Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

“Just keep singing until I come back, okay?”

He nods but doesn’t stop singing.

“Good boy.”

When Tommy can’t see me anymore I cut back out toward the road. I walk awhile back to the robbery spot. The carriage is gone, the horses trotted back toward town I guess. The dress still dangles in the tree. I snatch it off the branch and it tears a snitch at the shoulder. Too bad. Maybe I can fix it back at the camp.

THREE

It’s darktime now and the moon is out, barely, just a moon smudge. Bats fling themselves through the trees and are gone like dark falling stars. At night the woods come alive, all the hidden things scurrying in the black. What is either fireflies or ghost eyes. They glimmer and blink away and I’ll never know.

I left Tommy in a safe place, but I need to hurry. I figure I should be able to sneak some food out and be gone in no time. I walk faster, feeling my way by memory and moonlight. I know we’ll have to move camp again soon, but I hope we get to stay here for a little bit longer. Right now is the best camp we’ve ever had. It almost feels like a home. Soon I can hear the music, and when I break into the clearing I can already smell the beans cooking, and I see all Gruff’s boys. Lemon hobbles past, grunting at me, lugging wood toward the fire. I nod at her like nothing’s different.

Gruff’s got his robe on, but it doesn’t seem soiled tonight. It looks regal, like Gruff’s an old fairy king, even down to the purple of his teeth. The men are up and dancing, the music good and wild. Old Andrew, with his three-foot beard and accordion, one-legged Leebo, with his crutch and viola, and old Mister Marty, with his goiter and his story songs.

“How are you this fine evening, Goldeline, my dear?” says Leebo, bowing for a flourish.

“I’m just fine, Leebo. Glad you got your music going.”

I figure now’s a pretty good time to go try on my new dress. I’ll put it on and dance around a little and say hi to everybody, and then I’ll sneak the food off for Tommy. I hope he can wait. I hope he won’t get too scared. I hope nothing bad happens to him when I’m not there to protect him.

This time the camp is hidden in a clearing in the thick heart of the woods. No one could ever find it unless they knew where to go first or were just plain unlucky. Lord knows how Gruff got to it. There’s all kinds of thornbushes round about the edges, and in the mornings after a big night they have blood on the prickles where the men went off to pee and fell. There’s about nine or ten tents in all, just patchwork stuff we slung together, and a fire pit in the middle. When we have to move again, the whole camp will be up and ready to go in an hour. Gruff’s tent is the biggest because he’s the leader. It has two whole rooms in it with a long canvas sheet to separate them. Gruff calls one his “war tent” because that’s where they’re supposed to plan the jobs and discuss strategies, but mostly they just play cards in there. The other is the one where he sleeps. He’s even got a mattress, not just a pallet full of feathers and leaves like the rest of us. My tent is the smallest. It’s so small only I can fit in it, and even I can’t stand all the way up inside.

In my tent I have a mirror with a gold handle that Gruff got for me, and my pile of books. I have the shawl I wore at Momma’s trial but I don’t want to talk about that. I sleep with the shawl under my pillow and smell it sometimes hoping it’ll smell like Momma, but it only ever smells like ashes.

I light a candle and try out my gown. It doesn’t look too good in my mirror. I’m not big enough, and the dress sags down my chest. Worse, I’m too short and there’s no way to keep it from dragging in the dirt. I feel like a dress-up doll. But then, maybe, in the right moonlight, with the campfire glow on me, maybe it’ll do. When I walk out of the tent, the hem follows me like a ghost shadow.

Gruff claps his hands. “Boys, don’t she look gorgeous? Ain’t our Goldy the northernmost star?”

“She’s a doll,” says Buddo. “Like one of them rich-girl dolls that blink their eyes.”

“I’m no doll,” I say.

Gruff about falls out laughing. “Hear that, Buddo? She’s no doll.”

“Geez, sorry. Shoot, Goldy, you know I didn’t mean nothing by it,” says Buddo.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Ought to stick her in an orphanage,” says Pugh.

“Knock it off, Pugh,” says Gruff. “That’s my Goldy you’re talking about, good as my own. Besides, she helps out on the jobs. She earns her keep, don’t she, boys?”

“A straw dummy could do her job,” Pugh mutters.

“I’ll do you a right good job,” I say.

All the men laugh.

“I wouldn’t cross this one, Pugh!” says Gruff. “She’ll stick you, she will. She’ll get you right and good in the end!”

“She’s a brave one for her size, she is,” says Murph, tipping her glass to me, and I blush a little.

“We’ll see,” says Pugh, and then he wanders off away from the fire.

Gruff gets down on a knee in front of me. With his scraggle beard, his earrings dangling, he looks like a gentleman pirate from a storybook.

“You look pretty as your momma in that dress,” he says. “God rest her soul.”

It makes me go cold and warm at the same time. It makes me so happy it hurts and so sad I could die. I feel it all over me