No dice.
Leaves rustled. Whatever it was, it was getting closer. Roy turned an ear to the sound. He came up to one knee and leaned against the tree. He shivered with the chill that had set into his bones during the night.
The sound was orderly, something at a trot. Roy scanned back and forth, his eyes still adjusting to the light. Shapes formed from shadow. Tree trunks, a boulder, some ferns… and hustling left to right across the forest there was a cattle dog. It sniffed the ground furiously as it went by, hot on a trail.
“Dip!” A child’s voice.
The dog stopped. Roy looked left, behind it. Between the trees there was a girl. She was dressed in boy’s bib trousers and a white, button-down shirt. A red ribbon was tied in her blonde hair. She moved closer to the dog, taking the silent steps of a hunter. She bit her lower lip in concentration.
Roy felt absurd in hiding. This little girl couldn’t be hunting him, could she?
“C’mon boy,” she said, “find him. He can’t hide forever.”
Roy hunched lower to stay out of sight. He watched as the dog started again. It took two steps before stopping and pointing. The girl stopped, too.
“What is it, boy? Did you get him?”
Roy aimed his revolver at the dog. Moving only his eyes he tracked the dog’s stare to a thick patch of bushes and small trees. The girl approached the dog and patted its head. The dog stayed rigid, eyes locked on target.
“Okay, boy,” the girl said. “Go!”
The dog bolted forward. Leaves and branches crashed as a sheep burst forth from the undergrowth ahead. The dog gave chase and so did the girl. The sheep started out directly away from Roy, but it circled back through the woods, darting left and right as it avoided trees and rocks. The dog kept pace. The girl followed behind, laughing.
The sheep continued to circle until it was aimed straight at Roy. It thrashed through the trees, barely escaping the dog biting at its heels. It leapt over a boulder and skidded to a stop ten feet from Roy, startled by his presence. The dog hopped the boulder and skidded too, slamming into the sheep’s backside. It nipped at the sheep’s heels, causing the sheep to kick and spin around. They circled each other, playing like two boys. If they could laugh, they’d be laughing. If they had fists they’d be punching shoulders. They leapt back and forth, parrying and dodging, swiping and yelping.
The girl caught up to the scene, running hard. “Get him, Dip!” she said. “Get him, Dandy!”
Roy kept the revolver’s sights on the dog, his eyes on the girl. Her smile fell away when she saw him. She stepped back as if to run, but then she composed herself.
“Mister, why are you pointing a gun at my dog?”
The dog and sheep stopped playing. They looked at the girl, both panting. Roy holstered the gun. He drew up his collar and pulled down his hat. “What’re you doing out here?”
“What’re you doing out here?” the girl said. “This is St. Luke’s property, which means I’m the one that gets to ask the questions.” She crossed her arms over her tiny frame.
“Then I best be on my way,” Roy said. He began collecting his things. “It wouldn’t do to have St. Luke upset by a trespasser.”
The girl remained stoic. Roy moved past her, heading the same direction he’d been going the night before.
“Wait,” the girl said.
Roy kept walking.
“You don’t have to leave,” she said. And then louder, “St. Luke’s ain’t a person.”
“Figured that,” Roy said without looking back.
“It’s a place,” the girl said.
“Good for St. Luke’s.”
“An orphanage.”
Roy stopped. He looked back.
The little girl smiled. “I live there,” she said. “They own these here woods, far as I know.”
“What’s the nearest town?” Roy said.
“Bracken. It’s a good day’s walk up the road from here.” She pointed in a westerly direction. “My name is Sandra MacGillicutty Rae.” She thumbed the center of her chest. “You can call me Sandy.”
Roy tipped his hat to the girl. “Nice to meet you, Sandy,” he said. He started in the direction she’d pointed.
“Don’t be impolite,” Sandy said.
Roy stopped again.
“When someone tells you their name, you’re supposed to tell them yours back.”
Roy smirked. “My apologies. The name’s Roy.”
“This here’s Dip,” Sandy said, pointing at the dog, “and that’s Dandy.” She pointed at the sheep. The two animals looked at Roy.
“Dip,” Roy said, first nodding at the dog and then at the sheep. “Dandy.”
“Sister McKinnon gave Dip his name,” Sandy said, “God knows where she came up with it. We won Dandy at the churchyard fair. Father Klein said not to name him because once he grew up we’d eat him, but I named him anyway. I rhymed his name with mine. Do you like rhymes?”
Roy thought of his mother’s face, glowing in candlelight as she recited his favorite poem each night of his youth. The poem was My Star by Robert Browning.
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Til my friends have said,
They would fain see, too…
“I suppose I do,” he said.
“We’re not really going to eat Dandy,” Sandy said. At the sound of its name, the sheep looked at her. She patted its head. “You can’t eat a thing that has a name.”
Roy’s stomach ached with idea of Dandy’s legs on a plate. He would eat a named sheep or a nameless sheep just the same. “Well, I best be on my way.” He started away again.
“Or maybe you could stay?” Sandy said.
Roy looked back to see delight in the girl’s eyes. He continued walking, but over his shoulder he said, “If I do, there’ll be Hell to pay.”
“That’s not a nice word to say.”
“Well, I’ll make sure I pray.”
Roy walked and listened, not looking back. After awhile he wondered if he’d gotten out of earshot. Just before he turned back again, Sandy yelled, “We’ll meet again someday!”
Paul hopped over the burial line and inspected the ground. If Roy was wearing his boots and had crossed this way, there’d be a PC imprint from where Paul had carved his initials into the soles at the heels. He’d picked up the habit from his mother, who carved his initials into the soles of his new shoes before each new school year. When class got rowdy Mr. Cairn would have everyone remove their shoes and line them against the wall. Some of the children had no shoes to begin with, and Paul’s mother refused to let some scallywag claim her son’s good shoes as their own. When she made the carvings, the prints on the ground came out backwards, so when Paul started to do it himself, he carved the letters backwards so that the prints would read forward on the ground. This was infinitely more satisfying.
He found a print—the letters PC faintly depressed into the hard earth. Just as he thought, the horse had been sent away unburdened and Roy had set off on foot. He looked down the length of the burial line. It thinned into the horizon and would surely one day extend for miles in the opposite direction. His shovel was still stuck in the earth next to the empty hole in which Roy Pellerin was supposed to have been interred.
Paul started across the field. It would be impossible to follow Roy’s tracks in the field, and even if he could it would take too long. Roy needed supplies and food, and the closest westward town was Bracken. Paul would have to take his chances and head straight there. If he was lucky he could cut Roy off. At worst he could pick up his trail. In any case, if Roy wasn’t headed to Bracken, Paul would have to come to terms with being a clerk.
He quickened his pace.
Passing hours in the forest, Paul thought of what he’d said to Gloria before he left. Honor is nothing without love. The words had fallen from his mouth before he’d had a chance to think on them, before he could change them into words that would hurt her. Instead he had exposed himself, had shown he still held feeli
ngs, and in return she dismissed him. The boy, too. Take him to my father when you go. Him. Not Jacob, but him. An object. A nuisance. When he was born she’d called him a gift from God.
He stopped at the edge of an algae-covered pond, squatted down to inspect the footprints. His heart climbed a rope when he found the letters PC riddling the ground around the water’s edge. By providence he seemed to have taken Roy’s precise path. He reached down to one of the prints and dragged his finger through the mud, adding a line to the P to make it an R. He closed the C to make it an O and added a Y to spell ROY.
A breeze blew across the forest. Paul sat down on the pond bank as he imagined Roy had done when he was here, maybe only hours before. He thought of Roy in this place, free and on the run. Scared? No. The boy he had known was a fearless spirit with a mind for adventure. If Roy Pellerin the man was anything like Roy Pellerin the boy, a life on the run was to his liking. He was headed west, of course, toward the frontier world he’d always wanted to see.
But wouldn’t he already have seen it? In all the passed years of traveling with the sideshow, hadn’t he gotten his fill of adventure?
God, Paul thought, the stories his old friend could tell. He drew in a breath. The pond’s damp smell reminded him of his bayou home. He allowed his mind to return to the summer he and Roy had spent together, specifically the day of the storm.
School was coming soon, and Roy’s ankles had long since healed. They were sitting on the riverbank at dusk, waiting for the nor’easter Paul’s mother’s arthritic elbow told her was coming. She said if they saw lightning they should start counting until they heard thunder. If they only got to three they should come in.
“Last year we learned math,” young Paul said, explaining to Roy about school. “Adding and subtracting and multiplying. Like three times three equals nine. This year we’re supposed to learn something called fractions.”
“I know about numbers,” Roy said, “but I know reading.” He paused, and then said, “Is your teacher a fool?”
“Mr. Cairn? I don’t think so. He knows about science and history. Why?”
Roy shrugged his shoulders. He tossed a stone and it skittered across the water.
“What is it?” Paul said. He searched his friend’s scaly face.
Roy looked out over the water. He threw another stone. It skipped almost to the far bank before sinking. The ripples spread lazily out. “He thinks I’m a monster.”
Paul skipped a stone. It made it halfway across and sank.
Roy skipped one.
Paul skipped one.
Roy skipped one.
“Because of your skin?” Paul said.
Roy nodded.
“Why is it like that?” Paul said, daring for the first time to ask about his friend’s affliction. The question had danced on his tongue in the months since Roy had been adopted into their home, in the years since he’d seen him in the schoolyard.
“Depends on who you ask,” Roy said.
“I’m asking you.”
Roy picked up a stone. He looked at it, flipped it around in his hand. “My father says I was cursed by a magic gator.” He skipped the stone. “But there’s no magic in gators.”
“And what do you say?”
“I say it’s something called Ichthyosis. Some call it Harlequin. I read about it.”
Paul felt excited by the mysterious words Roy used.
“The book said I probably shouldn’t have lived but two days. It was written by a reverend.”
“Well, what do they know?” Paul said. He punched Roy’s shoulder and smiled.
“They know enough,” Roy said. He looked straight into the water and focused on something beneath the surface. His eyes glazed over as he spoke. “On Thursday, April the fifth, seventeen-fifty, I went to see a most deplorable object of a child, born the night before of one Mary Evans in Charlestown. It was surprising to all who beheld it, and I scarcely know how to describe it. The skin was dry and hard and seemed to be cracked in many places, somewhat resembling the scales of a fish. The mouth was large and round and open. It had no external nose, but two holes where the nose should have been. The eyes appeared to be lumps of coagulated blood, turned out, about the bigness of a plum, ghastly to behold. It had no external ears, but holes where the ears should be. The hands and feet appeared to be swollen, were cramped up and felt quite hard. The back part of the head was much open. It made a strange kind of noise, very low, which I cannot describe. It lived about forty-eight hours and was alive when I saw it.”
The two boys sat for a long while. The silence stretched between them like a tightening piano wire.
“You’re not a monster,” Paul said. He threw a stone straight into the water without skipping it. It clanged hollowly against an underwater log. “George Fickas is a monster.”
“Who’s George Fickas?” Roy said.
Paul shrugged. “Just a big, stupid kid. You won’t have to worry about him at school, though. He already graduated.”
“Does that mean he doesn’t go to school anymore?”
“Yep. He was one of the older kids. Once you get old enough you don’t get to come back.”
“And then what?”
“Then I reckon you get a job.”
Lightning flashed and the boys started counting out loud. They made it to nine before they heard thunder.
“Looks like we’re all right for awhile,” Paul said.
Roy smiled. He stood up and hopped into the river, cannonball style, making a huge splash.
His friend followed after.
Another lightning flash lit up the bayou as Paul emerged from the river. Roy was still swimming in, so Paul counted out loud by himself. The thunder clapped at the count of four. Paul sat down on the riverbank, dripping and waiting for Roy. He scooped up a handful of muck and squeezed it, letting it squish and fall from the slots between his fingers.
Roy climbed from the muck and howled like a dog. Paul dutifully joined him. The sound reverberated in his ears. Together they held the keening note for as long as their lungs held out. Once the howl was over they laughed breathlessly. It was their wild call, a bond that came to be one day as they played. Paul couldn’t remember which one of them had started it.
Roy sat next to Paul and opened his mouth to speak, but he was distracted by a faraway sound. Both boys turned an ear to it. The sound was faint in the rising storm, but there could be no doubt it was a returning howl.
“A wolf?” Roy said.
“I reckon not,” Paul said. “Somebody’s bloodhound.”
“We should go see.” Roy turned to Paul with delight in his eyes.
“I just got to four,” Paul said. “There’s no time.”
“Come on. Let’s at least go see. We’ll be back in plenty of time.”
“Four.” Paul held up four fingers. He understood his friend’s love for adventure, but Winny Constantine was not Roy’s mother. Paul could be scolded and punished for disobedience, and still he’d have a bed and a place at the table. Roy’s risk was higher.
Roy stood. He looked in the direction from which the howl had come. For a moment the woods were quiet, and then the mournful howl began again.
“Four is not yet three,” Roy said. He took a few steps, paused for a moment to listen, and then ran.
The path was well worn to this point at the river. They’d come here every day since Roy’s ankles had healed. Where Roy was headed there was no path. The woods were overgrown and gnarled. Paul imagined the red bumps and scratches that would rise on his skin if he were to foray into such tangles, but Roy was fighting his way through the thick, unaffected.
“Wait up,” Paul said.
The boys battled their way through the woods until they came to a small clearing. The storm had grown in intensity. Wind blew tree limbs around like the frantic arms of worried parents. Leaves and pine needles spun helplessly in the air. Paul wasn’t sure they were headed in the direction of the howl anymore. Roy must have sensed the same. He howled loudl
y against the wind. They stopped and waited for the echoing call, but Roy’s effort went unrewarded.
“Whatever it was,” Paul said, “it’s gone now.”
“It’s not gone,” Roy said. “It’s just this damn wind.”
Lightning flashed. Paul counted out loud. At three the thunder clapped, shaking the ground beneath their feet. Roy raised a bald eyebrow to his friend. Through a smirk he said, “You count too slow.” He took a few more steps and howled again.
This time the sound was reported back. It was close. It made Paul’s skin tingle.
Roy dropped down to his haunches and scanned left and right across the clearing. He moved forward into the open. Paul stayed back at the wood line.
“What’s that?” Roy said. He pointed.
Paul followed Roy’s point to an object on the far side of the clearing. It was pale against the darkening woods and half-moon shaped at the top. It stuck out a couple feet from the ground. A headstone.
Still in a crouch, Roy made his way toward the headstone. The storm had quickly covered the sky, and the woods were turning black.
Though he’d seen it just a moment ago, Paul lost sight of the headstone. Soon Roy was swallowed in darkness, as well. Paul resisted following. He told himself Roy had to come back this way no matter what. He could just wait him out. He stood his ground.
A minute passed.
Paul began to shake from the cold. The clouds came on like God had thrown down a wet blanket. The first drops of rain hit the trees above his head.
Aw, hell.
Paul broke across the clearing in the remembered direction of the headstone. He ran possessed, crossing the clearing in seconds. He nearly tripped over Roy on the other side.
Roy was on his knees before a small grave plot. Paul knelt beside him. The rain was like a shower of stones. Lightning split the sky and the headstone lit up. Paul read the inscription.
SNIFFY
BELOVED BLOODHOUND AND FRIEND
The boys turned to each other, eyes wide.
There came another howl. The sound was stronger than the wind, stronger than the storm.
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