The Broken Lands (14 page)

 

Sam was acutely aware of the girl at his side.

They were just about the same height, but he was sure that if he really stood straight he would have an inch on her. Her long braid was pinned up, probably the better to stay out of the way of sparking fuses. It had clearly been done without a thought for appearances, yet somehow it managed to make her look bizarrely elegant. Strangest and most fascinating of all, she was close enough for him to smell the gunpowder and smoke that still lingered from the fireworks display.

At last, the green tiles and gilt paint of the atrium gave way to the Turkish carpets and brass rails of the saloon. Walter Mapp waved from a booth in the corner where he sat with Tom Guyot and the newspaperman.

The three men exchanged brief glances when they spotted Jin, but they stood up when the pair reached the table, and before it had even occurred to Sam to wonder if she would be comfortable in the close confines of the booth, a waiter appeared with a chair.

When the five of them were seated, introductions made, and fresh glasses had been brought and poured for Sam and Jin, Ambrose spoke up. “So this is Liao's prodigy, the girl from San Francisco?”

Jin, who had just that moment reached for her glass, stopped as if she had been turned to stone. The look she gave Ambrose was almost belligerent. “How do you know that?”

“I lived in San Francisco for a long time,” Ambrose replied. If he noticed her odd look, he ignored it. “Your uncle and I crossed paths once or twice out there, and have done so once or twice since.”

Tom Guyot reached across and patted Jin's hand. “Ambrose has spent some time on the road, too, darlin'. That's all.”

Walter Mapp cleared his throat and raised his beer. “Young lady, that was a hell of a show you put on. I've never seen the like of it.”

“Your uncle must be proud,” Tom added.

Sam raised his glass, too. “Congratulations.”

Jin smiled briefly and murmured, “Thank you.” Little by little, she seemed to relax again.

“Well, friends,” Walter Mapp said at last, “it pains me to bring the conversation around to unpleasant topics, but this matter of Jack . . .” He looked at Jin. “You all right talking about this, now?”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“All right, then.” He turned to Tom Guyot. “I've been off the roads a long time. I'm hoping you can shed some light.”

The old black man nodded. “I've heard the story, but that's all. The real expert is Ambrose here. Apart from what he writes for the papers, he's a proper fiction writer, and he knows quite a lot about what goes on in the roaming world.”

They all turned to look at the newspaperman, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Jack tales—well, I don't know how many of them really refer to the man we're talking about, but people do tell lots of stories about a man named Jack. I may have collected a few of them in my time.”

“You know the one these folks mean, though,” Tom persisted.

“I think so,” Ambrose admitted. “The one about the coal of hellfire, I believe.”

“Do you mind recounting it?” Mapp asked with exaggerated patience. “It could be a matter of some importance. Anyway, we've got no place else to start.”

“I suspect I can call it back up.” Ambrose tapped his fingers on his knees. “And yes, I suppose I do know more about it than I'd like to.” He glanced at Sam, then at Jin, considering each for a moment or two. “You've spent your life on the road,” he said to Jin at last. “I'm going to guess this won't shock you as much as it'll shock Sam.”

“What?” Sam demanded. “What kind of narrow-brained kid do you take me for?”

“It's not that. It's just life in a city makes you believe in certain things, a certain order. A certain reality.” He paused to take a sip from his glass. “The world is not simple. The world is not one
place
. It's the sum of an impossible number of incomprehensible things, and if you start out on any road in the world and follow it for any distance at all, sooner or later you enter into strange country.”

The journalist paused to empty his glass and call for another.

“So,” he finally continued, “the world is not simple, but it would be much, much better for us if it was. And we can sense that, even if we do not understand or perceive the full complexity of things. So we look for order.” He gave Sam a short smile. “My point, Sam, is that for this to sound like anything other than a folktale, you are going to have to adjust your thinking.”

He took another sip of his drink and looked out the window for a moment. “And so we come to Jack.”

I
N DAYS
of yore,” Ambrose began, “there was a sort of man we might call a woodsman pioneer. These were days in which only the shortest of paths had been cut into the wilderness, and these woodsmen made a living carving homesteads and farmland from the unknown for less intrepid souls, who would make their homes in the spaces the woodsmen cleared, then applaud themselves for their adventuresome spirit. Jack was one of these woodsmen, and one winter he found himself so far into the hills that, rather than trying to return home before the first snows, he decided to build himself a cabin and winter there.

“Now, in those days, uncanny beings walked the roads and woods of the country.” Ambrose paused after this weighty declaration while Walter Mapp and Tom Guyot stifled chuckles.

“Did they, now?” Mapp asked, faux incredulous. “What a world it must've been.”

“Gentlemen, do you wish me to tell the story or not?”

“We do. By all means, continue.”

“Excuse me,” Sam interrupted, “but . . . uncanny beings? What's that mean?”

“In those days,” Ambrose went on with a final sharp look at Mapp, “there were peculiar creatures roaming the land. These were uncanny beings. Some looked like men. Some thought that worrying about whether they could pass unnoticed among humanity was a waste of time, and they wore stranger shapes.

“Not long after Jack had built his cabin in the wilderness, a nightmare blizzard fell upon the hills. Now it's hard—particularly in a city, particularly in the summer—to imagine what these snows are like, Sam, the great snows of the middle country. In only one day, Jack was trapped. The drifts piled against his door, buried him in a white silence that rose almost to the eaves. And on that first night, only hours after Jack had tried his door and discovered he couldn't open it because of the weight of the snow outside, he heard a sound. Someone was rapping upon the door.

“Although he knew, because of the ten-foot drifts, that it was impossible, he took hold of the latch and turned it. Miraculously, the door swept open at the lightest touch.

“The land outside was white with snow, shining with ice, knife-sharp with bitter wind, but the snowdrift that had buried the cabin was gone. And standing in the doorway was . . .”

Ambrose hesitated and leaned his elbows thoughtfully on the table. “Now, here I must confess to some uncertainty. I've heard this story from a number of sources, and
shockingly
”—he paused again for the slightest lift of his eyebrow—“there are some few details that have not been consistent. The first of these details is the identity of Jack's visitor.”

He took another drink, ice clinking in his glass. “I've heard it was Saint Peter, out on a tour to be sure mankind was behaving in a civilized manner. I've heard it was some kind of native prince or Indian shaman. But the version that seems most reasonable to me”—he gave Jin a wink—“is the one I'm about to tell you, because in my not inconsequential experience, there is nothing quite so likely to plaster something up wrong as a woman.” Ambrose shook his head apologetically.

“The woman who stood on the threshold was, obviously, beautiful. It would've been the end of the story if she wasn't. This fact, the fact of her unbelievable sweetness of face and figure, should have tipped Jack off to her thoroughly untrustworthy nature.” He turned to Sam. “Mark my words, homely girls are the only ones worth trusting. I, for one, suspect that all beautiful girls are, in fact, wicked creatures with evil intentions.” He gave Jin a pointed glance. “Present company, et cetera.”

“I have never been guilty of being a beautiful girl,” Jin observed archly, “so I will choose not to take offense. And I know at least one poet who would agree with you.
Keep away from sharp swords. Don't go near a lovely woman.
”

“Wise poetical words,” Ambrose agreed, “although I suspect some of us”—his eyes flicked over to Sam—“might argue with the rest of what you said. Anyhow. Back to Jack.

“Being an adult male, Jack was perfectly familiar with the diabolical nature of beautiful women. He should have been able to make a better judgment of the character of his guest and slammed the door in her face. He didn't, of course; Jack was many things even then and has since been accused of many more, but he was never inhospitable.

“She was shivering; shivering so hard she couldn't speak. She was a hair's-breadth from hypothermia, and her hands and lips were blue. And although Jack's cabin was scores of miles deep in the wilderness, the only luggage she carried was a violin case.

“Jack brought her inside, near to the fire. He helped her out of her frozen coat, more like an icicle than fur or wool, wrapped her in two blankets, and left her to warm while he looked for a set of clean clothes. Then he occupied himself at the other end of the cabin, giving her as much privacy as the tiny room would permit while she changed out of her wet garments and into the dry ones he had offered her. When she stopped shaking and the blue had gone out of her lips and fingers, Jack made soup and coffee. When she had eaten and drunk all she could, he dragged the cot where he slept over near to the fire and tucked her into it, under every blanket he owned. When at last Jack fell asleep himself, sitting against the wall and covered only by his coat, the woman had still not spoken a word.

“For three days, the wind and snow raged outside. Inside the cabin, Jack fed his visitor, mended her threadbare clothes, and let her sleep in his bed and under his blankets while he slept against the cold wall.” Ambrose gave Sam another sharp look. “Together in the freezing wilderness in that cabin for three days. And let me remind you again, this woman was
beautiful.
Whatever else Jack might've been, he was at least capable of acting the gentleman when he felt like it.

“The woman would smile at him in thanks when he would pour her a tin cup of coffee, and that smile would come close to crushing his heart, it was a thing of such glory. She would smile a good night before she covered herself with the blankets to go to sleep, and that smile would finish the job of breaking him, it was a thing of such splendor. And heaven help him if he looked too long into her eyes.”

“What do papers pay per word for that kind of prose?” Mapp cut in. Jin snickered.

Ambrose rolled his eyes. “I'm keeping my audience in mind. It's a
skill
, Mapp. Do you want to take over?”

“No, sir. Pray carry on.”

“Then pray keep quiet, if you don't mind. For three long days this went on. For three days, the woman refused to speak. But each night, before they retired to their respective sleeping places, she would open her case and produce a beautiful violin. She would rub the bow with a chunk of red rosin she wore on a pendant around her neck, and she would play. For an hour she would speak through those strings, and each night Jack fell asleep believing he knew her just a little bit better than he had the night before.”

“Ain't that just true?” Tom said. “My old guitar's always better at saying what I want to say. It's a sight easier to just let the instrument do your talking. Wouldn't you say, Mr. Mapp?”

“I would,” Mapp agreed.

Sam willed himself not to look at Jin. He didn't know music, but watching her paint the skies that night he'd had the same thought—that he had caught a truer glimpse of her in the glare of the rockets over the water than she had allowed him any of the times they had spoken face-to-face.

“On the fourth day, Jack awoke, not on the floor where he knew he had fallen asleep shivering beneath his coat, but under a blanket on his cot. He rolled over to find coffee already boiling on the fire, and the woman watching him from a chair beside it. She was dressed in her own clothes, and she held her coat on her lap.

“And then, at long last, the beautiful woman spoke.

“‘The time has come for me to leave, Jack.' You might imagine what hearing her speak his name did to his already-aching heart. ‘In gratitude for your courtesy, I am going to make you a gift of three wishes. Save them for when you truly need them.' Before Jack could decide whether to protest her leaving, beg to know her name, or ask about her gift, she leaned over to kiss him. And before he could recover from that, she had crossed the room, swirled her coat around her shoulders, and disappeared through the door. Naturally, Jack came to his wits, sprang across the cabin, and attempted to give chase. When he tried to fling the door open, however, he found himself confounded. It would not so much as budge an inch. Only with great effort did he force it wide enough to see the ten-foot snowdrift holding it closed from the other side.

“She was gone. Only later, many hours after she had left him in the silence of the snowed-in cabin, did he find her necklace, the one with the red rosin pendant, hanging from a nail by the fireplace. It was the only proof that she had ever been there at all.”

It was a good story, and Ambrose was definitely a good storyteller, but this didn't sound like the world Sam knew. It must have shown on his face, because the newspaperman gave him a sharp look and said, “You look like you wish you could tell me we aren't here to listen to ghost tales.”

“I . . . well, yeah,” Sam said defensively. “What Jin saw—well, that was real. You said yourself this is just a story you heard. How do you know any of it's true?”