Hour Glass Read online

  “All right, kid. You win.”

  “When can you take us?”

  “Hold yer horses, Jimmy. Listen, I still reckon takin’ Hour is a bad idea, but you’re her brother and have say o’er her. I’ll take you tonight, and after seein’ your pa in his condition, if’n you still wanna take her along, we’ll do that tomorrow.”

  “You mean, you’ll take me tonight? What about yer party?”

  She waved her hand in the direction of the saloon as though she were swatting gnats.

  “You mean with them cowpokes? Hell, they’ll be around tomorrow and the day after, and I reckon, the day after. Come on, Jimmy Glass. Let us go see yer pa.”

  Jane beckoned me, and I followed her out into the flame-lit evening. Most people didn’t try to see it, but even in the most lawless of places, it could be beautiful. The moon was big and almost full over the makeshift streets of Deadwood that night. It had rained a little previously, and the wet mud of the thoroughfare sparkled with moonlight. Everything else lit up warm and orange from lamps, making the contrast of the two stark and lovely.

  I breathed in the scent of horses in the livery yonder and the incense wafting on the wind from Chinatown. Somewhere, a group of rowdy men shouted with laughter with the tinkling rhythm of a piano’s keys behind them. Down the street a piece, a woman’s voice serenaded the night like some sort of angel.

  Once the pest tent was in sight, a whole new scene unfolded itself. There was nothing jovial about that place, and the only sounds were those of pain and woe. A human in pain was a more terrible noise than any I knew of. The smell of urine and feces and blood filled the air. When I breathed in through my nose, all I could sense was rust and something else metallic and wrong. Perhaps that was what death smelled like when it came to call.

  Outside the tent, Jane pulled two handkerchiefs from a gunnysack filled with them. We tied the rags around our faces like bank robbers and entered through the flap that acted as the front door.

  It was much as I remembered from before. There were rows and rows of cots with men and women in various stages of the disease. Details were harder to make out with everything cast in the dim candlelight. Evening in the pest tent looked different. Things were softer somehow, in that you didn’t have to see them in the hard light of the day. There were bedpans on the floor, no denying the odor, but you didn’t quite see the awful things inside them. Disease was disease, but I reckoned it was easier to look at without the sun forcing the details on a person. I wondered, as I had on many occasions, how it was that Doc and Jane could stand to come here day after day. They did so willingly and without payment.

  Jane led me through the tent, but she didn’t have to really. After my first time here, I remembered where my daddy was despite the lack of lighting. Even if I hadn’t carved the place in my memory, my waking dreams took me there often enough. Down the rows of cots, turn right, and then six more rows until you made it to his spot.

  There he was, but not as I remembered and not how he appeared in my thoughts of him. The sight of the man in front of me did not register with my mind. This was my pa. It was the correct spot, and Jane said as much to me, but the man before me was so much altered I barely recognized him. His soft burnt hair, so much like mine, was nearly black from sweat and dried blood. His skin was thin-looking and uneven. The bumps on him had festered and burst into oozing scabs that looked painful on his thin body. Thin, so thin. I hadn’t been away from him that long. He shouldn’t look that thin and frail. His eyes were half open and staring blankly at the ceiling. Air moved in and out of his opened mouth, but the breaths were short, and there was too much time in between them. I called his name, but he didn’t respond.

  “He stopped eatin’ a bit ago. We tried forcin’ broth, but he just throws it up. That’s why he looks so skinny.”

  “I was wonderin’.”

  I moved closer, unable to really feel my face. I wanted to find his hand to hold it.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Jane as she eased me back a step. “Surest way to catch this is by touchin’.”

  I waited for something but wasn’t sure what exactly. Perhaps I expected him to come to and look at me, or maybe he’d say something meaningful to give me some hope. It was a stupid thought because nothing happened. He opened his mouth a little to flash a set of exposed teeth, but nothing came out. Jane and I just stood there in silence, watching a man struggle to breathe.

  “He gonna die?”

  “I reckon so,” said Jane with an apologetic tone to her words.

  “Anybody as bad off as him ever come back?”

  “I’d be lyin’ to you if’n I said there hadn’t. That’s not a reason to get hopes up though. I don’t want you to hope too high about this because high hopes fall pretty hard. Your Pa is dying, best I can tell. Me and Doc, we do all we can, and maybe he’ll recover, but I wouldn’t lay a bet on it.”

  I nodded. It was a blessing, being told the way of things as they were. Somewhere, underneath the terror and sorrow, a tiny bit of me was thankful for that. It wasn’t a feeling that would surface any time soon, but at least it was down there, ready to be felt when the time was right.

  We left the pest tent, heads looking down at our feet the way Hour’s might’ve. The rags on our faces had been thrown into a laundering bin, and we washed our hands in an old horse trough that had been repurposed for the pest tent’s needs. There was so much to say between Jane and me and no way to say it, not properly anyway.

  “You know, I knew Wild Bill,” said Jane out of nowhere.

  I looked over at her, but she was still staring at the ground in front of us. Walking back to Dora’s was a slow journey at our current pace, and neither of us minded that much.

  “Yes’m, I heard that.”

  “He was a good man, that Bill. Everyone liked him. People said things about us that weren’t true. Things his wife would’ve died inside to hear. Rumors are a funny thing to start, and I can’t honestly say that I didn’t start my fair share of ’em in various stages of drunkenness.”

  We were quiet for a bit. I wasn’t sure about the true nature of ghosts. I heard a preacher once say when you love someone, a piece of their soul forever walks with you. Joseph’s grammy said ghosts came around when their families needed them most. Something joined us there in that silence. I don’t claim to know if it was the ghost of Wild Bill Hickok, but that explanation sounded just as good as any.

  “Bill was smart and funny and kind in all the ways I wanted to be. He sorta brought out the better side of anyone he cared to get to know. I ain’t ever loved a person that wasn’t family. Romantic love it weren’t really, as best I can figure, but I loved Bill. He was a good friend to me. The trouble was his gamblin’ streak. Made a lot of enemies that way. One reason I don’t gamble. Got enough bad blood on my hands without addin’ to it a goddamned gamblin’ habit. When that shithead, Jack McCall . . .”

  Jane trailed off for a second and caught her breath. I watched her struggle to choke back the makings of a tear.

  “When he murdered Bill, I was too drunk to go and get him. I should’ve killed him . . . me. I should’ve done it. Not some court and hangman, me. It should’ve been me. I was Bill’s friend. It was my right.”

  We had made it to the porch in front of Dora’s place. The group inside was still ranting and rowdy as Jane and I leaned against the wall, heavy with death and regret, the ghost of Wild Bill hovering near as I could tell.

  “The fuckin’ point being that there are only a few people that get to tug on your insides like that, and anythin’ you do or don’t do fer them is on you when they die. I ain’t ever gonna be over Bill, and it’s up to you what you wanna do ’bout your pa. I won’t intervene anymore. I shouldn’ta ducked you to start with.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you saw what his condition is at present. He ain’t got a lot of time, kid. If’n you want t
o take yer sister fer a farewell, that’s yer business. I will help with whatever you need.”

  We finally managed to meet one another’s eyes. Hers were tired and frayed at the edges, and I’m sure mine were hot and swollen from the tears I hadn’t managed to shed as yet.

  “Thank you, Jane, fer your help. You said you’d owe me one, and you paid up and then some. We’re even, and I appreciate it.”

  I stuck out my hand to shake on the accord. Jane’s face softened all over, and she clapped her rough hand on my shoulder.

  “Ah shit, kid. That weren’t no kinda favor I e’er heard of. That’s just what friends do fer each other.”

  13

  The screaming started before Cage could even show me it was another dream. Immediately, my instinct was to tense, but when the foggy layer lifted, I relaxed all over again. There was nothing to do now but resign myself to whatever the dream had in store. Cage would show me what she wanted to show me. Whatever her reasoning was, there was no getting around that.

  The scream came again. It was a desperate thing, that scream, like an animal trapped in a snare. Flower wasn’t yet three years old, but already she acted different from most children. The quiet baby had turned into a reclusive child who hated to be held. It was the one thing all mothers wanted to do for their babies, and Flower hated it with a passion.

  I was fishing when I heard her. That panicked scream I only knew to be Flower’s sent me running for home without even pulling up my line. The mad dash to our home took me only minutes, but she was already out of the house and headed for the trees. Cage was right behind her, reaching for her, calling soothing words in her Sioux tongue.

  When she grabbed Flower, the girl screeched and pulled away from her mother. Instinct made Cage grab her daughter again and try to hold her close, but she yelled and broke away, slapping at the air in front of and around her. By the time I reached them, Cage had given up and let go of her daughter, tears streaming down her face. Her arms hung limp at her side as she watched Flower run over to a nearby tree and sit on the exposed roots. She rocked back and forth there, hugging her arms around herself. A tiny weeping sound came from inside her.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Nothing happened. I don’t know why she cried.”

  Cage looked defeated and tired, yet she looked to her daughter with a visible longing. Every part of her vibrated with the ache to hold her baby, but she stayed put. My own want to comfort Flower told me to go to her as well, but I followed Cage’s lead. In the past, Flower hadn’t wanted me to hold her any more than she wanted anyone else.

  “Why is she like this? I don’t understand. Why does she hate us?” I asked.

  Cage stiffened a little, then released a calming breath.

  “She does not hate us. She is closer to the spirit of the eagle than most people. My daughter, she is blessed.”

  The way Cage said the words, I couldn’t tell if she was telling it to me or telling it to herself. Perhaps she was saying it so we both might believe. Either way, she wiped the remaining tears from beneath her eyes and nodded to herself.

  “But why can’t we hug her? Why does she hate it?”

  “You cannot hug the eagle. Eagles are meant to fly. She feels trapped.”

  We stood together watching my sister from afar. She whimpered to herself as she rocked to and fro, upset over something unknown to us. I hadn’t felt so helpless since I watched those men trample her Keya amulet in front of us in town.

  “What can we do? She needs our help.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve tried everything. The eagle must fly,” replied Cage.

  I resented this helplessness. Flower was my sister, not an eagle; I was meant to protect her. She was mine to care for, mine to watch over. Anger rose up inside me at my own useless arms, unable to help her the way she needed.

  Finally, enough was enough. I couldn’t watch her suffer from afar anymore. I’d try anything and everything if it meant she’d stop hurting. If jumping around like a fool made her feel better, that’s what I was resigned to do. I’d stand on my head and recite a riddle if that’d make her smile a little. I went to her.

  “Jimmy, no,” Cage called after me, but I was already on my way.

  Her rocking slowed as I reached her, but the whimpering increased as her little body stiffened. She expected me to touch her, and she was bracing herself for it. Slowly, I sat next to her on one of the roots coming loose from the ground, but I didn’t reach out to touch her. For a while, we just sat there next to one another as she relaxed by degrees. Once, I put my hand out to touch her knee, but she tensed all over again, so I didn’t go through with it.

  This didn’t make sense to me. I never struck Flower, ever. No one had. She had been such a good baby, there weren’t any need to be mean to her. Why was she so tense?

  I tried humming a song she liked and clapping but got no response. When she was a baby, she used to laugh when I made a popping sound with my thumb in my cheek. I tried it then, but again, she didn’t seem to care.

  I thought about what Cage had said, that Flower was an eagle spirit feeling pinned down. How did you make an eagle calm? How could I get Flower to relax again? She couldn’t speak to tell me.

  We sat there a good long while, Flower and me, and Cage watching from the house. Flower and I sorta settled into a cadence there, just breathing the same air together for a while. It was peaceful, the way we were. Everything was so calm in fact that I nearly missed her moving her foot. The movement wasn’t absent like someone might do when they weren’t thinking about it. She was watching her foot and moving it deliberately.

  I didn’t say anything at first, just watched her drag her big toe in the dirt. Before long, I realized she was using her foot to trace a line in the dirt around the root she was sitting on. Flower was drawing in the dirt. Her little shoulders relaxed down and away from her ears the more she drew until she was almost herself again.

  Taking a nearby stick, I pushed one end into the dirt near her foot and drew a slow swirl. Flower’s foot stopped tracing as she watched me. Her big eyes grew wide with interest in this new game I made for her. I drew another swirl, and she smiled just a little at the pattern. Quickly, I found her a similar stick and offered it to her.

  “You wanna draw with me?”

  She didn’t look at me, but she did nod her little head. With a quick motion, she snatched the stick from my hand and set to mimicking the swirling patterns I had drawn for her. It didn’t take her long to master those, so we tried others. Circles, squares, hearts, and the like. Flower mastered them with a flourish. She wanted more, so I drew fish and birds and bears for her. I recited their names, but she didn’t repeat them just yet. Right then, the drawing was the fun thing.

  I didn’t hear Cage approaching until she was directly behind me. The only thing telling she was there was the gentle brushing of her dress against my back. She didn’t try to interrupt or even join in on our game. She seemed to merely want to get a closer look at what we were doing. Taking note of Cage’s presence, I reckoned I should draw something new for Flower to try.

  “Try this one.”

  I wiped the previous design clean with my foot and began a new one. It started with an oblong circle with a half circle and four angles at each end. There was a small gasp behind us when I added the details of the segments of the shell and the eyes on the head. It was crude, yes, but when I finished, a turtle was clearly drawn in the dirt before us. Flower studied it intently as though trying to etch the thing into her mind.

  “That’s a Keya. It’s your Keya, Flower,” I said, the way I had with the other drawings.

  Like the others, my sister rejected trying to say the name. She merely set to work trying to recreate my drawing in the dirt next to her. Her first attempt wasn’t half bad, and I told her so. Flower was content and she was happy. I had won the battle.

  A del
icate hand rested on my shoulder. When I looked up, the matching hand held out a small knife in a buckskin sheath. The thing was in Cage’s palm like an offering to me. I stood with a confused look on my face. She took my hand without hesitation and laid the knife in my palm.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “This is my gift to you.”

  When I gave the knife a second look, I knew it better. This was her knife. It was her favorite knife. The blade I held in my hand was the same one she finally laid on the grass when she decided to trust my father all those years ago. It was the same one she reached for when the men threatened us in town. I searched in her eyes for some explanation, but they were deep pools that told no tales of the swimmers who got lost in their depths.

  “But why? I don’t understand. This is yours.”

  “You gave me a gift, Jimmy Who Watches.”

  She motioned to Flower, who was ignoring us and engulfed in her new game of drawing Keya over and over again.

  “But . . . but Cage . . .”

  Cage shushed me and closed my fingers around the present. It felt warm in my hands, a beacon of love and intent and untold things yet to happen.

  “You need this, and she needs you.”

  14

  The rising sun in Deadwood brought with it a town humming with excitement. A group of Lakota had been relieved of the ponies they had stolen from various white settlers in the area. Deadwood’s livery was filled to capacity with recovered horses. Word had it that Dora’s horses we had left during the stagecoach shootout were among them. The thing was that most of the horses had been running wild among the Indians so long they bucked and fought at being forced to be stalled once again. Joseph and Dora had returned that morning, after identifying their recovered horses, covered in sweat, hay, and irritation.

  While the wild ponies were becoming the talk of the town, I focused on readying Hour to go see our pa. Trying to explain a thing like this to any little girl would be a hard thing, but trying to explain it to a girl like Hour was pert near impossible. She kept insisting on taking Fred, the kitten, to see Pa.