Colin Winnette - Haints Stay

In the jail, Sugar demanded help but could form no specific requests other than, “Please bring a doctor,” or, “Please let me go.”

The doctor, drink in hand, held court on the porch of the bar.

“While I’ve never dealt in creature before this day, I can confidently say that to let this one out early, to open the cell any time within the next three or four hours, would be the same as letting it loose to wreak havoc on the women and children of our good town. A beast like that won’t be slowed down by something so casual as labor, at least not until it’s well enough along that it’s more or less immobilized by the pain and by the position its body will naturally assume.”

Four men, one woman, and three children were gathered before him, pausing their daily procession in order to hear more details about what was going on in the jail and why so many deputies were assigned to its security and why the doctor himself had been so put out over the last week. Rumors were spread and the doctor was always talking but something was different about this morning. Curiosities were as bright as the sun breaking over the hills. The doctor rose and swung his bottle like a young girl dancing her doll across the floor.

“We live and see the world progress into strange, dark places,” the doctor said. “The stench of what evil is on the horizon is beyond repute. Every morning I wake to the relief that we are still here, that there are familiar faces and friends about me, and then the horror of our situation settles in and I feel both pity and fright. At my life. At our lives. At what’s to become of them. We are witnessing the de-evolution of morals into muck. The degradation of decency.”

“You’re a doctor?” said one of the men. He was sporting a bright white hat and a long button-down shirt tucked into a snug fit of jeans.

“I am THE doctor,” said the doctor. “I am the man who would take the bullet from your leg should the rest of the day go rotten for you.”

“I appreciate that,” said the man, “but right now you’re sounding more like a washed-up preacher or a watered-down drunk. Aren’t there some kind of preparations to be made?”

The doctor laughed excessively and forcefully. He laughed so hard that a fine mist of spittle glazed those children perched on the steps below him. They wiped their eyes and covered their mouths and crept in closer.

“Of course I’m drunk,” said the doctor, “and this ain’t spiritual.”

“What’s the advantage? What’s the gain from how you’re carrying on?”

“There is none of either. I’m hoping not to gain something, but to lose something.”

“Lose what?”

“It’s obvious and not worth taking the time to say and you’re a fool,” said the doctor. “My fear, of course.”

The doctor lost his footing for a moment, trying to settle himself back down onto one of the many rocking chairs that lined the wall-length porch of the bar.

“What’s to be scared of?”

“The heinous child of two murdering sons of bitches,” said the doctor. “The rage of one at learning what he’s been through and what he is and the revenge of the other learning what we’ve done and what we’ve revealed. We’re caught in the middle of two predators, easing their union into the world.”

The children were laughing now because the doctor’s verve had loosed more spit onto his shirt and thighs. He was a drooling mess and also sweating profusely. He was making no effort to stop or clear his body’s leakings.

“They’ve caught the Dreaded Joneses?” said the woman.

The doctor shook his head, his bottle. “No, no,” he said.

“The Upriser Gang? The Broke-Bottlers?” said one of the men.

Again, the doctor shook his head.

“Jack Kraus and Splinter Cogburn?”

“Not them. These are not celebrities. There is no news here, only darkness.”

“Who then?”

“Brooke and Sugar,” said the doctor.

The small crowd was silent. Then they began to murmur.

Finally, one of the men said, “Who?”

“Brooke and Sugar,” said the doctor. “Two men who murder. They aren’t celebrities. They’re murderers .”

“But we’ve never heard of them.”

“Which makes them all the more terrifying,” said the doctor. He darted to grab his bottle as it slipped from his hand, but only thumbed the neck, tipping it as it fell. It broke on the porch but spilled next to nothing, as it was almost entirely empty.

“Seems hardly worth all the fuss,” said the woman.

“All those deputies are watching two unknown criminals? With no reputation?”

“One unknown criminal,” said the doctor, “but they are not unknown.”

“We don’t know them.”

“You might have had the unpleasant experience of getting to know one of them, if we hadn’t rounded them up like we did. They are an endless outpouring of wrong-doing. They are a sickness.”

“You didn’t round them up.”

“I was an essential member of the team,” said the doctor. “Who has a drink with them? A flask or a dram? I will buy it from you for twice its worth.”

The men and women bid their goodbyes without much politeness at all. They had expected a grander reveal. This was all much messier and less exciting than was hoped.

“There’s only one?” said a chubby boy at the steps.

“They’ve been separated,” said the doctor. “Not everything is rustling and gunfire. There is an element of planning that can make one’s life easier.”

“So why all the deputies?” said the same boy.

“Because the devil himself could come tearing out of this murderer,” said the doctor. “And his brother’s wagon never arrived where it was going. So, caution is the game.”

“Are you going to pull a bullet out of him?”

By now, only the children were left, and they were only three: the chubby boy asking the questions, a pockmarked girl named Alice, with whom the doctor was familiar after last year’s pox revival, and the town rascal, Clint. Clint was chewing his fingers and looking restless.

“What they want is for me to deliver whatever he’s got inside of him,” said the doctor.

“We need more information,” said Clint, between bites.

“You’ll make yourself sick doing that,” said the doctor, “and spread disease. Spit your fingers from your mouth.”

“I won’t,” said Clint.

“Regardless,” said the doctor. He rose to fetch more to drink from the bar, but found the door locked and barred.

“You dog,” said the doctor to the unyielding oak.

“Is it the appendix?” said the chubby boy.

“A medical man,” said the doctor, turning back to the children grandly, drunkenly, with a stutter in his step and sweat on his brow.

“You took out my dad’s,” said the boy.

“A worthless organ, just waiting to be occupied by this or that malady,” said the doctor. “We’re sacks of vestigial organs and bones. Most of us is hardly necessary.”

He approached the chubby boy then and pinched his gut.

“Ow.”

Clint lowered his hand to laugh and lean forward as if he were planning to take part in what was sure to become an ongoing harassment of the chubby boy.

“No, my boy. It is not the appendix.”

“What then?” said Alice.

“A baby,” said the doctor.

The three children were silent then.

“Did you hear me?” said the doctor.

The chubby boy nodded. Clint cocked his head then looked either way up and down the road. Alice raised her hand.

“Yes, Alice,” said the doctor.

“What baby?” she said.

“Sugar is carrying a baby,” explained the doctor.

“But…” began the chubby boy.

“It does not seem right, does it?” said the doctor.