by Jordan Krall
She knocked on the door. “June, honey? You alright? Can I come in?”
A childlike voice said, “Yes.”
When Betty walked in, she saw June on the floor, naked and shivering. Her bedpan was next to her and it was filled with dark blue vomit.
“Oh my god! June!” She rushed over, grabbed a blanket from the bed, and covered the girl. “Why didn’t you yell for one of us? Look at you!”
June said, “I don’t feel all that bad.”
“What about this?” Betty pointed to the bedpan. “You must’ve got rid of your dinner for the last week. Let’s get you into bed and then I’ll fetch Doctor West.”
“No,” June said. “I’m fine. Don’t call the doctor. I just need some sleep is all. I’m just really tired.” She let Betty help her into bed. “Thank you.”
“Now you get some shuteye, sweetie.”
“I will. But not until you tell me about the stranger downstairs.”
“How’d you hear about him?”
June smirked. “Oh, I might’ve been spying.”
“And you wonder why you’re not getting better, moving around when you know damn well you’re supposed to be in bed.”
“You’re not my momma, Betty, even though you’re old enough to be.” She giggled and then coughed, clearing her throat of thick phlegm. “So, tell me about the stranger.”
Betty smiled. “What? There’s nothing to tell. He came in and got mixed up with Nix and his boys. They were bothering Stacklee.”
“That stranger better watch out. William Lyons won’t be happy,” June said.
“I know, I know. But you should’ve seen him, the stranger. He threw a glass right at Nix’s eye. It was beautiful as much as it was funny.”
“So what’s his name?”
“Calamaro.”
“Where’s he from?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.” Betty got up from the bed. “You need your sleep.
Stop worrying about handsome strangers and worry about getting well.”
June giggled. “So you think he’s handsome?”
“Oh, don’t be silly. I’m old enough to be his mother, too. Go to sleep,” Betty said, walking out of the room while trying to hide her smile. She didn’t mean to let it slip, her thinking the stranger was handsome. It was a long time since she had been attracted to a man in that way. After seeing all the dirty bastards coming in and out of the brothel, it was hard seeing a man as anything more than a customer.
Still, was there anything wrong with her thinking the stranger was good-looking? After all, she was still a woman. It wasn’t like she was going to pursue him. That would just be damned silly. Betty walked slowly down the stairs, fixing her hair on the way down.
* * *
As soon as Betty left, June jumped out of bed. She walked to the door and opened it an inch. When the hallway was clear, she opened the door wider and tip-toed to the next room.
She opened the door and walked in.
On the wall was a starfish the size of a dinner plate. It was dark green with small yellow dots. Against the floral wallpaper, it created focal point that was both disturbing and fascinating. At least this was the case for June who had taken every opportunity to sneak into the room to stare at the thing.
June didn’t know how it got there and was more than a little afraid that it had something to do with her sickness. She didn’t care, though. She was starting to love the creature.
“Hey you,” she said to the starfish as it slowly slid down the wallpaper. June knew it wouldn’t talk back but she hoped that it understood her just like horses understood. But was this thing as smart as a horse? June thought that maybe the thing was even smarter. After all, it found its way into this room. An animal must be pretty clever to do such a thing.
As soon as she spoke, the starfish stopped moving.
June smiled. “You didn’t have to stop,” she told it.
The starfish started sliding down the wall again but this time it moved slower than before.
“You want me to bring you to my room?”
It stopped again. June took that to mean that the creature didn’t want to leave. But maybe it was telling her to take it back to her room, back to her warm bed so they could snuggle together as woman and starfish. Just to be on the safe side, June decided not to move it.
She said, “Don’t you worry, I’m not bringing you anywhere.”
The starfish continued sliding down the wall. As it did so, it left a trail of translucent slime.
“You’re cute, you know that?” She wanted to touch it. She wanted to pick it up like a baby and hug it, kiss it, tell it that she would be there for it no matter what.
June wanted to be a mother. She wanted to be the mother that she herself never knew. When she was born, her parents took one look at her two extra feet and left her for dead in a field outside of Newark, New Jersey.
So as June stared at the starfish on the wall, she felt a longing to breastfeed it. Of course she knew she wasn’t nursing and that the very act of it was impossible but that still didn’t deter the desire to nourish the creature with her mammary glands.
She also wanted to wrap it in a blanket and take it for a walk. If anyone asks to see the “baby”, she could just say that it was sick and couldn’t be near anyone but its mother. Yes, that’s what she could do.
June stepped closer to the creature. Her hand slowly moved towards it and that’s when she was hit with a stab of nausea. It brought her down to her knees. June was now sure that her current illness had something to do with the creature.
Drowsiness set in quickly. As she stared at the wallpaper directly below the starfish, red and blue starbursts bombarded her until the whole room exploded in liquid color. The starfish was at the center and now it had a face. June turned away from it as if it was the very face of God and to simply catch a glimpse of it would mean damnation or insanity.
She looked down at her body and saw that she only had two feet. The two extra that had grown out of her ankles were gone. A feeling of relief shuddered through her. Maybe the first twenty-three years of her life were really just one long dream. Maybe she was just a normal two-footed girl with loving parents who would laugh when she told them her terribly absurd dream about having four feet. They’d say, “That’s just ridiculous, sweetie. No one has four feet.”
June started to walk but stumbled onto the floor and landed on her back, making a splash into an iridescent pile of gooey light. She looked down and saw that she still had four feet. The starfish was now above her and was lowering itself with what looked like a pink spider web. It dropped onto her chest and lifted itself up on two legs. She covered her eyes and said, “Don’t scare your mother.”
She felt it latch onto her left breast.
It started to suckle.
June felt a strange sensation, the sensation of milk being drawn from her breast by the mouth of a starfish. It wasn’t unpleasant.
“You must be hungry,” she said, uncovering her eyes and looking down at the creature. It had grown to twice its original size. June surrendered to the strange, wet creature suckling at her tit. She surrendered to the swirling colors that enveloped the room. But most of all she surrendered to the feeling that she finally was able to be involved in a nurturing mother-child relationship. It was a strange one, yes, but it was at least something that she had never experienced before and that made her feel good.
June still could not look directly at the starfish because she didn’t want to see its face. If she did, she worried that it would destroy the good feelings she was experiencing. Instead she looked at the wall behind it and tried thinking of Calamaro.
Something about the stranger intrigued her and so she imagined him being her husband while her child, the starfish, was being nourished by her breast milk. Maybe when the baby got older, Calamaro would teach it to ride a horse and shoot a gun. Father and son would go hunting for coyote or pronghorn while mother stayed at home and did housework, eagerly waiti
ng for her men to get back. It was all just so splendid. She couldn’t stand it any longer.
June grabbed the starfish in her hands and hugged it tightly. She didn’t feel sick anymore.
“Mother loves you.”
CHAPTER NINE
Calamaro was enjoying Stacklee’s company. The man was kind without being feminine, tough without being an asshole.
“You headed somewhere in particular?” Stacklee said, downing another whiskey shot. “Or are you just drifting through this wonderful desert of ours?”
“I had to get as far away from home as possible,” Calamaro said.
“Where’s home?”
“New Jersey.”
Stacklee said, “So it’s bad back east? I always hear people talking about how great it is.”
Calamaro put the shot glass to his lips but then put it down. “Not that great.”
“I guess all sorts of shit happens everywhere. Can’t escape it, eh?”
“Nope.”
Stacklee could see that the topic of conversation had changed Calamaro’s mood. He went from happily drunk to drunkenly sullen. “Sorry I brought it up.”
“My fault,” Calamaro said. “I guess I never expect for the past to come up in conversation even though it always does. One memory can crush my peace of mind in a second.”
Stacklee screwed the top back on the whiskey. “Something happened to you, huh? Something bad?”
“Yeah,” Calamaro said. The color drained from his face.
“I need to keep my big mouth shut.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Calamaro said. “I think about it anyway so there’s no use in hiding it. I had a family once. Wife and daughter. They were killed.”
Stacklee dropped his head and looked at the floor. “Sorry to hear that. I really am.”
“I know things like that happen all the time but it wasn’t from a sickness or accident. A bunch of Union soldiers killed them both. Thought my wife was a spy for the Confederates since she had family in Kentucky.”
“Shit,” Stacklee said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything but now you know why I’m exploring this wonderful desert.” Calamaro forced a somber smile.
“I was you, I wouldn’t tell Betty about it. That’s the kind of thing makes her cry. She’s tough and all but she’s still a woman.”
Calamaro nodded. “I think I’ll head back to my room. Need to rest, get my head right.”
“I understand. You take care,” Stacklee said.
Calamaro left the brothel and walked back to the hotel. He had enjoyed spending time with Stacklee. Though he had never known a black man personally, Calamaro never had anything against Negroes. The ones he did come in contact with had been no different than the white people he knew. They might not have been as well-dressed or well-educated but they had the same virtues and vices as anyone else. For that reason, Calamaro never understood why people gave Negroes so much trouble.
Nix Morrow and his two friends were a different story. Calamaro had known people like that his whole life. They were bullies, plain and simple. It was satisfying to see them intimidated.
Then Calamaro thought about the gold.
There were rumors that a renegade Confederate soldier named Bert Cavanaugh stole a cache of gold and hid it in Screwhorse. Cavanaugh disappeared and now the gold was up for grabs. Calamaro thought it might be nice to find that gold and move on to California where he could start a new life.
Once he was in his hotel room, Calamaro laid on the bed without even taking his boots off. He stared at the water stains on the ceiling. The stains were in the shape of a woman’s shoe. Then there was the sound of high heels on a hardwood floor and soon, the smell of the worn leather of a woman’s shoe mixed with perfume.
His eyes were focused on the stain until his eyelids fluttered and he fell into drunken sleep while being lulled by the clip-clopping of the heels. Memories bombarded him and he fell back into the dream full of naked, tattooed women and a bank vault full of corpses.
Calamaro awoke to the sound of someone screaming in the next room.
“What the hell?” he said, sliding off his bed. He stood by his door and listened.
The scream moved from the room next door into the hallway. A woman’s voice screamed, “Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!”
There was another scream but this time it was a man shouting, “You nigger bitch! Get your ass back here!” Calamaro opened his door and peered out. He saw the woman and was confused. The woman was white.
The man walked into the hallway. He was large man with a thick purple beard that ended in grotesque curls. He grabbed the woman by the throat. “Get back in there and take your lickings!” Again the woman fought but quickly gave in.
Calamaro stepped out into the hallway. He said, “Problem?”
Both the man and woman looked at him strangely. They both said, “What?”
Calamaro took a step closer. “Is there a problem here? Looks like you’re giving the woman some trouble.”
The woman said, “Mind your business, will you?” She took the man by the arm and pulled him into her room. She shouted over her shoulder. “Cocksucker!”
As the door swung closed, Calamaro saw the man with the purple beard punch the woman in the side of the head. The door shut.
Calamaro put his hand on the knob and turned. It was locked. He knocked softly with his knuckles. “Hey,” he said.
The woman inside shouted and then the door opened. Standing there naked and bruised, the woman said, “What the fuck do you want now, asshole?”
Calamaro said, “Move.”
Behind her, the man with the purple beard grabbed a gun from his holster which was lying on a chair. As he brought it up, Calamaro pulled the woman into the hallway and pulled his own gun.
A bullet whizzed by Calamaro’s head. He brought his weapon up. His pistol burped and sent a bullet into the room, hitting the man in the neck. The blast singed some curls of the purple beard.
From behind him, a fist hit Calamaro in the back. He shoved the woman back and said, “Go.”
“Asshole! You killed him!” she screamed, running down the stairs and out of the hotel.
Calamaro stood there still a little bit confused but figured it was just another one of those things that happens when a man and woman get together. Private passions have a way of turning into crazy games. Why that woman let the man treat her like that, he’d never know.
The man was on the floor, the gurgling coming up from his throat sounding like farts at the bottom of a well. Calamaro walked in the room and looked down at the dying man.
“You had to pull your gun, huh?” Calamaro said.
There was no response, only more gurgling.
“You want a doctor?”
More gurgling.
The man’s purple beard started to move. The hairs twirled around like dizzy insect legs.
Calamaro took a step back.
As the purple beard’s movements got more violent, the dying man lifted his gun hand again and pointed it at Calamaro. Through thick phlegm and blood, he said, “Yig.” He cocked the gun. “Yog.” He pulled the trigger.
Calamaro was nearly hypnotized by the purple beard and felt the bullet graze the top of his head. There was no use in bringing the man to the doctor now. He went down to a crouch and sent two bullets into the man’s chest.
The man was dead.
Standing up, Calamaro holstered his pistol and stared down at the corpse. There was no doubting it. The man with the purple beard was as dead as a doornail. But why the hell were the beard hairs still moving? It was a macabre sight that made Calamaro walk quickly out of the room.
CHAPTER TEN
Before he went to the brothel, Bluford Barnes decided to walk around the town and take in the sights. He wanted to be careful to steer clear of that Hard Candy Kid fellow but other than that, it should prove to be valuable time spent checking out the possibilities.
As he w
alked past the barber shop, he heard voices behind him.
One of them said, “Hey Nix, look at that guy dressed up like an Englishman. Must be lost.”
“Shut up, Ryan. We got work to do,” said the other.
The voices trailed off in the other direction and for that Bluford was grateful. In every town he went to, there were always a few troublemakers who would stop at nothing to harass a stranger, especially one dressed as immaculately as he. Besides, he didn’t consider himself a fighter of any sort and felt that there was no shame in running away from a confrontation if there was any chance of physical harm.
He stopped at the General Store and looked out on the horizon. The Indians were still there, their camps a little bit closer now. That disturbed Bluford but he planned to be out of town before anything happened.
Putting on a big smile, he walked into the General Store. He was greeted by a man with a bigger smile than his own.
“Hello there!” the man said.
“Good day, sir.”
“What can I do you for?”
Bluford shrugged. “Well sir, I don’t know if I even came in here for any one thing. I just came into town for a bit and thought I’d have a look around. You have a nice establishment here.”
The man smiled. “Thank you. I appreciate that. My name is Tom Duma.” He extended his hand and Bluford took it.
“Bluford Barnes.”
“What line of business you in, Mr. Barnes?”
“Oh, a little of this and a little of that. Most recently I’ve been in the position of salesman.”
Tom Duma’s eyes lit up. “Got anything of interest with you?”
“Sorry, no. I don’t have my supplies with me at the moment.”
Tom said, “Aw, that’s too bad. I’m always in the market for new wares. People in this town are always after something new. In fact, just last week a man from Rhode Island came through. You ever been to Rhode Island?”
“No, sir, I haven’t. Heard it’s nice, though.”