Haints Stay (20 page)

“It cannot go on forever,” said Bird. “It has to stop somewhere.”

He withdrew his pistol and held it steady. He placed it back behind his
belt. He withdrew his pistol and held it steady. He placed it back behind his
belt.

“Do you think the bodies will be as we left them ?”

“No,” he said.

“You've grown cold,” she said.

“There is snow everywhere,” he said.

“Do you love me like a husband loves a wife ?” she said.

“I don't know,” he said.

“I feel like we are supposed to become husband and wife,” she said.

“Why ?”

“Because we are here together and alone together and we get along and
there is no one else.”

“There will be others someday,” he said.

“Do you really think so ?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I will be happy to see them,” she said.

“I won't,” he said. “But I'll be ready.”

It went on like this for longer than either of them realized. It was
always dark, always cold. The fire gave them just enough heat and light to get by,
but they didn't allow themselves much more than that. There was no knowing how long
they would have to keep it going.

They had no way of knowing for sure, which day the snow stopped. But
suddenly water was running in through the hole in the window, and seeping in through
the cracks in the wood and where the building's joints were not flush or tight. It
kept on like this and they soon realized that the snow was melting without pause.
Which meant the sun was out. Which meant the days and nights were warming. Suddenly,
the whole room would creak when Bird traveled up the stairs, so Mary made him
promise to stop.

“All this snow came and held us here,” she said, “and now it's
going.”

She was smiling.

He nodded.

They slept on the two remaining tables to keep out of the damp. The floor
was soggy. Their clothes would not dry. Their time in the building with the kitchen
was nearly up.

Bird was the first to dig out, but only slightly. The snow outside was
mere slush piled high, and little canals ran the water out into the wilderness
around them. In every direction you could hear the sound of water running. He
imagined himself a gunslinger, running the water out of town. He was able to get the
door open, but not without letting in a considerable amount of
slush. He was able then to dig a few inches out onto the porch. The snow level was
near the roof now, but crumbling. Disappearing. Hightailing it. He took to the
stairs though he had promised not to do so. He looked out the windows and could see
the tops of trees again. He could see the tall rocks in the distance. He could smell
the air the sun had touched. He could feel the sun as it broke through the glass. He
followed its beam around the room. He wanted to get a sunburn. That was his goal. A
sunburn on his single exposed arm. Or on his face and neck. He could feel it cooking
him. He heard a fly buzzing at the window and almost burst into tears.

“We are nearly out,” said Mary.

“Nearly,” said Bird.

“What will we do ?”

“We'll leave,” he said.

“Where will we go ?”

“We.”

“I will go where you go,” said Mary.

“I'm going to follow the trail that brought us here.”

“That will lead us home,” she said.

“I will keep following it, on past the ranch where I was nursed, and I
will hunt down the men who put me there.”

“John killed that thing,” said Mary.

“Not that thing,” said Bird.

“Then what ?”

“The men who killed my family,” said Bird.

“Are you out of your wits ? You're acting stranger than I've yet seen you
act.”

“I'm clear-headed,” said Bird, “and I've a simple plan that will guide me
through the next period of my life.”

“A murderous plan ?”

He nodded.

“I do not approve.”

“You don't have to.”

“As long as you know.”

“I've always known,” said Bird. “You do not have to speak on it.”

“Known what ?”

“That you don't approve.”

“Of what ?”

“Of me. Of my plans. Of the way I think of things.”

“How do you think of them ?”

“You know clearly well how I think of them and what I expect of the
world.”

“Horridness and dread.”

He did not respond.

“You expect only the worst.”

He did not respond.

“You do.”

“No. But I am prepared for the worst thing. I will work against the worst
thing with everything I have within me.”

“Murderously.”

“Yes.”

“But murder is that worst thing you are preparing for.”

“No, it isn't.”

“It is up there on the list of worst things then.”

“Depending on the circumstances, yes. John's murder was a worst thing.
The men who killed my family was a worst thing. The man who took Martha was a worst
thing.”

“Do you know who killed your family ?”

“Two men killed my family and brought me into the woods
with them when I was much smaller than I am now. They tried to raise me or hold me
hostage, but then they turned on me. I cannot remember everything. I will never be
in that position again. I will fight that position with everything that's within
me.”

It was a line he'd drawn from one of the adventure books. There was a man
who wore the same hat daily and fought evil with everything that was within him.

“You will die,” she said.

He nodded.

“And you are likely to do an accidental wrong.”

“Not if I pay attention,” he said. “And not if the world watches out for
me.”

“These men,” said Mary. “What color were their hats ?”

“They did not wear hats,” said Bird.

“What were their faces like ? Did they have any scars ?”

Bird shook his head. “I do not know.”

“How will you know them then ?” she said.

“I will know the feeling of being near them.”

“I will not read you any more from those books,” she said.

“You have read enough.”

The next day, the sun broke finally from beneath the rooftop. It lit the
edges of the room in which they slept. They woke to it. They wept. Time itself had
freed them. They ate the jerky they had been saving. It was salty and tough, but a
treat nonetheless. It stung the roofs of their mouths and puckered the edges of
their lips. The sun. There it was. Mary sang a song about the sun. Bird practiced
with his pistol.

Everything, then, seemed connected to her. When the snow stopped,
it was because she had brought hope to the world. When
the sun came
out, it was to echo her filthy beauty. Brooke fed her from the desert and the stream
and she held him. They did not walk together, but sat and let the snow vanish and
the creek widen. The air was suddenly warm enough for exposed sleep. The stars were
out. The sky was thick with them. Throughout the day, the moon was as clear as a
treetop in the distance. She did not seem to sleep. She cried every so often. He
slept on her, where she would let him. His head on a thigh, or a leg thrown over
hers, if she was also sleeping. When she began to warble late in the night, he
simply rolled away. She did not speak much. He told her what he'd found for them to
eat, or how he'd caught it. Told her how to eat the spiny things, or the smallest
creatures with the most delicate flavor. He was perfectly content to sit with her,
day after day, in the mud and vanishing snow. It still sat atop the red rocks
towering in the distance.

“Which way did you come from ?” he asked. “Are we near a town ?”

She shook her head.

“I was lost in the storm for some time before I found you,” she said.

That was heart-warming to him. The idea that, with him, she did not
consider herself lost. He left it at that. He was eating no more than before, a
little less, in fact, but he felt he was getting some of his old strength back. He
felt he could last a little longer. That he wanted to last a little longer. He was
curious what was in store for them. He imagined she would stay with him forever,
seeing as it felt so right as it was.

She avoided locking eyes with the horizon. She kept her gaze on nearby
things : her hands, the food he was providing, the water, the soles of her feet, the
edges of the blanket. She was
in no hurry to get anywhere, and that
was more than fine to Brooke.

One night, he set a hand on the delicate tissue between her legs. She was
on her back, her legs apart. He set his palm there, on the outside of her leggings.
She did not react. He rotated his hand in a small circle, as he had done with Sugar,
years before. She did not react. He kept it up, brought himself onto an elbow and
leaned toward her. She was fixated on the clots of stars above them.

In the morning, he woke and she was gone. He was on the muddy blanket,
alone and sweating in the sun. He heard voices, horses, active wood. He turned and
discovered the wagon train, its carts and carriers still in a tight line, its
travelers scattered across the landscape. Some were resting in the shadows of the
wagons. Some were collecting water from the stream, passing around a cupped pan.
There were four men and two women. The eldest of the group was of indeterminate age,
a weathered old man sporting a beard and perched on a rock. They had a few mules and
several horses, both harnessed and un-harnessed. He could not spot her. He gathered
himself up and brought himself over to the older man sitting on a small rock beside
several young men. Brooke tried to speak, but his voice was tired and
unpracticed.

“I've been lost,” he said.

“We know,” said the older man. He put out his hand. “I'm the Pa
here.”

“Hello, Pa.”

“My name is Wendell.”

“Hello, Wendell.”

“These are my boys : Jack, Marston, and Clay.”

Each of them had the man's face at some previous stage. It
was like standing before a row of daguerreotypes taken at ten-or twenty-year
intervals. The youngest seemed about eighteen or so.

“Howdy,” said Brooke.

“Your wife's in the wagon. She's ill and needs to be cared for,” said
Wendell.

“Which wagon ?” said Brooke.

“That,” said Wendell.

Brooke shook the boys' hands and nodded to Wendell and walked toward the
far wagon containing the woman he'd met in the snow. He lifted himself on the
wagon's step and peered into the back.

An older woman and a child were at the woman's side. The child was
holding her hand and the older woman was mixing something in a small bowl.

“What's she sick with ?” asked Brooke.

“You must be John,” said the girl holding her hand.

Brooke nodded.

“Some kind of fever,” she said.

“She'll be all right ?” said Brooke.

They both nodded. The woman with the small bowl applied its contents to
the sick woman's lips. It was a red paste of some kind. From where Brooke stood, it
had no smell.

“She's just out of sorts,” said the woman applying the paste. “She needs
to rest and eat. You can ride with us as far as you like. From what she's told us,
you can handle providing sustenance for the two of you.”

Brooke nodded. “As long as we stay by the stream. And as long as it
doesn't start snowing again.”

“Wasn't that something ?” said the girl holding her hand. She was
younger, by fifty years or so. A granddaughter, maybe.

“It was not easy going,” said the woman applying the
paste. “I imagine it was particularly difficult for the two of you, out here alone
as you were.”

Brooke nodded.

“She says you've been wandering for some time ?”

Brooke nodded.

“My guess is that you're not opposed to joining up with us ?”

“We could use your medical help. A few days off of our feet,” said
Brooke.

“Most of us walk,” said the woman applying the paste. “Alongside or
behind the wagons. The more the horses have to carry, the more often we have to
stop, and the greater the risk of exhausting them or losing them to injury. She'll
have to rest here for a while, but you'll have to do your part.”

Brooke nodded.

“I can manage that,” he said.

“It is a nice surprise to meet new people,” said the girl holding her
hand. “We've been walking for so long, and my brothers really aren't much for
company.”

Brooke nodded.

“Do you and your wife have a family looking for you ?” said the older
woman. She set down the bowl and began to blow on the sick woman's pasted lips.

“I have a brother,” he said. “But I have not seen him for some time. I do
not know what's become of him.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said the girl holding her hand.

Brooke nodded.

A shout from Wendell set the horses to a steady pace, and the other
travelers fell in line alongside the wagon train. Brooke lowered himself from the
wagon as it startled into motion, and told the women he would be back later to check
on his wife.

Then they walked. The man introduced as Marston led three
ponies at the rear of the wagon train. He was not skilled at moving them. They gave
him great grief, and he tugged their reins and poked at their muzzles with a thin
switch. Brooke took pace to the right of the third wagon, nearest the back. None in
the party seemed concerned with him. None spoke to one another, or sang any
songs.

When they stopped, for water or for rest, he checked on his wife. She was
on the edge of sleep for nearly two days, never fully in or out. She spoke to him,
but he could not make sense of it. She told him that the earth had begged her for
the child. That the earth had told her it wasn't hers and she could not care for it.
She had wanted to help the child, she assured him. She had set out to perform good.
She was losing her mind as his was slowly coming back to him. His memories faded,
his reflections on all he had done before and how it had led him here. He was more
and more simply there. He watched the female members of the wagon train. He had many
ideas about them, but kept them all to himself. One was either slow-witted, or had a
damaged speech capacity. She spoke at a slant, from the corner of her mouth. She did
not say much, but when she did, it was about the wind, or about her clothing. She
chased down a rag as it was drawn several hundred feet from the caravan by the wind.
She clutched it to her body. So far off, she looked like a scraggly tree. Wendell
fired a shot into the air, which startled her and brought her running back toward
them. Another woman, her sister or cousin, wore muddy clothes and often spoke with
Wendell privately, in hushed tones. It was Brooke's assumption that these two had
conspired to mobilize the family. They seemed to carry the weight of the trip. They
made the decisions for when to stop and when to go, when to set up camp. Brooke's
best guess was
that the woman was Wendell's daughter. She seemed
roughly twenty-five years his younger, and there was nothing in their body language
to suggest they were intimate.