Lamb

The girl was savage inside the bunk room.

“And she’ll tell, and you’ll go to jail, and everyone will know, and I’ll get in so much trouble.”

“Listen, listen. Tommie. Please.”

“You didn’t keep us secret.”

“Tommie,” he raised his voice. “Now I don’t want to yell but you’re not listening to me. I know Linnie better than you do, right? Please take your hands from your face.”

“She’s going to tell.”

“Please take your hands from your face, Tommie, I can’t understand you.”

And she said something, and something, something, and took her hands from her face.

“Look, Tommie, if she thought anything she would have told me. She would have probably been very upset. But I just sent her back into the world with plans to see her the day after I drop you at your mother’s.”

“You did?”

“I did. She went off smiling to the airport. She loves me.”

“Oh.”

“Do you believe me?”

“If you don’t like her, why are you going to see her?”

“For us, Tom. For you and me. To keep us safe.”

“Oh.”

“Sometimes you just know a person, Tom. Linnie isn’t strong like us. She doesn’t always see the kinds of things we see. Do you understand? You want a little taste of whiskey from my mouth? Here. Come on. Let me scoop you up and carry you to the couch. We’ll hang out and catch up. You can tell me all the dreams you had while I was busy.”

“Okay.”

“This is the beginning of the part where we take you back home,” he said, kicking the shop door open with his boot and carrying the girl outside and into the cabin. “In light of all the promises we made to keep each other safe. The part where we take you back to Lombard and your mother who loves you, and I’ll come back here, and if Linnie ever says anything, or realizes she saw you, there’ll be no girl out here, right? No one for anybody to find. And you’ll be home safe.” He laid her down on the couch and put a pillow beneath her head.

“But they’ll ask me where I was.”

Lamb gave the girl a look of alarm. “But you won’t tell them?”

She shook her head.

He made like he was wiping sweat from his forehead. “I thought for a minute you’d just been setting me up this whole time.”