They walked quickly. Ellen swept the fringing bushes with her flashlight. No sign of the boy. They spotted torchlight. Soon they encountered two searchers trudging back to the compound. Their clothes were dusty, their spirits low. The boy had not been found and it was nearing midnight.
Virgil Swicker and Cyril Neeps idled at the front gates. They had not done much to look for the boy, as evidenced by their clean trousers. Neeps’s jaw tightened at the sight of them.
“What’d I tell you?” he said to Micah.
Neeps grabbed Micah’s sleeve. Micah swung round until they were facing. Neeps’s breath washed over him, hot and electric. Neeps waited until the Little Heavenites had passed from earshot before speaking.
“The fuck are you up to, sonny boy? Told you to stay out of this.”
Neeps’s fingers clawed into Micah’s forearm. If he wanted Micah to wince, he would be disappointed.
“There’s a missing child,” said Ellen. “How could we not—?”
“Wasn’t talking to you, bitch,” Neeps said casually. Swicker, who had been standing a ways off, pinched in at Ellen’s side. He could reach out and grab her if he wanted to.
“You being a clever Clyde?” Neeps’s eyes drilled into Micah’s unpatched eye. “Lost hikers, uh? Nah, I’m thinking not. You’re gonna want to hit the dusty ole trail real soon. Skedaddle your asses.”
Neeps picked a shred of boiled gray meat from between his teeth and flicked it at Micah’s chest. It stuck.
“We are a long way from anything, son,” said Neeps. “Ain’t no rules, except what the good Reverend says.” A chuckle. “And even then… well, Virg and me ain’t never been much for godly matters. I get a sense you ain’t, neither. So go. Take your show on the road, Pontiac.”
Neeps shoved him. Micah stumbled back, then calmly straightened the lapels on his duster. “You bet” was all he said in reply.
He and Ellen walked back to the bunkhouse. Cyril said something to Virgil, which was followed by a donkey bray of laughter.
Micah could tell Ellen was unnerved. Whether it was by the face in the woods or the confrontation with the hired guns, he could not tell. He wondered if he would have to kill Swicker and Neeps. He hoped to avoid it. It would be ideal if they were able to leave soon, just like Neeps wanted. As soon as Ebenezer was well enough to walk. But sometimes men like Neeps pushed a collision. And Micah always made a point of hitting first, and hitting harder.
18
EBENEZER AWOKE from a dreamless sleep. It was dawn. Frail sunlight leaked through the bunkhouse window.
He sat up. The others were asleep on the spare cots that had been brought in last night. Sleeping, or playing at it. Ebenezer wasn’t sure Micah ever really slept—he got the sense the man merely closed his eyes and faked it for a few hours a night.
Ebenezer put his feet down and tested his injured ankle. Dr. Lewis, the compound’s de facto sawbones—an old army meatball medic—had fashioned a splint to take the pressure off. He had given Ebenezer a few pills to help him rest. Ebenezer had taken them and dozed. When he had awoken for the first time, he’d noticed Minerva and Ellen bustling about, searching for a flashlight.
“What’s happening?” he’d asked
“Shut up.” Minerva tossed the pill bottle at him. “Take another pill, Phil.”
Ebenezer thought that a fine idea; he took another one. He slept for hours and swam out of unconsciousness in the early hours of morning. Perhaps it was the effects of the medication or a dream he couldn’t shake off, but he swore he had seen something at the window. The face of a child. But it was bleached white apart from the eyes, which were black, as if the pupils had been pricked like the yolk of an egg, the darkness spreading across each eyeball—
He had slept again and woken up only minutes ago. He stood. The pain was definitely there, a sharp spike radiating up his shin, but it was manageable. He was starving. He was always hungriest after he had been hurt—his body worked so hard at repairing itself that it drained its energy reserves.
He limped out of the bunkhouse. Dawn was streaming through the trees. He saw lights moving in the woods and heard the occasional cry of a boy’s name. Eli. It made him think of the boy he might have spotted at the window last night—the boy who had been nothing but a figment of his pill-addled mind.
He spied a man clocking his progress. A fellow with straggly white-boy hair—the hair belonging to a particular breed of man you’d call a reb—and a pistol holstered at his waist. This man watched him limp across the square with a flat, jeering expression on his face.
“Bit early for your kind to be up, ain’t it?” he called over.
Ebenezer stopped and stared at the man. “Early for a nigger—is that what you mean, my good man?”
“Nope,” the man said chummily. “I meant early for a faggot. You ain’t gonna find a hairdresser for that flowsy hair out here, boy.”
Ebenezer nodded impassively. “Good to know.”
“Get better quick,” the man said dismissively. “Then get your ass out of Dodge.”
Ebenezer found the encounter quaint yet crass. Faggot? The bastard should be so lucky. Eb vowed to slit the hayseed goober’s throat if the opportunity ever presented itself.
He limped into the mess. Begrudgingly, the cook gave him a bowl of porridge. Ebenezer dumped brown sugar on the porridge and ate it and asked for more. The cook groused.
“It’s for the kids’ breakfasts, and the people out looking for poor Eli.”
The cook was about fifty, with a potbelly and a nose that begged for a punch. Ebenezer would have happily kicked him down a flight of stairs, but there were none of those around, and anyway his ankle hurt too much.
“Whensoever you come across a man in need, you shall freely open your arms to him, and shall generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.” Ebenezer showed the cook his outspread palms. “Book of Ephesians, my friend… my friend in Christ.”
The cook gave him another bowl. Ebenezer was delighted. He had just made that shit up! When he was finished, he burped and said, “My compliments to you, chef; I’ll be sure to mention you in my review for Bon Appétit magazine.”
He departed on the chef’s scowl. Fah, to the devil with him. To the devil with this whole miserable encampment. If he were healthy, he would leave this minute with only the clothes on his back. The others could come or not; he wouldn’t care.
Ebenezer could not say what bothered him about Little Heaven, aside from the obvious—that it was a dismal enclave run by a short-assed Bible thumper with a discount Elvis haircut. It was more the smaller details, like how the sunlight seemed shabbier over the compound, leeched of its heat and vibrancy. Or how everyone was stooped like trees struggling to survive on a windswept mountain peak.
He stood in the parade square, watching people come in from the woods. They were exhausted and dirty, carrying torches that had burnt down like enormous wooden matches. What had the cook said? Out looking for poor Eli… Had a boy run off? If so, a missing child was Little Heaven’s concern, not his own. Concern was not and had never been a quality of Ebenezer’s nature. While that counted as a failing in him as a human being, it held many benefits in respect to his chosen profession.
THE MORNING WORE ON. The search continued. Ebenezer overheard Minerva and Micah strategizing while Ellen was out of earshot. Minerva spoke loud enough for Ebenezer to hear—she wanted him to hear, Eb figured. Why couldn’t they just leave? she reasoned. Let Ellen keep her money. If Ebenezer couldn’t make it on his bum ankle, tough shit. Micah shook his head. Ebenezer didn’t hear what he had to say, but it probably had something to do with not wishing to leave Eb behind. Micah was a dutiful fool, though there was a strong possibility that he wished to linger on Ellen’s behalf. He was sweet on her, as even Helen Keller could’ve sniffed out.