Dreadful Skin (16 page)

XI.

Leonard, July 9, 1881

The meetings begin tomorrow.  

   I can see where announcements have been posted, and there is gossip about town. These meetings will not be so well attended as our old ones, I’m sure of it. They’re giving themselves away—they’ve hunted themselves into obviousness.

Women and children, even those who’d like to join the fellowship, are being urged to remain home and indoors.

It astounds me what people can glean from behavior. It delights me how astute even the commonest, plainest laborer can be, when faced with peril and threat unheard of. They may not riot in the streets, screaming for the blood of the monsters—but they are wise enough to keep themselves hidden. They shut their doors and fasten their windows, and they keep the little ones inside.

Much as it makes me tense, it pleases me to see the town’s reaction. There is fear in the air, and anticipation. There is worry on the face of each passerby, and caution in eyes everywhere.

And they don’t even know what they’re up against. They only know that something is wrong.

This is not a traveling worship camp, not anymore. The beasts are being found out, slowly, and by God’s hand. They will not be allowed to continue, not like this. Not under the cross. Not with songs of praise melting in their mouths.

***

Eileen, always prone to thinking of the things I miss, also noted the simmering scent of fear. “I’m glad they’re catching on,” she said. “But it makes me afraid for them, too.”

I looked at the flimsy shutters and thin wood doors. “I hope they stay home.”

“But hope and suspicion are two sides of one coin. Closing their doors won’t do much help to them.”

“But
we
will help them.”

She nodded, but otherwise didn’t answer.

“The best thing we can do for these people is tell them to leave, don’t you think?” I asked.

“No. The best thing we could do for them is
make
them leave. But we can’t do that, just yet. They won’t believe a plague of wolves, though you’ve gotten me thinking. We might need to destroy the town to save it.”

I frowned. Destroying a town to save it—I hoped she wasn’t serious, but she looked serious. She was different now from the first time I met her. Then, she was a little lighthearted, even when she was concentrating. Now she was grim in a way that didn’t seem to suit her, even as she wore it like a mantle. It didn’t fit her, but she would have been naked without it.

“We should part company,” she said quietly.

“Why is that?”

“I have some shopping to do. I have some preparations to make, as do you.”

She was right. But I didn’t want to admit that I felt helpless without her. Instead, I asked how she was planning to fill her day.

“I’m going to see about some tools.”

“Tools?”

“Dangerous tools. Do ye also likewise,” she said, and she was paraphrasing the Golden Rule. I didn’t like the perverse twist she applied to it, but I didn’t argue with her. She was right. Our window of time was narrow, and we would need to be ready to take advantage of it.

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“Sharp tools. Heavy tools. Things that might prove uncomfortable to carry, but will be necessary all the same. Tell me, do you know anything about guns?”

“Guns?” I was startled by the sudden note of pleasantness she applied to the word.

“Guns, yes. The kind that leave big holes wherever they’re aimed. They seem an efficient manner of testing our theory of bloodletting, and maybe—with a good shot—even our thoughts on beheading.”

“That’s….” I was flabbergasted. She spoke so
casually
.

And then her eyes narrowed, and her conversation turned dark again. “I don’t know what you think you’re up against, boy—maybe you have no idea, after all. But this is not the time for niceness. This is not the time for the rules of ordinary thinking.” She stopped on the street and faced me. I felt for the first time that she was reconsidering…something. Not the mission, but
me
.

She pulled me aside, off and up onto the nearest porch. It was the entrance to a barber’s shop.

“Have you given this any real thought? Have you considered what we might be facing tomorrow? Or tonight—for that matter, if they learn we’re here and what we intend. If Jack gets a gander at me, the jig is up and we’ll be forced to move, now or never. I know you haven’t seen…I know you don’t
know
what’s waiting for us. You have your imagination; but your imagination is fooling you. Until you set eyes on these things, you won’t be ready to kill them. And if you never believe another thing I ever tell you, believe this: we
will
have to kill them.”

I gave her monologue the pause it seemed to require, and then I spoke. “I’m ready to kill for Melissa.”

“Good. But you’re forgetting that these things were men once. And they could appear to us as men again. Would you kill a man for Melissa?”

“I’d kill an anything. I’d kill an angel, or the devil himself.”

She stared at me hard, still working something out in her mind. I didn’t know where the verdict would fall, and I didn’t know what it meant when she went on. “Keep that in your mind, then. Jacob wrestled with an angel, but we won’t have that luxury. By the time we resort to wrestling, the fight is nearly decided against us. Arm yourself, Leonard. Boys go into fights with their fists and their expectations. Men know better, and they bring lead.”

“Then we’ll fight like men!”

“And we’ll die like dogs. Use your
head
, Leonard. And
please
, do as I say. I want to protect you. I want to protect
her
. But I need your trust—above everything else. And if you can’t trust me, trust
her
. She’s tried to warn you, and you know her better than you know me.”

I was near to tears, but I bit them back and stood my ground. “I
do
trust you. And I trust her. But how are we supposed to fight this? What am I to do?”

“I’ve told you—arm yourself. Hunt for things with which to hunt, and meet me in a few hours, back at the Primrose.”

She left me then, and I was confused, and I was afraid. She frightened me, as she meant to. I wish she’d given a better try at inspiring me.

XII.

Eileen, Morning - July 10, 1881

He trusts us for opposite reasons. He trusts her because he knows her, and he trusts me because he knows me not at all. I can’t make him understand, but I can’t stop trying, either—even as I see that it pushes him away from me. He sees this as a simple thing: rescue the girl. He probably thinks they’re dangerous, yes, but dangerous like a pack of wolves.

I shouldn’t try so hard to enlighten him.

I do not fear frightening him out of his task; I don’t think a legion of devils could manage that. He is invincible, because he is
right
. And there’s no telling him otherwise.

Bless the boy, he doesn’t understand anything important about the way the world works.

***

And now I realize I am being condescending towards him because of his faith. I never thought I’d find myself doing anything of the kind, but there I am—almost mocking him for it. Heaven forgive me.

How far have I wandered away from faith then, that I act from a point of pragmatism alone? Where is the balance between trusting in God and not behaving like a suicidal fool?

Since I do not have an answer for myself, I have no business criticizing Leonard for the place where he’s drawn his line.

***

I’ve gone to the smith’s and I’ve gone to the general store. I’ve bought things. I’ll arm the boy. I’ll arm myself.

David had his sling. I have my Colt and a knife. It’s a big knife, called by slang after a dead Texan. The men who carry it joke that it’s long enough for a sword, sharp enough for a razor, wide enough for a paddle, and heavy enough for a hatchet.

I do believe they’re right. It’s almost as great a weight beneath my skirt as the gun is. Mine is a Sheffield Bowie, and it’s a mean-looking thing.

I’ve been practicing my aim with that gun. I’ve been teaching myself how to hold the gun straight and how to aim for the most vulnerable bits of a body. The silver bullets didn’t significantly harm him; I decided long ago to spare myself the expense. Ordinary lead is good enough for Jack. And I know where to aim. I know which parts to destroy. He will not intimidate me.

This time, he will not frighten me into rash actions or sudden mistakes.

XIII.

Melissa, July 10, 1881

Daniel will be along soon, so I must write quickly. I do not intend to return to this tent, or to this journal, or to this camp. Not willingly. Not alive. So I’ll leave a testament—just this last page, and I’ll take the rest with me.

Read that part and weep, you brutes.

You wanted a record, didn’t you Jack? Well I’ve written you one. It isn’t what you had in mind. But it is true, and it is mine. All you’ll ever see of it is this tiny epilogue.

I hope you
choke
on it.

XIV. 

Leonard, Evening - July 10, 1881

Eileen and I parted company in the morning. She was vague about what she intended, and I’ve learned it’s useless to press her about her secrets. It reminds me of things I’d prefer to forget. It reminds me that, in some way I do not understand, she is one of them.

She believes that if she tries to explain herself to me that I might be afraid, or I might not trust her anymore. She might be right, but I don’t like being left in the dark.

So I’m trusting her now. And I wish she would trust
me
, too.

***

I saw Daniel Aarons first. He was walking with an arm around Melissa’s waist, and to see it made my throat clench. They were together with a minister, a stranger to me. As I watched and listened, I learned that he was a local man, a preacher who spoke at the clapboard structure with a graying steeple, down at the end of the street.

He was shaking his head, and telling Daniel that no, he would not join them tonight. He was folding his arms across his chest and saying, no. Not tomorrow night either. Nor would he encourage his flock to attend.

No.

I silently praised the man. Something was tipping, turning, and shifting. Whatever sway Daniel’s pack of beasts had held over the wilderness…whatever spell they cast, or whatever ruse they held up as a magician’s curtain—it was slipping.

These people, these towns, the ones farther and farther west—they were not the same as the southern and eastern towns, where hospitality was important and curiosity was lure enough. In these places, at the cusp of the desert, under the unblinking eye of the unforgiving sun, the population had learned a kind of toughness that did not leave them as vulnerable.

The pack in the desert—they want women and children. They want families because they want easy prey. I do not think they will find it here.

***

I stood on the corner, partially hidden by a horse that was tied outside a store. I examined the people who passed me by, and almost all of them were men. Almost all of them were sunburned and weathered-looking like meat that’s left to dry and salt in strips. Or like leather.

They all had guns. Long guns with barrels that hang down to their knees…. or short ones in holsters, hanging out and open for easy reach. This was a town filled with men who worked, and men who shot. (I do not know how to even hold a gun. I’ve never done it before, and I don’t think it will do me any good to start now. )

But I was standing, watching, and I began to imagine how I might lure Melissa away from Daniel. He was guarding her, but he was losing his patience, too. He wanted to argue with the man in the preacher’s coat. Even before, when I was with the camp, Daniel was not the sort of man who would have easily realized how counter his behavior ran to his goals.

Then he stopped, mid-sentence.

He turned away from the minister and looked around, up and down the street. I swear he lifted his face up. I swear he held his nose up just like a dog trying to catch the scent of something faint but familiar.

I knew, without knowing why, that he was looking for me.

I stepped out from behind the horse and made myself known before he could accuse me of hiding.

“Daniel?” I said, trying to infuse his name with an old fondness. I don’t know how well it worked. I could scarcely look at him. “Melissa?” I said, because it was easier to sound happy to see her, though it was harder to sound light when I said her name.

Her face froze. Her eyes were wild behind that mask, and there was elation there, too. She was controlling herself so much better than I was. She did better than Daniel, as well.

Once his surprise had passed, he frowned with open irritation before managing a more neutral niceness. “Leonard,” he said my name slowly. He said it like he was trying to remember it. “Such a coincidence to find you here.”

“Coincidence? I don’t believe in anything of the sort.” I steeled myself and approached them, resisting with every ounce of my rational self the impulse to grab Melissa and crush her in a protective embrace.

“Then what would you call it?”

“Careful planning. I heard that the camp was stopping here, and I wanted to come by. I’ve missed the meetings, and I’ve missed the fellowship.”

“There might not be any meetings at all,” he spit. “It appears that we’re not wanted here. Can you imagine a thing like that? A fine spirit of Christian fellowship we have found
here
.”

The minister shrugged and backed away. “Take it elsewhere,” he said. “It’s not needed here, or wanted.”

He turned on his heels and left us there, as another man approached.

This man identified himself as McKenzie—no first name offered—and he called himself the “law,” though he didn’t specify further. I saw no badge on his chest, but I got a fine view of the pistols hanging in the holster that slung around his hips.

His countenance inspired confidence and authority. I was glad to have him join us, even as I realized he assumed that I was one of
them
.

“You’ve been warned now. All of you, when you come to town. You’ve been asked to move along.”

“We won’t move along until we’ve had a chance to share—”

McKenzie cut him off. “You’ll move along before you get any of that nonsense underway. Save it for the next town, or save it for the mountains, if that’s where you’re going. But save it. And pack it up, and move it out of our city.”

“This is no city, and we’re not within it. And you’ve got no call to send us moving along.” Daniel’s eyes were flashing. They weren’t flashing in a poetic way, with emotion. They were shifting in their color. There was the brown he was born with, and it was flecked around the edges with something gold and unnatural.

If the lawman noticed the firestorm in Daniel’s face, it didn’t bother him any. “There are stories going around about you, and yours out there. I don’t like the sound of those stories, and I don’t want any
new
stories cropping up after you pass our humble settlement here. I want you gone before sundown.”

“You won’t have it. We’re not going anywhere until we’re heard this evening.”

“You hold a meeting, and we’ll show up to shut it down.”

Melissa had been silent all this time, watching back and forth between them, and at me. But now she saw an opportunity, and she cleared her throat.

“Perhaps,” she said, “I might be able to speak with the authorities on our behalf.”

We all went quiet then, and Daniel’s face was changing color, going red with anger, or frustration, or something else.

“Would you permit that, Mr. McKenzie? Perhaps you’d let me take tea with you or the mayor. The town has a mayor, doesn’t it? Don’t all of them? I think I could explain things more gently, and you might see the mission from our own point of view.”

McKenzie wasn’t stupid. He knew a plea when he heard it, even when it was delivered with so many meaningless words, hiding an impossible fear. He started to offer her his elbow as if to accept her proposal, and she kept talking.

“Leonard here—this is my old friend Leonard. He was once with our camp, and then he left us after Daniel’s father died. I’m sure that Leonard would be able to help me outline our mission. And he’s not staying with us at the camp, so perhaps you’ll consider him a more impartial voice.”

McKenzie looked me up and down, trying to tell me something with those green-gray eyes of his. Whatever it was, I missed the bulk of it—but caught the general idea and responded as best I could. It was half a prayer to him, and half a vain attempt to project my thoughts.

You’re not one of them?

No longer.

All right. She comes with us
.

Melissa turned to Daniel and gave him a wide, lingering smile that was full of venom and light. “You’ll excuse me,” she declared, and it was not a request for permission.

“You’ll—”

“
You’ll excuse me
. Leonard?” She put her hand on my arm and turned her smile to the lawman.

Together we three left him there. I did not realize until we reached the end of the block that I’d been holding my breath, unable to breathe until I felt he could no longer see me. Even McKenzie was wooden, for he too had prepared himself for some assault or resistance.

Melissa was silent again until the lawman stopped her, and I stopped too.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t like it. Am I to understand you’d like to leave that camp? Is that what this is for?”

“Yes sir,” she told him, and this was the first time I’d heard her speak yet when she wasn’t being monitored. “They’ve been keeping me there, and I cannot stay any longer. If you send me back, I’ll be mad, dead, or worse by nightfall.” The words were flat and perfectly formed, like they’d been cut out of a newspaper and laid out in a row.

“I don’t know what’s going on out there, but no group of men who talk about God and ask for women can be up to any good. Any woman who wants free of it has my support. Now what can I do for you? Where can I put you up, that you’ll be out of their reach?”

She faltered then. She considered his question and I thought she was going to weep, but she did not. “Underground. There’s nowhere else they can’t find me. And I want you to know, they
will
find me. They’ll come for me.”

He thought about this. “Oh, they might come for you, but they can’t have you. You’re not wife or daughter to any one of them, are you?”

“No sir.”

“Then they’ve got no claim on you.”

She took a deep breath, and sighed another smile at him. “That will never stop them.”

***

I did not care how it looked. I took her back to my room at the Primrose. She moved like a doll, unwilling to bend or step without being commanded to do so. I sat down beside her on the bed and tried to draw some speech out of her, but it was a losing battle.

She was full of things she wanted to say, and full of things that she thought she shouldn’t say. She was filled to the brim, compressed like a steaming kettle. But nothing came out. Not even tears.

I think it might have made me feel better if she’d cry, or laugh. If she laughed hysterically and without ceasing, then I’d know she’s mad and then I’d have an answer.

But this doll, this pretty woman who overflowed with grief, she sat still and drew short, quick breaths.

When she did speak it startled me so badly that I jumped, there beside her.

“Leonard,” she said my name and it made my heart swell. “My God, Leonard. I think I’ve killed us all.”

***

Now evening will soon be upon us. Eileen has returned, carrying more than her own weight, I suspect. All is curiously calm. We are all waiting for something. The three of us here, holed up in the room. The shop owners who closed up early. The gaunt, gray-haired lawman who paces slowly up and down the sidewalks though no one else is in sight.

I am at the edge of some precipice here, but I can’t see it, and I have no idea how far I’m bound to fall.