Colin Winnette - Haints Stay

The man in the top hat lifted Brooke to standing and pulled his wrists together before him. He lashed them with a worn bit of coil while the others set upon Sugar.

“I’d like to request a cell near my brother’s,” said Brooke.

“I’m sure you would,” said the leader, tucking his guns behind his belt and releasing the tension in his shoulders.

“For comfort in a new place, and for the discussion of our defense,” said Brooke.

Sugar was blank, led to the door by a ring of four men. The face of each blended with the next. Sugar buckled slightly as he disappeared through the door.

“Plus, he’s sick and should be minded,” said Brooke.

“The thing is,” said the leader, stepping to Brooke finally with a grin like a lightning bolt. “There’s no cell. No defense. And no one at all to pay either of you any mind.”

He startled then, as if to slug Brooke, but paused as the bound man flinched. When Brooke recovered, the leader plunged a thumb into the fresh wound at Brooke’s thigh, sending Brooke to the floor again. Then the leader turned to take his leave.

The remaining four men lifted Brooke and led him through the door where two stagecoaches, each drawn by a set of four horses, were waiting. The lanterns on the stagecoaches were lit. The sun was finally preparing to set. The horses were newly shod and freshly brushed, as if prepared for a journey of some length.

Brooke was brought to an empty stagecoach, and his mind settled to thinking of Sugar in the other, and whether or not his brother would meet the opportunity to take the gun from one of his men the moment it presented itself.

The men set him on a low bench at the back of the wagon. They sat around him, two across from him and one at either side.

If he had not recently been stabbed, he wouldn’t have startled. If Sugar had not acted out upon Bird, they would not have come to this town. The men and the innkeeper, he realized, had been working separately toward the same end. Their plan was known, or at least its most relevant parts. A pistol butt broke into the flesh above his ear and sent him into the lap of the man at his left. From that position, he could make out only the sky and a pair of large red rocks on the horizon. He felt blood at his neck. The sun was behind them, disappearing into the earth. As the stagecoach began to move, he could then see the town, shrinking behind them. Its walls and facades, as they were broken apart, pulled outward by faintly visible ropes, and folded at the middle, back toward the earth. The town was splitting apart like a radish root in a dish of water. In the shadows at its edge, he imagined he saw the phantoms of men, working.

The rock did not move. Time passed and more time passed and still the rock did not move. Then, finally, the rock moved.

When Brooke awoke, his head was still in the lap of the man beside him. That man was watching something out the window with a plain look on his face. He startled when Brooke shifted, then forced his lips back to flat and nodded at the prisoner. Brooke nodded back.

“You are not comfortable with prisoners,” said Brooke.

The man did not speak.

No one spoke.

The driver glanced behind him to check the faces of the other men. Through the window, all that could be seen was the dark purple of the dirt and yellow plants straining from between the rocks. The shadows on the horizon, he imagined, were the great red rocks that decorated the immense desert between this town and the next. The stars were out.

Brooke checked both windows, but saw no sign of the second wagon. He listened, but heard nothing. It was at least half a day if they were headed to the nearest town. Anywhere else would be much longer.

“Is there food?” said Brooke. “Are we to eat?”

The men did not respond. They rode in silence and time bore on.

“I find silence in the desert as pleasurable as the next man,” said Brooke, “but this is intolerable. I’d like at least to know why I’m here and what I’m answering to and where I’m going.”

“You’re answering for those you’ve killed, Brooke,” said one of the men sitting across from him. This man was the top-hatted man from before. His look was less pleasant now, as he had begun to sweat, and his eyes were sunken from either weariness brought on by travel or a road-sickness he was making no bluster about.

“Which of those?” said Brooke.

“It hardly matters to us,” said the man. “Murder is murder.” He coughed into a kerchief. “By our punishment, you answer for one and you’ve answered for them all.”

“You plan to put us down then?”

“You’ll be put down in due time.”

“And my brother?”

The man to the left of the top-hatted man began to sneer at Brooke and did not break eyes with him.

“I don’t much like the way your man is looking at me,” said Brooke.

“And we don’t much like you, Brooke. We’ll take a particular pleasure in delivering you, and we’ll take a particular pleasure in seeing you put down. Your brother as you call it, is carrying a child. As decency demands, we’ll bring it to term, deliver the child, then deal with the creature.”

Brooke did not speak.

Bird woke, and was covered in fur. The room was lit brightly and warmly and there was music playing, a soft piano and a lagging violin. He couldn’t place the sounds then, but would come to know them dearly.

“You’re awake, sweet boy,” said a voice. A bearded man in glasses and a vest and a bowler appeared over Bird. “You’ll notice we took your arm.”

Bird’s arm had been lopped off, just above where would have been an elbow. He was bandaged and the bandage was leaking only slightly from over-saturation.

“It wasn’t our preference to do so, but it was more infection than appendage when we found you.”

“What infection?” said Bird. “I was gut-stabbed.”

He realized then that he could bend, as he was sitting up and addressing the man.

“I’m John,” said the man, sitting at the edge of the bed into which Bird had been bundled. “You’re lucky we found you when we did.”

“What happened to my arm?”

“Buried,” said John, “in the yard.”

“But why?” said Bird.

“I told you. The infection — ”

“What infection?”

“Your arm was incredibly infected, boy. It tends to happen when the skin’s removed.”

“The skin?”

“It’s too horrible to relive, perhaps,” said John. “I was a war man. I spent time fighting along men who died both proudly and cravenly, men who cried and men who prayed. I know about torment. About men at their end. But what you went through is singular. No man should know it, let alone a mere child.”

“It was eating me,” said Bird. “Wasn’t it?”

“Some of you,” said John, removing his bowler. “It seemed primarily interested in the skin.”

“I’d like to kill it,” said Bird.

“I’m sure you would,” said John. “But I’m sorry to say it’s been killed and boxed and sold. You’ll eat with us, stay with us as long as you like, and grow fat on the food its corpse paid for. That will have to be your justice.”

“I don’t want anything other than for it to be dead,” said Bird.

“Long dead,” said John.

“What was it?”

“Just a creature,” said John. “Just a man gone to beast. It hardly matters at this point.”

“What sounds are those?” said Bird.

“My wife and daughter,” said John. “We thought we might try to play you awake. Are you hungry?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, try to eat then and see what happens. Can you rise?”

Bird shifted his body to dangle his legs from the edge of the bed. He leaned forward, set his feet to the ground and pushed from his wrists to set his weight upon his legs. There was still a pain in his gut, but nothing like before.