Williamson, Penelope

by The Outsider

  In those first months after Ben's death, she had lost the music. There had been only emptiness then, as hard as a cold stone inside her, and silent, so silent. She'd moved through the days staggered with grief and crushing loneliness, able to summon only a pale shadow of the faith that had always steadied and comforted her. For how could a loving God allow a boy's father, a woman's husband, to be so unjustly hanged at the end of a rope?

  Yet the music found a way to be heard, just as God always found a way. It came back to her at first in sweet bits and snatches, like the whispered perfume of apple blossoms on a windy spring day. Then one night she had shut her eyes and opened her heart to the wind howling and moaning through the cottonwoods. And the wind became a chariot of wondrous, booming chords, carrying her higher and higher, home to God. The music brought Rachel Yoder back to her faith again.

  And so when the music came to her on this night, Rachel opened her heart. It wasn't sweet or gentle, not on this night. It was all violence and fury, fiery bursts of notes that exploded in a black sky, sudden and shattering as the sound of a bullet slamming into a wall.

  As always the music ended abruptly, falling into a hollow, echoing silence. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

  The room wavered before her, hazy from the lamp smoke. The outsider still lay in utter quiet on her bed. A gleam of sweat ran down his cheek and jaw and settled into the hollow of his collarbone. Lampshine reflected off the sheen of his eyes.

  He was awake.

  Her breath caught, first in surprise and then in fear. The way he was just lying there, staring at her with that taut silence... No, she was being foolish. He was only bewildered, and perhaps frightened himself, to come awake in a strange place.

  She rose and went to him. She thought she'd gotten used to him, somewhat. Hours, after all, had passed since he'd come staggering across her hay meadow. She had held him and fed him with a pap bottle, she had bathed his naked body. But she had never understood until that moment, until she looked down into his face, why the eyes were called windows into the soul. In the gloomy light his eyes glittered up at her, fierce and wild, and haunted with old and terrible fears.

  She didn't realize she'd taken a step back until his hand grabbed her arm. His fingers dug painfully into her flesh, surprisingly strong. His ragged breathing sawed across her own gasp.

  "Where's my gun?"

  She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn't come until she had sucked in a deep hitching breath. "We put it up. In the wardrobe."

  "Get it." His fingers, so long and slender, whitened with the force of his grip. His strength seemed unnatural, unholy.

  "You'll shoot me."

  "I'll shoot you if you don't get it." His eyes, glowing wild, locked with hers. "Get me the goddamned gun."

  She believed him, and it didn't matter that he was lying there gunshot and with a broken arm. Looking into those eyes, she believed him capable of anything. "I will, then. As soon as you let go of me."

  She pulled against him but he didn't let go. And then he did, so that she lost her balance and stumbled.

  The door to the wardrobe groaned as she opened it. She knelt and retrieved the leather cartridge belt from the back corner where Doctor Henry had put it. Even though she'd watched the doctor empty the gun of its bullets, she was still afraid of it. It slipped easily and quickly out of the oiled holster, surprising her anew with its weight. Its wooden grip had the smooth worn feel of an old ax handle.

  She thought the stranger had fallen back into sleep, for he lay utterly still again, eyes closed. Yet as she held the revolver out to him, his fingers wrapped around it with that unnatural strength. She felt the breath leave him then, on a sigh of relief.

  She stared mesmerized at the hand that held the gun.

  She hadn't cleaned that part of him very well. Dried blood stained the creases of his fingers, and lay crusted beneath his nails.

  She prayed he was too far out of his head to notice the missing cartridges.

  His fingers tightened on the gun's grip. Her gaze jerked up to his face. He was staring at her, his eyes wide open, unblinking.

  She didn't realize she was holding her breath until he relaxed his hold on her by looking away. His gaze roamed over the bare walls, decorated only with knotholes, to the curtainless window that showed only an infinity of black sky. In his eyes was the same wealth of fear she'd seen in the meadow when she had first touched him.

  "Where am I?"

  "You're safe," she said softly. She leaned over him as if she would lay her hand on his forehead, the way she did with Benjo when he awakened from a bad dream and needed comforting. But in the end she did not. "You can go back to sleep now. You're safe."

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them again they were flat, empty but for her own reflection. His mouth pulled up at one corner, but it wasn't a smile. His gaze went back to the black, empty window. "There's no such place."

  She did touch him then, on the cheek with the tips of her fingers. "Hush now, and sleep," she said. "There's nothing out there but the night and the dark."

  As she bent down to lower the wick in the lamp, her loose hair brushed over his chest and face. She felt a tug on her hair and she saw that he had tangled his fingers in a thick hank of it. In his eyes was a look of surprised bewilderment, but then his heavy eyelids closed as if against his will. He slid into sleep again, but not before letting go of her hair and wrapping his hand once more around the grip of his gun.

  She turned off the lamp. The expiring flame leaped and fell, and darkness swallowed up the room. She paused in the doorway to look back at him. But the bed was only a black shadow now, joined with the phantoms of the night.

  She turned away, leaving him to the dark and the night. His eyes, she now knew, were blue.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was barely noon and Rachel was already a day's worth behind in her chores. She had cream souring in a bucket that needed churning, an apple duff that needed boiling, the bed linens yet to soak. And the floor had been begging for a good scrubbing ever since that last sleet storm had muddied things up so.

  But first the outsider's wound needed tending.

  Rachel stuffed a wad of fresh bandages under her arm. She filled an enameled basin with vinegar water and headed for her bedroom. The water slopped over the edges, leaving splatters in her wake and filling the air with its pungent smell.

  Doctor Henry had ordered him seen to three times a day. She was to cleanse the bullet hole with carbolic acid and sponge him down all over with the vinegar water. He'd been in a terrible feverish state since that first night. He didn't toss about and rave, though, as one might expect. Most of the time he just lay there and sweated. Except for twice, when he'd been startled awake, all wild-eyed and pointing his six-shooter at some unseen menace.

  Since she'd put it in his hand, he hadn't once let go of his precious gun. But Doc Henry said that because the wicked thing appeared to bring him comfort, she wasn't to take it away. Do this, don't do that, and all easy for that doctor to say when he'd been out here himself only once since the first day. That doctor, she thought with a harried grumble, could be as free with his commands as a new bishop.

  Skirts swishing, Rachel entered her bedroom just as, out in the yard, MacDuff let go with an ear-busting woof. The man in the bed exploded into a blur of motion. Rachel staggered to a stop, her wide-open eyes staring down the black muzzle of his Colt.

  She screamed and flung the basin up in front of her face, dousing herself with the vinegar water. She squeezed her eyes shut and hunched her shoulders as if she could make all of her small enough to fit behind her puny shield. The air grew thick and still, except for the drip-drip of the water.

  She lowered the basin slowly, peering over its chipped rim.

  He still held the six-shooter trained right on the bridge of her nose. She tried to assure herself that with her own eyes she'd seen Doc Henry take out the bullets, but she didn't completely trust any outsider, let alone their violent and unpredictable w
eapons.

  MacDuff barked again, and the outsider's whole body drew taut. The gun barrel didn't waver, but she could have sworn his finger tightened around the trigger, a trigger that had been doctored to go off at the slightest touch. She stared into eyes that were wild and savage.

  "Lieber Gott. Don't shoot me. Please."

  "That dog—" His voice was savage like his eyes, and shaking. "What's it barking at?"

  She was holding her head so stiffly it seemed to creak as she turned to look out the window. MacDuff was loping in and out of the willow brakes and cottonwoods that lined the creek. A dirty gray fluff of tail flashed ahead of him, disappearing into a burrow pit.

  "It's only our herding collie, chasing a jackrabbit." She creaked her head back around to the man in the bed. She tried to make her voice sound matter-of-fact, as if she conversed daily with strangers who held guns pointed between her eyes. "MacDuff s got a running feud going with every rabbit in God's creation."

  The barrel of the gun jerked upward. His thumb flashed and there was a loud metallic click, and Rachel nearly jumped out of her skin again. He sagged down into the pillows. Sweat gleamed on his face. His hand that held the gun trembled briefly, then stilled.

  She stared at him. Her heart was pounding like an Indian war drum and he was the cause of it, he and his six-shooter.

  His gaze suddenly snapped back to the window, focusing on the running figure of her son outside. MacDuff s barking must have drawn Benjo away from his chores in the barn. The foolish rabbit, out of its burrow again, was now making a dash for the wild plum thickets that grew between the creek and the lambing sheds. The boy was going after the rabbit with his sling, whirling the rawhide cords over his head like a lasso.

  "Who's that?" said the man in the bed, the man with a gun in his hand.

  Rachel thought she might be sick. "M-my son. Don't..." The words faded as her throat constricted. "Don't hurt him."

  Out by the wild plum thickets Benjo released one of the sling's rawhide cords, and the rabbit dropped like a stone.

  The man turned his eyes back to her and stared with a concentration that was frightening and tangible. Unexpectedly, he smiled. "Looks like you'll be having rabbit stew for supper."

  His words and his smile disconcerted her. His eyes remained terrifying.

  Her gaze dropped to the floor, where the vinegar water had made a dark wet stain, almost like blood. Lieber Gott, lieber Gott. If it had been Benjo to come through the door instead of her...

  "What kind of crazy person are you?" she shouted, advancing on the bed. ""Englischer, litterlich und schrecklich! Waving that wicked thing around like a crazed fool, pointing it at innocent folk. I've already one bullet hole in my wall and I'll not have another. Not in my wall, not in my son, nor my own person, for that matter. Why, I've a good mind to..." She trailed off as she heard the echo of her own shrieking voice.

  The brackets around his mouth deepened ever so slightly, and his eyes tightened at the corners. "You're gonna do what, lady—take a switch to my sorry ass?"

  Flustered, she jerked her gaze away from his. "Hunh. I ought to."

  She saw that she still held the basin hanging empty in her hand and she slammed it down on the floor with a clank. She had dropped the roll of bandages back by the door. She went and got it and slapped it on the nightstand next to her black calfskin Bible and the bottles of carbolic acid and alum Doc Henry had left with her. She jerked the bedclothes down to his waist and tugged up Ben's nightshirt.

  "What the hell..." He reached for the sheet, but she batted his hand away.

  "Whatever you've got, mister—I've already seen plenty of it."

  Blood had seeped in a starburst pattern through the white linen bandage. She leaned over him, reaching for the knot where the bandage ends wrapped and fastened around his middle. Her arm pressed against the hard sinewy muscle that encased his ribcage. He was still feverish, his skin sweaty and hot to the touch.

  His chest heaved beneath her arm as he drew a ragged breath. She glanced up, her fingers abandoning their battle with the knot. He was studying her, his gaze moving slowly over her prayer cap, her brown Plain clothing, then back up to her starched white cap again.

  "What are you?" he said. "Some sort of nun?"

  "What a notion. I'm a daughter of the Plain People."

  His eyes were certainly blue, cold and sharp like broken shards of river ice reflecting a winter sky. And he was staring at her as if he were trying to crawl inside her skin.

  "I don't know as I've ever heard of such a thing," he said. He flashed a bright smile that showed off his even white teeth. "You sure don't look plain to me. A bit starchy maybe, and undoubtedly a holy-howler. But definitely not plain."

  It occurred to her that he was trying to be friendly. As if he could wave a six-shooter in her face one minute and expect to make it up with a smile in the next. His was a charming rascal's smile, and she trusted it for about as long as it took to blink.

  He gave an exaggerated sigh. "I guess I should know by the scowl I'm getting that you are definitely a holy-howler of the serious sort."

  "I don't know what you mean by holy-howler. There's nothing special about us, except that we raise sheep, so I suppose if you're a cowman you might call that an aggravation. We follow the straight and narrow way, working and praying together and trusting in the mercy of the good Lord to take care of us."

  "And does He? Does your good Lord take care of you?"

  It was a question only an outsider would ask. A Plain man was bom knowing the answer. She felt no need to reply.

  A ragged silence fell between them, and his gaze went back to the window. She busied herself with unfolding the clean bandages, though she hadn't finished removing the soiled one. "You aren't from these parts, are you?" she said.

  "No."

  "Were you just passing through, then?"

  He made a sound that could have meant anything.

  "I only ask because if you got folk expecting you somewhere they've likely worried themselves sick by now, and I could send them word if I knew..." She let the end of her thought dangle open for him to finish off. He didn't even bother to grunt a response. Rachel was beginning to have some sympathy with the outsiders, who became so frustrated with the Plain People when their questions were met with silence and single syllables.

  She slid another glance at him. He was looking her bedroom over now; he seemed to be analyzing and cataloguing it the way he'd done with her.

  Her house was like most every other Plain farm in the valley, a simple structure made of cottonwood logs and a tin roof. Three simply furnished rooms: a Küch, or kitchen, and two bedrooms opening off the back of it. No curtains on the windows, no rugs on the floors, no pictures on the walls. Just a Plain house. But then he wouldn't know that, so doubtless it seemed some strange to him.

  She had been looking around the room as he was, but now her gaze came back to him. His face revealed nothing of what he was truly made of, whether good or evil.

  As they stared at each other, the air seemed to acquire a thickness and a weight. She had no idea how to be with him. She knew she could never manage a smile, but she thought she could try a bit of friendliness herself. He was after all a guest in her house, and they didn't even know each other's names.

  She wiped her hand on her apron and held it out to him, as was the Plain way. "It seems a bit late for a proper meeting, being as how you've already cursed me, like to have shot me, and bled buckets all over my best muslin sheets. But I'm Rachel Yoder. Mrs. Yoder."

  He lay there looking up at her with his eyes so cold they burned. Yet the hand still wrapped around the gun held it gently now, his thumb caressing the butt, slowly, slowly. The silence dragged out and her own hand hung in the air between them until it trembled and started to fall.

  And then he let go of his gun and took her hand in his. "You have my gratitude, ma'am. And my apology."

  They remained that way for only the briefest moment, touching palm to palm; she was
the one to pull away. "Your gratitude and apology are both accepted," she said. "While you're at it, do you have a name you'd care to give me? If only so's Benjo and I can have a handle to put on you When we speculate about you behind your back."

  She had thought to show her willingness to be friendly by doing a bit of teasing, and then making a little joke at her own expense. But that was a Plain way of going about it; obviously it made no impression on him. He let her wait so long for an answer, she didn't think she was going to get one.

  "You can call me Cain," he said finally.

  She nearly gasped aloud. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand....

  Surely no one could be bom with such a name. He must have taken it on as some sort of cruel and bitter joke. She thought of the callus on his trigger finger. Cain. The name he killed under.

  She knew her thoughts showed on her face. His mouth twisted. "If you don't like it," he said, "pick something else. I'll answer to most anything that ain't an insult. Is this Benjo your husband?"

  "My—" Her voice cracked and she had to start over. "My son."

  He stared at her in that intense way of his, and she could feel the color building in her cheeks. "So, you're a widow, are you?"

  She opened her mouth to lie; but a lifetime of believing it a sin stopped her. "Yes. My husband died last year."

  He didn't say he was sorry for her loss, as most outsiders would have done. He said nothing at all. His gaze had wandered to the window again; he seemed to have forgotten her. Beyond the weathered gray fence of the feeding paddock, beyond the black cottonwoods that lined the creek, beyond the snow-clotted meadows and rocky buttes and weed-choked coulees, the mountains beckoned. Surging up against the harsh blue of a wind-tossed sky, they looked splendid, and lonely.