Colin Winnette - Haints Stay

“Sorry for… saying what I said,” said Bird.

“She wants you to say ma’am,” said Mary.

“I’d like a bit of respect at the dinner table, is all,” said Martha.

“Don’t mess with the boy,” said John.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Bird.

“Thank you, Bud,” said Martha.

“Bird,” said Bird.

“Thank you, young one.”

The top-hatted man was named Jim. The other riders had made it clear enough, in spite of their efforts to hide it. Brooke was keeping quiet now, learning what he could from their scattered conversation, and mulling over the news they’d delivered what felt like half a day before. They were deep in the country, deep in the desert. It was cold. Brooke could see his breath. The stars were out and the moon was bright enough to reflect the edges of the enormous rocks articulating the wide expanse in either direction. They were following a thin stream, headed for the arc where two large rocks met. If he was lucky, they would camp and maybe he would see Sugar. If he was unlucky, they were going to bury him in the hollows.

“Jim,” said Brooke.

The man turned to him, but did not answer.

“How did you know about Sugar?”

“It’s plain as day, rat.”

“I’d like you to be kinder,” said Brooke. “I’ve never condescended to you. I’m only asking for basic human treatment. I’m not asking for pardon.”

“It doesn’t matter what you’re asking for,” said Jim, “or what you’re not asking for. It’s us who’s running things, bloodhound. We’ll handle you how we see fit.”

The carriage lurched to a halt then and the driver leapt from his perch.

“Get your guns,” he whispered.

“What’s happened?” cried one of the men.

“Shut it or I’ll shut it for you,” said the driver.

“Put him in the bench,” said Jim, signaling to the men on either side of Brooke.

They lifted him, opened the seat beneath them, and before he could protest with more than a jerk of his bound wrists, he was bent over the mouth of the opened bench and stuffed into a curled-up position. Then he was sealed off. It was all darkness. He pushed against the wood above him. It bowed outward but did not open or burst.

He heard voices then. He heard hooves and the crack of a rifle. He heard yelling, more gunfire. Every sound was amplified by the rocks rising up around them. It echoed out like the first battle of creation. Like life was forming right there in the opening of that hollow.

Then there were bodies on the wagon. It rocked and Brooke slid an inch one way and then an inch back the other. There was the clinking of metal clasps, sacks dragged and dropped. It was a robbery, or they were abandoning him. Everything was flying off the wagon and the men were crawling around on it like spiders, looking for anything and everything to take with them.

“No passenger,” said a voice.

“As he thought then,” said another.

After only a few moments, the wagon went still and he heard the thuds of boots on sand and then the hoof-falls of horses fading into the distance. He pushed against the wood above him. It bowed again, loosed a little light this time, revealing the unfinished edges of the box around him. A bit of sand slipped in and stung his eyes. He turned his body, pushed with his knees, and was able to get the lid up about an inch or so. He kept at it. With knees and bound hands, then his forehead, he pushed against the lid and bowed it outward until it began to crack. The latch holding it shut would not budge. It was new, though the rest of the bench was splintered and worn. The lock was purchased, maybe, for this particular event. A small honor. The age of the wood was apparent enough. It croaked and creaked as he bowed it. It bent and shuddered and finally broke in a jagged line at the edge of the shining new latch.

He was up then and surveying the damage. The wagon was empty. He could see nothing through the window. He looked around for something sharp, a blade or a bit of broken metal, to remove his bindings. There was nothing. He opened the door of the wagon with his toe, slowly at first. When nothing happened and no sounds came, he pushed it open with his body and he stepped out and onto the foot ladder, lowering himself then down to the sand. The horses had been cut loose, and were gone. The still bodies of his captors decorated the landscape. They were shot, each and every one of them.

Brooke checked them, one by one, for a pulse. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then Jim. Brooke set two fingers to the body’s neck and Jim startled, met the other man’s eyes with his own. He was pained but had strength left.

“We’ll just keep coming,” said Jim.

“I know,” said Brooke.

“If you can get out of the desert, we’ll find you.”

“I know,” said Brooke.

“We’ll hunt you down until — ”

Brooke set his boot to the man’s throat then, shutting him up. He ground down for only a few seconds before Jim stopped struggling against him. When Brooke reached to check the pulse again, he was met with no resistance.

“How old are you then?”

Sugar did not answer.

“You’re an abomination. You know that. A creature.”

Sugar did not speak.

“You know that, right?”

The woods were thick around them and thickening. It was dark out and getting darker. They were approaching midnight. Approaching smells that Sugar knew. A kind of air that was familiar.

“You and your brother, you are no more than beasts.”

The man opposite Sugar had been talking the entire ride. Nothing could shut him up, not even a direct request from one in his party, though each had tried. The man was needling Sugar, trying to get a response, trying to get a rise. He wanted something from him, but Sugar would not give it. He was thinking only of Brooke. And occasionally of Bird. He figured Bird was dead; if not by the knife then by the power of those horses. But he could not be certain. Brooke would be dead. If those men didn’t kill him, Sugar would fight him and one of them would lose. It didn’t matter who lost. Every day now with Brooke was all lies and more trouble. And now this. Now he was sick with something rotten in his gut and the whole world making a point of telling him how different and horrible he was.

“And what you got in you is going to be worse than a creature,” said the needling man. “It’s going to be one of those lumps licking salt off the walls of the barn. You’d be better off drowning it in a bucket than carrying it to term.”

Sugar did not answer. He watched the man. He wore a blank expression.

“It’d make better horse food than person. You’ll probably die squeezing it out of you. It will probably claw at your insides like a mountain lion.”

The wheel of the wagon rode violently over a large stone. The sounds of insects swelled the distance around them.

“Normally, in such a situation, we’d like to have a go at our catch. Out here in the woods alone. It would even be sort of romantic,” said the needler. “But you aren’t worth unbuckling for. I wouldn’t climb inside you with ten extra miles of dick skin.”

Two of the corpses had knives in their boots, and the other two had sheaths where knives should have been. The guns were gone. The only shells in the sand were spent. There was no food. No sacks or cases left on the wagon, except for an empty one. It was rawhide and would do to hold water. Brooke took that, as well as the broken bits of leather strap that had once held their horses. He took the bench’s wood too, and what he could pry from the walls of the wagon. It was steel and oak, the wagon, so he could only pry enough for maybe two fires, if he was careful with them. He worked as quickly as he could, confident the other men would not return but not wanting to test that theory. When he had gathered what he could gather, he went to the stream and set himself on his stomach before it. He drank for several minutes, cupping the water into his mouth, then lowering his cheek to the sand to breathe a few calming breaths. Finally, he gathered water in the sack, tied it off, and made for the gap between the rocks — right where the wagon had been headed and the best chance he had for catching a path toward wherever it was they were taking him and, it was possible, his brother.