The Outsider

by Penelope Williamson

  He paused for dramatic effect, and Rachel drew her feet up, pressing them hard against the slats of the woodbox as if to give herself support. Johnny Cain sat silent and motionless except for his hand, which stroked the smooth wooden grip of his gun once and then went still.

  "However it was," the lawman went on, "you'd already turned and was firin' by the time they got off their shots. Which accounts for Rafe Calder windin' up dead in the rocks."

  To Rachel's shock the lawman actually laughed then. "Yup, deader'n a can of corned beef, Rafe was—and still is, less'n he somehow managed to resurrect hisself. Shot plumb bull's-eye in the mouth." He chuckled again, shaking his head. "But then Rafe always did have a big mouth."

  The air in the room had turned thick, until it had become an effort to breathe it in. Rachel couldn't take her eyes off the outsider's face, but it was as smooth as a weathered tombstone and just as difficult to read.

  The sheriff suddenly leaned forward and stabbed the stem of his pipe toward the outsider's hooded eyes. Johnny Cain didn't so much as flicker an eyelash.

  "Now, you might not know this," the sheriff said, "but mem Calder boys had a rep in this neck of the woods for being crack shots. Hell, I once seen Rafe drive a nail into a fence post with the six slugs in his Colt. So if they had long enough to take aim at you, they was bound to hit you. Which they did, huh?" He looked the outsider over again slowly. "Which they sure enough did. One got you and another got your horse. Your horse went down, prob'ly rolled on you, which is prob'ly how your arm got busted."

  He leaned back, and his fingers began to toy with his tarnished watch fob. But Rachel noticed that during all the lawman's fiddling, the outsider never once looked at the man's hands or anywhere other than into his washed-out eyes.

  The lawman's spiky gray eyebrows drew together, as if tugged by complicated thoughts. "This is where it starts to get tricky, but this is how I'm picturin' it. You lose your six-shooter when your horse rolls and your arm gets broke, you can't reach your rifle what's still in the saddle scabbard, and them two livin' Calder boys is coming out of the rocks, their guns trained on you. So you make like an Injun and play dead."

  The sheriff smiled slowly and nodded his head at the outsider as if acknowledging him a score in a game they were playing. "Yup, them Calder boys might not've known shit from wild honey, but they never was flat-out empty-headed. They come up on you slow, keepin' you covered the whole while. Maybe one of 'em kicks you a bit to see if you groan. Might be he even takes a lick at your busted arm, in which case you're one tough son of a bitch. Because you don't let out a peep, you don't so much as flinch. You just lay there playin' possum, waitin' for them to get closer. And you know they'll be gettin' closer if they're gonna take your scalp, or maybe your nose or an ear—"

  Rachel lurched off the woodbox, dumping the bowl from her lap onto the floor. In the sudden silence she could hear the beans scattering over the bare pine boards.

  "Yes, ma'am," Sheriff Getts said, not taking his eyes off the outsider, "them boys was gonna need a trophy, don't you know? To prove they kilt Johnny Cain." Shrugging, he rubbed the bit of his pipe over his lips as if in thought. "Otherwise there woulda been no point to any of it."

  Rachel looked at Cain, wondering how he'd endured it, how heart and mind could bear such fear. She thought of the utter terror she had seen in his eyes that day in the hay meadow, when she'd first touched him.

  "So you wait," the sheriff was saying, his voice a gruff whisper now. "You wait, because your kind are good at waitin'. You wait until Jed Calder puts up his gun and takes out his toad sticker and bends over you, and then you shoot him with that boob gun you carry in a holster under your armpit. And all the whilst you're killin' Jed, you're grab-bin' the knife out of his hand and you're cuttin' the guts out of his baby brother Stu, and I reckon by then you musta been either real sore or real scared, because that boy looked like he'd been stabbed with a shovel."

  Rachel trapped a moan behind her pressed lips. She shut her eyes and saw blood, smelled it. All that blood soaked and splattered on his clothes—it hadn't all been his.

  "Mind you," the lawman was saying, "I ain't sure exactly how you managed to do that final bit, to take them both unawares like that. I only know you did manage it, because I seen the evidence with my own eyes." He wagged his head again and frowned. "Them boys shoulda known better than to go pokin' at a sleepin' rattler."

  For the first time Johnny Cain stirred, but only enough to lift his head. He flashed one of his charming, easy smiles. "You sure do tell a fine story, Sheriff."

  "Uh huh. And I suppose you're gonna tell me you shot yourself whilst cleaning your gun, and then broke your arm fallin' outta the chair."

  "There ain't no law against being clumsy that I know of."

  Sheriff Getts slapped his hand down on the table so hard the dishes rattled. Rachel jumped; the outsider smiled.

  "There ought to be a law, though," the lawman growled, "against treatin' a man like a fool when he ain't one. There's some as say that to pit a man against one of your kind even in a fair draw is still murder, but I'm not so judgmental, myself. I've known them Calder boys to be dumb as fence posts and mean as polecats their whole lives, and so their deaths sure ain't no loss to civilization such as we know it. They came after you, and you only gave 'em what they asked for."

  He leaned forward and tapped his finger on the silver star he wore. "But when I put myself on the pin side of this badge, I swore to uphold the law and protect the citizens of mis territory. So I also figure I'd be derelict in my duty if I didn't suggest that you mosey on along, soon as you're able. And before this nice little valley is overrun with more bad hombres and fool boys who want to be known as the quick son of a bitch who shot Johnny Cain."

  The sheriff stared hard at Johnny Cain, the pipe jutting upward as he clenched his teeth on the bit.

  Johnny Cain said nothing.

  "You are truly a tough bastard," the lawman said. "But then I figured you would be." He pushed the chair back from the table. Lumbering to his feet, he pulled the watch from his vest, then glanced at the window, glazed gold now by the setting sun.

  "Thank you for the coffee, ma'am," he said to Rachel as he turned to leave.

  And still Johnny Cain said nothing. Not even good-bye.

  Rachel went with the sheriff out into the yard. The salmon pink light had seeped out of the clouds, leaving them a smoky gray. It would be full dark soon and a cold wind had sprung up. She was worried that Benjo wasn't back yet. She hoped he was only lurking in the barn, waiting for Sheriff Getts to leave.

  The sheriff knocked the bowl of his pipe against the fence, the wind catching the sparks and embers and sending them winking like fireflies into the falling dusk. Leather squeaked as he put his weight in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. He leaned over and patted the neck of his horse. Though Rachel knew his eyes were on her, she couldn't look at him.

  "That Johnny Cain..." he began.

  He had a strange way of saying the man's name, she thought. Johnny Cain—as if it was all of a piece, all run together.

  But then she couldn't imagine anyone calling him just plain Johnny, the outsider who sat at her table with his hand always within easy reach of death. And Mr. Cain, the charming rascal with the lazy smiles and teasing ways—he was a made-up man. Made up by him to put her at her ease while he recovered from his injuries in her house. There was no Mr. Cain.

  There was only Johnny Cain. The man who had offered to kill for her.

  "Don't start to feelin' tender for him," the sheriff was saying. "A man like him is trouble, and trouble don't like bein' lonesome. Time and luck'll run out on him someday, they always do, and he'll wind up dyin' how he lives."

  She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and flung her head back to stare up at him. "But what is a man to do if there are people always out there waiting to shoot him in the back, to cut off his ears?"

  He gave a little nudge to the battered brim of his hat. "Which is my poin
t exactly, ma'am. You and your boy have already had your share of woes. When his destiny finds Johnny Cain, you don't want to be standing anywheres near him."

  CHAPTER 8

  Johnny Cain still sat at her table, his hand on his gun. Its long smooth barrel gleamed black and heavy against the brown oilcloth. By comparison his hand looked pale and ephemeral, almost beautiful. Deadly beautiful, Rachel thought. Yes, that was what his hand was to her—a thing that was horrible in its beauty, because it was an instrument of death.

  Johnny Cain was looking down—at his hand, at the gun. But she could read nothing in the look of him. She didn't know if he felt the horror of what he saw, or if he felt nothing at all.

  Rachel took the coal-oil lantern down from its ceiling hook to light it against the coming dark. The scrape of the match sounded unnaturally loud in the still kitchen. She nearly dropped the chimney when she went to put it back on its base, and glass rang against copper, loud as a church bell.

  Slowly he lifted his head. His eyes gleamed in the murky light, but there was no warmth there.

  He had such a remarkable face, a truly breath-catching face. A face, she thought, that made you long to open its secrets. But maybe there were no secrets. Maybe there was simply Johnny Cain, man-killer.

  He smiled, a smile with a hint of ruthlessness in it. "I've been telling you I'm the Devil," he said, "and you've been trying to argue me out of the notion. Now you're looking at me like you expect me to sprout horns and a pair of cloven hooves with my next breath."

  "I know you are not the Devil, Mr. Cain."

  He gave a hard, short laugh. He stood up, slowly this time, and pushed his revolver back into its oiled leather holster. "But you're still going to ask me to leave. Soon as you can think of a gentle way to do it."

  He brushed past her, making for the door, as if he had it in his mind to leave that very moment. She went after him, although she didn't really know if she meant to stop him or see him on his way.

  She nearly stumbled up the back of his boots when he halted, his hand on the jamb. "But what if there are others out there," she said, "waiting up in the buttes, waiting for you down the road, in the next town, behind the next rock?"

  He kept his back to her. "There ain't no what-if about it. They're out there waiting, all right. And I'll kill them for it, just like I did the Calder boys."

  "You could put your gun away. Refuse to fight."

  He studied his hand, pressed flat on the rough wood. He stretched his long fingers out wide, so wide the veins and bones of his hand pushed hard against the pale skin. "Turn the other cheek."

  "Yes."

  He spun around abruptly, facing her. "God, Rachel, what do you think'll happen then? You think some bastard hellbent on taking on my rep is gonna come up and tap me on the shoulder and say, 'Excuse me, Johnny Cain, but I happen to notice you're not wearing your gun today, and I was sort of wondering if maybe you wouldn't mind strapping it on before I go ahead and shoot you in the back.'"

  "But it's all so unfair! You shouldn't have to...have to live like that." To die like that.

  He exhaled a laugh, flat and aching. He leaned back against the door as if he suddenly had no more strength to stand. "There's only the quick and the dead. You ever heard that said? Well, I reckon now you know what it means."

  He stared at her, his head lifted, his gaze open and unwavering. And she saw the horror that lived deep within the wasteland of his eyes.

  His hand came up, and she thought he was going to touch her mouth like he'd done before. But instead he let the hand drop.

  "You make it easy for a man to take advantage of you. To hurt you."

  "Would you hurt me, Johnny Cain?"

  He said nothing, but he did touch her this time. He ran his fingers lightly, lightly down her throat, and her skin burned as if stung by nettles. He knows he's going to hurt me, she thought; he's sorry for it, but he's going to do it anyway.

  He pushed himself off the door. He grabbed the latch, jerking it open with such force the hinges squealed. "I think I'll go on down to the paddock and take a look at the sheep."

  She followed him out onto the porch, but no further. The chinook had scoured most of the snow off the ground, and the dead grass showed through. She felt scoured herself, washed clean to the bone.

  She watched him walk slowly across her yard and she thought that he moved like what he was, a man sorely hurt.

  She hadn't asked him to leave. He hadn't said he would stay.

  She knew that anyone with a purpose could find him here on a Plain farm, same as anywhere else. And he knew that, too. She understood what the risks were for herself and for her son, and so did he. She thought that she was probably the only one, though, who was trusting in the Lord to take care of them all.

  She saw Benjo come shuffling out from behind the lambing sheds, with MacDuff at his heels. The outsider saw them as well, and stopped. He said something that caused

  Benjo to shrug and plow the toe of his brogan through the mud. The dog trotted up to the man, and he stooped to raffle its ears. After a moment the boy joined them. The three of them went to the paddock fence. The outsider put his boot on the lower rail and hung his left thumb off his back pocket. Benjo put his brogan on the rail, but he had no back pockets and so he simply rested his hand on his rump, which made him look a little silly and had Rachel smiling through a sudden prickle of tears.

  She could tell by the way his head was jerking that her son was spouting his questions again. From time to time the outsider would look the boy's way, and she wondered if he was answering.

  The moon was coming up full over the sloped roof of the barn, competing with the last glimmer of light from the dying sun, as the day gave way to night. Time passed. But no longer slow or sweet or sure for Rachel Yoder. She felt as if she were rushing headlong over a cliff, believing she could fly when she had no wings.

  He'd called her Rachel. He probably hadn't even heard her name coming out of his mouth. But she had heard.

  When they came back inside, the outsider went right to bed. She was sweeping up the cornmeal crumbs and the beans she'd spilled earlier, and he passed by without even looking at her. He said, "Good night, Mrs. Yoder."

  The next morning she was rattling a fresh stick of wood into the cookstove, punching at the coals with it, when the door to the yard opened and she heard his step behind her.

  She straightened and turned, her face flushed from the heat of the fire, to see that he carried a zinc bucket brimming with foamy milk.

  "Why, you've done the milking," she said. She was surprised he even knew how to do such a thing as milk a cow. "And you managed it one-handed."

  "Yeah, well, it sure wasn't easy. That brown bossy kept trying to kick the holy... dickens outta me."

  She took the bucket from his hand and set it on the slop stone. He smelled of hay, and of the crisp morning air.

  "That brown bossy's Annabell," Rachel said. "She has real sensitive teats. You need to use gentle hands on her. Ben used to say you got to squeeze her sweetly and slowly, like a man courting a skittish woman...." She turned quickly back to the stove, flushing. She used the poker to wrestle the lid back into place, making a loud clatter.

  "I'll have to remember that," he said, "if I'm going to be doing the milking while I'm here."

  She swung around to look at him. She felt herself smile. She thought it was probably a very wide and foolish smile, and yet she couldn't seem to help it. "I'll make you into a lamb licker yet," she said.

  "Now as to that, I'm kind of taking on a wait-and-see attitude. Wait until I figure out for sure what the heck that is, and then see if I can stomach it."

  She laughed as she put a pan on the fire and began to stir up the batter for flapjacks.

  He went to look out the window. "I was thinking maybe if you had a soogan," he said, "or some such thing handy, I could roll it out come nighttime and bed down in the barn."

  "There's a sheepwagon parked out back of the lambing sheds. A herder'
s wagon. You could sleep there. My husband used to drive it up into the hills when it was his turn at the summer pasturing. It's all fixed up with a bunk, even a cookstove. A sheepwagon's a sight more comfortable than a barn."

  He made a grunting noise that she took to mean he would be pleased to have the herder's wagon to sleep in.

  She busied herself some more with the flapjack batter, whipping the wooden spoon through it. Beating out all the air, she thought; they'll likely be heavy as stones now. "Benjo sure will be grateful to hear you've done the milking for him. He'd laze away the whole morning in bed if I let him. Especially on a school day."

  This time the outsider didn't so much as grunt a response.

  "There's coffee fresh brewed," she said.

  He turned from the window, but he didn't go for the pot. "What we talked about yesterday," he said, "about that trouble waitin' on down the road for me. I'll have a care that you and the boy don't get involved."

  "Life is to be lived as it comes, Mr. Cain." She spooned a dollop of flapjack batter onto the hot fry pan. "Bad things happen, like floods and pestilence, and good things like babies being bom and the wildflowers coming back to bloom every spring. They are not in our power to control. We can only put ourselves in God's hands."

  "Lady, when are you ever goin' to figure it out that your God don't give a damn about me? He never has."

  "Oh, for pity's sake!" She slammed the spoon back into the bowl so hard the batter splattered. She spun around to him. "You sound just like Benjo come Saturday mornings, when I make him take his bath and he whimpers on and on in just that poor-me, little-boy way. On and on about how if I really loved him I wouldn't be so awful mean to him, feeling sorry for himself, making excuses—"