by Tom Abrahams
Andrea curled her legs closer to her body. She seemed to be as far away as she could get from Warner without leaving her bed.
“What do you think?” he asked. “You like Warner?”
No answer.
“Huh,” he said, and stood. “All right. Think on it, then. Give it some real consideration though. None of this ‘I’ll think about it’ then you summarily discard it for no good reason other than irrational bias.”
Javier had adjusted his position on the top bunk. He was sitting with his back to the brick wall now, his legs straight out in front of him, his hands resting in his lap.
“Well now,” said Warner, shifting his attention back to the boy, “this is helpful. I do appreciate you, Javi. I know your momma says I can’t look at you, talk to you, or say your name, so let’s just keep this here exchange our own little secret.”
He winked again at the boy. Javier almost smiled, but he maintained an expressionless calm amidst this coming storm.
Warner took one of the cuffs and held it up. “I’m gonna take this bracelet and put it on your leg. It’s gonna go on your ankle and you’ll wear it for a bit. It’s got a twin I’m gonna put—”
There was a flash of movement at the bottom edge of his peripheral vision, and the bed shifted in front of Warner in the instant before he felt a violent blow to his knee. The joint twisted awkwardly and he dropped to the floor, grunting in pain. The cuffs flew from his hands and clanged against the side of the bed before rattling onto the floor.
Before Warner could process what had happened, Andrea was on top of him, beating him with closed fists. The heels of her hands drummed his ribs and the side of his pelvis. Andrea screamed with her hoarse voice. It sounded like a cat wailing.
Warner tried kicking her off him, but didn’t have the leverage. She’d knocked him onto his side, and one of his arms was trapped underneath him. The pain radiating from his knee was almost paralyzing. The beating only stopped when Blessing yanked the woman from atop him and held her standing in the center of the cell, writhing and spitting venom.
Warner caught his breath and gritted his teeth against the throb in his right knee. He painfully gathered himself and got back to his feet. Using the bed for balance, he leaned heavily on his left leg. His ball cap was on the floor. He gingerly bent down to grab it and set it back on his head. Standing again, Warner adjusted the hat and cleared his throat. Breathing in and out, his side ached from the short pummeling he’d taken from the surprisingly strong woman.
The dehydrated and malnourished woman was pregnant, likely on the verge of giving birth, yet she’d found a way to exact force on the man she blamed for her predicament. Though held mostly still within Blessing’s grip, she looked to Warner like she might pounce again. Eyes wild, dry white clumps of spit collected at the edges of her lips; her chest heaved. The shirt stuck to her body, a thick sheen of sweat gluing it there.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Warner said to Andrea with his jaw clenched. “It wasn’t smart neither. All you managed to do with your little spider monkey outburst was make me angry. That don’t help nobody.”
His voice was as even as it had been when he’d talked about baby names or putting the cuffs on Javier’s ankle. It was the same tone as the one he’d employed when he’d first offered Andrea a hand near the wall a month earlier.
Warner found that the angrier he got, the more violent the content of the conversation, the more frightening he could be by keeping his cool. The softer he spoke, the more even-keeled he outwardly appeared, the more effectively he could make his audience wet themselves with fear. Affability, Warner was certain, was the most horrific thing on the planet if applied correctly to the right circumstances.
Andrea’s reaction only proved to reinforce his hypothesis. The more he spoke, the calmer he kept himself, the smaller she became. Her defiance shrank into worry as she stood there. Her growling, feral demeanor was domesticated now. In fact, Warner thought she’d gone from alpha wolf to beaten pup in the span of a minute.
Sensing this, he stepped toward her, while at the same time reaching up to put a hand on Javi’s knee. Warner didn’t look at the boy as he did this. His gaze stayed square on Andrea.
“What you fail to understand, buttercup, is that you got no cards to play,” he said. “You gambled, you lost. Your chips are gone and I hold the aces.”
Andrea swallowed hard, her chest still rising and falling quickly. Her jaw clenched and flexed at the mandible. The woman winced when Blessing shifted his hold at her elbow.
Warner rubbed Javi’s knee enough for Andrea to notice. He let go and patted the side of the bed. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re—”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking,” Andrea spat. “You—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Warner said with a smile, wagging his finger. “Don’t be rude now. Don’t add insult to injury.”
Warner shifted his weight again. The pain was dull but present, the throb enough to make standing on the leg uncomfortable. She hadn’t broken or torn anything, he was pretty sure. Sprained probably, or twisted.
“And I do know what you’re thinking, Andrea,” he said. “You’re thinking this here is my fault. Me and Blessing killed your guide, kidnapped you, held you hostage. This is our fault, you think. That’s not the truth of the matter at all though.”
Warner motioned for Blessing to let go of Andrea, which he did. The woman stood there, obviously unsure of what to do, so she did nothing other than cup her hands under her belly, cradling the life growing inside her.
“The truth of the matter is that you broke the law,” said Warner, motioning to her baby bump. “You got knocked up.”
Shrugging, he sat down on the bottom bunk. He patted the thin mattress next to him and winked at her, motioning to the mattress with his head. She took the hint and sat next to him. Warner leaned into her and spoke from the corner of his mouth, almost whispering.
“Now between you and me, I don’t think it’s a big deal,” he confided. “One thing leads to another, you’re knocking boots, then you got one in the oven. It’s a natural thing. As natural as they come. But I don’t make the rules, Andrea. I’m not the one who said having more than one child was illegal, am I? Tell me, did I make the law? Do I look like someone who makes laws?”
Blessing, who was standing at the open cell door again, chuckled and mumbled something under his breath.
Warner pointed at his marksman. “Even Blessing here knows I don’t make the laws. But I’ll tell you what I do make. I make things right. I put things back in order. If people are gonna break the law, I see fit that they reap what they sow.”
Andrea’s chin quivered as the corners of her mouth turned down into a frown that betrayed her worry. Tears pooled in her eyes, streaking down her gaunt cheeks.
“Look at me,” said Warner, smiling. “I’m all full of metaphors today. Card games, buns in ovens, reaping and sowing. I must be inspired by you, Andrea. You must bring out the poet in me.”
Andrea used the back of a hand to wipe the tears from her face. Reaching up, she touched her son’s leg and held onto it, thumbing his calf affectionately. Javi leaned forward, peering at them upside down. The child clearly didn’t understand the gravity of the situation.
“Roses are red,” said Warner. “Violets are blue.”
Andrea was crying now. Unable to contain her emotion, she verged on sobbing. Warner spoke louder so she could hear him over her whimpering.
“We’ve got a trip to take, and you’re going to wear these cuffs without any further problems.” Warner snapped his fingers and smirked. “Tarnation. That didn’t rhyme. I guess it’ll have to do.”
Warner stood and limped a couple of steps to pick up the manacles he’d lost when Andrea had attacked him. Bending over, he picked them up and handed them to her. “Put these on your boy,” he ordered, the kindness and humor gone from his voice. His tone was flat, commanding, absent compassion. “Do it now, or things get ugly. Comprendre? Entiende?�
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Andrea nodded and took a deep breath. Taking the shackles from Warner, she stood and gently closed the first around her son’s left ankle.
“Esta bien,” she said to Javier. “It’s okay, mijo.”
The boy seemed unfazed by that cuff or the one she closed around his other leg. He wrapped his fingers around the chain that connected them and tugged on it. He flapped it up and down, smiling at the clanging noise it made.
“Now you’re going to put a pair on yourself,” said Warner. “If you don’t do it, we’ll have to do it for you. And that’s not going to be pleasant.”
Andrea reached for the cuffs hanging over Blessing’s shoulder. He handed them to her and, one at a time, she did as Warner instructed.
“All right,” Warner said cheerfully, “out of the cell. We’ve got places to go and people to see.”
Andrea raised her arms and helped Javier from the top bunk. She led her son from the cell, brushing past Blessing and into the hallway. She’d walked to the cell next to hers when Warner ordered her to stop.
Blessing plucked two more sets of iron cuffs from the wall at the end of the hall. Then he marched purposefully to Andrea.
“You’re going to put these on your neighbor here,” said Warner. “And the one next to her. And the one next to her. We got six of you in all. You’re gonna be our proxy with these cuffs. Understand?”
Andrea glanced at the wall behind the men and back at them. Nodding her understanding, she took two sets of cuffs from Blessing, and the marksman moved past her to unlock the cell door.
The woman in the cell was standing at its center, holding her daughter’s hand. The child was eight or nine years old, judging by her size. Both of them were towheads. Their pale skin and their blond, almost white hair made them appear ghostly. The woman was all baby, her body rail thin aside from the protrusion at her midsection.
Wearing the same frock since Warner and Blessing had found her trying to cross the wall, the woman was barefoot. The child wore molded plastic shoes that looked too big for her.
When Andrea entered the cell, the woman kept her attention on Warner. Her flat expression dripped with loathing. Warner was used to that. A pregnant woman hadn’t looked at him adoringly in he couldn’t remember how long.
Blessing stood next to him at the cell entrance, shoulder to shoulder. Stoic as always, the marksman raked his fingers along his neck. Warner noticed the stubble was flecked with more gray than he remembered. They were getting older, the two of them. Warner leaned on his good leg, trying hard not to put too much weight on his still-throbbing knee.
Javier squatted behind his mother as she leaned into the apparition of a woman. He played with the chain between the cuffs, sticking his finger in and out of the links, counting them silently.
Andrea cupped a hand at the woman’s ear and whispered. Warner thought about reprimanding her, insisting that she speak aloud. He stopped himself, figuring that as long as they ultimately complied, it didn’t matter how they did it.
Blessing moved his left hand to his hip and rested it on the thigh-holstered pistol. It was subtle, but Blessing made sure the women saw him do it. He strummed his fingers against the leather on the side of the holster.
Warner folded his arms across his chest and lifted his chin. Pulling his shoulders back, he cleared his throat. He too was sending a message.
The alabaster woman’s eyes widened as Andrea spoke to her. She nodded and pursed her lips, visibly tightening her grip on her daughter’s hand. The daughter seemed to float there in the middle of the cell. If it weren’t for the shoes, Warner might have sworn she was hovering.
Andrea finished whispering, then knelt down and put the cuffs, one at a time, on the woman’s ankles. She repeated the deliberate process on the child.
When she stood again, she turned to Warner, a sour look on her face. “And?”
Warner hesitated, mesmerized by the ease with which Andrea had completed the task. He wanted to ask what she’d said, what clandestine message delivered right in front of him had convinced the ghost and her offspring to comply. Instead he smiled and winked at her.
“And we move to the next cell.”
When they were finished, and Andrea had delivered her whispered speech to each of the remaining women and their children before cuffing them, Warner led them down the narrow stairway, onto the first floor, and out the door into the dirt.
The sun was brighter than when he’d entered more than an hour earlier. The air was warmer too, though markedly cooler than the stale heat that permeated the inside of the old jail.
When he had all six women and their children outside, and Blessing had locked the jail door behind them, Warner ordered the dirty dozen to line up against the wall. Blessing had a length of roped looped over his shoulder. He’d picked it up from the first floor while the women worked their way to the wall.
Andrea, clearly the new leader of the chain gang, protested. She stood on the bottom step of the stoop.
“We’re not going to have you execute us like common criminals,” she said, even as some of the women did as they were told. “We’re not standing against that wall for you to kill us.”
Warner pulled a cigarette and matchbox from his shirt pocket. He stuck the rolled paper between his lips and struck a match against the side of the box, touched it to the end of the paper, and let it burn to his fingertips before he snuffed it out.
Walking slowly to Andrea, he took the cigarette between his fingers and sucked in his cheeks, drawing a long slow drag. When he reached her, he exhaled and purposefully blew a stream of smoke at her face.
She fluttered her eyes and waved the smoke from in front of her as she coughed. The smoke hung there despite her efforts, and Warner moved to her at the bottom step. Blessing stood directly behind her.
Warner glared at her and said nothing for several seconds as he watched Andrea fight to maintain her resolve. Then he smiled broadly. It was a toothy grin, the kind reserved for photographs.
“Why would I go to the trouble of having you chain up all these fine women if I was just gonna shoot you? It woulda saved me and Blessing a whole heap of trouble if we’d just shot you in your cells. I mean, I like a hard day’s work as much as the next fella, but I ain’t about doing what’s unnecessary. You know what they say, Blessing?”
Warner looked past Andrea at Blessing. Blessing shook his head.
“For the record,” Warner said, the smile still darkening his face, “Blessing said he didn’t know what they say. Can we stipulate that he said he didn’t know, your honor?”
Andrea’s brow furrowed with confusion for a moment. Warner took it to mean that the woman was truly beginning to wonder if he’d lost his mind, which was exactly what he wanted. He flicked ash at his feet and pointed at her with the cigarette as he spoke.
“I’ll take that as a yes, buttercup,” he said when she didn’t respond. “What they say is that you gotta work smarter, not harder. I like to work smart. Blessing here likes to work smart.”
Taking another pull on the cigarette, he studied her. He both admired her strength and feared it. A woman like her would be able to survive what he had in mind. She also might test him, make the task at hand more troublesome. He’d seen women like her before. He’d loved a woman like her before.
He blew out the smoke through his nostrils this time, turning his head slightly so as not to blow it in her face. Glancing down at Javier, who was staring back unblinkingly, Warner winked and flicked the half-finished cigarette to the ground.
“Take your place at the wall,” he said flatly. “I’ve got instructions for you. I need your attention, all of your attention. Up against the building is the best place for it.”
He nodded at the side of the building and stepped back to give Andrea room. She stood there for a beat before taking the last of the steps and moving to an empty spot along the wall of the building. Her chains rattled as she half-walked, half-shuffled to her spot amongst the five other women and their c
hildren.
Once she was still, and Javier held her hand, Warner crossed the dirt to stand in front of his dozen charges. Blessing stood next to him, his hand on his gun.
“All right, ladies,” he said, “here’s what’s gonna happen. We’ve got a little road trip ahead of us. It starts here in a few minutes. We’re gonna be walking till sundown. Then, when we get up tomorrow morning, we’ll be walking till sundown again.”
A couple of the women started crying. That led their children to cry, which started other children. Warner folded his arms and stood there patiently while the tears ebbed. Blessing grunted his disapproval of the delay.
“When you’re rightly finished, we can set the ground rules,” said Warner. “Are you finished?”
He scanned the women, pausing at each one of them as he surveyed the line from one end to the other. Then, with his hands behind his back like an officer inspecting his troops, Warner paced restlessly, studying the children. The youngest was probably Javier. He was the smallest of them.
“We’re gonna walk together,” said Warner. “Blessing and I are gonna carry rations for you. We’ve got canteens for you. You’ll each get one to share with your young’un. When we pass a watering hole or a creek bed that ain’t run dry, we’ll stop so you can fill ’em up. We’ll take breaks every couple of hours, give you a chance to rest.”
One of the women, auburn haired with full freckled cheeks that almost hid her eyes from the puff of them, tentatively raised her hand. Her belly was barely showing beneath the loose floral-patterned cotton dress she wore. A boy, whose hair was more orange than auburn but who had just as many freckles as the woman, sat on the ground next to her. He was cross-legged with his elbows resting on the insides of his knees, and looked bored more than frightened.
Warner pointed at his mother. “Yes?”
“Can I ask a question?” said the woman in a sweet voice that betrayed her apprehension.
Warner waved his hand at her, signaling for her to speak. “Go on.”
“What if we can’t make it?”