Miraculum

by Steph Post

  She gripped the edge of the tent flap and stared back at Daniel. He inhaled and then blew a stream of smoke out, directly toward her. His mouth curled and Ruby’s eyes narrowed in disgust. She shook her head slightly at him and he laughed. She couldn’t hear him over the shouting from the men at the table, a hand had been called and someone was raking in the pot, but she knew he was laughing at her. She saw the snarl of his lips and the flash of his brilliant white teeth. They locked eyes again and she could feel her throat tightening. She involuntarily pressed her hand against her chest as the memory of that blazing arrow reverberated through her mind. Then Daniel’s eyes narrowed and he dipped his head at her, a strange nod of acknowledgment, and Ruby forced herself to turn away. Hayden. She had to find Hayden.

  Ruby finally came upon him at the far edge of the lot where the vehicles were parked, sitting alone with his legs dangling off the end of one of the empty cargo trucks used for transporting the rides. Ruby approached Hayden in the bright moonlight and though he saw her coming toward him through the high grass, he said nothing. She watched Hayden raise first a jar, then a cigarette, to his lips. Ruby had never seen him like this before. She knew Hayden to be a fighter, as stubborn as he was charming. He was an outsider to the carnival just as she was an outsider to the rest of the world, but whereas Ruby had built up walls, Hayden crashed through the walls of others. He had always been so confident, so sure of himself, even to the point of being cocky. She’d watched him with other women, and she knew they loved his swagger, but Ruby was drawn to what was underneath. The hard-edged honesty. The ability to throw himself at life and take whatever it had to offer. To trust that he would land on his feet.

  This man, however, was a different Hayden. One with red-rimmed eyes and an impassive stare. One who was broken. He followed her with his eyes, but didn’t turn to her as she hoisted herself up onto the truck bed and sat down beside him.

  Ruby hadn’t been sure of what she was going to do when she finally came face-to-face with him. Up until four days ago, she hadn’t thought she ever would. Part of her still wanted to scream at him, but the other part had finally won out. She wanted the answer. She just wanted to know. Ruby tried to think of what to say, but only the obvious came to mind.

  “I thought you were looking for me.”

  Hayden passed Ruby the glass jar, still without turning to her. She tasted it. Some sort of moonshine. Apple. It was better than the rum had been. She took another sip and felt the zing, and then the quick wave of heat, flush through her. She set the moonshine between them and stared down at the jar. When he finally spoke, Hayden’s voice was raw and cracked in his throat.

  “I was. Looking for you, I mean.”

  Ruby waited for him to continue, but he slipped back into silence. She looked out across the field at the glow coming from behind the midway. Ruby could hear the sounds of the night getting wilder. Shouts coming from the poker tent. Someone picking out a tune on a guitar. A woman’s high-pitched squeal of laughter. Ruby frowned.

  “It’s not exactly hard to find someone in a place like this. Not a whole lot of ground to cover.”

  Hayden flicked the ash off his cigarette.

  “I got distracted.”

  “Distracted? Or scared?”

  Ruby turned to look at him. In the shadows, his eyes were sunken, his mouth drawn tightly. She realized that she was going to have to take the lead and draw him out, as he had with her so many times before. She wasn’t sure if he was worth it. But her head had become clear with the jolt of moonshine and she was determined. Maybe he wasn’t worth it, but she was. Ruby sat up straight and threw her shoulders back.

  “How about we start with a cigarette? I’ve been out all night.”

  Hayden reached for the package next to him in the dark and wordlessly handed it to Ruby. She pulled one out.

  “Matches?”

  He handed her the box. She struck a match and lit the cigarette.

  “I need to know.”

  Ruby waved out the match and pitched it into the darkness. She blew out a stream of smoke and turned to him, holding her cigarette close and raising her head defiantly. Hayden turned to her and the dullness in his eyes frightened her. She kept going, though.

  “I need to know what happened. I need to know why you didn’t come back. Or send for me. Or something. I need to know why you broke your promise.”

  Hayden tilted his head and shook it.

  “Ruby. I don’t even know how to explain.”

  She took another drag from the cigarette, shielding herself with the action, with the smoke. Her movements were jarring and forced, giving her courage.

  “Find a way. You owe me.”

  He looked up at her with eyes that were pleading, pathetic. The look sent a bolt of anger through her and Ruby held his eyes, unrelenting. Challenging.

  “I’ve never known you to be a coward. Never. So, is that what you’ve become now?”

  The words tumbled from her.

  “If you didn’t come back for me, then what the hell are you doing here anyway?”

  Hayden looked away from her. She stared hard at the side of his face, waiting. He picked up the jar, but only held it, turning it in his hands.

  “I’m afraid you’ll hate me. I’m afraid you won’t forgive me.”

  “Tell me now. Or I’m leaving you here alone in the dark. And I’m never coming back. Then you’ll never know if I could have forgiven you or not.”

  “Ruby.”

  She kept staring at him.

  “And it will mean that none of it mattered.”

  Hayden turned to her sharply.

  “Of course it mattered. It was everything. You were everything.”

  He looked down at the jar in his lap and his voice changed.

  “Are everything.”

  Hayden took a deep drink and handed the jar to Ruby. She set it down away from her and crossed her arms. Hayden finally sighed and looked up at the sky.

  “Two summers ago, when I left, I meant every word I said. I promise you, Ruby, I swear. I meant it all.”

  Ruby didn’t blink. Two summers ago when he had left. After they had finally broken down and given in to what had been in front of them for years, building, interlacing, a dance back and forth, aggressing, receding, and finally, reckoning. After three months of something Ruby had never known before. A passion outside of herself, an ease with her body, with her thoughts. Three months of letting go, of allowing herself to fall into something she believed she could trust. Of catching a glimpse of something else on the horizon. Something resembling hope. After he had held her face in his hands and promised to write as soon as he got back to Texas. Promised to meet her in Florida, at the Star Light’s winter quarters, as soon as he’d put things in order back home. If not that winter, then at least by the start of the season in May. He promised they wouldn’t be separated for long. And Ruby had believed him.

  Hayden was waiting for her to say something, but this was on him. He sighed again.

  “When I got back to Beaumont, there was someone waiting for me. Someone I wasn’t expecting.”

  Ruby’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Her name was Eileen. I met her the spring before I jumped on the circuit the last time. Meet’s not even the right word. I was in a roughneck saloon on Merchant Street. I don’t even know what I was doing there. I certainly don’t know what the hell she was doing there. Trying to be something she wasn’t, I guess. She looked older. The way she was dressed. The way she acted. I didn’t know. I was drunk, I barely remember it. I didn’t even think twice about it later. I mean, I just thought it was what it was. I had forgotten her name. I had forgotten her completely. And then there was you and me.”

  Hayden sat up straighter and threw his shoulders back.

  “Eileen was there, waiting for me when I got back into town. It’d been six, seven months. She was pregnant. She said it was mine.”

  Hayden paused and lit a cigarette. Ruby watched his hands. Her head was b
uzzing as she tried to process what he was saying.

  “Turns out she was seventeen. Christ, seventeen. Her parents were some big shots. Landowners. They were talking charges, jail, but she wouldn’t let them. She wanted to marry me. Told me she loved me. I think maybe she did, though I don’t know how. She thought she was all grown up or something. She didn’t know nothing about me. Nothing.”

  Ruby couldn’t help herself.

  “You tell her about me?”

  Hayden shook his head.

  “How could I? This girl standing in front of me, belly out to here. Goddamnit, she was just a kid. I told her I’d marry her. I did. Marry her.”

  Hayden looked up at Ruby, finally meeting her eyes directly.

  “So that’s why I couldn’t write.”

  Married. Ruby reached for the jar.

  “I see.”

  Hayden looked down at his cigarette.

  “I didn’t know what I could put in a letter. You and me. And then me and her. What would I have said?”

  Ruby took a long swig of moonshine and then carefully set the jar back down between them. She took a hard drag on her cigarette and looked away at the carnival glow.

  “I thought you had just run off. Or were dead.”

  “I thought I was dead. I felt dead. I married her and two weeks later I was back at Spindletop. The baby was born while I was off working the derricks. A girl. Cora. I tried to make a go of it, I guess, but it was no good. Being a husband. Being a father. I couldn’t come back here, of course. But I couldn’t make myself stay in Beaumont with Eileen and the baby. I hadn’t even gotten them a house. They were living with her family. I traveled to different oil towns, working as much as I could so I could send her money for things. And to get away.”

  Ruby’s mouth twisted around her cigarette.

  “I looked for you. At every stop on the whole circuit. I didn’t want to give up. I was so stupid. I felt so stupid, standing there on the empty lot, not wanting to get in the truck, not wanting to leave in case you were going to show up. Everyone giving me looks of pity. Poor Ruby. I was so stupid. ”

  Hayden’s hand found hers. He gripped it hard.

  “Ruby, I’m so sorry.”

  She looked down at his hand warily, as if she’d never seen it before. She started to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go. She looked up at him, her jaw tight, eyes wide and blinking, still refusing to cry. Her voice was a biting whisper.

  “Why are you here?”

  Hayden released her hand. He took his hat off and ran his hands through his hair, messing it up even further. He scrubbed at his forehead with his palm and then put his hat back on.

  “Last fall. I was working Goose Creek and I got a telegram. There had been an accident. Eileen had been in Houston visiting a cousin. She wanted us to move there. I think she was trying to find us a place. A house. But there was a streetcar accident. Something happened, she fell, I don’t know. They said she was still alive when they got her out from underneath it, but she didn’t make it.”

  Hayden took a long drag on his cigarette.

  “Damn it, she was just a kid. I didn’t love her, but she was a good girl. She tried so hard. She wanted things I couldn’t give her, she wanted me to be something to her that I couldn’t be. She didn’t deserve to go out like that. ”

  This time, Ruby reached for him. She laced her fingers with his, but didn’t say anything. He shook his head and flicked away his cigarette with his other hand.

  “After the funeral, her folks told me to stay away. They said I had ruined Eileen’s life, ruined everything for her. But I still went out to their place, to see Cora. She’d just turned two. Hardly recognized me. Eileen’s parents wouldn’t even let me in the house. Said they’d decided to raise Cora. They’d pretty much been doing it all along, anyway. They told me it was for the best. I said I’d write, send money, whatever she needed. They said to get the hell off their porch. They looked at Cora and told her I was the man that had killed her mother. Pointed right at me and made the girl cry. So I got off their porch. I got out of town.”

  Hayden looked down at Ruby’s hand in his. She followed his eyes. The tiny stars and spirals. The tattoos climbing up her wrist. She hadn’t had another person’s skin against hers since he had left.

  “I went back up to Goose Creek and kept working. I thought about writing you. Hell, I’d thought about writing every day. But still, what would I say? How could I explain? You deserved better. Eileen and Cora, they deserved better.”

  Ruby’s voice was very quiet. She was trying to figure out what it all meant now that he was back. After he had put her through so much, but also endured so much himself. There had been nothing but misery for them both.

  “Maybe you deserved better.”

  Hayden let go of her hand.

  “So I kept working. Goose Creek, Burkburnett. I sent money for Cora, even though she probably didn’t need it. And when summer came, I thought about it and thought about it. About you. About coming back here to you. I didn’t know if you’d want to see me. I didn’t even know if you’d still be on the circuit. But I had to try. And so, that’s the answer to your question. That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t let you go. I had to try.”

  Ruby looked at him hard for a long while in the moonlight. He had been someone else’s husband. He had a daughter out in the world. She could see it in his face now. The lines of guilt. The ravages of living with despondency and regret. The weariness of it. They were both older now and wiser to the risks of falling in love. They had hardened their hearts to survive.

  Ruby slid down from the truck bed. She could walk away from him forever. She knew she could. She had her answers. She had gotten what she wanted. Ruby looked out across the field at the carnival. The lights were few, but they were brilliant against the backdrop of darkness. Ruby turned around.

  “You came back.”

  Hayden looked down at her, his mouth still twisted, his eyes still wary. He slowly nodded.

  “I came back.”

  She could walk away. Or she could take a chance again. Ruby took a deep breath before reaching out and pulling Hayden down to her.

  Tom had thought he’d made up his mind on the other side of the midway, when he’d been left alone after the poker game had finally broken up. An extra ace had been discovered, a short brawl had ensued, and the Alligator Lady had been sent for to sew a line of stiches into Ricardo’s head. Alicia had not been happy about being woken up at two in the morning to take care of drunken rousties and the game had fallen apart shortly after. A few of the gamesmen had their own small tents to burrow into, but most of the rousties stumbled back to the sleeping areas they had previously claimed for themselves: dugouts underneath the cargo trucks or canvas pallets behind the cookhouse tent. No one had wanted to stay in the damp, fetid G-top and Franklin had rolled up the canvas sides to help air it out before morning.

  As everyone had fallen away around him, only Tom had remained, alone outside the poker tent, unsteady on his feet as he tried to decide what to do. The smartest thing would have been to finish the bottle of rotgut still clutched in his hand and make his way across the field to the sleeping bag he had stowed beneath the front tires of a truck. That would have been smart. The easiest thing to do would be to head across the midway to the back line of wagons and tumble into January’s bed. She shared one of the wagons with the two other dancing girls, and though Wanda and Darlene didn’t care much for Tom, if he pounded on the door long enough, January would let him in and lead him back to her bunk, despite the glares from the other girls. He would wake up in January’s bed, with the deep pillows and the faux gilt mirror hanging over his head and the smell of perfume spilled across every surface. The smell of women all around him.

  But then he would hear it from January before he had even opened his eyes. Tom had been promising for a month to get them their own tent. He would hear it about that and about losing the two dollars she’d loaned him and about drinking himself sick. At least To
m wasn’t a fighter. Still, he would have a headache from her before he even had a chance to have a headache from the liquor. Tom had finished the bottle and let it fall from his hand while he tried to navigate the haze in his brain and decide what to do. Sleep under the truck. Or with January.

  January. The more he had thought about her, the more his head had burned and his stomach roiled. He hadn’t seen her all night. Maybe she wasn’t asleep in her wagon at all. Maybe she was with that tattooed freak, Ruby, the one who always gave him the shifty eye. The one he knew tried to poison January against him. Tried to convince her that he wasn’t good enough for her. The bitch. The tents began to spin around Tom and he leaned over, hands on his knees, trying to clear his head. Maybe it was worse. Maybe January was with the tall man, the bastard in the fancy black suit that was worth more money than Tom would ever see in a lifetime. The geek. The sick man who bit the heads off of chickens. He couldn’t imagine January getting anywhere near him, and yet he’d heard the rumors, the other men sniggering behind his back. He had seen January’s face when the geek walked through the cookhouse yard and grinned like a cat at her. She hadn’t been disgusted. She’d smiled back. He was sure he had seen her smile back.

  Tom had stood up abruptly and quickly realized that it was the wrong thing to do. He had taken a few steps in the direction of the doniker, but knew he wouldn’t make it. He managed at least a few feet, though, before kneeling over and vomiting into the dirt. January. If there had been men before Tom had joined the show, there could be men after, too. Even if she promised there were not. Men who gave her money or men she might care for and give herself to for free. Men who stood in the pit of the Girl Revue, staring up with their fat mouths hanging open, nearly drooling down the front of their shirts, as January whipped around in fake surprise, breasts bouncing, a Chinese fan the only covering for what rightfully belonged to him. Men gawking and jeering and grabbing themselves and sweating and lusting. Tom had seen it only once and had threatened to kill every man in the audience before Franklin had hauled him outside and given him a choice: stay far away from January when the girly show was on or get the hell off the lot altogether. Tom had needed the money. And January. He had needed her, too. So he stayed on and stayed away when the crowds lined up outside the bally to watch his girl take everything off.