The Devil You Know

by Jo Goodman

  “Can’t say I know it, ’cause I don’t.”

  “You sure?” Annalea’s gaze remained fixed. “Willa says you might have made his acquaintance in the saloon or maybe saw a poster of him hanging in the jail. Did you?”

  Happy slowly scratched the back of his head as if the answer could be uncovered there. “No,” he said finally, lowering his hand. “Don’t recollect that I’ve ever seen him, but you have to allow that he’s not at his best.”

  Cutter spoke under his breath. “He’s not the only one.”

  Happy frowned deeply, the totality of his expression aimed at Willa. “And, Miss Wilhelmina Pancake, you go on poisoning Annalea’s mind against me with your talk about saloons and jail, and just see if you and I don’t have words one day. Real words. You understand me?”

  “All right,” said Zach. “That’s enough.” Taking Happy by the arm, he tugged lightly and lent support when Happy listed heavily to one side. At the open door, Zach put a large hand around the back of Annalea’s neck and turned her around to face the yard. He ignored her protesting whimper and John Henry’s low growl and set them all on a course for the supper table.

  “Close the door,” Willa told Cutter. “I don’t trust Annalea not to sneak back here. And then I need you to take down the lantern and hold it just here.” She pointed to a spot above Mr. Roundbottom’s right thigh.

  Cutter did as instructed. After several long moments in which the only sounds were the stranger’s labored breathing and the crackle of the fire in the woodstove, he said, “Sure got quiet.”

  Willa paused long enough to cut him a sharp look. For good measure, she added, “It was.”

  “Oh.”

  Cutter remained silent after that, and even later, when Willa straightened and studied the whole of her work, he did not offer a comment.

  “You can put the lantern back,” she said, stretching her shoulders. She slowly twisted at the waist until her spine cracked and the relief she felt made her sigh.

  Cutter held out his hand. “Give me the tweezers.” She did, and he returned them to the small box of rolled bandages and other sundries they had brought from the house. Mr. Roundbottom’s extensive abrasions were liberally swabbed coppery red with Parson’s Restorative, a medicinal tincture, which, according to the label, was efficacious on burns, blisters, cuts, scrapes, and punctures. It was Willa’s opinion that there was enough alcohol in the bottle to tempt Happy when his stores were low, which was why she kept it hidden behind three books he never touched: Homer’s Odyssey, Pride and Prejudice, and the Holy Bible.

  “He’s going to need a couple of blankets,” she said. “And tonight, you and Zach will have to keep the fire up.”

  “That won’t be a hardship,” Cutter said. “Cold’s setting in. Zach gets stiff with it.”

  Willa nodded. She’d noticed the same but never mentioned it. Zach might show off his swollen knuckles to get out of doing fine work, but that was on his terms. For Willa to bring it up in conjunction with his regular duties would have been humiliating for him.

  “How about some blankets?” asked Willa. “And what are we going to do for clothes?”

  Cutter pulled woolen blankets from two empty bunks and snapped them over Mr. Roundbottom. “I guess if you’re thinking about clothes, that means you’re thinking he’s going to live.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I know it doesn’t set right if we have to plant him naked. I would also never hear the end of it from Annalea. Apparently she’s already thought about it and says it wouldn’t be Christian.”

  “I suppose she has a point, but it seems wasteful of a good suit.”

  Willa looked Cutter over, sizing him up. “Well, it wouldn’t be your suit even if you had one. Best I can tell, what you and our guest have in common is height. He’s filled it out while you have a ways to go. Happy’s too short.”

  “And Zach,” said Cutter, “is more suited to the Roundbottom name than this fellow.”

  Willa’s lips twitched. “Best if you keep that to yourself.”

  “Don’t I know it.” He returned his attention to Mr. Roundbottom. “We’ve got a trunk in here with some clothes, all of it left behind because someone didn’t think it was worth mending or because it didn’t fit any longer. I suppose there might be something for him.”

  “Look through it after we eat. You’re going into Jupiter tomorrow morning, and you can get whatever else he’ll need there, but mostly you’re going to find out what you can about him. No one needs to know he’s here. You just need to listen to what folks are saying because it’s a certainty someone is saying something.”

  “I reckon that’s true.”

  Willa waved him off. “Go on to the house. Eat your supper. I want to sit with him awhile.”

  It was also true that she did not want to sit with Happy, but it was not the sort of thing she could say to Cutter, even if he was thinking it. She always felt a little cowardly when she purposely set about avoiding her father, especially when she did not give Annalea the same option, but right now cowardice seemed a better course than confrontation.

  “You sure?” asked Cutter. “I don’t mind sitting a spell.” He placed a hand over his abdomen when his insides rumbled.

  “Your stomach disagrees.” She tilted her head toward the door. “Go. And shut the door on your way out.”

  As soon as Cutter was gone, Willa pulled up a stool and sat. “Perhaps a more appropriate name for you would be Mr. Possum. Would you prefer that to Augustus Horatio Roundbottom?” Her question was followed by a long silence, so long that Willa began to wonder if she was in the wrong, but as she reasoned that she was not all that often in the wrong, it seemed there was nothing to lose by holding out longer. So she did.

  His sigh was short but clearly communicated his annoyance.

  “You are not the only one annoyed here,” Willa said. “And I have considerably more cause to feel that way.”

  “I don’t doubt that you think so.”

  She ignored that. “I’m not sure that you were ever unconscious, at least not as long as you pretended to be, but I am reasonably sure that you won’t give me a straight answer. I am going to assume that you heard that Cutter will be going to Jupiter tomorrow. I can’t say what he will learn, but if your trouble started in or around there, he will hear about it. If you heard that, then you know about the clothes in the trunk, and you are probably thinking about getting dressed and getting on. I stayed behind to make sure you know that I am not prepared to allow you to leave. Pancake Valley is not a sanctuary, but I won’t turn you over to the sheriff without knowing your story. I’d like to hear what you have to say if you’re up to it. That’s your way out. You can always say you’re not.”

  He opened the only eye he could and stared at her. “Why do you care?”

  Willa’s brow creased as she frowned. “I don’t care. I’m curious.”

  “Well, so am I. I think I’d like to hear what the good citizens of Jupiter are saying.”

  “That’s it? You still want me to believe you don’t remember any of the particulars that landed you here?”

  “I remember particulars,” he said. “Just not the ones you want to hear. What I recall happened after that girl and her dog found me.”

  “Annalea and John Henry.”

  He nodded, winced, but did not lift a hand to cradle his head. The blistering pain reminded him he was alive. “Your sister?”

  “Depends if you’re referring to Annalea or John Henry.” Willa spied the faintest of dimples crease the right corner of his mouth. It faded quickly, but she knew she had not imagined it. That he could raise even the slightest smile in these circumstances was interesting, but she acknowledged the fleeting dimple intrigued her more. “What about your name, Mr. Roundbottom? Any recollection there?”

  “Roundbottom. That was diabolical.”

  “Only if
it works. Will it?”

  “Israel McKenna.”

  “Middle name?”

  “Court. My mother’s maiden name.”

  Although he had answered without hesitation, Willa wondered if she could believe him.

  “You don’t know if you can trust my answer.”

  Willa supposed he only needed one good eye to read her doubt. “If it’s your name, why keep it to yourself for so long? We asked you before.”

  “I didn’t recall it before. I told the girl that I’d come to it directly.”

  “Annalea. Her name is Annalea.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you believe me.”

  “I suppose not, not from your side of things. But from where I’m sitting, it matters to me that I can believe you. I could have left you lying by Potrock Run, where you would have been carrion in a day or so and picked clean a day or so after that, but instead I brought you to the valley, invited you into the midst of my family, and I would rather not regret what I’ve done. Tell me more.”

  Israel Court McKenna shifted under the blankets and drew them up around his shoulders. His bare feet were exposed. He shivered.

  Willa did not wait for him to ask for another blanket. She took one from Cutter’s bed and tucked it around Mr. Roundbottom’s feet. He was not Israel McKenna yet, not to her. She returned to the stool and said nothing. He knew what she wanted, and he had to know that she would sit there until she heard it from him.

  He spoke carefully, as if every word required effort and pain was the consequence of saying any one of them. “Herring, Illinois. Outside Chicago. Father was—is—a minister. Mother is a minister’s daughter and a minister’s wife. Little brother is a saint. I am not.”

  Willa’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s all? Father is a minister and you are not a saint?”

  “Believe it?”

  She did. “As a matter of fact, I do, but I would like to hear more. The name of the first girl you asked to dance.”

  “Beatrice Winslow.”

  “Why is your brother a saint?”

  “He does the right thing. Always.”

  “You?”

  “Hardly ever.”

  She believed that, too. He had been trussed tight and dragged over hard ground. That probably was not something that happened to his brother. It was difficult to imagine that he did not bear some responsibility for what was done to him. “All right, Mr. McKenna, why were you in Jupiter?”

  “I never said I was.”

  “But you were.”

  “I expect so.”

  Willa snorted. “Something else you’ll remember directly?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Not really.”

  Suspicion made her eyes narrow. She regarded him darkly. “What do you do?”

  “Do?”

  “How do you make your living?”

  A hand snaked out from under the blanket. There was a slight but observable tremor in his fingers as he plowed them through his hair.

  The gesture drew Willa’s gaze to silver threads at his temple. There were only a few, but his sifting fingers had exposed them, and the contrast was startling, slender filaments of light against the sooty blackness of his hair. She wondered how old he was but did not ask. She still needed an answer to her more important questions.

  “We searched your pockets,” she said. “You had no money.”

  “I believe I was fortunate to have pockets.” When she continued to stare at him, he said, “You’re wondering if I was broke or robbed.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Willa said nothing.

  “Would you prefer one over the other?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Just thinking how it could have played out and which side of right you might have been on.”

  “More likely which side of wrong.”

  “I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.” She stood suddenly, scooped up a clean, dry cloth from the basket, and headed for the door. “I won’t be but a minute.”

  She did not caution him to remain where he was because she really didn’t believe he could go anywhere. She left the door open in the event he called for her.

  Willa made straight for the pump, where she soaked the cloth with fresh, icy cold water. She wrung most of the water out while she walked back to the bunkhouse and folded the cloth into quarters. When she reached the threshold, she was greeted by two things simultaneously: an empty bunk, and her uncooperative guest standing at the piss pot trying to manage the sheet hitched around his waist with one hand and his cock with the other. To aid in the endeavor, he had removed his sling.

  Shaking her head, Willa stepped back out of the doorway and to the side, electing to give him privacy and some measure of dignity. She knew he could have used her help, but she could not imagine that he would accept it without an argument and be the worse off for it. She leaned against the rough log wall of the bunkhouse, closed her eyes, and allowed herself this brief respite. She could hear cattle lowing in the distance and the muffled snuffling of horses coming from the barn. Annalea’s laughter drifted across the yard from inside the house, each staccato note of it bright and clear, and it was easy for Willa to imagine that John Henry was the source of her delight, as he often was at supper time.

  A smile tugged at the corners of Willa’s mouth. Annalea was certainly feeding John Henry under the table, and Happy, Cutter, and Zach were all pretending not to notice. Good manners were taking a pass tonight, but Willa was philosophical about it. It was not as if there wouldn’t be future opportunities to practice them.

  Willa roused herself from her reverie and pushed away from the wall. She had purposely not listened for sounds from inside the bunkhouse, so she had to step up to the threshold again to see if her patient had pissed or fallen. It was also quite possible that he had done both.

  He was gingerly easing himself onto the bunk when she entered. The sheet was still hitched around him, although set precariously low on his hips and tangled around his legs. He looked up as she was coming toward him, but she couldn’t say whether he was relieved or annoyed to see her.

  “Here,” she said, holding out the damp, cool cloth. “Put it over your eye and hold it there. She yanked on the blankets that were trapped under him and might have dislodged the sheet entirely if he had not had a firm grip on it. “Go on. You can lie down now.”

  He started to lean back slowly but couldn’t manage the strain and simply collapsed instead.

  Willa winced. “I should have put an arm under you.”

  He grunted softly but otherwise remained quiet.

  Willa tapped the fist that was still only clutching the damp cloth, and when he unfolded his fingers, she took it from him and laid it over his swollen eye. When he closed the other one, Willa repositioned the sling on his arm and shoulder. She could actually see tension leaching out of him. His head rested more heavily against the pillow as his chin came up. The muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed. His breathing came steady and evenly, but she did not mistake this for a sign that he was sleeping or unconscious. She had the sense that he was withdrawing, insulating himself, and that notion both puzzled and intrigued her. She settled both blankets over him, tucking the lower one around his feet and the one on top around his arms.

  The stove was in need of attention so Willa poked at the fire and added wood. She stayed close, warming her hands first and then her backside. When she turned around, she saw that he was watching her. He did not even try to pretend that he wasn’t.

  Willa stared back. “Well?”

  “Wishing I had two good eyes.”

  Willa’s right eyebrow rose in a perfect arch. “Is that so?”

  “Mm.”

  “Have a care. I could easily give that black eye a twin.”

&
nbsp; “Oddly enough, I have no difficulty believing you.”

  “As it should be.” Without a word regarding her intention, she rounded the bunk and retrieved the piss pot. She angled it into the lantern light and observed the quantity and color of the urine. “No blood,” she told him, tucking the pot under her arm. “You’re a lucky man.”

  When he did not comment, she glanced at him over her shoulder. He had placed his forearm across his eyes and was slowly, almost imperceptibly, shaking his head. “Having trouble believing me now, are you?”

  “Just trouble believing,” he said under his breath.

  Chuckling, Willa carried the pot outside and emptied it. She fell in step beside Cutter on the way back. He was carrying a supper tray, and the acrid, smoky aroma of charred stew wafted up from the bowls. Her stomach rumbled, and she hoped it tasted at least a tad better than it smelled.

  “How’s Mr. Roundbottom?” asked Cutter.

  “He says his name is McKenna.” Willa stopped at the pump to wash up and then traded Cutter the pot for the tray. “Israel McKenna. I think he’s telling the truth about that. If he remembers what happened out there today, he’s not saying.”

  “If?”

  “I’m not sure he knows. He says he doesn’t. You’ll have to be careful asking around tomorrow. There’s no good reason to give him up yet. He’s not going to hurt anyone here.”

  “Not today,” said Cutter. “And maybe not tomorrow or the day after that, but you can’t be sure it will always be that way.”

  “I’m aware.”

  Cutter merely nodded and stepped aside to allow Willa to enter the bunkhouse first. He followed, dropped the pot beside McKenna’s bed, and toed it under the bunk. Willa was pushing the round table he and the other hands used occasionally for meals, and more often for cards, closer to McKenna, and he helped her situate it at the bedside.

  “Can he sit up on his own?” asked Cutter.

  “Ask him,” said Willa.

  “He’s sleeping.”

  She looked over at McKenna. “He’s not sleeping. He’s listening. I think he’s genuinely curious about what we know.”