“You see any other spare strays in here, Ardiss?”
Ardiss made as if to retort, then thought better of it. He looked instead at the sleeping boy on the pallet and reached gingerly, like a worried mother, to brush a strand of blonde hair from the peaceful face. He then laid the back of hand against the boy’s forehead.
“Boy’s got a fever,” Ardiss commented.
“Well I’ll be shat,” the doctor slapped his head and stared slack-jawed at Ardiss. “A fever, you say? After God knows how long in a desert? Shit, I thought the boy had the clap.”
Ardiss said nothing but glared at the doctor, then broke into a reluctant grin, and ran his hand through his own hair. “I apologize, Morgan. I meant no disrespect. I certainly ain’t telling you how to do your job.”
Todd grunted noncommittally and handed Ardiss a small brown bottle. “I was just telling the padre here that the boy needs sleep, and he needs water. He should wake up in a few hours. When he does, give him plenty to drink but give him three drops of this in his glass. He’ll sleep for another two or three hours, do it all again when he wakes up until you run out of laudanum. After that, he should be fine.”
Ardiss nodded again and pocked the bottle. He looked back at boy. “Jim Murratt’s boy, huh?”
“That’s what he said, “ Merle nodded, “and he is the spitting image.”
Todd snorted, “O’course he also said he wanted you to make him a knight, isn’t that what you told me, Merle.”
Merle nodded but said nothing.
“I’m sure that was the heat delirium talking,” Ardiss responded, then looked at Doc Todd, “or the clap.”
Todd gave Ardiss a pained look. “Just get him out of here and into a bed. Your guestroom, like I said. I don’t want to trust the boy to the boarding house, and I sure as hell ain’t asking the Gilded Lily.”
Six of spades. So Merle could all but see Ardiss alone in his study, listening to one child (or near enough) sleeping under his roof and watching dozens more playing across the way. He could almost hear Ardiss sigh as he poured himself another tumbler of whiskey. No one said anything, but everyone knew he had taken more to the bottle over the last few weeks. And who could blame him after all he’d had on him the last few weeks?
A man needs something, Ardiss would be thinking as he listened and stared. Something to last, something to show him he’s more than a passing thought in the mind of the Almighty. Can’t nobody understand?
So he sat in his study, day in, day out, sipping slowly from his tumbler and watching the children play reminding himself of his own mortality and of his own lack. He hardly came into the jailhouse anymore. He left Caleb to run the day-to-day operations of the town, and he left Marten in charge of the jail and other lawman duties.
Two of diamonds. Nothing in Ardiss’ life had ever come easily. At every turn, he had had to fight and scramble for what he gained. He had lost his parents early on, barely out of his swaddling. Abducted as young man, he had been forced to live for years with the savages. And the list went on.
Now was no different. Obstacles piled on delays, stacked atop postponements and difficulties. A wife unable to conceive, though maybe it was Ardiss himself unable to sire (unlikely, according to the more waggish of the townspeople who believed they saw more than a passing resemblance in Red Marten’ face and often wondered about Ardiss’ time among the savages). He must also have known, Merle was sure, of Guernica’s growing attraction Lancaster, though, Merle was equally sure, he chose to ignore it rather than face it head-on, for fear of losing both his friend and his wife.
For all the good it did him, Merle thought to himself, hesitating before flipping the next card. The one thing about small towns, Merle considered, that remains a constant throughout creation is the natural inclination on the part of most everyone to tend the business of their neighbors, especially when the neighbors don’t tend the business themselves. People talk.
They talked, and Red Marten listened. Marten tried to get Ardiss to act, to do something to show he had a handle on things.
“They are making fools of you,” he told his “uncle.” He was the son of the daughter of the Indian who had adopted Ardiss during his captivity, and Ardiss had offered him a job as deputy when he came of age, partly to keep him out of trouble and partly from a hope that Marten would be one to bring his people into civilization when the time came, though he still had a long way to go. He insisted on wearing leather britches and going shirtless most of the time, though he did wear a vest on duty so he’d have somewhere to pin his star. Merle suspected, though, much of his outfit sprang more from a desire to shock the white folks and less from a desire to honor his traditions.
“I will not shame my wife and dishonor my friend,” Ardiss declared time and again, “without proof.”
Well, the proof had come, the lovers had fled, and now it was more than Gary Wayne thinking Ardiss should’ve gone after them. It was largely to stop the second-guessing and gossip that Ardiss finally allowed his nephew and Boris to pursue the refugees.
People still talked, though, and increasingly it fell to Caleb or Marten to keep Ardiss aware of the shifting mood of the town. Merle glanced again in the direction of Ardiss’ house. Today would be Caleb’s day to fill Ardiss in. If he tried, he could imagine Caleb walking to Ardiss’ house about now, his irascible temper only simmering today, often of late it had a tendency to boil over or explode. Today was clearly a good day for him relatively speaking.
The new girl at the Lily must be to his liking, Merle thought, flipping the last card in the row.
Twelve of Diamonds. Merle had long since given up trying to lead the ladies and their patrons out of iniquity. If he had offended God enough to deserve God’s silence, who was he to sit in judgment on someone else? Still, he admitted to himself, none of the Lily girls ever missed a sermon.
If only God came to them, he said. If God spoke to me again, I could really make a difference.
He flipped the final row of cards: ten, twelve, and nine of spades, twelve of clubs, seven of spades, and finally the ace of spades and the three of clubs. Lost that hand, Merle thought with an unexpected though familiar feeling of dread.
Chapter Three – Percy
I.
I slept for a long time, and I had dreams. Seems like some old man about fifty or sixty was carrying me to another old man (though not nearly as old as the first old man, maybe thirty) who gave me some kind of potion and then handed me off to a third old man who was about in between them first two old men’s age. Seems like I would sometimes dream this old man, who looked a little like a young Gramps and the old Indian only white, would smile at me and offer me something to drink, sometimes from a spoon, sometimes from a wooden cup. I dreamed this one a lot. Sometimes I dreamed about them people in metal clothes hacking each other up. Sometimes I dreamed about them folks dropping fire on each other. I also seen Coyote walking around behind all them people whispering. One time I dreamed I was nekkid in the schoolhouse.
When I finally waked up, I figured I had died in the desert and Gramps had got me in to heaven. Everything was white and glowing. For the longest time, I just lay there on a cloud watching angel wings drift all around my feet. The air smelled sweet like fresh washed clothes and rain.
It wasn’t long though before I realized I hadn’t died at all. I was laying in the biggest bed I ever seen in a room that was about as big as my whole house back home. Through the thin white drapes and open windows at the foot of the bed, I could see creosote bushes waving a little in the soft breeze. I knowed I wasn’t in heaven, but durned if I knew where I was. I remembered Gramps reading me about knights and dragons when I was sprout, so the next thing I figured was I was in a castle somewhere. I couldn’t think of nowhere else they’d have beds this soft and rooms this big.
Then I heard voices in another room and knew this wasn’t no castle I’d ever heard of.
“That kid still here, I reckon,” This gruff, irritated voice seemed like it was und
erneath me somewhere.
“I haven’t kicked him out yet, if that’s what you’re asking, Caleb,” another gruff voice but this one didn’t sound so flustered. “He’s right upstairs where he’s been for a week. Fact, I believe it’s getting about time for his medicine.”
“How long you aim to keep him, Ardiss?” the voices seemed a bit closer now. “Will you never tire of taking in strays?”
“I aim to keep the boy,” the voice that musta been Mr. Drake said, “as long as Doc Todd says he needs to stay and as long as the boy is willing.”
Caleb didn’t say nothing to that, but I figured his look wasn’t none too agreeable since Mr. Drake added, “Dammit, Caleb, are you seriously suggesting I kick the boy to the streets. Jim’s boy?”
“No, Ardiss,” Caleb sounded even more irritated, “I ain’t saying that at all. I just don’t want to see you took advantage of is all.”
By this time, I could hear they was somewhere near my room, so I crept out of bed as quietly as I could. Someone had put me in a nightshirt and no shoes. I wondered where my own togs had gotten, but I snuck out of my room instead of looking.
There was a hall right outside my room with a door cracked just a little at the other end. I tiptoed to it and tried to peek through the crack. I couldn’t see much from where I was. There was man with his back to me, had dark hair that was going gray with a little bald spot on the top. He was sitting at a desk and leaning back so far the springs on his chair was creaking. I could tell by his voice that he was Mr. Drake, but his voice was clearer here, and I could also swore I heard it before.
“Well, I thank you for your concern, brother, but I am capable of minding my own affairs. Done it for twenty years now without mishap.”
The other fella, who I couldn’t see but I figured must be Caleb, didn’t say nothing to that, but Mr. Drake said, “Shut-up” anyway.
After a considerable silence, I seen him shift his weight in his chair and heard him sigh. “Well, Caleb,” he said directly, “did you have any news for me today, or did you just show up to question my life decisions?”
Caleb didn’t say nothing for a long while. Like he was searching for something to talk about that wasn’t what he wanted to say. “Them new girls at the Gilded Lily look to be working out okay,” he finally said. “Well,” he added, “that Blanchefleur is gonna take some training up, I reckon.”
“Blanchefleur?” Mr. Drake didn’t really seem like he was interested in this, just kinda making conversation so Caleb would keep off his back like.
“Her given name is Daisy,” Caleb said. “Celia thought Blanchefleur sounded more exotic. Call her whatever you want, I think she’s too sulky. A doxy needs to be agreeable and sweet. When Daisy ain’t frowning, she’s mooning out the window or the empty air or something. Don’t nobody want to pay for that.”
“Hmm,” Mr. Drake wasn’t paying a lick of attention.
“You ain’t paying me a lick of attention are you?”
“No. Any word from Gary Wayne or Boris?”
“Naw. I suspect you best ask your houseguest.” Caleb made the word houseguest sound like something he had stepped in. “That was Boris’ canteen he had. I seen Boris drink from it plenty enough to know it, and I don’t believe the B M wrote on it was for bowel movement.”
“I suppose you’re right, Caleb.” The chair squeaked as Mr. Drake shifted his weight forward, so I begun to move slowly back to the bedroom. “I’ll ask him when he’s awake. For now, I guess I need to go give him his medicine. Like I said, it’s about time for it.”
“Is that you telling me I need to git?” I heard Caleb ask as I reached the bedroom door and quietly pushed it open. It made only the slightest squeak, but I was sure wasn’t nobody heard it.
“Yup,” I heard someone open the office door, and I could hear heavy footsteps as they approached my own door, now pushed almost to. “I don’t have to show you the way, I don’t suppose.”
The only answer Mr. Drake got as he pushed my door open was the sound of his front door closing. I squoze shut my eyes and pretended to sleep.
I heard him breathing as he leaned over the bed. I could smell his froo-froo water, too. It was the same kind Gramps always used to wear. I squoze my eyes tighter to keep from giving in to temptation and staring at him.
He kind of chuckled a little. “Open your eyes, boy,” he said. “You ain’t fooling nobody.”
II.
I opened one eye and seen him. From the front, his hair was black like I’d seen from behind, with just a touch of gray, but he had a short little beard, just long enough to not be stubble, that was completely gray, but it was at least a dark gray. He was a little heavy, about like Gramps, but like Gramps, only a fool would think he wasn’t all muscle underneath the padding. He was a lot shorter than I thought he’d be. In fact, he didn’t look nothing like I remembered from when I stumbled into town, and I told him so.
“It wasn’t me you saw,” he explained. “That was Reverend Tallison. You gave him quite a scare, you know.”
I didn’t know what all to say to that, so I didn’t say nothing. I did open my other eye, though.
“What are you doing out here, boy?” He put the back of his hand on my forehead, and kinda nodded to himself. “Fever’s finally broke at least. You thirsty?”
I nodded, and he reached over to the nightstand by the bed and found a metal pitcher of water sitting in a bowl of chipped ice. “I come about my Pa,” I explained as I sat up in bed and he poured water into a glass for me.
“Jim Murratt, huh?” He handed me the water, and I took a long slow drink. It was the best water I had had since I left home. It was so cool I felt it travel all the way down my throat and spread through my body. “He was a good man. About as good as any man can be out here. But I’m sure you already know that.”
I swallowed more water and shook my head. “No sir,” I said. “Ma never spoke about him much, and Gramps only said he was surprised Pa ever stayed home long enough to make me.”
Mr. Drake said nothing for a minute, just sat there staring at me, but it was really like he was staring behind me. I turned around to see if there was a spider or something on the wall. There wasn’t.
“Fathers can only be what it’s in their lights to be, son,” he said, but his voice had this far away sound like he was talking to somebody he knew a long time ago. Then he blinked and looked back at me. “Your Pa was a good man as much as he could be. He had his demons, too, I’m sure, but he did his best. You need to know that.”
We sat there a while just kind of staring into our own spaces, then he added:
“Saved my ass on Bowdon Hill Wasn’t for him, I’d not be here; that’s for sure.”
“What’d he do?”
Mr. Drake seemed to come back to himself and looked at me, really looked at me, like he was measuring me to see how much sand I could hold. I reckoned he figured not much because he didn’t really answer my question.
“He was just in the right place at the right time, I guess. I don’t think I need to tell you about that day right now, son. You been drained something awful, and you’re just up for the first time in a week. You just rest up.” He rose up from the bedside with a grunt and moved to the door.
“Mr. Drake?”
“Call me Ardiss.”
“Ardiss?”
He stopped and turned back to me.
“What am I gonna do now I’m here?”
He smiled through his beard and his whole face lit up for the first time since I seen him.
“Well, boy,” he said, “if you don’t mind the company of a grumpy old man, I reckon you stay with me a while. And I’m sure we can come up with something for you to and keep you out of trouble til you’re ready to go back home.”
He turned around and left the room pulling the door to behind him. After a second, though, he pushed the door open. “I think I know a place you can work, and someone there you’ll want to meet. I’ll take you there tomorrow. For now, you rest up, and I�
��ll send up some soup for you directly.”
III.
The next day, I woke up with Ardiss calling me from downstairs.
“Hey, boy!” he hollered, “Up and at’em. You’ve slept for a week, now. It’s time to get moving and do something before you completely waste away.”
Someone had apparently been in my room and gone without so much as stirring me, cause I seen my clothes all folded at the foot of the bed. I sat up and reached for my shirt. The clothes was washed, too. When I pulled the shirt over my head, it smelled like flowers. When Ma washed clothes, they generally smelled like lye mixed with air.
Even my drawers smelled fresh.
I got dressed as quick as I could and run out my room, but then I got lost. Weren’t no stairs in the hall. I knowed Ardiss’ office was at one end and my room at the other, so I opened the door that was catty corned to my left and it wasn’t but a storage room. Across from it, though, I found a room didn’t have nothing in it but chairs and books. All the books I’d seen in my whole life would of fit in just part of one of the shelves here and Ardiss had more shelves than I could count with my shoes off. I seen two doors right up next to each other on my left in here, so I took them, and sure enough, there was the stairs. Well, you better know I run down them just as fast as I could to make up for the time I lost not knowing where I was.
Ardiss was at the foot of the stairs dressed like church with his star on his coat. “Slow down, boy,” he sounded upset, but he had a smile on so I din’t expect he was too mad. “You’ll do yourself an injury running down stairs like that. Here,” he handed me a biscuit with two slices of bacon stuffed in it. “O told Emmie to fix you up this since we don’t have time for a proper breakfast. Eat it while we walk.”
“Thank you, Mr. …” Ardiss shot me a glance, and I switched tracks real quick, “Thank you, Ardiss. Where we going?”
“Just you eat and follow me. You’ll figure it out soon enough.
Guns of the Waste Land: Departure: Volumes 1-2 Page 13