The Good Thief (17 page)

“That’s one, anyway,” Benjamin said.

“They should pay us double for him,” said Tom. He used a shovel to push the bag to the rear of the wagon. The horse shifted—backed up, then forward—“Hey there!”—Tom hit the side of the cart with his fist, and the wood shook all the way to the driver’s seat. “Watch it,” he said.

Ren pulled hard on the brake until the horse stopped shifting. The mare chomped on the bit in her mouth. Green saliva gathered around her lips. The horse turned her head, trying to see around her blinders. Benjamin and Tom went back into the graveyard, and all Ren could think about was the bag in the wagon.

It smelled of molted leaves and rotting bark and old pine needles, all the decaying bits of forest that rested under the trees. Ren twisted the reins in his hand, the leather cutting into his fingers. Everything around him was silent except for the buzzing of insects, and the boy imagined that he could hear them eating through the bag, trying to get at whatever was inside.

Ren blew on his fingers. He glanced into the back of the wagon. He could not look at the bag for long. Each time he did, it seemed more human and his conscience grew more troubled. He could feel God’s eye upon him, like a pointed stick at the back of his neck. Ren tried to whistle, but his lips were dry.

Benjamin and Tom carried the rest of the bodies in their arms like firewood. The men moved easily but kept their faces turned to the side. After crossing the lawn they dropped the sacks behind the wagon. Each bag smelled worse than the last.

“This better be worth it,” said Tom, sliding the last one off his back.

The men raised the bodies one by one into the wagon. When they were finished, Tom paused for only a moment to sip from his flask, then went to fill in the graves. Benjamin took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and spit. His coat was covered with filth, his fingernails crusted. He brushed some dirt from his hair, then turned and arranged the blankets in the back. As he did, he held his hand over his nose.

“They smell awful,” said Ren.

“They won’t be with us long.”

“What if their families come looking for them?”

“They won’t.”

“But what if they do?”

“By the time they come after us, there’ll be nothing left.”

Ren thought of Doctor Milton’s box of surgical instruments. The pliers. The needles. The selection of knives. The curve of the blades. The bone saw.

“Aren’t you tough, little man?”

“I’m tough,” said Ren.

“Then show it.” Benjamin took up the end of a bag that had come loose. He finished retying the knot and went back through the gate.

The horse snorted as he left. The muscles in her body shivered and twitched, as if she was trying to shake something off. Ren got down from the seat onto the road and began to pat the mare quietly with his hand, just above the leg. It had been a long journey from the barn to this graveyard. The animal was no longer in top form, but she still had the same thick coat and sharp eyes. Ren wondered if the farmer had found a replacement yet. If he kissed the second horse too.

As he watched the mare’s nostrils flaring open and closed Ren heard something shift behind him. He stood still. He held his good hand against the horse. A few moments passed before he found enough courage to look. When he did, he found nothing but the empty road. To his right the cemetery gate stood open. To his left was the town common, the grass bending in the wind. I’m not afraid, Ren thought. Then he glanced into the back of the wagon. One of the bags was sitting up.

It was the largest sack, the one that Tom and Benjamin had brought out first. The burlap was pulled close, and Ren could see the outline of a head and shoulders. The boy dropped the reins and the bag turned toward him, its neck slightly tilted, as if it were listening for something, as if it were waiting to hear him speak.

Ren tried to call out for Benjamin, but his voice was gone. He opened his mouth, his throat tightening. He took a few slow steps toward the gate. The head of the bag turned, watching him. The boy froze. He began to shuffle in the other direction, and the head of the bag followed this, too.

Benjamin came out of the graveyard with a bounce in his step. Then he saw it all. The spade on his shoulder fell to the road. The bag turned sharply toward this sound and leaned in Benjamin’s direction. More than anything Ren wanted to run, but Benjamin motioned with his hand for the boy to stay put. With the other hand he pulled his knife slowly from his boot, as if he were trying not to startle the bag in the wagon. As if his life and Ren’s life and everything around them—the moon and the horse and the wagon and the dead, all of it—depended on how carefully he did this. Then, in a moment, he was up beside the body, cutting at the burlap.

The horse began to shuffle. She gave a small kick with her legs that banged against the wood, and Ren suddenly found his voice again. Tom stumbled out of the churchyard and clapped his hand over the boy’s mouth, but Ren continued screaming straight through Tom’s fingers.

“It’s all right,” said Benjamin. “Don’t move,” he said.

In the wagon was a dead man, sitting up with his eyes open. The burlap hung like a hood around his shoulders. His head was square and short and dirty. He was bald.

“I’m hungry,” the dead man said. There was mud on his lips.

“Yes,” said Benjamin. He looked nervous, but he continued to use his knife to cut the bag off the body. He made small slashes and ripped the rest apart with his hands. He pulled the remains away and revealed a purple velvet suit.

“Cripes,” said Tom. The grit from his fingers spread across Ren’s teeth. Ren had stopped screaming, but he could still feel the schoolteacher’s hands trembling on either side of his throat.

The man in the purple suit sat in the wagon and blinked against the moonlight. There were rings under his eyes, as if he had been sleeping for weeks. His features were large and brutish—a jaw that flared out below his ears, a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. Now that he was sitting up, he seemed to fill the entire back of the wagon. His shoulders stretched from either side of his neck like a wall. Even sitting down he was taller than Benjamin.

Ren stepped forward to get a closer look. Just as he did, the man closed his eyes and slumped against the side of the cart.

“Is he dead now?” Tom asked.

Benjamin felt the man’s neck hopefully. “No.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“We can’t leave him,” said Benjamin. “Someone will find out.”

“Then we’ll bury him again. He’ll never know the difference.”

Benjamin stood for a moment, weighing this possibility. He rocked back and forth, his shadow swaying over the man at his feet. “We don’t have time,” Benjamin decided. He jumped down. He shoved Ren toward the horse. “Fetch me some rope. He’s coming with us.”

Ren found some cord underneath the driver’s seat and Benjamin began tying up the dead man. The tools and bodies were covered with blankets. Tom fumbled in his pocket for the flask, but when he tried to drink it was empty. He slipped next to Ren and took the reins.

“Get back,” he growled.

Ren climbed over the driving board. He held on to the side of the cart as they jostled down the street. Underneath the blankets the bodies were stiff but yielding, like pieces of wood just beginning to rot. It was hard for Ren to distinguish where one body ended and another began. He scrambled over them as quickly as he could, trying not to imagine their faces as he made his way to the back of the wagon.

The dead man was not wearing a shirt. His purple suit had holes in it—tiny ones that showed bits of skin and hair. His feet were bare as well, and somehow this made his hands seem naked, resting open in his lap, the fingers thick and dry. Above the collar of the suit his neck laid itself out in folds. The skin was circled with dark bruises.

Ren kept as close to Benjamin as he could. He crouched down and grasped the edge of the wagon. He counted everything inside. There were three bodies, two thieves, one dead man, and him. The horse continued to pull them all, its hooves echoing against the stones in the street.

Benjamin sat on the edge of the cart, his fingers in his hair. Every so often he would reach out and slap the dead man hard in the face.

“Hey there,” he said. “Still with us, now?” There was a low gurgling noise from the suit in return. “I guess you are,” said Benjamin. “I guess you’re with us for good.”

T
om and Benjamin struggled as they carried the man up the stairs. Ren moved ahead, holding the lamp, opening doors, turning keys, telling them to shush for a moment until he was sure that Mrs. Sands was not in the kitchen. It was close to four, the final chilled breaths of night before morning. The dead man was still snoring lightly when they rolled him on top of the bed.

“What’ll we do with him?” Tom asked. “Can’t leave him here.”

“For now we will,” Benjamin said. “There’s no choice but that.” He reached into the back of his pants, pulled out the revolver, and handed it to Ren.

“Watch him,” he said. Then he blew out the light.

It took a few minutes for Ren’s eyes to adjust. He listened to the men go down the stairs, then pushed the curtain aside to watch them leave. He could make out Tom in the back of the wagon. Benjamin was at the reins now, and Ren could tell by the way he leaned forward in his seat that he was worried. If they didn’t get the bodies to the hospital before daylight, they would be left with a wagon full of corpses.

Ren stood alone in the dark, thinking of the mourners coming to pray over the empty coffins they had left. Behind him, the purple suit snored. The sound was heavy and wet, increasing with each exhale, until the dead man seemed to be filling not only the bed but half the room, all the way to the ceiling.

The boy climbed onto Tom’s mattress and rested the gun on his knee. He ran his finger over the back hammer. The metal was cold. If he pulled the trigger, the bullet would go right through the man’s heart. That would stop him for sure. But Ren hoped it would not come to that. What would he tell Mrs. Sands if she came and saw that he’d killed someone? She thought he was a good boy, and he did not want her to know the truth.

Ren went over to the door and listened. The house was silent. Mrs. Sands was still asleep, unaware of the stranger they’d brought underneath her roof. Ren moved back to his spot, relieved. A small spider was crawling across the dead man’s stomach, pausing for a moment before scurrying on. There were probably lots of bugs, Ren decided, and now they were all in his bed.

The man’s mouth was open, his teeth glistening in the moonlight. Ren wondered how he had been buried alive—if a doctor had missed his heartbeat, or if the man had found some way to pull his spirit back from heaven. This wasn’t like Saint Anthony in The Lives of the Saints, raising a child to clear his father’s name. It didn’t feel even remotely holy. Ren reached over the blanket and flicked the spider with his thumb and forefinger. It landed on the floor and Ren quickly stood upon it, grinding the spider into the boards. When he was finished he saw that the dead man was awake.

Ren lifted the gun. It was heavy held out in the air and his hand shook a little.

The man blinked his eyes. His belly spilled over the edge of the bed. He had his hands tucked together underneath the side of his face, as if he was used to not having a pillow. He seemed even larger now, and looked as though he could bring his foot down on a boy just as easily as a spider. Ren’s arm was already feeling tired. He used his left to prop up the right, the nub just beneath his wrist.

“It looks like you’re dancing,” said the man. He reached up and brushed something off his face. Ren saw a small insect hit the floor. It had many legs, and it used them now to run toward the boy’s foot. Ren lifted his shoe and brought it down again, twisting at the ankle from side to side.

“There you go again,” said the man. “Where’s the music?” His voice was deep and ragged, as if he had not spoken in years. A creeping sensation began up the back of Ren’s legs, as if the man had been buried not for just a day but for a century. The room was dark, but an even greater darkness seemed to seep directly from him, like a thick and evil fog. The man closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m cold.”

Ren tucked the gun under his arm and yanked one of Mrs. Sands’s quilts across the bed, his hand shaking.

“Well, that’s a treat,” said the man. Then he was quiet for a while, and Ren thought he might have fallen asleep again. Ren lowered the revolver and kept a lookout for bugs. Then he realized that the man was crying.

Ren had always believed that crying went away when you got older. Now, as he watched the man sob, he felt it must be a thing that never stopped. The bed was shuddering, the purple suit rocking back and forth. There was a deep sound coming from the man’s chest, the heavy kind of moan that bends people over. Ren had heard this sort of crying before in the small boys’ room. It came on bad nights, when the children remembered their mothers.

Ren sat down on the edge of the bed. The smell of the fog had spread, so ripe and so foul he could nearly taste it. He touched the man’s ankle through the quilt and felt it flex beneath his hand. Ren patted the foot. He sat there gently and continued to pat the foot, and eventually the man quieted.

The silence that came after was unnerving. The man did not wipe his eyes or his nose. He let them both run, until they dried into tiny rivers on his face. It was as if he had never cried before in his life. The man inhaled deeply, his nostrils letting out a tiny squeak as he released the air. He coughed.