Page 36 of Red Rooster

“How’re you feeling?”

“Fine.” But she tugged the jacket tighter around her.

Don’t be stubborn, he started to tell her, but a man’s voice intruded on their moment of calm. “There you are,” the manager said, appearing around the corner of the tent, moving toward them as quickly as his stubby legs could carry him. In the ambient light of the fair, Rooster could see that the man had sweated completely through his shirt, despite the chill of the evening. “Thought you’d skipped out without your money,” he said in a way that signaled he wished they would have.

Rooster shifted a fraction, sliding neatly into place between Red and the manager as he – his name was Bailey, Rooster remembered – drew up in front of them, red-faced and puffing.

“Jesus, I’ve been looking all over,” he muttered, fishing into his breast pocket and thrusting a square of white paper toward Rooster. “Here. I made it out to cash. The BoA on the corner should take care of it for ya.”

Rooster folded his arms in a way that he knew jacked his shoulders up and emphasized the span of his chest. “I asked for cash. Not a check made out to it.”

“I don’t have cash.”

“It’s a carnival. That’s all anyone pays with.”

Bailey sneered. “Take it or leave it. It’s all I got.”

At another time, Rooster might have told the guy to fuck off, grabbed Red, and stalked off without the money. But he thought about the three quarters in the bottom of his wallet, and common sense won out over pride. A check meant they’d have to stay the night here in Evanston City, wait until the bank opened at nine the next morning. Staying meant sitting still in a city in which Red had been spotted using her powers. It meant a risk he wasn’t sure they could afford to take.

But they couldn’t run any farther on a quarter tank and Red’s magical hand fire.

With a resigned glare, he reached for the check.

And Bailey tugged it back. “We’ve got a gig in Cody next,” he said, a professional gleam in his eyes. “Bozeman after that. Your girl’s got some kinda talent. You two could come with us and there’s more where this came from.” He waggled his brows like the sleaziest used car salesman in the world.

“Gonna have to pass,” Rooster said flatly.

Bailey sighed. “That’s a shame. How’s she do it anyway? Propane lines in her sleeves, right?” But he squinted, like he doubted that. Where would the tank go, after all?

“A magician never reveals her secrets,” Rooster said, and snatched the check before it could be pulled back again. The paper was damp from Bailey’s hand.

The manager snorted. “Suit yourself.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but Rooster glared at him until he shrugged and retreated, waddling back around the side of the tent again.

Out on the midway, fair-goers laughed and shouted, their voices tangling with one another until it was an indistinguishable murmur, the flow of a river over rocks. The air smelled like fried foods, stomach-turning and greasy. The breeze picked up paper scraps – dropped ticket stubs and candy wrappers – and rustled them around their feet, here in their pocket of relative quiet.

Same story, different night.

It wasn’t so bad.

But it wasn’t what he wanted for Red.

Rooster stared down at the smudged ink on the check – two-hundred dollars – and wondered if they’d be able to bum some corn dogs and funnel cake on their way out.

Behind him, Red said, “We’re staying the night?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Guess so.”

~*~

He called her Red.

He gave her a life, one that was worth sharing, worth protecting. Taught her how to drive. How to shoot a gun. Shared his cigarettes, his bourbon bottles wrapped in brown paper, the glass sticky and him-flavored at the mouth. He taught her the words to every Bad Company song. How to make a bacon-and-grilled-cheese sandwich on a hotel hot plate. Helped her come up with names for all the constellations, because they didn’t know the real ones.

He gave her the world...and then stood against it with her. But it started with a name.

She was his Red.

And he was her Rooster.