Unbury Carol(57)

Looking around, he saw there was a lot of string. Stacks of books were held together with string; candles were secured to their sticks with it; coats hung from the string between bookshelves; balls of string stood precariously piled in the corners; string for the pictures, string for the tools.

Enough of it to cocoon the schoolhouse twice over.

Moxie sat in a small chair once used by a young student. Set the green sack on a second chair beside him.

“You taking care of your back?” he asked, his voice quiet in the padded house. “I’m worried.”

“You’re worried? It’s all I can think ’bout!” Jefferson laughed and walked uneasily to a table. “I like your red shirt, Jimmy. Makes you look young. Like you stepped straight outta the past.” He paused. Moxie imagined he was recalling that past. “Want that meat now, Jimmy?”

Moxie looked out through the cracked window and saw the mare was still eating.

“Thank you,” Moxie said. “That’d be fine.”

Jefferson scooped some beef onto a plate as Moxie eyed an old fish tank, now used to store more books. Through the glass he read titles he’d never heard of before. String held the covers closed.

“You rob a library, Jefferson?”

Jefferson came with two plates, handed one to Moxie, and had a hard time setting himself down on a rocker. “That’s a dream of mine, you know,” he said. “Imagine all them bindings. Could make a bed of ’em.”

“Surprised you don’t sleep on a bed of books as it stands.”

“Ha! Well, sometimes I do!” Jefferson struggled to lift his fork. “What leads you to Harrows, Jimmy?”

It was hard to reconcile the sight of Jefferson now with the lightning-rod riding partner Moxie had discovered the Trail with.

“Going to break apart a funeral.”

“You don’t say?”

“I do.”

Moxie ate.

Jefferson cackled, his half-toothless mouth a black hole of joy.

“We done some things, Jimmy. We have. But a funeral? That’d be a Trail-topper to be sure.”

“I brought you something,” Moxie said, patting the sack beside him.

Jefferson bunched his brow and looked down at it. “No presents, Jimmy. You being here is more’n enough.”

“Take them,” Moxie said. “I don’t need them.” He knelt and removed a new pair of boots. A shirt he’d worn but once, gardening. A fresh pair of pants.

Jefferson smiled. “Well, Jimmy. I could sure use me some clothes.”

“It feels good, Jefferson. It feels good to be riding again.”

Jefferson’s head bobbed slowly in the dull light. “I’d join you but I got no horse. Sure as shudders none as nice as yours.”

But both knew Jefferson could ride no more.

Moxie felt a longing for the past. The nights. The people. The legends.

“I’d like that,” Moxie said. “Might’ve brought another had I known you’d come. Things are tricky out there.”

“How’s that, Jimmy?”

“Might have some bad men on my tail.”

“You always have. We both have.”

“You’re right, Jefferson. But it’s been some time. I been planting rosebushes for near a decade.”

“A triggerman?”

“Yes. And…something else.”

Jefferson’s eyes clouded. “There are worse things than men on the Trail, Jimmy.” A Trail mantra. A phrase both had heard a thousand times and more. A truth both saw for themselves.

“Yes. There are.”

“Hurts ya, don’t it…”

“Riding?”

“Riding and not riding, too.”

“Yes, it does. Yester eve I slept about as sore as any man ever slept.”

“I believe you.” Jefferson cackled again. Quieter. Now he was sitting up and pointing. “Jimmy, Jimmy, you remember the time we hid in that hole for all of two days? Shudders, Jimmy. We must’ve heard those men pass o’er us a dozen times. They talked ’bout where we were, theorized all the livelong day! We was right under ’em, Jimmy! Right there under ’em!”

He fell back into his seat again and laughed, bringing his hands to his chest.

Moxie smiled and looked to the window and saw the mare still eating.

“You writing about those days?” Moxie asked.

“Some,” Jefferson said. “I’m writing ’bout the burden o’ thinking hard on things for so many years.”

Moxie nodded. “I’d read that book.”

“I’m writing about riding, too, ’cause I can’t separate the two. Thinking and riding. Rides and thoughts.”

Moxie looked up and saw more writing on the ceiling. “You hurt your back doing this?”

“That I did.”

“You thinking of taking a photo, Jefferson?”

“Sure I do. I met a man with a camera one time. Wouldn’t mind stealing something like that.”

Moxie smiled again. “Used to be we could take it while they watched.”

“Used to be!”

The men laughed. Jefferson coughed.

Then Moxie said, “I’ve got to get riding, Jefferson.”