Haints Stay (5 page)

“You put your hand in a lake, withdraw it, and the surface moves for a
bit,” said Sugar, “it snaps back into place or it ripples on and on. Your
involvement ends the moment your hand leaves the water.”

“We’re here,” said Brooke.

It looked no different from any other patch of wood. The boy was not even
sure in which direction he should be looking.

“You take Bird,” said Brooke.

Sugar placed his hand on the boy.

“After you,” said Sugar.

“What do I do ?”

“Walk,” said Sugar.

“What’s Brooke going to do ?”

“Wait,” said Brooke.

As they walked, the woods seemed to bruise. It was
nearly, suddenly, evening.

“How far is it ?” said Bird.

“Not far,” said Sugar.

They were headed toward nothing in particular, it seemed to Bird. Only
darkness. Beneath their feet, small stones in the dirt squeaked as they were pressed
together. Every now and then one would pop beneath Sugar’s heel, but he did not seem
to notice.

Bird’s toe caught a hidden root and he fell forward, palms out, onto the
earth before him. His shin struck the root and his palms stung as they pressed into
the small stones hidden beneath a layer of dirt and leaves on the forest floor.

“Can you stay on your feet ?” said Sugar.

Bird nodded. He could.

“Then follow.”

Sugar took the boy’s shoulder and drew him up.

As Bird’s hands left the dirt, he unearthed what he’d mistaken for small
stones. The yellow edges of two cracked teeth shone up from the earth as a third
worked its way from where it had impressed into Bird’s palm and fell to join
them.

“It’s a graveyard,” said Bird.

“You’ll find that’s always the case,” said Sugar, “if you pay
attention.”

Bird was sniffling behind Sugar now, being led by the wrist. Bird said
nothing in return, made only a few soft sounds, pausing every now and then to suck
air through his nose.

“Are you hurt ?” said Sugar.

Bird did not respond.

Suddenly, they could hear water. After a moment they could
see it, too. A silver stream and its heavy movement through the earth.

“We’re almost there,” said Sugar.

Bird cut his whimpering then and began to tremble slightly against
Sugar’s grip.

“You should cut all of that before we get there,” said Sugar. “If he sees
how scared you’re acting, he will fuck with you.”

The trembling sped up for a bit, then slowed. Sugar could hear the boy
breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. The air was still then.

“We’re here,” said Sugar.

Before them was a modest camp. There was no smoke. No fire pit. Only a
few scattered bundles and a thin man in a suit, sitting upon a rock.

“Sugar,” he said, “you’ve brought a friend.”

“His name’s Bird,” said Sugar.

“For now,” said Bird.

“And the baby ?” said the man.

“I’m not a baby,” said Bird.

“Indeed,” said the man. “Sugar, I’m happy for you.”

He drew a knee to his chest, set his heel against the rock beneath
him.

“Can you tell me anything about Bird ?” said Sugar.

“Like what ?”

“Where did he come from ? Who’s his family ? Where can we leave
him ?”

Sugar finally loosed Bird’s wrist from his grip, but Bird’s hand came
back to Sugar’s arm only a moment later, clutching his elbow, his forearm, his
bicep, his shoulder.

“Don’t leave me,” said Bird.

“We could get you home,” said Sugar.

“I can’t tell you anything about him,” said the man,
“because there’s nothing to tell.”

“What does that mean ?” said Sugar.

“You should keep the baby this time,” said the man. “The woods are crying
out with all you’ve left them.”

He looked up and around, as if at nothing in particular.

“There is no baby,” said Sugar. “Enough about the baby.”

“Nothing’s gone away. You know that as well as I do.”

He was smiling then, eyeing Sugar and Bird, one after the other. He was
calm, somehow comforting. It wasn’t a feeling Bird recognized. He could not tell if
he liked it.

“He’d be better off with his family,” said Sugar. “Brooke and I can’t
help him. He’s in danger if he’s with us, and we’re in danger if he slows us
down.”

“Most are better off with a family,” said the man.

“So help us,” said Sugar. “Give me something to go on.”

“Keep the baby,” said the man. “Make my life easier out here.”

“Your life,” said Sugar.

“I am being straight with you,” said the man. “But you are not being
straight with me.”

Sugar did not respond.

“Are you ?”

“At the very least, you can tell us if the boy has people,” said
Sugar.

“He does now,” said the man. He rose then. He brushed his knees and waved
them on.

Sugar protested, but the man moved steadily from the rock and then away
from his own camp. He did not look back and he did not register Sugar’s increasing
alarm.

“He’s not ours,” said Sugar. “We have nothing for him.”

Bird was silent.

“You’ve put him to death then,” said Sugar. “This is on you.”
When they finally left, Sugar was angry. He was kicking up stones
and clumps of dirt without breaking his stride.

“Worthless,” said Sugar, over and over again, kicking the earth and
scattering teeth.

Bird followed at an uneven clip, hopping and jogging slightly then
slowing himself to keep just behind Sugar and out of striking distance.

They were following the same path that had brought them there. Bird
spotted the divot where he’d fallen, and he pressed it with his heel.

Sugar paused then, as if he had an idea. He turned to the boy and Bird
took a step back, flinched, and Sugar was upon him. He knocked the boy onto his
back. The boy swatted his desperate hands and gripped at Sugar’s neck until Sugar
was able to scoot his knees onto the boy’s elbows and, sitting on his chest, pin him
at three points to the earth.

“I will gut you,” said Sugar, “if you don’t tell me this instant where
you’ve come from and what you’re after.”

Bird coughed and made room for Sugar’s grip to tighten.

“You ran away ?”

Bird tried to shake his chin. He was wide-eyed, gazing back at Sugar and
trying to look plain.

“Someone sent you ?” said Sugar.

When he did not respond, Sugar shook Bird. He shook loose the tears Bird
was trying to hold back and struck him in the brow with the middle knuckles of his
right hand.

“Speak up,” said Sugar. “Tell me something to make some sense of all this
and I won’t break you open and drag you behind us until you’ve bled out. We’ll cut
off pieces of you and leave a trail for whoever sent you to find us. And when we
deal with
them, it will be to mutilate them painfully and leave them
to the woods. Then we will deal with your mother and father. We will put your
mother’s head in a gunny sack and your father’s will hang from the side of my
saddle.”

Bird went back to trying to look plain. Or he was scared enough to be
immobilized. Either way, he wasn’t crying or fighting, just staring up at Sugar as
if there was nothing to do worth doing and nothing at all to hope for in the
world.

“What’s happened ?” said Brooke.

Bird had not heard or seen his approach.

“The boy’s got no paths,” said Sugar, “no markings of any kind. He’s
appeared as if from nowhere. He knows nothing.” Sugar was pressing his palms against
the boy’s throat then, holding him to the dirt and squeezing until the boy’s eyes
bulged and stuttered about in desperation. “We’ve got nothing to go on other than
knowing that we’re better safe than sorry. Safer without him. Safer without a mouth
to feed and the unknown hanging over us.”

“Well,” said Brooke, “if you’re going to do it, do it.” He rubbed his
hands together, wiped them along the length of his pants. “But don’t drag it
out.”

Sugar leaned into his hold on the boy’s throat and locked eyes with
him.

“If you’ve got something to tell me,” whispered Sugar, “you tell me
now.”

The boy was tense, a short bit of rope tugged from either end, but when
Sugar went silent the boy held that way for only a moment longer before releasing
into the mud. His eyes wandered from Sugar to Brooke and then to nothing in
particular. His air was gone. His throat was bruised and bent. Something was humming
up inside of him like the edge of sleep. The
sounds of Brooke and
Sugar rattled around in his head, little clips of conversation and the sounds of the
forest around them now, suddenly, and from before.

When Bird came to, he was not dead. There was a fire at his side,
Brooke and Sugar were seated opposite him.

“You,” said Brooke, pointing at Bird, “are no help at all.”

“You tried to kill me,” said Bird. He sat up, coughed, rubbed his throat.
He coughed again and loosed a mixture of phlegm, painfully. “You nearly killed
me.”

“I would have killed you if I was trying to kill you,” said Sugar.

“You choked me !” said Bird. He rose, began to search the earth around
them for a rock of any size.

“And you produced nothing,” said Brooke, “other than sleep. Other than
some blood and spit. And now Sugar,” he nodded toward Sugar at his left, “he’s got
nothing much left to try.”

“You wanted me dead,” said Bird. “I am not safe.”

“You’re not listening,” said Brooke.

“I don’t need to listen,” said Bird. There were no rocks. Infrequent
shocks of dead grass. The dirt was fine where they were, vaguely yellow. The ground
was loose and unfamiliar.

“Where are we ?” said Bird.

“In between towns,” said Brooke.

Finally, Bird’s eyes came upon a stick, a few paces off. Not much at all,
but substantial enough, maybe, to land a few strikes.

“If you can eat,” said Brooke, “you’ll feel better.”

Bird brought the branch down upon Sugar’s defending hand. It fell apart
quietly, like ash, and Sugar rose to swat the boy down again.

“Enough,” said Sugar. He produced a knife from his
waistband and brought it into the boy’s gut.

“No,” said Brooke, and the woods filled with thunder then, roaring in the
distance at first then rising in volume and velocity like a river run over and borne
down upon them.

The earth trembled and the boy collapsed, his hands at the abandoned
knife in his gut.

“Horses,” said Sugar, and then they appeared.

Dozens of wild horses tore through the camp, tearing their fabrics and
trampling their objects flat. Sugar lunged for a tree and began to climb, the
muscles of each passing animal thudding against him and bruising his more delicate
edges.

Brooke huddled to the ground and was kicked and pressed, broken open
about the arms and chest and face. The boy had vanished. The knife too. Sugar
climbed the tree up and out of harm’s way and swayed with it as the horses
passed.

Then it was over. The dust was not settling but the sounds were gone and
the trees were rocking back into place. Sugar heard Brooke’s cough and knew he was
alive. He glanced about for the boy, but did not see him.

“Are you badly hurt ?” said Sugar.

Brooke did not answer. He rolled to his side and clutched his gut. He
coughed blood and phlegm into the brown mist between them.

“The boy is our concern now,” said Sugar, sucking the sharp end of
a bone.

“He wasn’t a concern and you made him a concern and you’ve done enough
without me,” said Brooke. Their meat was raw. They were avoiding fire, resting in
the hollows of a large bush.

“I lost my temper,” said Sugar.

“You lost your sense, but it doesn’t matter,” said Brooke. “What was
there to know about the boy ? What was said ?”

“Nothing,” said Sugar. “This is what I’ve been trying to say.”

“Can’t be nothing,” said Brooke. “What were the words ?”

“I was told there was nothing to tell,” said Sugar.