by Katie French
He nodded. “Ya will.” Then he pulled her down.
The stairs creaked and moaned with each step, making Nessa cringe. They stopped at the landing. A closed wooden door separated them from whatever waited on the other side.
Marlin turned the handle and the door slid open. Nessa tensed and held her breath.
Books. Shelves and shelves of books lined the walls of the room in front of them.
Nessa placed a hand to her heart, her mouth dropping open. “Oh, Marlin.” She let her eyes wander, taking in the sight of all those spines lined up in neat rows. The whole world to explore in a sea of delicate pages.
Marlin leaned in, wrapped his arms around her belly and pressed his lips to her neck. “You like it, yeah? Upstairs must’ve been one of them li-berries or whatever they call ’em. All them books fell apart, but down here they mostly okay.”
She nodded, gripping his arms. There was a swelling in her chest she couldn’t name. Was this what love felt like? How could she know? She’d never felt it. Not even her parents had loved her enough to share something like this with her.
Nessa took a step forward and lovingly touched one leather spine with her index finger. The title said Encyclopedia. Her heart fluttered.
She wrapped her arms around Marlin’s neck and kissed him. Then she leaned back and gazed around the room. “How many can we take?”
The last months of her pregnancy flew by. The stacks of books on either side of her bed kept her busy from morning until night. She read until her eyes burned and her head throbbed. She’d gone through the whole Encyclopedia set, twenty novels and countless other books on topics from psychology to dog breeding. It amazed her the things people used to care about. She’d read a whole book dedicated to applying make-up. Make-up. Imagine the thought of trying to entice a man to want you. Nessa had spent her whole life trying to repel them.
It was the science books that fascinated her most. Every element of her world stripped down to bare bones with terms like atom, fusion, and ionization. The things one could do with science. It was the closest man could come to being God.
She’d filled her head with knowledge until she felt it might burst. It amazed her to know that the rolls she ate for lunch were leavened with yeast, that the sore on Beth’s lip was Herpes Simplex, that she was now in her third trimester of pregnancy. When Beth came to deliver her meals, she tried to share her knowledge with the sad-eyed woman, but Beth just stared. Nessa’s head was full of knowledge, but how could she use it? What good did it do to know if you couldn’t apply?
She was eight months along when Marlin blew into their room, a knife cut bleeding through his breast pocket. He staggered in, blood pattering on the floor, his eyes wide with fear. Nessa dropped the yellowing human anatomy text book and sat up.
“What happened?!” She heaved her body out of bed and reached for his wound.
He shoved her hand away, limped to the bureau and grabbed fistfuls of clothing. “Pack,” he snapped. His voice was raw. A welt swelled below his right eye. “We leave now.”
“Why?” She hobbled to the bureau and dragged out the cotton shift Beth had sown her, one of the only things that fit. She slipped it over her giant belly and watched as Marlin stuffed clothes in a bag. Then he clomped to the bed and leaned under it. Nessa’s eyes followed his trail of blood. So much blood. What could’ve–?
The door banged open and two men shoved in.
Nessa screamed. Marlin stood up, a revolver already in his hand.
One of the men leveled a shotgun at Marlin’s chest, a dangerous smile spreading under his mustache. “Nuh uh, my fine friend. Thought you’d get the drop on us? Now, we get the drop on you.”
The gunman smirked, his mustache twitching like a dirty brown caterpillar. He was gangly in an underfed sort of way. A long greasy ponytail trailed behind his ball cap. His hooked nose looked like it had been broken many times over. He flashed a nearly toothless grin. “Weren’t too kind a ya to stick Bill like that.” He nodded to his partner.
Bill glowered and held up a bandaged hand, blood soaking through the dirty binding. He was squat and filthy, in homespun dungarees and a shapeless cotton shirt. A sweat-stained leather Stetson was crammed over his matted black hair. A knife hilt leaned out of the front of his pants. “Son-of-a-bitch.” He spat. “I’ll take my revenge out on your face.”
Marlin flashed his teeth. “I was aiming for yer throat, Bill. Next time, I’ll git it right.”
With the shotgun leveled on Marlin, the gunman craned his head toward Nessa. “This her?” A smile spread on his face as he dragged his eyes over Nessa’s body. “This what all the fuss is about?”
Marlin took a step forward, his eyes blazing. “Don’t go near her, or a finger ain’t all you stand to lose.”
Nessa took a step back, wishing she could scramble under the bed. Goddamn her huge body.
Bill drew the warped kitchen knife from his pants, the rusty blade glinting in the gas light. “Doc says we get to take her.” Bill licked his thin lips and took another step forward. He was close enough now for Nessa to see the sheen of sweat on his upper lip. “If we bring her in clean, we get to have a night with her before they sell her off.” He smiled disgustingly. Nessa shuddered.
Marlin shoved the gun forward, his arm stiffening. “You lay one hand on her and I’ll blow yer insides out yer outsides. Back up, Bill, goddamn it! Back up!”
The men stood stock still. Marlin was the picture of calm, arm aimed, no tremble though his hand was slick with blood. Nessa clutched her face and waited. How could they get out of this? She flicked her eyes between both sides. The other men looked so sloppy compared to Marlin: they let their eyes wander, their minds slip. Nessa felt the fear fall away. All Marlin needed was a distraction. She’d been a distraction her whole life.
Nessa took a step towards Bill. “Too bad you aren’t a real man,” she said, putting a delicate hand on his chest. His shirt was stiff with dirt and smelled like a horse pen. She ignored the revulsion, her hand humming with anticipation. She lifted her eyes, fluttered her lashes and ran her tongue over her lips. Bill sucked in a hard breath, his jaw dropping. Nessa looked down at Bill’s pants and shrugged. “Can’t even get it up when you need it, huh, Billy?”
The gunman chuckled behind them. Bill’s face twisted in anger as he shot a venomous look at his partner. Then he snatched Nessa’s arm and squeezed. “I’ll show you getting it up,” he said, raising the knife.
A gun exploded.
The shot cracked from across the room. Nessa ducked, screaming. Beside the door, the gunman’s head cracked open like a melon. Red and gray mess splattered against the wall and slid down in clumps. His legs unhinged and he fell hard. Bill turned, his knife arching up. Another gun shot. Bill caught the second bullet, his body rippling backwards. His hand released Nessa’s arm as he clutched at the wide red hole where his heart used to be. Blood squirted between his fingers in a red spray. Nessa gripped her face, but she watched, horrified and fascinated at the same time.
Bill dropped to his knees, his eyes rolling and his mouth opening and shutting like a fish. He gurgled a few indistinguishable words before he hit the floor. Then everything was still.
Nessa’s ears buzzed as she stared, trying to put together what just happened. The blood pooling at her feet was warm. She shivered and stepped back.
Marlin was over the bed in seconds, arms around her, pulling her to his chest. He stroked her hair like a mother consoling a child. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She nodded and let him pet her, but she wasn’t afraid. Awed maybe. Surprised by the sudden violence, but not afraid. Those men had been too stupid to fear.
The door pushed open and several men poured in. Gun barrels filled the doorway. Marlin’s arms stiffened around her. Two men he could take, but six or seven? Nessa’s heart sank.
A man stepped through the sea of guns. He was dressed in pressed black slacks, shiny boots and a brocade vest. Wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his slim no
se. His white hair and mustache were expertly oiled.
He strode in the room like he owned it and surveyed the dead men. “Made a goddamn mess, Marlin. This was…” he lifted his pristine boot and inspected the sticky blood now marring its surface, “unnecessary.”
“Doc,” Marlin said, still holding her, “these bastards–”
“These bastards,” he said, looking down at the dead men, “were my cousins, idiots that they were.” He crossed his arms over his little paunch belly and leveled a disappointed stare at Marlin. “You knew I’d bring you in sooner or later. We could’ve done it without all this bloodshed.”
“Bogue told you, that son-of-a-bitch.” Marlin squeezed her tighter. She couldn’t breathe.
“Doesn’t matter who told me. I’d ’ve found out anyway. You know that as well as anyone,” Doc said, tucking his hands into his pockets.
Marlin shook his head, the veins pulsing on his arms. He pulled Nessa to him. “I’m not givin’ her up. I don’t care what you do to me.”
Doc blew out a tired breath. “Marlin, my boy, I like you. That’s why you aren’t being dragged apart by a team of horses right now. But, I don’t have time for this argument. You hand over the girl, or we take her.” Doc tilted his head and waited.
Marlin’s arms sagged around her. “Please,” he whispered, “don’t hurt her.”
Nessa cried out as Marlin’s arms were wrenched back. She reached for him, but his eyes were on the floor, tears sliding down his cheeks and dripping on his boots.
He couldn’t protect her after all.
The basement cell was cold. Nessa shivered and tried to find comfort on the stiff cot, but her giant belly made it impossible. Miserable, she hauled herself up, the cot creaking. In the dim light filtering under the door at the top of the stairs, she could make out her root-cellar prison. Canned goods lined the shelves to the right: peaches, rhubarb and prickly pear. The other wall was hard-packed dirt, bare and lifeless. She staggered up and shuffled over.
The dark indentations she could see from her cot now formed into names scrapped into the dirt with fingernails or bits of rock. She ran a finger over Denise, Marisol, and Ann. All the girls who’d shared her fate. Where were they now? Her finger traced the looped G of Georgia. Would she meet Georgia where she was going?
She shuffled to the cot and dropped onto it. Dust spewed into the air as the canvas snapped taut beneath her. Inside, the baby had begun his nightly hiccupping. The boy. What would become of him?
Voices mumbled upstairs. Doc’s men hadn’t mistreated her. They’d escorted her directly to his house at the end of the street, a grand white home with a wrap-around porch, rocking chairs resting on either side. The inside was just as opulent: a silver tea set on a carved oak table, an upright piano, a cushioned settee. She’d only seen the sitting room and the kitchen, but knew it was the nicest house she’d ever been in.
Her current accommodations, however, were a little less lavish.
A roar of voices sounded above. Someone had lost at cards. A few chairs scraped back and footsteps pounded toward the door, then distant chuckles. The men had been drinking and playing poker for over an hour. It was only a matter of time before someone got caught cheating. Then again, they might take a powder and come downstairs. Even loyal men weren’t above raping a pregnant woman when they’d had enough gin. She clutched the sides of the cot and listened.
Above the voices returned to hushed murmurs. She rolled over and stared at the beam of light at the top of the stairs. Dust motes sifted lazily through. Where was Marlin? Drinking away his sorrows at the brothel? Spending a night with Beth to ease his pain? A twang of jealousy struck her. She’d never felt jealous in her life except maybe that she hadn’t been born a boy. And now here was this emotion as new and raw as a knife wound. Nessa did the three-step process it took to roll her body over and stared at the wall. What good did her jealousy do her? Marlin was gone.
Morning light was spilling through the door when Nessa woke. She pulled herself upright, one hand rubbing sleep out of her eyes. A body tromped down the stairs. Her eyes focused on the shadowed figure until Doc emerged, his boots clicking on the steps. He held a breakfast tray in his hands. She pushed up, stood and crossed her arms over her swollen breasts. How fierce could one look in a cotton night dress and bare feet?
“Well, now, don’t look so stern, little lady,” Doc said, holding out the tray. “I brung you bacon and that’s more than I can say for the posse upstairs, so how ’bouts a smile?”
Nessa lifted a mock smile and kept her arms barricaded across her chest. Doc set the tray on the floor and gestured for her to sit. Today he was wearing a white button-down shirt, black slacks and a different pair of gleaming cowboy boots. His white hair and mustache were pristine. As he lowered himself on a wooden keg, he straightened the creases of his pants.
“So,” he said, blowing up the corners of his mustache, “you thought of a name yet?” He nodded to the swell of her belly.
Nessa’s hand found the spot where his eyes looked. The baby’s feet fluttered beneath her ribs. She shook her head. “Marlin called him the boy.”
Doc stroked his chin, considering. “No, that won’t do. Boy needs a name. Ain’t no kinda man if you ain’t got a proper name.”
Nessa lifted her eyes to her captor. “What does it matter? I won’t get to keep him.”
At this Doc sniffed and dropped his eyes. “I had a mother once.”
Nessa frowned. Did he think a sob story would win her over? Every goddamn person on the planet had a sob story these days.
“I’m not a heartless man, Nessa. My momma, Clarice was her name, she worked hard every day of her life. She kept me and my two brothers fed by having relations with men. This was before the Breeders, you see.” Doc stopped and brushed a fleck of dirt from the knee of his pants. “When I was twelve, a gang of three men came and stole my momma. My brothers and I tracked those sons-of-bitches down. Took weeks. By then, it was too late. We found her corpse cut into four pieces and burned. One can only guess what they did to her before that.” He touched a trembling hand to his hair and smoothed it.
Nessa had been clutching her bed dress with white knuckles. She released the bunched fabric and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”
Doc looked up, his old eyes shining behind his spectacles. “Don’t be sorry. Your life ain’t any prettier. That’s what I want to tell ya.” He leaned forward. “Where I’m taking you, no gang of men can get at ya. It’ll be peaceful. Safe.” He rose, dusting off his pants. “I want that kind of life for you, Nessa. For all my girls. It’s the life I will never give my momma, God rest her soul.”
“What will they do to me?” she asked, her heart suddenly thumping.
Doc sighed and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “They make babies, Nessa. Not much different than what you’re doing now, right?”
Nessa shook her head. She’d be forced to make more babies? She didn’t even want this one.
Doc turned toward the stairs.
She pushed up. “Wait! What about Marlin?”
Doc peered down on her from above. The light around his head highlighted his white hair. “Trust me, darlin’,” he said, “from what I’ve seen, promises of love fail. Safety: that’s a promise that never will.”
They loaded her in the carriage the next day. The rounded enclosure reminded Nessa of a wild west stage coach, Frankensteined with truck tires, aluminum siding, wooden planks, and even a metal speed limit sign folded over the back. Two brown mares were harnessed to the front, stamping and swishing their tails. Two men clung to handles on each side, shotguns strapped to their backs. The carriage driver had two giant revolvers at his hips. They were protecting precious cargo. Nessa almost felt flattered.
The horses blew out puffs of breath as they approached. One turned a big round eye in her direction and blinked at her.
“No trucks?” she asked Doc.
He shook his head as he led her over the uneven street, the sun beating down on
their heads. “Don’t believe in ’em. Break down too easy.”
Doc gave her a gentle tug forward. In the center of the rounded carriage a door stood ajar. Plush benches lined either wall.
“This is us,” Doc said, nodding inside. He helped her up the two steps, his hand on her elbow. The carriage rocked with her weight as she lowered herself onto the bench. Doc took his place beside her, shut the heavy wooden door and slid the bolt. The interior was dim, but she could tell he was smiling kindly at her. “Ready?” he asked.
He was every bit a grandfather. For a moment Nessa expected him to take her hand, pat it gently. Instead he tapped his cane to the roof in two sharp raps.
The carriage lurched forward. Nessa circled her belly with her hands and stared at the ceiling as they rocked back and forth. Ma used to say worry was like pulling at loose threads fearing your life would unravel. The thought wasn’t comforting. Her ma’s life unraveled far too young. And it seemed Nessa was on the same path.
A pain twanged low in her abdomen. Braxton Hicks. The child development book Marlin had scrounged for her had spilled half its pages before it met her hands, but it still had the chapters on labor and delivery. She’d read it twelve times, knowing if it came to it, she’d have to deliver the baby herself. But, it was weeks too early for any sign. She’d have this baby in that Breeders’ hospital with all the medical amenities Doc had described. Still, the tug below her navel tightened into a cramp that made her suck in a sharp breath. It couldn’t be time, could it?
The carriage hit a sharp dip. The jolt rocked Nessa out of her thoughts. As she reached up to grab a handle nailed to the wall, she noticed the horses galloped at top speed. The carriage bounced wildly over the cracked road, the vibrations rattling her teeth. These speeds would wear the horses out long before they reached their destination. Galloping made no sense. Unless…