Wolves (55 page)

Chapter 14

Black Heart Davies stood as far out of the way as he possibly could. These parties, these soirées, he couldn't stand them. He went because he was required to go. To be there for his councilman. And because his councilman liked to brag.

“This is the infamous Black Heart,” he liked to say, happily to those who hadn't met him yet. “Fastest gun in the Riverlands. Never seen him miss.” Then the councilman would say, with a wink and a nudge, “He's the reason people do as I say.”

More than the waste, more than the politics, Davies hated the parties because he hated being trotted out like this. He was a hero to some. A murderer to others. Cold blooded. Efficient. Everyone had a different characteristic of him that they'd built up in their mind. None of them truly knew him. It only served as a reminder that no one left in this world actually knew him, and it was a crushing, brutal reminder.

It drove him to drink.

Here, at House Murphy, watching his councilman and Councilman Murphy pretend as though they didn't hate each other, Davies put his back to the wall in miserable silence, and drank whatever watered swill they distributed to the
lower
guests. Black Hats were not supposed to drink when they were on duty, but Davies did not care, and it seemed that no one had the balls to challenge him on it, so he kept swiping drink after drink.

Nothing brought out the bad things in him more than these crowds. These fake friends and true enemies. Nothing could make him feel more lost and alone than being surrounded by all these strangers in this strange land, and sometimes it would feel so foreign to him that he felt certain he was dreaming.

Everyone thought him empty of feelings. And perhaps, in a way, they were right. There was a hole in him. But he could
feel
that hole. He just didn't let it show. He didn't talk to others. What would they think of him? In his business, weakness could get him a bullet in the brain.

Even if he could talk about it, he told himself there was no point. He told himself that his loss was not unusual. It was not special. There wasn't anyone over the age of twelve who hadn't lost someone or something that they'd loved.

Everyone's loss was only special to
them
.

He wondered sometimes how deep the undercurrent of pain ran in this burgeoning society. It seemed like it was a part of everything. But no one would admit it. Everyone refused to acknowledge that it existed. These parties seemed like a slap in the face to all of that, and he couldn't decide whether he thought it tragic or callous. Sometimes he thought this must've been what the ballroom of the
Titanic
would have looked like if everyone knew they were going to die and figured to keep the party going. Pop the corks and laugh, while death surrounds us.

Hours passed. The party wore on, interminable.

It was full dark outside. Everyone was drunk, or near drunk.

Davies was not an exception. The world was watery and dim to him. His thoughts were dark and cloudy.

He looked around the room, the guffawing buffoons of the so-called Great Council. His eyes traced a well-worn circuit, always coming back to rest on Mrs. Murphy and her newest prize, a young girl who sat on a stool beside a table with a thick ream of the best paper that could be pounded and pressed. The girl was maybe just entering adolescence. Twelve or thirteen at best. A skinny thing. She had no smile for any of them, but Mrs. Murphy and her guests seemed delighted by her.

Davies watched as councilmen and their wives posed for sketched portraits. They asked for the girl to draw silly things on them. Then they giggled quietly to each other. Everyone waited in expectation while the girl drew, her charcoal-blackened fingers moving about the paper, her eyes focused and intense, not letting anyone see until she was done. He noticed that she didn't look at them while she drew. It seemed that looking at them a few times at the beginning locked their images in her brain.

When she was finished, she revealed.

The guests laughed until they cried. They'd been drawn with monocles and top hats and furs made out of snarling foxes, the lady with a hat made out of eagle feathers, like an old Indian chief.

Gradually, the crowd died away and Mrs. Murphy grew bored of her newest amusement, as she was infamously prone to do. The girl remained on the stool with her ream of papers and her sticks of charcoal. When she was not drawing someone, she sat there and looked out at the party, and it seemed she bore the same distaste for them as Davies did.

His eyes moved on to the party, but over and over as the night went on, they kept tracking back to her. Eventually, she caught him looking.

She didn't blush or look down, or look away. She didn't seem scared of him.

She does not know who I am.

Davies looked away and drank more of his sour drink.

The third time they made eye contact, Davies pushed himself off of the wall and walked over to her, a very slight sway in his step. Mrs. Murphy and her entourage were gone. The girl was alone.

“You're not drawing,” he said, flatly.

“Do you want me to draw something?” her hand went to a paper.

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Why are you still here?”

“Mrs. Murphy told me to stay. In case she wants more entertainment.”

“Entertainment,” Davies sneered. He was drunk. He didn't mean to be aggressive, but he was blunt. “Why were you looking at me?”

“You were looking at me.”

“That's my job.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“No. Who are you?”

He regarded her evenly, taking another long draft of what he thought was some sort of mead. He didn't want to tell her who he was. What would be the purpose? To scare a little girl? To impress her? It was a silly question to begin with. A twelve-year-old slave didn't care about who he was, nor should she.

He rolled his shoulders, trying to force some of the misery off of himself. “What do I look like to you?”

It was an odd question, he knew.

The girl tilted her head at him, squinting as though he just spoke a different language. “What do you mean?”

“Put down your pencils,” he said, and she complied. “If you had no pencils, if you had no paper, how would you describe me? I want you to draw me with words.”

Why?
He wonders.
To have some child confirm what everyone believes about me? Because you think children tell the truth and you want her to decide for you whether you're some gunslinging hero cop, or a slobbering monster with the blood of infants dripping down your fangs?

You're ridiculous.

He drained his cup. “You don't have to answer that. Sorry.”

She sized him up with an artist's eye anyway. “Do you want me to say? Or not?”

He smirked down at her, wishing for more booze.
The truth hurts, huh? Shouldn't have asked the question if you didn't want the answer. Are you scared of a little girl? Let her say what she wants.

“Go ahead,” he sighed. “Tell me.”

The girl rubbed her fingers together, then wiped them off on her dress, leaving black smudges. “I think you're the saddest man that I've ever seen.”

Davies snorted. “What do you know about sadness, little girl? You don't remember the Old World.”

She shook her head. “I don't. But I used to draw for people. Sad people that had lost things in the Old World. I don't know how I could do it, but I could. I could have them tell me about the person that they missed, describe them to me, and I would draw them. I never knew the people I drew. But their loved ones …” she shrugged, looking sad herself. “… I guess I drew them good. People would cry when they saw them. But in a good way. They wanted to keep the drawings. So I would give them away. Maybe it helped. I like to think that it helped.”

Davies stared at her. The drink became cloying on his tongue.

“My Mom told me it was a good thing I was doing,” the girl said. “She told me that it's been so long since everything happened, that some people had a hard time remembering the people that they loved. I hope that's not true. I'm afraid of forgetting what my mom looked like. Or my dad.”

Davies swallowed hard. “Maybe you should draw them.”

“Mrs. Murphy doesn't want me using the paper for
doodling
.” The girl looked up. “She calls the stuff I want to draw
doodling
. She only wants me to draw what
she
wants me to draw. She says that if she catches me doodling she'll cut my fingers off and sell me as a bedslave.”

Jesus Christ
, Davies thought, but held his tongue.

The girl then reached across and grabbed a sheet of the paper. She adjusted her stance in the seat. Selected a piece of charcoal. “I don't like her drawings. I like to help people. Maybe I can help you.” She looked at him. “Who was it? Can you remember their face?”

Davies' mouth worked. Half of him wanted to speak. The other half wanted to walk away.

I do not talk about this … 

“My sons,” Davies suddenly blurted out. Then he looked around, cautiously, as though afraid someone might have heard him. He looked back down at the girl, poised with her paper and her pencil, and he spoke, quieter then, like a secret being shared. “I had two sons. They were just boys. One was four. One was six.”

And then, as though fighting against himself and losing, he began to describe them.

And the girl began to draw.

Chapter 15

Huxley steps out of the dark woods and onto the worn-out trail that once was a road. This is the spot. He knows, because he retraced his steps in the dim light, going by broken branches and disturbed leaves. His mind is giddy and scared, confused and elated.

This is the spot that he left his daughter on the hobbled horse less than a half hour ago, and now the road is empty. For a second comes the old fear, that feeling of separation. She is gone again. He does not know where she is, and he will never get her back … 

But he does know where she is. She is with Lowell. And they have left this place ahead of the dying rays of the sun, to make it back to Vicksburg Landing before dark.

Huxley stands in the middle of the road for a time. The wind whips his clothing. It is cold with the coming dark. The woods are silent. The road is abandoned. Here where he stands, where he left Nadine on the horse, the concrete is exposed, and it does not show any marks of travelers coming or going. It is possible to feel that none of it was real. That the woods were just a membrane between the real and dream world, and he has just walked through to the other side.

What do I feel?

The old familiar question, but is it necessary? Where before, Huxley had felt nothing, now he is almost struck dumb by everything coursing through him. He shakes as they all collide and spin around in him. He wants to laugh and cry, to run and to fall to the ground. He is in agony, and yet he feels pleasure in the wind, where before it had been cold and biting. He feels pleasure in the road beneath his feet, where before it had only been miles to cross.

Because before, he believed he had nothing to live for.

But now, he has everything.

What do I feel?

Alive. That is what I feel.

His heart is beating in his chest, and his limbs are moving as best they can—what other evidence does he need that he is alive?

He realizes that he is walking the road to Vicksburg Landing, one foot in front of the other, and he believes that he will make it. He has a
reason
to make it.

And from there, north, into some unknown. Into the vast and quiet hope of promises yet to be kept.

SPECIAL THANKS

I think I always knew what this story was about, but it took a long conversation with my incredible wife to drag it out of me. In the last few weeks of writing the rough draft, I found myself floundering for the right ending, but I must thank Tara for her uncanny insight into a story that she'd never read, which allowed me to find my way through a twisted and difficult story.

I have to also thank those who read
Wolves
and offered input and encouragement: my agent, David Fugate, a man of tireless work ethic; my partner, Joshua Gibbons, whose opinion I respect in almost all things; and of course, my pops, who's read everything I've ever written.

My sincere thanks to all of you.