by Beth Lewis
“We’ll be neighbors then,” Colby said, flashing his smile. “I’ve got myself a room on the top floor, as close to the stars as I can get.”
Then he stood up but quick knelt back down in front of me to take my hand off my knee. He brushed off a bit a’ dirt and then did something that made my down-belows tremble.
He damn kissed my hand.
“Early start, I should get to that room. Good night, Elka,” he said, and I felt his breath, all hot and new over my skin. He stroked my palm softly with his fingers and my down-belows skipped a beat.
“Uh…” was ’bout all I could say.
Colby stood up and straightened his hat on his head. He went to walk away but turned when he got to the edge of the porch.
“Come find me at dawn,” he said, wagging his finger at me like he was tapping out his thoughts, “and we’ll see what we can do about getting you a ticket.”
I could a’ hugged him, and I wanted to do that’n a hell of a lot more.
“Yes, sir, I will.”
“James, please,” he said, and winked. “Sweet dreams, Elka.”
I’ll have more’n sweet dreams about you, I thought.
He walked off, his shiny shoes clacking ’gainst the boards and soon was gone out my sight. Hot damn, I ain’t never seen a man like him. Thought about following him, saying I didn’t have nowhere to sleep and if he had a couch in that room maybe I could use it. Thought about getting up during the night while he was sleeping, slipping quiet in the bed and letting my hands go wandering.
I shook my head and told myself off. I didn’t know the man from a bull in a field, he could a’ been all kinds of wrong. But the way he spoke to me, like I was just another girl, not like I was stupid or not worth his time, hell, that caught me wriggling like a fish on a hook.
My instinct always told me to sleep in the woods. Woods was safe, no people meant no danger, but Kreagar’s boot prints outside a’ Genesis turned that forest into one giant snare. He was in there somewhere, I felt it down deep. Them dark trees had eyes and ears and snagging limbs and they was all looking for me. I never thought I’d say it but till I got on that boat and put two days a’ diesel-powered distance ’tween us, staying in town would be safer’n any wild place. The rain was coming down hard and no one was bothering me where I was, so I hunkered down on that porch and let the music and revelry and thoughts of Mr. James Everett Colby send me off to sleep.
Woke up afore sunup to some crooked crone kicking my shins, barking at me to stop cluttering up her deck. I waved her off and got up, aching and stiff, and sent the bones in my neck cracking back to line. Chen’s hut was shut up but smoke still puffed out a tin chimney pot, filling the street with burnt char smell ’stead a’ that nice sweet meat. Rain had stopped and the sky was just starting to lighten off to the east, behind the mountains.
I went down close to the dock. No one ’round, all them deckhands sleeping off the ache and booze. Few crates left to be loaded and that boat, hell, that boat was big, I ain’t never seen the like. Must a’ been long as a redwood and taller’n ten a’ me upright. My stomach went hard at the thought of getting on that for a couple a’ days. Nowhere to get off. I can swim ’bout as well as a three-legged moose, meaning I can get from one side of a river to the other, but I ain’t gonna be doing it pretty.
Chill was getting in my bones and the sun weren’t going to be warming me anytime soon. Colby said to find him at dawn. That was now. I found the boardinghouse easy. Young man was cleaning the windows with a rag. He had a grayness ’round the face what seemed to be common this far north.
“Mornin’, sir,” I said, friendlylike.
“Closed,” he said, didn’t even turn to look at me, just kept wiping. He weren’t so much cleaning them windows, more like just moving the grime around. Then I spotted, with a flash a’ shock through me, that the hand what held the cloth had a finger more’n the usual. It didn’t move like the others did, just hung off the side a’ his thumb like a tree limb ’bout to fall.
“I’m lookin’ for a guest a’ yours name a’ Colby.”
He stopped wiping but still didn’t turn ’round.
“A lot of girls come here looking for him,” he said, gave a long, rattling sniff, then hocked up a glob a’ phlegm onto the boards. Felt me a pang of something new, something sharp in my chest. Colby called me beautiful and it made me fierce thinking he’d said it to other girls.
“You know where he is?”
The man sighed, didn’t look at me, and pointed his rag up the street. “Left a while ago. He’ll be with the harbor master. Big house. Don’t go inside.”
Then he went back to the windows and I didn’t pay his tone no mind. He weren’t that old, but talked like he been asked every question already, seen every dawn and dusk afore they happen and all types a’ people coming and going. I weren’t surprised he had that tone, living in a place like this.
I said thank you but I don’t know if he heard it or cared much. The harbor master’s house was bigger’n all the others in the strip of a town and sat on its own on the other side a’ the dock. It was tall too, least three levels and all made a’ stone where the rest of the town was wood. I didn’t have the first clue what a harbor master was, but it must a’ been important to get a place like that. It put me in mind a’ one of them trees standing alone in the middle of a clearing. Other trees grew up at the edges, but no matter how many seeds they dropped, they couldn’t get closer. That one in the middle was either king of ’em all, or so full of blight it poisoned the dirt. Weren’t sure yet which one this harbor house was.
Light was burning in two a’ the lowest-level windows and I could see a couple a’ shadows moving about inside. I got a bit farther up the track and ducked behind a fat tree stump, waiting for Colby to come out.
I didn’t have to wait too long. Big wooden door opened, spilling out yellow light and showing Colby step out, just as fine as he ever was. Another man followed him out. He was a head taller’n my man and twice as wide, gut like a sack a’ potatoes hanging over his belt, black beard, and even at this distance, I could see angry boils in them whiskers. He had one a’ them hacking coughs what shook all that fat. Colby waited till the cough was done afore he spoke.
“Do we have a deal?” Colby said. Least I think those were his words, his voice was a bell ringing clear and crisp but I weren’t close.
The fat man held out his hand for shaking and said something like “Get her on the boat.”
I smiled, Colby had kept his promise. Felt like whooping I did, felt like running up there and kissing Colby smack on them rosy lips a’ his and even shaking that fat man’s hand in thanks. I was going north. I was getting on that boat and I was going to see my parents. Wondered if Colby might come with me when he was finished with his business. It would be a hell of a thing for me to see my parents for the first time in forever with a fella on my arm. I decided I’d ask him soon as we was sailing.
Colby and the fat man were saying something else but I weren’t listening no more, I just kept smiling. Hell, you couldn’t a’ pulled that smile off my face with ten wild horses. Colby and him finished their talking and parted ways. Fat man closed the door and Colby near disappeared in the dark. My keen eyes and quiet footsteps followed him back to the dock, where he started inspecting crates. I watched him a bit longer. Was nice to see him when he thought no one was watching, nice to see the way his hands ran over them boxes, lifted up lids, slammed ’em back down. I could see him doing sums in his head, working through all his smarts. Sun was starting to peek up and I figured it was ’bout time I said good morning.
I spat on my hands and smoothed down my hair, picked out a few sticks and leaves, and straightened up my shirts. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down my fluttering belly.
“Mornin’,” I said, and he jumped clear a foot in the air.
“Damn, Miss Elka,” he said, hand on his chest like he was quieting down his heart, “you came out of nowhere.”
Flutte
ring in my belly weren’t calming.
“You’re more skittish than a momma deer, you got jumpin’ beans in your bones or something?” I said, cheeks going hot and red.
He laughed and it weren’t at me, not like Kreagar did when I said something foolish. Colby was laughing along with me, all rich and full a’ sugar.
“Maybe I do, but in my defense, you didn’t make a sound.”
“I never do, ’less a’ course you want me to,” I said. “I’ll be sure to tread heavy ’round you.”
He said thank you and then looked down at his shoes. I saw a blush a’ pink in them stubbly cheeks.
“You said come find you ’bout gettin’ on that boat,” I said, as he weren’t forthcoming with the news.
He looked all around, smile dropped off him, and he nodded for me to come closer.
“I can get you passage,” he said quietlike, “but it won’t be too comfortable. All cabins and berths were taken, but I have found a way.”
Little flame blazed up in my chest.
“Comfort ain’t no worry for me. Spent my life kippin’ in trees or on dirt. I can’t get no sleep on pillows and mattresses.”
He sighed and wiped along his forehead with the back of his hand. “Good, I’m glad. I didn’t want to put you off.”
He patted his hand on the top of the crate, tall as his waist and coffin-long, and said, “This is your ticket. Just until the boat is far enough away from the dock, then I will come and fetch you and then, my dear, my cabin is yours.”
He smiled wide, fox-flash in his eyes, and lifted up the lid.
My belly flutterings turned to sick churning in the gut and I had me some doubts. “Why you doin’ this for me?”
Colby put his hands on the tops of my arms and leaned in close, his voice changed a beat like my nana’s did when she read out my parents’ letter, like she knew all the words already.
“Because I was you once. Boston, my hometown, wasn’t that badly hit in the war but it did destroy large areas of housing. My mother, may she rest in peace, said that her father’s home was in one of those areas, so she had grown up homeless and so did I. I was trying to survive on the streets, living off whatever I could find in the trash…” I was listening to his tale but weren’t right understanding it. Didn’t know this Boston place, didn’t have much idea a’ trash and homeless, why wouldn’t he just a’ built himself a cabin like any man would? But I let him talk no matter if he didn’t make no sense, his words was honey after all.
“A kind man, childless, found me and raised me as his own son. I asked him years later why he did it and he said, and I remember it vividly, he said, ‘It was my good deed, son. If you only do one in your life, make it matter. One day you will find yourself faced with the opportunity to help another where it does not benefit you. A good man, as I know you to be, will grab that opportunity with both hands and never look back.’ I suppose you are my opportunity, Elka.”
If love hearts could a’ floated up out a’ my eyes, they would a’. He was helping me out a’ goodness, honest-to-god goodness, and I didn’t even know him. Lifted my spirits that there was people in this world what still held to kindness for kindness’ sake. He weren’t asking anything off me, he weren’t expecting nothing in return, and I felt a kind a’ guilt for even thinking he would in the first place. My doubts was melting with the rising sun.
“No one ever been nice to me afore,” I said.
He leaned in to me and kissed me soft right on my cheek and said, “Then they are missing out on something extraordinary.”
That kiss was a one-two punch in my down-belows, and I stuttered and stammered and didn’t have the first clue what to say.
Colby smiled and let me go. “Your ticket,” he said, and held out his hand like he wanted to help me in the box.
I took it, not that I needed it, and matter a’ fact, found it harder to get into a box one-handed. I seen women take this kind a’ help from a man with a look a’ relief on their faces. I wondered if these women knew how much easier their lives would be if they did all this stuff for themselves.
I got into that box, empty but for a few scraps a’ old newsprint and made myself something close to comfort. There was handholds cut on all four sides and I was thankful for it. I wasn’t much for tight spaces.
“Try to stay quiet,” Colby said, whispering. “The dockworkers will be here soon and they will carry this box into the hold. If they find you, I won’t be able to help. Stowing away is a crime; you’ll be taken to Genesis to stand trial.”
“I know what they do to lawbreakers in Genesis,” I said, “don’t you worry, I can be quiet when I need to.”
“A trait that will serve you well. I will have to put a few nails in the lid to stop it sliding off.”
I figured as much and nodded to him.
“See you soon, Elka,” he said, and closed the lid gentle.
Through them holes I saw his legs moving around. Then heard the hammer blows. Nails spiked through the wood, splintering it and securing it on all four corners. That hammer was the loudest thing I ever heard and I thought my ears would explode if he didn’t finish it up quick.
When it stopped, Colby tapped on the lid and said, “Until tonight.”
I put my eyes to one of them handholds and saw him walk off toward town, spinning that hammer in his hand and whistling. I pushed on the lid but them nails held it fast. Pushed on the sides, no give at all. My hand went to my knife, hidden ’neath my coat. I took it out and hugged that blade to me like it was a child’s comforter.
“Knife is all you need,” I said, which was good ’cause that, and a backpack full a’ empty cans, was all I had.
I stretched out my legs much as I could and my boots hit the wood afore my legs went straight. That box was like one a’ them echo caves where you shout and God shouts back in your own voice. I heard my heartbeat everywhere, felt it through the wood, heard my breathing thick and fast, and I feared the air would run out afore Colby came back for me. Feared them dock men would hear my blood rush and hang me up in Genesis.
Heard talking somewhere near. Rowdy, growling men moaning ’bout how early it was, how they hadn’t got more’n a few winks, how them crates should a’ been loaded the night before.
Fist slammed down on my crate so hard I thought it would go right through.
“Look at this, huh,” a man shouted, so damn close, “says ‘Fragile’ on the side.”
Bursts a’ laughter from all sides.
“Get it on, careful,” same man said, and all a’ sudden hands stabbed through the holes and I shifted, silent, so they wouldn’t touch me.
Don’t think I breathed the whole way. They groaned about how heavy the crate was and how nothing that heavy could be fragile. Felt like I was carried miles. At one point the front end of the crate lifted and I feared I would slide right down and smash out the end. I figured we was going up the gangplank onto the boat. Front end soon dipped down and I figured we was going down into the hold. Smell changed from fresh, cold air to the stagnant smell a’ standing water and algae. They set me down rough and knocked my elbow on the bottom a’ the crate. Clenched my teeth hard to stop from shouting curses at them clumsy shits and waited till I didn’t hear footsteps no more to swear.
Sun was up and the inside a’ my box was light enough to see my hand in front my face. Not long later, after a few more crates was loaded, the hold doors was closed, and everything was murky dark. Took a while for my eyes to take to the dark and soon as they did, the engines roared and the floor rumbled and my bones felt like they wanted to shake themselves out a’ my skin. Couldn’t hear no people, no passengers or nothing, and I hoped Colby didn’t miss the boat.
We started moving, slow, rocking gentle side to side, and quick got up speed. I looked out one a’ my hand holes and saw, with all kinds of relief, that I was up ’gainst a round window, dirtier than sin but I could see enough. We was sailing close to the side of the lake, mountains grew up high, lit up nice by the sun. If I ke
pt my eyes on them, my stomach didn’t want to empty every time the boat rocked.
Took me hours to get used to the movement and by the time I did darkness was coming and I figured I was hungry. I didn’t have no food or water, ’course, but that weren’t no problem, I knew how to get both when I needed ’em. I took my knife and dug it into the join ’tween crate and lid, started levering. My knife was stronger’n that wood and it quick started splitting. I weren’t ’bout to wait for Colby to come feed me, could be hours and I weren’t no prisoner. Hadn’t heard no one in the hold since we started moving so I weren’t worried ’bout being discovered.
Like them gods was spying on my thoughts, I heard a noise like a hand slapping wood. I hid my knife in my coat and held my breath.
Another slap. No other sound in that hold ’cept scuttling rats and my blood in my ears.
I looked out the hand holes one by one. One at the head a’ the box looked on another box. One at the bottom did too. ’Course one looked out on the window, but when I peered out the other that looked clean across the hold, my heart near stopped. Right in front a’ me I saw another crate, another hand hole, and another pair a’ wide, glistening eyes staring right at me.
“Can you get out?” the crate said. Girl crate, young too. “You have to get me out.”
“I don’t have to do nothin’ for you, I don’t know you from a stone in my boot,” I said, and I stopped looking at her. “Fact, I know that stone better’n I know you.”
“Please,” she said, tone a’ her voice spoke a’ crying, “before they come.”
“Don’t know who you waitin’ for, girlie, but I got myself a good man comin’ for me.”
I sat back in my crate, got myself settled, and thought a’ Colby. Still felt his kiss on my cheek. Still heard his words calling me pretty in my ears. Didn’t want to be hearing from no strange girl in a box but she kept talking at me.
“Are you going to stay in his cabin?” she said, and her voice went calm, none a’ that panic no more.
