Pg 74
of A Crow in the Wheat
Katy McCain was a control freak. She was a control master. She could not tolerate the tail of circumstance wagging the dog of her life. For the first time in a very long time she was conflicted about what move to make next. If any one of her whores had dared to put a target on her back like this, she’d be kicked off before the wheels stopped rolling and abandoned to fate. The way Katy saw it, the people in her employ, while family of a sort, lived because of her. There was an unwritten, but clear understanding that anyone who endangered that opportunity, endangered the Wagon and everyone else on it. There was a code.
But Emmy was a child. She was innocent. And the code didn't reconcile that.
Katy needed to think. She stepped off the orange behemoth that was her world and looked out over the expanse to the West. From atop drought-brown foothills, the valley looked like a verdant dream. An impossible picture painted from Steinbeckian mythology. Pillows of green upon pillows of green folding in on each other all the way to the coastal range 150 miles away. There was an inversion over the valley today. Rain from yesterday appeared as a ghostly white mist marking the bottom of where the cold air was trying to get to the hot air underneath, In a few months, that mist would become the famous Tule Fog where people wouldn't be able to see two feet in front of them all day.
Skinny walked up sheepishly, trying not to disturb his boss, but watching her back just the same. There were three men she’d know in her life besides her father whom Katy trusted. Skinny was one of them.
“Skinny. You make anything out of this?”
“Rumor is all. Old one.”
“Tell me.”
“I know some guys was there the night Machado hit the Sousa place.”
“The massacre.”
“Some say there was survivors. an infant maybe. Could be Blackfeather found it under a piece of tin or something. Took took it in. Or sold it on the black market, into servitude or worse. It’s just a rumor Katy. Why would he save somebody after all that killing?”
“She’d be the right age though.”
“It’s a stretch.”
“Machado’s right-hand manning point on a runner hunt. Apparently on one bad leg. You ever see anything like that before?”
“No. No, I aint.”
“If she’s one of the Tulare Sousas, and the old man knew it, she'd have been dead long ago. If Matthias saved a baby from that massacre and is hiding his Mother Theresa moment from his Machado, things would go very very bad for him if it came out. Which means we’ve lucked into some leverage.”
Katy and Skinny ducked back into the Pussy Wagon. Emmy was being comforted by some of the girls. She looked sleepy. Katy knelt and got eye level with Emmy. “Let me ask you something little duck.”
“Alright.”
“Where’d you grow up?
“Section 404 North.”
“That’s where you worked. Honey, where were you born?”
“Section 404?”
“You don’t remember any place before that?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Okay. Okay. You sleep now.”
Katy looked at Skinny. He rubbed the stubble on both of his chins. Emmy, overcome, curled up and dropped into sleep like a stone. The madame and her top lieutenant walked to the front of the bus. The cloud cover was breaking, and crisp sunshine was shooting through pollutant-free sky, making the Wagon uncomfortably warm.
“You going to get wrapped up in this drama?”
“Don’t know. I’ll tell you one thing. No man is going to put that little girl through any more shit. Not one iota more. We’ll keep her tucked tight. Have her help with the washing at night. Give her little indoor chores during the day. We’ll keep making our stops, keep her away from Machado’s payroll, and see what we see. Skinny, that indian is not someone to be fucked with. Extra goddamn vigilant, hear?”
Skinny nodded gravely. Which was how Skinny did everything. Katy raised her voice loud enough to be heard all the way to the back. “Okay ladies! That’s enough down time! When we get to Lemoore I expect you will all be too busy to swallow twice.”
The driver cranked up the engines. And the Pussy Wagon roared to life. Emmy slept for the next twelve hours. With no dreams.