Strange Streets

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monday morning. with the girl what remains.


Waking's easy. Dawn spills through the tree branches, and upon the ground it settles in warm, dappled patches—golden like honey—and the stream which runs alongside your little camp babbles and sparkles when bits of dawnlight catch in the current. You wash your face in the creek—rinse out your mouth, too, before heading back on over to where you'd laid down for the night. The apron you'd taken with you from the homestead rests there, and you grab it and hold it and stare, but the skirt and blouse you're wearing were Mrs. Schmidt's, too, and the shoes on your feet—the jars in the outlaws' bags.

Flecks of flame linger in the embers of last night's fire, but instead of smothering them, Elijah tosses on a few dried leaves and massages some last laps of flame out of those dying embers. Cyrus is fixing up a fishing pole—took a stick and some string and put the two together, and now he's mixing some of last night's chicken together for bait.

With a slow, soft sigh, you unfold the apron and tie it about your waist before fixing your hair as best you can with what you have. Blue's still asleep. He lies curled up next to you, his face buried in the bag he took with him from his home, and for a moment, you pause and peer softly down at him.

A wedding one day, and a funeral the next. How did it come to this? Why? Such an awful, terrible thing, and he's just a boy.

The nightmare had been fashioned in the shape of a man. It had smelled like wood and gunsmoke, and then there came the noise: the deafening bang of a rifle, and a door bursting into splinters—raining in tattered scraps of wood pulp and lead down upon your head.

The unnatural, muffled quiet, like cotton stuffed into your ears, and the awful sound which rose above it all: a ceaseless, incessant ringing. So high. So shrill. Like a scream.

A woman, dead. And he hadn't meant it. He wasn't himself. He was something else entire.

And now, only their son survives them.

You take and smooth back the boy's hair, and the frown which finds you crawls slow over your lips. A weight presses down at your chest, pushes the air out of your lungs, but you breathe in deep and slow, and then you rise to your feet. Elijah's dusting off his pants and standing, too, and Cyrus is already taking his bait and pole and getting ready to mosey on down to the stream, but he pauses when he sees you approaching.

"Good morning." You nod to him and his brother, and they both touch the brims of their hats, but Elijah alone speaks.

"Mornin'." He inclines his head and sets his hands on his hips. "You sleep alright?"

"I slept fine," you say, and it's not the whole truth, but dreams haven't much sway in the day. You gesture to Cyrus's fishing pole. "I assume we're staying a while?"

Elijah shifts his weight. "Figgered the kid deserves a break," he replies. He's talking low, and that weight what presses on your chest digs firm into your lungs, but you manage it, and Elijah glances past you, over to where the boy lies. "How's he doin'?"

You fold your hands in front of yourself and glance briefly back at the boy, but he hasn't stirred, so you look to Elijah and reply, quietly, "He's still asleep." You bring a hand up to your lips, touch them briefly before crossing your arms over your chest and adding, just as soft, "I think it best we let him rest a while."

Let him have the scrap of sleep he's managed to snag for himself. He fought awful hard for it all night long—kept tossing and turning and didn't stop until you lulled him to sleep with a story about three brothers and a little queen bee.

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