Port of Sorrow (6 page)

CHAPTER
10

Finn felt footsteps pierce the calmness of his mind. At first, they sounded like raindrops on the beach: a soft, muffled plop. But as they came nearer, he heard them as solid, menacing slaps — a nightstick on flesh.

He bolted upright, awake and alert, just as Deputy Gilles rattled his ring of keys in the lock of the holding cell.

“Wakey, Wakey, asshole,” said the deputy, his mouth twisting into a grin. “It’s time for walkies.”

“Where are you taking me?” Finn asked. His mouth was dry and his muscles ached.

“I’m releasing you.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to.” The deputy’s eyes glinted with pleasure.

Finn knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t imagine what. He asked, “What about my cellmate?”

Gilles shrugged. “He can go, too, if you like. He was only in here for pissing on someone’s lawn.”

Finn crossed the cell to shake the man awake, but as soon as he touched his shoulder the ragman’s eyes snapped open in fear and his fingers clutched tight to his clothes.

“It’s okay,” said Finn. “We’re being released.”

The ragman was frozen, his eyes flickering madly as though he had forgotten who the man staring down at him was. Then, slowly, he relaxed.

After helping the man to his feet, Finn took him by the arm and led him out of the cell under the watchful eye of Gilles. The deputy seemed in a good mood as he barked out orders: turn left, down here, turn right, through those doors, stop here.

At the side door, Gilles tossed Finn his hiking boots, minus laces, and pushed him outside. The door clanged shut behind them.

A dim moon lit the night and the air was still, but in the distance came the baying of a farmyard dog and the rumbling of logging trucks on the nearby highway. After slipping into his boots, Finn guided his companion by the elbow to the shoulder of the road and headed towards town.

As they walked, Finn asked the man his name.

The ragman hesitated a moment before answering, “Jo-Joseph.” He pronounced it proudly.

Every few minutes, Finn would hear the approaching rumble of a truck and would stick out his thumb. But nobody wanted to pick up two strangers from the ditch in the middle of the night. Finn couldn’t blame them; he wouldn’t have stopped either.

After ten minutes, Joseph complained his legs were too tired and he wanted to spend the rest of the night in the ditch. Finn tried to dissuade him, not wanting the police to arrest him for vagrancy as they drove to the station in the morning.

“Just a little further,” he said. “I’ve got a warm room where you can sleep.”

“Y-yoo go on,” Joseph answered, sitting down on the cold grass. “I’m u-used to it heere.”

With a sigh, Finn joined him on the ground.

“I’ll keep watch,” he said.

The sky looked so open away from city lights. A black canvas peppered with stars and distant planets. Finn stared at the moon, smiling at its familiar acne-scarred face. He remembered how as a child he had wanted to fly there on his bicycle. Low gravity, he imagined, was the key to popping wheelies that never end.

Headlights blinked out the moon’s smile as a pick-up screeched to a halt on the shoulder above them. Gravel and dust sprayed into the ditch, followed by the foul smell of burning rubber. Finn stood as one man jumped from the box and two others emerged from the cab. He recognized the cold, sharp features of Wells as he walked in front of the vehicle’s headlights.

Quickly, Finn shook Joseph awake and told him to hide in the trees that bordered the ditch. But Joseph was too slow getting to his feet and the three men surrounded them before he could take a step.

Finn stood his ground with both hands curled into tight fists. He could see he was outmatched, especially since all three carried baseball bats. Now he knew why Gilles had been so happy to release him.

Wells stood closest to Joseph, the least dangerous, leaving the initial attack on Finn to his companions.

“You like baseball don’t you, Finn?” Wells asked as he rested the bat on his shoulder.

Finn remained silent, his mind trying to figure out the best escape, his eyes searching for the weakest link. But before he could make a move, Wells swung his bat and struck Joseph square in the face. The ragman’s eyes rolled back in his head as blood spewed from nose and mouth.

“Strike one,” Wells laughed as Joseph crumpled to the ground.

Finn moved on Wells before the other two goons could react, his hands locking around Wells’ throat and pulling him to the ground. The baseball bat flew out of Wells’ grasp as, with unrelenting fury, Finn pounded his enemy’s face. He felt no joy as Wells’ nose burst, bones cracked, and the fresh stitches in his cheek were ripped open.

The victorious moment was interrupted as the other two men recovered from their shock and began landing crushing blows on Finn’s back with their bats. Fighting off the pain, Finn focused his rage on Wells, watching the man’s face turn a deep shade of purple while his eyes bulged to the size of poached eggs.

But then a bat glanced off his shoulder blade, numbing his arm and weakening his grip, forcing him to confront his other attackers. Finn lashed out with a steel-toed boot, feeling the crunch of shinbone a second before one of the attackers fell to his knees, his throat posed perfectly for a larynx-closing blow. Feeling confident, Finn turned on the last attacker only to be met by a solid two-handed swing. The tip of the bat grazed his temple, collapsing the stars in the sky into a spinning blackness.

Finn rolled off Wells’ limp body with his vision blurred and bloody fists still cocked. A crushing blow to the chest sent him rolling down the hill where he collapsed amidst the trash and tumbleweed.

The last attacker stood frozen above his friends as if unsure of what to do. Playing it safe, he helped his injured friend to his feet, and then together they grabbed Wells by his arms, dragged him to the truck and sped off in a cloud of dust.

FINN DIDN’T KNOW
how long he was out, but when the darkness left his eyes it was still darkness he saw in the surrounding sky. Grating his teeth against the pain in his head and body, Finn crawled to the unmoving form a short distance above him. Joseph’s face was a mess: nose squashed flat; eyes swollen; two broken teeth puncturing his upper lip; blood covering it all.

“I’ll kill that bastard,” Finn cursed as he lifted the unconscious man into a fireman’s carry and resumed walking toward town.

CHAPTER
11

A ball of crimson fire peeked over the horizon, bringing a loud celebration from a flock of hungry gulls as they circled the humpbacked man on the highway.

Finn didn’t look up. His burden was heavy, his back was breaking, and his feet ached. He had never known a few short miles to be so long.

Joseph hadn’t regained consciousness, but his labored breathing said he was still alive.

The welcome sign at the town limits was pockmarked with rifle shot, plus someone had spray-painted over the L and added an extra word to make it read:

WE COME TO

PORT SORROW

—
NOT

Finn staggered onward, his eyes focused on his feet, being careful not to stumble. The tarmac shoulder soon turned into concrete sidewalk, and through the corner of his eye Finn saw rows of painted picket fence and the young buds of flowering shrubs.

“Where are you taking that man?” asked a feminine voice from behind the white fence. Tiny red hearts were carved in each picket’s peak.

Finn twisted his neck to see a bone-thin woman dressed from head to toe in faded blue cotton. She sat on the remains of an old truck seat beneath a canopy of faded canvas. Her tanned and lined face held a warm smile, though it was half-hidden beneath the tattered remains of a lace veil — also colored blue. It looked as if she was ten years late for a masquerade ball, having slept, unaware, in her dress for all that time.

“I asked you a question.”

“To the hospital,” Finn answered, the weight of his companion growing heavier by the second, his mind puzzled by the woman whom he guessed to be just a few years older than himself.

“And what do you suppose a hospital will do for him?” She dug tiny fists into her hips to emphasize the motherly tone.

“Treat him. He’s been badly beaten.”

“Wrong!” she scolded. “I know that man. Joseph has no insurance, no means of employment, a criminal record longer than this road, and no organs worth saving. Hospitals aren’t for his kind.”

“But surely . . .”

“Oh, grow up,” she tutted her tongue. “Life ain’t fair, get used to it. Now bring him in here. I have a small clinic of my own to which Joseph is no stranger.”

Finn stood at the gate to the garden, unsure of what to do. Most of what the woman said was true, but surely in a small town they wouldn’t turn away an injured man.

The woman crossed to the gate and swung it open.

“I can treat him,” she said, her voice softer now. “If he dies here, he would die just as quickly there. But at least here he will have someone who cares about him and doesn’t consider that care a burden.”

Finn walked through the gate, Joseph heavy in his arms, as the woman led the way to a barn-style garden shed made of sun-bleached cedar. Inside, the shed had four metal cots with fresh sheets and a small, two-drawer filing cabinet. Sitting on top of the cabinet was an antique porcelain bowl filled with water, and a stack of fresh towels. A heavyset woman who snored like a B-52 bomber on takeoff occupied one of the beds.

“Strip him down and put him in that bed,” said the woman, pointing to the cot two away from the snoring patient.

Finn did as he was told, then sat on the empty bed between the two, his back aching with relief.

“What are you doing?” asked the woman as she brought the water-filled bowl and two towels to Joseph’s side.

“I’m worn out.”

“The house is for the tired, these beds are for the sick. Your wounds will heal themselves. You’ll find an empty bed in the house and food in the fridge.”

“I should stay and help,” he said.

“You’re no help to me in your condition. Now go into the house and get some sleep before I get it into my head to feed you cod-liver oil.”

Finn couldn’t help smiling as he rose to his feet.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Some folks call me Lady Blue, but most address me as Abery.”

“Nice to meet you, Abery.”

“Sleep tight.”

THE HOUSE WAS
a 1½-story Victorian built shortly after the Second World War. Under the bright glow of a street lamp, it still looked as fresh as the day its keys were turned over to a returning soldier and his thankful bride: forest-green shutters and trim, clean white siding, even a lovers’ swing mounted with chain on the open front porch. The front and rear gardens were neatly manicured and colored with sprinkles of flowers and shrubs. The centerpiece was a heart-shaped patch of pink forget-me-nots.

It was the side yard that didn’t fit. Abery’s dilapidated tent stretched across the front of it. Its interior was stuffed: a truck’s bench seat served as couch and bed; old briefcases were stacked to form a table; an orange plastic tarp had been wrapped around the sides and top; and a multi-colored fishing net was draped to hold everything in place. It was an eyesore on a picture-perfect home.

If it hadn’t been for the real pain pulsing through his body, Finn would have puzzled it some more. Instead, he entered the house through the back door and quickly found an empty bedroom with an overstuffed mattress just off the kitchen. There, he collapsed into a dead, uncaring sleep.

IN THE GARDEN
, Abery leaned against an ancient willow, her face alight with happiness.

“Do you really think he’s the one, Harold?” she asked the tree.

The branches groaned in the gentle breeze.

Abery smiled wider, her fingers coiling strands of errant hazelnut hair.

“I hope you’re right, dear,” she said. “I miss you so much that if you don’t come home to me soon, I will have to come to you.”

Instantly, the wind grew in intensity, causing branches to shudder and leaves to fall like confetti onto the woman’s upstretched face.

Abery played with the gold band on her left hand, separating the three unique layers before twisting them together again.

“Okay,” she soothed. “I won’t do anything foolish. But I need you home.”

The wind sighed through the branches, losing its rage, caressing, just slightly, the salty tears that dripped from the woman’s chestnut eyes.

Then, it faded away.