Colin Winnette - Haints Stay

“Okay,” said Brooke, “it’s a question that warrants asking. And yet I don’t think the answer makes much of a difference. Either way we’ll be in the woods tonight. We’ll listen for the approach of a man, and if we don’t hear it, we’ll wait a day or two and then go home. We’ll find a bed and a private shower. We’ll stay out of anyone’s hair until they need us or come looking.”

“And what if they no longer need us?”

“We’ve never been without work.”

“Times are lean. You saw the people back there. Not a lot of children. Not a lot of fat.”

“You’ve got a quality perceptive mind, Sugar. I could listen to you for days on end.”

“What purpose do killers serve in a town that’s already dying?”

“And poetic too.”

“People aren’t living like they used to, Brooke.” Sugar sat up to face his brother.

“They never have,” said Brooke. Then, “The door man.”

“The door man,” said Sugar.

“He was fat.”

“He was muscular, maybe, but…”

“No, fat. He was fat, Sugar.”

“Okay. And he was in the tiny man’s employ. So he’s keeping the town slim and fattening up his men. An army of giants to protect a child.”

“I miss Henry.”

“We’ll find a new Henry.”

“Henry was special.”

“Henry was a horse.”

“He was a special horse, Sugar.”

“You’re the only one who lost a horse?”

“I miss Buck too.”

“Well, I miss Buck and Henry too.”

They were silent then. Sugar tilted his body as if to suggest he was listening for the broke-nosed thug. Brooke opened his eyes and stared into the brilliant dark. He pressed his fingers into the dirt on either side of him and felt the stones and teeth buried there.

“How old are we, Brooke?”

“Why would I know that?”

“You seem to know so much about our life and how we should live it. I thought you could answer one honest question.”

“We’ll get two new horses. They will be stronger and livelier than the old ones.”

“Henry and Buck.”

“Than Henry and Buck, yes, and they’ll serve us well and we’ll love them as we loved Henry and Buck, and then they’ll die and we’ll get more horses. And on and on, Sugar. Now sleep.”

Brooke’s hand was occupied by a foreign object. He felt it before opening his eyes to greet the day, which had rose up around them like a warm fog. Here they were, back in the woods again and holding one another as they had always done on cold nights. But Sugar felt different to him that morning. Smaller, thinner. Cleaner. Brooke felt a bone protruding, sharper than those he knew to be Sugar’s. He spoke a few casual sounds and received no answer and opened his eyes to reveal a young boy, hardly a hair on his body, sleeping between Brooke and his brother as heavily as a dead horse.

“Sugar.”

His brother did not stir.

“Sugar, there’s a boy here.”

Sugar rolled slightly but did not rise.

“Sugar,” said Brooke, and this time the boy was rocked casually in place before opening his eyes to discover the two men at his flank.

“Who are you?” said the boy.

“I’d like to ask the same question, and add a ‘How did you get here and between us?’” said Brooke. He rose and dusted himself, examined the woods around them for a set of eyes or ears or a broken nose. The woods were silent but for the small birds plunging into the pine needles gathered at the base of each enormous tree. They were utterly alone, the two brothers and their stranger.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. He said it plainly and without fright. He seemed as comfortable as the leaves around them.

“You don’t know which?” said Brooke. He kicked Sugar, finally, to wake him.

“It’s horse shit,” said Sugar, unsteadily, his eyes still shut.

“It’s an escape,” said Brooke. “You’re hiding out?”

Again, the boy said, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” said Sugar, “who are you?” He was up finally, watching the boy, puzzling out how slow he might actually be, or how capable a liar.

“Who are you?” said the boy. He put his hands to his face, rubbed, coughed. He brought his hands down and examined the two men. “You’re going to hurt me?”

“Let’s assume no one is going to hurt anyone,” said Brooke. “I’m Brooke. This is my brother Sugar. We’re killers by trade and we’re hiding in the woods after a rout of sorts.”

“You’re…”

“Killers,” said Sugar, “hiding out.” He was waking up, pacing again and looking between the trees.

The boy seemed weak, a little slow. Incapable of harm, or at least uninterested.

“Who… who did you kill?”

“Which time?” said Sugar.

“Stop it, Sugar.” Brooke poured something black from a leather pouch into a tin cup. He handed it to the boy, “My brother is trying to scare you.”

“Why?” asked the boy.

“Because you’re wrong not to be frightened of two men sleeping in the woods,” said Sugar. “Especially these two men.”

“When you say you don’t know where you came from or who you are,” said Brooke, “what exactly do you mean? Where were you yesterday? Where were you an hour ago?”

“I don’t know.”

“Everyone comes from somewhere,” said Sugar. “Where are your clothes? What have you got in your pockets?”

“I don’t have anything,” said the boy. He was nude and empty-handed. There was nothing in the piles about them that did not belong to Sugar and Brooke, that they had not bedded down with the night before. The boy had nothing to him but his person.

“There’s meat on your bones,” said Sugar. He cracked the bones in his fingers, one by one, then his neck and back. He rose and stood before the boy. “You’ve eaten recently enough. You don’t look ill or wounded.”

The boy nodded slowly. “I don’t feel ill or wounded.”

“Hm,” said Sugar. He leaned forward slightly and set his hand to his waist. He turned and walked into the woods around them and after a few moments his figure disappeared into the mist. They could hear him crushing leaves and cracking twigs with his boots. They could hear faintly the sound of his breathing.

“What’s he doing?” said the boy. “Where’s he gone?”

“Don’t mind it,” said Brooke.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

“I don’t think so,” said Brooke. “If you tell us why you’re here. If you can tell us why we shouldn’t. You can tell the truth, boy. Are you a scout? A young gunslinger trying an impoverished angle? Did you grow up on a perfectly normal farm with perfectly simple parents who were very casual people and did not bother much with towns or neighbors? Were you looking to get out and see the world? Or did your people torture you and send you running into the night?”

“I haven’t done anything,” said the boy. He was crying without whimpering or whining, letting the tears roll from the corners of his eyes in crooked lines down to his mouth. “What’s he doing?”

“Don’t worry about him,” said Brooke.

“Where’s he gone?”

“He’s ill,” said Brooke. “We’re not doctors. We don’t like them. It will stop eventually.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. He’s my brother. It’s always been this way.”

“What’s your name?”

“Brooke. Now yours.”

The boy examined his palms.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “I don’t know anything.”

“Where were you before?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you remember?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you remember about where you were before? What do you picture in your head when you think about elsewhere?”