Haints Stay (7 page)

“Two throws a player,” said the woman. “I don’t have much experience with
a knife.”

“Two throws then,” said Brooke. “Sugar, why don’t you join her behind the
counter there.”

“You have to untwist that wire,” said the woman.

A coil of wire was threaded between two copper loops, keeping the
waist-high door at the end of the counter cinched shut.

Sugar’s fingers were trembling slightly. He wasn’t nervous, but still
sore and uncertain.

The woman watched his hands work the wire and declared that she would go
first.

“It’s my roof and my wall,” she said.

Brooke nodded, and Sugar unthreaded the wire and joined her.

She did not rise from the stool, but took the knife from
the counter and held it a moment. She let it lower her hand, bounced it a bit. She
held it by the blade, then the handle. She held its edge before her eye, then its
handle. She brought her arm back and sprung it forward as she loosed the knife. It
plunged into the wall a foot or so to the left of Brooke’s neck and held there.

“You’ll announce the throw next time,” said Brooke, unshaken.

Sugar retrieved the knife and rejoined the woman.

“I’m throwing,” said Sugar.

The knife appeared half a foot from the scar left by the woman’s throw,
just to the left of Brooke’s neck. Brooke smiled. The vein in his neck swelled just
slightly with each heartbeat.

Sugar retrieved the knife and rejoined the woman.

She did not rise from the stool. She took the knife from Sugar and held
it a moment. She let it lower her hand, bounced it a bit. She held it by the blade,
then the handle. She held its edge before her eye, then its handle. She brought her
arm back and sprung it forward as she loosed the knife. It plunged into the wall
halfway between Sugar’s scar and the left edge of Brooke’s neck, and held there.

Sugar retrieved the knife and rejoined the woman.

“I’m throwing,” said Sugar.

The knife appeared then just at the left of Brooke’s neck. When he
exhaled, his flesh pressed against the blade.

“A winner,” said Brooke.

The woman shook her head.

“Three throws,” she said. “I said three.”

“You undoubtedly said two,” said Brooke, removing the small knife from
the wall and joining them at the counter.

Sugar stood beside the woman, sporting a vague grin.

“Three,” she said. “My roof and my rooms and my wall.”

“How will three not turn into four ?” said Brooke.

She shook her head, spit into the pot.

“Can you give me a shave, Sugar ?” said Brooke.

Sugar nodded.

“Three a player then,” said Brooke.

He took his place back at the wall, aligning himself with Sugar’s final
scar.

The woman did not rise from the stool. She held the knife in her palm.
Let it lower the hand, bounced it a bit. She held it by the blade, then the handle.
She held its edge before her eye, then its handle. She brought her arm back and
sprung it forward as she loosed the knife. It plunged into Brooke’s right thigh,
hilt deep.

“You win,” she said.

Something was eating. In the darkness, there was nothing but the
pain in his arm and gut and the slurping and gnawing ringing out as if against
stone. That’s what it was. They were in stone. Encased in stone like at the bottom
of a canyon. The bottom of a canyon with only a canyon above. His one arm was still
mobile and relatively painless. He reached over himself to touch the outer layer of
his opposite arm. Bending ached his gut, and touching made the whole arm scream. But
he was silent. Tears came, but no sound. Only the sounds of it eating, coming from
all around him. As if the boy were thinking it, rather than hearing it. What should
have been flesh was rough, wet tissue, like the dense pile of leaves on a forest
floor. His left hand recoiled. The eating sounds ceased and the stone moved again.
Moonlight
lit the cavern walls, Bird’s broken body, the cart to which
he was tied, and then he was sealed away as before.

Brooke sank to sitting, pulled the blade from his leg, and the
windows of the inn exploded with gunfire. Sugar struck the floor and met Brooke’s
eyes from across the room.

“No,” cried the woman, “not the windows and walls.”

The gunfire did not cease until she had set to cursing into the palms of
her hands and crying just a little and the two brothers had joined one another
behind a sagging couch near the center of the room. They had only the blade, slick
with Brooke’s blood.

Soon they heard boots on the planks of the porch and a voice that called
out, “Toss what you’ve got and rise up slowly.”

The boots found their way into the main room, an innumerable cluster of
bumps, knocks, and creaks, settling then to silence.

Brooke wiped his blood on the knee of his britches and shook his head to
Sugar, who rose up slowly, hands in the air.

Before him stood a line of eight unrecognizable faces, and then that of
the bartender. Six-shooters in fourteen hands and shotguns in the remaining
four.

Brooke was bleeding through his fabrics. His foot twitched at the
ankle.

“My brother’s got only a knife,” said Sugar. “And I’ve got nothing.”

“Step out from behind the seat,” said the leader, a man in a brilliant
white button-up topped with a loose brown vest. He bore no signifying marks or pins.
He appeared roughly forty years of age, give or take a few years. He was hard-faced
and scarred at the chin. “Do it now,” he said, evenly.

Sugar did as he was told. He did not glance at Brooke, who
was attempting to steady his foot and gain a clear head.

“The other too,” said the leader.

A skilled shot nicked the blade of the knife as it landed a foot or so to
the left of the couch. It skittered and spun to the far wall and a young boy near
the end of the line apologized.

Brooke’s hands emerged first. Then the back of his head, his shoulders,
and the broad black back of his leathers.

“Turn,” said the leader.

“Can’t,” said Brooke, his hands gripped to the couch’s back. “I’m pierced
and bleeding.”

“Go around and see,” the leader said to the man beside him. An older man
in a worn black top hat, striped whites, and suspenders set to examine Brooke.

“We’ve got them,” said the boy.

“He’s bleeding all right,” said the man in the top hat, looking back at
his party from the couch’s left edge.

“I had them,” said the inn keeper, rising from behind the counter. “I had
them both and you came to us like this and bore apart my walls.”

“Marjorie, we do apologize.”

“Apologies won’t keep out the wind and the mosquitoes,” she said. “This
is nothing but a waste on your part and a loss on mine.”

“Take them,” said the leader, signaling with the barrel of either pistol
for his men to approach the brothers.

The man in the top hat lifted Brooke to standing and pulled his wrists
together before him. He lashed them with a worn bit of coil while the others set
upon Sugar.

“I’d like to request a cell near my brother’s,” said Brooke.

“I'm sure you would,” said the leader, tucking his guns
behind his belt and releasing the tension in his shoulders.

“For comfort in a new place, and for the discussion of our defense,” said
Brooke.

Sugar was blank, led to the door by a ring of four men. The face of each
blended with the next. Sugar buckled slightly as he disappeared through the
door.

“Plus, he's sick and should be minded,” said Brooke.

“The thing is,” said the leader, stepping to Brooke finally with a grin
like a lightning bolt. “There's no cell. No defense. And no one at all to pay either
of you any mind.”

He startled then, as if to slug Brooke, but paused as the bound man
flinched. When Brooke recovered, the leader plunged a thumb into the fresh wound at
Brooke's thigh, sending Brooke to the floor again. Then the leader turned to take
his leave.

The remaining four men lifted Brooke and led him through the door where
two stagecoaches, each drawn by a set of four horses, were waiting. The lanterns on
the stagecoaches were lit. The sun was finally preparing to set. The horses were
newly shod and freshly brushed, as if prepared for a journey of some length.

Brooke was brought to an empty stagecoach, and his mind settled to
thinking of Sugar in the other, and whether or not his brother would meet the
opportunity to take the gun from one of his men the moment it presented itself.

The men set him on a low bench at the back of the wagon. They sat around
him, two across from him and one at either side.

If he had not recently been stabbed, he wouldn't have startled. If Sugar
had not acted out upon Bird, they would not have come to this town. The men and the
innkeeper, he realized, had
been working separately toward the same
end. Their plan was known, or at least its most relevant parts. A pistol butt broke
into the flesh above his ear and sent him into the lap of the man at his left. From
that position, he could make out only the sky and a pair of large red rocks on the
horizon. He felt blood at his neck. The sun was behind them, disappearing into the
earth. As the stagecoach began to move, he could then see the town, shrinking behind
them. Its walls and facades, as they were broken apart, pulled outward by faintly
visible ropes, and folded at the middle, back toward the earth. The town was
splitting apart like a radish root in a dish of water. In the shadows at its edge,
he imagined he saw the phantoms of men, working.

The rock did not move. Time passed and more time passed and still
the rock did not move. Then, finally, the rock moved.

When Brooke awoke, his head was still in the lap of the man beside
him. That man was watching something out the window with a plain look on his face.
He startled when Brooke shifted, then forced his lips back to flat and nodded at the
prisoner. Brooke nodded back.

“You are not comfortable with prisoners,” said Brooke.

The man did not speak.

No one spoke.

The driver glanced behind him to check the faces of the other men.
Through the window, all that could be seen was the dark purple of the dirt and
yellow plants straining from between the rocks. The shadows on the horizon, he
imagined, were the
great red rocks that decorated the immense desert
between this town and the next. The stars were out.

Brooke checked both windows, but saw no sign of the second wagon. He
listened, but heard nothing. It was at least half a day if they were headed to the
nearest town. Anywhere else would be much longer.

“Is there food ?” said Brooke. “Are we to eat ?”

The men did not respond. They rode in silence and time bore on.

“I find silence in the desert as pleasurable as the next man,” said
Brooke, “but this is intolerable. I'd like at least to know why I'm here and what
I'm answering to and where I'm going.”

“You're answering for those you've killed, Brooke,” said one of the men
sitting across from him. This man was the top-hatted man from before. His look was
less pleasant now, as he had begun to sweat, and his eyes were sunken from either
weariness brought on by travel or a road-sickness he was making no bluster
about.

“Which of those ?” said Brooke.

“It hardly matters to us,” said the man. “Murder is murder.” He coughed
into a kerchief. “By our punishment, you answer for one and you've answered for them
all.”

“You plan to put us down then ?”

“You'll be put down in due time.”

“And my brother ?”

The man to the left of the top-hatted man began to sneer at Brooke and
did not break eyes with him.

“I don't much like the way your man is looking at me,” said Brooke.

“And we don't much like you, Brooke. We'll take a particular pleasure in
delivering you, and we'll take a particular pleasure
in seeing you
put down. Your
brother
as you call it, is carrying a child. As decency
demands, we'll bring it to term, deliver the child, then deal with the
creature.”

Brooke did not speak.

Bird woke, and was covered in fur. The room was lit brightly and
warmly and there was music playing, a soft piano and a lagging violin. He couldn't
place the sounds then, but would come to know them dearly.

“You're awake, sweet boy,” said a voice. A bearded man in glasses and a
vest and a bowler appeared over Bird. “You'll notice we took your arm.”

Bird's arm had been lopped off, just above where would have been an
elbow. He was bandaged and the bandage was leaking only slightly from
over-saturation.

“It wasn't our preference to do so, but it was more infection than
appendage when we found you.”

“What infection ?” said Bird. “I was gut-stabbed.”

He realized then that he could bend, as he was sitting up and addressing
the man.

“I'm John,” said the man, sitting at the edge of the bed into which Bird
had been bundled. “You're lucky we found you when we did.”

“What happened to my arm ?”

“Buried,” said John, “in the yard.”

“But why ?” said Bird.

“I told you. The infection — ”

“What infection ?”

“Your arm was incredibly infected, boy. It tends to happen when the
skin's removed.”

“The skin ?”

“It's too horrible to relive, perhaps,” said John. “I was a war man. I
spent time fighting along men who died both proudly and cravenly, men who cried and
men who prayed. I know about torment. About men at their end. But what you went
through is singular. No man should know it, let alone a mere child.”

“It was eating me,” said Bird. “Wasn't it ?”

“Some of you,” said John, removing his bowler. “It seemed primarily
interested in the skin.”

“I'd like to kill it,” said Bird.

“I'm sure you would,” said John. “But I'm sorry to say it's been killed
and boxed and sold. You'll eat with us, stay with us as long as you like, and grow
fat on the food its corpse paid for. That will have to be your justice.”

“I don't want anything other than for it to be dead,” said Bird.

“Long dead,” said John.

“What was it ?”

“Just a creature,” said John. “Just a man gone to beast. It hardly
matters at this point.”

“What sounds are those ?” said Bird.

“My wife and daughter,” said John. “We thought we might try to play you
awake. Are you hungry ?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, try to eat then and see what happens. Can you rise ?”

Bird shifted his body to dangle his legs from the edge of the bed. He
leaned forward, set his feet to the ground and pushed from his wrists to set his
weight upon his legs. There was still a pain in his gut, but nothing like
before.

“Was I infected in the gut ?”

“No. But stabbed through.”

“I knew that part.”

“I suppose you did.”

“Am I safe ?”

“As safe as any of us are.”

“Is that safe ?”

“You're safe, yes. There were three of us, and now four.”

Bird was able to take one step, and then several before buckling and
falling to one knee.

“Or three and a half,” said John.

Just outside of the room Bird found himself in, there was a table set
with silver and porcelain and several candles. Corroded copper hung from metal
hooks. Stirred butter sat in a bowl. A woman sat at the piano in the living room,
just beyond the half-wall hedging in the table. Next to her stood a short girl in a
white bit of clothing.

The girl lowered her violin and turned to greet Bird with bright
excitement. Her mother played a few resolving notes on the piano, then closed the
cover over the keys and scolded her daughter.

“Mary, it's important each time to play the measure through.”

“He's awake,” said Mary, pointing to Bird, who was using the dinner table
to keep himself from swaying, leaning his right hip into it in a way he figured to
be subtle.

“Did you sleep well ?” asked Mary's mother. She was stiff, turned at the
waist with her knees still pointing forward, her foot still on the piano's pedal,
sustaining the note.

“I had nightmares,” offered Bird. The urge to lean and the weakness in
his legs was finally too much, and he sank into the chair at the head of the
table.

“O you kind gods, cure this great breach in his abused nature ! The
untuned and jarring senses,” said John.

“He's hungry,” said Mary, placing her violin in its case
on the floor and coming to join Bird at the table. “Can we eat ?”

“Play something, Martha, to ease us into meal time,” said John, and his
wife happily obliged.

Bird knew nothing before like the sound of that piano resonating within
the wooden walls of this new home.

“What did you dream about ?” said Mary.

John wrapped a towel around the handle of the iron pot boiling on the
stove. He lifted it and settled it onto a piece of carved wood between his daughter
and the young boy.

“We could start with his name,” said her father, “maybe where he comes
from, before we settle into exploring the hells of a tortured mind.”

“What's your name ?” said Mary.

“Bird,” he said.

John stirred the pot and set a biscuit on Bird's plate.

“You have to wait until it cools,” said John. “You're eyeing it like a
hound.”

“Sorry,” said Bird. He tried to reach for the biscuit with an arm that
wasn't there, then blushed and tears came and he went at the biscuit with his
other.

“There's no shame in hunger,” said John.

“Where do you come from ?” said Mary, pulling her legs up into her chair
to pad her seat.

She wasn't a pretty girl. Her eyes bulged like a victim's. Her hair was
in a tight braid, narrowing down the back of her dress. She had a high forehead and
an unclean complexion. But she was genuine in her interest and kind in her
phrasing.

“A farm just beyond the mountains,” said Bird. He pushed the biscuit
against his plate to break it into fourths, but it was buttery and slick. It slid
from his hand and would not steady.

“Which one is that ?” said John. “You're not Tully's
boy ?”

“No,” said Bird, “but I… I think we knew a Tully.”

“Tully's fine to do business with,” said John, “but not much for company.
That's good playing, Martha.”

Martha nodded with her chin and body toward the piano, leaning into
something slow and practical. It blended neutrally with the atmosphere of the room
and caused neither a foot to tap nor an ear to lose its conversational footing.

“I didn't know him well,” said Bird.

“Well, you're young,” said John. He came up behind Bird and reached to
his plate with a spoon in order to break the biscuit in half. He then sat in the
seat beside his daughter and lifted her braid with one hand. “You think we're any
closer to cutting this ?”

She shook it free from her father's casual grip.

“Thank you,” said Bird.

“Did you see any fighting ?” she asked.

“Some,” said Bird.

“Did you see any men die ?”

“If he did,” said John, “is it something he would want to talk about
immediately after waking up as he did ? Let him breathe a little. Let him eat. His
stories will come out with time.”

“I… I don't have any stories,” said Bird. “I grew up on a very normal
farm and my parents were very casual people who did not bother much with towns or
neighbors.”

“Well there's no company like kin,” said John, “although I'm sure your
folks did a lot more than you knew at the time. It's the way of parents and
children. You'll understand it when you're older.”

Bird nodded.

“It's about as unpleasant a segue as I could have mustered,
but I do wonder some about how you wound up in the cave and what might have
happened to your parents. Can we take you to them ? Can you guide us from the main
road ?”

“They're dead,” said Bird, finally accepting a bit of the warm biscuit
into his mouth.

“Oh, no,” said Mary.

“Oh,” said John, “how ? Martha, can you stop for a second ?”

Martha nodded without turning, shut up the piano, and rose to join them
at the table.

“Bird's got some heavy news and I couldn't make light of it with your
lovely playing,” said John. “You were excellent, my dear.”

“What's the heavy news ?” said Martha. She loaded her plate with slop
from the pot, then she loaded Mary's. John served himself, then offered a full ladle
out to Bird.