He walks over and tugs the knife free. James blows the white dust—flecks of plaster, the eggshell color of which matches the bone of the handle—from its blade and crouches to slide his knife back into his boot.
“Nice trick.”
Farrah is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, dressed in dark pants and the whitest of white shirts, as if there was any occasion out here in the desert for a stark white shirt. The early-morning sun streams in, catching on her copper curls, lighting her up, making her glow. The workers scatter out the back door, into hallways, as if she’s something to fear.
“Like I said, miss, I’ll fix it,” James says, standing. “Right away.”
Farrah walks over to the stove and lifts the percolator from the burner before its contents boil over. “You’re not ever scared he’s going to miss?” she asks me.
“I’d be more scared if I looked. So I never do.”
Farrah pours herself a cup of coffee and then turns to lean back against the counter. She tries to make it seem casual, but I can tell by the jerky way she shifts her weight that she needs the support. Farrah’s not ashamed of her weakness, though. Even as she brings the cup to her lips, she holds my gaze. Then she smiles.
“That’s the better wager, then, isn’t it? Not if James can hit the spoon, but if you can keep your eyes open to see it.” Farrah pauses to take a sip of her coffee. The steam curls around her cheeks. “It’ll probably be hot again today. You should get started with Bell.”
This is an order, not a suggestion.
“I have to warn you, though, she talked back to Papá last night at dinner, so he sent her to her room without supper. She’s likely to be in one of her moods.”
THE MORNING IS bright and still, and there are no clouds in the sky. There’s no wind, either, so when the screams start from down at camp, they’re carried cleanly up to where Leo and I stand in the horse yard, waiting with Britain for a moody Bell.
We move without thinking, both of us launching over the gate and bolting down the hill. I call out once for James, but don’t wait for him.
Some of the work trucks have started to pull away, but the jimadors that are left at camp rush to form a wide circle. From the middle of that circle, another scream rises up—belonging to a girl, I realize. I fear the worst: a girl attacked for access to her body, her clothing stripped off in the middle of camp in the bright, hopeful light of morning. There’s grunting, snarling, whining—sounds that may belong to restless men.
Seeing something I don’t, Leo curses and speeds ahead. He breaks through the mob of jimadors, and I follow. For a moment, all I see are shirts and arms. Then: dust. Then: a long, bare strip of flesh, a leg, some tatters of fabric, a horrific combination of blood mixed with dirt and the too-white shine of bone. That person—the pieces of that girl—is swirling through the dust, dragged along by a growling mass of gray flesh. It takes me a second to realize that the girl is Rosa, and that the roaring gray mass is one of the overseer’s mastiffs. The overseer, however, is nowhere in sight.
“Stop!” I hear Leo cry out.
There’s a flash of white light—the glint of a coa blade. Rosa’s boyfriend, Ben, is standing over the fray, holding a tool high above his head, his eyes wild. Leo has his hand on the handle, preventing the downswing.
“You could hit her!”
He’s right. Rosa is thrashing on the ground; so is the dog. And all the dust being tossed up makes it difficult to see either of them.
The jimadors have started hurling pewter plates and utensils at the dog, but those things, if they even hit, bounce off, making little to no impact. Leo kicks at the dog’s flank, throws a punch at its massive, square head. Ben drops his coa, grabs on to the folds of the dog’s skin, and tugs. Rosa’s blood, at first pooling, is now thickly swirled in the dirt. Her bootless foot drags through it. Someone in the crowd spins away and throws up his breakfast.
I’m just standing there gawking, doing nothing. The last time I tried to do something, back in Truth or Consequences, I messed up. I can still hear James in the train, telling me it was foolish to step in and try to bend the path of fate. I’m no hero, but I hope there’s someone here who is.
“Bruno,” I whisper, scanning the crowd, and it’s almost as if I will him into being. He runs from the direction of his bunkhouse, throwing on his button-up shirt. But when he sees what’s happening, he strips the shirt back off and winds it around his hand. As he passes the campfire, he snatches up a cast iron skillet and charges up and through the crowd. He ratchets back his arm and brings the pan down full force against the dog’s skull. There’s a crack—more delicate than I would’ve thought, closer to an egg breaking than a tree limb splitting—and the dog falls heavy to the ground.
Bruno drops the skillet, then steps away. Ben dives toward Rosa, who’s not screaming anymore. She’s whimpering; her face has gone white. She mutters something and trembles. Ben’s hands hover over Rosa’s side, where the skin has been slashed. He wants to touch her, but he doesn’t.
“I was just . . .” I hear Rosa say. “I wanted to . . .”
It’s only now that James arrives, out of breath from sprinting, with the overseer right behind him. I can’t see the overseer’s eyes because of his sunglasses, but I can see the way his jaw twitches when he stares at his dog lying motionless in the dirt, its jaws and muzzle covered in blood, and then at Bruno.
“She must have done something,” the overseer says. “My dog has never attacked anyone without permission before.”
Someone in the crowd lets out a low hiss. Without permission.
James strips the shirt from his back, kneels, and presses the cloth to Rosa’s side. I don’t know how much good that’ll do. I can see the gleam of a hip bone poking through ripped flesh. If her organs are lanced, she’ll die in a matter of minutes.
There’s no one to help Rosa, no healer to staunch the flow of blood or stitch up skin, but, still, James is trying. I look up and see Eva standing on the edge of the crowd, her eyes blazing, as if she delights in Rosa’s pain.
Ben has his head dipped down. He is speaking to his girl in words so low no one else can hear. I don’t even know if Rosa can hear. Her eyes are open, fixed to the sky; she’s gasping and can’t get air.
We are all quiet. We take off our hats and bring them to our hearts.
After several long minutes James rocks back on his heels and lowers his head. Rosa’s eyes and mouth are still open, but she makes no sound. Ben starts wailing, and the overseer asks for volunteers to help carry away the body. She’ll be put into the back of a truck, driven miles away, and buried in an unmarked grave. Some people believe that if a person is buried too close to camp, their spirit will find their way back, either out of loneliness or revenge.
Again, I don’t offer my help. Rosa’s body looks too much like Angus’ did, sprawled and coated in dust. Their faces—mouths agape, eyes open wide—are almost interchangeable. It’s Rosa. It’s Angus. It’s Rosa. I shiver, my spine like a thick length of twine pulled so tight it hums.
I wonder where Angus was buried. Far enough away so his spirit could settle? Or has he crossed mountains and desert to find me and ruin the Real Marvelous?
I wrap my arms across my chest and head back to the ranch house. No one sees me duck behind the closest building and throw up into a creosote bush.
TWELVE
I’m back in the horse yard, rechecking Britain’s straps, when Leo comes back up over the hill. Bruno trails a few steps behind him.
“Wait here,” Leo calls out over his shoulder. “I’ll find you a shirt.”
Bruno is holding his right wrist with his left hand. He’s wincing. A sheen of sweat has formed on his forehead. His hand is carelessly wrapped in his shirt, and I can see that it’s covered in patches of raw, red skin.
“Don’t move,” I say, climbing onto Britain. I click my tongue and urge the horse out of the yard. “I’ll be right back.”
WHEN I STARTED working with the horses, Leo gav
e me a small pocketknife to use in case I need to cut rope or a thin strip of leather. As I ride, I pull it out of my pocket and scan the ground, hoping my memory serves me right. After I’ve gone almost a quarter of a mile, I spot it—a low, spiny bush, like a maguey in miniature. Aloe. I slow Britain, dismount just long enough for me to hack off a couple of spines from the plant, and then head back to the house, where Bruno is waiting in the stables, just as I asked. He’s wearing a new shirt, one of Leo’s most likely, and it barely fits over his broad shoulders.
I jump down from Britain and pass her reins to Leo. I take the plant and cut it lengthwise, like I’m peeling a carrot. A clear slime seeps out.
“Your hand,” I command.
There, across his wide palm and up to the tips of his fingers, are white blisters, speckled against angry red skin. It must hurt like mad, but Bruno somehow manages to keep his hand from trembling.
I squeeze the aloe again, and the oozy liquid drops directly onto Bruno’s skin. I move to rub it in with my fingers, but stop. “My hands are dirty.”
Bruno tries to smile, but the pain transforms his expression into a scowl. “You think mine are any better? Go on.”
As carefully as I can, I glide the liquid onto the burns, and repeat the process: slice, squeeze, glide, slice, squeeze, glide.
We are quiet. I take in Bruno’s scent again: that sweet tobacco and maybe some cedar. I sneak glances at the tattoo across his chest, those scrolling cursive letters. I’d seen it, all of it, while he was running through the pack of jimadors toward Rosa and the dog.
Gone But Not Forgotten, it says. A tribute. I wonder who it’s for.
Finally, Bruno clears his throat and asks, “Who taught you this?”
“My grandmother. She had some land. There were aloe plants. I saw one out here the other day when I was riding with Bell. It’s supposed to make the burns feel better.”
“It does. Thank you.” A moment passes, and then Bruno lets out a long sigh. “It wasn’t worth it.”
I raise my head. Our eyes meet, and he goes on. “Rosa would’ve died anyway. The dog did too much damage before I even got there. Now I’m responsible for killing the overseer’s pet.”
I think to myself: Tell him. Tell him about Truth or Consequences, about the foreman and the dust storm, James and the ruse, That Time Outside Tulsa, Lane. Tell him because he is suffering right now, and he will understand.
“Sometimes you do things without thinking,” I say. “In my experience those things are usually the right things. Not always, though.”
He pauses, as if to consider my response, as if he knows it’s coded and he’s trying to figure it out. “Was this the right thing to do, Sarah?”
I lower Bruno’s hand. I’m thrown, more than I should be perhaps, by the shortened version of my name. James is the only one who shortens my name, just as he’s the only one who draws it out to its fullest.
“Everything okay here?”
Bruno and I both turn at the sound of James’ voice. He’s standing in the stable door, holding his blood-caked shirt in his blood-caked hand. There’s a hard, dark edge to his expression.
“Sarah Jac was just working her magic with my burns,” Bruno says.
“Yeah, she’s good at stuff like that. I’m going to get cleaned up,” James says before disappearing.
“Here.” I hold out the other strips of aloe to Bruno, suddenly ready for this whole scene to be over. He takes them with his good hand. “Apply it as often as you can.”
“Thank you. I will.”
I wonder if he’s waiting for me to say something profound because that’s what sometimes happens in books and old movies when a person cares for another person. It’s the point in the story where a heart cracks open and softness is revealed.
“I have to get back to Britain now,” I say. “I’m late for Bell.”
Bruno nods. His eyebrows knit together just slightly, and I think he might be disappointed in me.
I walk out of the stables and into the sun. I look for James, but he’s gone.
LATER I LEARN that no one actually saw what caused the mastiff to go after Rosa, but there are theories, of course. Some say the dog trotted up to her during breakfast and sniffed at her plate. When she offered it a piece of pork, it latched on to her hand, pulled her to the ground, attacked her and never let go. Others say she was kneeling down, talking to the dog and stroking its head. Apparently, this was something she’d done often. I can imagine her doing it, given how attentive she’s always been with her little mouse. Maybe she stood, made some sudden move, and spooked the dog.
There was also the theory—and this one was only repeated in whispers—that the dog had been bewitched. Sure, it was big, ugly, and snarling, but it had never been violent. Someone said its eyes had looked different that morning, glazed over. It went straight for Rosa, out of all the other jimadors, as if it were hunting her down, specifically, as if she had something it wanted.
What we know for sure is this: at some point after Rosa’s death, Ben walked off toward the mountains. No one saw him in the fields. He was not back for supper, or in line for a coa the next day.
The desert took him, which is probably just what he wanted.
THIRTEEN
Just as Eva first appeared from the direction of the mountains, so do the wagons. I see them one morning as Bell and I are out with Britain. They move slowly, heavy transport pulled by twin black horses. People walk alongside them, at least half a dozen. As the wagons get closer, I notice that some of the people carry rifles; others carry oddly shaped black backpacks or quivers full of arrows. One woman carries a bundle against her chest that might be a baby. The people are all lean, their skin dark and tough from sun. Their pace is strong and steady despite the heat and all the weight they must be carrying. Bell and I watch, sipping water from our waterskins, as the wagons cut through the fields in the direction of camp.
“I’m not imagining this, right?” I ask.
“No,” says Bell. “They’ve come before. They’re pretty nice.”
“Are they tinkers?”
Bell rotates in the saddle, and the brim of her hat whacks me in the chin. She squints, confused.
“Tinkers,” I repeat. “Do they buy and sell and trade stuff? Is that what the wagons are for?”
“Sort of. But that’s not all they do. They also put on a show.”
I wasn’t all that curious about Eva when she arrived, practically emerging from the earth itself. But these people. They came from somewhere. They’re going somewhere. There’s something hopeful in that.
The night promises to be full of magic, the good kind that makes us forget about girls dying in the dust, our injuries, our tainted food and lingering dehydration headaches, and allows us a break from thinking about the past or the future, or constantly brushing our fingers against the talismans that hang from some of our throats. Everyone—all the workers, all the foremen, the overseer, his remaining dog—has gathered to watch the show. Leo is here, sitting on a rail tie next to Raoul, the guy who attacked him that night at the bonfire. Fair-weather friends, I guess. Bell is also here, standing on the side of camp closest to the house. Farrah is beside her, and James is beside Farrah. For the past few days, he’s worked late at the house and hasn’t been at supper.
The musicians take their places. There’s a young female drummer, a middle-aged male trumpeter, and an older woman who plays the violin. I haven’t seen a violin since I left mine at my grandmother’s, and that one was terrible compared to this woman’s. On mine, the wood was warped and splitting. It needed oil and new strings. Its bow needed replacing or, at the very least, rosin.
Mine had a name, though. Its name was Might. As in, “Might makes right.” Lane came up with that.
I rub my palms together and then trace the pads of each finger on my left hand with my thumb. My violin callouses are still there, layered under coa callouses and horse-rope callouses and whatever-else callouses.
Everyone quiets
as the musicians begin a spooky and suspenseful tune. The notes start out faint and quiet, few and far between, slowly getting louder and more crammed together. Then the notes start to crash against one another, scraping and overlapping. The drummer hits her cymbal again and again, and the violinist drags out odd, discordant sounds. The mastiff starts howling, and the coyotes in the far, far distance catch on. I glance to Bell, and see her press the palms of her hands to her ears. Her mouth is open in a perfect little circle. She looks like a cartoon character, and I can’t help but smile. My smile falters slightly when my eyes slip over to James and Farrah. Their hands are down by their sides. They aren’t touching, not really, but they are very close, the kind of close that produces a wild current.
The music starts to lose its energy, like it’s tired after a race, until it stops altogether. The howling stops, too.
Then the actors step onstage.
But it’s not a stage. Not really. An old sheet, painted to represent a cityscape at night, hangs from the side of one of the wagons. All the dark buildings are outlined in different colors to mimic the neon lights. There are advertisements painted on the sides of the buildings, for things like soda and hospitals. Cities used to look like that.
The story is a romance. Simple really, but it’s the simplest stories that always so thoroughly break my heart. There’s a boy and girl. They fall in love. The problem is, the girl is dying. Together, she and the boy try to find a way to keep her alive, but her death, she’s been told, is inevitable.
The actor playing the dying girl is amazing. Her fear is so real. At first, she’s determined to fight. Eventually, however, she resigns herself to her fate. At the very end, her determination kicks in again. She’s gasping, desperate for more breaths, and I know that all of us watching must be thinking of Rosa. We’re hoping for the same thing: maybe, just maybe, she’ll make it.
But, of course, she doesn’t. The boy puts his ear to her chest and sobs. For a moment, we all sit in stunned silence. I look to Farrah, expecting to see the shine of tears in her eyes, because, out of all the people gathered here, she must know that girl’s fear of dying and her desperate clinging to life, but her face is impassive. One of her hands, though, rests on her little sister’s shoulder, and I watch her give it a squeeze.
All the Wind in the World Page 9
