by David Nickle
Jason stood up, but when Louise tried to stand, Ruth gently pushed her back down. “I think you have had enough excitement for today. Jason—come with me. We shall have a walk in the orchard. Would you carry this?” She handed Jason the box, and he took it. It was heavy—Jason guessed whatever was inside was made of iron. But he could not tell what it was.
He hefted the box under his arm, tipped his cap to Miss Louise Butler, and followed Ruth Harper through the crowd. He was grinning like a fool, but he didn’t care and figured he couldn’t do anything about it if he did. That grin stayed with him—when they ducked through a group of workers to avoid drawing Mr. Harper’s attention; when they hurried past the horseshoe spike and down a row of blossoming apple trees, over another rise and to a quiet place beyond.
It stayed on him right up until the moment that he opened the box, and found the gleaming silver Colt six-shooter nestled there, resting up in its blood-red bed of velvet.
20 - The Secret Terror
“No one knows,” said Ruth Harper, rocking from one foot to the other and grinning madly in the dappled sunlight of the orchard. “Not even Louise. Especially not Louise. I purchased it in Chicago—it belonged to Calamity Jane!”
Jason held the gun in two hands. It was a Colt Single Action Army revolver, and although it was nickel-plated with a fine walnut grip, it showed its age. The barrel was nicked in two places and the finish on the wood was worn where the heel of a hand would touch. Jason flicked the magazine open and sighed. At least it wasn’t loaded.
“The ammunition is in a little compartment in the box,” said Ruth.
Jason flicked it closed and held it at his side, pointed to ground. “How much did you pay?”
“Twenty-nine dollars,” said Ruth.
“That seems dear.”
“I know,” said Ruth. “But it came with the box—and a certificate.”
“Have you fired it?”
“No.”
“That’s one reason nobody knows you got one, I guess. These things make a racket.”
“Like thunderclaps,” said Ruth.
“Although it looks like you could,” said Jason, sighting along the barrel. “Gun’s old, but it’s been cared for.”
“Would you like to?”
Jason looked up. Ruth had moved off to the base of an apple tree. It was too early in the season for apples to grow, but she must have had one in her pantaloons, because she was buffing it on her shirt now. She stood straight against the tree, and put the apple on her head so that it balanced.
“The bullets are in the box. A compartment near the hinge,” she said.
Jason gawked.
“Oh come along,” said Ruth, rolling her eyes in such exasperation that the apple nearly fell. “You can deny all you like. But I see how you handle that iron.”
“Iron?”
“Gun,” she said, and took the apple from her head. “It’s quite clear to me that you are simply being obstinate.”
“Obstinate, huh?” Jason let the gun dangle at his side.
“Obstinate. As Jack Thistledown’s true-born son, you should have no difficulty shooting the apple from the top of my head,” she said, and made her finger into that pantomime of a pistol again, pointed it at the apple in her other hand, and bent her wrist like she fired it. “You’ve got shooting in your blood. It is a eugenical fact.”
Jason looked at her. He drew a breath and counted a few before talking.
“First thing,” he said, “I have not shot one of these before. I’ve seen them. And I’ve seen them shot. So the one eugenical fact is this: if I tried to shoot the apple from your head, more than likely I’d shoot the eye from your socket. Then you’d be dead and I’d be in dutch.” Jason flipped the gun around in his hand so he gripped it around the barrel and the magazine, and presented the grip to Ruth. “This is a fine enough ‘iron’ you bought yourself—though I don’t guess it came from Calamity Jane or anyone else famous. You got the certificate?”
Ruth took the gun. “In my room.” She said it sullenly. “You know, everyone is convinced that your father was Jack Thistledown.”
She whirled then, raised her arm and pointed the gun at Jason.
“Ha!” she said. “See? Your nerves are steel. You did not even flinch!”
“It’s not loaded,” said Jason.
Ruth squinted at him. “Even knowing—a lesser man would have flinched,” she said. “The son of a gunfighter? Never.”
“You know,” said Jason, “you don’t know me well enough to make those sorts of guesses.”
Ruth stood still, lowered the gun, and crooked her head to one side in a way that was becoming familiar. “Why Jason Thistledown I do believe there is a tear in your eye.”
“Something in my eye. Not crying.”
“Ahem. Nerves of steel indeed.”
And she stepped up to him, dropped the apple to the ground and standing very close, touched his cheek with a fingertip. Her eyes held nothing but frank amazement.
“You never answered my other question,” she said.
“What question?”
She pulled back. “Whatever have you been up to since we parted ways at the dock?”
§
It came out fast—most of the story, and at the right point, the rest of the tears.
That point came early on, when Jason was telling about burning up his mama and the homestead and all, at the advice of Aunt Germaine. Jason did not want to tell that part, but it was the only way he could explain Bergstrom’s decision to lock him up in the quarantine the first night.
“Aunt Germaine figured that washing me down and burning up my mama would do the trick—kill the germ and make it right, and I went—” He was about to say, I went along, but he found he could not say anything else. He felt a fist close in his middle, and his mouth filled with salt, and he shut his eyes to try to will it away, but he could not. So he cried, and as he did he found he was no better at it now than he was when he wept at his mama’s deathbed.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. They were sitting at the base of a tree, cross-legged on the ground, Ruth facing him. He saw that she was tearing up too.
“Your mother died,” she said. “Do not apologize.”
“Not just my mama,” said Jason. “The town. Cracked Wheel. Everybody died.”
Ruth frowned and sniffed and swallowed. “The entire town. From this same illness?”
“A hundred folk,” said Jason.
“All,” she said, “but you—you and your aunt.”
“She wasn’t from town.”
“Yes. She was just passing through, you said.”
“Intending to visit us, she said.”
“In the middle of winter. Did she visit often in winter?”
“She never visited before this,” said Jason. “Winter or summer. It was a good thing she did, though. On balance, I mean.”
Ruth let Jason get on with the rest of his story: about how Dr. Bergstrom stuck a needle in him and put him in quarantine. Jason did not cry for this part, although it was a memory that he had been doing his best to forget since freeing Dr. Waggoner and he thought it might be a thing to make him weep. But thinking about it now just made him mad, and egged on by Ruth’s encouraging nods, he told most all of the story the way it had happened. All of it, but the fact that the creature looked like Ruth Harper in miniature. He could not figure out a way to say that.
“Your aunt gave you a scalpel,” Ruth said. “To cut yourself free.”
“Else I’d have been done for.”
“May I see your hand?”
Jason extended it. The bandage was off now, but the stitches were still in place, little black sutures running up the heel of his thumb. She took his hand, cradling it in her own palm, while she ran a fingertip along the sutures. She made a tsk-tsk sound, then set his own hand back in his lap.
“So she knew about the creatures.”
“She—” Jason had seen her talking with Dr. Bergstrom like they were old f
riends. But he had not yet let himself think that she actually knew all the things that were to befall him in that quarantine.
“She must have known about the Juke,” said Jason. “Before I got there.”
“What a wonderful aunt you have, Jason,” she said acidly.
Jason told about the autopsy room and the state of Maryanne Leonard’s corpse in better detail, expecting that Ruth would at some point beg him to spare her. In fact, she asked Jason if he’d kept the samples someplace safe and seemed appalled when he told her he’d sent them off with Dr. Waggoner.
“You entrusted them to the Negro?”
“He’s a doctor,” said Jason.
“He’s a runaway Negro doctor. I understand he stole clothing and medical supplies before he ran off.”
“He stitched up this cut. He’s my friend. I should’ve done more.”
“More?”
Jason looked at Ruth—and wondered whether he ought to omit the next part of the story the same way he left out the little be-fanged Ruth Harper that crawled up his leg that night. He had given Sam Green his word, after all, that he would keep their meeting—his own involvement in this thing—a secret.
“What more do you mean, Jason?” she demanded. “What did you do for Dr. Waggoner in the first place?”
“I helped him get out,” said Jason. “Before the attack. I stole those things.”
Ruth looked at him hard, and she must have read something in the pained expression in his face, because she did not ask him the question that he could not answer: who warned him that the Ku Klux Klan were planning to break into the hospital and murder the doctor?
Instead, she finally asked: “How did you get away with it?”
“Mostly luck and good graces. I did get caught,” he said. “When I was fetching the doctor’s bag, Annie Rowe came by. Caught me red-handed.”
“But she didn’t turn you over.”
“No. She asked what I was doing—I said I was gettin’ something for my aunt. I could tell she didn’t believe me. But she didn’t stop me, neither.”
Ruth shook her head and smiled slightly.
“Otherwise, I kept to the quiet places,” said Jason.
“Hum. Move over, Jason.”
Ruth got up, picked up the Colt and the box it had come in, and settled against the tree trunk, close enough so their shoulders were touching. Jason shifted to give her room, but she closed the gap. She put the gun in the box, and shut it.
“So what did you find when you returned to the quarantine?”
“I haven’t,” he said. “Not since that night.”
She turned the clasp on the box shut, and set it on the ground beside her. She looked at Jason very seriously.
“Have you been back down to the autopsy room?”
“I been laying low.”
Jason looked right into her unblinking eyes. He felt that fist in his middle again, but this time it opened up wide. Ruth Harper’s eyes drew closer, and fluttered shut, as her lips touched his, and held them as her fingertips moved up the back of his neck to the base of his skull and teased the fine hair there. Her mouth opened and he felt her moist breath pass his own parted lips. And then she pulled away, her hand resting only a moment longer at the nape of his neck, and she apologized for her forthrightness, and said she hoped he did not regard it as an affront to his manhood.
Jason took a deep breath and swallowed. He had a feeling in his middle that a fellow gets when he is falling in a tumble: one instant, he’s facing the ground—the next, the pure blue of Heaven. And the whole short time of it, his stomach’s in his throat.
“Do you know why I did that right now?” Ruth was looking at her hands as she spoke. She sounded flustered.
Jason shook his head.
“Because it terrified me.”
“More—” he cleared his throat. “More than having an apple shot off your head by a farm boy?”
“I didn’t really expect you to. But yes. More than that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well—I think it terrified me about as much as it terrifies you—to go back into that quarantine, or go down to the autopsy room, or confront that aunt of yours. Perhaps to face up to—” She looked up at him now, one side of her mouth crooked up in a grin. “Well. You want to do all of those things. It will be better for you if you do. And all that it takes is one reckless moment—”
And then her expression changed, and for an instant her eyes left his and glanced over his shoulder, and narrowed. Jason would have asked what it was, but he had no chance. Ruth turned back to him, parted her lips, and leaned toward him. This time she did not hold onto his head, which Jason figured meant he’d better do his part, so brought his mouth to hers. Her lips were open, and his were too, and their teeth clicked together as he felt the softness of her tongue on his. Her hand this time stayed clear of his neck and rested on the inside of his leg, fingertips playing with a fold in his trousers, inches from his parts.
She pulled back from him then, and rested her chin on his shoulder, and whispered:
“We are being watched.”
Jason started to pull away, but stopped when she made a shushing noise.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “This is what he’ll be expecting us to be doing. There won’t be more questions if we’re simply found doing it.” And then she pulled back and said at volume:
“Boy! Come out and stop spying on us!”
Now Jason did turn away, and look up the slope where Ruth was looking. Sure enough, at the crest of the rise, someone was moving. But it did not take long to tell that Ruth had guessed wrong. This was no boy.
This fellow had dark hair, and a wide face, and he was huge. As he climbed up over the rise, Jason saw that he was wearing a white robe that came down to his ankles. He was carrying a thick branch in two hands. Jason thought he might recognize the fellow, and as he started down the hill, Jason figured he knew from where.
“Nowak.”
§
The last time Jason had seen Nowak had been four days ago, outside the sawmill just before he met up with Sam Green. Nowak was changed from that afternoon. Watching as he moved stiffly down the hillside toward them, Jason was put to mind of something his mama had taught him early: the way she put it, men-folk could change from one fellow to a completely different one, in as much time as it took to drink a jug of whiskey. And when they did, you had to watch them. You could not let them get too close.
“Do you know him?” whispered Ruth.
“I met him. It ain’t right.”
“It’s not—” Ruth took a sharp breath. “He’s wearing a Klan robe. Oh damn. Let me—”
She reached around beside her. Jason could hear the box with the Colt inside opening. He didn’t look at what she was doing. He stood up, and kept his eye on Nowak. He was grinning widely. As he started to close the gap, there was enough of a shift in the breeze, and Jason caught a whiff of something rotten. He was carrying the branch across his middle, bouncing it in one hand while the other gripped it hard, like he was getting ready to swing.
Jason kept his eye on the man. That was the trick, his mama said. Don’t let them see you back down or look like you might take what they’re planning on giving out. Because they’ll see that as an invitation. Show them you’ll look them in the eye. Show them you’ll fight.
“You want something?” said Jason.
Beside him, Ruth whispered: “Damn. Damn damn damn it all!”
Jason heard the metallic click and spin sound that told him she had opened the magazine. He cursed too, but to himself. It would have been better if she’d just handed him the gun empty. Jason thought he might have bluffed. He stepped in front of Ruth, so at least when Nowak rushed them, he’d hit Jason first.
But Nowak stopped about a dozen feet from them. He didn’t say anything and didn’t move—just stared at Jason. It was mesmerizing.
“What do you want?” said Jason.
“God,” said Nowak. “I want to show
you God.”
“I seen God already,” said Jason. “Why don’t you run off?”
But as Jason spoke, he saw that wasn’t going to happen. It was as though a cloud moved across Nowak’s face—and as it passed a whistling came up—and Nowak said: “God wants to see you some more.” And then he stopped bouncing the stick, and lifted it, and started again toward the two of them.
And at that, Jason lost the contest. He flinched, expecting an arm-smashing blow, or something that would end up on his skull, and finish him.
But before that could come, he felt a hand around his right wrist, and the cool walnut grip of the Colt.
He didn’t even think past that. He brought the gun up and held it two-handed—waited the instant that it would take to know whether the gun would cause Nowak to stop—with a thumb drew the hammer back, with a forefinger squeezed the trigger—screwing his eyes shut and bracing against the kick—
—then finally, when it was all over, thinking to himself:
You were right, Ruth. It’s a thunderclap.
§
They had only a moment to themselves after that. Nowak was on his back, bleeding into the sheet from his shoulder where Jason had clipped him. He was not in such terrible shape that he could not get up again, but the one shot had taught him respect for the gun, which Jason kept trained on his head—so he stayed down.
Which was a good thing, because Ruth had only managed to load one more bullet before she’d handed the Colt over. Jason did not wish to shoot a fellow just for trying to stand up, though he knew he would have to.
During the moment before the riders crested the hill, Jason only asked him one question. Later, he would come to regret that he had not followed that with more questions, because when the two Pinkerton men ordered him to surrender the gun and pulled him away from Nowak, they made sure Jason did not have another chance to speak with him alone again.
For the next few hours, Jason didn’t have a chance to speak with anyone alone. Sam Green showed up and hauled Jason and Ruth back to the house, and then Jason found himself in a big sitting room, face to face with Mr. Harper and Mrs. Harper and Aunt Germaine. That was when he found out how lucky he was not to have been shot by the first fellows to arrive at the scene.
