“You ought to go home, then,” I said, “and hide. I’ll escort you, if that’s what you need.”
“That would be exactly the wrong thing to do. Job and Utty—especially Job, he’s the smart one—probably formed a plan to watch the tavern rather than barge inside to make trouble. They’re hunters, Adam Hazzard, and they know how to stalk prey even when the prey has got wind of them. It’s true—I hope it’s true—they don’t know where I live. But if I leave now there’s every chance they’ll follow me, and break in when there are no witnesses present.”
“You live alone, then?”
“I do.”
“No male companion right at the moment?”
“No, but what does that matter?”
“Well, it increases the risk. What will you do, if you can’t go home?”
“All I can do is hide here. Evangelica will warn me if Job and Utty come inside. Even then I should be all right, unless my brothers search the building. That’s why I wanted you here with me—specifically, that’s why I wanted your pistol here with me.”
“Are your brothers armed?”
It wasn’t legal for citizens to go about armed within city limits, and the majority adhered to the rule. Her brothers weren’t among that majority, Calyxa explained. Both were experienced pistol-fighters, and unabashed about advertising the number of men they had killed. That brought home to me the severity of her crisis, and I advised her to check the street once more, to make sure the brothers hadn’t crept up on us unannounced.
Enough time passed, however, that we eventually began to let down our guard; and I was admiring her clockspring hair by lamplight, and beginning to feel brave again, when she stood up from her chair at the window and said, “Oh, Hell!” [Or an even stronger word, best understood under the generous allowances of Cultural Relativism, and not printable here.]
“They’re coming?”
She nodded. I hurried to the window, and caught a glimpse of two burly men, one in a patched wool coat and one in what looked like a sailor’s pea-jacket, as they strode across the torch-lit street to the entrance of the Thirsty Boot directly below us.
“Put out the light!” Calyxa said. “But before you do, unlatch the window.”
“Why, what for?”
“In case we need a quick escape.”
“There’s nothing outside but the street, and that’s two stories down,” I said.
“Consider it a last resort,” she said.
* * *
We huddled in the darkened room, anticipating disaster. The heat was oppressive. I could smell the approaching storm—a heavy, salty odor—and I wasn’t very fresh myself, though I had bathed that very morning. Perhaps Calyxa was equally conscious of her own scent—I was aware of it, but it wasn’t offensive to me—to me she smelled steamy and utterly distracting—but I won’t dwell on the matter.
Her brothers kept themselves downstairs for a great length of time, perhaps drinking and evaluating the tavern. But they were here for a purpose, and it was not to be indefinitely postponed. We heard footsteps on the stairs… it was Evangelica, the friendly waitress, come in stealth to warn us.
She knocked very faintly at the door of the room. “They’re coming up!
” she whispered. “Arnaud and the bartender threatened them, but the Blakes showed their pistols and everyone is cowed. They mean to search all the rooms in the building—I have to go back! Be prepared.”
“Is your weapon loaded, Adam Hazzard?” Calyxa asked in a firm voice.
I took it out and made sure it was ready to fire.
“Give it to me, then,” she said.
“Give it to you!”
“I don’t want to burden you with the work of killing my brothers.”
“It’s not a burden—I only hope it doesn’t become a necessity.”
“Not a burden for you, but a positive pleasure for me.” (She was pretending to be bloodthirsty in order to spare my feelings, and my heart melted a little at her generosity.) “Give me the gun,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“Well, then, will you shoot them? Shoot them dead? Do you promise to shoot them?”
“At the first hint of a threat—”
“The hint has been given! Adam, they’re experienced murderers ! You must shoot them, as soon as you see their shadows—and shoot to kill, not to wound —or we’re already lost!”
“They can’t be as ferocious as all that.”
“Dear God! Give me the gun, I beg you.”
“No—if there must be bloodshed, I want it on my conscience, not yours.”
“Conscience!” She pronounced the word as if it were a lament. “A quel genre d’idiot j’ai affaire? [Calyxa, unlike myself, was fluent in French, and sometimes fell into that language at odd moments. French has always been a mystery to me, and remains so; but I have taken pains to make sure her words are accurately transcribed.]
Maybe the window is the better option, if you won’t hand over the pistol…”
“Surely we needn’t jump to our doom!”
“I’m not suggesting we jump! The only danger is that we might fall. Quickly, Adam, I hear them on the stairs… take off your shoes!”
I obeyed without question, because she seemed to have some plan in mind, though I was not pleased that it involved the window. “Why am I taking off my shoes, though?”
“Leather doesn’t grip like flesh. Holster your pistol, to keep your hands available. Now follow me.”
I followed her as closely as I could through the darkened room, though not without stubbing my toe on a barrel-rim. Then she threw open the hinged window, admitting a gust of rain and a lightning-flash. The storm, which had threatened all day, was upon us. The rattle of thunder was continuous, and the wind howled mercilessly. I watched with disbelief as Calyxa put her upper body through the open window and squirmed until she was standing outside of it, her toes clasping the narrow sill. Then she grabbed a gable on the roof above and hauled herself up.
At last her pleasant face appeared again, upside down in the high end of the window frame. “Hurry, Adam! Take my hand.”
It was embarrassing to be assisted by a girl at such a time, but it would have been more embarrassing to be trapped by a Blake brother and shot, or to tumble to my death; so I took her hand, and put my bare feet on the rain-drenched sill, and tried not to think of the hard surface of the street below, or of the lightning that forked about the sky and fingered the lightning-rods of the city’s countless steeples.
“Now grasp the rim of the roof and pull yourself up!”
I doubted I could do so—I was convinced I could not—but a few breaths later I was lying beside Calyxa on the half-pipe ceramic tiles that capped the Thirsty Boot. We were inclined at a reckless angle, and in danger of sliding into the void. Rainwater sluiced over us freely. But we were, for this fraction of a moment, more or less safe—if that word can be stretched to cover the situation.
I turned to speak to Calyxa—her face was only inches from mine—but she put a finger to her lips and hushed me. “Your pistol?”
I took it from where I had secured it. It was a Porter Earle military revolver of modern design, and I was almost certain it wouldn’t be badly affected by the weather.
“Point it,” she said.
“At what?”
“Between your feet!” Where the roof ended, she meant: at the eaves-gutters, where we had just lofted ourselves up. I obliged her whim, steadying my right hand by bracing it with my left, and pressing the tiles with my feet to keep from falling. As warm as the day had been, the rain was plummeting down from some glacial height of the atmosphere, and I had to clench my teeth to keep from shivering. “Probably it won’t occur to them to look for us here,” said Calyxa. “But if they do, you must shoot the first person who attempts to cross the margin of the roof. In other words, if you see a head , put a hole in it. Now be quiet!”