He Doesn’t Say Much, Does He?
Chapter 7 of The Ballad of Abigail Lambert
Ridgewood far behind them, Abigail and Esperanza made camp in the woods shortly after they crossed the Texas border. Horses hitched to a nearby tree, the pair of them took their rest on opposite sides of the campfire. Jules lay curled up at Esperanza’s feet. Abigail stared at the night sky, a brilliant blanket that stitched together an unfathomable amount of stars. To her side, Esperanza giggled as she read a dime novel.
“What are you laughing about?” Abigail asked.
“This story I’m reading is very comical,” she said. “A roguish explorer uncovers treasures from ancient civilizations, and he’s got a wit about him.”
“Why do you waste your time reading fanciful trash?” Abigail turned to her.
“It’s no Jules Verne, but I’d hardly resort to calling it trash.”
“Where’d you even get that?”
“Borrowed it from Bill,” she confessed, almost hiding behind the pages of the book.
“Borrowed?” Abigail huffed.
“Did you just laugh?” Esperanza asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ain’t no good gon’ come from fillin’ your head with the ideas of others,” Abigail said.
“Where’s all this vitriol springing from? Did a book convince your husband to leave you?”
“You best watch your tongue, girl.”
“You seem so aggressive in your stance against escapism.”
“The sooner you realize there is no escape, the better off you’ll be.” It wasn’t but a moment when the motive behind Abigail’s contempt finally dawned on Esperanza.
“Now I get it.”
“Get what?” Abigail sat upright.
“You can’t read, can you?” She asked.
“I don’t need to read.”
“But if you had to, you couldn’t?”
Abigail had no reply.
“No wonder you made me read the handbill,” she muttered.
“Go to bed, girl.” Abigail turned away from the fire and laid back down. “We’re up at dawn.”
Esperanza couldn’t help but laugh to herself and continued reading on. She was hard to awaken the next morning, tired from spending too much time enjoying a vicarious adventure. After a good shove from Abigail she was awake, and the pair of them readied their horses for another day’s journey. As they trotted along down a dirt road, Jules followed on the ground, her leg having mostly healed by now. Something caught her attention though, and she planted her paws in the ground and started to growl.
“What is it, girl?” Esperanza asked. Jules had made eye contact with a rabbit, and they stared each other down. As Esperanza followed the dog’s line of sight to the tiny creature, she knew it was already too late. Jules bolted, and despite Esperanza calling out to her, the beast couldn’t be stopped. The rabbit hopped away into the thick brush with blazing speed, but Jules kept up with it. The forest too dense for her to follow on horseback, Esperanza dismounted and ran after them.
“Girl!” Abigail shouted, but she too, could not be stopped.
Jules flew over fallen logs, ducked and weaved through the labyrinthine structure of the piney wood—refusing to let up in her pursuit. The rabbit made her work for it, hopping away with incredible grace and blazing speed. Esperanza trailed behind them, failing to keep up with their pace. With the speed Jules displayed, it was hard to believe her leg had been injured just a few short weeks earlier. The distance between predator and prey shrunk with every inch Jules gained, until the rabbit unwittingly hopped into a trap.
A net sprung out from underneath a pile of leaves, scooping up the rabbit from below and suspending it from the branch of a tree. Jules barked to high hell underneath the rabbit as it dangled above her. From behind a tree, an old woman held the rope that carried the critter in the air.
“Go on, dog!” She shouted. “Git!”
“Hey!” Esperanza finally caught up to them.
“This your dog?” The old woman barked.
“That’s right.” Esperanza replied. “Jules!” The dog was quick to hush.
“Well, I suppose I should be thanking her.” The old woman approached Jules and patted her on the head. Jules panted with a grin upon receipt of the old woman’s affection. “She helped me catch supper.”
“You just wait here until something crawls through your trap?” She asked.
“Heavens, no! I’d likely starve to death if I did that! I was just about through setting up this trap when I saw providence hopping my way. Come to think of it, you best exercise caution on your way back. You may end up in another one of these!” She pointed at the net that swung above their heads. She lowered the trap and took the rabbit in hand. She unsheathed a knife from her belt.
Abigail had finally caught up to them, arriving upon the sight of a strange old woman brandishing a knife in front of Esperanza. She was quick to raise her rifle.
“Don’t even think about it!” She shouted.
“Good lord, woman!” The old lady said. “Is that how you greet everybody?” Abigail spotted the rabbit in the woman’s other hand.
“What’s going on here?” Abigail lowered her weapon.
“I was just thanking your daughter for helping me catch this little guy.” The old woman took the knife and slit the rabbit’s throat.
Esperanza shuddered.
“She’s not my daughter.” Abigail clarified.
“Oh.” The old woman said.
“We really ought to get going.” Abigail told Esperanza.
“Nonsense, girls! You helped me catch supper. Why not join me for some?”
“Can we?” Esperanza asked Abigail.
“We wouldn’t want to intrude.” Abigail said, doing her best to navigate the semantic landscape and avoid upsetting the strange old woman currently wielding a bloody knife.
“Oh heaven’s no. My husband loves company. Come!” She walked away. Esperanza looked to Abigail for approval, and Abigail rolled her eyes.
“Gotta get the horses first.”
Esperanza smiled. After they returned from grabbing the horses, they led their steeds by the reins as the old woman shepherded them all toward her home.
“What’s your name, Miss?” Esperanza asked.
“Evelyn.” It wasn’t long at all before they’d arrived at the cabin. “You can hitch ‘em up here.” She pointed to a post by the front porch. After they hitched the horses, Esperanza stepped onto the porch to follow Evelyn inside but Abigail lagged a bit as she looked around at their surroundings. She noticed what looked like the skulls and bones of small animals, dangling from the branches of the trees that surrounded them.
“Where’s your husband, Evelyn?” Abigail asked.
“Just inside! Come!”
Abigail approached the door behind them. She stopped Esperanza from entering, as a putrid stench stung Abigail’s nose. Abigail entered first, just in case. Inside the cozy quarters, they saw a single bed up against the wall, a shelf with maybe two dozen books and the various trophies of wild game adorning the wall. The smell they’d encountered outside was even more potent in here and Abigail physically recoiled from the repugnance.
“Robert! We have company!” Evelyn called out. Abigail and Esperanza looked around for her husband. The décor was unassuming enough, with the exception of the rotting corpse sitting on a chair in the corner of the cabin, whom they could only presume was once Robert. Both Abigail and Esperanza looked at each other, wondering what exactly they’d managed to get themselves into this time. Evelyn walked over to Robert and leaned in.
“Don’t be rude, Robbie. Say hi!” She told him.
Dead silence.
“Isn’t he a trip?” Evelyn asked them with a grin.
“There’s a word for it.” Abigail said.
“Come, sit!” Evelyn extended a hand toward the table in the middle of the cabin.
The girls took heavy steps toward the table, each of them pondering whether it was indeed too late to turn down supper but before they could arrive at an answer, they’d already dragged out their chairs and took their seats. Evelyn stoked the fire in the fireplace, and once it was good and hot, she crossed over to the table to prepare the rabbit.
“How long have you two been together?” Esperanza asked her.
“Ever since we were kids!” Evelyn said. “Both our families owned plots of land just beside each other. They weren’t too keen on Robbie and I getting together, and they did their damndest to try and keep us away from each other. But love ain’t so quick to die, ain’t it Robbie?”
Again, silence.
“We ended up runnin’ away together,” she continued. “Haven’t spent a day apart since! We built this cabin ourselves, you know.”
“He doesn’t say much, does he?” Abigail asked her.
“He always has been somewhat taciturn.” She slid all the ingredients into a pot and carried it over to the fire. Esperanza shifted in her chair and recoiled from the shock of something unnaturally frigid beneath the wooden table. She leaned over to get a look at what she’d brushed against and shot straight back up in her chair at the sight of it. Abigail’s brow furled, and Esperanza pointed down at the table.
Abigail leaned over much the same to take a look, and noticed a double barrel shotgun strapped to the bottom of the table. This just keeps getting better, Abigail thought. Evelyn, now finished with the stew, approached the table with two bowls in hand. She placed them out in front of the girls.
“Dig in!” she said.
“Thanks!” Esperanza looked down at the bowl of dull brown something that lay before her. Abigail pushed the soup around with her wooden spoon. Esperanza, always the adventurous one, carefully brought the spoon to her lips and let the liquid drip onto her tongue, seemingly one drop at a time. She went from drops to sips, and quickly transitioned to scarfing it down by the spoonful. This was a surprising turn of events that unfolded in front of Abigail, though not nearly as surprising as walking into a strange woman’s cabin to find her husband rotting in a corner chair. Abigail tasted a spoonful of soup herself, and quickly understood what had Esperanza so ravenous. Evelyn may have been off her rocker, but she damn well knew how to stew.
Evelyn took her seat at the head of the table with a bowl of her own. Before she could take her first sip, she slammed her spoon down on the table like a gavel. Abigail and Esperanza jumped at the sound of it.
“Robert! There’s no need to be so rude!” She shouted.
“You two don’t get much company around here?” Abigail asked her.
“Not often, no.” She said. “Frankly, it’s been some time since I cooked for more than just the two of us.”
“Do you ever think about life without Robbie?” Abigail asked her.
“Why would I have to?” Evelyn replied.
Jules began to growl.
“What is it, Jules?” Esperanza asked. Abigail looked over her shoulder to the window behind her. There were men approaching the cabin from the forest.
“Jules?” Evelyn asked Esperanza.
“Yes ma’am.” She said with a smile.
“As in Verne?” Evelyn asked. Esperanza lit up.
“That’s right!”
“Shit.” Abigail muttered. The McCalister gang had followed them here.
“What’s the matter?” Evelyn asked.
“We’ve been followed.” She said.
“Friends of yours?” Evelyn asked.
“Hardly.” Abigail replied.
“What do we do?” Esperanza asked.
Evelyn stood up from her chair and crossed the cabin over to a hatch by Robert’s feet. She swung it open.
“Hide down here.” She suggested.
“What about you?” Esperanza asked.
“Don’t worry about me,” she assured them. “I can handle it.”
Esperanza approached the hatch, Jules by her side.
“Leave the dog up here.” She instructed. Jules whimpered as Esperanza tried to calm her down.
“It’s okay, girl. Stay.” The dog sat beside Evelyn as Esperanza and Abigail walked down the steps into the basement underneath the cabin. Evelyn shut the hatch behind them. She took a pelt suspended over the mantle and laid it over the hatch door. After a deep breath, she exited the cabin. Colin and his crew approached.
“Afternoon, gentlemen.” She said.
“Good afternoon, ma’am.” Colin said.
“What can I do for you?” She asked them.
“We’re looking for somebody. Have reason to believe they were headed in this direction.” He informed her.
“Looking for who?” If she played dumb enough, she figured, they might not even bother going inside.
Back underneath the cabin, Abigail and Esperanza stood in the cramped space. Light from the cabin crept in from the cracks in the floorboards above them, and a small crack in the baseboard lining the top of the basement let in light from outside.
“How the hell did they find us?” Abigail asked.
“They’re good at tracking.” Esperanza said.
“Or maybe we’re good at leaving an obvious trail.” She said.
“There was one time someone in our gang spoke out against Colin. He snuck away from camp while everyone was asleep, but by the next night, Colin had come back with his body in the back of a wagon.” Esperanza recalled.
“What could he have possibly said to demand such a reaction?” Abigail asked.
“Had nothing to do with what he said. It was about sending a message to the rest of us.”
Upstairs, Evelyn and Colin entered, a couple of the other gang members following behind them.
“As you can see, gentlemen,” she assured them, “It’s just my husband and I.” She said. Jules barked. “And Jules, of course.” She crossed over to pat the dog on the head.
“Woo-hoo, god damn, miss!” Colin shouted. “That’s your husband?” He pointed to the corpse.
“That’s right.”
“It smells to high hell in here.” He exclaimed.
“Probably what you dragged in with you.” Evelyn said.
“No, I reckon it’s dead fucking body in the corner there.” He said.
“Don’t you talk about Robbie like that!” She yelled. Jules barked at Colin.
“Look, bitch! I know you’re lying. You got two horses hitched out there, and I know the other one ain’t his! Where is she?” He demanded. Jules refused to pipe down. “Shut that fuckin’ dog up.” One of his cronies drew a pistol.
Esperanza squeaked at the sight of Jules in trouble and Abigail was quick to cover her mouth, but by that point—it was too late. Colin looked at the floorboards. He got down on his knees and pressed his face to the cracks. They could see his eye as it peered down at them.
Evelyn kicked the table over, grabbing the shotgun underneath it and blasting away one of his gang members. Colin quickly dove out the front window as the rest of his gang returned fire, but Evelyn kept shooting!
Abigail punched the baseboard out and opened it up, wide enough for them to crawl out of. She helped Esperanza up and she wiggled her way out from underneath the house.
“Run, girl!” Abigail shouted. As Evelyn took cover from heavy fire on the front side of the house, Esperanza slipped out the back and ran.
“Come on, Jules!” She shouted, and Jules dove out the same window Colin jumped through. She ran through the firefight and circled around the house. Colin couldn’t help but notice the dog rounding the house.
“Cover me.” He said to one of his gang members as he ran to follow the dog. Abigail managed to squeeze out from underneath the cabin, and she ran after Jules and Esperanza. Colin rounded the house, saw them attempting to escape and gave chase, shooting his pistol all the way. “Get back here, Esperanza!”
Abigail caught up to her, and the three of them ran as fast as their legs would carry them.
“Don’t stop!” Abigail shouted. It wasn’t but a second after she said it that they failed to notice the steep drop off they were running straight for, and Esperanza tumbled down into a raging river below. “Swim to the shore!” Abigail shouted, but Esperanza treaded water. Jules didn’t hesitate to jump off into the river and swim after her.
“I can’t—I can’t—“ Esperanza tried to say as her head bobbed above and below the water. It was then that Abigail realized the girl couldn’t swim. She slid down the hill and dove into the river below. She swam with the current and caught up to Esperanza, taking her in hand to keep her head above water. “Hang onto me!” Abigail told her. She tried to carry her to the shore, but the current carried them straight into a rock. Abigail lost her grip on the girl with the impact and floated further down the river. Esperanza managed to hang onto the rock for dear life.
“Abigail!” Esperanza called out.
“Get out of the water!” She yelled. Esperanza yelled something else at Abigail, but the distance growing between them combined with the roar of the raging rapids made it difficult to hear. “What?” Abigail yelled.
“Waterfall!” Esperanza shouted. Abigail managed to turn herself around and noticed she was being carried to the drop. She tried to swim against the current toward the edges but it was no use. She fell some fifty or sixty feet into a lake below, landing on a rock that sent shockwaves through her bones. Despite her body crying out in pain, she managed to paddle her way over to the shore and just barely dragged herself out of the lake.
She turned over to lie on her back and groaned in agony. She stared at the sky. With every breath she heaved, she could feel her ribs cracking as her chest expanded and retracted. To her side, she could hear someone ride up beside her. She tried to turn her neck, but the pain was so intense that she could do nothing more than lay there motionless. Perhaps Colin would take care of Abigail’s problem and bring their short-lived journey to a close. If it would put her out of this pain, both the shock she was currently in and the rest she’d carried for years, it would be most welcome indeed.
The man stood above her, silhouetted against the sun. She could barely make him out. It couldn’t have been Colin. As her vision adjusted, she recognized a face that she thought she’d never see again.
“Abby?” Her brother said.
“Benji?” She could hardly believe it. A rugged and aged Benjamin stood above her. Had she already died and dragged herself into the afterlife? They both had a tough time believing the providence that had transpired to reunite them, but before she could squeeze out another word; her head grew weary, her vision began to fade, and she fell unconscious.
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