The Pesthouse (30 page)

She would, though, have to mention to him that glimpse through the spy pipes of Captain Chief and the presence, on that day at least, of so many armed horsemen. She'd have to tell him, too, about the severed, flapping hand and how she'd felt, instinctively, that it had once belonged to one of Franklin's escaped comrades from the labor gang.

Most importantly, what could she say about their chances of ever going offshore together, other than the callous truth? Yes, there were several large ocean-going boats at the anchorage taking emigrants, and fit young men like Franklin were welcome on them. He could trade free passage in exchange for work at journey's end. She herself — unmarried, young, a virgin still, and not entirely without appeal, she hoped — could travel, too, probably — 'Though you'll think me vain for saying so.' Free passage in exchange for making herself available as a bride and housewife to some stranger speaking gibberish (and kicking her).

But there was Jackie to consider. And Jackie was her main concern now. A woman with a child of that age would not be welcome on the ship. That was certain. She'd seen it with her own eyes. Mothers had to stay on shore.

These were their choices, then. No choices, actually. She rehearsed exactly what she'd say: 'We'll have to bid farewell to you, Franklin. I know you owe it to yourself and to your brother to take this chance of escaping from America, of getting out to sea.' She understood entirely, she would say. She could not blame him for being a strong tall man. She wished him well in his travels and endeavors. But she would stay behind with Jackie. That was her duty, and that was her desire. 'But you...' No, she would not dare to call him Pigeon. 'But
you
should cross that ocean with an easy heart, because there's some good news to go along with the bad. I've already found a home for myself and Jackie. I've found some sisters just along the coast. They'll not take men, but I can live and work with them. They promised it.' She would not explain what that work might be. She could hardly admit it to herself, although she was so inexperienced in that regard that the prospect of being intimate with strangers and paid for it was only a little less alien and unimaginable — and probably more likely — than that she would ever be intimate with a man — the man — she loved.

Now, in those final approaches to the cabins, Margaret considered Franklin's possible responses: that he would not feel easy abandoning her and Jackie, that they should travel south just in case there really were some family ships ready to take them all, that maybe they should wait until later in the season of migration, by which time passage requirements might have loosened. She would say, 'It isn't safe for you to stay. You're already a hunted man. If you care for me and Jackie at all, you'll go. Disguise yourself and go. Our lives will be safer once you've gone.' She might then step forward, throw her arms around him, lift her face toward his. 'Do what you know you must,' she'd say, and close her eyes.

In her toughest and most rational recesses, she expected and she feared that he would simply blush and protest unconvincingly before announcing a bit too readily that, yes, her advice was sensible. He would have to take the ship. And Margaret, to tell the truth, was already angry with him, for his good fortune and for his selfishness.

IN FACT, when at dusk she eventually pushed back the door of the cabin, she was too startled by Franklin's bloodstained hands and sleeves to wonder at the kitchen smells, the newly set fire, the lantern light, let alone speak her well-rehearsed arguments and lines. Maybe it would be sensible to observe the best traditions by waiting for the water to boil on the grate before voicing her difficult news or speaking ill of anyone at the anchorage.

It was as if she had returned as an adult to some untroubled place from her childhood. All was well. Jackie was sitting up happily on their makeshift bed playing with some brightly painted fishing floats. She raised her hands to Margaret when she recognized her and cried out the sweetest greeting. And Franklin seemed too excited by his domestic achievements of the day and too pleased to see her for Margaret to destroy his boyish pleasure yet with her heavy news and her No Choices. So she let him show her how he'd fashioned a fire stick from the snapped end of a fishing rod and a bow string and had coaxed a flame in a handful of dried grass, how he'd slaughtered and butchered the larger of the horses, how he would use the smokeshop to produce jerky that evening, as soon as it was safe to make that amount of smoke, how he'd settled Jackie and her stomach with horse meat grilled and made into a broth, how he'd made lamp fuel from fish oil and animal fat, how he'd prepared a feast of meat for Margaret to welcome her back from her journey. He even kissed her on her hand and pulled her to the fireside. 'You see?' He was so happy with himself.

Once they had eaten and Jackie had been rocked to sleep, Margaret told him everything by lantern light, watching his face for any sign, for any hint, that this would be their final night. But oddly he seemed almost relieved to hear her news. 'We'll have to stay,' he said. 'If they won't have us, we have to stay.'

'They will take you. You've dreamed of it.'

'They won't take me unless they let me keep whatever company I want. I won't leave you and Jackie. What kind of person do you think I am? We'll stay. That's it. We'll stay right here. I like it here. I'll be a fisherman. I'll plow some fields. We've still got one horse left.'

'You know we can't stay here. It's dangerous. You can't hide all the time and one day you'll be recognized. The tall man with the funny laugh.' She looked at him and grinned, despite the warnings she was offering. 'And then you won't have any choice about keeping whatever company you want. You'll be back in the labor gang again. Or else they'll make you dig a hole in the ground for yourself.'

'Or feed me to the gulls.'

What she said was true, of course. 'We can't stay here,' she summarized. 'We can't go onward. And we can't go back.'

'Now that's what my ma used to call a box without a lid,' Franklin said. 'There's no way in, there's no way out.' And then, after a long, silence, 'Why not?'

'Why not what?'

'We can't stay here. We can't go forward, you say. But why can't we go back? You'll think me crazy, though, if I even mention it. I think I'm crazy myself He straightened up, took a deep breath and then reached over and took Margaret's hand. 'I can't explain what's happening inside my head. It's full of bees. I can't think straight.'

'Go on, Pigeon. Try to say.' She wrapped her fingers in his.

'My mother's calling me,' he said. 'That's what I've thought about. Laying that fire. Keeping this little cabin in good heart. Waiting to hear you pulling back the door so we could eat. Everything I've done for you today, I used to do for her. But I'll not abandon you and Jackie like I turned my back on Ma. I'll never forget her staying in the house so she wouldn't have to wave us goodbye so long as I draw breath. I shouldn't have left her there. I shouldn't have. I should've had more strength. It's right, what you say. I have dreamed of getting on the sailboat and making a new life for myself. But ever since Jackson died or disappeared, I've had two taller dreams. I've dreamed of finding him again. I've dreamed of walking back onto our land, poor though it is, and taking care of Ma. Those are my biggest dreams. They're bigger dreams than getting on a ship, I'll tell you that.'

That night — well fed and warm for once, a little bilious, smoky-eyed, but somehow calm — they thought through Franklin's madcap dream more carefully. Good sense demanded that they move away, out of the orbit of the rustlers, far from Captain Chief (and far from Melody Bose). Franklin's life might depend on it (and so might Jackie's). Good sense demanded that they at least should check out other anchorages farther down the coast. They'd traveled such a distance already. What difference could a few more days make? Good sense demanded that they keep away from those badlands that they'd already escaped from, the lawless highways and the debris fields, the junkies and the plains of scrap, the deadly lanes of Ferrytown, the treacherous mountain paths unsuited to anything but goats, the acid earth of Franklin's family farm, the taints and perils of America. But there was no excitement in good sense, and no romance. Sometimes it was wiser to be unwise. 'Only the crazy make it to the coast'; and only the crazy make it back again. That was the wisdom of the road: you had to be crazy enough to take the risks, because the risks were unavoidable. So they came to talking hungrily of heading west once more, of being less than sensible, of turning their backs against the sunrise and the ocean, of being homeward bound.

But during the night, when Margaret, woken by a wet-legged Jackie, was cleaning up and drying the girl by candlelight, she felt less sure. All she could imagine was Franklin lost again, punished for his loyalty to her. Franklin being led away by Captain Chief. Franklin being set upon by bandits. Franklin being taken as a slave. Whatever happened, she decided, they would not make the same mistake as on the journey eastward, by following the Highway. They'd stay on the back ways, living off the countryside, not begging from the few remaining homesteaders unless they had no other choice. Perhaps it would be best to travel at night. That would be possible if the skies were clear, especially as they still had one horse to help with Jackie and their few possessions. At least by night her tall man would be almost invisible and not vulnerable to any gang master who wanted some free labor. Yes, that would be their biggest problem, making Franklin almost invisible. She dreamed of it. She dreamed of Franklin being what he couldn't be, short and unexceptional.

Margaret woke earlier than Jackie and Franklin as usual and, rather than disturbing them, just lay on her back watching the inside of the cabin take shape and listening a little nervously to the ocean, the wind, the sunup birds, the breathing at her side. She stretched her legs and flexed her muscles, feeling well if just a little stiff. She cleaned her teeth with her nails and wiped her eyes clear of sleep. She pushed her hands through her now almost finger-length hair and wondered if it would be possible, now that they had fire, to heat a little water. She hadn't washed or even combed her hair for several days. She was ashamed of it. What must she look like to her faithful Franklin?

Then, she had it. An idea.

The best protection for their journey west. The answer to the biggest problem that they faced. Now nobody would bother them. Franklin would be safe, for all his size and strength.

Margaret rolled out from under their saddle blanket and found the tool box. There was hardly enough light yet to see each item clearly, but she could feel them. The gutting knife, still sticky from the horse's blood. The implements they could not recognize. The mallet and the skillet. Some loops of string. She felt what she was hunting for, caught in the corner of the box. The fillet blade. She pulled it out by its bone handle. The metal cutting edge was sharp. After the attentions of a decent whetstone or a leather strop — and she was certain she could find something suitable — the edge of this blade would soon be dangerous. She'd always been the one at home in Ferrytown to sharpen tools, so she was confident. Yes, this would do. As soon as Franklin was awake and she had warmed some water, she'd shave her man, from head to toe. She'd make him look truly dangerous for once. He would become an outcast with the flux.

It was a strange experience, painstaking and embarrassing. Margaret's hands were shaking at first, possibly because she had gripped the fillet blade so tightly and for so long when she was stropping it on one of the horse leathers, but also because Franklin was lying on their bed with his hands behind his head, like a lover. Satisfied. He had started out standing, and she had kneeled at his feet, first softening the hairs on his legs with water and then shaving them with upward movements of the blade, against the nap. But almost at once she nicked him. Just two tiny cuts. The blood spread alarmingly on his damp skin and her hands began to shake even more. So she started again, with better light. 'Lie on your back,' she said. 'Then I can reach you more easily.'

Margaret shaved both lower legs first, holding on to Franklin's feet with one hand and cutting with the other. His hair was black but wispy there, on his calves and ankles, and only became more unruly and patternless toward his thighs. She did not shave far above his knees, just the full span of her fingers and no further. These lower parts of his long legs seemed common property and safe. Out of harm's way. A man could show his legs this high to strangers and seem open-hearted rather than immodest. But any higher and the intimacy would be too great for strangers.

Margaret kept her movements prim and did not speak. She wanted to appear dispassionate and concentrated on her task. There was, though, ardor in her heart. Just touching him in all his public places was such an unexpected pleasure. The hollows and the mounds, the muscles and the sinews, the rough male skin. Her fingers followed the blade.

Her thoroughness would have to recognize its limits, though. Franklin let her shave his back and chest and every last part of his arms, from the wiry hairs on the back of his knuckles to the tangled, wet and gingery hairs in his armpits. But he became less comfortable when Margaret started on the mass of hairs around his nipples. He had to hold her leg to steady himself. His breathing became restless. His eyeballs rolled. His eyelids dropped. 'Are you okay?' He nodded, couldn't speak. He cried out only once and let out a deep sigh, when Margaret was tugging up the hairs below his belly button to cut them as short as she could. She thought she'd cut him, though there was no blood so far as she could see. But she could soon tell what was troubling him. Indeed it now was just a finger span away from her cutting hand. Franklin was excited by her touch. That was something new — alarming and interesting. So her impulses were both to stare and to look away. 'Margaret,' he said. And then a little later, 'Margaret,' again. And then, 'Mags, Mags.'

Margaret said nothing. She just busied herself, making sure that all the visible parts of his body were as clean and smooth as her tools would allow. It was up to him, not her, if this resulted in anything other than shaving. If Franklin had reached out his hand and pulled her to him, she would have fallen on him happily. If he had taken her hand and pushed it farther down his body under his clothes and into the hair that modesty had said she should not touch or cut, she would have allowed it, for surely it was time for her to take that risk. She would have welcomed taking such a risk.