Turpentine

by Spring Warren

  With the skies overcast, the cloud cover gave us respite from the torrid temperatures. I thought of the farmer: Was God going to provide rain after all? But it did not even spit, bad news for the farmer though I was relieved we would not be slogging through mud again on this leg of our trip. We made good time in the cool air, passed an easy and uneventful night, and the next day we did indeed approach the small burg of Philip.

  I eyed the settlement, astonished that it would have earned a place on any map, much less a fancy one in an atlas. Surely there was a lot of empty space to fill, once past the Mississippi. They were desperate for anything to indicate settlement on the wide spaces.

  As before, Phaegin and Curly remained back. I took our canvas and filled it at the PHILIP WELL in front of the shack demarcated PHILIP COMMISSARY, which was next door to an outhouse labeled PHILIP CRAPPER. I leaned the wet bag against the porch post, knocked on the commissary door, and walked in. The tiny building was filled with enough goods to stock a warehouse. Provisions leaned from every wall, hung from the ceiling, were stacked on the floor.

  The proprietor looked startled at my arrival, looking around me toward the tracks as if the train had crept in unbeknownst. “Howdy, there, I’m Philip. How’d you get here?”

  “Walked.”

  He grinned. “Goddamn. Are you crazy, man?”

  “Broke.”

  He grew instantly serious. “This ain’t a charity. If I had ha’penny for every down-and-outer’s story I’ve been forced to listen to, I might just make some money for once.”

  “I’m not looking for a handout.”

  He regained his good humor. “You going northwest for the gold?”

  “Gold?”

  “Black Hills. It’s Callyfornia all over again. Nuggets the size of horse turds.” He motioned from floor to ceiling. “This is my gold mine: picks, coffee, pans. Folks stop and they clear me out.”

  I nodded. “Yep. Strike it rich, won’t be walking anymore.”

  “Run into the goddamn Injuns, you won’t be walkin’ neither.” He laughed uproariously.

  I pointed to salt pork, tack, jerked venison, and dried apples. “Whatever three dollars’ll get me.”

  He shook his head. “Won’t get you all that.”

  “What?”

  “Inflation.” He took a canteen from the wall. “A year ago I’d be hard pressed to sell this child for two bits. It’s a ten-dollar piece of equipment today.”

  “Ten dollars?”

  “Like I said, this is the real gold mine, son.”

  I pulled the last two bills from Avelina’s father out of my pocket and counted out change. Omaha was suddenly much farther away.

  Philip, noting my lack of funds, again lost his smile, seeming to become someone else entirely than the genial shopkeep of a moment ago.

  He tossed off his hat. “Fuck. I knew it. Every goddamned time.” He slapped the zinc countertop. “Give me your damned money.”

  I laid it on the table. With disdain and great drama, Philip swept the cash into a drawer, violently pulled apples, tack, and coffee off the shelves, and wrapped them in a sheet of brown paper that he shoved across the counter. “Go. Get the hell out before anybody sees I’m goddamn giving my crap away.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t goddamn thank me, get the hell out of my establishment!”

  I walked to the door before I remembered. “Do you, by any chance, have a newspaper?”

  “To give a man with no goddamn money? Well, looky here, I sure enough goddamn do!” He reached under the counter, pulled out a slim paper, balled it, and threw it at me. I ducked the missile, but it still hit me in the head. He laughed, his voice breaking. “Now, you want to fuck my wife for free? She’s still in bed, ain’t that handy?” He started unbuttoning his shirt. “You’ll be wanting this, I’m sure. And my pants! Got a couple of balls in there that, apparently, I’m not using!”

  I grabbed the crumpled paper from the floor, the waterbag from the porch, and lit out as he shouted, “Wait, hold on there, you son of a bitch, I haven’t deeded over the whole goddamn business to you yet! You’ll want to be renaming the fucking town before the train comes in!”

  We hightailed it out of there, and when Philip’s ranting had faded into the distance I uncrumpled the ball of paper. We were still in the news, farther back in the reporting, though the charges against me had mounted. My reputation had not only grown but flowered and fruited. I was now recognized as the ringleader for an entire anarchists confederation, and there was speculation that a bombing in Maryland and one in South Carolina might well be my doing, as well as the Connecticut explosion that I had at least been present for. I was being charged with three murders by dynamite and with the murder of Mrs. Quillan, who had yet to be found and, according to her spouse, would never have left of her own volition.

  The goods Mr. O’Hare had promised to pay for at the mercantile were being charged to me as armed robbery, plus the robbery at the cigar shop. Further, Mr. Cordassa claimed I must have kidnapped Phaegin, like I had Mrs. Quillan, for Phaegin was a good girl, like his own daughter.

  Phaegin grinned when I read her the paper. She whispered, “Isn’t that sweet? Mr. Cordassa’s such a nice man. I hope Chester reads that. It’ll make him feel better.”

  I gawked at her. “It’s not sweet. I’m getting blamed for everything. I’m the most innocent of us all, and they paint me as a murderer, kidnapper, burglar, and anarchist.”

  We departed from the train tracks and headed southwest for a time. It would cut days off our journey, and we’d reunite with the railway on the quieter leg of rail between Sioux City and Omaha.

  That night, however, with Phaegin snoring lightly beside me and Curly spooned around the bagged pig, who was growing at a pace I wouldn’t have believed possible on a diet of grass and crackers, I thought over the situation.

  It was a good thing for Phaegin that the crimes and her absence were all being blamed on me. After all, Mrs. Quillan was benefiting from the situation, Professor Quillan as well. The real anarchists benefited. There was no reason why Phaegin should not receive the much-deserved relief of my being charged with the whole burden. Maybe she could pick up where she left off, return to the East Coast armed with a story, hardly the worse for wear.

  Though I knew sending her back was the right thing, I wavered because of the desolation I felt at the thought of her leaving us. I am ashamed to recount how close I came to remaining silent, for the prospect of losing Phaegin seemed to ensure an absolute erosion. I might survive without her, but not for long. The dikes would surely fail.

  The night was a long one as I shored myself up and made plans for Phaegin’s departure. Tomorrow we could make it to the station in Grundy. Phaegin would use the last dimes we had to push back east on the train. When she was far enough away for our safety and hers, she would spill the beans of her identity and her capture, how she was treated as a human shield, a possible hostage. They would certainly return her to New Haven, where she would emerge a heroine, a model of pluck. She’d be in all the papers: her tortured indenture to the devilish murderer, her clever escape.

  I worked out the details, one by one. She would be safe. Though I would be alone again.

  As we ate our wretched breakfast, Curly feeding half of his to the pig, I presented my plan to Phaegin.

  Curly stopped stuffing the pig, who squealed in alarm as Curly howled, “You cain’t leave. You’re part of the gang.”

  I smacked the squealing pig on the snout while shouting at Curly. “Shut up! She has a chance to go home, make hats, be free. You want to take that from her?”

  He glowered as he’d done when I’d tried to take his vest and boots, then turned his attention to Phaegin. He reached over and took her hand, looking pleadingly orphan-like. Phaegin, incredibly, looked at him sweetly, as if he were a pet and not a menace.

  I threw my hands in the air. “Whatever Curly wants, Curly takes, no matter what happens to anyone else? You’re the one who
went and ruined her life. Now you’re going to insist it stays ruined so you can have her company?” I shook my head in disgust. “You’re a shoddy, manipulative hoodlum.” I pointed at Phaegin. “And you’re a fool if you fall for it.”

  Curly launched himself at me. “Take it back. I ain’t no shoddy hoodlum.”

  I put up my hands to protect my face and he bruised my ribs. Phaegin grabbed his ear and pulled him off me. “You two. Don’t be so stupid!”

  She let go of Curly. He rubbed his ear. I felt my ribs, glaring at Curly. Phaegin picked up my bag and handed it to me. She picked up her own. “And you call me a fool? Let’s go.”

  She strode off. Curly and I followed. Curly ran up to her and took her hand. “You’re not going, are ya, Phaegin?”

  “Of course I’m not going,” she snapped, then turned on me. “Do you really think I could go back and pick up where I left off? The only chance I had was to slip in unnoticed. Is anyone going to lend me money now with all this hoo-rah, much less buy a goddamn hat from me? Might as well be a burlesque girl and try to marry the president. It’s over, Ned. I don’t want to talk about it again. Ever.”

  As we trudged along, summer came on with vengeance. It was hot for June. It would have been hot for August. The dreary landscape, with nothing but the skeletal arms of sagebrush, emaciated prickly pear, and the short curly buffalo and grama grass clothing its naked desolation, went on and on. We took the smallest sips of water we could bear as our water supply dropped to dangerously low levels.

  I assured Phaegin and Curly, with a certainty I did not feel, that our water would last us until we hit the train tracks and a station. There we’d fill our canteens to last us to the Missouri River. By early evening on the morrow, however, we were yet in the middle of a vast pool of hardpan and heat. We pressed into the shimmer of baked earth. The next day, it was 90 degrees by midmorning. The water barely sloshed in the canvas skin. The pig screed pitifully in thirst from his bag on Curly’s back. Curly looked ready to keel over.

  I dumped the pig out of the bag, and Curly didn’t even protest. For his part, the pig had enough sense to know running off would be certain death, and the animal wobbled close beside Curly. I poured a jigger of water. “Don’t give this to the pig, Curly. He’s doing better than he sounds. Down low, it’s cooler.”

  Curly frowned. “He don’t look cooler.” He tossed his jigger back, then dribbled a couple of drops into his hand, and the pig licked his palm with vengeance.

  “Poor pig,” he murmured, then took up his own whine. “Never could take the heat. Cold don’ bother me, I could sleep without a blanket all winter, but the heat? Kin I have one more drink, Ned, one more?”

  Curly complained as much as Phaegin deserved to. She was swaddled in layers of petticoats, a high-necked blouse, and who knows what mysteries of underclothes. Though we’d cut her hair, it was still thick as a pelt around her face. She was sunburned, the kerchief she wore provided no protection for her face and neck whatsoever, and she wore woolen stockings and leather shoes.

  Phaegin fanned herself, walking with feet dragging the hard dirt. I took her bag to relieve her of the weight.

  Phaegin came to attention, jerked on the strap. “Give it back.”

  “I’ll carry it.”

  She tugged again. I put up my hands. “Fine. It’s not me that looks like a bratwurst.”

  She grimaced, receiving the bag. “You can take some of it.” She handed me a blanket and Curly his western costume. “You might as well carry ’em.”

  I shrugged. “Might as well wear ’em, at this point.”

  The duds were a tonic. Curly leapt to his feet, pulled on his vest with relish, and clapped the hat on his head. When he tried to pull his boots on, however, he tugged and jerked and pulled and swore. “Damn things won’ go!”

  “Then wear your shoes, we got to get going.” I looked west, where I willed the river to rise from the dun landscape.

  Curly continued his struggle, avowing, “I’m not wearin’ shoes ever again.” He groaned and huffed and stood teetering on the heels until his own weight forced his feet into the boot. He grinned, licked his thumbs and ran them over the brim of his hat, and struck a pose. “How do I look, Ned?”

  “Like a real cowboy.”

  A thirsty cowboy. His lips were white and cracked, and he was dusted from head to toe with a fine silt. I sloshed the waterbag.

  Phaegin pointed to the almost weightless bag on my shoulder. “What are we going to do?”

  “River’s got to be right over there.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  “I got lots of tricks. Cactus is full of juice.” She didn’t look convinced. No one mentioned we hadn’t seen a prickly pear for half a day. “You can slash your mules’ ears and drink the blood.”

  She shuddered and hoisted her bag. “We’re the mules, Ned.”

  I scanned the horizon. “Well, we’re headed into buffalo territory. They carry extra water around, like a camel but in their gut. We’ll just kill one. I got my pistol.”

  “You’re going to kill your first buffalo with that little gun?”

  I patted the bag. “This child here could kill an elephant in my capable hands.”

  Phaegin rolled her eyes. “Impressive. I wish it could read a compass.”

  We slogged along, sun almost whining with heat, dirt baked so hard not even dust rose.

  By the time the sun had reached its zenith, Curly had fallen back. I walked backward, shouting through cupped hands, “Curly, keep up.”

  “These boots are killin’ me. What did you do to ’em?” He attempted a short run, grimacing with the effort, but got within talking range. After another half hour or so, however, he had fallen back again, limping, and soon he stopped altogether and sat down in the dirt. “I can’t take it no more!” He tried to pull his boots off, pulling, yanking, and shouting. “They’re tight as pussy.” He sounded panicked. “Whaddid you do to my boots?”

  I wondered if he was getting sunstroke. But there was nothing to do but get to some water, find some shade. I turned and kept walking, shouting behind me, “Nobody did anything to your boots, Curly. Get up, we have to keep on.”

  Phaegin said, “Wait, Ned. Look at him.”

  For the third time I saw Curly in tears. He angrily wiped his face. “I cain’t go no further, I’m telling you. I tried, but I cain’t. They were fine before, now they’s too small.

  Phaegin put her hands on her hips, looking worried. “They fit two weeks ago. You couldna raised up that fast, Curly.”

  Curly glowered. “Maybe I’m finally gettin’ my grow on, I don’ know. I just know they wanta squeeze me to death now.”

  I remembered putting his boots in my bag, still damp from fording the streams. “You got them wet in the creek, Curly. The leather shrunk. Just put your shoes on instead and let’s get going.”

  “Cain’t.” He mumbled and lay back in the dirt, looking at the sky. “Threw ’em away.”

  “You threw them away? Damn, Curly.” I looked behind us as if I could see them. “How far ago?”

  “Far.”

  “Then you’re going to have to put up with tight boots.”

  Curly nodded, struggled to his feet, and took a few steps, looking sick and pinched.

  Phaegin shook her head. “He’s really hurtin’. I’ll give him my socks.”

  “Putting more socks on isn’t going to make his boots bigger.”

  Curly collapsed back onto the dirt. The pig sat in the shade he cast. I sighed loudly, put my hands on my hips, and, nothing else to be done, directed, “Let’s get ’em off, take a look. Maybe we can cut the toes open or something.”

  Phaegin held him in a lock around his chest, and I tugged on the incredibly stuck boots while Curly groaned and howled. The pig bit fiercely at my pant legs like a dog until Curly stopped yelling when the boots came off. Under the cowboy boots, Curly’s socks were crusted and black. Phaegin tsked. “When’s the last time you washed these?”

  �
��Never washed ’em. They’s my lucky socks. Ned gave ’em to me in Pennsylvania.”

  Phaegin peeled the socks slowly from Curly’s feet. Curly bit his lip while tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Ah, poor Curly.”

  Curly wiped his face and squinted at his feet. “I really rubbed the skin off ’em.” He had blisters on each toe and along the spine of his heels that had burst and bled. His feet festered in the vile crud left by the socks.

  Phaegin spoke cheerfully. “Finally, an excuse to get rid of these petticoats.” But behind the smile I could see worry.

  We ripped Phaegin’s petticoats into pieces. Damping one, we attempted to clean Curly’s wounds and then bandaged his feet with the remaining strips. There was no possibility Curly would squeeze into his boots now. I prayed the oozing sores would not become further infected. We were in a mess. We sat on the heat-baked earth. I sloshed the canteen again. Barely a trickle.

  “Exactly where did you throw the shoes away?”

  “Somewheres after I put the boots on.”

  Three hours of walking, but it had been slow walking. Alone, I’d make better time. If we pushed ahead, I’d be forced to carry Curly, and who knows how long it would take us to reach water. “I’m going to go back and look.”

  Phaegin said, “You’ll never ever find a pair of shoes, Ned. You can’t even hit a river. Leave, and we’ll never see you again.”

  I grit my teeth against the diatribe.

  She attempted to soften her criticism. “The dirt’s too hard to leave a track; not even Daniel Boone could retrace our steps.” I said nothing. Phaegin continued. “He threw them away miles back. You veer ten yards to one side, and you might as well be a thousand miles off.”

  “I can find them.”

  “Ned, you can’t.”

  I took hold of her arm. “He can’t walk without shoes. He may not be able to walk with them. I can’t carry him across the country, especially without water, and we don’t have any water. We don’t have any mules, and we don’t have any buffalo. All we can hope for is shoes to get us out of here. I’m leaving you what water we have left. I’ll be gone three hours at most, and we can get on with it.”