Colin Winnette - Haints Stay

When Bird came to, he was not dead. There was a fire at his side, Brooke and Sugar were seated opposite him.

“You,” said Brooke, pointing at Bird, “are no help at all.”

“You tried to kill me,” said Bird. He sat up, coughed, rubbed his throat. He coughed again and loosed a mixture of phlegm, painfully. “You nearly killed me.”

“I would have killed you if I was trying to kill you,” said Sugar.

“You choked me!” said Bird. He rose, began to search the earth around them for a rock of any size.

“And you produced nothing,” said Brooke, “other than sleep. Other than some blood and spit. And now Sugar,” he nodded toward Sugar at his left, “he’s got nothing much left to try.”

“You wanted me dead,” said Bird. “I am not safe.”

“You’re not listening,” said Brooke.

“I don’t need to listen,” said Bird. There were no rocks. Infrequent shocks of dead grass. The dirt was fine where they were, vaguely yellow. The ground was loose and unfamiliar.

“Where are we?” said Bird.

“In between towns,” said Brooke.

Finally, Bird’s eyes came upon a stick, a few paces off. Not much at all, but substantial enough, maybe, to land a few strikes.

“If you can eat,” said Brooke, “you’ll feel better.”

Bird brought the branch down upon Sugar’s defending hand. It fell apart quietly, like ash, and Sugar rose to swat the boy down again.

“Enough,” said Sugar. He produced a knife from his waistband and brought it into the boy’s gut.

“No,” said Brooke, and the woods filled with thunder then, roaring in the distance at first then rising in volume and velocity like a river run over and borne down upon them.

The earth trembled and the boy collapsed, his hands at the abandoned knife in his gut.

“Horses,” said Sugar, and then they appeared.

Dozens of wild horses tore through the camp, tearing their fabrics and trampling their objects flat. Sugar lunged for a tree and began to climb, the muscles of each passing animal thudding against him and bruising his more delicate edges.

Brooke huddled to the ground and was kicked and pressed, broken open about the arms and chest and face. The boy had vanished. The knife too. Sugar climbed the tree up and out of harm’s way and swayed with it as the horses passed.

Then it was over. The dust was not settling but the sounds were gone and the trees were rocking back into place. Sugar heard Brooke’s cough and knew he was alive. He glanced about for the boy, but did not see him.

“Are you badly hurt?” said Sugar.

Brooke did not answer. He rolled to his side and clutched his gut. He coughed blood and phlegm into the brown mist between them.

“The boy is our concern now,” said Sugar, sucking the sharp end of a bone.

“He wasn’t a concern and you made him a concern and you’ve done enough without me,” said Brooke. Their meat was raw. They were avoiding fire, resting in the hollows of a large bush.

“I lost my temper,” said Sugar.

“You lost your sense, but it doesn’t matter,” said Brooke. “What was there to know about the boy? What was said?”

“Nothing,” said Sugar. “This is what I’ve been trying to say.”

“Can’t be nothing,” said Brooke. “What were the words?”

“I was told there was nothing to tell,” said Sugar.

“Are you my brother?”

Sugar cocked his head, examined Brooke, then nodded.

“In order to work with you I need to know everything you’re working with,” said Brooke. “In order to be at your side I need to know what you are thinking and reacting to. Otherwise…”

“I’m telling you the truth,” said Sugar.

“There was nothing to tell?” said Brooke.

“Nothing. And the boy seemed frightened.”

“I imagine it would be a frightening thing to hear. That’s all that was said?”

“I asked if he had people.”

“And?”

“And I was told he does now.”

“Well,” said Brooke, “he did anyway.”

The horses had left them with nothing. They had borne down upon them like a plague. The boy was gut stuck, bleeding out somewhere in the dark. The two brothers would continue on through the woods and stop at the next town. Whatever they could find. They would acquire horses and cooked food. They would find work and get two beds in exchange. They would build from the ground. They would be spotted. If anyone was looking for them, they would be found and approached within a few days’ time, as they figured it.

The boy was being dragged in the dark and everything was wet. His arms hurt, and his shoulders and elbows. He opened his eyes and the stars above him stretched across the sky like lightning. His arms were above his head and his legs were held up off the ground by something dark, only a few feet in front of him. He could hear the croak of a wooden gear and a man’s cough.

“Brooke?” said the boy, and everything stopped. The stars snapped back into place. A hand came down upon his mouth and a stranger’s face materialized. Black dirt articulated the cracks at its eyes.

“It’s awake,” said the face. “Is it hungry and cold?”

The boy was cold but could not detect hunger, though he was uncertain of when he last ate.

“No,” said the boy. He tried to sit up but his gut would not allow it. He was overwhelmed with pain then. He clutched his stomach and found blood there and a sensitivity to touch that made him squirm against the earth and fight the instinct to bend back up and double over.

“It’s wounded,” said the face. “It’s bleeding.”

“Who are you?” said the boy. “Are you the man from before?”

“I have a voice,” said the face. “I have a body and a mind and a face.” It smiled at the boy. The eyes were yellow. The teeth were few. The lips were scabbed and bloody.

“Are you going to help me?”

“It depends,” said the face. “Is it sick?”

“I don’t think so,” said the boy. “I’m hurt.”

“When was it hurt?” said the face, a few steps back now, circling to the boy’s right side.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “Not long ago.”

“How was it hurt?” said the face.

“I don’t know,” said the boy.

“It was stabbed!” said the face.

“That’s right,” said the boy.

“In the gut,” said the face.

“It feels like that,” said the boy.

“So it could be foul and sick to eat,” said the face.

“What could?” said the boy.

“Its gut,” said the face.

“Please don’t eat my gut,” said the boy.

“Won’t help, please . If I cook it long enough, will it still be foul and sick to eat?”

“If you cook me, they’ll come for me. They’ll see your fire.”

“They?” said the face, unflinching, crowding the boy’s right ear with its breath.

“The killers I ride with.”

“It rides nothing with no one,” said the face, “but bleeds in the dirt until I find it and bring it home.”

The boy realized then that he could not lift his legs or lower them. They were fastened to whatever dark object was before him. A cart or a wheelbarrow, he couldn’t make it out in the dark. He tried again to sit up, but the pain pressed him back down like a stone to the chest.

“It has nothing and no one and nowhere to go,” said the face. “It is like a little mouse in the leaves.”

“I’m a bird,” said the boy.

“A little bird, yes, maybe, and I am a snake or a fish, and I am a lucky one.”

The face vanished and the wood croaked once again and the boy was dragging through the leaves as before. A rock passed under him, pulling his shirt up and scratching a painful line from his hip to the center of his back.