York's Moon

by Elizabeth Engstrom

  “I’ll handle the deputy,” Sheriff Goddard said. “You just make sure you don’t give him reason.”

  “Gonna handle the railroad guys, too?” Denny asked.

  Steve Goddard looked at the little group around their little campfire in the night, the stars breaking through the clouds in the dark black night, the train tracks behind. The moon ought to be coming out of the clouds soon, he thought. Another full moon and here I am, witnessing the end of an era. Wild things become extinct because civilization encroaches. It’s a cryin’ shame. “C’mon, Clover, I’ll take you home.”

  Clover stood and dusted off the back of her jeans.

  “The rest of you ought to get a little sleep,” he said. “Looks like the rain is stopping. Tomorrow might be a big day for all of us.”

  “Thanks for looking in on us, Sheriff,” York said. “Good night, Miss Clover.”

  “Good night, guys,” she said. “York.”

  The men chimed their good-byes, and Steve walked Clover up to his truck. Might want to drop her by Eileen’s place, he thought. Clover needs to have a chat with her mother. The hour was late, but knowing Eileen, she’d be up. She’d be up getting ready for work, if she had even been to bed.

  “Don’t be wasting your life,” he said as they got their seat belts buckled and he started up the truck.

  “I know,” she said. “But, Sheriff, they need somebody to look after them. You know they do.”

  “Yes, honey, I know that, and everybody knows the contribution you make to their health and well-being, but it doesn’t have to be you. There are agencies for that type of thing.”

  “Useless,” Clover said and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I’m worried about you and that Denny.” Steve said. “You’re not going to go and do something stupid, are you?”

  “Like what, get pregnant like my mama?” She snorted. “I don’t think so.”

  “He’s not the settling-down type, Clover,” Steve said, feeling like a father. It was a good feeling. He and Athena should have had a few more kids. Maybe they’d have had a little girl. “You need yourself a good man who will treat you right and feed and clothe and educate your babies.”

  “I know,” she said, sounding a little petulant. “He tells me that all the time. But I’m young. I’ve got time. I can devote some money and some energy to those poor guys down there. I don’t need no husband and family just yet. Hey, where are we going?”

  “Thought I’d drive by your mom’s place, see if she’s up to talking with you about this whole mess.”

  Clover snorted again. “I don’t need her advice. Look at her. Who’d take advice from her?”

  Deputy Travis, that’s who, Steve thought as the deputy’s muscle car came into view, parked big as day, right in front of Eileen’s trailer. A quick glance at Clover showed him that she was looking at her hands, and he made a quick U-turn.

  “What?”

  “It’s too late to be knocking on anybody’s door. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Good. I’d just as soon go home.”

  “Working tomorrow?”

  “Day off. You?”

  “I work all the time.”

  He pulled up in front of her house, cut the lights, put the truck in park and turned toward her. “It’s not going to be pretty down there, Clover. The railroad doesn’t want the boys down there anymore, and the mayor is going to see to it that all evidence of their camp is erased, and soon. Please steer clear, okay?”

  “York . . .”

  “I know, and I think it’s wonderful that you’re going to take York in to social services tomorrow. But then let things shake out as they will, okay? Sly and Denny will probably go on down the line a bit, and that’ll be good for everybody.”

  He heard the ragged breath she took, but didn’t back down in the face of female emotion. “I want you to promise me, Clover. Let those guys do whatever they will. It’s time you started thinking about Bonita Community College anyway, and putting your extra time and money to better use.”

  She nodded, and wiped her face, then opened the truck door and hopped out. He waited, watching in the dark, until she disappeared into her dark cottage, then he put the truck in gear, turned on the headlights, and slowly idled into the street and back toward his warm bed and his willing wife.

  ~ ~ ~

  York had just settled down on his rearranged and soaking-wet couch cushions, wondering if he’d be sleeping in a real bed the following night, one with sheets and a pillow. He wondered if he’d be taking a regular bath and eating regular meals. Maybe he could get some spectacles of some sort that would help him see, and maybe he could get himself some better store-bought teeth. There was no use in dreading the future, he’d learned long ago. The good lord had a strange plan in mind for everybody, and it was best to just go along with it. Fighting the lord never got nobody anywhere.

  Denny was still rustling his Walmart bags or something, and Sly was muttering to himself some type of obscenities, when York heard footsteps on the train tracks. He listened quietly. Coyote, probably.

  “York?”

  It was Chris, whispering too loudly.

  “You better get on home, Chris,” York said.

  “Can’t,” Chris said. “My mom threw me out.”

  York sat up. “What?”

  “I’ve got no place to go, York. I thought I’d stay with you tonight.”

  “You know what’s going on here?”

  “Yeah,” Chris said. “I heard.” He sat on the end of York’s cushions and lit up a cigarette. York heard the strike of the match, smelled the sulphur, heard the inhale, heard the burn of the tobacco as the fire consumed it, then smelled the smoke on the wind as Chris breathed it out.

  “Smoking get you kicked out of home?” he asked.

  “Partly, I guess.”

  “School?”

  “Stupid. I stopped going.”

  “That’s what’s stupid, Chris,” York said.

  “I thought you’d understand. I thought you would be the one person who didn’t judge me.”

  “I’m not judging you, I’m judging your actions, and they’re stupid. Dropping out of high school is just plain dumb. Smoking will ruin your health. You want to do something good in your life? Quit smoking, go back to school, become a productive member of society. Hanging out in places like this isn’t good for a kid.”

  “What about you, York?”

  “I’m not the brightest pup in the basket, boy, and neither are the others who hang out down here. But you are. You’re a smart kid with a good brain. You’ve just got a little teenage rebellion, is all. You could have a wonderful future. You could be rich. You could have beautiful women looking at you all the time, but not if you’re down here. Look at us. We’re bums, and we’re getting throwed out of here tomorrow. They’ll put me into one a them places where I’ll have to pray and sing gospel for my food, and who knows what’ll happen to Denny and Sly. What’s the attraction, anyway?”

  “I like you guys. I like your freedoms.”

  “Ha! Freedoms. Listen to me, boy. Freedom is where you can do what you want, and you know who has freedoms? Those with money. We’ve got no freedoms down here. We can’t go anywhere, or do anything. I can’t get to a doctor; I can barely get to the post office to pick up my disability check. We don’t have freedoms, Chris, and don’t you ever forget that. Education buys you freedom. You go on back to school now, and you make something of yourself.”

  “Can I stay here the night?”

  “You going back to school tomorrow?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, that’s better than a no.” York said. “I think there’s some extra blankets under a tarp over there by Sly. Help yourself.”

  The boy rustled around until he was settled, but York’s blood was hot and getting hotter. “You’d have to be a lunatic to want to live this kind of life, boy. It’s nothing but heartache and more heartache.” He felt his fists ball up and the sandy grit grind between his toes,
and he felt a scowl etch itself into his face so deep it would probably be permanent. “You go on back to school, and you go on back to your mama, and you go on back to church and make something good of yourself.”

  “You wish you had?” the boy whispered in the dark.

  “We all have our paths,” York replied.

  Soon he heard a little snuffling, and he knew the boy was crying for his youth, even though it was not yet lost.

  I ought to be the one cryin’, York thought. But cryin’ only fixes things for women and little kids. Cryin’ never did a damn thing for a grown man.

  York lay quietly listening to the rustle of the breeze in the weeds, listened to the boy trying to disguise his heartbreaking confusion, listened to the voice of the moon that seemed to call him. He listened to the blood run in his veins, pumped there strongly by a case of righteous indignation that initiated the squeeze of his tired, old worn-out heart. He felt the flush on the inside of his face, felt the cool of the moon on the outside of it, and he tried to put all other feelings and emotions aside and concentrate on what it was that the moon was trying to tell him.

  Instead, he kept hearing his own words over and over again. “We all have our paths,” he’d said to the boy. We all have our paths. Including, presumably, Deputy Travis and the railroad guys.

  And just exactly what is my path? York wondered. He thought he’d known, all these years, being out here, ministering to lost souls, but to end up in an old-folks’ home run by county money just didn’t sound right. The good lord always seemed to provide for York’s minimal needs, and while he thought this nursing home nonsense could be just a little bit more of the same, he couldn’t reconcile himself to that thought. If the lord was going to put me inside, he thought, he’da done it long ago.

  Then again, maybe paths change. Maybe he was to be outside with the lost ones, with the travelers, the wanderers, and to learn his trade. Maybe now he was to be inside with the sick ones, the old ones, those ready to meet their maker.

  Nope, he thought. It ain’t true. That ain’t the way. That is not where my path lies, and that is not the path I will tread.

  “God,” he whispered out loud, “my work is too important here. You know it and I know it, and I ask that you look out after us and help us find a way to keep this ministry afloat. There’s evil people in this whereabouts, Lord, and while I don’t want to fight them, I will, if that’s what you’ve got in store for me. Me, and Sly, and Denny and Miss Clover, and maybe this here Chris, too, and the sheriff, if he’s the good-hearted man I believe he is. Draw them all to our side, Lord, and help us find a way. I believe with all my heart and soul that this is your will. If it is not, then tell me now, or tell me soon, before we all make fools of ourselves or end up in jail.”

  “You mean it, York?” Sly’s voice came across crisp and clear.

  “I’ll look out after them, God, and keep them all in line. Nobody’s going to get hurt, but we will fight, if that’s what you want, because that sure is what I want. I’m too old to end up in some bedpan place. Let me die out here in my own hometown, please, Lord.”

  “You ain’t never gonna die, York,” Sly said.

  York tried to concentrate to hear God’s message back—he always tried to hear the answer to his prayers, but by the time Sly disentangled himself from his bedding, and Chris sat up, sniffling and wiping his nose and eyes on his shirt sleeves, and then Denny was banging on the coffeepot, trying to fit the dented lid back on the caved-in body after it had taken such a heroic whack from a ball bat, York couldn’t concentrate on any message that might be coming through from above.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “There’s no time for sleeping now,” Sly said. “We’ve got work to do. Strategy to plan.”

  “We’re going to kick ass,” Denny said. “And this is to help us,” he said, laying something on York’s stomach.

  It was a box. York sat up, smelling the coffee as Sly threw a handful in the pot to boil. He fumbled open the box and inside were a pair of shoes. Tennis shoes. Nice shoes.

  “Here, York,” Denny said, and handed him a fresh pair of socks, still with the sticky paper wrapper around them.

  “Thanks, son,” York said, touched by the gesture. “I’d surely like to bathe before putting these on.”

  “No time for that,” Sly said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  “Can I stay?” Chris said.

  “Shit, yeah,” Sly said. “We need foot soldiers. Cannon fodder. Ha!”

  York wasn’t entirely certain that foot soldiers or cannon fodder was what they needed, but he let Denny take off his old boots and socks and wipe his feet clean. Sometimes the girl helped him to the Mission where he took a bath, and when that happened, she found him some fresh clothes, shaved him, trimmed his toenails and such. He reckoned that wasn’t more than two weeks ago, so he was okay with putting on some new socks and the new shoes. And they felt good on his feet. Felt gooood on his feet. He wanted to walk around, but figured that could wait. For now, he was content to wiggle his toes inside fresh cotton and a nice cozy envelope of fresh shoes. They even smelled fresh.

  “Fine gift, Denny,” he said.

  “Compliments of the dead guy,” Denny said. “Sort of.”

  Third Day of the Full Moon

  The last thing Steve Goddard wanted to see so early in the morning, before he’d finished his first complete cup of coffee, was the insolent face of his deputy. What he had to say, however, couldn’t wait even a half hour.

  “Listen to me,” Sheriff Steve Goddard said to Travis’s smug face, “I don’t care who you sleep with on your time off, and I don’t care who you do so-called security work for on your time off, but you goddamn well better remember that you’re a deputy of the West Wheaton police force twenty-four goddamn hours a day, which carries with it a certain moral responsibility.”

  Travis didn’t flinch.

  “You want to tell me you’re in love with Eileen in her broken-down trailer, I’ll believe you.”

  Travis scowled.

  “What the hell was all that with the ball bats?”

  Travis’s scowl deepened. He fingered the fraying top of the desk chair he stood behind.

  “One more report of you acting like a thug, Travis, and you’re gone.”

  Travis nodded.

  “You can go work for the mayor.”

  Travis nodded.

  “I’m serious.”

  Travis nodded. “That all?”

  Sheriff Goddard looked at the dumb young buck he had for a deputy. They were all wasted words. Every one of them. “Yeah,” he said.

  Travis opened the office door and there stood Clover, looking particularly dainty in a little yellow flowered cotton dress that looked new. Sheriff Goddard was surprised and pleased that he had not spoken ill of the girl’s mother in a loud enough voice that could carry beyond the door. “Miss Clover,” he said.

  The girl stepped gingerly out of Travis’s path, not looking up at his face, keeping her eyes on the sheriff. “Please come in,” he said, then edged Travis out the door and shut it behind him.

  Clover nervously looked around. Steve pulled out the chair Travis had been fraying and she sat immediately and lightly on the edge of the seat. “How can I help you?”

  “York’s not going,” she said simply. “I thought I ought to come and tell you before . . .” She cocked her head in the direction of Travis, whose shadow could still be seen standing next to the frosted-glass door. He was listening.

  “You did right,” Steve said. “What’s York saying?”

  “No reason for him to go. His ministry—you know—the usual.”

  Steve nodded. He’d heard it before. “How set is he?”

  “Real set,” she said, “but I don’t know about his health, Sheriff.”

  “I know. That’s a concern to all of us.”

  “Anyways, he told me this morning that he ain’t going, and he said that you’d understand more than anybody.”

>   Steve nodded. “He’s right. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle here. If it were up to me, I’d just give York that property and wish him well for the rest of his days. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.”

  “They’ll fight,” Clover said.

  “York said that?”

  “Sly did. Just now. York didn’t argue.”

  Fight, Steve thought. What the hell does that mean? What do those three guys think they can do against the police department, the railroad and the mayor’s office? “Thanks for coming by, Clover. I appreciate this advance notice. It gives me a little negotiation leverage.”

  “Don’t let them get hurt, okay? They’re just guys. They’re good guys. Just . . . misguided.”

  “Nobody’s going to get hurt,” Steve said, and ushered her out of the office and around Deputy Travis, who stood steadfastly in their way and tried to make eye contact with Clover as they maneuvered around him.

  Clover didn’t fall for it, but he caught Steve’s stern eye, put his tail between his legs, and went to his desk.

  Steve saw Clover to the door, then went back into his office and closed the door.

  Kee-rist, he thought. There’s going to be a goddamn international incident over this. He ran his fingers through his hair and tugged hard. Then he stood up, grabbed his hat and went down to try to talk some sense into the boys.

  ~ ~ ~

  Mayor Milo Grimes shook his head as he read the newspaper account of the murder down by the train tracks. He clicked his tongue as if he were scandalized by the news, the clicking mostly for the edification of his wife and daughter. “We’re going to clean up that eyesore,” he announced.

  “What eyesore, honey?” his wife, the fit, coiffed, manicured, pedicured, tanned, tennised and frequently massaged Susie Marie, asked.

  “The hobo dump by the tracks,” Milo said. “Now there’s been a murder down there.”

  “Animals,” Susie Marie pronounced. “Are you coming to the club this afternoon?”

  “I’ve got a late meeting,” Milo said.