Haints Stay (13 page)

“A baby,” said the doctor.

The three children were silent then.

“Did you hear me ?” said the doctor.

The chubby boy nodded. Clint cocked his head then looked
either way up and down the road. Alice raised her hand.

“Yes, Alice,” said the doctor.

“What baby ?” she said.

“Sugar is carrying a baby,” explained the doctor.

“But…” began the chubby boy.

“It does not seem right, does it ?” said the doctor.

“How did the baby live inside him ?” said Alice.

“He has all the parts of a woman,” said the doctor.

“But he's not…?” said Alice.

“He is not known as such and has never laid claim to the gender,” said
the doctor.

Clint's open palm met the back of the chubby boy's head then. Clint broke
into laughter and took a few steps back as the chubby boy rose to defend
himself.

“Don't,” said the boy.

Clint nodded, put up his hands, and assured him he would not.

“What does it mean for the baby ?” said Alice.

“I don't know,” said the doctor.

The clap was even louder this time, when Clint's hand met the back of the
other boy's head. So hard was the blow that the boy tipped forward, his palms to the
step in front of him, before he was able to gather himself up and chase after
Clint.

“Quit it,” said the doctor, waving his hand as after a fly.

“I'm confused,” said Alice.

“As you should be,” said the doctor.

“Is he really a killer ?” said Alice.

“Yes,” said the doctor, settling into his chair and bringing his hat down
to block out the blinding light reflected by the dirt of the road before him.

“Are we safe ?” said Alice.

“They would like us to think so,” said the doctor.

Across the street, the chubby boy had Clint pinned before a trough full
of muck. He was slapping Clint across the face with one hand and scooping muck from
the trough with the other. He tipped the muck onto Clint's face, focusing on the
mouth, eyes, and ears, and Clint squirmed and squealed, and the other boy's face was
like a stone.

When the doctor finally arrived at the jail he had a little girl in tow
and was the storming drunk of a man who had managed to keep it going through the
night and on into the morning. He pointed to Sugar, who had removed all of his
clothing except for his shirt and positioned himself on the bed in his cell with his
knees bent, as if napping in a tight spot.

“That,” said the doctor, “is crowning.”

There were eight deputies scattered throughout the jail's main office,
which contained a desk, several chairs, a dusty collage of wanted posters, boxes of
bullets, some riding gear, and Sugar's cell at the back.

The deputies appeared confused at the word, but Alice seemed to
understand.

“We're deep into it now, deputies,” said the doctor.

“We're worried he's dying,” said one of the deputies. A young boy. The
doctor had seen him around but hardly knew him. He was new to town, flirting with
Flora Jean, the gravedigger's daughter. He didn't drink and he didn't chew and he
kept to himself in a rather superior sort of way.

“That's because you don't know anything outside of the deputy's game of
capturing and killing.”

“I served for four years under — ”

“You're not helping your case, my boy. Can the cell be
opened ?” The doctor's mood had shifted entirely. A kind of excitement came over
him when it was time to begin. That, and he was enjoying the fact that Alice had
come with him out of curiosity and that she seemed to cling to his every word and
movement like a pitch-perfect daughter might.

“Birthing is easy, Alice,” explained the doctor, as the young deputy
unlocked and cracked the cell's door. “It is a matter of catching. Like waiting at
the bottom of a hill to catch a friend who is sledding down it. There's only a small
bit of risk. More fun than anything else.”

“My mother had seven children and I was the last,” said Alice.

“You see ?” said the doctor.

“But she passed after I was born.”

“Yes, well, birthing seven children is very different than facing the
task of raising them.”

The doctor sloppily rolled his sleeves.

“I'll need a stool,” he reported. The youngest deputy fetched one from
behind the sheriff's desk. The other deputies were resigned, reclined, and leaning
against this or that. They had done little more than look in the doctor's way since
he arrived. Six worthless men and a sheriff, was all the doctor saw. They were as
put out by the whole thing as he was, he determined, but weren't doing much of
anything about it. A man was not measured by what he did or did not want to do, but
how he was able to handle getting through those things he did not want to do. The
doctor was a man who liked to make a note when he had a thorough thought, but he
found himself without a pen.

“Do you men plan to help secure this child's birth or are you merely
hoping for something to go wrong ?” said the doctor, addressing the room.

“What child ?” said Sugar.

They all turned to watch him. It was as if an object had
suddenly come to life.

“You're giving birth,” said the doctor.

“How ?”

“Through your vagina,” said the doctor.

“I do not want it to happen,” said Sugar.

“While many things about you chill me to the core, my son, I do pity you
right now,” said the doctor. “This will be the last easy thing you do, I'm sure of
it.”

“Bring Brooke,” said Sugar.

“Your brother is dead,” said the doctor.

Sugar moaned and set his head back. He seemed to instinctively know when
to push, and the child was working its way out with little effort or coaching from
the doctor.

“Gross,” said Alice.

“Yes,” said the doctor.

Sugar moaned.

“Is he going to die ?” asked the young deputy. He was at the doctor's
side then, standing just behind Alice. The sheriff lit a cigarette, and stepped onto
the porch.

“I doubt it,” said the doctor. “You could get me a basin of clean, warm
water. Some soap. Some clean blankets. You could make yourself useful.”

The boy did just that. He vanished with a determined air.

“Do you deliver a lot of babies ?” said Alice.

“Some,” said the doctor.

“Do you like it ?”

“Sometimes,” said the doctor.

“I am going to die,” said Sugar. “But I am not afraid.”

“Very good on you,” said the doctor.

“Is he going to die ?” said Alice.

“No,” said the doctor. “Don't worry at all about that.
Why don't you take a moment and get a name from each of these fine deputies. I'd
like to be able to address them individually, if need be.”

Alice toured the room then, introducing herself and asking each deputy
his name. They seemed put out mostly, by the day and condition of the doctor and all
they were being asked to do. But it was charming enough to engage with a young girl
in pigtails, so they smiled and gave their names. There was Isaac, John, Clint Sr.,
Jack, Weston, and the young deputy. He was not back yet and could not introduce
himself properly.

The sheriff was on the porch, making a point of staying out of
things.

“We're nearly done,” said the doctor. “It is nearly a child.”

Alice rushed back to his side. She gasped, then put her hand to her
mouth. It was the first time in her life she'd performed the gesture involuntarily.
Until now, she had always done it in imitation of the ladies she knew, when her
siblings did something worth gasping at, or when they stumbled upon something they
weren't to have seen. This time, the gesture was genuine and unexpected. It felt
very adult.

Before her was an open wound swallowing the bottom half of a child's
body. The doctor met the child's waist with his hands, still trembling and dirty
from the road, and he slid the child out into the cool air of that bright morning.
It screamed like nothing she had ever heard before. It was covered in blood and
something slick, thicker than blood, that held only a vague tint of pink and orange.
There was a purplish-white rope running from the baby to the man and the doctor cut
it with a knife he produced from his waistband.

“It is a child,” said the doctor. “Voila.”

At that moment, the young deputy appeared in the doorway
with the water. He spilled it in waves upon the office floor as he brought it to the
doctor's side. The doctor set the baby in the water, which was fairly warm and
seemed to have a mildly calming effect — though the screaming did not stop.

Sugar was collapsed into the bench and bleeding from a visible tear that
vanished beneath him. It might have gone on forever, back up to his shoulders and
around, for all Alice knew.

“You are late with this,” said the doctor.

“I'm… is that it ?” said the deputy. His eyes watered over at the site of
the baby coming clean in the water.

The doctor lifted it and began to wipe the slick matter from its arms and
legs.

“This is the child.”

“Is he ?”

“Not dead,” said the doctor.

“Let me see it,” said Sugar, without lifting himself up.

“It's a girl,” said the doctor.

“Let me see it,” said Sugar.

The other deputies tried to make a point of not looking, but the doctor
caught several of them stealing glances.

“The child's in good health and will stop crying eventually,” shouted the
doctor to the room. “It is not a demon. Not yet.”

“Can I hold it ?” said Alice.

“Let me see it,” said Sugar.

The doctor set the child in Alice's arms, and showed her how to hold
it.

He washed his hands in the red water in the basin then dried them on the
remaining blankets.

“Where did you get these blankets ?” said the doctor.

“From a woman… down the street. I just…”

“They're dirty,” said the doctor.

“I…”

“It doesn't matter now,” said the doctor. “But you have made a
mistake.”

“Let me see it,” said Sugar. It was chant-like. Less a request and more a
rhythm he was holding in his mouth.

Alice brought the baby to his side and knelt to place it in his arms. She
showed him how to hold it.

“What is it ?” said Sugar.

The doctor set down the dirty, stained blanket and joined the sheriff on
the porch. He stuck in a plug of tobacco. His hands were starting to settle. The
road was crisp before him and the sun was fully baked in the sky. He needed a
drink.

“An abomination,” he said, and spat.

Mary, Martha, and Bird had walked through the night. They had not
stopped. They had not eaten. Mary spoke as they walked, but of nothing in
particular. Bird did not cry. Martha did not respond to the many things there were
to respond to, but she watched the edges of the darkness around them and, every once
in a while, she would sing. Softly to herself, something Bird could not quite make
out. It was not soothing. There was something much worse about it than the
silence.

Mary complained that they were not stopping but Martha paid her no mind.
Bird was glad to keep moving. He was glad Martha had brought the weapons, hung one
from her shoulder and carried one in her hand. They looked natural on her,
comfortable, though he had never seen her anywhere near a gun before.

An hour or so after daybreak, they began to see other people.
A few men pulling carts along the road at a slow pace. A woman and
two children in clean, pressed clothes, carrying small black books held to their
chests or under their arms. They were moving toward a thinly populated area. Toward
a town that suddenly appeared before them like a mirage.

Sugar was feeding the baby. It was not something he knew how to do,
but something that had simply happened to him. It was a familiar enough idea, and
when it came time to perform the task himself, something in him settled the child
and his own body into place and the baby took hold. The sheriff left the doctor on
the porch to smoke and chew and curse and approached Sugar splayed out in the cell
with the baby attached. The sheriff gripped the baby by its sides and detached it
from Sugar, who protested and was met with the barrel end of peace and order.

“That's enough,” explained the sheriff. “You'll hang tomorrow, and we'll
be done with all this.”

The baby was crying. Screaming. Alice worried they were hurting it and
she went out onto the porch to tell the doctor. He was no longer settled there but
was ambling back toward the porch where she had first joined him.

When she finally caught up with him, he was at the door of the bar and
fumbling to open it against its will. An armed woman and a dirty little girl and a
crippled boy were gathered across the street, on the steps of the inn. Alice waved
at the boy but he did not notice or he did not care.

“I think it's locked,” she said.

“I know it's locked,” he replied. “I am
trying
to get in.”

“I think they're hurting the baby,” she said.

“Babies cry,” said the doctor. “That creature will never
have a happy life.”

“Where did it come from ?”

“That's a story for when you're older,” said the doctor.

He kicked at the base of the door, knocked with his fist, and pounded
with his palm.

There was suddenly a gunshot, and then there were many gunshots. The
doctor ducked, then lowered himself onto the porch. Then he rose, grabbed Alice, and
lowered the both of them onto the porch. She was crying.

“Are you shot ?” she said.

He was not.

He had first thought the shots were a kind of warning from the barkeep to
ease off the door, but as they continued he realized they were coming from down the
road.

He spied two of the deputies huddled behind a cart and a barrel out in
front of the jail.

The windows were broken. He could see the piles of glass shining up from
the porch.

“He's shooting from inside,” said the doctor.

“Inside of what ?” said Alice.

“The jail.”

“The sheriff ?”

“I highly doubt it,” said the doctor.

The bartender cracked the door then and ushered them in. The shots
continued. They kept their bodies low.

“Why did they bring this on us ?” said the bartender. He kept his hand on
the small of Alice's back, pressing her to the floor.

The doctor reached from the floor and batted his hand about the surface
of the bar until it found the edges of a bottle. He
brought it down
and examined the label, then uncorked it with his teeth.

Outside the jail, one deputy reloaded while the other kept his gun
on the door. Sugar was moving around inside, but hadn't fired in some time. The
sheriff must have been dead. The other deputies were dead. The youngest, their dear
friend, was gut shot and slung over the splintered railing that marked off the
jail's porch. It bowed toward the earth. At any moment it would come down.

The deputy finished loading and looked to the other from behind his cart.
The other deputy was curled up behind his barrel, bravely peeking out every so often
to determine what they were up against. They summoned their courage. They spotted
the strength in one another's eyes, and the fears. They would stand together. They
would avenge their partners and protect this small town. They took their pistols
into each hand, gave one another a final look, then rose to rush the doorway.

They moved several crouched steps before Sugar stepped onto the porch and
fired upon them. One received bullets to the chest and gut. The other, a bullet to
each leg. Scrambling on his back like a beetle, he gathered one of his guns from
where it had fallen and brought it up to meet Sugar. Sugar kicked it from the man's
hand and sent a stray bullet into the body of the young deputy slung over the porch.
The railing rocked with the impact and came cracking, splintering toward the earth,
where it deposited the limp body of the young ranger.

Sugar put a boot on the deputy. Sugar was still naked from the waist
down. The deputy decided in the brief moment it took for Sugar to arrange himself
above him that he would tell the
killer everything he wanted to
know. When Sugar asked, who are you ? who sent you ? what's my crime ?, the deputy
would proudly spill his guts.

“Which way is the desert ?” said Sugar, pointing out the various paths
leading from town. “Which way the woods ?”

The deputy nervously pointed to one path, winding its way past the jail
and on out toward a wasteland of red rocks and spiked lizards. Then he thumbed in
the direction that lay before Sugar, leading down through the heart of town and back
out the other side.

“That way is the woods,” he said.

Sugar was loading his pistol.

The deputy could not help but notice that, without his pants, without his
unders, this man looked entirely female.

“Thank you,” said Sugar. He fired one shot into the eye of the deputy
then retreated to the jail to retrieve his clothing.

When the gunshots ceased, Martha worked her way to the window. The
three of them, Martha, Mary, and Bird, were on the floor of the inn. The innkeeper
had been kind enough to bring them in at the sound of gunfire. When the shots kept
up, they took to the ground to avoid stray bullets and being spotted. The innkeeper
received an unexpected end after being met with a ricocheted bullet sent through one
of the front windows. She was bleeding and propped up against the fireplace, not
long for this world.

Against the pleading of Mary, who was clutching Martha's hand and curled
up against her body, Martha rose and went to the porch to retrieve her rifle.

The killer emerged from the jail, buckling his belt with a
sinister blankness. He was too far down the main drag to get a good shot, so
Martha stepped back in to check on the children.

“The man who killed our savior is out there,” explained Martha.

“How do you know ?” said Mary.

“How many murderers could be out in this area wreaking havoc at once ?”
said Martha.

Bird did not hazard to answer that question.

“That is the survivor of those men who shot John,” said Martha. “He is
still bleeding from the wound I left him with.”

“What are you going to do ?” said Mary.

“I think I'll wait until he's worked his way down here a bit and try to
put one in his back,” said Martha.

“That's cowardly,” said Mary.

“He's a killer,” said Martha. “There's no sense in giving him an
opportunity to express himself.”

Sugar was rounding up pistols and bullets from the dead men
scattered in front of the jail. The rest of the town was shuttered and gathered to
the ground.

The sheriff had taken the child somewhere and was vanished now. It was
likely he was hiding in an alleyway or behind a box somewhere. He would be waiting
for Sugar to make an effort to pass. The safest choice, as far as leaving went,
would be to take to the desert. To skip the walk through town and its possible
dangers. To take to open territory, with the knowledge that he would be hunted.

But Sugar did not want to die in the desert, without food or water, as a
hunted man. He stepped a straight line down the middle of the road, which led
through the center of town.
He watched each window as he passed. The
first building was shed-like, possibly home to some tools or some dry goods. He
couldn't tell from the facade. The bar was next. He saw movement from deep within,
but nothing directly at the window. He stepped onto the porch and pulled the hammer
back on his pistol.

He opened the door and saw the bar was empty. He heard nose-breathing.
Maybe a hand over a mouth. He moved toward the center of the room and then there was
a shot from outside.

“Come out,” said the sheriff. He was alone, a rifle at his shoulder and a
pistol in his hand. “You've had your fun. We've got men posted on the rooftops and
we will burn that building down to bring you out.”

“Where's the child ?” yelled Sugar.

He heard something then from behind the bar and turned slightly to greet
it.