Blogtober 2020 Day Nine Entry
Meadow set down the lantern and untied their wrists and ankles. She gave them flatbread with dried beef and a canteen filled with water. They ate like starving dogs, which made her laugh.
“What’s your story?” she asked.
“You’re not Injun,” Murphy observed.
“I am and I ain’t,” she replied. “You first.”
“My ma’s a whore from St. Louis,” Phin said. “I got pinched for stealing food from a general store. The judge said he’d seen me one too many times, so he sent me up to Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow. That’s a reform school.”
“They should have called it Our Lady of Perpetual Ass-Kicking,” Murphy said. “My ma died having my baby sister. Dad’s drinking went from bad to worse until he hanged himself. We all got split up, and I kept running away from the orphanage until they sent me to Our Lady.”
“What’s a reform school?” she asked.
“Prison for kids,” Phin said. “Catholic nuns who like to hit boys and get away with it.”
“What are Catholic nuns?” she said.
“White man’s crazy religion,” Murphy said, and she nodded.
“How’d you get away?”
“Handyman was a drunk,” Phin said. “Left the back gate open, and we just walked out. Our Lady’s about 100 miles from anywhere, so we thought they’d find us. But then the Swede showed up out of nowhere, like magic, and he helped us get away.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead,” Murphy said. “He was a bad man.”
“Your turn,” Phin said.
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