Chapter 11
Late on Sunday morning, Aaron left his store to find that Last Chance was a changed town. People headed for church, but they were quiet as they did so. Their usual cheerful gossip and chatter was missing. In fact, an unnatural hush hung over the entire street, except when small groups stopped outside the bank and talked. Watching them, Aaron saw many of these spit contemptuously on the bodies that still hung. Someone had cleaned the blood from the boardwalk, but a red stain remained, and the heavy smell of released feces was strong enough to ride the breeze to Aaron's store.
Aaron walked carefully because stitches in his back pulled painfully. His eyes burned. He felt wooden, sleep deprived, and conscience driven. People looked at him strangely; only two ventured to say hello. Appearing wary, the rest took one look at his face and hurried by. He crossed the street, feeling like a mechanical puppet pulling on its own strings. Sedate, quiet, Bun peeked out of the kitchen when he opened the inn's door. She waved at him though her lips held a worried frown. Aaron tried to find the energy, the decency to respond, but he could find nothing inside himself except the need to mechanically follow through on his habitual routine.
Plodding one slow step after another, he passed one table of regular diners and then another table of morning visitors who ceased talking as he passed. He walked until he reached his accustomed table. His chair was gone, but a stool had been set in its place, something Aaron only took note of in a faraway distant sort of way. Perhaps someone trying to be thoughtful of his wounded back? He supposed he should be grateful, but that emotion was far too active for him to draw forth. Quietly, he sat on the stool, careful not to stretch and pull at his stitches. Flo rushed over to him.
"How do you feel?"
"Numb," he answered, looking up at her. "I feel very, very numb. I sat up all night waiting for it to hit me, but there was nothing. I know I'm supposed to cry or throw up again or something, but I can't do any of it. I've no emotions at all, Mistress Halfax. When I saw those two men hanging out there just now I thought, Aaron Turner, one of those men is the one you killed."
"You did not kill him, Mister Turner. My hand was on the rope that pulled both of them up so I know. They were alive when we started."
"I killed him," Aaron insisted, "and maybe the others too. If I hadn't acted they would have left with Ann, and then Ann would have come back. I don't even know why I did it. I don't remember." He felt haunted.
After quietly pulling out a chair, Flo sat down and held his hand. "We heard you when we were outside. I don't know what made that loud noise, but we heard you. You screamed, Mister Turner. You yelled something about no child being hurt while you watched. They would have killed Ann, sir. They would have raped her, and then they would have cut her throat, only they didn't because you were there. Besides, one of those men we killed, he was a murdering savage from over the pass who put on civilized clothes to come spy on us. Them people were more than just bank robbing murderers, Mister Turner. There's trouble coming soon with the natives. In my opinion, we probably saved a bunch of lives by killing one of their spies."
Senseless. Her words entered his head, but he could not understand them. They were hollow, empty, meaningless. The only word that made sense was a name.
"How is she? How is Ann?"
"Quiet. She stayed home today," Flo gently said. "I looked her over, and she wasn't hurt beyond a few bruises and some scrapes."
Aaron grunted. A distant part of him was grateful the girl was well. Another part of him saw Ann and Flo and every other person in the entire town as caricatures of real people. They were shadows and ghosts and figments that drifted around him but did not settle into his mind. Characters on a stage, they waited for their director, for General Field to come and tell them how to move. They were victims waiting for Aaron Turner to welcome the devil in to destroy their lives.
Flo tightened her fingers, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. "I've seen it in you, Mister Turner. I've seen it, and I love you for it. Children and women, they feel safe near you. You protect them, care for them. Look at how you jumped to Ann's defense that one day. Like a lion you were, and then when the danger to her was over you backed down because you didn't care about your own pride. Everyone knows about you. Some of us have tried to look out for you."
Her words held no meaning. He thanked her when she rose, and he thanked an uncharacteristically somber Missy when she brought his food. Moving mechanically, he built a wall of unassailable silence. After an interminable time he finished eating and sat staring at the wall, lost in thought and memory. A shifting foot rubbed against the wood floor. A voice coughed quietly.
Silent and calm, fifty and graying, Bun stood before him. She held out her hand, and he took it, rising to follow her. He was helpless before her pull, helpless in his will. Her power was a faint luminescent glow around her face and hands. The irresistible strength of that power trapped him, made him prisoner and offered him solace. She led him upstairs to her room, lay him down on her bed and laid herself down beside him. She said nothing. Reaching out, she pulled him to her, placed his head against her ample breasts. His body shivered, then began violently shaking. Throwing his arms around her, he buried his head deep between her breasts, and the dam in his mind answered to her call. Emotion bore its way through the silk thin cracks in his mind, and something inside him broke apart. Cheeks wet, he cried quietly, soaking her blouse beneath his face. His crying gradually increased until sobs and moans racked his body. Murmuring something he could not make out, her hands stroked his head and shoulders.
Aaron gave his grief to the quiet woman. Slowly, one long eternity at a time, his sobs lessened, his mind began working, and his ears caught the sound of crying that matched the echoes of his own. Opening his eyes, slightly turning his head, he saw that tears ran down Bun's cheek, streaking away her sparse make-up. Her soft breasts heaved against his face while she sucked his grief from him. He stopped crying and raised his head, but she cried as hard as he ever had so he pulled his face from her breasts and raised himself so he could pull her head to him. Gently burying her face into his shoulder, he cradled her for an hour while she sobbed. Eventually, her tears slowed, stopped. She pulled away, wiped her tear-swollen face, gave him a sad, lying smile, and rose to leave.
Feeling cleansed, Aaron followed her. His guilt was gone. His mind was clear, and his thoughts sharp, but he wished to God she had not come to him. Because of her he no longer doubted tales of Talent and Talent Masters. With her strength, her Talent, Bun had cleaned him with the strength of her unaided Talent, but that cleaning had cost her dear. It had cost her very dear. He was not worth the price.