William Krueger - Trickster's Point

“Oh!” came a small cry from inside.

And then Cork was in the barn, too, standing next to Jubal and looking into the beautiful, stupefied face of Winona Crane.

Even after all the years, Cork found himself responding much as he had when he was a kid. Something melted in him, then formed into a solid longing. Winona Crane was the first girl he’d ever really loved, and although what he felt now was different, shaped by his age and experience, it was also very familiar.

But Winona wasn’t even looking at Cork. She stared at Jubal, stared with an open mouth, stared as if she were seeing a ghost, or a dream, something that had to be unreal. Her eyes were almond-colored with a glint of fire from the sun. Her hair was black, but dull-looking, in need of a wash. She wore an old flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows and jeans so faded they were colored with only the memory of blue, and she had on dirty tennis shoes.

What was most noticeable to Cork, however, was a discoloration along her left jawline just below her ear, the pale yellow of an old bruise.

Jubal spoke first. “Hello, Winona.” There was something like reverence in his voice.

“It… how… you…” she stammered.

Jubal took a tentative step toward her, but she retreated and looked away. “You can’t be here,” she said.

“I am here.” Jubal took another step. “And I’m not leaving without you.”

“If they come back…” she began.

Cork said, “We’ll be gone before they come back.”

Winona finally seemed to notice him. “How did you find me?”

“Willie,” Cork said.

“Willie? He’s here?”

“He’s waiting for us in the hills. Winona, we have to go.”

But she didn’t move. Her eyes settled again on Jubal, and a sad smile crossed her lips. “I’ve thought about you every day.”

Jubal walked to her carefully, as if approaching a skittish wild animal, and slowly reached out and took her hand. “Nothing’s felt right since you left me. Nothing’s worked out the way I thought it would. I need you, Winona. And you need me. Remember what Henry Meloux said about us?”

“Two halves of a broken stone,” she answered.

Jubal put his arms around her, huge arms bulked by pressing iron, and held her gently.

“We need to go,” Cork said.

Winona eased from Jubal’s embrace. “I can’t.”

“You’re coming,” Jubal said.

“My life’s… different, Jubal. You don’t know me.”

“My life’s different, too, Winona. No moon, no stars like you promised. No mountaintop. Just emptiness. Just wanting.”

“Look at me.” There were tears in her eyes. “I wouldn’t be any good for you now.”

“Without you, I won’t be good for anything. Please, Winona. Come with me.”

The barn door opened at Winona’s back, and two figures stepped inside, a woman and the kid Cork figured was Beckett. Beckett held the rifle Cork had hoped would not come into play.

“What’s going on?” It was the woman who spoke. “Who are these men, Nona?”

Winona turned. “Friends, Petra. Just old friends.”

The woman was tall and painfully thin, with blond hair full of wild curls. She wore an old print dress, the kind people then called a “granny.” Her feet were bare. She was, Cork guessed, in her late thirties. Beckett, a boy nearly as tall as she, with hair that was the color of wet creek sand and that hung nearly to his shoulders, stood beside her. He held the rifle with the barrel pointed in the direction of Jubal and Winona. He worried Cork, not because he looked menacing but because he looked scared. A scared kid with a loaded rifle was pretty much the circumstance Cork had feared most.

“What are they doing here?” Petra demanded.

“They want me to go with them.”

Petra looked horrified at that thought. “You can’t go.” She sounded as desperate in her desire to have Winona stay as Jubal in his desire to have her leave. “What’ll I do if you go?”

“Go with me,” Winona said.

“She’s not going nowhere,” Beckett said. His voice broke as he stammered. “And neither is Nona. You all just get out of here. Just go.” He waved the barrel toward the door.

“We’re not leaving without Winona,” Jubal said. He spoke with a firmness, a certainty Cork hadn’t heard since they’d reconnected. It was the voice of the old Jubal.

“Me and this rifle say different.”

Cork’s eyes shifted between Jubal’s face and the face of the kid. He saw fearlessness in one and nothing but fear in the other, and between them nothing but disaster. “Corcoran O’Connor,” he said stepping forward. “Chicago Police Department. Son, I want you to put that rifle down. Put it down now.”

“Chicago? What are you doing here?” Beckett asked.

“We came to bring our friend home, that’s all. If you try to stop us, it will be kidnapping. There’ll be cops all over this place. Is that what you want?”

Beckett looked at Winona, looked at her like a kid with no clue. “Do you want to go?”

Winona thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, Beckett. Yes, I do.”

His eyes jumped from Cork to Jubal and back. “I think we need to talk to Uncle Cole about this.”

Jubal said, “I’m going out through that door right now, and I’m taking my friend. You can shoot me, or you can move aside and let me pass.”

Jubal stepped in front of Winona and Cork and began to walk forward. The kid’s eyes grew wide, owl-like, and he leveled the barrel at Jubal’s chest. Cork knew this was not the way to play it, but Jubal had made his move, and anything Cork did would only confuse the kid more and maybe push him over the line.

Beckett retreated a step, then another. And then, more by accident than by design, stood with his back against the frame of the barn door, his body blocking their way. He could no longer simply step aside and let them pass. Unless he folded completely now, they would have to go through him. Blood pounded in Cork’s temples, and his gut seemed to empty and then draw taut as he readied for the chaos of what he was afraid was about to come.

Suddenly Winona stepped from behind the shield of Jubal’s body and put a hand on his arm to hold him back.

“Beck,” she said gently. “These are my friends, and all they want is to take me home. That’s all I want, too. Just to go home. Please.”

She walked ahead, slowly, and to Cork she became a being of enigmatic contradiction. Her body seemed such a frail thing, slender and delicate, yet there was an unquestionable power in her spirit, in her measured step, even in the very gentleness of her voice. She closed the gap between herself and the end of the rifle, and her eyes never left the face of the boy in the doorway.

“Please, Beck,” she said, reaching out as she neared him. “Let me go home.” She put her fingers against the rifle barrel and eased it aside.

The moment the rifle was no longer pointed at them, Jubal sprang. In three long strides, done in the blink of an eye, he was on the kid, yanking the firearm from his hands and shoving him roughly out the door. Petra screamed, and Winona said, “Oh, Jubal, you didn’t have to do that.”

Through the open door, Cork saw the kid scramble to his feet and take off at a run. A moment later, he heard the sound of a small engine kick over and come to life. The ATV, he figured. And he knew the kid was going for his father and his uncles.

Jubal lifted the rifle to his shoulder.

Cork raced forward and tried to yank the firearm from Jubal’s grip. “Let him go, Jubal,” he barked.

Jubal shoved him away as the ATV shot down the lane between the trees and was gone. He turned on Cork, his face gone red with rage, and there was murder in his eyes. When they were kids, such a look would have shriveled Cork’s heart. But he’d patrolled the streets of South Side Chicago long enough to have been glared at by men bigger and meaner and more heartless than Jubal Little could ever be. Still, Jubal was the one with the rifle, and Cork took a step back.