Mr. Shivers

She touched her cheek, fingers caressing where the drops of blood had fallen. She shook herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to kill a man. I don’t ever want to have that on me. If the man we’re chasing was dead and gone it would be all right but I think there’s more killing between all of you and him. Do you know that?”

Connelly nodded.

“I was thinking… Connelly,” she said. “You… you shouldn’t go, either. I don’t think I can convince any of the others but, well… I don’t think this is worth it anymore. I mean, you met this family. They’d let us come with them. They’re nice and there’s good things waiting for them. I know. I know it in my bones.”

Connelly stood for a long time. Then he shook his head.

“For God’s sake, Connelly, men are dead—”

“There were dead before this,” said Connelly. “Long before.”

“But—”

“We speak for them. We speak for the dead. To do right by them.”

“And this is the way you’d do it?”

“Doesn’t seem to be another.”

“Connelly, nothing good will come of this. There are people looking for you. And if you all keep on like this, more people are going to be after you. More bloodshed. More tears. More dead to speak for. We got a chance at something good here. Don’t pass it by. Don’t.” She smiled. “There are people who like you here, Connelly. That family. They like you. That girl, I think she likes you. And she… she isn’t the only one,” she said softly, and touched his arm.

Connelly breathed deep, then bowed and shook his head again. “It isn’t good to me.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“That’s the way it is. I look at these people and I just know. I look at you and know these things aren’t for me. Not yet. I-I can’t go back. It’d be wrong to do that, to abandon this and let him go on. To let my little girl’s death go unanswered. But… this family. You. Maybe one day I can have things like that. But it isn’t for me. Not now.” He took a breath. “This is all I got now. This is all I got. All I am. Just chasing him.”

Lottie closed her eyes, wiped them. “You have a choice…”

“I know I do. I’m choosing to make this right. And I can.”

“You don’t want to come with me? At all?”

“I-I do. You know I have a wife?”

“I remember.”

“I’d like to go back to that. One day, to the way things were in the beginning. But I can’t yet. And, Lottie, once this was done, if it was so that I could never find her again or if she wouldn’t welcome me home, then I would come to you. I would. But I have to do this. I have to.”

She looked at him for a moment longer, then walked back to the camp without saying anything. He waited for a second and then followed.

It went much as Connelly had expected. Lottie spoke to them a few paces away from the camp so the Hopkinses would not hear. Connelly did not come close, so he could not hear everything that was said, nor did he want to.

Pike became angry right away. He shouted at her, pounding his fist into his hand, pointing off into the west and throwing biblical language at her alongside curses about the weaknesses of bitchery. This she took without the slightest reaction. Then Roonie wept and she comforted him, holding him in her arms, his crooked fingers playing with her hair. Monk tried to reason with her, blustering and confused, but she simply shook her head. And Roosevelt and Hammond stayed quiet, Roosevelt looking nervous and Hammond standing ramrod-straight, his narrow, handsome features pulled taut, his mouth in a hard grimace.

Then the words finished. Lottie nodded, then walked back to the Hopkinses with a queenly, steady stride, though as she walked by Connelly he could see her fingers trembling. She spoke to Missy and the other woman listened and embraced her hard, and Lottie hugged her back. The children came down and began bombarding her with questions, spinning around her feet. Connelly watched them. Watched their passion for one another. Their happiness in being one.

Clark came and spoke to him. “You sure you boys are going to be all right?”

“I suppose,” said Connelly.

“We’re happy to have her aboard, you know.”

“I’m sure she’s happy to be with you.”

“We could use you, sir. We could use all of you. It’s more mouths, sure, but it’s more hands working.”

“We have business in the west,” said Connelly.

“Who doesn’t,” said Clark. He looked at Connelly sadly. “If times were different, I-I…”

Connelly nodded. “If things were different,” he said.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for. Whatever’s in all of you is burning you up. I can see it.”

“Maybe so. I think it’s best we all get going. We’re wasting daylight.”

They shook hands.

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” said Clark.

“Sometimes I think I’ll see everyone again,” Connelly answered.

Clark walked back to the cars and they started up, a small armada of crumbling machinery shuddering in the field. One by one they lurched forward, gravel crunching under the tires, and they made their way to the road. Everyone waved, each car a heap of junk and waving white arms. The children cheered and the men called good luck and the women waved as well. With a great belch of dust the jalopies picked up speed and soon were moving down the road, speeding away, south and west.

Connelly and the others went north. It was not until nightfall that he realized Lottie had not looked at him once after their discussion, nor had she said goodbye.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Near Privet they saw the dead man.

As night fell they came into the surrounding farmland to find it empty. No one stirred in the fields and they saw no one in the homes. The streets were empty save for a few stray dogs who fled yelping as they approached. They passed through wondering if perhaps some plague had come and taken all of them away when they heard the noise in the distance.

“Someone’s yelling,” said Roonie.

“A lot of someones,” said Connelly.

They made their way around to a field on the windward side of the hills. There was a large crowd assembled and Connelly thought perhaps it was another traveling carnival until he saw the tree overhead and the strange mass dangling from its branches.

It was a man. A black man. He was hanging from one of the topmost branches by the neck. His face was swollen and his eyes were red and his tongue hung out of his mouth, lapis blue and glistening. His clothes were tattered, as was his skin, and blood stained his collar and back. A dark stain ran across the front and back of his pants and brown streaks ran down his ankles. His whole body weeping. Beneath him people milled about with torches, chatting and shouting and talking until finally a few of them noticed the strangers.

“What are you all doing here?” asked a woman.

“Just passing through,” said Monk.

“You heard about this here nigger?” she asked.

“No.”

“Goddamn,” she said, and walked off.

“What the hell?” Roosevelt said. “What the hell was that? What happened here?”