by Beth Lewis
Penelope and Delacroix started talking quick in a tongue I didn’t have no clue over. The woman had lines round her eyes and a hard-set jaw, raven-black hair done up loose with pins, spilling out round her face. That hair could a’ been down to her shoulders or down to her knees. Just like the rest a’ her, I couldn’t be right sure what I was seeing. Older’n me and Penelope put together. She weren’t skinny but weren’t padded out neither. She looked like someone out of my nana’s magazines, glossy, like she had too much color in her. She had money and she weren’t afraid to show it in a town like this. Woman like that didn’t take no shit from no one and Penelope knew it. I weren’t at all sure what was happening ’cept that I was getting bored and my parents weren’t going to find themselves.
“ ’Scuse me,” I said, louder’n what was strictly polite, “we got someplace to be and I ain’t gettin’ any drier standing out here.”
Delacroix weren’t too pleased with the interruption. She stopped talking, then licked all her teeth ’neath her lips. I watched the bulge a’ her tongue swirl ’round them gums and felt a mite a’ sickness in my gut.
“Pardon, mademoiselle,” she said, and I weren’t at all sure I liked what she called me.
Penelope was paler’n when she was sickest.
Delacroix’s eyes lingered on me a beat longer’n they should have. Out the corner of my eye I saw all them posters a’ me and Kreagar and I cursed Penelope for drawing attention to us.
“Do we have an understanding?” the woman asked her.
Penelope, stifflike and reluctant, nodded. Delacroix smiled and said her oh-rev-wahs to us both. I watched her walk away, though it weren’t like any walk I’d ever seen. That coat hugged her body and she near glided over that mud, a purple hourglass full a’ sand and secrets. A group a’ men were waiting for her. I squinted at them through the rain and saw their dandy clothes. Dandy men in Halveston. Dandy men what I’d seen before.
“We’re goin’,” I said, and grabbed Penelope’s arm. She weren’t arguing and let herself be dragged.
It was early afternoon but there was a darkness in Halveston that made it feel like midnight. No sun high in the sky, just black clouds full a’ rain, and a town full a’ danger. That woman had made Penelope tense and quiet but after I made a joke ’bout her bare feet, she loosened up.
Even though they was on every post, Penelope only pointed out my poster once and that was to say they didn’t get my hair right. I kept it short but the poster had it down to my collar.
“Shave it off and nobody will recognize you,” she said.
I was tempted but then I figured my parents wouldn’t take too kindly to some skin-headed girl claiming to be their daughter turning up unannounced.
We asked for directions to the permit office. Other side a’ town. Small brick building ’tween a brothel what used a rusting airplane wing for a sign, and an eating house with red plastic chairs outside. Made sense, I thought, you buy yourself a claim, then go get fed and celebrate with a girl or boy what can’t say no. This town was full a’ traps made to separate coin from purse.
“So you gonna tell me?” I asked as we walked.
Penelope didn’t look at me. “Tell you what?”
“Don’t play dumb shit with me,” I said. “You know what.”
Penelope wiped wet hair off her forehead. “Bought and paid for, remember?”
“Wouldn’t a’ figured it’d be a woman what bought you.”
I don’t know why but I took her hand then and held it tight. Them days on that boat, in them crates, were best forgotten.
“What you agree with her?” I asked.
Penelope sighed. “That I’d pay her back before the end of the month or I work off the debt on my back.”
“How much?”
She laughed, all bitterlike. “Too much.”
I squeezed her hand and an idea popped right into my head. All smiles, I said, “Hell, my parents must be rich as sin, all these years up here, they’ll give that Delacroix woman a damn truckload a’ gold if I ask them to.”
“Elka…” Penelope said, but I weren’t listening.
“All we got to do is find them. You’ll be free a’ that debt afore mornin’.”
“I don’t—”
“You save me, I save you, remember?” I said, and she smiled, sad. “Pick up the pace and we can give her the coin afore sundown.”
“All right,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain.
I was so giddy with it all I didn’t hear the tone, didn’t hear her true meaning, didn’t hear the warning. But damn, my parents were here, I felt it. And we was going to find them today.
—
The permit clerk was a thin man in an open-collared shirt. He was squirrelly with a beard what only seemed to grow on his neck and chin. Rest a’ his face was baby-smooth. He could a’ been forty but that skin made him look no more’n twenty.
“Help you?” he said when we walked in. No one else was there but the office was laid out like it had room for two dozen. The clerk had a desk with two chairs in front of it what we sat in. Behind him was rows and rows a’ metal cabinets and stacks a’ paper.
“We’re looking to find some folks who leased a claim a while back,” Penelope said. All them nerves she had after meeting Delacroix was gone.
Clerk sighed. “Can’t help you. We don’t give out that kind of information.”
Penelope looked like her daddy died all over again. Pain painted up her face and she shuffled closer to the desk.
“Please, it’s very important, we have to find them.”
“Rules are rules,” he said, but not as firm.
“Oh,” Penelope said with a smile, “couldn’t you bend the rules just this once? My friend is looking for her parents.”
Clerk sighed again but Penelope’s smile was gold to a penniless miner.
“I’d be really, really grateful if you could help us out,” she said, fluttering them eyelashes.
“Well…” clerk said, and Penelope knew she had him, “I can’t give you the information but if you found it yourself…”
Penelope smiled along with him, understanding just what he was saying. “I’d love to slip behind there and rifle through your papers,” she said.
I groaned but I saw hearts spring up in that clerk’s eyes. Weren’t the only thing springing up neither.
Clerk nodded feverish-like and said, “I’ll go dig out the claim papers. They’re right at the back…where we won’t be disturbed.”
Then he dashed off ’tween them metal cabinets. I turned quick to Penelope and said, quiet, “You ain’t gonna do what I think you’re gonna do, are you?”
She frowned at me and said, “What do you take me for? I want you to make yourself scarce, go get something to eat or something. Leave me the pack and your knife, you know, just in case.”
“I ain’t leavin’ you alone with him.”
Penelope put her hands on my shoulders. “I can handle him. Just tell me your parents’ names and leave me the knife.”
“I ain’t happy about this,” I said.
Penelope smiled then kissed me on the cheek. “Trust me.”
I did. Hang me for it but I did trust that girl. I told her the names and the year they went, all words what was burned into my head from my momma’s letter. I gave Penelope the knife what she put at the top a’ the pack. Knife on its own raises questions. Knife in a bag ain’t looked at twice.
“You coming?” shouted the clerk. “There’s a huge stack of papers here for you.”
I groaned again. “Kick him hard in the nethers, he tries anything.”
“I will.”
Then I left her in that office and never asked what happened ’tween them metal cabinets. Rain was coming down hard and the town had turned ghost. No one in the streets, shutters locked up ’gainst the wind. The rain was a mercy. It made my face in them posters run into a black smudge. First time I felt I could walk about that town safe, though it weren’t no pleasure. My boots w
ere good boots but they was having a hell of a time in that mud. Penelope in her bare feet didn’t stand a chance.
Lucky thing I knew where was selling boots cheap and I had more’n enough coin for a pair. I picked my way through town to the doctor’s office and his barrow. Figured the bad luck of wearing a dead man’s boots was worth the risk.
Doctor sat on his porch, shotgun ’cross his lap. Barrow was right next to him, piled high.
“Didn’t think I’d see you again,” he said, though it weren’t a friendly greeting.
He was in shadow, didn’t get up, didn’t seem in no mood for visitors.
“In need a’ some boots,” I said.
“You’ve got boots.”
“For my friend, what cut her leg. She’s better now thanks to you,” I said. I was looking ’round for the boy who was taking the coin but he weren’t nowhere.
I pulled out a few dollars. “I got money for ’em.”
“I don’t want your money,” he said, something dark in his tone.
I spotted a pair at the top a’ the pile what looked about the right size. Probably a young lad’s, not all that worn out neither.
“What you want then?” I said, and got close enough to snatch them boots if I needed.
Doctor saw what I was thinking like I was shouting it out loud. He slid the barrel of the shotgun ’tween the tied laces and lifted up that pair a’ boots.
“Him,” he said, voice cracking. “I want my son back.”
My heart sunk down to my feet. His lad had sold the shoes.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
The doctor looked at them shoes with red eyes I could see even through the shadows. “He was found two days ago in the woods. His…legs were gone.” Tears rolled fat and free down his cheeks. “They were cut off like he was jointed. We found”—he almost couldn’t get the words out—“we found a fire. There were…there were bones.”
He dropped the shoes and broke down, sobbing into his white sleeve. Burning bile rose up in me. Rain soaked me to the skin but I couldn’t feel it. I was all burning, raging, hating darkness. I told myself it couldn’t be. Couldn’t be him.
“Did your boy have his hair?” I asked. I had to be sure.
The doctor looked up at me, confused, like I was talking in tongues. “How do you know about that?”
Goddamn him. Kreagar killed the boy but the bears and wolves found him afore the law did, took the meat right off his bones. Every bit a’ rage I had boiled up inside me. I saw everything Kreagar had done in that doctor’s eyes and I cursed myself for bringing hell down on him. Kreagar followed me right to this good man’s door.
“I…” I said, trying to pick out all the right words, but there weren’t no right words. There’d never be right words again. “I’ll find the man what did this. I swear it. I’ll find him and I’ll kill him. Ten times over, I’ll kill him.”
He looked me with iron in his eyes. “How’d you know him?”
“Don’t matter how.”
Doctor stood up. “You brought this monster to my door and it doesn’t matter?”
I shook my head, sent rain drops flinging. “He’s been hunting me all winter.”
He sneered. “Wish he’d caught you. Wish he’d killed you instead of my boy. My beautiful boy.”
A deep-down sorrow surged up in me and turned the world black. “So do I,” I said. “And he still might, ’less I get him first. I’ll do my damnedest to get him first for what he done. I swear it up and down.”
The doctor reached down and picked up the shoes. He flung ’em at me, all the fight gone right out a’ him, and said, “I hope your friend knows what you are. God help her.”
I caught the boots. Weren’t no need for a thank-you. This good, kind man was far beyond thank you. He was broken, and it was me what broke him. Kreagar may have held the knife but I was his hand. I always was.
I held them boots close to my chest and I ran. Ran through them streets till they all started looking the same. The rain weren’t showing no signs a’ stopping and the day was fading into night. I found my way to a whisky den, the doctor’s words and his tears ringing in my ears. I needed to drown him out. I was seeing all them things what I done, might a’ done, could a’ done. Seeing what Kreagar done when he was Trapper and I was blind. I saw it all laid out in front a’ me like the Mussa Valley from the top a’ the ridge. All them memories tried to force their way back into my head. Felt like they would kill me stone dead if I let them.
They found bones. Doctor’s voice was hot in my ears. I needed something hotter.
“Three fingers,” I said to the bartender, and pointed to a bottle behind the bar.
He poured me a drink and took my money.
Firewater burned my throat and sent white-hot spikes into my gut.
Colby’s dollars, those what had paid for my body, got me two more glasses and change. That was enough.
Kreagar’s words stuck in my head like porcupine spines. Think on why I ain’t killin’ you.
I took another drink and the spikes dulled.
I was never the type a’ person to hide my truth at the bottom of a bottle, but I weren’t near close to strong enough to face it right then. Seeing that doctor, kindest man I ever met, gutted and bleeding because a’ me was more’n I could take.
I just weren’t that strong and it was ice clear that I never was. I had to clear the devil and angel off my shoulders. I had to throw the weight a’ all this off my back.
I stumbled out the bar and saw right what I needed to do. The jailhouse, lit up in the dark, stood watch at the top a’ the hill. Its eyes right on me. I started walking toward it, through the empty streets, feet sloshing in the mud. Toward Lyon and all them questions she would ask me. Toward a jail cell and a life a’ chains. I’d tell her everything I knew ’bout Kreagar and she’d catch up. At least I wouldn’t be running no more, I said to myself. At least it would finally be over.
Hand grabbed mine, excited voice said in my ear, “Elka, I found them.”
I spun ’round to Penelope, legs covered in mud from running, hair and dress soaked from the rain. I didn’t right understand what she’d said. My blood was thick with drink and fear and I couldn’t a’ told you my name if you whispered it in my ear.
I looked back at the jailhouse then back to Penelope, saw her through cloudy eyes. Couldn’t think a’ nothing else to do so I handed her the boots. She took them without paying them no mind.
“Did you hear me?” she said, then pulled me ’round to look her in the eye. “I found your parents.”
Sat in a quiet corner of a poky gin joint called Pershing’s Rest, I made Penelope repeat them words over and over again. The rotgut got to my head and I was ready to walk up to Lyon and damn near bend over. I couldn’t do that. Not with Penelope riding on my back. She needed my folks’ money much as I did. I weren’t going to let her work off that debt, a debt what weren’t truly hers, being the pleasure a’ men like the hog.
I told her, in my slurring words, that I was sorry for even thinking a’ leaving her. She weren’t sure what I was talking about but she told me it was all right, she told me she understood and she put her arms ’round me, held me tight.
Shit, I ain’t never been drunk afore and I didn’t choose the best water for the first time. Halveston bartenders cut their whisky with paint thinner and chili peppers, ain’t no wonder I couldn’t see straight. Ain’t no wonder I was ready to give up my life because Kreagar killed some kid I didn’t know. Kreagar killed a lot a’ folk.
“Your parents,” Penelope said, clicking her fingers front a’ my face to get me to pay attention. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the documents myself. They bought a remote claim just outside Tucket about fifteen years ago. No death record for either of them so chances are they’re still up there.”
“Where in the hell is Tucket?” I said.
“About fifty miles northwest.”
“Fifty miles…” I said, and planted my face
in my hands. Four days’ walk, less if I was on my own and didn’t stop to eat. “Son bitch…goddamn son of a bitch.”
“Elka—”
“I thought I was done. I thought they was here and I could…I could stop runnin’, stop fightin’.” All my tears came out my eyes.
“What are you running from?” Penelope asked.
“Him.” I slammed my fists on the table. “Him, him, him. That goddamn murderin’ bastard, Kreagar Hallet. He ain’t never gonna stop till he finds me. Till he kills me n’all.”
“The man who raised you,” Penelope said like she was putting all the pieces together, “and the one who murdered Lyon’s son?”
“He killed a boy in town not two days ago.”
“That spotty clerk told me,” Penelope said, shaking her head. “He said there were”—she looked me sideways in the eye like she weren’t at all sure how I was going to react—“strange circumstances, with the boy’s legs.”
“Bears and wolves take their dinner wherever they can,” I said.
Penelope gave me one a’ her looks what I couldn’t figure. Something like confusion, something like pity. She opened her mouth to say something more but must a’ thought better of it. Weren’t nothing else to say. Kreagar killed a boy, no doubt like he’d done God knows how many times afore. Animals picked at what was left. That’s that. Just bad luck on the part a’ the boy what meant a full belly for a beast. Ain’t nothing else to it.
Penelope looked down at the table, started scratching at the wood grain like she couldn’t bring herself to look me in the eye. Then she said in a quiet voice, “Do you think he’s in town?”
“He’ll be close. Wherever I am, he ain’t far,” I said, and she looked up at me, all the strange look gone out her face, replaced with pure worry. Whether that was for me or for her own skin, I weren’t sure.
“He’s out there,” I said, “in the wild, tauntin’ me. He’s breathin’ down my damn neck waiting for me to…shit I don’t even know.”
Penelope put her hand over my fist. “Then we go to Tucket. We get the hell out of here.”
