One of Us

by Craig DiLouie

  The big woman squinted at the paper. “What’s all this about?”

  “The plague children deserve the same life we have,” he said.

  “What, you want to integrate? Sit next to them at school or something?”

  “Right now, I just want people to think about what’s being done to those kids.”

  “For crying out loud, boy,” she said. “Why would anybody want to think about that?”

  “Because when you get past how they look, they’re people, same as us, ma’am. Out of Christian love, we need to look inside and see their humanity.”

  “Why do you want to go and open these old wounds?” Her voice rose to a scream. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Amy looked away, stunned. Sobbing, Mrs. Peel hustled her empty buggy into the store before Jake could answer.

  Nobody spoke in the ensuing shock.

  They’re like Mama, Amy thought. Living day to day hiding away from what was really going on in the world. Sweeping dirt under the carpet and hoping nobody noticed it was ever there.

  Whether they had the germ or not, older folks all lived with it and what it had done. They all carried a sense of shame about it. Nobody wanted to talk about it, much less do anything. They didn’t want to think about abandoned monster kids growing up in squalor a few miles away. They wanted to forget and live their lives, though monsters infested their dreams.

  As for Jake, he had a good heart, but he hadn’t thought this through. Folks here already felt shafted by the state dumping a Home in their backyard, like they were being punished for living in a poor rural county. Only one plague baby born in all of Stark County (two counting her), and they had to let hundreds of them run amok in the town? Pay for a bigger school for them? Why was he picking scabs and waking bad dreams from their sleep? What did he want, exactly?

  Just by handing out a few flyers, Jake was stirring up more worms than a bait store. A few folks inside the A & P eyed him through the window and pointed. Michelle and Sally and Troy sat on the ground and cast worried looks at him. This didn’t strike them as funny anymore. Jake was asking for a mess of trouble.

  “Maybe it’s time you call it quits,” Amy said.

  He shook his head, face red and eyes glassy. “All y’all can go home if you want. Hello, sir. Can I give you a flyer?”

  The man stopped his buggy and leaned against the handlebar. “Hello, Miss Sally. Fancy meeting you again. Fine day, ain’t it.”

  Sally glared back at him. “It was fine until you showed up, Mr. Bowie.”

  “No need to get rude, now. Our mutual friend would want me to say hello.”

  “He ain’t my friend, and neither is you.”

  “That a fact,” Bowie said. “I believe you just hurt my feelings.”

  “If you got shopping, why don’t you get to it and let us be.”

  Bowie kept on smiling, his eyes crawling across the kids, taking his time with his inspection. They settled on Amy and roamed up and down. “Well, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes. You need a ride home, miss?”

  Jake pushed a flyer at him. “Something I wrote about the plague kids.”

  The wiry man scratched at one of his sideburns, taking his time, his eyes still on Amy. She stared back with wide eyes as black scrawl danced on his forearm.

  He snatched the flyer from Jake’s hand. “Let’s see here.” He laughed as he read. “Creepers, huh. Shit, boy. What do you know about creepers?”

  “I met a few of them—”

  Bowie stared at Amy. “How about you, pretty lady? You like creepers?”

  “Not so much,” she said.

  “Well, we got that in common. Maybe you’d like to go see some anyways sometime. You might say I work at the zoo.”

  “You and Mr. Gaines are a fine pair,” Sally said. “Can’t get decent folk to come near you, so you bother little girls.”

  His eyes lazily shifted to her. “I like all kinds. All kinds of folks.”

  “Sheriff’s coming,” Troy said.

  The sheriff’s white Plymouth Gran Fury rolled up and parked. The siren bleeped once to announce he was here on official business. Sheriff Burton cut the engine and took his time getting out. He stood next to the car dusting his hat.

  “Ray, by the time I walk over there, you best be someplace else,” he said.

  “Just reading this here flyer these young ones gave me, Sheriff. This boy wants to save the creepers from us.”

  “Here I come, walking.”

  Bowie rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth, looking defiant. He winked at Amy. “You think about that ride.”

  Then he pushed his buggy into the store as the sheriff strolled up.

  “You kids having another party?”

  “It ain’t them,” Jake said. “It’s just me.”

  The sheriff swiped one of the flyers and muttered over it. He looked up. “Taking your foolishness public. Upsetting folks with a ruckus.”

  “I am exercising my right to free speech. Sir.”

  “Well, ain’t you a big-city man with that big talk. You start down this road, you know how much trouble you’re gonna make trying to change things?”

  “I ain’t forcing nothing on nobody, sir. I don’t even know what changes are needed. I just want folks to see the plague kids as people. It all starts there.”

  “I let all y’all slide on that party,” the sheriff said. “I even let my eyes slip straight past the booze y’all thought you hid. Kids have enough troubles growing up in this world without me adding to them. But if you carry on like this, you’ll be inviting a mess of trouble for yourself.”

  “You do what you need to do, Sheriff.”

  “Big talk from a little man. What I could do to you would have you begging for mercy. No, I am a believer in self-policing. A safe town polices itself.”

  Amy shot a glance at the A & P window, now crowded with shoppers looking out at them. She caught sight of Ray Bowie and studied him while he eyeballed the sheriff. The man had made an impression on her with his tattoos and coiled menace she suspected wasn’t just an act. There was something about him made her picture copperheads and butter. She wondered what kind of man he was, working with plague kids day in and out.

  His eyes shifted to lock onto hers. He smirked. She gasped and looked away.

  “The mess you get is gonna come from the very folks whose minds you want to change,” the sheriff went on. “Speaking of self-policing, here comes your daddy.”

  A woodie station wagon pulled into the parking lot and rolled up next to the sheriff’s Plymouth. A man in a black clerical suit got out. Even if Amy didn’t go to his church on Sundays, she’d know right away he was Jake’s daddy, they looked so much alike. Like an older Jake with harder eyes and silver streaks running through the longish hair combed over his ears.

  “Hey, Reverend,” Burton said. “Found your prodigal son.”

  Reverend Coombs shook his hand. “I thank you, Sheriff, for calling me and letting me handle my family. I do appreciate it.”

  “Don’t mention it. No need for me to make an even bigger fuss of it. We was young and foolish once, too.”

  “This younger generation is spoiled to the core, you ask me. They all think the world owes them everything.”

  “The older folks said the same about us when we was kids,” the sheriff said. “And their folks the same about them. He’ll learn just like we did.”

  “I’ll teach him good. You can count on that.”

  The reverend marched up to Jake, pinched his ear, and pulled him wincing toward the station wagon. One of the flyers fluttered to the ground.

  The revolution was over.

  Amy gave him a little wave as the car backed up and sped out the parking lot.

  Then she turned back to look through the window. Bowie kept on staring at her. She didn’t flinch away this time. Go ahead and look all you want, she thought. Cuz that is all a man like you is ever gonna get.

  Fifteen

  Sally walked home and dashe
d the last hundred yards into the house. Hens squawked and scattered as she ran past. She stomped straight upstairs to her room and stood gasping at the window. There he was, picking cotton out in the field. The plague kids worked the rows next to him. He was hiding from her, and well he should.

  Heat waves rippled up from the cotton field. The golden-white fields beautiful in the late-afternoon sunshine. Mr. Gaines turned and looked at the house. Sally flinched from the window. Then she went back downstairs.

  That man was never going to leave her alone. Even now, with her daddy in the barn and her sisters gabbing in the kitchen, it was just like her dream. Him inching toward her. Her backing into the corner as she eyed the window and wondered if she would survive the fall.

  Look at her now, skulking in terror around her own home. To make things worse, tonight she feared she’d add Ray Bowie to her dreams. Something about that man gave her the creeps. The way he slithered around and looked at girls. The things Mr. Gaines fantasized about, Sally had a feeling Mr. Bowie did.

  Mr. Benson was right. She needed an ally. A protector.

  Sally walked out to the barn and crossed the moist hay. All the stalls were empty except one. Marie Rose was having her baby. The heifer paced around on her hoofs, bloated and restless. Daddy and George fussed over her, talking out the coming delivery. For a moment, they were equals, farmer and outcast. Daddy respected George’s abilities. The boy could fix anything alive or machine.

  She draped her arms over a neck-rail and rested her cheek on her arm. “Hey, Daddy. Hey, George.”

  Daddy took off his hat and wiped the sweat off his brow. “Hey there, Buttercup. How was school today?”

  “Here it comes,” George said before she could answer.

  Marie Rose was giving birth. A yellowish water sac hung from her vulva. The calf’s two front feet appeared. George pulled on shoulder gloves and slathered lubricant on them in case Marie Rose needed help.

  “Do you have him?” Daddy said.

  George took hold of the calf’s feet. “Yup, I got him.”

  When the heifer pushed, he was ready. He pulled out and down, pausing when Marie Rose took a breather. He was always so good and gentle with the animals, like he could talk to them. Sally gripped the neck-rail and watched the miracle of a living thing making another living thing.

  “One more try ought to do it,” the plague boy said.

  Another push. He delivered the calf, a limp little thing wet with amniotic fluid, and laid it on the straw. He brushed its nostrils to clear the airways. Then he took a bit of straw and tickled its nose until it shook its head.

  “Congratulations, Marie Rose,” Sally said. “You’re a mama.”

  George’s apelike face arranged in a frown. “She’s having twins.”

  “Then where is he?” Daddy said. “We got a breech?”

  “Yeah, it’s a breech.”

  Breech births were common with twins. One came out the right way, the other didn’t. George’s small and delicate hands went to work.

  “I can feel his tail. Pa, can you get Marie Rose into the head gate?”

  Daddy was already doing it. With the cow’s head in the gate, she couldn’t back up over George if she panicked.

  “It’s okay, girl,” Sally soothed her. “You’re gonna be just fine.”

  “That’s good, Miss Sally,” George said. “Keep her calm.”

  He pushed the calf into the uterus as far as it would go. Grunting with effort, he thrust his arm inside the snorting cow. He brought one of the calf’s feet over the pelvic brim and into the birth canal, then the other.

  Daddy was ready with the chains. He wrapped a length around the calf’s feet and pulled it out. George tickled its nose while Daddy spritzed water in its ears.

  George stripped off his gloves. “He’s breathing.”

  Daddy released Marie Rose from the head gate so she could meet her little ones. “There you go, girl.”

  “I’ll finish up here, Pa.”

  “You did good, George.”

  Daddy’s highest compliment and all he’d say on the matter.

  George grinned. “Aw, shucks, Pa.”

  He was playing the earnest yokel, just another dumb plague kid. Sally knew better after hearing him talk. He was a very smart and dangerous boy. He caught her looking, and they locked eyes for a moment, acknowledging each other’s secrets.

  Daddy put his hat on and left the barn. Sally followed swinging her shoulders with her hands clasped behind her back. He shot her a sideways glance.

  “I can just tell you’re itching to ask me for something,” he said.

  “The plague boys do a good job for us. Don’t they, Daddy?”

  “They do all right, I guess.”

  “They’ve been working for us for years.”

  “Are you gonna ask me or not?”

  “I’d like to take Enoch out for a walk.”

  Daddy stopped. “Now why would you want to do a thing like that?”

  “He’s like a dog, Daddy. I always wanted a dog of my own.”

  “He ain’t a real dog.”

  “A dog I could take for walks and talk to,” she said. “This one even talks back. I bet no girl in the world ever had a dog could talk back before.”

  “He still ain’t a dog. He is a bone-tired boy who been working all day.”

  “He’s real nice, Daddy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Daddy took out his papers and tobacco. Sally watched him roll his cigarette. He did this when he was thoughtful. She could read him the same as he read her. A daddy’s girl knew her daddy’s tells far better than he knew hers.

  He struck a match and leaned into it. A cloud of smoke swirled away from him.

  “All right, Buttercup,” he said. “The kids are done for the day. Go take your walk and be back before supper. Don’t go far. Send Enoch over first so I can have a talk with him.”

  She smiled and hugged him, face planted against his chest. “Thank you, Daddy.”

  “All right. Here come the kids now. Go get Enoch and bring him here.”

  Dog spotted Miss Sally skipping across the yard and smiled, hoping she was coming to fetch them for some iced tea.

  “You boys go on ahead,” Mr. Gaines said. “Get in the truck.”

  “Hey, Enoch,” she called from a distance. “Daddy wants to talk to you.”

  Mr. Gaines’s grin turned sour. “Go on then. See what he wants.”

  Dog ran to join Sally, who led him to Pa Albod. “Afternoon, sir.”

  “Miss Sally here wants to take a walk around. She wants to know if you’d like to join her.”

  Dog looked over his shoulder at his friends piling into the truck. Mr. Gaines stared at him with an expression that was impossible to read. “How will I get home?”

  “More walking, I guess.”

  A long walk at that. Dog was already fair tuckered out. His stomach growled as he smelled chicken frying in the house.

  “I’ll make us a glass of cold lemonade before you go home,” Sally said.

  Dog didn’t know what to make of it. What a strange day. The whole morning and afternoon, Mr. Gaines acted sweet as pie. Usually, when he acted like that, he’d had some corn liquor and was looking to smack some kid.

  Then there was Brain, who’d also been acting odd ever since the sheriff ran them out the woods. He’d said Wallee might be an informer, willing to sell out his comrades for candy and favors. The way the sheriff went light on him. The man even knew Wallee’s Christian name.

  Brain himself had been getting weird even before that, holding secret meetings in the woods with Tiny and other kids.

  Now this, Miss Sally inviting him for a walk. Strange days.

  “A walk would be just fine,” he said.

  “Y’all be back in an hour,” Pa Albod told him.

  “That’s all I got, sir, if I want to get home for my supper.”

  “You behave proper around her, you hear. You protect her.”

  “I sure will,” Do
g said.

  “She gets even a scratch on her, well. I don’t have to say it.”

  “I’ll take good care of her, sir.”

  “Well, go on then. I’ll tell Dave what’s what.”

  “Come on, Enoch,” Sally said. “Let’s make some tracks.”

  He waved to his friends and followed her toward the woods on the other side of the cotton fields.

  “Do you ever walk on all fours?” Sally said.

  “It ain’t allowed.”

  “But do you ever is what I’m asking.”

  Dog remembered how he used to lope around on all fours when he was a little kid. The teachers cured him of it. “I can do it.”

  “Do it now, okay. Just do it.”

  He crouched and lunged. Hands and feet pressed into the soft earth. His overalls bunched and snagged at him, but walking like this felt good. It felt right. An awful need to run itched his muscles.

  “I think God meant for me to walk this way,” he said.

  Sally waved back at her daddy. “It’s just for show. I told Daddy a bad thing. I told him I wanted you like for a pet.”

  “Like a pet dog.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry. It was just so Daddy would let us be. He never would have allowed us to be alone and talk otherwise.”

  “It’s okay,” Dog said, trotting on his hands and feet. “I’m glad you invited me along. I never had a normal friend.”

  “What about Mr. Gaines? Is he a friend?”

  “He’s a boss. He’s okay most of the time, I guess. Sometimes, he acts mean.”

  “He is mean,” Sally said. “He ain’t my friend.”

  They reached the woods. Dog jumped over a rotting log and smelled the air. A scent wafted through the trees. Game nearby. His stomach growled again. Thrushes sang in the branches. He wondered what they tasted like.

  “Sure is nice to be in the shade,” he said.

  “George made a big impression on Jake the other night,” Sally said.

  “Brain is real smart.”

  “Jake ended up handing out flyers at the A & P talking about equal rights. He got himself in a mess of trouble with the sheriff.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Dog said. “He don’t need to do nothing on our account.”