The Devil's Paintbox (42 page)

It is understood.
The words gave Aiden a sickening chill. He remember Dr. Abradale's cool, insidious words.
The good Lord can save the Indians if he wants.

“But what about the Nez Perce? If you take the vaccine, what happens to them?”

“Find me some value to their lives and I'll gladly help them out too.” Gilivrey shrugged. Aiden strained to keep his composure.

“What happens now?”

“Your Nez Perce are too far away to be any threat to me. As for you, despite all the torment and such of your unfortunate life full of dead sisters, et cetera—I do not believe you actually wish to die just yet. So you will leave tonight and never speak of this.” Gilivrey got up and went to the gilded desk. “Mr. Powhee has packed up your belongings. A boatman will carry you down the river tonight to Seattle.” Gilivrey walked over to the desk and took out a small leather purse. He handed it to Aiden. “This is all your fight
money; one hundred and seventy-nine dollars, plus fifty for your excellent—service.” He made the word sound foul. “In addition, your debt to me is forgiven. Your indenture is completed, you are free.”

Aiden's brain was spinning in so many directions he didn't know what to think.

Gilivrey sat down and leaned back in the chair with a regal air.

“If you speak of this to no one, I give you my word, I will not send anyone to hunt you. However, my reputation does exist. So I suggest you pursue your new life at a considerable distance. Everyone for a hundred miles around will assume there is a bounty on your head. The law may be loose up here, but you did kill a man.”

“Did you mean for me to kill Buck?”

“I knew there was bad blood between you. I knew he was a violent man, and stupid. I knew you were Mr. Powhee's new champion fighter. I hoped for the best. He would have been troublesome for me.” Gilivrey swallowed the last of his cognac and put the crystal glass down on the table. It caught the light and flashed a brief startling rainbow across the man's smooth white hand. “Do we have an agreement?”

“Yes,” Aiden said. He held up the purse. “I owe money to Mr. Jackson for the horses and some supplies. Will you take it from here and see that he gets it?”

“I can send the horses back to him.”

“My friend will need one of them.”

“The Indian?”

“He goes free. He had nothing to do with killing that prison guard, and stealing the vaccine was my own plan. He meant all along to buy it.”

Gilivrey frowned, obviously annoyed that Aiden had declared and not asked.

“I have no interest in all that. I will neither pursue nor protect him. I cannot speak for others.”

“And the other man that was brought in with us—” Aiden went on. “He was purely our hostage. He's a doctor. He was the one doing the vaccinating, so you need to let him go too.”

“Is there anything else you'd like?” Gilivrey said sarcastically.

“One bottle of the vaccine,” Aiden replied coolly.

“No.”

“You'll still have at least three hundred doses. There can't be three hundred Indians living up there.”

Gilivrey said nothing. He rang a little bell and the Chinese servant reappeared as if by magic. “Have the cook pack food for a journey. This man leaves as soon as the boatman is ready.” The servant bowed and left.

“We're done, then?” Aiden stood and took a step toward the door. He was glad to see his wet feet had left damp dented prints on the plush carpet.

“Why did you risk your life for this fool's errand?” Gilivrey asked.

Aiden turned and looked directly at Gilivrey, this odd, pale, fastidious man sitting at his golden desk in his plummy house tucked among the grand trees, living a pinched and suspicious life, scratching at profit and waiting, always waiting, for the river to rise.

Aiden shrugged. “Not much of a life to risk.”

iden stumbled out into the cold night. The little “town” of East Royal St. Petersburg was almost empty, and quiet; very different from the last time he had been here. Lamplight from the bunkhouse spilled a soft arc on the muddy ground. He heard the sounds of men talking and smelled meat cooking. Was it just now suppertime? Time had lost all meaning for him. He looked up at the sky but there were no stars to be seen. Everywhere in the world, he thought, people were going on with their ordinary lives; Hindus and pygmies, soldiers, settlers, Indians and artists, and some were good and some were horrible and no one knew why.

“Aiden?”

He looked around, startled. The veiled figure came out of the shadows.

“Bandy?”

The rustle of her skirts hit him with shocking happiness. Out of nowhere, tears flooded his eyes and he reached for her. They hugged, for they couldn't not, then quickly stepped apart, for they never had before. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.

“I'm fine.” He couldn't see her eyes through the veil but knew she was examining his face. He took her hands. “What are you doing here?”

“Is everything—settled?”

“What—what do you mean? What do you know?”

“Dear lad. I know you are wonderful and brave and I will never see you again.”

“Was it you that kept Gilivrey from killing me?”

“Mr. Gilivrey talks with me, that is all. But I—” Her voice broke. “I know you must go now.” She pulled a thin chain off her neck. “Take this.” On it was a small ring, a thin gold band with a tiny ruby in the center, flanked by two pearls small as a baby's tears.

“It is a child's ring,” she explained. “Though I wore it until I was nineteen. It doesn't fit anymore.” She paused. “The scars, you see. But it is a token of happier times.” She handed it to Aiden. “So you won't forget me.”

“I couldn't ever forget you. Bandy, you're—”

“Don't.” She touched his cheek. Aiden pushed her hand away, lifted her veil and kissed her on the lips. She tensed at first, then went soft in his arms and kissed him back. It was like fresh cream and summer night. When she pulled away, Aiden stumbled into a swoop of cold.

“Go now,” Bandy whispered.

“Where do I go?”

“I don't know.” The musical voice faltered. “Somewhere in the world. Somewhere better.”

“Where is better?”

“Wherever you are.”

She pulled her coat tighter, turned and walked away into the darkness.

A lantern hung on a post by the stable, and Aiden took it with him as he pushed open the heavy door. Carlos and Tupic were asleep in the hay but sat up quickly as the light flickered
across them. Aiden hung the lantern on a nail and knelt to untie them. The three of them, with their damp, dirty clothes, sweat and crusty wounds, smelled more pungent than the whole rest of the stable.

“Listen to me, for I don't have much time,” Aiden said. “I'm leaving soon. You will also be let go.” The knots were difficult to undo, tightened by movement during the long day's ride. Touching Carlos's limp arm made him feel oddly embarrassed. “But I think it would be best for you to leave before daylight,” he said to Tupic.

“Where do we go?” Tupic asked.

“Not we. I'm going alone.” The rope finally came free, and Tupic rubbed his wrists where deep red marks carved his skin. “You can keep Jackson's good horse,” Aiden said. “I bought it. Gilivrey promises he won't chase you, but there is a price on your head in Seattle.”

“Why is Gilivrey letting you go?” Carlos asked warily.

“He got what he wanted.” Aiden looked back toward the door, listened for the sound of anyone coming, then turned back. “But so did we,” he said softly.

“Yes?” Tupic's eyes shone with hope. Aiden reached into his little bag and pulled out the old socks they had found in the stolen saddlebag. Even among the animal smells and their own stink, the socks were still noticeably pungent. Tupic took the bundle as if it were a sacred object and stared at it. The lantern light softened all the desperate edges and filled the stable air with golden dust.

“They did not find it!”

“No.”

Tupic carefully unpeeled the socks over his lap. Out tumbled the little match tin. He twisted off the cap and his
shoulders dropped with relief as he saw the strings tucked inside. He tipped the tin to show Carlos the contents.

“We took a few strings from each bottle,” Aiden explained. “While Buck and the men were digging us out.” He couldn't read the expression on Carlos's face. “Just a few from each, so they wouldn't be missed. It isn't much, maybe fifty or sixty strings, but—”

Carlos turned his head and held up his hand as if trying to stop the words in the air.

“—you could make it into more.”

“I can't.” Carlos's split lip cracked open as he talked. A slow drop of fresh blood beaded out. “I only vaccinate people; I haven't even seen the production farm. And there is no way I could smuggle any more out for you, if that's what you're thinking. Be glad for your fifty doses.”

“We think, not modern vaccine,” Tupic said. “But the old way. Like on the orphan ship.”

“No.” Carlos wiped his mouth.

“Arm to arm.”

“You could vaccinate all the Indians in the country that way!” Aiden said. “You just have to get it started,” he rushed on, as if a second's delay would give too much time for sense to crumble the plan. They had come up with the idea while trapped in the rock shelter, in those few frantic minutes while shovels stabbed at the snow above them and Buck's axe chopped through the fallen tree. “You can teach the Indians how to do it themselves!”

“No!” Carlos stood up angrily, but there was no place he could go. He sank into the corner of the stall just a few feet away. “It's crazy. Forget it.” A mule in the next stall stamped and tossed its head, annoyed by the disturbance.

“I know of the problems,” Tupic said. “I will tell the problems to my people. Let each one decide if they will take this chance.”

“It isn't that simple!”

“But it is!” Aiden said. A strange feeling was rising within him; something like panic and anger but at the same time, the opposite; something like hope. It was unreasonable and stupid and put splinters in his throat. “You saw more horror than any of us.” Aiden felt crazy beyond any drunk. His lips burned from Bandy's kiss. “But you had hope again when you fell in love with Maddy”

“Stop.”

“She would do this. You know she would.”

Carlos pressed a hand to his eyes. “The Indians are doomed,” he said sharply. He stared at the lantern flame, his eyes dark as a swallow's wings. “Smallpox, massacre, starvation—why this lost cause and not another?”

“This one came along,” Aiden said simply. The barn door opened and a stream of light knifed across the straw between them.

“Boat's ready,” a voice called.

“Yes—I'm coming,” Aiden said. He turned back to Carlos. “I'm tired.” He struggled for words to fit. “I'm tired of there being nothing good. I'm tired of hopeless. Maddy was good. And Clever Crow, and your father—” Aiden took the little match tin and carefully pushed the lid back on. “If we don't have some kind of hope, it's like—like we cancel out their lives.”

Aiden took the heavy purse from his pocket. “Just get it started. Please. This will pay for your journey.”

“I don't need your money,” Carlos said. He brushed his
good hand across the sides of his face, smoothed his hair and tugged his jacket into place. “I will have to go back to Seattle for a while or I'll look suspicious. I'll show you how to vaccinate with the strings,” he said to Tupic. “We will figure the rest out.”

“Thank you,” Tupic said. Silently they all stood up, the matter settled, the future fixed, for a little while, maybe; for a few people, maybe. It was a forlorn hope, but it was hope.

“Where will you go?” Carlos asked Aiden.

“I don't know. Somewhere in the world.” Aiden picked up his canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder. He did not want to leave. After the cold, lost horrors of the past few days, the warm stable felt like Christmas. He would likely never see these men again. He had spent little time with them, but they felt closer to him than brothers.

“Goodbye, then,” he said.

“Wait—please, take this,” said Tupic, and lifted a leather thong with a small beaded bag off his neck. “We call this
ipetes,”
he said. “It holds the sacred objects from the teaching spirit.” He opened the bag and tipped its contents into his hand. It looked like bits of rubbish: a small stone, a carved bit of wood, two tiny shells, a piece of bone, a feather, some beads.