We Will Not Be Taken Alive (part XI)

I am alone. I am walking, slowly, but not aimlessly. I am numb. I am alone. Thank heavens I am alone. The blood on my cheek has hardened to a black scab. I would doubtless give a grievous fright to any person who may chance upon me. The road leading home is empty and I am alone. I am alone with myself and my voice and my memories, new and old. My steps are slow and mindless as I traipse through the dust. My mind is saturated. I am overcome.

I see Philip's face contorted in rage, twisted with desperation. I cycle through my reactions, my emotions - shock, terror, sorrow, loss of respect, pitiless apathy. It felt like hours I watched him there. But the sun is still so high. I couldn't have been in the apothecary for more than a quarter hour. My entire life, my identity was mutilated within one quarter of one hour, disfigured with broken glass, shattered at the hand of painful clarity. Shock. Terror. Sorrow. Disrespect. Pitiless apathy. Unapologetic disgust.

My disgust owes Philip nothing, I understand. It, however, owes me. It has robbed me of dreams and direction. It has robbed me of my sadly misplaced hope. It refuses to apologize. It threw open the shutters in my head, cracked them under its heat, bombarded me, trampled me, picked me up and possessed me until it was all I could be, unrepentant and without guilt.

On the horizon, beyond the wet fume mirage, young Philip stands waiting for me. He is earnest, still dreaming expansive, bombastic fantasies. He is waiting for me to join him, to embellish his world with detail. He is waiting for me to make it real for him. And how I have waited so long for him to come and make our childhood dreams real for me. His flaxen hair will not lie flat. It catches the radiant sun and produces a golden corona. He is my creation, and my creation is all I will leave, there on the edge of my mind.

Philip is behind me, following. He is tracking me. He is tethered to me. He has just returned from Europe. He has grown ever more handsome. His intellect is astounding, and I am embarrassed to speak with him until he laughs and asks me what books I've read since he's gone. His wit is dry and reserved. His smile betrays him. He knows something and I want to know it too. His experience, his manner collects and pools in the gaps and cracks in my own. Through him I can be complete. But, when I turn back, he is not there. He never was. He is an illusion I created and imposed upon the distracted shell of an old friend, a friend I lost the day he sailed for France. I hitched my star to a phantom, and as I release it now, my night is very dark.

It was no accident. Philip escaped. I wanted to escape too. The rest of the illusion aligned itself conveniently. It is not real. He is not real. Leaving is not real. I cannot leave Pa alone. I cannot leave Frank to fend for himself and for Samson. They need me to cover the windows when the dust comes and to sweep the dust after the storms. They need me to soothe them and care for them. They need me to cook and to clean and to sew. They need me to be silent and strong and support them. I need to stay in order to prevent life from disassembling all that Mama and Pa worked so long and so hard to build. I am not selfish and I am no fool. Philip said Daniel was a cyclone, but he was wrong. One must be connected to the lives that one destroys. I am the cyclone. I am the vacuum.

When I reach my front door I am hollow. I enter anyway. Franks stands there holding Samson against his shoulder. He turns to me and smiles. My mind is instantly quiet, a tomb.

"Hi," he says, and it is all he needs to say. He has no idea how much he resembles Mama. He has no idea that his smile can heal exactly as hers could.

"Whoa, what happened to your face?" he asks.

"Nothing, Frog," I answer, using his nickname. "Just a little accident. Hungry?"

"Yes," he answers. Samson giggles and my heart is full. The feeling returns in my arms and in my legs. I am free here to smile and to laugh and to love unconditionally. This is my home.

There is the slightest, softest feeling, deep in the most unreachable place within me, an itch. I almost don't notice it. I can't exactly feel it, but I am certain it is there.

The sun goes down. A chill takes hold of the dry night air. Frank lays Samson in his crib and returns to my side before the fire. Dry wood is abundant.

"I started reading one of your books," he says. Frank has never been to school, but I taught him to read as early as I could. "I hope you don't mind."

"I don't mind," I answer. "Which one?"

"Great Expectations," he says, and it strikes me an wholly appropriate. It seems so to him too. "I like it. Pip reminds me of me. Though you are a much nicer sister than his."

I put my arm around him and kiss the top of his head. It smells like dust and dry sweat and little boy smell. I hold him there for a long time. When he begins to snore I wrap him in a blanket, add a log to the fire and tip toe to my bed.

From my knees I can reach deep under the bed, into an old hole in the pine floor. It is one of my very few secrets. From it, I unearth an old tin jewelry box. It belonged to Mama. She used to say it was the fanciest thing she owned. I don't think it ever bothered her that she had no jewelry to keep in it. For her it was enough. I grew up loving it too, but I keep treasure in it.

I opened the lid, fingering the turquoise, pink and gold fleur de lis printed there. Swirling vines creep gracefully around its corners and evoke reverence. Tucked within the folds of its red satin lining rests my photographic postcard of the Eiffel Tower. What wonder I felt when I first laid eyes on the many hundred twinkling electric lights. In the years since then many stores in Morrison have adopted electricity, but the magic of that tower never resigns. How often I held this card in the middle of the night to see Philip standing in or near the tower. He isn't there now, and he won't be back. The tower is empty, glowing in its own glory. The weight of the tower is on my chest.

The itch grows more acute. I could swear I hear a voice whisper,

"go..."

but when I listen closely only silence rings in my ears.

We Will Not Be Taken Alive (part X)

The door clicked softly shut behind me. My eyes struggled against the dim light. While I could not see a thing, the smells fell upon me, a sharp tonic. The musk of the talc powders converged on the mint in the muscle creams. The sting of the cleaning alcohol twisted around and through the spicy scents of the drying herbs. The medicinal cocktail floated over low smoky hints at charred wooden crates and burning wax. And the air was thick and heavy, old.

"Hello, Lucene." Philip was not yet visible to me. I closed my eyes and imagined his voice itself could heal. I imagined I could swallow the sound, that his voice could be transformed into white light inside me, that the light could expand from my head to my feet and coat me in brilliant benediction, illumination, heal me from the inside out, might mend every crack, stitch every tear, soothe every ache. I imagined Philip's voice didn't sound so strained.

"Are you just coming from the ranch?" he asked. His words were tight, but listless as he offered me the damp replica of a greeting.

I cracked my eyes to the relief that my vision was returning. Revealed there before me was strange incarnation of my old friend. He sat perched upon a high stool close to the low counter. He was hunched down far over some journal or ledger, so that the whole of his back resembled a spiny candy cane. Without sitting up he wrenched his head high upon his neck to look at me. A candle burning on the counter reflected in his glasses so that I could not see his eyes, but rather two glowing flat discs. On the whole he looked remarkably like some fabled sea monster dragged to shore and made to parade about as a human druggist.

"I - well - I came - well - yes, " I stammered. "Yes, I've just come from the ranch." I barely recognized my oldest friend and love there in that dim apothecary. He bent his head back down, much to my surprised relief, and continued scribbling chaotically in his book.

I walked to the counter. He said nothing. I leaned down to look at his book, clearly a ledger, when he slammed it shut and jumped from his stool.

"Have you come here to read over my shoulder, Lucene?" He snapped uncharacteristically.

"No." I answered stepping back and looking away. From his standing position I could clearly see his eyes again, and they were burning a small hot fire. "No. I came to have a conversation with my friend. I've had a rather trying morning, and I could use the company. But if you're too busy, or not in the mood, I can go."

His face softened at its edges. "I'm sorry. I've had a trying time of it lately myself. I shouldn't have barked at you like that. I could use a friend right about now too, I suppose," he confessed.

"What's eating at you?" I asked with growing concern.

"Its my finances," he gestured at the ledger. "They're in a quite messy state."

"Ah," I answered. "No wonder you don't want anyone nosing around in your book. What about your uncle's inheritance?" A thin layer of jealousy wrapped tightly around me. I had no inheritance, no promise of one, and no chance of squandering one.

"I used some of it to open this place. Business has been slow and getting slower. The whole town's living on credit. I have a little left, but I've been trying to save some, well, save a lot actually." The thin layer of jealousy hardened into a veneer of resentment. Less than half the town was earning any money or enough to survive, including Pa and me. My concern for Philip vanished. His frustration with not saving enough reminded me more of a cruel joke than a valid ailment.

"What are you saving for? Are you going on another trip?" I asked coolly. A vision of Paris flashed in my mind. I was sitting in a cafe, happily sipping red wine, alone.

"No. Not a trip exactly. The problem is I've been distracted lately and I haven't been paying close enough mind to what I'm putting into my account. If anyone were to look they might not get the right idea about my solvency."

I wondered momentarily who might be looking into Philip's finances. No one came to mind. I moved on.

"Distracted by what?" I asked.

"Honestly?"

I nodded my head.

"This Daniel character." The old familiar pit rose darkly in my throat. I swallowed hard.

"What about him?" I asked.

"We're waiting on word from the Sheriff in Abilene. We think he may be up to some trouble."

"We?" I asked.

"Sheriff Chaney, really, but Curtis Hembrey and I too."

"Since when are you close with the Sheriff or Curtis?" An edge curled into my voice and sharpened my words.

"Since this con artist came cheating and fighting his way into my town." Philip answered growing an edge of his own. His hands were trembling. I had not ever noticed until then how fragile and delicate he seemed.

"What do you mean cheating?" I asked.

"Oh, you haven't heard? Our dear little stranger cheated Curtis at a poker game. That's how they came to fight in front of the station. Seems after several hours of whiskey and losing hand after hand, this Daniel goes in for one last round and puts everything he's got out there on the table; money, a knife, an old locket, everything. Well wouldn't you know it, by some great miracle, Daniel gets dealt  four of a kind, aces high."  Philip tipped his head low and added darkly, "That kind of luck is truly unbelievable."

He let his pause fill the room. He let this moment of quiet reflection pull him a great distance from me, form the world. From that distance he continued without ceremony.

"Daniel takes Curtis for everything he has, but when he stands up to walk away Curtis calls him out, calls him a cheater and demands his money back. And that's when the stranger really put on a show. He puffed up his chest and bellowed at Curtis that he'd never cheated a game in his life.  Then he insulted Curtis by adding he had never embarked upon an unfair fight either, and that to make matters fair Curtis should take the first swing. And swing Curtis did. Infuriated, he clocked Daniel square on the mouth, liberating him of one of his teeth. Next thing anyone knew they're knocking each other around in the street. The man is a cyclone, Lucene. He's going to leave disaster in his wake. He's going to ruin everything."

His words dripped a venom that evaporated, but clung to the air. The poison choked me and burned my lungs. The candle on the counter sputtered and died. The shop grew even more dim. Briefly, Philip was obscured by the smoke from the wick and my own dizziness.

Nothing was adding up. The facts were plain. I heard them and I believed them, but the more I heard, the more certain I felt that nothing was certain. Daniel was and wasn't these things he stood accused of. A stranger. A cheater. A fighter. A con artist. A cattle wrangler. A liar. Information was missing. Only part of the story was being told. I needed to hear the rest, the part that reconciled with a different truth, a truth I rather more suspected, that this gap toothed grinning idiot had a deeper and more noble purpose than even he was letting show. A savior.

"Was there any mention of women?" I asked.

"What women?" Philip's voice was a snapping twig.

"Myself, perhaps," I let the words meander and carry with them, "or Aida Bingham," like a caboose.

Philip breathed heavily through his nostrils.

"Why would there be any mention of Aida Bingham?" he asked softly through clenched teeth.

"Well, I happened to have heard another version of this story, from Daniel himself, at the ranch this morning. The way he tells it there was a matter of defending the honor of a young lady. Does that sound at all familiar to you?"

Philip's voice sank impossibly lower and his words took a heavy and metered cadence.

"What...was...he...doing...at...the...ranch?"

"He's working. Breaking horses and wrangling cattle." I met Philip's intensity with antagonistic nonchalance.

I came here to forget Daniel, to fall further in love with Philip, but everything was wrong. Philip wasn't Philip anymore. I was struck dumb by the realization that he had only been home for a handful of weeks, really. When he returned I had expected the old Philip, assumed this was the old Philip. I hadn't actually seen more than a glimpse of the old Philip since he'd been back. This was a man changed, by Europe, by time, perhaps. Perhaps I was changed too then. Perhaps our mutual changes severed us beyond repair. Perhaps the chemistry in our bodies was simply no longer compatible. Whatever the reasoning, the darker and more inflamed he grew, the more compelled I was to press him.

Philip stared out the shop window as he asked, "Do you think he's handsome?"

"I do." I answered honestly, without stopping to think.

"And Miss Bingham? Does she think he's handsome?" The question confused me, but I answered it too honestly and without thinking.

"I believe so. I believe she thinks every man is handsome to one degree or another."

Philip looked down at his ledger and for a moment it appeared as though he stopped breathing. Without looking up, the muscles in his arms tensed. He let out a choked grunt as he flung the heavy tome into the shelf of small glass bottles lining the wall. The bottles exploded. Chips and chunks of green and brown and yellow glass threw kaleidoscopic fragmented light against the walls and ceiling. Shards and slivers rained down over our faces and hands. Thick, sticky blood dripped down my cheek.

Philip bounded over the counter and was in instant on top of me. He dug his long fingers into each of my arms and shook me violently. His eyes were frenzied and feral and terrified me. He shouted as he shook.

"He is a con artist! He is not there to break any horses! What does he want with her? What do you know? What  do you know?"

"It isn't her he's after!" I screamed.

Philip's hands went dead. I pried my fingers underneath his and wrenched myself free from his grip. He fell backward against the counter and slumped on to the floor. Cradling his head in his hands he released deep and labored sobs. I ran to the door, but turned to look back at him. He was a pathetic and pitiful mess, more a stranger to me now than Daniel.

"Philip what has happened to you?" I hissed.

"Lucene," he cried, "I'm sorry Lucene." He didn't look up at me, and were it not for the use of my name I wouldn't have known he was speaking to me at all. "None of this is your fault. I didn't mean to hurt you. I tried to tell you before, but we were interrupted. I have a secret, such a burdensome secret. I am in love, desperately, painfully in love. I have carried my love like a cross, worn it, a crown of thorns since we were children. It has been a dagger I carry in my side all day everyday. I dared never to speak of it, not even to you. I am consumed with Aida Bingham. She is in the air I breath, the water I drink. She is my sleep my life, and my death."

What looked pathetic before now seemed one hundred times more so. All of this over Aida Bingham. Such agony, such frenzy, such panic for a woman who easily spent more time thinking about herself, than even poor Philip did.

He looked up at me now. Fat tears welled in his eyes and streaked across his face, mixing with the blood from his own cuts, such that he had the look of a creature that has been toyed with and ultimately discarded by a fiercer predator. This is what Aida could do to a person.

"I thought if I went to France, got an education, I could maybe win her attention. When Uncle John died, I opened the shop. I hoped if I was a successful entrepreneur with money of my own, I might impress her father and they would both see that I am worthy of her. But my love has caused such agony within me that I am left paralyzed to her. I cannot speak to her or even look directly upon her. I vowed this week I would ask her father for her hand. I will marry her. I cannot have Daniel interjecting and prolonging my suffering. I am infected with her."

My arms and legs grew numb as I stood there. My heart grew numb. I stared at Philip for a long time trying to recognize him and failing time after time. He dropped his head back into his hands and wept.

"Philip, you needn't worry yourself over Daniel, believe me. It isn't Aida he's after." As I said it, I knew it was true.

I opened the apothecary door and stepped out into the light.

We Will Not Be Taken Alive (part IX.V)

I smoldered away the morning, trapped in an inferno of blazing thoughts that crashed in and upon one another. Visions of Daniel's lopsided grin collided with the sound of Pa's laughter and the rich smell of Aida's cream soap. The vein in Philip's neck twitched. Frank coughed up black, dusty phlegm. Samson giggled. Mama laid bleeding in her bed. My own voice seared through all of this, burning a hole from the inside out.

             If I chose to burn my own damned hands off with lye then that is precisely what I will do, and if I choose to run away I will do that too, and I don't need some foul stranger to take me. I will go right on sticking my head in mounds of dust if I so choose, and I will pull it out and use it when I feel inclined to do so. And if I choose to spend the rest of my days wasting away in my shabby clapboard house dreaming of Philip and Paris and rain, so be that too. Maybe I am the prettiest girl in town and maybe I ain't, but it doesn't make one wit of difference to me what some slithering horse lover has to say about it. And if that little blonde twit wants to call me names she can just go right on ahead, 'cause ain't a soul in town what validates her opinion anyway. 


The denim of Mr. Bingham's trousers slapped furiously upon the washboard while I scrubbed and fumed.

        Ain't none of this up to no one but me. No ghosts or ghouls or strangers are gonna stop or start me. And who needs any of them?

Daniel's lopsided grin flashed in my mind and the cycle started over again.

I hung the clothes haphazardly on the line, not caring whether the dust would kick up and leave them filthy again by nightfall.

I walked away, not looking at Daniel in the pasture or Aida watching him from her perch on the fence, its paint just now beginning to curl and peel at the mercy of the dry wind.

I walked around the house and down the road. My steps clicked in time to the words firing off from within my brain.

Twit, step step, liar, step step, fool, step step, damn fool, step, leave, step, me, step, alone, step step.

I had to see Philip.

Philip would calm me down, bring me some peace, some perspective and comfort. My feet were carrying me to him before I made my choice. Good Philip with his high intellect and his silver tongue; his mild manner would soothe me. His soft voice would heal me, relieve me of this childish preoccupation. What a fool I was to have ever let my attention wander from so worthy a subject to so low a scoundrel. But I would make this right. With Philip before me, I could restore my fancies to their safe and truest place.

Daniel's lopsided grin flashed in my mind.

I shook my head and broke into a run toward the apothecary.