Ray Vaughn's Mouth

Chapter 14:

Margaret was at the window with the poker and I was in the middle of the floor with my boots half on and Ray Vaughn's voice came through the door again.

"Jane. Jane, I know you're in there. I need you to open up. It's important."

"Get away from the door," Margaret said, low.

I got my other boot on and stood up and my hands were cold and I was so tired of my hands being cold.

"Ray," I called. "What are you doing out here?"

"Looking for you. Nobody's seen you in three days. There's people in the village saying you went off into the woods to die." A pause. "Are you going to open the door?"

"No."

"Jane—"

"No." I was at the door now with my hand flat on it. "You were on that cart. You called me a legend and told Dell to drive on."

Silence on the other side.

"Yeah," Ray said. "I did."

"So why would I open this door for you?"

Silence.

Then Ray said, quiet, "Because there's a man in the village asking where you went. And I know where you went, and he's going to come to me again, and I've been sitting in my house all day trying to figure out what to say to him when he does."

I looked at Margaret.

Margaret looked at me and shook her head. One small motion.

"Who," I said.

"Big fella. Scar up the side of his neck."

My stomach dropped.

"He came into the village two days ago," Ray said. "Walked into the tavern like he owned it and asked after a girl who left the ceremony. Said he'd been tracking her." A pause. "Said he'd found her and she was staying with an old woman out past the border and he wanted to know her name."

Margaret lowered the poker.

"What did you tell him," I said.

"Nothing. I swear on my mother, Jane, nothing. I said I didn't know anything about an old woman out past the border."

"But you did know."

Another pause.

"I'd seen the smoke," Ray said. "My cousin Dell, he hunts out past the border and he's seen that chimney a hundred times. Everybody in the village knows there's an old woman out here. It's not a secret. It's just not a thing anybody talks about."

"And you told him that."

"I told him to get out of my tavern."

"Why."

"Because I didn't like the way he asked." Ray's voice went ugly. "Because a man who's tracking a woman doesn't smile about it. He asked me her name, Jane. Not where she was, not how she was — her name. Like he wanted to be able to say it."

I stood with my hand on the door.

The fire popped.

"Ray," I said. "Why are you out here?"

Silence.

"Ray."

"Because he came back," Ray said. "This afternoon. And he asked me again, and I told him again, and then he said something to me that I've been thinking about all day."

"What did he say."

"He said, 'You're going to tell me by morning. You can tell me now and be a man who told me now, or you can tell me by morning and be a man who held out.'" Ray's voice cracked. "And then he smiled at me, Jane. Smiled at me like we were friends and left."

Margaret was beside me now. She put her hand flat on the door above mine.

"Vaughn," she called. "Is he behind you?"

"He's not behind me. I swear. I came straight out. I took my own horse and I came straight out."

"How did you find the cottage?"

"My cousin Dell. He hunts out here." Ray's voice was getting higher. "Margaret, I'm not the danger. I'm the warning. I came out here to warn you both and now I'm standing on the wrong side of a barred door, so would you open it—"

Margaret lifted the bar.

"Margaret," I said.

"He's alone," she said quietly. "I've been listening the whole time he's been talking. If there were another man out there the horse would be moving and there'd be boots in the leaves. It's one man and one horse and a bad story." She pulled the bar up. "And I want to see his face when he says it again."

She opened the door.

Ray Vaughn stood on the step.

He looked bad. Worse than the cart. His coat was wet and his face was grey and he had his hat in his hands and he was turning it around and around like a wheel.

"Margaret," he said.

"Vaughn."

"I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't be here—"

"You should be running," Margaret said. "You should be on that horse and halfway to the next territory telling them what's out here."

"I can't do that." Ray's hat stopped turning. "It's not that simple."

"Why isn't it?"

"Because it's not just me." Ray looked at me. "Because he's been to three of the farms already. He's been polite. He's been real polite. He's been sitting at kitchen tables telling people he's a lone wolf looking to settle and asking if anybody knows of a girl out past the border."

My mouth was dry.

"Three farms," I said.

"Three farms and the tavern twice. And last night he was at the Avery place asking Mrs. Avery if she'd sold a grey coat to anybody recently."

Margaret went very still.

"Mrs. Avery," I said.

"She told him she gave it to a girl from the village who'd fallen on hard times. He asked where the girl went. She said she didn't know." Ray's voice had gone quiet. "Jane. She lied to him. She lied to him right to his face in her own kitchen with her hands shaking. That's the only reason I'm here. She sent me. She said, 'Find her and tell her that man is coming and tell her to run.'"

I sat down.

Margaret went to the kettle.

"Vaughn," she said, "sit down before you fall down. You look like a wet cat."

Ray sat down. He sat down where she pointed and he put his hat on the table and he put his hands on his knees and looked at me.

"I'm not going to ask you to forgive me," he said. "For the cart. I've been sitting in my house for three days thinking about my own mouth and I'm sick of it."

"The cart's the smallest thing that's happened to me this week," I said.

"That's fair."

"What did he look like."

Ray's face changed.

"Big. Tall. His shoulders sit wrong in a coat, like he's used to being bigger than the clothes." Ray's hands came up. "Scar up the side of the neck. Old. It's not a clean cut, it's ugly, like a bottle or a fence did it. And his eyes—" Ray stopped.

"What about his eyes."

"They're not right. I don't know how to say it. He looks at you like he's already decided what you're worth and he's just being polite about the waiting."

Margaret set the cup down in front of him.

"What did he call himself," she said.

"He didn't say."

"He didn't say a name."

"Not to me." Ray drank. "But the man at the Halloway place said he called himself—" He stopped. "And I might be saying it wrong."

"Say it."

"Cole," Ray said. "Cole Maddox."

Margaret's cup hit the floor and broke.

She stood there in the middle of her cottage with her hand still shaped around a cup that wasn't in it anymore and her face gone the color of the ash in the hearth.

"Margaret," I said.

"Cole Maddox," she said. Not a question.

"Cole Maddox," Ray said.

"Get out."

Ray looked up. "What?"

"Get out of my house." Margaret's voice was flat and low and it had nothing in it at all. "Vaughn. Get out of my house and get on your horse and go and don't come back here and don't tell another soul where you've been."

"I came here to warn you—"

"I've had this warning before," Margaret said. "Get out."

Ray stood up.

He looked at her for a second. Then he picked up his hat.

"Jane," he said. "I did what I could."

"I know."

"Go to the Avery place. She'll hide you. She's got a cellar and she lied to a man's face for you already."

"I know."

He put his hat on and went out.

The door shut. Margaret picked up the bar and put it down and then she turned around and walked to the table and she sat down in her chair and she put her hands flat on the wood and she looked at the wall.

I crouched down and picked up the pieces of the cup and put them in my apron and got the fire going again.

"Margaret," I said.

"Not now."

"Margaret. Who is Cole Maddox?"

She didn't answer.

"I'm going to find out," I said. "You can tell me now or I can walk out that door and find him myself and ask him. Which do you want."

Margaret's head came up.

"Don't you dare," she said, and her voice was cracked right through. "You don't go near that man. You don't say his name out loud where the trees can hear it."

"Then tell me who he is."

Margaret put her face in her hands.

She sat there for a long time.

Then she said, from behind her hands, muffled and old and very tired, "Your mother's second page. The warning. It's about him."

I sat back on my heels.

"He's why she wrote to you," I said.

"She wrote to me because of the pack," Margaret said. "The pack was going to throw you away and there's nothing anybody could do about that. That was the first page." Her hands came down. "But she wrote the second page because of Cole Maddox. Because there's a man out in the territories who takes girls who've been thrown away. Girls with nobody behind them. He's been doing it for thirty years and nobody stops him because the girls he takes are the ones nobody's looking for."

I was cold all over.

"And my mother knew about him."

"Everybody knew about him." Margaret's eyes were wet and furious. "Every healer in the territories knows about him. Your mother knew. I know. There's a reason a healer's child learns to keep her head down and it's not just the gift."

"Why? What does he want with girls like me?"

Margaret stood up.

She went to the hearth and she picked up the fire iron and she stood there with her back to me and her hand around the iron.

"Because of what we can do," she said. "Because a wolf with a healing gift can be kept in a room and made to heal a man's soldiers for thirty years. And she'll do it. She'll do it until she's a husk, and then she'll die, and he'll find another one."

The fire cracked.

I sat on the floor of that cottage with the broken cup in my apron and my hands in my lap and I looked up at the back of an old woman holding a fire iron.

"He's going to come here," I said.

"He's going to come here," Margaret said.

"Tonight?"

"He's been polite for three days. He's been asking at tables. He likes the asking. He likes watching people decide whether to lie to him." She turned around. "But he's had his asking. Ray's right. He's coming."

"Margaret. What are we going to do?"

Margaret looked at me.

She looked at me for a long moment, and the fire was behind her, and her face was old and hard and wet.

"We're going to run," she said.

Chapter (14) Ends.