Mr. Shivers

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “I hope you’re right,” she said, and patted his arm. Connelly looked at it. She took it away but did not seem to have noticed that he had looked.

  Hammond coughed and said, “I don’t know. I heard the craziest shit about him. One old woman told me he could make the night sing.”

  “Sing?”

  “Yeah. I asked her what it sang about, and if it was a waltz or a march or anything you could dance to, and she got mad as hell. Thought I was making fun of her. Which I was. Then she said he could make all kinds of things sing, if he wanted. He could take a bone and write on it and make it sing. Make it sing you nightmares which would make you sicker than a dog. Said it tainted the land, sort of like poisoning it.”

  “Did you believe it?” asked Lottie.

  Hammond snorted and laughed. “Hell no. Old lady was drunker than a boiled owl and had the French disease something fierce.”

  “Oh.”

  “Say, why are you after him?” asked Hammond. “You never told us.”

  “I didn’t want to,” Lottie said.

  “We told you why we were.”

  “I never asked you to. I never heard Connelly tell his, either.”

  “That’s right,” said Hammond, looking at him. “I don’t know why you’re doing this, either.”

  “I’m doing this,” Connelly said. “All you need to know.”

  “You two are terrible conversationalists,” said Hammond. “Here, let’s try again. Where are you from, Lottie?”

  “Galveston. In Texas.”

  “Huh. What’s that like?”

  “Big. And pissed. Port cities usually are. Especially Texan port cities.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t. Jews are a rarity in Texas.”

  “Christ,” said Hammond. “How come everyone has to know I’m a Jew?”

  “Because they’re a rarity.”

  “Thanks,” said Hammond sarcastically. He stood and grabbed a blanket off the floor. “I’m going to get some damn sleep. I’m in favor of pulling the mattresses off the windows. They’re not doing any good.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Lottie. “Make sure to put a blanket over your head as you sleep. I bet you could suffocate in this.”

  Hammond sighed, nodded, and walked into the living room.

  “How’s Jake?” Connelly asked her.

  “Bad.”

  “I never heard anyone scream like that. I hope I never do again.”

  “How old are you, Connelly?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know how old you are?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I never kept track.”

  “How can you not keep track of something like that?”

  “It never occurred to me to try.”

  “Hammond’s just a boy.”

  “He is.”

  “And Pike’s an old man.”

  “Yeah. He don’t act like one, though.”

  “I wonder now,” said Lottie. “There’s got to be more than us. If there’s us there’s got to be more. How many? Dozens? Hundreds? How long has he been doing this?”

  Connelly was silent for a while. Then he said, “It was your child, wasn’t it?”

  Lottie flinched. She blinked, made as though to move away, then stopped. “Yes,” she said.

  “I can tell.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t know. Just do. These folks, they lost a lot. They each lost their own. But parents grieve for their children in a special way. It’s a special kind of hurt. I don’t know if it has a name but you can see it in a face. It’s in yours. Suppose it’s in mine too.”

  Lottie did not say anything. The wind clawed at the windows. She said, “It was my boy.”

  Connelly sat and waited.

  “I wasn’t a very good momma, I think,” she said softly. “He ran away when he was fourteen. I can’t blame him. I didn’t miss him at first but then I did. That was years ago.” She shut her eyes, breathed out. “Then I hear from a guy that heard from a guy that heard from a guy that he ran into trouble in Kentucky and he’s not alive anymore. Killed. Some damn fight. Some damn thing. A scarred fella who just had it in for him, they said. It’s a bad thing to lose a child but it’s worse if you never got to know them and you don’t even know where they’re buried or how. Hell, I’ve… I’ve never even been to Kentucky. I don’t know where he’s lying now or if there’s any peace in it. It isn’t right that a man can take that away from you, can do that to you. It isn’t right.”

  “No,” said Connelly. “It isn’t. But it happened.”

  “I heard something from a man south of here, down in Killeen. He said that when a woman’s heavy with child and she feels the first hurts from labor she’s got to take her first baby tooth and put it in a pot of dirt and put it on her windowsill. That way Mr. Shivers will pass that house over and leave that baby be.”

  “I heard something similar,” said Connelly. “Coroners have to leave the teeth of men they find dead in alleys or ditches on their doorsteps or windowsills. As a signal. For him. People that die in the between places, in roads and switchyards. Those belong to Mr. Shivers.”

  “You believe it?”

  “No.” Then he considered it. “Though by now I’m willing to believe a lot of crazy shit I wouldn’t have thought twice about before.”

  They sat together, not saying anything.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” said Connelly. “I wonder what he sees when he opens his eyes in the morning. If he’s looking at the same place I’m looking at. Or if he sees something else.”

  “He’s not a ghost,” Lottie said. “You said so yourself.”

  “I did. I still believe it. When I first saw him, he was scared. Did I tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “He was. When he… When he first saw my daughter. He was scared. I was with her. Just walking her to school as any father would, but she was at that age where, you know, she wanted to show she was on her own, so I let her walk ahead of me. And as she did I saw him on the other side of the street. Pale fella who looked at the world like it didn’t matter an inch to him, like he owned it, with a scarred face and a mouth that stretched back to his jaw. He looked at her and I saw his face go all hungry and then he looked all scared.”

  “Scared of what?”

  Connelly thought about it. “Scared of me, I think,” he said.

  “Why would he be scared of you?”

  “I don’t know. He looked at me and just was.”

  “He looked scared of you just the other day, too.”

  “I know. Don’t know why, though.”

  “What was she like? Your daughter?”

  “Like her mother. Which was good. She had blonde hair and she was smart. Smart as hell. When she was five she could name every bird in our garden. Said they danced for her, danced when I wasn’t looking. Maybe they did. I don’t know.”

  “Where’s her mother?”

  “Back home in Tennessee.”

  “She let you go?”

  “Yeah. I wasn’t even sure if we were married anymore. Not really. One day it was like two strangers stole our lives and we didn’t do anything more than walk through the house. I said I was going to put things right. I was going to go out and find that man and make things right.”

  “Did she understand?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  They sat in silence for a while.

  Lottie said, “What time do you think it is?”

  Connelly shrugged.

  “I think I’ll follow Hammond’s idea. I’m tired. You should think about it, too. You look dog-tired.”

  “It’s the dust. That’s all.”

  “If you say so.” And she left.

  Connelly waited for her to be far away. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He opened it and eased his fingers in an
d took out a tiny folded-up piece of paper, shiny with age and wear. He unfolded it. In some places it was worn until it was like cloth. On it was a charcoal drawing, done with some skill but not much. A picture of a girl’s face, smiling and laughing.

  He had paid a man at the fair to do her portrait. Hung it up in the living room later. Then when that life was over and he left, it had been the only thing he had taken. It was the only valuable possession he owned and the only thing that brought him to his feet in the morning and kept him walking in the day.

  He tried to imbue it with color. Tried to use his imagination to project the things the drawing missed. Her crooked smile. Kitten’s teeth. Her hate of the rain and love of the wind. And her eyes were green. He remembered that.

  “Your eyes were green,” he told the picture. “Green. They were green.”

  He looked at it, letting time pass in silence, then folded it up and put it back in his wallet. Then he just sat.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The next morning the wind died and though the dust still hung in the air they ventured out. They walked about through the town but they could not see anyone through the clay haze. None of them went to the house the scarred man had stayed in, nor did anyone suggest doing so.

  They buried Ernie twenty paces from the dried river beneath the oak. They wrapped him in one of the blankets and covered him with layers of stone and earth and Jake tried to say something but could not. Pike stood at the head of the grave and said, “Lord, we lay this man to rest, fallen in the road that You have set for him that leads to glory. And in his trials and efforts to follow this road surely he has moved on to better worlds than these. His death was cruel but his life was righteous and we shall remember him as one of Your warriors. His memory shall stir us forward on the path and so he shall live forever as we try to achieve Your works. Amen.”

  “Amen,” said Roonie.

  The others muttered their own thanks. Jake stared at the rocks and did not move for the better part of an hour, even when called.

  They walked farther into the hills in the direction the scarred man had gone. They were starving for meat as they had eaten nothing but a shared handful of beans and cornmeal in the past days. Roosevelt took his gun and found a nest of rabbits and tried to shoot some. He missed several times, stirring them up.

  Lottie said, “Here. Let me see it.”

  He looked at her doubtfully.

  “Let me see it. I’ve shot before,” she said.

  “So have I.”

  “Let me see it, Roosevelt.”

  He gave it to her. She took it and they sat for a while, watching, and then she picked up the gun and aimed carefully. They could not see what she was pointing it at. Without warning she fired, surprising everyone but Lottie, and she got to her feet and walked into the brush. There they found a mewling coney, bullet drilled into its side. She approached it, uncertain, and Pike strode forward and took it and broke its neck.

  “That was well done,” he said.

  “I should have killed it in one shot.”

  “It’s killed, either way,” he said.

  They cooked it and one other she managed to get and ate them with wild spring onions. They camped underneath the runny red sky and when they woke Pike said, “We have a decision to make. We’ve lost him. We’ve lost the scarred man. But we know the direction he was going and we know he could not be going far. Who knows this area?”

  “I know a little,” said Roonie.

  “What would you say?”

  “About what.”

  “About where he’s gone, of course.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Could be a ways, could be a lot of places. Nearest town is some fourteen miles, I’d say.”

  “He’d want to move fast,” said Connelly.

  “And why’s that?” Pike asked.

  “He knows we’re on to him now. He knows how close we are.”

  “So?”

  “He likes to ride the rails. Where’s the nearest freightyard, Roonie?”

  “Ferguson,” he said. “Straight north of here. Lots of cattle cars through there.”

  “Then that’s where he’ll be,” said Connelly. “Dollars to pesos.”

  They nodded. “I see sense in that,” Hammond said.

  “We’re agreed?” said Pike. “We keep together and keep moving, make for Ferguson?”

  “It’s our best shot,” said Monk.

  Jake frowned and rubbed his hair. “I don’t like it.”

  “Why not?” said Lottie.

  “Just don’t. I don’t… I don’t…” He sniffed and looked over his shoulder to where his brother’s grave was.

  “We have to move,” said Pike.

  Jake shook his head.

  “We’ve eaten,” said Pike. “We’ll search the town for what we can carry and what we need. Probably not going to be much, it was stripped clean. At first light we’ll try and close some of this distance.”

  “Fair enough,” Roosevelt said.

  * * *

  Connelly awoke to the pale dawn the next day. Just barely morning. Somewhere birds wheeled through the cold skies, whistling mournfully to one another. He sat up and looked and saw Jake’s bedding deserted. He reached out and prodded Hammond.

  Hammond rubbed at his eyes. “What?” he asked.

  Connelly nodded at Jake’s empty place. Hammond sat up. The two of them stood, looked at each other, then began searching the nearby area.

  Somehow Connelly knew where he would be. He went down to where the dry creek ran and began walking along its side. He spotted him sitting on a large red rock, his form hunched and drunkenly leaning. Connelly approached slowly.

  It had not been done neatly. The thin slice of obsidian had been a good tool but Jake had not known where the arteries would be and so had ravaged his upper arms and wrists. His lap was red and a pool spread from his crotch and ran down the face of the rock like he had shat or urinated blood. He was cross-legged and his arms were up against his belly like he was carrying some tiny precious package, like a child.

  He was facing east. He had wanted to see the dawn. Perhaps he had.

  They stood looking at Jake. No one spoke. Roonie began sobbing, small, weak animal noises. Lottie took him and held him and he buried his face in her neck.

  “Despair is the greatest sin,” said Pike.

  “Go to hell,” said Monk. “He had just lost his brother.”

  “All the more reason not to give up.”

  “What do we do?” said Roosevelt.

  “Burial will have to be quick,” said Pike. “If we give him one.”

  “We will,” Lottie said savagely.

  “Then we will.”

  “We should bury him with his brother.”

  “If you want to carry him the mile back to that place then by all means, do so,” said Pike. “But we’re limited by time and by distance. If we’re going to do this it’ll have to be quick and close.”

  It was a shoddy job. Not much more than a shallow hole in the ground. They piled stones upon it until it was a malformed cairn and made a cross out of timber and hammered it into the ground.

  “Do we say anything?” said Roonie.

  “What is there to say?” asked Hammond.

  They did not answer. They took off their caps and held them before them and bowed their heads. Then they shouldered their grips and began their way to the freightyard.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  They came upon the trains nearly a day later. The filthy metal webbing spread out before them on the plain, smoke and ash rising in columns, gray trains milling and laboring forward like a nest full of snakes.

  It did not take long to find someone. Find water, Roosevelt told them, and you will find other hobos. He was right. Near a small pond to the west they found a ragtag shack and a handful of men wallowing in soiled beddings. The smell of drink poured off them in cascades. Pike strode up to them and they scattered at first but then relaxed. When he asked of the scarred man they said, “Sure, sure.
We know him. Came through here about three days ago.”

  “Three? You’re sure?”

  “Yep,” said one man who seemed half-sensible. His face was long and he wore a cheap cap and a long overcoat. “He come through, asked when the next train into New Mexico would be running.”

  “Christ,” said Roosevelt. “New Mexico? You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I sure am. You fellas got any money?”

  “Not much,” said Hammond. “You’re sure it was him? Scarred on the cheeks?”

  “I said it was, didn’t I?”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “You got any money?” he said.

  “We don’t have much money.”

  He spat. “Then maybe you dumbasses should stop bothering a guy, huh? Get out of here. I’m sick of looking at you.”

  Pike grabbed him by the collar and shook him. “Shut your filthy mouth,” he said to him, “unless I ask you to open it. Where in New Mexico? Where?”

  “Jesus!” cried the man. “Some poor-ass town! Vuegas, I think! Let me go!”

  “When did he leave?”

  “The hell with you! I’ll kill you, you old bastard!”

  Pike struck him in the stomach. Hammond and Monk moved forward to face down the other hobos who were getting up.

  “When did he leave?”

  The man coughed and spittle hung from his mouth. “Yesterday,” he gasped. “Just yesterday.”

  “Anyone know when the next train is running out?” shouted Monk to the other vagrants.

  “Why you being so mean to old Bevis?” croaked one of the hobos. “He ain’t done nothing to you.”

  “Because he has bad manners,” said Hammond. “When’s the next train out?”

  “Two days. Just two days. You fellas don’t got to be so mean about it,” he mourned. Connelly saw he was weeping like an infant.

  “Why couldn’t you all just say so?” said Connelly as Pike dropped his man. “Why?”

  “Because fuck you, that’s why,” the man gasped. He wiped his mouth and glowered at them. “I’ll cut your throats. All of you dumb sons of bitches, I’ll cut your throats.”