Mist's Talks with No-Face continued. . .

We left Mist in the woods with No-Face, a nervous, paranoid woman who warns Mist that if she stays, she could end up dead.

"Get out of here," No-Face whispered, "The sooner the better."

"What?  What are you talking about.  You're just saying that because of Docker.  You want him for yourself.  That's why you want me to leave.  I've seen you with him."

"No.  I mean, yes.  I told him you don't belong here.  You're not, well, like us.  He said I should mind my own business if I wanted to see tomorrow.  Listen, you better mind yours about what happened today, too."  She looked around, then spoke rapidly, "I'm taking a chance talking to you.  If you stay, they'll, they'll kill you.  No one will ever find out.  You don't know what goes on.  They think I don't know.  They offed his brother Waverly because he wanted out.  He got sick of what these people do.  Docker, he-"  I touched her arm; she was trembling.  In the early moonlight, tears glistened on her face. 

            "What on earth are you saying?  He what?  What?  What do you mean they'll kill me?  Like Darlene?"  She put her fist to her mouth.  Her eyes were terrible.  She shook her head and cupped her palms to her face, stifling her cries.

            "I can't --This is no place for you," she said, her voice muffled by her hands, "You don't know what they do.  Those kids . . ."

            "You're scaring me.  Who killed Waverly?  Tell me about Docker?  Does it have anything to do with what that guy said when he tried to whip Billy-Bob?"  I grabbed her shoulders.  "What about the kids?  Docker's boys?  Tell me."  She wept quietly.  "What's wrong with you?  This is too much."  My patience was running out.  I turned away for a second and came back.  "Why should I believe you?  What about you?"  I pulled her close, shocked by her thinness, and stroked her hair, trying to calm her.  A night-bird trilled; an owl hooted from its low perch.  My heart pounded. 

"It's too late.  Get help for the boys," she whispered, emphasizing her words by pushing her head into my chest, "Please, please, get away and save yourself.  The briefcase."

"What about it?  Why is it too late?  You're not making any sense."  She didn't answer.  I took her hand; it was dry and icy-cold.  She was shaking so hard I didn't want to push her anymore, afraid she'd crack.  At the sound of movement nearby, she started and pulled her hand from mine.  Through the shrubs, I could see the kids shifting around, waiting.

"Sally, what're you doing?"  Billy-Bob's voice filtered through the leaves.  He pushed aside branches and stepped through.  .

"It's just Billy-Bob and the other two, No-Face," I said.  I didn't want the kids to hear what she was saying.  "Look, it's getting really cold.  I've got to get them back to the cabin."  I hugged her, wondering if she'd done so much speed it made her squirrelly.

            "Please, please, please --"

            "I have to go.  I'll be back in a few minutes.  Wait for me."  She collapsed to the earth, shuddering.  At a loss, I stood over her for a moment.

            I sneaked the kids to the cabin, gave them over to Mormo, then rushed back.  She was gone.  On the ground, a glittering object caught my eye.  I stooped down and picked up a small, silver-framed mirror.  Brushing off loose soil, I turned it over in my hands, gazed into it, then shoved it into my jeans pocket.

A cabin like Docker's built into mountain foothills

            That night, lying beside Docker, I mulled over what she had said.  How much of it was true about Docker and Waverly?  How could he have his own brother whacked.  And Darlene? Yet there was the Mafia, civil wars, politics of oppression where people betray friends and family because of ideological and religious differences.  And didn't crime statistics show that most homicides occur between relatives?  Why would they want to kill me?  The briefcase, she said.  What was in it?  Another thing: the kids.  Docker said the boys were his and I assumed the red-head was Linda's.  But what did that dude mean by damaged goods?  What I'd overheard the first night came back to me.  Then I recalled the scene with Billy-Bob near the creek when I asked him about his father's strictness; the way he shut up Papa Jo, the look in his eyes.  Tadpole's melancholy.  I shivered.  I didn't want to think anymore.

            I pulled a joint from the stash bag on the floor.  Docker woke up.  I told him what the men did to the boys, that someone hit me with a bottle. "Oh, hon, I'm sorry," he crooned, sleepily, "Leave it to me, I'll take care of the bitches.  But those jerks were just fooling around, they can't hurt the runts."  We lay there smoking, then made love.  He was so tender, so loving and gentle.  And even in the dark I could look into his eyes -- devoted, soft, like a nursing babe's I'd seen once on a bus nuzzling up to its mom..  Docker whispered how he would love me and be with me always and never let anything happen to me.  He'd protect me.  "'Cause I love you so much, baby, I don't know what I'd do without you."  I wanted to believe him.  In his arms, I forgot everything; forgot about seeing him with No-Face, forgot what she'd said about Waverly.  Docker never talked about him.  I pushed what that bartender had told me eons ago out of my mind.  No-Face is paranoid and jealous, really jealous -- trying to turn me against Docker; and the men, stone spooked, drugged out of their skulls.  And lots of kids are scared of their dads.

           A deafening sound, like furniture thrown.  Docker jumped up, pulled on his pants and slid down the ladder.  On the other side of the loft, Linda sighed.  Pal groaned, "What the holy hell is fuckin' going fuckin' on?"  He dressed hurriedly and swung down, joining Docker below.  The boys were dead to the world.  I drew on my shirt and jeans and leaned over the platform.  On the bar, the battery lamp shed its bluish light on the scene, casting Docker's looming shadow against the wall, like an enormous undersea creature, exaggerating the peaks of flesh on his bare shoulders.  The overturned table and chairs lay helter-skelter; a couple of men paced in front of the door.  I glanced at Linda on her mat, forearm across her eyes; stiff, dark blonde hair spread out around her head.

"Shitshitshitfuck.  Shit!  God, fuck this, man," she hissed.  

"Pal!  Let him loose."  I heard Docker shout.  I looked down and saw a guy in a quilted jacket and blue jeans, his head covered with a dark knit cap, leaning against the wall, his gear in a pile in front of him.  Mormo hulked nearby.

"Morm', how'd they get in?" Docker said.

"Broke lock.  Toss stuff at me when I try to keep them out-"

"Ya gotta let us in," the man interrupted, whining, "We almost froze our balls off out there last night, man.  I'm not asking for just us, y'know, it's for our kids."

            "You don't give a shit about your kids.  It's your own asses you're worried about.  Now get out.  Pick up this shit and get the fuck outta here!  You'll come in when I fucking say so."  Docker pointed to the door.

            "Hey, man, we got a coalition-"

            "A what?"  He dropped his arm and stepped toward the man.

            "A coalition.  They're outside.  How long we gonna be up here, this time?  We don't want what went down last-"

"Ah, ha!  Beats all."  Docker laughed.  "You're outside a couple fucking nights, you lousy bunch of sissies, and you got yourselves a coalition.  And fuck last time- This is Now!  We're here for as long as it fucking takes, asshole.  As long as I fucking want.  I don't wanna hear about fucking last time. You know what happens if you try to split, so don't even fucking think about it."  The men continued to shout.  I saw Pal slam the guy's shoulders against the wall. 

            "We didn't make any fucking promises to nobody, man."  Docker spoke quietly now, in even, measured tones.  "All we said was up here everyone's for his-fuckin'-self.  Everyone gets his share when the deal's done.  Dig?  Anyone don't like it, say so now.  I'm not fucking going to repeat myself."

"Hey, Docker, 'scuse me, but you said we could use the cabin, 'member?  After we found Jody's kids . . ."  I couldn't tear my eyes away.  Docker slapped the top of the bar with the flat of his hand, making a sound like the crack of a gun.

Linda scooted beside me, naked breasts swinging, both of us smelling of sweat and sex.  Her shoulder brushed mine.  I leaned close, shocked to see for the first time the flesh just below her waist formed an intricate scalloped chain, attached across her abdomen, from one hip to the other.  I shook off the distraction of wondering if No-Face and the other women bore the same, and if it interfered . . . .

"What happened last time?" I insisted.  Her eyes registered the struggle of whether or not to trust me.  She opened her mouth, closed it and turned away, shaking her head.  Whispering hypnotically, she addressed the back wall as though divesting herself of the onus of speaking directly to me.  Below, the men continued to argue.

           "I have had it!" she said, "I'm sick of it.  Two kids froze to death.  They had colds.  We'd come 

up right after Labor Day once for only a month or  so till things cooled down, so the Members 

couldn't trace the goods.  There was an early snowstorm.  Bad one.  Docker wouldn't let anyone in."  

 She paused.  Her face now in profile, she looked at me out of the corner of her eye.  I rested my hand

on her shoulder.  She jerked away.

            "I shouldn't've told you."  She looked me full in the face, eyes huge . "You're an Outsider.  You'll tell Docker, I know.  He'll kill me.  Just like-"  She could've touched me with an exposed wire. 

            "He killed Darlene?  So it's true?  No-Face said-"

            "She told you?  That bitch!"

            "She didn't say-"

            "Shut up!"  I heard her jaw snap. "That cunt!"

            "Tell me.  Please.  Did he?  If he finds out I know, it'll be because you told him.  I swear I won't tell him.  Please.  Trust me."  The hair on my arms stood on end.  I remembered what Sandman had said.  "And what 'goods' are you talking about?" 

            "I've got to get out of here, away from you.  They know we're up here alone together,"   What little color showed in her face drained away.  Blue veins pulsed in her temples.  She scuttled backwards on her heels and the palms of her hands like a crab.  She pulled on her clothes and boots, dragged a filthy comb through her hair, grabbed her leather bomber, and descended the ladder into the melee below.  I wanted to follow her and keep on going straight out the door.  I looked down and saw Pal draw a knife across the coalition spokesman's throat.  Blood spurted in his face, on Mormo, everywhere.  I don't remember what happened next.

               I awoke to silence in unbearable heat, naked on the mattress, not knowing where I was.  Then I remembered and felt like Mormo was sitting on my chest . . . .    Was it a dream?  Was I really out for two days?  To be continued:
Mist discovers more horrors and starts planning her escape.