found him
sleeping beside the very fire he had used to cook his last meal. They positioned his
face in the coals and held it there until he ceased to struggle. They had not robbed
him because they did not rob when they did not have to. People are sentimental and
objects have personal value beyond the knowledge of thieves. They were to be paid
and would have had everything they needed, so they left the man's objects to those
who would find him. They took his food but that would have been of no use to anyone
but themselves after a day or so. It was an easy job, but one that had gone
uncelebrated and, as far as Brooke knew, unrumored or spread. It was likely not an
associate of Jenny's man that was after them.

Before that there was a constable of some sort. Brooke could not remember
the full details of the man's position. He had been on the payroll of a criminal who
was doing fine more or less running a small town by a large lake, until he hassled
the wrong farmer and got a couple of killers after him. At one
point,
Brooke and Sugar had been in high demand wherever they'd gone. People needed
support, protection. They'd like a gun in their hand, but even more they'd like a
gun in someone else's hand, a hand they could control. Brooke understood it. He
appreciated it. Decent people had others to look after and could not go hunting
folks down for revenge or justice themselves. He and Sugar were not technically
decent people. They had one another, but it was because they were brothers and they
cared for one another, not out of any kind of necessity or civility.

It was true, the constable of some sort had put up a fight. He even tried
to hole up in his home with a set of antique rifles. Brooke and Sugar had finally
had to smoke him out, filling his windows with explosive cocktails and setting
themselves up to fire on anyone who came tumbling out. They expected him to come
from the front door or a window, but the man had held his position. There was very
little recognizable left of him in the ashes.

Brooke did not like killing men of high standing because it made people
restless. It made them worry that they were not safe, and Brooke and Sugar were far
better off with everyone feeling like they were safe. Safe as possible. They'd left
that town and never come back. It was entirely possible that the constable's men
were those that were after him and his brother. They'd had an official air to them,
Brooke's captors. They were self-righteous and clean.

There was little use in this kind of speculation, but he needed something
to keep his mind and feet moving as he progressed toward wherever it was that he was
going.

Another possibility was the little man who'd razed Jenny's. They hadn't
killed anyone that Brooke could remember, but they'd beaten his men and there was
reason to be sore about the
exchange. The hope had been to leave town
and be done with all of it. There was plenty of territory to roam and no reason to
ever go back to any particular spot if there wasn't something favorable awaiting
them. They weren't about to get in any established person's way over something that
was much larger than either him or Sugar.

The stream broke against a large red rock and split in two. Brooke had
heard that a lot of the stars in the sky were more or less the same every night, and
you could use them as a tool. It did not look that way to him. It looked like a pan
full of sand that shook and shook each night after it set.

His mind was wandering. He could not focus. It meant he was tired, but he
could not bring himself to stop moving yet. He needed some final something to secure
himself in his plan, or to draft a new one. He did not like to wait or give in
before a challenge. It was cold out there. He was shivering and wet and getting
colder. He did not like the desert.

After several hundred more feet, he fell. He loosed a reasonable amount
of wood from his supply and began to pile it into a cone. He could not go on in the
cold, tired as he was. There was no shame in collapsing. There was only shame in
letting fear or uncertainty give you pause. There was a flint in each of his heels
and he removed his boots to get the fire going then slid them back on for additional
warmth. They were not safe shoes, but that was part of the pleasure of them. And
more than once they'd brought him comfort and a sense of home when there would
otherwise have been none. He did not like to wear them down, but emergencies did
happen. He warmed his hands and cheeks when the flames finally kicked up. He
listened to the fire snapping and the water singing against the rocks behind him. He
did not much mind being alone. He wondered if he would
be alone
forever, or if he would meet Sugar again and then he wondered if they would get over
whatever it was that had come between them, and settle into one another once
again.

In the mornings, Martha played her piano. Whether or not it was to
wake them or to greet them as they woke, it was unclear. Bird's strength was coming
back. He thought less and less about the arm, and more and more about eating,
sweating, and helping. He kept active. He was normally up before Martha began. He
would hear her heels break the silence, then the shift of the key cover and her
settling in. He did not know the songs she played, but he often heard John humming
them throughout the day. Bird did not want to draw attention to himself by being the
first one up, so he listened for John or Mary before making his presence known. It
wasn't a worry of his exactly, but something physical. He simply could not lift the
blankets until the house was at least half awake.

Sometimes, in the morning, the clouds would look like a plowed field
spread across the sky. The sun would come through them and change them and Bird
would watch through the small window by his bed. That time of year, there was frost
in its corners each morning, like white fur.

Martha would play them right up to breakfast, songs that paused but
seemed to have no end. John cooked and served and the songs went on until the plates
were loaded. Then Martha joined them. She was tight-lipped and cinched. She sat up
like a board.

“We'll cut your hair today, Mary,” said Martha, digging into her bacon
with a dull knife.

“I like it long,” said Mary.

“If we do not cut it, someone will mistake you for a
heathen and take you away during the night.”

“Martha,” said John.

“Martha, none of it,” said Martha. “I'm only saying I'd like to clean my
daughter up a bit and keep her nice.”

“I am nice,” said Mary. She was tearing up and not eating her eggs.

“Until you're taken away and all the decency is riven from you,” said
Martha.

Martha's own hair was spiraled up and held in a bulb at the back of her
head. There was no way of knowing precisely how long it was, but Bird was sure it
was fairly long, given the thickness of the bulb. She had dark hair you could get
lost in. Closer to her head, Mary's hair was like two blonde hands interlocked at
the fingers.