Blood Feud

by David Robbins

  “I liked it a lot,” Chace said.

  “You can’t like killing.”

  “You like roses.”

  “But, Chace—” she began, and stopped. Shaking her head, she said, “You’re confusing the hell out of me. How can you like taking another’s life? It’s just not right.”

  “Says who? Normal people? Normal is for sheep. Normal is for those who are afraid to stand up for themselves. My family has been feuding with another family for hundreds of years. We kill them like we swat flies. Or used to, until my grandpa went and made a truce. Which was the worst thing he could have done.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t turn an enemy into a friend by shaking his hand. The only way to stop an enemy from being an enemy is to plant him.”

  Bovary looked up as Sam entered. He brought over a bottle and a glass and opened the bottle and set it on the table.

  “Will there be anything else, madame?”

  “No, Sam. I’m not to be disturbed. Tell Sasha to look after the girls until I’m through here.”

  “Yes, madame.”

  “Sasha is only a few years older than you,” Bovary informed Chace. “I picked her off the street like I did you.” She poured the glass half full and chugged it down. “God, I needed that.” She coughed. “Now, then. My offer still holds. But I need to know. Is the law hard on your trail? Will they show up on my doorstep someday? I’d like to hear all you’re willing to share.”

  “So long as this is the only time,” Chace said, and told her about his sister and the aftermath. “I think I got plumb away but I can’t give you my word that I did.”

  “Galveston is a long way from Arkansas and you say no one knows you’re here.” Madame Bovary nodded. “The law could scour the state of Texas for ten years and not find you.” She smiled. “I’ll take the chance. The job is still yours if you want it.”

  “Why are you being so kind to me?”

  “I thought I explained. I like you.”

  “Why really?” Chace pressed her. “And don’t tell me it’s because I’m handsome or pretty. I’ve had my fill of those lately.”

  Madame Bovary refilled her glass. She turned the glass around and around with her fingertips, then said, “You’re handsome and you’re polite. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No.”

  “I mentioned Sasha. You and she aren’t the first. I make it a point to help people your age. No one gave me a hand when I could barely keep my stomach full, and I remember what that was like.”

  “A heart of gold.”

  “Think what you will. Can I count on you? Sam is getting long in the tooth but won’t admit it. You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “You’re a nice lady,” Chace said. “You have yourself a greeter.”

  Madame Bovary clapped in delight. “Excellent. Come with me, then. I must attend to your transformation.”

  “My what?”

  “Your change.” Rising, she clasped his hand in both of hers and ushered him out of the room and along the hall to the pink room with the velvet couches. The moment she entered, the other women all stood. “You can relax, my sweets,” she said. “It isn’t a client. I have an errand for Sasha.”

  “For me?” said the redhead with cherry lips. She wore a dress that clung to her in such a way that it appeared she wasn’t wearing a dress at all. She fixed her emerald eyes on Chace. “Does it involve the country boy here?”

  “Sasha,” Madame Bovary said sternly. “I’ve taught you better. I want you to take him shopping. New clothes. A visit to the barber. He starts work tonight at six and—”

  “Tomorrow,” Chace said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I have somewhere to be tonight. I promised someone I’d meet them at sundown.”

  Sasha poked a red fingernail at him. “When Madame Bovary wants you to do something, you do it.”

  “Now, now,” Bovary chided her. “Tomorrow night is perfectly fine. But it’s still hours until sunset. Plenty of time for you to help him pick new clothes.”

  “Must I?”

  Chace said, “When Madame Bovary wants you to do something, you do it.”

  Bovary laughed. Sasha didn’t; her face became the same color as her hair and her nose flared.

  “He has you there, my dear,” Madame Bovary said, “and yes, you must. Rickman the tailor is a regular of yours, isn’t he? Ask him as a personal favor to me. Tell him to have Chace’s suit ready by tomorrow at five. That will give Chace time to pick it up before he goes on duty.”

  “Very well,” Sasha said coldly. She turned her back on Chace and made for the hall. “Follow me, country boy. If I must, I must, but I don’t have to like it.”

  Madame Bovary winked. “Don’t take it personal. She’s a sweetheart once you get to know her.”

  Chace caught up and passed Sasha. He opened the front door and she marched past as if he didn’t exist. Again he overtook her and said, “Are you always this friendly?”

  Sasha wheeled on him and jabbed him in the chest. “Listen, if I don’t get back by six, its costs me money. My clients won’t wait around. They’ll go with another girl and I lose out.”

  “Clients?” Chace said. “Is that what they call men who want to get up your petticoats?”

  “It’s a living,” Sasha said, and descended the marble steps to the gravel drive. She raised an arm, and around a corner of the mansion clattered a carriage driven by a man in a uniform.

  “Wait,” Chace said.

  Sasha did no such thing. She moved to meet the carriage. The driver brought it to a stop and jumped down to open the door and lower the step. She climbed in and sat in the rear seat.

  Chace pulled himself in and was about to sit in the same seat, but she shook her head and nodded at the front seat.

  “Over there. I don’t care to sit next to you, thank you very much.”

  Chace perched with his elbows on his knees. He nearly slid off when the carriage lurched into motion, and she chuckled at his expense.

  “Quite the man of the world, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve never ridden in one of these before.”

  “Never ever? What do you ride around in at home?”

  “We have a buckboard but mostly I ride mules.”

  “How fitting,” Sasha said.

  “What have I done that you hate me so much?”

  The carriage came to the end of the drive and wheeled into the street. The drum of the hooves and the clatter of the wheels were muffled by the curtains over the windows.

  “Hate you?” Sasha said. “Don’t flatter yourself that I think that highly of you. To me you’re a nuisance, another of Gretchen’s strays that she thinks she has to save.”

  “Who?”

  “Madame Bovary, you lunkhead. That’s her first name.” Sasha folded her arms. “Look, just don’t talk and we’ll get along better. I’ll do as she wants and you can be on your way.”

  “I’d like to say one thing,” Chace said.

  “If you insist. But it better be important.”

  “I like it how your eyes light with fire when you’re mad.”

  22

  Waves lapped the shore and a full moon hung over the bay that pirate ships once sailed. The Roost, they called it. Long neglected, the roof had sagged and collapsed in parts. The walls were peeled and cracked. The main door was on the ground, its hinges rusted through.

  From the top of a nearby sand dune Chace watched furtive figures slip inside. “Friends of yours?”

  “I told you,” Tallulah said. “All the hawkers meet here regular. Tunk’s orders.”

  “And you all have to do as Tunk says,” Chace said.

  “I don’t know why you say it like that. We ask him nice, he may let you hawk. Isn’t that what you want, to make money?”

  “I’ve been thinking it would be smart to make a very lot of money,” Chace said.

  “Come on.”

  Tallulah slogged down the dune. They reached the building at the
same time as a group of hawkers. Some were about as old as Chace; some were a lot younger. A boy of five or six carried a shoeshine case he could barely lift. A girl had a can with pencils.

  Dust covered the floor and the walls. Tracks in the dust led into the bowels, down dilapidated stairs to a huge room that once might have been a warehouse for pirate booty. Dozens of hawkers were washed pale in the light of lanterns, all of them scruffy and dirty and with the nervous aspect of wild animals. They faced a raised platform littered with broken crates and other debris.

  Chace stood quiet, his hands clasped behind his back. His buckskins received more than a few stares.

  Tallulah was excited. “This is the best part of my day,” she said so only he heard. “I like getting together with the rest.”

  “You have friends here?”

  “We’re mostly friendly,” she said, and bobbed her head at the murmuring assembly. “They’re the closest I have to a family.”

  Four boys climbed to the platform. They were the oldest and the biggest, and the best dressed. Their clothes weren’t dirty. Their hair was combed. The very biggest had a swagger about him and looked out over the hawkers like a wolf sizing up sheep. Two of the four had large leather pouches slantwise across their chests.

  The biggest stepped to the near side of the platform and held up his arms for silence. He had a shock of brown hair and a pointy chin and deep-set brown eyes that gleamed in the lantern light.

  “That’s Tunk,” Tallulah whispered.

  “Is everyone here?” Tunk called out, and someone in the group hollered that they were. “Good. I’ve got something important to say.” He paused. “I’m not happy. I’m not happy at all.”

  “Uh-oh,” Tallulah whispered.

  Tunk pointed at a girl of ten in a torn dress. “Come up here, Violet,” he commanded. She obeyed, her head bowed, her fingers tight in her dress. She didn’t speak. Tunk walked around her and then pointed at her and shouted, “Take a good look. I gave her the south wharf. There’s good money to be made there. The last hawker brought me ten dollars a day, easy.” He bent over Violet, who only came as high as his waist. “How much you got for me tonight?”

  Violet answered so quietly no one could hear.

  “Six dollars?” Tunk said loudly. “Six measly dollars. That’s about all you ever bring. Makes me wonder.” He straightened and faced his minions. “Makes me wonder why she does so poorly when others have done so much better. Makes me see I made a mistake.” He spun and slapped her so hard she tottered. “The wharf is no longer yours. I’ll give it to someone who works harder.”

  “I do the best I can,” Violet whimpered.

  “Ah.” Tunk faced them all, his smile venomous. “How many times do I have to keep saying this? I make it as clear as I can.” He raised his voice. “None of you has a home. None of you has anyone. I take you under my wing. I give you work. I give you a roof over your head at night. Ain’t that right? And what do I ask in return? That you hawk hard and give me my share. That’s all.”

  Some of the hawkers hung their heads. Others looked crestfallen.

  “I’m the one gets you the apples and oranges,” Tunk went on. “I’m the one gets you what you need to hawk. Do you think it grows on trees? I have to buy all that. I have to spend money for you to make money.” He shouted in anger. “If you don’t want to hawk, you don’t have to. But if you do, you, by God, will give me my due!” He smacked his left palm with his right fist. “You hear me? I do all I can for you. I expect you to do all you can for me.”

  Many of the hawkers nervously shifted and fidgeted.

  Tunk stopped railing. He lowered his arms and smiled as a kindly father might. “I shouldn’t get so mad. But after all I do for you, you can’t blame me. Are you with me or not?”

  A few of the street kids replied that they were.

  “I can’t hear you,” Tunk said. “I asked if you were with me or not? Yes or no?”

  A chorus of “Yes” was raised to the rafters. Tunk wasn’t satisfied and had them shout it again and yet again. Then he raised his arms and yelled, “I have a treat tonight. I got some bread from a bakery. Lots of loaves, so there will be some for everybody. As soon as the collection is over, we’ll pass the bread out.”

  The two boys with leather pouches came down and stood in front of the platform. That was the signal for the hawkers to form into two lines. Each handed over the money he or she had hawked that day, and the boys put the money in the pouches. Tallulah’s turn came. The boy with the pouch glanced at Chace.

  “Who’s this? He’s not one of us.”

  “He’d like to be,” Tallulah said. “I was hoping we could talk to Tunk. Can you ask him for me, Zeke?”

  “Once we’re done collecting,” the boy said.

  Tallulah went to the side of the platform. “You heard him,” she said, smiling. “Tomorrow you’ll be hawking, I bet.”

  “Tunk and his friends ever do any hawking?”

  “They don’t have the time. They have to find stuff for us to sell. Some days they work ten hours at it.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Tunk.”

  “He ever say how much money he makes from all this?”

  “No, and I wouldn’t ask. It’s none of my buiness.”

  “Tunk tell you that, too?”

  Tallulah cocked her head. “You just don’t stop with the questions. Don’t you want work?”

  “I want it straight in my head,” Chace said.

  “Well, don’t go pestering Tunk about anything. He doesn’t like to be pestered.”

  “You gave them all the money you made today, didn’t you?”

  “No one holds out on Tunk. He gets madder about that than about anything. Hold out, and he has you beat.”

  “When do you get your share?”

  “Saturday. Tunk brings sweets and pies for us to buy, too. It’s the best night of the week.”

  “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” Chace said.

  “Was that the Bible?”

  “Something my ma likes to say a lot.”

  “You’re lucky to have a ma,” Tallulah said. “You had any sense, you’d be home with her instead of here.”

  Chace reached behind him and ran his hand over the back of his shirt along his waist. “I have a cramp.”

  Tunk was sitting with his legs over the platform and was talking to one of the boys who had arrived with him. When the collection pouches were brought, he hefted each, and grinned. Zeke bent toward him and said something in his ear and pointed at Tallulah and Chace. Tunk glanced around and nodded. Zeke came partway over, then beckoned.

  “Here’s your chance,” Tallulah said. “Be as nice as you can be. He’ll let you join us. I know he will.”

  Tunk hopped down from the platform and faced them. Up close, he stood head and shoulders above Chace and had pockmarks on his face. His smile was cold. He flicked his eyes down and up Chace and then he put his hands on Tallulah’s shoulders. “Zeke tells me you sold all your apples today, little one. Good going.”

  Tallulah beamed proudly. “Thank you.”

  “Zeke also says you found someone you think will work out,” Tunk said, and gave Chace his flick look. “What’s your name, boy?”

  “His name is Chace and he just got in town—” Tallulah started to answer, only to have Tunk put a hand over her mouth.

  “I asked him, little one, not you.” Tunk squared on Chace. “Cat got your tongue?”

  “How long have you been running this outfit?”

  “I ask the questions, not you. You want to be a hawker, you’d best remember that.”

  “I don’t aim to be a hawker,” Chace said. “I aim to run them.”

  “What?” both Tunk and Tallulah said together. Zeke and the other two boys turned.

  “I’m taking over,” Chace said.

  Tunk frowned at Tallulah. “What’s this? What are you up to?”

  “It’s not me,” she said plaintively.

 
; “It’s me,” Chace said. “Since you are hard of hearing, I’ll say it one more time. I’m in charge now. Your three friends can stay on or they can go with you, but if they stay I’ll make it worth their while.”

  “Chace, please,” Tallulah said.

  A flush was spreading up Tunk’s neck. “You son of a bitch. Think you can walk in and push me aside? You hear him, boys?” He laughed in contempt.

  “I heard him,” Zeke replied. “Worth our while, he said.”

  Chace nodded. “Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll give you twice as much. But I’ll expect you to earn it.”

  “Earn it how?” one of the other boys asked.

  “You do the same work you have been doing. Things go on as before except you take orders from me and only me.”

  “Twice as much money?” the third boy said. “That’s twenty dollars a month.”

  “Zeke?” Tunk said. “Floyd? You work for me, not him. Get that through your heads.”

  “Make room,” Chace said, and moved to the right so there was space between Tunk and him.

  Some of the hawkers had caught on that trouble was brewing and were pressing forward.

  Tunk slid a hand under his shirt. “You think you can take over. I’ve got news for you.” His hand reappeared holding a double-edged dagger. “Either you get the hell out or I gut you like a fish and throw you in the bay. I’ve done it before. Lots of times.”

  “Big talk,” Chace said, and drew the Arkansas toothpick.

  Exclamations broke out, cries of alarm, and questions, and the hawkers jostled to see better.

  “Leave while you can,” Chace said. He glanced at Zeke and Floyd but they did not seem disposed to take a hand.

  Tunk said, “Go to hell!” and came in low and fast. He arced the dagger up and in. Chace sidestepped and slashed. Tunk yelped in pain and sprang away, his knuckles opened. Snarling, Tunk circled and feinted right and went left.

  The toothpick met the dagger and metal rang. Chace sprang back and crouched.

  Instantly Tunk was on him, stabbing, thrusting. Chace countered, dodged, slipped a cut at his jugular. Tunk didn’t relent; he was a tiger of the streets and he had a long claw. The dagger nearly opened Chace’s cheek. Chace retreated, swiveled, and caught Tunk across the upper arm. Tunk didn’t bat an eye. Dagger and toothpick wove a glittering tapestry. Suddenly Tunk sprang and drove his foot into Chace’s leg. Chace almost went down. Scrambling, he parried a try at his face. An elbow caught him on the jaw. Stars pinwheeled and Chace staggered and heard someone scream. Tallulah, it sounded like. Chace fought the weakness, planted his legs, and refused to be budged. Tunk overextended and Chace shoved him. Tunk went stumbling. Chace streaked in, blocked a desperate stab, and drove the toothpick to the hilt between Tunk’s ribs.