Devils Unto Dust(38)

“Benjamin Garrett, pleased to meet you.” He shakes my hand firmly. “Now sit still till Doc Junior comes back.”





30.


Despite the throbbing of my face, I can barely keep my eyes open, and Micah has to shake me awake when he and Curtis get back.

“Sam’s still patching up . . . that man,” Micah says, refusing to call Dollarhide by name. “He said he’ll be back right quick and he’ll give you something for the pain.”

“If I lie down again I’m not getting back up,” I tell him, yawning wide. “I’ll wait for him outside.”

The night air wakes me up some and I tilt my head back and stare at the thumbnail of the moon. It’s full dark now, the sky a black so soft it looks touchable. I never get to see the night like this, the stars spread wide and untamed. Nights are for locked doors and shuttered windows, hushed voices and bad dreams. I forgot how vivid the darkness could be, how it can wrap around you like old sheets. I breathe it in like I could keep it.

“Damn Dollarhide,” Curtis says from inside the tent, his voice barely above a whisper. I stay still, listening closely. “What was he thinking, starting something at a station?”

“I shoulda guessed he’d try something, after the last time.” Ben exhales loudly, and I picture his frown. “He needs to be put down.”

“I don’t disagree. I’m sorry we let you down, Micah,” Curtis says solemnly. “We’re used to looking for danger outside the fence, not inside.”

“It ain’t your fault,” Micah says, echoing my words. “Willie’s got a knack for trouble. Always has.” He laughs, but there’s an edge of bitterness to it.

“It was good of you, to come after her. Y’all seem close.”

“It’s just us now. The twins are young, and Pa’s always gone. It’s better that way; he ain’t much help when he’s home. I guess he’s not much help when he’s away, either.”

“And your ma?” Curtis asks.

There’s a long pause and something in my chest twinges.

“Sickness took her,” Micah says slowly. “Last year. We hid it as best we could, kept her inside and away from anyone but us. Maybe it was wrong, but . . . we couldn’t let her die like that, alone and outside the fence.”

My shoulders hunch up and I press my feet farther down into the dirt. I don’t want to hear this, and I certainly don’t want the Garretts to hear it.

“Pa came home for a while, but he left before the end. Wasn’t strong enough, I guess.”

My throat gets hot. It should have been him. It was his responsibility, his wife. No one wants to become a shake, so the merciful thing to do is have someone end it for you, end it before you hurt the people you love. Ma put on a brave face, she fought as long as she could before she asked for help. It was Pa’s burden, and he couldn’t even give her that bit of peace.

“Ma didn’t want to lose herself, didn’t want us to see her . . . like that. Like she wasn’t our ma anymore.” Micah keeps talking, and I wish I could shut out the sound of his voice. “But Pa said he couldn’t. I think I hate him, just for that. He left her, left her when she needed him most. She tried so hard to fight it, but she was so sick—”

“I think that’s enough, Micah,” I say loudly, cutting him off before he says something he can’t unsay. My voice is harsh in my ears, and I swing back into the tent abruptly. “Or did you want to air more of our dirty laundry?”

Micah won’t meet my eyes, but at least Ben has the courtesy to look embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” Curtis tells me. “It’s none of our business.”

“We lost our mother almost thirteen years ago.” Ben’s voice makes me jump. I turn to him, and he nods solemnly. “Out east, in Ennis, where we’re from. Smallpox. I don’t remember it well. They wouldn’t let me too close, on account of me being so young. Mostly I just remember how the whole house smelled of illness. Even after she was gone, it took ages for the smell to finally leave my clothes.”

“What did it smell like?” It’s an inappropriate question, but I want to know if it’s the same smell I remember. Or does each disease have its own particular scent, the way some people smell like cut tobacco or old soap?

“Sweet, mostly. Like melted butter, but with something rotten underneath.”

I can almost smell it, and I shake my head to clear it out. The pox is almost as bad as the sickness, but at least some folks come through it with only scars to show. Every now and then it roars through a town to remind us there’s more than one way to die. Last time Best had a pox outbreak, Ma took Micah and me straight to Doc Kincaid for vaccination. He pricked us on the arm with the cowpox inoculation and afterward we both got lesions for near a week, but Ma said we had enough to worry about besides the pox. I reckon I should get the twins in sometime, but I’ll probably have to hold them down.

I should say something else to Ben, thank him, maybe, but that would sound strange. Maybe it’s enough to say I’m sorry, but Sam returns and saves me the trouble of figuring it out.

“I can take a look at that eye,” he says to Ben.

“I don’t think so, Doc.”

Sam doesn’t even try to argue, and I glare at him while he opens his pack, digging around until he finds a vial. Maybe it’s the beard; I would grow one if I could, and the unfairness stings.