Haints Stay

by Colin Winnette

  “The heinous child of two murdering sons of bitches,” said the doctor. “The rage of one at learning what he’s been through and what he is and the revenge of the other learning what we’ve done and what we’ve revealed. We’re caught in the middle of two predators, easing their union into the world.”

  The children were laughing now because the doctor’s verve had loosed more spit onto his shirt and thighs. He was a drooling mess and also sweating profusely. He was making no effort to stop or clear his body’s leakings.

  “They’ve caught the Dreaded Joneses ?” said the woman.

  The doctor shook his head, his bottle. “No, no,” he said.

  “The Upriser Gang ? The Broke-Bottlers ?” said one of the men.

  Again, the doctor shook his head.

  “Jack Kraus and Splinter Cogburn ?”

  “Not them. These are not celebrities. There is no news here, only darkness.”

  “Who then ?”

  “Brooke and Sugar,” said the doctor.

  The small crowd was silent. Then they began to murmur.

  Finally, one of the men said, “Who ?”

  “Brooke and Sugar,” said the doctor. “Two men who murder. They aren’t celebrities. They’re murderers.”

  “But we’ve never heard of them.”

  “Which makes them all the more terrifying,” said the doctor. He darted to grab his bottle as it slipped from his hand, but only thumbed the neck, tipping it as it fell. It broke on the porch but spilled next to nothing, as it was almost entirely empty.

  “Seems hardly worth all the fuss,” said the woman.

  “All those deputies are watching two unknown criminals ? With no reputation ?”

  “One unknown criminal,” said the doctor, “but they are not unknown.”

  “We don’t know them.”

  “You might have had the unpleasant experience of getting to know one of them, if we hadn’t rounded them up like we did. They are an endless outpouring of wrong-doing. They are a sickness.”

  “You didn’t round them up.”

  “I was an essential member of the team,” said the doctor. “Who has a drink with them ? A flask or a dram ? I will buy it from you for twice its worth.”

  The men and women bid their goodbyes without much politeness at all. They had expected a grander reveal. This was all much messier and less exciting than was hoped.

  “There’s only one ?” said a chubby boy at the steps.

  “They’ve been separated,” said the doctor. “Not everything is rustling and gunfire. There is an element of planning that can make one’s life easier.”

  “So why all the deputies ?” said the same boy.

  “Because the devil himself could come tearing out of this murderer,” said the doctor. “And his brother’s wagon never arrived where it was going. So, caution is the game.”

  “Are you going to pull a bullet out of him ?”

  By now, only the children were left, and they were only three : the chubby boy asking the questions, a pockmarked girl named Alice, with whom the doctor was familiar after last year’s pox revival, and the town rascal, Clint. Clint was chewing his fingers and looking restless.

  “What they want is for me to deliver whatever he’s got inside of him,” said the doctor.

  “We need more information,” said Clint, between bites.

  “You’ll make yourself sick doing that,” said the doctor, “and spread disease. Spit your fingers from your mouth.”

  “I won’t,” said Clint.

  “Regardless,” said the doctor. He rose to fetch more to drink from the bar, but found the door locked and barred.

  “You dog,” said the doctor to the unyielding oak.

  “Is it the appendix ?” said the chubby boy.

  “A medical man,” said the doctor, turning back to the children grandly, drunkenly, with a stutter in his step and sweat on his brow.

  “You took out my dad’s,” said the boy.

  “A worthless organ, just waiting to be occupied by this or that malady,” said the doctor. “We’re sacks of vestigial organs and bones. Most of us is hardly necessary.”

  He approached the chubby boy then and pinched his gut.

  “Ow.”

  Clint lowered his hand to laugh and lean forward as if he were planning to take part in what was sure to become an ongoing harassment of the chubby boy.

  “No, my boy. It is not the appendix.”

  “What then ?” said Alice.

  “A baby,” said the doctor.

  The three children were silent then.

  “Did you hear me ?” said the doctor.

  The chubby boy nodded. Clint cocked his head then looked either way up and down the road. Alice raised her hand.

  “Yes, Alice,” said the doctor.

  “What baby ?” she said.

  “Sugar is carrying a baby,” explained the doctor.

  “But…” began the chubby boy.

  “It does not seem right, does it ?” said the doctor.

  “How did the baby live inside him ?” said Alice.

  “He has all the parts of a woman,” said the doctor.

  “But he’s not…?” said Alice.

  “He is not known as such and has never laid claim to the gender,” said the doctor.

  Clint’s open palm met the back of the chubby boy’s head then. Clint broke into laughter and took a few steps back as the chubby boy rose to defend himself.

  “Don’t,” said the boy.

  Clint nodded, put up his hands, and assured him he would not.

  “What does it mean for the baby ?” said Alice.

  “I don’t know,” said the doctor.

  The clap was even louder this time, when Clint’s hand met the back of the other boy’s head. So hard was the blow that the boy tipped forward, his palms to the step in front of him, before he was able to gather himself up and chase after Clint.

  “Quit it,” said the doctor, waving his hand as after a fly.

  “I’m confused,” said Alice.

  “As you should be,” said the doctor.

  “Is he really a killer ?” said Alice.

  “Yes,” said the doctor, settling into his chair and bringing his hat down to block out the blinding light reflected by the dirt of the road before him.

  “Are we safe ?” said Alice.

  “They would like us to think so,” said the doctor.

  Across the street, the chubby boy had Clint pinned before a trough full of muck. He was slapping Clint across the face with one hand and scooping muck from the trough with the other. He tipped the muck onto Clint’s face, focusing on the mouth, eyes, and ears, and Clint squirmed and squealed, and the other boy’s face was like a stone.

  When the doctor finally arrived at the jail he had a little girl in tow and was the storming drunk of a man who had managed to keep it going through the night and on into the morning. He pointed to Sugar, who had removed all of his clothing except for his shirt and positioned himself on the bed in his cell with his knees bent, as if napping in a tight spot.

  “That,” said the doctor, “is crowning.”

  There were eight deputies scattered throughout the jail’s main office, which contained a desk, several chairs, a dusty collage of wanted posters, boxes of bullets, some riding gear, and Sugar’s cell at the back.

  The deputies appeared confused at the word, but Alice seemed to understand.

  “We’re deep into it now, deputies,” said the doctor.

  “We’re worried he’s dying,” said one of the deputies. A young boy. The doctor had seen him around but hardly knew him. He was new to town, flirting with Flora Jean, the gravedigger’s daughter. He didn’t drink and he didn’t chew and he kept to himself in a rather superior sort of way.

  “That’s because you don’t know anything outside of the deputy’s game of capturing and killing.”

  “I served for four years under — ”

  “You’re not helping your case, my boy. Can the cel
l be opened ?” The doctor’s mood had shifted entirely. A kind of excitement came over him when it was time to begin. That, and he was enjoying the fact that Alice had come with him out of curiosity and that she seemed to cling to his every word and movement like a pitch-perfect daughter might.

  “Birthing is easy, Alice,” explained the doctor, as the young deputy unlocked and cracked the cell’s door. “It is a matter of catching. Like waiting at the bottom of a hill to catch a friend who is sledding down it. There’s only a small bit of risk. More fun than anything else.”

  “My mother had seven children and I was the last,” said Alice.

  “You see ?” said the doctor.

  “But she passed after I was born.”

  “Yes, well, birthing seven children is very different than facing the task of raising them.”

  The doctor sloppily rolled his sleeves.

  “I’ll need a stool,” he reported. The youngest deputy fetched one from behind the sheriff’s desk. The other deputies were resigned, reclined, and leaning against this or that. They had done little more than look in the doctor’s way since he arrived. Six worthless men and a sheriff, was all the doctor saw. They were as put out by the whole thing as he was, he determined, but weren’t doing much of anything about it. A man was not measured by what he did or did not want to do, but how he was able to handle getting through those things he did not want to do. The doctor was a man who liked to make a note when he had a thorough thought, but he found himself without a pen.

  “Do you men plan to help secure this child’s birth or are you merely hoping for something to go wrong ?” said the doctor, addressing the room.

  “What child ?” said Sugar.

  They all turned to watch him. It was as if an object had suddenly come to life.

  “You’re giving birth,” said the doctor.

  “How ?”

  “Through your vagina,” said the doctor.

  “I do not want it to happen,” said Sugar.

  “While many things about you chill me to the core, my son, I do pity you right now,” said the doctor. “This will be the last easy thing you do, I’m sure of it.”

  “Bring Brooke,” said Sugar.

  “Your brother is dead,” said the doctor.

  Sugar moaned and set his head back. He seemed to instinctively know when to push, and the child was working its way out with little effort or coaching from the doctor.

  “Gross,” said Alice.

  “Yes,” said the doctor.

  Sugar moaned.

  “Is he going to die ?” asked the young deputy. He was at the doctor’s side then, standing just behind Alice. The sheriff lit a cigarette, and stepped onto the porch.

  “I doubt it,” said the doctor. “You could get me a basin of clean, warm water. Some soap. Some clean blankets. You could make yourself useful.”

  The boy did just that. He vanished with a determined air.

  “Do you deliver a lot of babies ?” said Alice.

  “Some,” said the doctor.

  “Do you like it ?”

  “Sometimes,” said the doctor.

  “I am going to die,” said Sugar. “But I am not afraid.”

  “Very good on you,” said the doctor.

  “Is he going to die ?” said Alice.

  “No,” said the doctor. “Don’t worry at all about that. Why don’t you take a moment and get a name from each of these fine deputies. I’d like to be able to address them individually, if need be.”

  Alice toured the room then, introducing herself and asking each deputy his name. They seemed put out mostly, by the day and condition of the doctor and all they were being asked to do. But it was charming enough to engage with a young girl in pigtails, so they smiled and gave their names. There was Isaac, John, Clint Sr., Jack, Weston, and the young deputy. He was not back yet and could not introduce himself properly.

  The sheriff was on the porch, making a point of staying out of things.

  “We’re nearly done,” said the doctor. “It is nearly a child.”

  Alice rushed back to his side. She gasped, then put her hand to her mouth. It was the first time in her life she’d performed the gesture involuntarily. Until now, she had always done it in imitation of the ladies she knew, when her siblings did something worth gasping at, or when they stumbled upon something they weren’t to have seen. This time, the gesture was genuine and unexpected. It felt very adult.

  Before her was an open wound swallowing the bottom half of a child’s body. The doctor met the child’s waist with his hands, still trembling and dirty from the road, and he slid the child out into the cool air of that bright morning. It screamed like nothing she had ever heard before. It was covered in blood and something slick, thicker than blood, that held only a vague tint of pink and orange. There was a purplish-white rope running from the baby to the man and the doctor cut it with a knife he produced from his waistband.

  “It is a child,” said the doctor. “Voila.”

  At that moment, the young deputy appeared in the doorway with the water. He spilled it in waves upon the office floor as he brought it to the doctor’s side. The doctor set the baby in the water, which was fairly warm and seemed to have a mildly calming effect — though the screaming did not stop.

  Sugar was collapsed into the bench and bleeding from a visible tear that vanished beneath him. It might have gone on forever, back up to his shoulders and around, for all Alice knew.

  “You are late with this,” said the doctor.

  “I’m… is that it ?” said the deputy. His eyes watered over at the site of the baby coming clean in the water.

  The doctor lifted it and began to wipe the slick matter from its arms and legs.

  “This is the child.”

  “Is he ?”

  “Not dead,” said the doctor.

  “Let me see it,” said Sugar, without lifting himself up.

  “It’s a girl,” said the doctor.

  “Let me see it,” said Sugar.

  The other deputies tried to make a point of not looking, but the doctor caught several of them stealing glances.

  “The child’s in good health and will stop crying eventually,” shouted the doctor to the room. “It is not a demon. Not yet.”

  “Can I hold it ?” said Alice.

  “Let me see it,” said Sugar.

  The doctor set the child in Alice’s arms, and showed her how to hold it.

  He washed his hands in the red water in the basin then dried them on the remaining blankets.

  “Where did you get these blankets ?” said the doctor.

  “From a woman… down the street. I just…”

  “They’re dirty,” said the doctor.

  “I…”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” said the doctor. “But you have made a mistake.”

  “Let me see it,” said Sugar. It was chant-like. Less a request and more a rhythm he was holding in his mouth.

  Alice brought the baby to his side and knelt to place it in his arms. She showed him how to hold it.

  “What is it ?” said Sugar.

  The doctor set down the dirty, stained blanket and joined the sheriff on the porch. He stuck in a plug of tobacco. His hands were starting to settle. The road was crisp before him and the sun was fully baked in the sky. He needed a drink.

  “An abomination,” he said, and spat.

  Mary, Martha, and Bird had walked through the night. They had not stopped. They had not eaten. Mary spoke as they walked, but of nothing in particular. Bird did not cry. Martha did not respond to the many things there were to respond to, but she watched the edges of the darkness around them and, every once in a while, she would sing. Softly to herself, something Bird could not quite make out. It was not soothing. There was something much worse about it than the silence.

  Mary complained that they were not stopping but Martha paid her no mind. Bird was glad to keep moving. He was glad Martha had brought the weapons, hung one from her shoulder and carried one i
n her hand. They looked natural on her, comfortable, though he had never seen her anywhere near a gun before.

  An hour or so after daybreak, they began to see other people. A few men pulling carts along the road at a slow pace. A woman and two children in clean, pressed clothes, carrying small black books held to their chests or under their arms. They were moving toward a thinly populated area. Toward a town that suddenly appeared before them like a mirage.

  Sugar was feeding the baby. It was not something he knew how to do, but something that had simply happened to him. It was a familiar enough idea, and when it came time to perform the task himself, something in him settled the child and his own body into place and the baby took hold. The sheriff left the doctor on the porch to smoke and chew and curse and approached Sugar splayed out in the cell with the baby attached. The sheriff gripped the baby by its sides and detached it from Sugar, who protested and was met with the barrel end of peace and order.

  “That’s enough,” explained the sheriff. “You’ll hang tomorrow, and we’ll be done with all this.”

  The baby was crying. Screaming. Alice worried they were hurting it and she went out onto the porch to tell the doctor. He was no longer settled there but was ambling back toward the porch where she had first joined him.

  When she finally caught up with him, he was at the door of the bar and fumbling to open it against its will. An armed woman and a dirty little girl and a crippled boy were gathered across the street, on the steps of the inn. Alice waved at the boy but he did not notice or he did not care.

  “I think it’s locked,” she said.

  “I know it’s locked,” he replied. “I am trying to get in.”

  “I think they’re hurting the baby,” she said.

  “Babies cry,” said the doctor. “That creature will never have a happy life.”

  “Where did it come from ?”

  “That’s a story for when you’re older,” said the doctor.

  He kicked at the base of the door, knocked with his fist, and pounded with his palm.

  There was suddenly a gunshot, and then there were many gunshots. The doctor ducked, then lowered himself onto the porch. Then he rose, grabbed Alice, and lowered the both of them onto the porch. She was crying.

  “Are you shot ?” she said.