The Wolf Road (29 page)

“A woman as fine as yourself shouldn’t be out in this downpour,” he said, hat on his head keeping off the rain, “especially without proper attire. Please, I would be happy to show you the finest boutique in Halveston. Your man here can wait outside under the awning. I will be happy to help negotiate the cost; I have many friends in town who would be more than willing to give a discount to a beautiful lady. If you need a room for the night for yourself, I know a place with clean sheets. Maybe you and I can have a drink while your man finds other occupations.”

Penelope raised up both her eyebrows, then laughed. Not her real laugh, I knew that one, this was a laugh that said, You just said exactly the wrong thing, sir.

“Oh dear,” she said, seeing right through him, “I fear you have misunderstood. My friend here is no man and as I see it, neither are you.” Stanley bristled, mustache twitching, but Penelope kept going. “I know you, sir, your type is found in every corner of this wretched country.” Stanley tried to interrupt, but Penelope weren’t having none of it. “You
slither
, from person to person. I’d bet handsomely that you also sell claim papers. I’d bet more those claims are worth less than the wood pulp they’re made of. Do you prize coin from dead men’s hands? Or do you steal it from the living by trading on their dreams?”

Stanley puffed out his cheeks and started blabbing something that no one was paying no attention to. People around had stopped to listen and I could see, even in the rain, Stanley’s cheeks turn red.

Penelope stepped closer to him and spoke louder so all them around could hear. “Do you know why you do this? Well, do you? You’re the type of man who cannot work honestly because your”—she nodded her head toward his manhood—“anatomy is severely underdeveloped.”

Laughs bubbled up from ’neath the overhang of a general store.

“Miss…” Stanley hissed, soft like his voice had been cut right out a’ him.

I stood there, grinning wide. Then Stanley looked at me finally, recognized me, and I saw his eyes go big like fishbowls.

“You…” he said, turning all his anger on me.

Folks all ’round was laughing and jostling each other, crowd got bigger as news spread.

“Sir,” Penelope said, stern, and snapped his attention back to her, “I do not require your services.”

Stanley looked at all the faces a’ Halveston. All a’ them faces smug smiling, waiting to see what he would do next. Shame is a dangerous gift to give a man like Bilker. Men like Bilker ain’t got no compass guiding they actions and when you give that kind a’ man a gun, you’d best be careful what you say next.

Penelope looked him right in the eye and said, “You can go now.”

Waxed mustache trembled on his face and his hand was itching to pull out that revolver. My hand found my knife and he caught on to that. I was close enough to him to drive that blade into his gut afore he could even touch his gun.

He figured it. He was a swindler but he weren’t stupid. Stanley held up both his hands and gave a bow to Penelope.

“Well done, woman,” he spat. “I shan’t bother you or your
dog
again.” Then he backed away a few steps and said, “But Halveston is a small town. I’m sure we will cross paths again very soon.”

He pushed his way out the crowd, nearly knocking over a fella as he tried to get away.

I let all my laughter out and put my arm round Penelope’s shoulders. “Hell, girl! You may as well have cut off his pecker and given it him on a damn silver platter.”

She smiled. “I don’t think they make platters that small.”

“He won’t be forgettin’ that anytime soon,” I said, then realized what that meant. “We made ourselves an enemy. Halveston’s just got a lot smaller.”

The gathering a’ people started to break up but one woman, done up ’gainst the rain in a heavy purple coat with gold buttons and not so much as a speck a’ mud on her, came close to Penelope and shook her hand.

“I’ve been wanting to say that to him for years,” the woman said. She had a strange accent what Penelope told me later was pure-blood French, though I weren’t sure what part a’ BeeCee that was close to and I didn’t care none to ask.

The woman held on to Penelope’s hand and said, “Stanley has friends in low places. Keep your eyes open.”

Penelope nodded but it weren’t in fear of that little snipe, it was out a’ knowing something the French woman didn’t. “My friend and I have taken care of men far worse, but I appreciate your concern, Miss…?”

The woman took her hand back. “Madame. Delacroix. Amandine Delacroix.”

Penelope’s body tensed up like she just been dipped in ice water.

“
Enchantée
,” Penelope said ’tween clenched teeth.

They stared at each other for a minute or two. Penelope all wide-eyed and stiff, Delacroix all knowing and amused. Penelope knew her, or ’least her name, but she ain’t never mentioned it to me. Just another a’ them secrets she got stored away in that pretty head a’ hers.

Penelope and Delacroix started talking quick in a tongue I didn’t have no clue over. The woman had lines round her eyes and a hard-set jaw, raven-black hair done up loose with pins, spilling out round her face. That hair could a’ been down to her shoulders or down to her knees. Just like the rest a’ her, I couldn’t be right sure what I was seeing. Older’n me and Penelope put together. She weren’t skinny but weren’t padded out neither. She looked like someone out of my nana’s magazines, glossy, like she had too much color in her. She had money and she weren’t afraid to show it in a town like this. Woman like that didn’t take no shit from no one and Penelope knew it. I weren’t at all sure what was happening ’cept that I was getting bored and my parents weren’t going to find themselves.

“ ’Scuse me,” I said, louder’n what was strictly polite, “we got someplace to be and I ain’t gettin’ any drier standing out here.”

Delacroix weren’t too pleased with the interruption. She stopped talking, then licked all her teeth ’neath her lips. I watched the bulge a’ her tongue swirl ’round them gums and felt a mite a’ sickness in my gut.

“
Pardon, mademoiselle
,” she said, and I weren’t at all sure I liked what she called me.

Penelope was paler’n when she was sickest.

Delacroix’s eyes lingered on me a beat longer’n they should have. Out the corner of my eye I saw all them posters a’ me and Kreagar and I cursed Penelope for drawing attention to us.

“Do we have an understanding?” the woman asked her.

Penelope, stifflike and reluctant, nodded. Delacroix smiled and said her oh-rev-wahs to us both. I watched her walk away, though it weren’t like any walk I’d ever seen. That coat hugged her body and she near glided over that mud, a purple hourglass full a’ sand and secrets. A group a’ men were waiting for her. I squinted at them through the rain and saw their dandy clothes. Dandy men in Halveston. Dandy men what I’d seen before.

“We’re goin’,” I said, and grabbed Penelope’s arm. She weren’t arguing and let herself be dragged.

It was early afternoon but there was a darkness in Halveston that made it feel like midnight. No sun high in the sky, just black clouds full a’ rain, and a town full a’ danger. That woman had made Penelope tense and quiet but after I made a joke ’bout her bare feet, she loosened up.

Even though they was on every post, Penelope only pointed out my poster once and that was to say they didn’t get my hair right. I kept it short but the poster had it down to my collar.

“Shave it off and nobody will recognize you,” she said.

I was tempted but then I figured my parents wouldn’t take too kindly to some skin-headed girl claiming to be their daughter turning up unannounced.

We asked for directions to the permit office. Other side a’ town. Small brick building ’tween a brothel what used a rusting airplane wing for a sign, and an eating house with red plastic chairs outside. Made sense, I thought, you buy yourself a claim, then go get fed and celebrate with a girl or boy what can’t say no. This town was full a’ traps made to separate coin from purse.

“So you gonna tell me?” I asked as we walked.

Penelope didn’t look at me. “Tell you what?”

“Don’t play dumb shit with me,” I said. “You know what.”

Penelope wiped wet hair off her forehead. “Bought and paid for, remember?”

“Wouldn’t a’ figured it’d be a woman what bought you.”

I don’t know why but I took her hand then and held it tight. Them days on that boat, in them crates, were best forgotten.

“What you agree with her?” I asked.

Penelope sighed. “That I’d pay her back before the end of the month or I work off the debt on my back.”

“How much?”

She laughed, all bitterlike. “Too much.”

I squeezed her hand and an idea popped right into my head. All smiles, I said, “Hell, my parents must be rich as sin, all these years up here, they’ll give that Delacroix woman a damn truckload a’ gold if I ask them to.”

“Elka…” Penelope said, but I weren’t listening.

“All we got to do is find them. You’ll be free a’ that debt afore mornin’.”

“I don’t—”

“You save me, I save you, remember?” I said, and she smiled, sad. “Pick up the pace and we can give her the coin afore sundown.”

“All right,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain.

I was so giddy with it all I didn’t hear the tone, didn’t hear her true meaning, didn’t hear the warning. But damn, my parents were here, I felt it. And we was going to find them today.

—

The permit clerk was a thin man in an open-collared shirt. He was squirrelly with a beard what only seemed to grow on his neck and chin. Rest a’ his face was baby-smooth. He could a’ been forty but that skin made him look no more’n twenty.

“Help you?” he said when we walked in. No one else was there but the office was laid out like it had room for two dozen. The clerk had a desk with two chairs in front of it what we sat in. Behind him was rows and rows a’ metal cabinets and stacks a’ paper.

“We’re looking to find some folks who leased a claim a while back,” Penelope said. All them nerves she had after meeting Delacroix was gone.

Clerk sighed. “Can’t help you. We don’t give out that kind of information.”

Penelope looked like her daddy died all over again. Pain painted up her face and she shuffled closer to the desk.

“Please, it’s very important, we have to find them.”

“Rules are rules,” he said, but not as firm.

“Oh,” Penelope said with a smile, “couldn’t you bend the rules just this once? My friend is looking for her parents.”

Clerk sighed again but Penelope’s smile was gold to a penniless miner.

“I’d be really,
really
grateful if you could help us out,” she said, fluttering them eyelashes.

“Well…” clerk said, and Penelope knew she had him, “I can’t give you the information but if you found it yourself…”

Penelope smiled along with him, understanding just what he was saying. “I’d love to slip behind there and rifle through your papers,” she said.

I groaned but I saw hearts spring up in that clerk’s eyes. Weren’t the only thing springing up neither.

Clerk nodded feverish-like and said, “I’ll go dig out the claim papers. They’re right at the back…where we won’t be disturbed.”

Then he dashed off ’tween them metal cabinets. I turned quick to Penelope and said, quiet, “You ain’t gonna do what I think you’re gonna do, are you?”

She frowned at me and said, “What do you take me for? I want you to make yourself scarce, go get something to eat or something. Leave me the pack and your knife, you know, just in case.”

“I ain’t leavin’ you alone with him.”

Penelope put her hands on my shoulders. “I can handle him. Just tell me your parents’ names and leave me the knife.”

“I ain’t happy about this,” I said.

Penelope smiled then kissed me on the cheek. “Trust me.”

I did. Hang me for it but I did trust that girl. I told her the names and the year they went, all words what was burned into my head from my momma’s letter. I gave Penelope the knife what she put at the top a’ the pack. Knife on its own raises questions. Knife in a bag ain’t looked at twice.

“You coming?” shouted the clerk. “There’s a huge stack of papers here for you.”

I groaned again. “Kick him hard in the nethers, he tries anything.”

“I will.”

Then I left her in that office and never asked what happened ’tween them metal cabinets. Rain was coming down hard and the town had turned ghost. No one in the streets, shutters locked up ’gainst the wind. The rain was a mercy. It made my face in them posters run into a black smudge. First time I felt I could walk about that town safe, though it weren’t no pleasure. My boots were good boots but they was having a hell of a time in that mud. Penelope in her bare feet didn’t stand a chance.

Lucky thing I knew where was selling boots cheap and I had more’n enough coin for a pair. I picked my way through town to the doctor’s office and his barrow. Figured the bad luck of wearing a dead man’s boots was worth the risk.

Doctor sat on his porch, shotgun ’cross his lap. Barrow was right next to him, piled high.

“Didn’t think I’d see you again,” he said, though it weren’t a friendly greeting.

He was in shadow, didn’t get up, didn’t seem in no mood for visitors.

“In need a’ some boots,” I said.

“You’ve got boots.”

“For my friend, what cut her leg. She’s better now thanks to you,” I said. I was looking ’round for the boy who was taking the coin but he weren’t nowhere.

I pulled out a few dollars. “I got money for ’em.”

“I don’t want your money,” he said, something dark in his tone.

I spotted a pair at the top a’ the pile what looked about the right size. Probably a young lad’s, not all that worn out neither.

“What you want then?” I said, and got close enough to snatch them boots if I needed.

Doctor saw what I was thinking like I was shouting it out loud. He slid the barrel of the shotgun ’tween the tied laces and lifted up that pair a’ boots.

“Him,” he said, voice cracking. “I want my son back.”

My heart sunk down to my feet. His lad had sold the shoes.