Outlawed(47)

The spring moon was bright and high, the shadows of the rock walls sharp on the valley floor. An owl hooted, close and loud. The fine gray fabric of the Kid’s coat and hat took on a soft sheen in the moonlight.

“Have you been sleeping?” I asked.

The Kid looked at the moon and shrugged.

“What about the—” I paused, trying to find the most respectful way to ask about night terrors and fears with no names. “What about the other symptoms?” I finished.

“Have you ever been responsible for other people, Doctor? Have you held their lives in your hands?”

“You know I have,” I said.

The Kid nodded.

“My daddy was a pastor,” the Kid said. “Our town had a mayor, but really he was in charge. He baptized every single baby. He married a new couple nearly every Sunday. And when a wife was being beaten by her husband, when a widower broke down and thought about joining his dead wife, when a child was sick or missing or a grandfather was entering his second childhood and losing his mind, my daddy was there with counsel, day and night, and sometimes with food or money or a bed, whatever was needed, because every person in the congregation was like part of him and when they suffered, he suffered.”

“He sounds like a great man,” I said.

“He was very strong,” the Kid said. “Three hundred and sixty days a year, he held everyone up. And then for a week, he fell apart. He didn’t sleep. He saw things and heard voices. He accused us of things we didn’t do. He never hit us, but he would break things—once he smashed every dish in the kitchen, and we ate cold bread and cheese off of napkins until we saved up enough to replace them.”

“Are you worried that’s going to happen to you?” I asked. “That you’re going to have an attack like he did?”

“I was supposed to take over the church,” the Kid said. “Not my older brother or my younger brother—me. I started preaching before the congregation when I was eleven years old and I was more popular than the assistant pastor. I knew how to listen to people—when my daddy was busy visiting someone else, the parishioners started pouring out their hearts to me. Everyone said I was just like my daddy.”

The Kid sighed and smiled. “I should’ve known I’d get the bad part too.”

“What helped your daddy?” I asked. “If there’s a medicine, I can make it or we can get it from Nótkon, I’m sure of it.”

“Nothing helped. In the beginning the doctor or the midwife would come to look at him, but the only thing that ever worked was waiting. Mama would tell the church elders Daddy was very sick, and arrange for the assistant pastor to give the Sunday sermon. Then she’d draw all the curtains and keep everyone away from Daddy, visitor or family, until he was himself again.”

The owl called again, farther away this time. Clouds were massing around the moon. The Kid turned away from me to face the red wall, now harsh black and white in the moonlight.

“I still have my wits about me,” the Kid said. “The laudanum helps. I’m being judicious with it, as you said. But if I forget myself, if I behave as though I’m not a mortal human, but a god on earth, and no man or woman can harm me, then you must take me to the cowboy shack down by the creek. I’ll stay there until the sickness passes.”

“I can do that,” I said, “but shouldn’t you be talking to Cassie about all this?”

“Cassie suspects,” the Kid said. “But she doesn’t know how ill I could become. If she knew—”

The Kid took off the gray hat, passed an elegant hand over a close-cropped scalp. Bareheaded beneath the night sky, the Kid looked older and more weary than I’d ever seen.

“Our friends in there”—the Kid said, gesturing at the bunkhouse—“they may not always like me or agree with me, but they rely on me. I’ve begun to falter, I know they see it. But I’m still myself, for now.”

The Kid put the hat back on.

“If I have to go away,” the Kid said, “tell them I’ve been taken with fever, tell them whatever you can think of. Just don’t tell them the truth.”

I was afraid then—not of the Kid or whatever had ailed the Kid’s father, but of what would happen if I was responsible for holding the whole gang together. I was afraid, too, of what would happen if I couldn’t make a working bomb soon; every day we didn’t make progress on the Kid’s plan, I sensed, meant another sleepless night. But I knew it would do no good to let the Kid know I was scared.

“You can count on me,” I said.

“Good,” said the Kid. “Come on, time for bed. The night air’s been good for me. I should take these constitutionals more often.”

The Kid began walking back to the bunkhouse, and I hurried to catch up. I had so many questions, and I didn’t want to let the moment pass without asking at least one.

“Why didn’t you take over your father’s church?” I asked. “What happened?”

The Kid gave me a smile and a shake of the head at the same time.

“Another day,” the Kid said. “I’m tired.”

I spent the next day with the field manual, looking for clues. I had read the section on bombs hundreds of times, but I had not read the whole book cover to cover. Much of it was not, strictly speaking, a manual at all, but instead a record of the accomplishments of Frederick Blunt himself. Through his negotiation skills, Blunt had apparently helped form the militia, bringing together the fighting-age men of three extended families who had fled northwest when the Flu came to the old city of St. Louis. Thanks to his cunning and military acumen, the men had been able to defeat or contract with several other bands of white settlers who had escaped the dying city, resulting in control of significant territory in Missouri River country, as well as the loyalty of nearly five hundred people. Blunt was then instrumental in establishing a town seat in the place they called Meeting of the Waters, and defending it against attacks by rival bands of refugees while simultaneously sending scouts west to treat with Osage leaders and to create satellite settlements against the day—soon, Blunt was sure—when the population of Meeting of the Waters would overwhelm its location on a peninsula between the rivers and necessitate a move.