“I won’t?”
She shut her eyes and shook her head. Twin tears ran down her cheeks in smooth arcs.
“No. You will encounter it upon the road, that is certain. What you do after is a choice that belongs only to you.” She opened her eyes. “Do you know what I found for the others?” she asked.
He shook his head.
The cards shuffled again. Her rose-pink fingers sped through the deck and lifted one out. On it was a capped man wearing a colorful, festive gown and carrying a rucksack over his shoulder. In his other hand he had a walking stick and dogs nipped at his heels.
“The fool,” she said. “All of them, fools. Their way is easier than yours. But perhaps you were made for hard ways and hard worlds. For this one and the one that lies far to the west. Where things still remember younger years of joyful savagery.”
Sibyl looked at the cards in her hands and then angrily threw them over her shoulder. They fluttered to the ground behind her like moths upset from old clothing. She shook her head and in her tantrum Connelly was again reminded of her age. She was no more than a girl.
Feeling his gaze, she lifted her eyes and said, “There’s nothing you can do for me.”
“Why not?”
“I can no more stop what I am doing here than you can stop yourself now.” She toyed with her hair and sullenly watched him. “Did you get your money’s worth?”
Connelly said nothing.
“I’m tired. Let me rest, Connelly. Go if you want, but let me rest.”
He turned and walked out.
Outside the carnie was sitting on the stoop.
“Have fun?” he asked.
Connelly walked down to him. He gestured to the flask. “Give me a sip of that.”
“What, this? Sure.”
Connelly took it and drank. It was either vodka or half-decent moonshine, he couldn’t tell. He breathed in. The air was still sickly sweet and the ghostly image of the match flame was burned into the bluegreen night.
“What’d she tell you?”
“A lot of things,” he said, then handed it back and walked away over the fields. The music had died and the people had stopped singing. Somewhere a horn honked and a child began crying and would not quiet.
CHAPTER FIVE
He found the others seated outside of a tent watching the carnival workers break the show down. Tents deflated gracefully around them to lie on the ground like the skins of some unworldly animal.
“What’d she say?” asked Pike.
“Nothing much,” said Connelly.
“It was a foolish thing. We shouldn’t have let her delay us. Still, we have something useful now.”
“Doesn’t seem to be money or brains at the moment. What is it?”
“That boy over there,” said Roosevelt, nodding at a young man helping the workers. “He seen him.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“Asked a few folks. They knew of him, said one person had talked to him. That boy right over there.”
“I guess they were right,” said Hammond. “The man did come here.”
Connelly could feel the anxiety washing off of them like smoke.
“You may not understand,” said Pike, his voice quiet. “This is the closest we’ve come in months and years.”
“I understand plenty,” said Connelly.
They sat in the road and watched the tents topple and flounder and waited on the boy. He was a skinny thing, no older than thirteen, overalled and sandy blond and barefoot. When the carnival workers had given him his pay he came over and said, “You boys the ones looking for the ugly fella?”
“That would be right,” said Pike.
“Why you looking for him?”
“He stole something from me,” said Hammond smoothly.
“Huh. I’d believe it.”
“Why do you say that?”
The boy didn’t answer. Instead he said, “My brother owes me fifteen cents, still hasn’t repaid it.”
“Bastards the world over,” said Hammond.
“Watch your language in front of the boy,” said Pike, but the boy seemed pleased to have men casually swear in front of him.
“Come and sit with us, if you will,” Roosevelt said.
“I will, thanks.”
“What’s someone your age doing out so late?”
“Working. Getting what I can. My folks is going to head west. We’re going to pick fruit out there. They need what they can get. Maybe I can get me something, too.”
“They going to California?” said Pike.
“Or New Mexico for cotton, they haven’t made up their minds yet. They argue a lot about it.”
“Times are tough,” said Hammond.
“They are. Everything in the whole state just dried up. Like the dirt just decided it didn’t care for plants no more and just cut them loose.”
“Where did you see the scarred man?” asked Pike, impatient.
“Why?”
Hammond said, “I already told you, he’s stolen something from me and—”
“Ain’t what I was talking about. I meant why would I tell you?”
“Tell us?” said Pike, frowning.
“I ain’t telling you what I know for free. Why would I do that?”
“Why you little scum!” snarled Pike. “How dare you talk to your elders this way? If I was your pa I’d whale you raw.”
“But you ain’t. You’re just some hobos off the road, like the ugly fella was.”
Pike started to stand to his feet. The boy sprang up and began dancing away, wild-eyed and frightened.
“Here,” said Roosevelt. “Here. I got a nickel. Let’s all sit down now, I got a nickel.”
Pike glowered but sat. The boy looked at Roosevelt and the nickel in his hand. He came over and tried to take it but Roosevelt’s hand snapped shut.
“You get it after you talk to me,” said Roosevelt.
“You’ll just keep it.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
“I may be a hobo, but I ain’t a bastard,” said Roosevelt.
Hammond smiled. “Bastards the world over, like I said.”
The boy sat down, keeping his distance from Pike.
“Now,” said Roosevelt. “Where’d you meet him? Where’d you meet this scarred man?”
“Over at my pa’s.”
“First of all, what did he look like?” asked Connelly.
“Fair question,” said Pike.
