* * *
It wasn’t the stealing that bothered Lola. They’d done enough of that. That was how they lived, not by their choice, but by Pa’s. Seemed like they’d always lived that way. Morality had pretty much given out on them.
No, what bothered her was that six-gun sticking in Jody’s belt as they rode along in the dust of a hot evening, five children on a pan-footed horse, two ponies and a mule. The younger boys, Pink and Seth, had guns too, but they weren’t loaded and Jody’s was. It sure was. Lola’d watched him load it just an hour before. Pa had insisted.
Don’t let your pa make a killer out of Jody, Ma had said. They were her dying words. Lola could still hear the sound of them in her ears, as she watched her brother ride just ahead of her.
Jody was tall and lanky at seventeen years. It would be a few years before he filled out. His hair, which was dark, was reddish blond from the sun, and it was long and unkempt since Ma died. He always sat still for Ma to cut it, let her fuss as long as she liked. He’d yelled at Pink and Seth, and made them sit still too.
But these days there was such a tension in his face, he looked old as time. He looked sullen and weary. Lola wondered how she herself looked. Maybe drawn and worried. Maybe just like Ma. Lola remembered how Ma had looked that day, when they’d come home and found her in bed, dying.
“I fell,” Ma had said, hardly able to speak, but looking to Jody with a need to make him believe her. “I just fell. I was climbing up to get.... I fell. Go...go do your chores.”
Ma clutched Lola’s wrist to keep her there, as she sent the other children away. It wasn’t a fall that did that to her mother, Lola knew. It was Pa. And there was no fixing it. Her mother held her arm so tight, with pain and urgency.
“Lola,” she said low. “Lola, you’ve got to care for them.”
“Yes, Ma,” said Lola, forcing her voice to be low and calm.
“Especially Jody,” said Ma. “A woman’s soul can stretch. Can endure and suffer any stain and any pain. But a man’s soul is hard. It breaks.”
“Ma....”
“Don’t let your Pa turn Jody into a killer,” said Ma. She said it firm. “Promise me.”
And Lola promised, even though Pa had already turned them into thieves. Now, with Ma gone, Pa demanded more—more drink, more money, more work out of the kids—and without Ma to hit, he hit Jody, and sometimes Lola, although Lola kept Jody from knowing.
Up to now, though, he’d only told them to sneak. They’d run into a store in a bunch, and while the store keeper was busy with one, others would sneak things out. They’d only steal, never rob. Not face to face, no threats, and no threats to carry out.
But now they were going to rob, and Jody had gun with bullets in it.
“You girls shoulda stayed home,” said Seth. Jody and Lola looked at each other. Lola was the oldest, almost a year older than Jody.
“Hush up, Seth,” said Lola. He looked at her, and then at their little seven year old sister, who sat on the mule behind Lola.
“A robbery ain’t no place for Maisie.”
Jody turned and looked at him. “We stick together. Ain’t leaving nobody at home with Pa. Not after...Ma.”
“Maisie’d be okay if Lola stayed with her....”
“If I’m sending any bawlin’ brat home, it’s you, Seth.”
He pulled up and looked toward the sun, which had set but had left a blush on the sky behind. They were still a half mile from the little town with the store at the edge, and the little cabin behind the store. Pa had heard the storekeeper kept his gold hidden in the house. They’d have to rob him face to face because they didn’t know where the money was hidden. They’d have to point that gun at the man and make him tell them.
There was a little stream that went behind the cabin, with trees and brush growing up. They left the horses and mule down the stream a ways and crept up to look at the cabin. They crouched and watched, and Lola saw Jody touch the gun again.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have loaded it,” said Lola. Jody looked at her sidelong, squinting even though there was no sun. He took a breath and stiffened.
“I ain’t no killer.”
“Then why don’t you take the bullets out?”
“Cause there are people who might want to kill us.”
Only because we’re robbing them, thought Lola, and there was no point in saying that because Jody already knew. They crept closer to the cabin, and Lola tried to think what to do, what to say, but they all knew how Pa would react if they didn’t do exactly as he said.
As they got close, little Maisie pulled at Lola’s sleeve. Lola was hardly aware of it, and she just brushed the little girl’s hair.
“Is Ma in heaven?” said Maisie.
“Shhh,” said Lola. Then she leaned close and whispered. “Of course she is.”
Maisie squirmed and then she spoke again, more quietly.
“But if we steal, are we gonna go to heaven too?”
Before Lola could answer, Jody sidled over on all fours, quick like a spider. He put a finger to Maisie’s lips.
“Hush,” he said, leaning in close. “It’s Pa’s fault, not yours.”
He hissed it so hard, he almost spat in her face. Maisie tensed in Lola’s arms and Lola patted her.
“Don’t worry, you’ll see Ma again,” she whispered low. “God’ll forgive us for Ma’s sake....”
Lola wondered if the words were as much to reassure herself as Maisie. She watched Jody scuttle back and watch the cabin. He was tense, and his eyes and muscles were hard—hard and brittle and ready to shatter. And he fingered that gun.
And then suddenly he pulled back, like he was pulling loose of a rope that was tying his attention to the cabin. He pulled up and back and gestured for the others to do the same. Lola glanced at the cabin and saw no one, no light, nothing to make them change plans. She rolled from her space and crawled from under the brush, and they joined Jody in the dark of the slope down to the stream.
“We’re taking what we need,” said Jody. “We don’t need that damn gold.”
He turned and scrambled back up into the moonlight. Lola hadn’t been able to see his face. She let go of Maisie’s hand and scrambled up after, tripping on her skirt on the steep slope. Pink helped Maisie up after. Seth was already up there, looking excited as he trotted backward, just ahead of Jody, trying to see his face. Jody was heading for the store.
Jody took the gun from his belt, and checked it, and then he glanced over his shoulder and broke the glass on a window. They all held silent and listened for a reaction from inside the store or back at the cabin. Lola watched Jody’s face as he listened, even though it was dark, and she couldn’t see well. His expression was flat, except for a slight tension that seemed to be just from listening hard. The he looked at her, and a little smile twisted his face, and Lola’s heart lifted.
“Nobody inside,” he said. “So we don’t rob anybody. We just steal.”
“We’re robbing the store owner,” said Seth.
“Not face to face. Ain’t making a threat. Ain’t making a situation where we might have to shoot.”
He reached in through what remained of the broken glass, and pushed the latch free. Then he opened the window and slipped in. In a moment, he had the back door open, and all of them slipped quietly in.
Jody had a match, and he lit a lamp near the door, but he left it turned low as he carried it to the front of the store and put it on the floor by the counter, so it wouldn’t show through the front windows.
“We take what we need,” he said. He went behind the counter and started pulling out shoes and looking at them. Lola paused and looked over the shelves. There were clothes, and food in cans and in bags. They couldn’t carry enough of that, but they each could carry some. And there was medicine, for coughs and all. Ma used to keep some medicines around, and Lola went and looked at them.
“We need candy,” said Maisie
.
“No we don’t,” said Lola.
“Sure we do,” said Jody. “Or Maisie does. Pa won’t give it to her. She needs it.”
Seth and Pink went straight for the candy counter to help her, and help themselves. Lola found a carpet bag, and put in some medicines and cans of oysters, and a hairbrush, and some tooth powder. The shop also had some fine whiskey under the counter. Pa might be appeased with some of that.... She went weak at the thought of Pa. Pa would not be appeased. She squatted down and tried to drive away the memory of her mother’s bruises, and the spot where her ribs had been crushed. And the look of the welts on Jody the last time he had a beating.
She took the bottles, and went back to the medicine shelf. Poultice makings and things for pain. Something for after. Then she’d make sure that they each had something warm for winter.
As she sorted through the long johns, she heard something at the back of the shop. Jody made a hiss, and they all scrambled for cover, silently. They’d been thieves long enough that it was an instinct.
“Anybody in there, you better scat!” came a voice from the back door. A scared voice. “I’ll shoot!”
Lola crouched behind the pickle barrel and closed her eyes. No, she thought. No, no. Not a face to face robbery. Not a man with a gun. She clutched Maisie, and she heard the little girl’s breath, a repressed sob. She let up on her grip. No point in frightening the child more.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, almost soundlessly.
The man made quite a bit of noise, working his way from the back of the store, and he took his time, maybe hoping that the thieves would run before he got there. But it was too late to run now, not and get the locked door open and not be seen. The children remained hidden as the man called out again.
“You get, or I’ll shoot!”
He made his way into the front room of the store, swinging his shotgun in the eerie light of the lamp on the floor. He was breathing hard.
“You...you get,” he said, his voice falling to a mumble as he realized he might be speaking to no one. He raised the gun as he looked uneasily around. As he turned, a figure rose up behind him.
“Take it easy mister,” said Jody, his voice low an husky. He had a bandana over his face, and was wearing a hat and a pancho from the rack. “Put that gun down on the counter, and I won’t hurt you.”
The man looked panicked, but he stood frozen a moment, and Lola could see his eyes move. He looked like he might twist, but Jody touched his shoulder, and pressed the gun closer.
“Put it down,” he said. “I don’t want to, but I’m desperate, mister, and I’ll kill you if I have to.”
The calm tone of Jody’s voice seemed to ease the man, and he put the gun on the counter.
“Now, down on the floor, so I know you can’t chase me,” said Jody. “Slow.”
The man did as he was told. Jody motioned for the other kids to get out, and he talked to the man to cover any sounds they’d make, and tied his hands.
“I’m desperate, mister. My wife is dead and my kids are sick, and I can’t do them any good any more. I just got to take what we need, and if I ever manage to get back on my feet again, I swear I’ll pay you back....”
They left silently and waited. There was no sound of a gunshot, and Jody soon followed. Lola let a breath out.
“He’s tied up good, and I don’t think he saw any of you,” he said. There wasn’t much more to say.
They split up, as had been planned, and as they had done before. They scuffled their footprints, and then found their mounts, and they took separate paths. It was why Pa had allowed them to take all the horses, and why nobody had objected to the girls coming along. They could obscure the trail easier if they had four different ways to go.
They had parted with some excitement at having pulled off a robbery of their own, and done it their own way. For Lola it was the joy that Jody had made a good choice. That Pa had not ripped the soul out of him yet.
But that joy trickled of her out as she rode through the night to obscure her trail, and she was sure the others were feeling the same. All of them, riding alone for hours, had to be thinking about what Pa was going to do when he found out. It had to be on Jody’s mind—had to have been there from the moment he decided to rob the shop rather than the shopkeeper.
Lola felt a wild urge to just gallop straight home. But even if her trail led the law straight to them, wouldn’t it be better to be caught for theft than to have...to have another death in the family? Lola couldn’t even put words to what she feared would happen. Don’t let your pa turn Jody into a killer. And what about Pa? Pa already was a killer. But if she couldn’t get home in time to prevent a clash between them, then what? Then she’d have led the law straight to them, straight to whoever was left to hang....
So Lola kept to the plan and rode her trail and stream as long as she could, until she couldn’t stand it. She got to the meeting place first, well before dawn. Maisie was tired, and Lola set her down to sleep in the shelter of the old boulder. She wasn’t surprised that neither Pink nor Seth were here yet. The thought of Pa’s temper would slow anybody. Pink came after a half hour or so, Seth a little later.
But Jody didn’t come. Lola felt her throat tighten, and realized that Jody might have decided to protect the rest of them, and gone home alone. To face Pa. She gripped her elbows to her sides and watched the horizon, not seeing the dust or the hill or the dry stream bed, but her mother’s battered body. But she also saw the hard glitter in Jody’s eyes, and the way he had touched that gun every time he had mentioned Pa.
Then as the sky got brighter, Lola saw him coming, alone and thin even up on his horse.
He didn’t bother to get off the horse. He just said, “You all ready?” and turned the horse toward home. Maybe he’d spent the time thinking. All the same, Lola rounded up the others quick, and they hurried to follow.
They pulled up a little shy of the cabin, near the corral. Jody stopped and looked at the others. He pressed his lips together, and the glitter in his eyes was gone. He looked practical and calm, but Lola could tell he was strung tight.
“You kids take care of the horses,” he said. “I’ll talk to Pa.”
Seth and Pink were eager enough to stay out of it, and Maisie clung to Lola’s skirts, fearful even when half asleep.
“You go with Pink,” said Lola, and she shifted the little girl over to her brother. Pink put his arms around her and looked grave.
Lola picked up the carpet bag she’d filled with loot, and ran after Jody. He turned and looked like he might tell her to go back, but he knew Lola was older than he was, and she had the responsibility too. Even if Pa didn’t listen to her, she would be the one to clean up.
He didn’t look at her again. He just paused to straighten his shoulders and pushed open the door.
Pa was sleeping, but he sat up and rubbed his face.
“Took you long enough,” he said.
“We had to hide the trail back, like you said,” said Jody.
“Good boy,” said Pa, and he looked expectantly at the bag in Lola’s hand.
“We didn’t get the gold,” said Jody. “We broke into the store instead.”
“What?” Pa shook the sleep from his head and stood up.
“I decided we should get what we needed,” said Jody. “We need food and clothes. So we broke into the store. We didn’t get the gold.”
“You little shit,” said Pa. He was still a little groggy from sleep, and maybe from drinking too much before that, so he spoke low. He knew Jody was pushing him on purpose, so he was letting his steam build up. He took a deep breath and turned toward Jody.
“Whatcha gonna do?” said Jody. “Kill me like you killed Ma?”
Pa paused, not a hesitation, but a pause to gather himself. “She fell,” he growled, his eyes turning back Jody’s challenge, daring him to keep it up.
“I told him it was you,” said J
ody.
“What?” said Pa, and he lowered his head and took a step toward Jody.
“The storekeeper.” Jody stood his ground, even as Pa advanced. “I told him who it was that robbed him. I told him Vic Chandler. I told him....”
Pa struck him so hard across the face he fell down.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” roared Pa. He stood making fists, and he stared down at Jody, who stared up just as hard. Jody raised his hand to wipe the blood from his lip, but Pa started unbuckling his belt, and Jody’s hand went to the gun instead.
“No!” said Lola, but she was too far away to do anything. Pa saw it, though, and he kicked Jody’s hand even as he pulled the gun loose from the belt. The gun went off.
Lola couldn’t help the scream that came out of her mouth, even as she saw no one had been hit. Not yet. The bullet dug into the dirt right next to Jody’s foot, leaving soot and a scorch on her brother’s bare ankle. The gun fell to the ground, and Lola winced for fear it would go off again. It didn’t—it wasn’t cocked any more, was it?--but it fell pointing toward Jody. It was also within his reach. Within reach of either of them. Lola didn’t know what would be worse, Jody killed, or turned killer. She’d promised Ma.
But as Pa hauled him up by the hair and threw him back, away from the gun, Lola could see by the look on Jody’s face that it was too late. He was ready to kill. But not in cold blood, Lola thought, not as a sneak. Face to face. Jody had that in him. Ma had seen it.
Lola turned away as Pa began to beat him with the buckle end of the belt. She pulled open the bag she’d filled with things from the store, and searched it frantically. The laudanum. The whiskey. Good whiskey. Whiskey the kind Pa would stop doing just about anything in order to get at it.
The sound of the blows behind her shook her, but each blow added to her urgency and nerves. She nearly dropped the bottle as she tore it open and poured some out into the dirt...to make room. She poured in the laudanum, and held her thumb over the end of the bottle and swirled it to mix. Then she stood and held out the bottle.
“Pa!” she said. His arm was tired, and her calls got through to him after one or two more blows. He turned and she held the bottle with the label toward him so he could see it. “He was lying. He didn’t tell nobody. We just couldn’t get the money tonight because it wasn’t there. We’ll go back....”
Pa was tired enough that he finished his attack with a string of oaths and then let the belt fall. It fell next to the gun. Pa paid no attention to either weapon now. Lola stepped back as he approached, as if nervous, leading him to the table where he could drink in more comfort. Pa snatched the bottle away from her, and took a drink. And the he reached for his tin drinking cup and sat down. She backed off, and then turned to Jody.
Jody was half sitting up, and looking at the gun. Even beat up, he was stronger than she was, and she didn’t want to fight him for it, but she could see his determination. She started toward it, but she was too slow. He had it as she got there, and his thumb was on the hammer. She twisted and fell to sit on his hand, and the gun. She braced herself for it to go off and burn through her leg, but it didn’t.
“What’d you give him whiskey for?” Jody’s voice was a raspy whisper, almost a whine. “That’ll make him worse.”
“Not this time,” she said, and she clutched his sleeve and waited to get his attention. He looked at her. “Not this time.”
He pulled his hand out from under her, leaving the gun. She stayed right there and sat on it.
“What you up to?” said Pa, although he wasn’t much interested.
“I’m telling him not to aggravate you,” said Lola.
“What about that gold?” said Pa, now hardly interested in Jody’s behavior. Lola stayed where she was, and started telling him little details she made up about how the shopkeeper had hid the money, and how they’d overheard him talking about it, and how he said he was going to get more tomorrow, so they could spy on him and see where he hid it all.
Pa drank maybe a quarter of the bottle before he started to succumb. He stopped asking questions and his curses lowered to a grumble. Then his head hit the table, and he stayed still. Lola let out a long slow sigh, as they waited a little longer to see if he’d stir.
She got up and picked up the gun and emptied it.
“We’re getting out of here,” she said. “We can take care of ourselves better without him.”
“He’ll come after us,” said Jody, his eyes on Pa. He turned and looked at the gun in her hands. She looked straight at him.
“We’ll take the horses with us.”
Something changed in his eyes as he thought about it. Something like hope came into them, an idea of freedom. He got up slowly, looking at Pa with less raw hatred, and more simple caution. By the way he moved, she thought he was well enough to go, and they needed to go now, even if the horses were tired. She let out a long breath and went to the door to call to Pink and Seth to come in and help pack up.
Lola set to making a quick breakfast of corn dodgers while the boys set to getting the horses ready. She heard Jody talking to them about what they’d need and where they were going. She paused to check on Maisie, who was finally asleep, and then she took the bottle from next to Pa’s hand, and slipped outside where she emptied it and washed it.
She knew the doctor could find traces of poison in a drink. She wasn’t sure about laudanum, so she had to be careful. She knew how much she’d put in the bottle, and how much he’d drunk. She was pretty sure they didn’t have to worry about Pa ever coming after them.
And then she dropped the bottle and started shaking. A woman can take a stain on her soul. That’s what Ma had said. She turned and went to Ma’s grave, and knelt, wiping tears from her eyes.
“You don’t have to worry, Ma,” she said. “Pa will never turn Jody into a killer. Never. I saw to it, just like I promised. Just like I promised.”