Normal

by Scott J. Holliday

  The boy took the command and wrapped his arm around the girl, seemingly grateful to the talker for giving him permission.

  “That’s right,” the talker said, his voice shifted into a terrible whisper. “Protect her. Protect her from the evils of this world.” He waved one arm across the expanse of night. He then leaned on the small podium and smirked. “But can you protect her from what lurks in my tent?”

  The boy steeled up as if he’d been challenged to a fight. He clenched his available fist.

  “I don’t think you can,” the talker said. He falsely checked his nails through his white glove. He shook his head and turned his gaze elsewhere. “Cowards don’t do well in my hell.”

  The boy nearly tripped as he lunged forward, discarding the girl and digging into his pockets. “We’ll take two,” he said, slapping some coins down on the podium.

  The talker accepted the boy’s fee with a movement Roy almost missed. He smiled broadly and pulled back a fold in the tent, exposing a darkness like Roy had never seen. He imagined drooling demons inside.

  “The show starts in five minutes,” the talker said.

  The two kids disappeared into the black. Roy looked down the midway to see the oncoming boys already digging into their pockets. Roy touched his own pockets, checking for coins that weren’t there. He would have given his shirt to go into the tent.

  The two other boys paid their fees and entered without a word.

  Winny looked up and down the empty midway before drawing Roy forward. They crossed the lane quickly and came to the talker.

  “Are you McLean?” Winny said.

  “I am,” McLean said.

  She pulled Roy’s hat off, exposing his bald head, his scabbed skin. McLean looked down at Roy. He blinked once, and then he smiled.

  On the road to Colfax Roy crouched again. Another cart was passing. A lone driver and horse. This cart held no men, but a slatted box strapped down with thick rope. The well-dressed driver rode furiously against the rain. The cart jostled and banged against the rough road, but the box held tight. Roy waited for silence. He waited until the cart was lost to the horizon before he began again. He took one step before a distant gunshot stopped him cold.

  17

  Paul opened the door to Earl’s Goods. Copper bells jingled above his head. He shrugged off the rain. The shop was clean, the smell medicinal and pure. The floor was worn with gaps between the boards. Paul moved past a rack of rock candy and thought of Jacob, wondered how the boy was faring.

  The man Paul assumed to be Earl stood behind the counter wearing a brown apron. He smiled like a shopkeeper, but his arms were folded over his chest in a go-to-Hell kind of way. “What can I do for you?”

  Paul approached the counter. “Well, I’m hoping you can help me out.”

  “Anything you need,” Earl said.

  “That’s good,” Paul said. He rapped his knuckles on the counter, still buzzing from his encounter with the banker, still savoring the anger, like a swallow of wine that coats the mouth and teeth. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Imperial’s just down the way,” Earl said. He gestured down the boardwalk with his head. “If you’re looking for someone in this town, you’ll find them there. Don’t think she’s open yet, though.”

  “The man I’m looking for isn’t just any kind of someone.”

  “Ain’t no other kind of someone I know,” Earl said. He moved down the counter and laid his attention on straightening some items.

  Paul followed him down the counter. “He isn’t a regular man.” He waited until Earl looked up. “He’s different.”

  Earl shrugged. He straightened a box of cigars, wiped the counter with a rag.

  “Scales,” Paul said.

  Earl kept wiping.

  “Diamond scales on his body. Like a reptile.”

  Earl looked up. “What is it you want, sir?”

  “Have you seen him?” Paul said.

  “You’ve heard your answer,” Earl said.

  “You’ve given no answer.”

  “As you say.”

  The bells above the door jingled. Quick footsteps banged the floorboards. A little girl appeared amongst the shelves and racks. “Hey, Earl!”

  “Hey there, Sandy,” Earl said.

  Paul looked out the shop window to see a horse-drawn carriage in front of the bank. The door on this side was open and still swinging on its hinges. Two nuns sat inside, side-by-side, shaking their heads. Sandy reached up and slapped down three pieces of rock candy on the counter before Earl. “When you gonna get some strawberry?”

  “Soon,” Earl said.

  Paul looked at the rock candy the girl had put down. Two were green, one was yellow. Lime and lemon.

  “How about June?” the girl said. She placed three pennies on the counter next to her goods.

  Earl looked up at the ceiling, thought for a moment, and then pointed at the girl and said, “Maybe in a blue moon.”

  Sandy giggled. “Strawberry,” she said, “would make me swoon.”

  Earl laughed. “It would certainly be a boon!”

  Sandy slid her rock candy off the counter and into the front pocket of her bib trousers. Earl slid her pennies his way. The girl regarded Paul. “Howdy mister.”

  Her eyes struck Paul like cattle prods. In that moment it came to him that he had never known the color of his own daughter’s eyes. She had never opened them, of course, and it was a detail he’d never thought to check. It would have been a morbid thing to reach down and pull back her tiny eyelids. As he imagined doing it now, he found them black. Paul blinked away the vision and regarded the girl before him, Sandy. She is what we might have had. This bright person, this wonderful bundle of energy, might have been his own daughter, given the chance at life. He tipped his hat. “Howdy.”

  The girl squinted her eyes at him. “You okay mister? You look a little pale.”

  The nuns were out of the carriage outside and moving toward the store now. Paul squatted to match the girl’s height. “If I’m pale, it’s because I’ve lost track of someone.”

  The girl’s eyes sparkled. “Well, that’s no fun.”

  “Maybe you’ve met him,” Paul said, “this man on the run?”

  The girl lifted a hand to her cheek, ready to tell a secret. With an exaggerated whisper she said, “Maybe he’s the scaly one?”

  “He is,” Paul said. “No doubt he is… um…” he struggled to find a rhyme.

  “Is he a bad man?” Sandy said.

  “No,” Paul said.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “He’s a good man in a bad situation.”

  Sandy put a hand on Paul’s knee. “That’s not why you’re sad.”

  Paul blinked. He searched the little girl’s face. The bells above the door jingled. He looked up. The nuns were in the doorway. “Here now, Sandra.”

  The girl leaned in close to Paul. “Tell Roy I said howdy.” She ran off.

  Paul stood from his squat as the nuns escorted the girl out of the store. He looked at Earl, whose jaw was clenched. He breathed through his nose. “Might be the last time I see that little scamp.”

  “How’s that?” Paul said.

  “Heard tell they found her a family.”

  “Well, good for her.”

  “What makes one man follow another?” Earl said.

  Paul turned to Earl. “He’s an escaped prisoner.”

  Earl placed two hands flat on the counter before him. “He ain’t no danger to people. People are a danger to him. People like you.”

  “He killed a man. I’d lay dimes to nickels he didn’t tell you that.”

  Earl took a moment to digest the new information, then he said, “I let him in here last night, after closing. Figured a fella with his… problem… could use some help. Didn’t know I was aiding a criminal.”

  “Which way was he headed?” Paul said.

  “I imagine he’d be looking to catch up with his old sideshow.”

  “You kno
w where Redmine is?”

  Earl nodded.

  “Coming from there and ending up here, which way would you go?”

  “I’d find the nearest train,” Earl said, “and that’s in Colfax.”

  Paul pulled off his hat and dropped his coin bag into his hand. He opened the bag and produced a penny, which he put down on the counter. “For one of those rock candies on the way out.”

  Roy watched the scene from a distance. The lone driver’s horse was shot dead, the slat box busted, the cart overturned. One wheel spun slowly in the wind, dripping collected rain. Inside the slat box there had been a black chest. The chest was now on the ground next to the overturned cart. The driver knelt before the four men from the other cart, knees in the mud, his face turned down, his hands pressed together like prayer.

  Through the drumming rain Roy could not make out the words, but two of the Ledger brothers were arguing. Frank was one of them. The artist that had captured his likeness on the wanted poster should be lauded, for the sketch was dot on. He wore a black sack suit and a bowler hat. A silver cross gleamed on his chest, suspended by a silver chain. If not for the scatter-gun casually laid over his left forearm, Roy would swear the man was an aristocrat. His brothers were woodsmen. Their clothing was similar to his, but unkempt, scruffy and wild. Each was adorned with a silver cross.

  Roy chanced closer in the downpour, secure that the sound of rain masked his movements. He stepped through the leaves made soft and found cover once he was close enough to hear.

  “Thou shalt not steal,” one of the brother’s said, pleading with Frank. The pleader was the most theatrical one, waving his arms about, pacing back and forth. The others kept their mouths closed and their guns trained on the kneeling man.

  “It’s a sin,” the pleader continued, “a commandment. Ain’t no way around it.”

  Frank Ledger lifted his right hand and inspected it. It trembled like palsy. He shook his head in distaste, closed the hand into a fist, and returned it to his side. Addressing his theatrical brother, he said, “Thievery is not the soul of this matter, Steven.” He then lifted his scatter-gun to the kneeling man’s chest and asked him, “Is it, sir?”

  The kneeling man’s face turned the colors of fire and ash. “I meant her no harm.”

  “A sad last bastion,” Frank Ledger said.

  “You bastard,” the kneeling man said. “You were the one who set me free. Why now? What is this?”

  “A proper judge requires the preponderance of evidence,” Frank Ledger said. He clicked back both the hammers on his gun. “There wasn’t enough on you.”

  “You’re no judge,” the man said.

  “And I ain’t proper,” Frank Ledger said. He squeezed the triggers. The blasts were muffled by the kneeling man’s chest. He spilled backwards into the mud and flopped over to his side.

  In the echoing aftermath of the scatter gun’s blast, Frank Ledger began whistling a slow, haunting rendition of Clementine. Oh, my darling. Oh, my darling. The notes of his melody were like drops of gloom paying out into the silence.

  Two of the brothers went about the business of picking up the black chest while Frank and Steven headed toward their distant cart. No one noticed that the shot man was still alive. After a moment of writhing around, he pulled a small revolver from his waistcoat, aimed it unsteadily in the direction of the Ledger boys, and fired.

  One of the brother’s yelped. He dropped his end of the black chest and reached down to his thigh. “Aw, hell!”

  They all spun toward the dying man and drew their guns, but no one shot. The man had fired once, fell back, and was now gone, his face as slack as a fish.

  Steven Ledger stepped in to help with the heavy chest while his wounded brother limped about. They loaded the chest on to their cart and hopped aboard. All but the brother who’d taken the leg shot. He said a few words and waved the rest off. The cart pulled away as he limped into the woods and eventually out of sight.

  Roy moved closer to the wreckage, inch by inch through the downpour, revolver at the ready. He came to the dead man’s side. He touched the man’s neck to find a pulse. No dice. The skin wasn’t yet cold, but it felt indifferent and waxy. The blood that had seeped through the man’s waistcoat was spreading out as it mixed with raindrops. Damn fool, Roy thought. He looked at the man’s hand to see his trigger finger still extended, the small revolver hanging from it.

  Something metallic laid in the mud near the cart. Roy picked up the object and examined it. A spoon of polished silver. Its delicate carving was crafted with passion. Its maker was right; people in Chicago would have paid good money for his product. Probably they still will, Roy thought. He pocketed the spoon.

  He moved into the western woods opposite the side into which the leg-shot Ledger had gone. He picked forward at a slow pace, reminding himself to move like a turtle. It helped to think of time’s slow passing at Redmine. The interminable minutes, hours, and days, only cut through by the rising and falling bucket. He thought of the varied faces that looked down at him as the bucket moved. The guards. They were men of no consequence, no future, and meaningless pasts. He felt no hatred for them, only pity. He wondered which of them would be sent after him, if any at all.

  And then he knew, somewhere deep and unexplained, that it would be Paul.

  18

  Paul smiled when the last drops of rain fell pitifully on his hat. The pines zipped by as he walked the road to Colfax at a brisk pace. The air was sweet and cool. Roy couldn’t be far ahead, a day at the most. At the least, he could be around the upcoming bend.

  Instead there was an overturned cart.

  Paul slowed his pace and gripped the Dragoon on his side. His heart-rate increased its volume. This hadn’t been a square dance. A man was face down next to the cart, shot up something bad. Dead. Paul recognized the salesman’s clothes, and when he turned him over, his face. It was a strange thing to see a living man not but a few hours before, only now to see his eyes without light.

  Whatever the salesman had been aiming to sell was missing from the busted slat box, and there was nothing to identify him. A shotgun blast at close range had opened up his chest; his waistcoat was singed with fire.

  Roy?

  It made sense. Roy was a desperate man, and desperate men don’t resemble themselves. Hell, he was an escaped prisoner and convicted murderer, which was enough, but he was an outcast, too. Why not steal from a society that was repulsed by you? Why not kill those that meant to harm and control you? Why not take on the disposition of the monster they assumed you to be?

  Paul tried to shake the notion that Roy could be so cold-blooded. It had unnerved him to know Roy killed one man, but now two?

  It doesn’t matter. Just find him.

  The train out of Colfax went straight through to Chicago. Chicago was a big city with lots of places to hide, even if you were an outcast. If Roy could catch that train, he may be lost for good. Paul scanned the wreckage, studying the scattered footprints in the mud. Random patterns. This couldn’t have been the work of one man. Most of the footprints disappeared next to some cart tracks heading north.

  His heart tripped out of rhythm when he saw a line of his own initials trailing through the center of the mess. The prints went up the road and then disappeared into the woods on the western side.

  Paul stepped alongside the prints, following them. A scream stopped his movement. It was a high-pitched, terrified sound from the eastern woods, behind him. Paul loosed his Dragoon and crossed to the eastern side in a crouch, moving quickly. The tall grass at the roadside was splattered red. He moved into the trees, following the blood trail.

  He stopped when he saw the little girl, Sandy. She was standing rigid in front of a collapsed man. The man was up against a tree, crumpled forward over himself. His upper right leg showed a bullet hole. Bad spot. His pants were darkened with blood. He must have sat down and bled out. Paul stepped closer to the scene. “Sandy.”

  The girl turned to Paul.

 
The collapsed man sat up. He produced a revolver and pointed it at Sandy’s face. Paul’s guts shrunk like a closing fist. All function stopped. His mind’s eye saw Gloria giving birth. He saw his daughter’s black eyes. He saw his son pointing a pretend pistol. The boy’s little thumb-hammer came down. Pow.

  Sandy’s lower lip trembled. Her eyes dilated.

  “Over here,” Paul said.

  The man turned his aim to Paul. The gun began to shake in his weakening grip. The silver cross hanging from his neck jangled back and forth. Paul shifted his gaze to the man’s face. He was pale as an albino. His eyes kept blinking and refocusing.

  “Who the f-f-f… ?” the man said.

  “Who shot you?” Paul said.

  The man cocked back the revolver’s hammer. The gun shook wildly as he struggled to keep it centered. Paul holstered the Dragoon. He raised his hands and showed empty palms.

  “B-Bastard,” the man said, “lucky sh-sh-shot.”

  “What did he look like?”

  The man blinked slowly. His head fell forward. His arm weakened and the gun fell and fired, ripping a hole in the man’s boot. Blood bubbled out the sole. He didn’t react.

  Paul jumped forward. He propped up the man’s head and slapped his cheek rapidly. “Did he have scales on him?”

  The man seemed to think on the question for a moment, looking off and up. He then said, “Are you Jesus?”

  Paul shook his head, no.

  The man smiled before dying.

  Paul turned to Sandy. She was catatonic. He went to her, knelt down, and hugged her. At first her arms remained at her sides, but slowly she unlocked, wrapped her arms around him, and wept.

  Paul carried her out of the woods to the road. He walked north until the wrecked cart was out of sight and the girl had stopped crying. Paul set her down on her feet and held her by the shoulders. “What on earth are you doing out here?”

  “I don’t want to go with them.”

  “The sisters?”

  “The Johnsons.”

  Paul coupled her story with what the shopkeeper had said about a family adopting her. “What’s wrong with the Johnsons?”