Haints Stay

by Colin Winnette

  Brooke checked them, one by one, for a pulse. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then Jim. Brooke set two fingers to the body’s neck and Jim startled, met the other man’s eyes with his own. He was pained but had strength left.

  “We’ll just keep coming,” said Jim.

  “I know,” said Brooke.

  “If you can get out of the desert, we’ll find you.”

  “I know,” said Brooke.

  “We’ll hunt you down until — ”

  Brooke set his boot to the man’s throat then, shutting him up. He ground down for only a few seconds before Jim stopped struggling against him. When Brooke reached to check the pulse again, he was met with no resistance.

  “How old are you then ?”

  Sugar did not answer.

  “You’re an abomination. You know that. A creature.”

  Sugar did not speak.

  “You know that, right ?”

  The woods were thick around them and thickening. It was dark out and getting darker. They were approaching midnight. Approaching smells that Sugar knew. A kind of air that was familiar.

  “You and your brother, you are no more than beasts.”

  The man opposite Sugar had been talking the entire ride. Nothing could shut him up, not even a direct request from one in his party, though each had tried. The man was needling Sugar, trying to get a response, trying to get a rise. He wanted something from him, but Sugar would not give it. He was thinking only of Brooke. And occasionally of Bird. He figured Bird was dead ; if not by the knife then by the power of those horses. But he could not be certain. Brooke would be dead. If those men didn’t kill him, Sugar would fight him and one of them would lose. It didn’t matter who lost. Every day now with Brooke was all lies and more trouble. And now this. Now he was sick with something rotten in his gut and the whole world making a point of telling him how different and horrible he was.

  “And what you got in you is going to be worse than a creature,” said the needling man. “It’s going to be one of those lumps licking salt off the walls of the barn. You’d be better off drowning it in a bucket than carrying it to term.”

  Sugar did not answer. He watched the man. He wore a blank expression.

  “It’d make better horse food than person. You’ll probably die squeezing it out of you. It will probably claw at your insides like a mountain lion.”

  The wheel of the wagon rode violently over a large stone. The sounds of insects swelled the distance around them.

  “Normally, in such a situation, we’d like to have a go at our catch. Out here in the woods alone. It would even be sort of romantic,” said the needler. “But you aren’t worth unbuckling for. I wouldn’t climb inside you with ten extra miles of dick skin.”

  Two of the corpses had knives in their boots, and the other two had sheaths where knives should have been. The guns were gone. The only shells in the sand were spent. There was no food. No sacks or cases left on the wagon, except for an empty one. It was rawhide and would do to hold water. Brooke took that, as well as the broken bits of leather strap that had once held their horses. He took the bench’s wood too, and what he could pry from the walls of the wagon. It was steel and oak, the wagon, so he could only pry enough for maybe two fires, if he was careful with them. He worked as quickly as he could, confident the other men would not return but not wanting to test that theory. When he had gathered what he could gather, he went to the stream and set himself on his stomach before it. He drank for several minutes, cupping the water into his mouth, then lowering his cheek to the sand to breathe a few calming breaths. Finally, he gathered water in the sack, tied it off, and made for the gap between the rocks — right where the wagon had been headed and the best chance he had for catching a path toward wherever it was they were taking him and, it was possible, his brother.

  Mary was a good companion. She told stories about bobcats and wild horses. Her father took in animals and nursed the sick ones. They’d owned over a dozen dogs in her lifetime, and she was just now twelve. They currently owned three. One was all black and had lost a paw.

  “Just like you,” she said.

  They were leaning against the horse fence and watching the ponies. They had two mild ponies her father had discovered at a stream near a canyon.

  “He saved them,” she told Bird.

  “I’d like to get it back some day,” said Bird, examining his bandages. They were white and clean, rather than soaked in brown and yellow as they had been the day before.

  “You won’t get it back some day,” said Mary, “if I know anything about anything. It’s okay, though. Nobody around here minds and there’s still plenty you can do.”

  “It does not always feel gone,” said Bird, eyeing approximately where his hand would have been.

  “Oh,” said Mary, “that’s something I read about. That’s a special trick your mind is playing. That’s interesting. Will you describe it to me ? What’s it like ? How real does it feel ?”

  “Very real,” said Bird, “all the way.”

  “Isn’t that something ?” said Mary. “You are like a soldier returned from war. I am like your patient wife who has been waiting all along for you to return. But I am not really like your wife at all, I suppose. You are one of the things John brings home, not exactly a husband.”

  “I could be a husband,” said Bird. “I could be anything.”

  “Not really,” said Mary. “Plus, you are young and a cripple now.”

  “I’m not,” said Bird.

  “I don’t mean anything by it,” she said. “I love the dogs and ponies alike. Dad brings home good things and makes everyone’s life better.”

  “What’s that one’s name ?”

  “I call him Little One.”

  “Because he’s the littler.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the other ?”

  “Friendly,” said Mary, “but he is not exactly friendly outside of the name. It is more a joke my dad and I make.”

  The ponies kept their distance of the fence and Bird quickly lost interest. The project of the day was to learn Mary’s chores, to follow her around and see what she was responsible for and how he could help, eventually.

  “You’re healing now,” John had said, “and we’re happy to care for you until you’ve got back your strength. After that, everyone who can help out around here, helps out around here. It’s only fair.”

  Bird was learning, though, that Mary didn’t take her responsibilities as seriously as one might, given the family’s low numbers and all that needed to be done. Her jobs were fairly simple too. Feeding the horses was a matter of sacks and proper distribution. She dragged the sacks instead of carrying them, spilling their contents indiscriminately. She gave the animals ears of corn in unequal amounts. Some got none. She was to feed the dogs too, but she told Bird they mostly fended for themselves. She assured him she would put the scraps from each meal in their bowls, in case they came sniffing around, but there was no need to worry too much about it. They were ungrateful anyway, the dogs. Sometimes they knocked her over if she lingered at their dishes too long. So she made a habit of steering clear of the dogs when she could and pouring kitchen scraps over the back porch, aiming more or less for the dishes below.

  Instead of chores, Mary liked to talk and walk and show you things. At least she liked to talk and walk and show him things. He did not know what she would be doing if he were not around to soak her up.

  “Dad is a minister but does not preach. Mom is a musician and sometimes she goes to town to play in the church or on a porch near the post office. She used to not talk at all, when she was younger. Dad took her in. She got normal and started to talk more. I used to ask her why she did not talk and she said it was because she did not have a thing to say. It does not make sense to me and seems like a lie. How can we live in this world and have nothing to say about it ?”

  They were in a field. Grasshoppers the size of biscuits bent long blades of grass back down toward the earth, and sprang up to
strike Bird and Mary on the neck, chest, and arms.

  Bird was swatting at them, trying to crush the landed ones beneath his boot.

  “They do not bite,” said Mary. “It’s just a hello.”

  Bird grabbed one from his shoulder and crushed it in his

  hand.

  “Gross,” said Mary. “You should be more agreeable.”

  Bird apologized. He’d never seen anything like it. It looked like a creature. He did not like creatures or things he did not know that came at him.

  “Lots of things are going to come at you,” said Mary. “It is only the world saying hello.”

  “I don’t agree with you,” said Bird.

  “Well, I’m right about it,” she said.

  “Lots of things are not saying hello. They’d like to hurt you. Every man must protect himself.”

  “I agree with you there,” said Mary. She plucked a grasshopper from a blade and held it out to Bird in her palm. “But not here.” The grasshopper leapt, but not before eliminating in Mary’s cupped palm. “Oh !” She rubbed either side of her hand into the billows of her dress. “He’s wet my hand.”

  That made Bird laugh, seeing her so mildly put out.

  “You have a nice look when you’re put out,” said Bird.

  “That’s not a nice thing to say,” said Mary. She was hurt and it showed in the way she held her face.

  “I meant nothing by it.”

  “Say I look nice all the time.”

  “You do.”

  “Say the words.”

  “You look nice all the time.”

  “Thank you, little bird.”

  “You can call me just Bird.”

  “I know,” said Mary. “But you are little. You are one-third bird.”

  “I won’t always be little.”

  “But you are little now. Even littler than me and I am the littlest.”

  “What do these things do ?” said Bird, nudging the crushed grasshopper with his toe.

  “Eat,” said Mary, “and hop. They don’t have much to go on.”

  “Then why are there so many ?”

  “Because there is room for them, I guess,” said Mary.

  When they were finished in the field they went around to the barn and Bird watched her feed the horses. She made a mess of it. She put no care into it at all. She obviously did care about the horses, though. She said nice, encouraging things to them and warmed their noses with her hands. But she did not do an even job of feeding them and she did not put forth the effort to get each and every one of the seven an ear of corn of their own. She gave extra corn to the littlest one, and the all white one, and one she thought seemed in a particularly good mood. She fed the tan one and the black one with white stockings evenly. Then she got distracted by their water bucket, how full of slop it was, and she playfully scolded the stockinged horse for poisoning the others.

  “He’s a rascal, you see,” she explained to Bird. “He’s always up to something sneaky, but it’s because he has an active mind and we keep him locked up in here all day.”

  “I have seen horses before,” said Bird.

  “Bully,” said Mary.

  “I saw a mass of horses ride through a clearing like hornets from a nest.”

  “You saw a stampede,” said Mary.

  “I saw a stampede,” said Bird. “They tried to kill me.”

  “There you go again,” she said.

  She dumped the sludgy water in front of the barn and took the bucket to the spigot around back.

  Bird examined the horses but did not know what he was looking for. Some kind of kinship. Something that bound them together and made them all horses in the same situation. He spotted nothing but similarities in the ways they moved and held their faces, but even those were fairly distinct from horse to horse when he really thought about it.

  Moths broke the sunlight coming through the cracks overhead. Or bats. He could not tell because his eyes were focusing and unfocusing as he moved through the large beams of light striping the barn’s interior. He listened for any squeaks or squeals but heard only the sounds of the horses stepping in the grass and breathing and those of Mary making her way back around the barn with the water.

  “I like it here,” said Bird.

  “It is a nice place,” said Mary.

  It was a bright night, and everything was more blue and white than black, but still Brooke could not make out the trail they might have been taking, or any prints to indicate a proper route. If he’d learned the stars, he could have at least followed them in some vaguely correct direction. But he had not learned the stars. He had not even tried. He might have tried more, he thought. He might have retained a few things here and there, instead of always just doing what he was good at and never learning anything. He cursed himself for being good at things that got you by. He turned back from his wide wandering and decided to follow the water instead. He might have been lost, but at least he would live.

  In every direction, it was rock and desert. Small plants cropped up like lint on the horizon, but there was nothing substantial, other than stone and vastness, nothing that would lead him to believe food would be coming his way any time soon. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he would be. For Brooke, it came on strong, and like a seizure, it gripped him and would not let go.

  It was funny to him, to die in this way. Alone and for no good reason. Nearly every man he’d killed, he’d killed for a reason, however simple the reason was. And now he would die from bad luck and the world’s indifference. It was funny to him, on some level.

  He began to list in his head the men and women he had killed in his life. One of them or some of them had come back on him and that had brought him here. It had likely not happened as intended, but the end result would be the same.

  There was Jenny’s man. The runner. Whatever it was he’d done, Jenny wanted him gone, and she was a high payer and even a sort of friend. And now Jenny was gone and her bar was gone and there was nothing left of the sizable deal they’d made. Taking the man down had not been a particular challenge. They’d found him sleeping beside the very fire he had used to cook his last meal. They positioned his face in the coals and held it there until he ceased to struggle. They had not robbed him because they did not rob when they did not have to. People are sentimental and objects have personal value beyond the knowledge of thieves. They were to be paid and would have had everything they needed, so they left the man’s objects to those who would find him. They took his food but that would have been of no use to anyone but themselves after a day or so. It was an easy job, but one that had gone uncelebrated and, as far as Brooke knew, unrumored or spread. It was likely not an associate of Jenny’s man that was after them.

  Before that there was a constable of some sort. Brooke could not remember the full details of the man’s position. He had been on the payroll of a criminal who was doing fine more or less running a small town by a large lake, until he hassled the wrong farmer and got a couple of killers after him. At one point, Brooke and Sugar had been in high demand wherever they’d gone. People needed support, protection. They’d like a gun in their hand, but even more they’d like a gun in someone else’s hand, a hand they could control. Brooke understood it. He appreciated it. Decent people had others to look after and could not go hunting folks down for revenge or justice themselves. He and Sugar were not technically decent people. They had one another, but it was because they were brothers and they cared for one another, not out of any kind of necessity or civility.

  It was true, the constable of some sort had put up a fight. He even tried to hole up in his home with a set of antique rifles. Brooke and Sugar had finally had to smoke him out, filling his windows with explosive cocktails and setting themselves up to fire on anyone who came tumbling out. They expected him to come from the front door or a window, but the man had held his position. There was very little recognizable left of him in the ashes.

  Brooke did not like killing men of high standing because it made
people restless. It made them worry that they were not safe, and Brooke and Sugar were far better off with everyone feeling like they were safe. Safe as possible. They’d left that town and never come back. It was entirely possible that the constable’s men were those that were after him and his brother. They’d had an official air to them, Brooke’s captors. They were self-righteous and clean.

  There was little use in this kind of speculation, but he needed something to keep his mind and feet moving as he progressed toward wherever it was that he was going.

  Another possibility was the little man who’d razed Jenny’s. They hadn’t killed anyone that Brooke could remember, but they’d beaten his men and there was reason to be sore about the exchange. The hope had been to leave town and be done with all of it. There was plenty of territory to roam and no reason to ever go back to any particular spot if there wasn’t something favorable awaiting them. They weren’t about to get in any established person’s way over something that was much larger than either him or Sugar.

  The stream broke against a large red rock and split in two. Brooke had heard that a lot of the stars in the sky were more or less the same every night, and you could use them as a tool. It did not look that way to him. It looked like a pan full of sand that shook and shook each night after it set.

  His mind was wandering. He could not focus. It meant he was tired, but he could not bring himself to stop moving yet. He needed some final something to secure himself in his plan, or to draft a new one. He did not like to wait or give in before a challenge. It was cold out there. He was shivering and wet and getting colder. He did not like the desert.

  After several hundred more feet, he fell. He loosed a reasonable amount of wood from his supply and began to pile it into a cone. He could not go on in the cold, tired as he was. There was no shame in collapsing. There was only shame in letting fear or uncertainty give you pause. There was a flint in each of his heels and he removed his boots to get the fire going then slid them back on for additional warmth. They were not safe shoes, but that was part of the pleasure of them. And more than once they’d brought him comfort and a sense of home when there would otherwise have been none. He did not like to wear them down, but emergencies did happen. He warmed his hands and cheeks when the flames finally kicked up. He listened to the fire snapping and the water singing against the rocks behind him. He did not much mind being alone. He wondered if he would be alone forever, or if he would meet Sugar again and then he wondered if they would get over whatever it was that had come between them, and settle into one another once again.