Williamson, Penelope

by The Outsider

  More than from that girl, with her harlot's paint and her sinning ways, Rachel had fled from herself. The church's teachings were clear; it was only when she forgot them that Rachel ran into trouble.

  And it was when she'd fled from the alley that she'd heard the music. It came bellowing suddenly through the slatted wooden doors of one of the saloons, along with shrieks and whoops and a burst of pungent profanity. It was bold music, with walloping bawls of sound. Never had she heard its like before. Deep and rich and echoing, it made the hot air rumble like summer thunder.

  "Oh, what is it?" she cried aloud, startled into pure wonderment.

  "Why, 'tain't nothing but a concertina. The fellow sure can make them bellows wail, though."

  She turned to meet the round and shining face of Mr. Beaker, the barber. His long waxed mustaches lifted with his big smile.

  "Kind of gets a body's feet to agitating, don't it? No matter the heat."

  Rachel's gaze fell to the sun-bleached boardwalk. She turned and walked quickly away, leaving Mr. Beaker to mumble to himself about "mem uppity Plain folk who think themselves too good to pass the time of day." But the music followed after her, made her want to cross the street and look through the doors of the saloon so she could see what sort of worldly instrument this was that made such swelling, wailing, warbling sounds. The music—oh, it was a terrible danger indeed.

  Like the danger there, in the mercantile's bay window. It was always an adventure, coming into town, to see what was displayed in Mr. Tulle's window. Last time it was a safety bicycle, and how Benjo's eyes had shone to see it. And once, while Ben was still alive, there'd been a four-in-hand road harness made of polished black leather and fitted with etched silver buckles and copper rings. Afterward, on the drive home, Ben had joked that with a harness like that—with so much sparkle—a man needed to wear sun goggles to look at it or he'd be blinded. But Rachel had always wondered if deep in some secret corner of his heart, he hadn't coveted that fancy harness.

  This time there was a dress in the window, a dress so beautiful it took Rachel's breath away. It was of soft velvet, the blue of forget-me-nots, with an overskirt that was caught up in the back to make a foaming waterfall of ecru lace. A hand-lettered sign identified the dress as a "watering place costume" imported from Paris at a cost of five hundred dollars. Rachel's mouth fell open in shock. She tried to imagine that much money accumulated all at once and in one place, but she couldn't.

  She wondered if Blackie's Pond qualified as a watering place, and if even the most extravagant outsider would be foolish enough to wear such a costly and delicate gown among all those thickets and rocks and brambles.

  Yet the image of the beautiful dress stayed with Rachel as she entered the mercantile. Mr. Tulle had sprinkled the floor with water to lay the dust, so the place smelled strongly of wet wood. And of oilskins, which were piled on a deacon's bench just inside the door. She thought it optimistic of Mr. Tulle to have so many oilskins for sale in the middle of such a hot dry spring.

  Whenever her father preached of the Plain being strangers in a strange land, it put Rachel in mind of Tulle's Mercantile. Today, with shafts of bright sunlight streaming through the bay window to haze the air with dancing dust motes, it especially seemed a mythical place, full as it was of so many tempting things.

  Most of the foods for sale there she easily provided for herself, like pickles, and chokecherry preserves. She was certainly capable of potting her own chickens and deviling her own ham. And she wondered what woman would pay such a ruinous price for a tin of butter when she could so easily chum some. Still, she supposed, there was something about store-bought things that made them seem special.

  Of course there were some foods she had no earthly way of providing for herself, even if she should want to, like the cans of sugarplums and white grapes.

  Faced with the many marvels on display in Tulle's Mercantile, it was easy to become forgetful of the great goodness of God and all that he provided them from nature, easy to hunger for vain, store-bought things. Like those wispy lisle stockings and those tortoiseshell combs, like that chased gold watch and those dainty button shoes, rainbow-colored ribbons and frilly lace collars....

  Like that bolt of yellow sateened muslin, so shimmery it looked shot with sunbeams. She reached out a tentative hand to stroke the soft, shimmery cloth. What did one make out of such a bright material? She wished she could think of a purpose for it that wasn't worldly. A Plain woman wasn't supposed to covet such a thing, but she did.

  "How there, Miz Mutton Puncher. What can I do for you today?"

  Rachel jerked her hand back and whirled, hot color flooding her cheeks. Mr. Tulle had a nose like a crow's beak and a whittled brown face, and his black button eyes were scowling at her as if he suspected her of trying to steal, or of soiling things with her sheep-grubby hands.

  Like most outsiders, he'd always made her uncomfortable and she stumbled through her list of purchases: flour, salt pork, soda crackers, hominy, brown sugar, a five-gallon tin of coal oil, a bag of Arbuckle coffee beans. A couple of yards of that yellow muslin.

  Mr. Tulle's head snapped up at that, and his thin lips pulled even thinner. "Falling off the wagon, are you?"

  She didn't understand his words, or the sneer she'd sensed lying beneath them, so she chose to answer him with silence. As a result he called her a snooty Plain bitch under his breath, and he refused to take her clotted cheese in trade. But then it was probably close to spoiling anyway, what with the miserable heat.

  He packed her purchases into empty hardtack cases, but he didn't offer to help her carry them out to the wagon box. She had to make several trips, and was just coming out of the mercantile for the third time with the tin of coal oil when she saw Benjo running down the boardwalk toward her. Mouth and eyes open wide, legs pumping hard, one arm flailing and the other holding down his hat, he ran as if he were being chased by a swarm of yellowjackets.

  Suddenly she realized that Benjo wasn't the only one running. Mr. Tulle came bursting out of the mercantile, bumping into her and running past without an apology. Mr. Beaker dashed by, long stiff mustaches quivering. Big Mr. Trueblue Stone was lumbering down the street from the livery, his leather apron slapping his calves. People were spilling out of the shops and Wang's Chop House, shouting and excited.

  Benjo slammed into her, spitting and sputtering, his throat unable to disgorge his words. She dropped the coal oil and let him drag her after him, fear burning a hot path up her chest.

  It was the outsider, she knew it was the outsider. Everyone was running and converging on the saloon. He'd killed someone, was going to kill someone. Someone had killed him.

  Benjo wormed his way through the knot of men at the slatted wooden doors, pulling her with him.

  She'd never been in a honky-tonk in her life, never even looked inside one. She stopped on the threshold, blinking against the sting of tobacco smoke and the sudden darkness after the bright sunlight. Rank smells assailed her: beer-soaked floorboards, stale sweat, slopping spit boxes.

  "... how hard-boiled eggs tend to be yellow inside," she heard a man say. She heard chairs scrape against rough wood, and a stifled yelp of alarm. Shadows moved, flattening against the wall, and suddenly the very air itself seemed empty.

  A huge mirror on the far wall caught and refracted the light that poured through the doors in back of Rachel. In front of the mirror was a long, high, narrow wooden bar polished to a glossy sheen. The bar had a vaguely religious look to Rachel, like the altars she knew existed in cathedrals, although she'd never seen one. Two men stood before the bar. One, Johnny Cain, faced the minor, his hand wrapped around a bottle of sarsaparilla. The other man was Woodrow Wharton, and he had a gun in his hand.

  He spat a viscous stream of tobacco juice onto the saw-dusted floor. "I believe that I spoke to you, sir," he said. Even in the muted light his face looked pale and slick with sweat.

  Slowly Johnny Cain turned his head, tilting it slightly so his eyes could clear hi
s hat brim. "Pardon me," he said, and he smiled.

  His shoulder dipped as he backhanded the bottle against the bar. The bottle burst into a spray of sarsaparilla and shattering glass. The jagged shard left in Cain's hand flashed, slashing across Woodrow Wharton's mouth.

  The man screamed. One hand, the hand without the gun, flew up to his mouth to catch a bright gouting spill of blood.

  "No!" Rachel cried and took a step toward them. Johnny Cain's head whipped around to her, his eyes flaring brightly.

  Wharton's hand fell from his bleeding mouth, and the hand with the gun came up, pointing, but Cain was already snatching his own gun from its holster as he whirled back, so fast that all Rachel saw was a flash and a puff of smoke.

  An explosion ripped through the air, sharp as a whipcrack.

  Wharton was slammed backward with the force of a mule kick. His cowhide vest twitched and tore. Blood misted in a red cloud. His back slammed against the bar and he hung there for a heartbeat, staring slack-jawed as if in surprise. Johnny Cain fired four more shots and his white buckskin shirt blossomed with scarlet flowers.

  Blood and tobacco spittle gushed from his mouth. His pale eyes rolled back in his head. Slowly his legs folded and he slid to the floor. He knelt there for another heartbeat, then slumped onto the beer-soaked sawdust.

  Powder smoke drifted past Rachel's eyes. A smell like brimstone pinched her nose. As she stared, a pool of blood began to spread from beneath Woodrow Wharton's still body. It was thick and gummy, and very red.

  Hard fingers dug into her arm and she was spun around abruptly. Johnny Cain slapped the batwing doors open, dragging her behind him, and people were suddenly scurrying out of their way, scattering like prairie chickens.

  She looked around wildly and saw Benjo trotting along the boardwalk after them, whole and safe, and she breathed her first breath in an eternity.

  The outsider pulled her into the street just as a dray piled high with cut lumber rolled past. He nearly walked them right into it, as if he hadn't seen it.

  When they got to their own wagon, he turned her to face him. It hurt to look into his eyes.

  But all he said was, "You and the boy better stay here by the wagon."

  As he walked off, she could feel her heart beating, and each breath needed a deliberate effort to make it in and out of her throat.

  After a time she and Benjo climbed into the wagon. Her mouth was dry, her belly sour. A muscle in her thigh kept twitching.

  "I told everyone he doesn't drink the Devil's brew."

  She hadn't even realized she'd had the thought, let alone voiced it aloud, until Benjo jumped.

  His head jerked once, and then the words burst out of him, whole and complete as they so rarely did. "We got thirsty buying the horse. He only went in there to get us some sarsaparillas."

  Rachel shocked and horrified herself by laughing.

  "That man," Benjo stated, "he's the one who hung Da. I'm g-glad he's dun... duh... duh..."

  "Dead," Rachel said.

  She stared at the dark spots of sweat on the mare's sides, and shivered. She wondered what the outsider was doing now. Maybe he was seeing about burying the man. No one had checked to be sure the man was actually dead; they'd all just left him lying there. The street was as empty now as a ghost town. But then there was no marshal in Miawa City for anyone to summon, and Sheriff Getts might be anywhere in the territory. Johnny Cain had no law to answer to. Except God's law.

  He came out of the livery, leading a tacked-up chestnut mare. The closer he came to them, the harder Rachel's heart thumped. He lifted his head and met her eyes. His face was as smooth and flat and cold as pond ice.

  He knotted the horse's reins around the wagon's tailboard. The wagon dipped and rocked as he climbed aboard. He had, Rachel suddenly saw, Woodrow Wharton's blood splattered on his shirt.

  As they pulled out of town, the wind blew up. Dirt stung Rachel's eyes and turned into a gritty paste on her tongue. The brim of her bonnet slatted in the wind. Dark clouds, choked the mountains, whiplashed by sharp, white cuts of lightning, and with each flash, Rachel flinched, over and over, as if they were gunshots.

  By the time the wagon clattered over the log bridge and pulled into the yard, the storm had moved in low and heavy overhead. Sheets of lightning backlit the clouds, followed by great claps of thunder that seemed to rip the heavens apart.

  The skirling wind tore at Rachel's skirts. She wanted to throw back her head and shriek along with the wind. But the way of life was strange. Terrible things happened, earth-shattering things, and life just went on as it always had. A man gets shot in the chest and lies bleeding on a saloon floor, and the cows still need milking, bellies need filling up with supper. A storm was coming and she had sheep to see to.

  She and Benjo and MacDuff herded the ewes and lambs to the lee of a gently sloping hill, away from the danger of flooding coulees and lightning-struck cottonwoods. She didn't see what the outsider did or where he went. They hadn't spoken once on the drive home. She wondered if she would ever be able to speak another word to him. She despised him for what he had done, and she despaired of him, despaired of his soul. But a dark, ugly corner of her own soul was in awe. And gratified. Oh yes, gratified. Woodrow Wharton was dead and she was glad.

  She tried to pray for the soul of the man who had murdered her Ben, but she could not. She prayed for Johnny Cain's soul instead, which was surely damned for all eternity.

  They stayed with the sheep, to keep them bunched, but although the storm was bright and noisy for a time, it gave up no rain. Only after the storm had passed did she go to see if the outsider had put his new horse in the barn, or if he had used it to ride away.

  The clouds and wind had brought little relief to the heat outside, but the barn was cool. Lavender shadows filled the rafters. Her old gray draft horse was in one of the stalls, crunching on oats. In another, his flashy chestnut mare was drawing up great mouthfuls of water from the trough.

  He hadn't moved or made a sound, but she knew somehow where to go to find him. At the far end of the barn, where the sheep hooks hung along the rafters and the roof sloped down low.

  He sat in the packed dirt of the barn floor with his shoulders pressed hard to the wall, his arms hanging loosely over his bent knees. He lifted his head as she walked up to him. For a moment she thought she saw through the cold glittering windows of his eyes into his shrouded, tangled soul, but then his eyelids came down like shutters.

  She stood looking down at his dark hair and the knob of bone at the nape of his neck, at the smooth hard flesh of his back beneath the worn hickory shirt, the shirt stained with another man's blood.

  She laid her hand on him as she would have with Benjo, to comfort him, and he uncoiled, surging to his feet, backing away from her.

  "Don't touch me," he said.

  She took a step toward him and he flinched, backing away again. "I said, don't touch me!"

  But she kept coming, until she was close enough to wrap her arms around his waist and press her face against his chest. She could feel him trying to hold himself very still, as if he feared to draw even so much as a single breath.

  "Please, don't touch me, Rachel. I'm filthy," he said, and she knew he wasn't talking about dust and sweat.

  But though he didn't touch her himself in any way, he let her hold him until he stopped shuddering.

  The coyote was never going to get tamed.

  Benjo approached the pit slowly, as he did every time, crooning to her in the sweet singsong he used with the lambs. And every time, she lunged up at him, snarling and baring her teeth as if she would bite his head off if she could. He'd brought her food and water, and still the coyote hated and feared him.

  This evening he didn't bring her any rabbits and squirrels. The thought of killing something made his stomach lurch.

  Once, a boy in school had shown him a thing called a stereoscope. It had a slotted piece of wood at one end, where you put two photographs that looked exactly alike. Then yo
u looked through the two eyepieces at the other end of the stereoscope and the two photographs somehow became one image that took on depth and life. Only nothing in the image moved, so that it was more like a slice of life, frozen forever in time.

  What had happened today in Miawa City he kept seeing like images in a stereoscope. Johnny Cain turning away from the bar, smiling. A jagged piece of sarsaparilla bottle slashing across a man's mouth. Fire spitting out the end of a gun. Blood exploding from Woodrow Wharton's chest in a red mist. And himself laughing.

  It was the memory of his own laughter that bothered him the most. He tried to tell himself that maybe it hadn't happened that way, but he knew it had. He'd felt the laughter erupt out his throat and he'd heard it, as plain as he'd heard the gunshots. Blood had exploded from a man's chest in a red mist, and Benjo Yoder had laughed.

  The bunchgrass around the deadfall trap was thick and green now, and scattered with pink shooting stairs and mountain bluebell. It muffled his footsteps, but he knew the coyote would smell him. When he looked down at her over the Up of the pit, she arched her back, the black hair along her spine standing up. She showed off all her teeth and growled.

  He'd picked her a hatful of huckleberries and he emptied his hat into the pit. She gulped the berries down, then lifted her head and watched him with a blinkless stare.

  He felt bad, for he knew the huckleberries weren't enough. She had three pups now to feed, as well as herself. She'd gotten so skinny lately her ribs showed through her grizzled buff-gray hide. He wondered if she was slowly dying, trapped down there.

  It had taken him a while to figure out how he was going to get her out. Then one day, while mucking out the barn, his gaze had fallen on the ramp leading up to the hayloft and it had come to him. He'd lashed a bunch of small logs and branches together with rawhide rope and made her a ramp. His plan was to slide the ramp down into the pit, and then run off before she could come after him.