Devils Unto Dust(66)

Micah’s words eat at me. Because here’s the truth, sober as sunlight, final as a shut door: I am leaving him. I’ve got one foot in the ground already, and there’s no fixing it. I don’t know how to tell him, how to make him understand. I wanted to get out, but not like this. Never like this.

Now all I want is to go home. More accurately, I want to go home two years ago, when everything was simpler. Maybe we weren’t always happy, maybe the floor sagged and we struggled to get by, but Ma was alive and I didn’t have to worry about making the wrong decisions. I didn’t have to level a rifle at my pa and lie to my brother. I don’t want the life I have now, and fate, ever agreeable, will make sure of that.

There’s a soft knock at my door, almost hesitant.

“Go away, Micah,” I call, and roll over onto my back.

The knock comes again, more insistent this time. I let out an exasperated groan and get up.

“What?” I ask, flinging the door open to find it’s only Sam, Sam with his perpetually hunched shoulders.

“Micah’s in a rotten mood,” he says, like we’re already in a conversation. “Guess it didn’t go so well with your pa.”

I sigh. “Come in.”

I sit back down on the bed, pulling one leg up and resting my chin on it. “Is he still mad at me?”

“He’s always mad at you,” Sam says, smiling a little. “Besides, you know it ain’t about that.”

“You know, the stupid thing is I missed Pa,” I surprise myself by saying. “I ain’t seem him in months, he causes this whole mess, but somehow . . .”

“He’s your pa.” Sam shrugs.

“Yeah.” I pluck at the threads in the quilt absentmindedly.

“He was always nice to me,” he says. “I’m sorry for what I said about him the other day. And I’m sorry he don’t wanna make things right.”

“He weren’t always this bad, you know. I mean, he always went off to drink and play cards, but he would eventually come home to Ma. After she died, it’s like—I don’t know, it’s like she took a piece of him with her. And every time he went off after that, less and less came back, and now all that’s left is what I saw today.”

“That ain’t your fault, Will.”

“It’s nobody’s fault. It just is.”

“Some folks aren’t meant to be parents.” Sam looks off, like he’s seeing something far beyond the walls of this room. “My ma took off when I was four.”

“I remember,” I tell him.

“She left a note, saying she loved me and she’d come back for me when she was settled. It took me two years till I was able to read it, and another three to figure out she was lying.”

I’ve never heard Sam talk about his ma; I look at his face, concerned, but he stares at whatever he sees in the distance. I don’t say anything, because there’s nothing to say that will make it better. Glory’s full of stories like Sam’s, like Ben’s, like mine. Just ’cause it’s common doesn’t mean it hurts any less. We’re all orphans out here.

“People have a way of disappointing you, if you let them,” I tell him.

Sam shakes his head, breaking his reverie. “They can surprise you, too, if you let them.” He smiles wanly at me. “You want to come down? I hear there’s calves’ feet for supper.”

My stomach rolls, and I press my lips together. “I think I just want to go to sleep. Long day tomorrow. Tell Micah to take it easy with the whiskey.”

“All right. I’ll tell him.”

“Hey, Sam?”

He pauses by the door. “Yeah?”

“What you said at the station, about fixing up a cut . . .”

“Is your hand worse?” he asks, stepping back.

“No,” I say quickly, angling my palm away from him. “No, it’s healing. But if an infection did get bad, is there anything I could do?”

Sam frowns. “Mostly keep it clean, maybe try some heat or bleeding. If it gets too far gone, you’re talking amputation. Or cauterization.”

“What’s that?”

“Burning,” Sam says, his mouth twisting. “But I don’t recommend it, not without a lot of opium. And once it hits your bloodstream, there’s nothing can be done. Why are you asking me this, Will?”

“’Cause I’m clumsy, Sam, and I can’t always come running to you.”

“Sure you can,” he says, grinning.

“Well, thanks. For that, and . . . for talking with me.”

“Anytime. We’ll be home before you know it, Will. Get some rest.”

I listen to the door close and lie down on my side, staring at my hand like there’s an answer hiding somewhere in the crisscrossing lines, if only I can find it.





53.


I can’t sleep. I lie on my bed, staring wide-eyed into the darkness, watching shadows melt into other shadows and counting the hours down. I’m exhausted, but my body refuses to settle, jumping and twitching against my will. I finally drift into a sort of numb daze before dawn, and when I wake up my bed is soaked with sweat and all I remember of my fever dreams is that they were dark and full of twisted limbs.