Blood on the garden gate - {kneedles and luke}

Tallow Tansy

Last night a wine red harvest moon had risen low in the sky to signal autumn’s equinox and the last of the season’s fecundity so today the produce market is abuzz with activity. Like squirrels they come to store up what they can for the winter, the preserves packed neatly into jars and the salted cuts of meat from the home grown, small time businesses (anything deemed not good enough for the capitol or wide spread distribution) while making the most of the fresh vegetables grown in gardens; laid out on stall tables, spilling out of baskets in primary colours as though the dial on a television has been turned up and now the picture is the brightest shade of acrid colours that it can be. It won’t be long now before the frost comes and Tallow feels deep in her bones that a wicked winter lies ahead of them.

There was a time when Tallow and her family wouldn’t have been able to afford anything from the market, begging for scraps, a little bit of bread, a little cheese anything that there was to spare but never getting anything. Now though, they see Elias Poers coming and cut free samples for him, and her too, of whatever there is to try; chutneys on slices of bread, jars of sweet sticky honey prised open for Tallow to dip one finger into- keeping eye contact with her Elias as she licks the honey from her skin, smiling around a delicate bite of a sweet lemon curd pie. It’s all free because he can afford it, while the starving are left to poke at their nickels and dimes and scrape up enough for a loaf of bread.

Every day Tallow gets to sit back and marvel at the beauty of her cage; gold filigree threading up around her, jewel encrusted, diamond frosted like the first sparkling crisp of winter. Yes she’s trapped, but who isn’t? The electric fences of district ten contain them all in some way, the snares inside of their bodies, traps inside of their tiny lives are all prisons that they have to endure. It’s just that Tallow’s is nicer than everyone else’s. But it’s smaller too. Hanging off the edge of Elias’ arm, the slim gap between his body and hers the only distance she is really permitted- the only space she has to breathe. Sometimes when he moves to quickly, without warning, it’s all Tallow can do not to flinch and shrink away.

Leaning up on tiptoes to close that gap and plant a kiss on his lips, her tasting sweet as honey, it gets harder to hate him. Anyone who says it’s sickening how easily she can be bought has never been a fifteen year old girl in district ten with no one to rely on or live for but herself and has never been starving- not just hungry but honest to god starving. Each bite of pastry, sip of elder flower cordial and syrupy fruit liqueur makes him look a little better until Tallow has to push a hand up to reject samples, one hand on her waist. He likes her slim as cornstalks, finely boned like the wire of her cage- likes feeling as though he could destroy her with one harsh touch. The only thing worse than spending her life trapped by Elias Poers is being rejected by him, losing all of this, being left with nothing to show for all her hard work- negotiating his temper, his cruelty like a labyrinth of twisting thorns.

How fine they must look together; she’s Miss District Ten, pretty as a picture, made up neatly and cleaner than anyone else in the district while he’s Elias Poers best horse breeder in the district, powerful and charming if he needs to be; vicious and cruel if he doesn’t. Both of them are young, ambitious and hungry. Elias stops to talk to a man some twenty years his elder and is called ‘sir’ in a way that makes Tallow slide a secret, proud hand along the edge of his thigh. He’s just into his twenties and already they call him sir…Elias could be anything he wanted; he could run this town one day if he wanted. District ten was small time, Tallow isn’t going to deny that, a festering shit hole filled with cowboys and shepherds but aside from Mace Emberstatt one day they could be the biggest fish in this small pond. How long will it take, fifteen years? Ten years? Five? Together, she doesn’t see why not.

This is better. This is fresh soap and the freshest milk delivered in the morning- what would life with Scutcher have given her? A girl can’t wear love like a new necklace, can’t eat that warm happy feeling you get from lying in the arms of someone you really care about. This is better.

She doesn’t make any fuss when Elias tells her to make herself scarce for a few minutes, to talk business so he says with a thick necked, pot-bellied man- soon he’ll include her in the business side of things, give her more control and stop treating her like a painted doll and more like a real and true partner, but these things take time. It’s a game see; like chess and once you’ve made your move you have to wait your turn before the next one, take your time, and really consider what it’s going to be.

There’s a table of scented candles, messily thrown together with the wax from already burnt up candles, smelling sickly with vanilla pods and crushed lavender thrown into the mix and Tallow picks up one and examines it, her eyes firmly back over at Elias. She tries to study his expression, the way he speaks to this man and ascertain the nature of this ‘business’, something to do with the horses- she imagines, he wouldn’t conduct some of his other ‘dealings’ in public like this. Whatever happens seems to be going well, the other man is smiling and reaches his hand out for Elias to shake it.

It’s while she’s watching this that Tallow spots the thief, only because she’d been studying her man so intently otherwise she would surely have missed him. He slips like a shadow through the crowd, a raggedy wanderer type with greasy hair and a hungry look in his eyes. Putting down the candle, to the disappointment of the vendor, she watches him sink back into the crowd- that top hat weaving around other heads and begins walking, a little ways behind so that she doesn’t lose sight of him.

She’s a little frightened, though Tallow isn’t sure why. Because Elias will be pissed that she left his side? Of how he’ll react once he’s learnt he’s been robbed- the kind of anger that he takes out on a delicate pretty thing he keeps locked up in a cage? Is she worried for the thief, thoughts of that night with Naif Malloc weighing heavier on her mind than she’d ever thought that they might? Impossible. It’s impossible because Tallow can’t be frightened of anything now that she’s hollowed out with nothing left to lose and nothing left inside of her.

The thief tosses the wallet into a shrub and Tallow fishes it out not long after, realising that a little money is still left inside. What the hell kind of thief doesn’t take everything they can? She thinks about pocketing the extra cash, letting Elias think he’s been robbed of everything in his wallet. It could go into her get out fund…squirreled away with any jewellery he’s bought that she can sell on; Tallow is sure that she’ll be enough to keep his attention- she knows what men need, knows how to give it to them and how to make them want her- but if she isn’t, well then, Tallow isn’t going to let him toss her out without a little compensation.

But he left money in there. It spoke more about him than perhaps the thief wanted it to and if Elias found out then it would be bad for the both of them. Elias likes to think of himself as untouchable, being bested would only make him desperate to assert his dominance, Tallow thinks, over her and god help the thief if Elias ever catches up to him. If Tallow was him she knows what she’d do- it’s what she’s done to Jack and to Naif for touching her brother. Send a message that Elias Poers is not to be touched, written up in blood and broken bones and the shattered shards of teeth. Sometimes Tallow can still here Naif’s crying when she’s in the living room of Elias’ place. Nothing that he didn’t deserve, nothing that she wouldn’t do a hundred times over but…that didn’t make it any less regrettable.

After slipping the wallet into her bag, Tallow stops at a tree a little ways down the road- not so very far away from the market where the thief is sits under the shade of the boughs. She’ll have to be careful proceeding, knowing how skittish the lower criminal rung can be, steps into view ; slim and pretty with hair floating around her face, giving a bored little, “You clearly ain’t from around here,” her face is a perfectly made up mask like always, wearing that same disdainful expression she always- made even more effective with the way her hair cascades to her shoulders, her new makeup and dress making her look of a far higher class than she ever used to. “Else you woulda never taken that wallet. Anyone else’s, anyone you like…just not that one,” Tallow slips her hand into her purse to show that she has it.

“You need to give back the money,” she says firmly. Maybe a little desperately. For her sake as much as the thief’s- he’d probably have the man in the top hat arrested, beaten up pretty bad before he did so too while the peace keepers ‘weren’t looking’, but wasn’t like Tallow would have an easy time of it either. “The man who’s wallet you took aint exactly someone you want to get mixed up with. Trust me,” and beneath the disdain and the makeup, there is an element of quivering sincerity, perhaps so that she can find some way to atone for her sins.

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Tallow Tansy

Shifting her weight on to one hip, a frustrated sigh escapes Tallow’s throat- so much for doing the good Samaritan bit, whatever. This isn’t like what happened with Naif Malloc at all, that much is obvious to Tallow; this is some grown ass man who she doesn’t owe nothing to, and can fight his own battles. She raises an eyebrow, feeling the weight of his eyes raking over her body, a man’s got to eat and doesn’t Tallow just know that; she wouldn’t be here if she didn’t remember starving , if money didn’t make the world go round then Elias Poers wouldn’t see her for dust.“Yeah. And you’ll be eatin’ teeth if you don’t watch yerself,” Tallow counters -though it might not be such a bad thing if the man in front of her lost his, she has to note. “Just a bit of friendly advice, nothin’ more.”

He has no idea what Tallow’s seen, that much is obvious- the way he says even you, taking one look at her hair and her clothes and picturing her like some spoilt little twerp with a daddy who has a dozen horses and gives her everything she wants. He doesn’t know how much all of this costs, not just in terms of dollars and cents, but what it’s costing her inside. This stranger can’t see that beneath the porcelain veneer of the mask that all the men seem to admire so much she’s cracking and quivering, nerves stretched to breaking point, burnt up and frazzled out. Which is good, that’s the way that she wants it. Elias Poers had taken her up into her arms and asked for something that wouldn’t break as easily as all the rest, for something to occupy his time and it was Tallow’s job to stay together now- the only weapon she has being the fact that there isn’t anything left to break. Somehow though, it still manages to hurt. They were a perfect couple really; two howling voids. “You think he can’t hurt you coz you aint got nothin’ left….but he’ll find a way. He always finds a way,” Tallow says quickly, quietly without even meaning to. Her voice is tinged with desperation now, the mask slipping before she scrabbles to piece it back together- not talking to the man in front of her, but to herself.

I can handle him though- aint nothing I can’t do, I know how men work, he’s my man and could be magnificent. Naif Malloc is screaming and there’s blood dribbling like tears onto the carpeting. Why would I be afraid? The money makes it all better, like papering over the cracks. He started the fire in the district square, he beat that boy damn near to death and he didn’t care that he was begging out for him to stop. If anything, it made it better for him. My Elias.

The clasp of her bag clicks, Tallow tosses her head and gives a little laugh, like what she said before was all just a joke. “Do you honestly think you’re gonna get by stealing wallets? Maybe in one or two you might…but not here. My man,”- my jailer-“got the fullest wallet yous gonna come across in a long time. And once you’re on his radar then…well…it aint gonna end pretty for ya. You understand me, yeah? Look at what you lifted and you try and tell me that’s what a farmer makes. You get by on less than savoury activities…so does he. So sweet cheeks,” she flashes him a sickly smile, using the same patronising term he’d used on her, “I really suggest you give me that money, you can be on your way and I don’t need to tell nobody about the thief in the very easily identifiable hat hanging round here. No harm, no foul and no one gets their head turned fifty shades of purple. Seems an awful shame to mess up such a pretty face.”And Tallow isn’t just talking about him on that one; the bruise on her stomach has faded from where he hit her, but the effects of it will mark her for life.

Like he isn’t going to do anything else, Tallow holds out her hand towards him, outreached, waiting for the money. He’s dangerous too, Tallow imagines, cocksure like he’s seen it all, lived through it all and not unattractive either- Tallow will readily admit that, dark eyes looking right at her and through her like he’s about to pull out some hidden secret, like Tallow wouldn’t mind giving it up. Perhaps that’s just because of Elias though, all over her, big and brutish making her ache for some tenderness from someone, perhaps it’s just because she’s missing Scutcher more than air. Tallow meets his eyes, biting down on his lip somewhat seductively as she pulls her trump card, a sickly sweet morsel like dipping her pinky finger into fresh, sticky honey.

“What if I told you I could make it worth your while? More than the bit of cash you got right there, so you don’t have to worry none when you run through the three or four rich men in the district.”

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She was my little doll, painted up and free to trot about in my arm. Dangling gingerly, dancing beautifully, she moved about the market and men stopped to watch because she was mine. It weren’t like with Naif Malloc, the flower that had been plucked but wilted so quickly, dried out by the heat and sin of district ten. No, she was built of clay and burned in the kiln, part of this place forever and always. Got nothing to escape to. Just a life in a s—thole that she had to share with smalltimers.

[/color] Look at all of them then, staring at her and the cascade of hair down her back. Her tiny little arm wrapped around my own—my property, my precious little thing[/color]—trailing at my side through the market. There weren’t any catcalls now, the men knew better than to have any chance when she was with me. I’d have their necks snapped in two places, their tongues pried from their mouths, their eyes gouged for so much as trying to lay a hand on what was mine.

I had made a choice then, that there would be nothing but the two of us whenever I’d wanted. When the blood had been scraped from my floor and the glass shards swept away, I could not shake the want of her slight frame against my own. It cut through me like a fever, itching up my arm and burning throughout my body. My tongue was cotton without her kiss; my knuckles ached without a fist against her flesh. She could spend her time in school and with her f—king father, Loomis, tending to the last bits the husk of a man needed, but she was mine to have and hold. In the nights there’d be a message sent, a familiar ghost in white appearing at her door with the slick brown paper tucked in his hand. Naif Malloc, conjured up and patched up—still hurting from the tears and gashes I’d made in his skin—would settle his debt by calling on her in the hours before the sun rose across these heat struck lands.

That she obliged so easily was not a surprise for me. Who could have ever resisted me? The fire that burned between us was unmistakable, and even without it, there was too much I could give her to be denied. She wasn’t a flower that would wilt in the sun, her roots pulled from the earth and stem cut to be rearranged and sit for a time on the windowsill. No, she was my doll, my little plaything that could survive a fall or a fist to the face. She could be given sweet dresses that cut low against her breasts and could be torn off easily. The necklace that was my grandmother’s, pearls from some far off shore we’d never see, that was hers in as long as her head stayed between my legs when I asked. They’d sat on the old mahogany dresser until she’d finished, dripping wet but a perfect little toy. I’d dropped the thing carelessly on the ground as though it were trash—after all, it was for her[/color]—before leaving the room and going off to clean myself.

The men tipped their hats as I passed and I gave a wave with a grin. I could buy all the market twice over if I’d wanted to that day, and they fucking knew it. My vest clung to my body, snug against my fuller figure, a sight for anyone in a district that didn’t have enough to go around. There were whispers as I passed, hoping that some of what I had would trickle down onto any of them. They’d wish for me to piss on their heads if it meant they might have just enough food to eat for the week. Trash, all of them,[/color] I grinned as I stopped to stare at a few trinkets that had caught my eye. The poor girl manning the table didn’t dare look me in the eye—trained well enough to know that she didn’t deserve to. But a little snatch and a flash of white revealed her try, and I furrowed my brow. I turned away then, not giving her the f—king satisfaction to speak one word to me.

Here I could strike up a deal with a wave of a hand, I could buy debt and sell it to others for the profit I needed. Where men worked small, I thought big. I diversified. It wasn’t all about breeding the best horses. It was about owning houses down along the way, the supply of feed corn to the district, of greasing the hands of the mayor and chumming with the peacekeepers along the border, of all of it mixing together in a wonderful organized chaos that let me do as I pleased. One such older man, his belly protruding and his eyes heavy with sleep, burdened with a debt to me, gave a nod as the two of us passed. I motioned for Tallow to leave me—this was men’s work[/color]—and set about dealing with him. He’d made good on his payments to his little tract of land, and was nearly free of what he owed me. Of course, he’d come to discover I’d already sold his land, and that the man that he’d be making his payments too wasn’t going to off quite the same deal he’d been accustomed to. Another few months and he’d be forced to starve or move off the land for parts unknown. And so I’d buy the land outright to lease as my own, starting the vicious cycle once again.

It took no less than three seconds after I’d finished speaking to notice that the thick tome that’d sat in my back pocket had been liberated from my possession. There was no fear, no anxiety over what had been lost and perhaps was irreplaceable. The gentle curl of my smile, given as a goodbye, faded just as soon as I rounded the corner. A dull fire burned in my belly, and I stood, clenching and unclenching my fist. That anyone so much as dared to take something that was mine—that was the biggest mystery. There were few rich men in district ten, so the surprise wasn’t in having been a mark, but that anyone would dare try to rob the robber baron, that he would so much as think he could get away with it… that was the biggest shock of all. Other men would report it to a peacekeeper, and hem and haw about the state of the world today. They might put up a reward for catching the thief. But I had no interest in anything other than having the debt repaid to me.

I marched along the street scanning for Tallow—think that perhaps it was a joke of hers, taking my wallet in jest with her nimble little hands, but knew she was too bright for that. I’d have strangled her. With the door closed firmly behind us at the ranch, I would stand over her, heavy hands wrapped around her little neck, and wrung it until her beady little eyes squeezed out of her head. No, there was someone here that did not recognize what it meant to be Elias Poers, and he was very foolish and very brave. I’d have him strung up in a tree, hung by his ankles, with a metal weight around his neck. One side would inevitably come off first, but that was what ankle restraints were for—his head would be clean off after the week was out, a message to anyone that f—ked with me.

She wasn’t too far away, her hair ruffling in the breeze as she paused to talk to some boy in a hat. His greasy hair shone bright against the afternoon sun and I listened to her plead a few times for the wallet. That he didn’t pay much mind to her warnings twisted the hatred up inside me. I’d give him a lash across the back every time that he denied her.[/color] That she even bothered at all showed she wasn’t completely barren of emotion. She could’ve just as easily pointed him out, made mention of his face and left it at that. Because I had eyes everywhere, and there was no rock he could hide under from me.[/color] I would’ve had his throat slit in the night, but only after I’d heard him cry for mercy and beg for his life. I’d want to see him squeal for it before taking it from him. And I could, too.[/color] But I didn’t like the easy way. No. I had a certain refinement—I’d been raised right to known you didn’t just squash a bug. You plucked off its wings and held it under a magnifying glass. You watched it squirm before you squished out its guts with your thumb.

“You ought to listen to my pretty little thing…” I drawled out behind her with my arms folded across my chest. If he runs,[/color] I glowered over at him, I will snap his neck with my own two hands.[/color] I dug into my breast pocket and flashed a silver cigarette case. With a click of my lighter I took a few puffs before offering one to him as well. “Ain’t every day that someone tries to take something that’s mine. Me, personally? I wouldn’t have wasted spit trying to help you. Seems that you do sloppy work, kid, getting caught by a woman…” I moved to give Tallow a pat on the ass in the same way I congratulated my horses for doing well.

I took a long drag and narrowed my eyes.

“But sometimes Tallow sees stuff in folk that I, well, I don’t rightly appreciate. But I’m feeling generous today…” I say with a grin. “So why don’t we make a deal? I got a way for you to earn back what you tried to take from me…” I puffed out another cloud of smoke. “I could use a few s—ts like you to make sure it gets done. You could earn your keep and everything, not have to worry about f—kin’ up in the market and gettin’ your hands cut off neither…” I gave him a wry smile. “Or are you going to make me have to convince you…?”
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Tallow Tansy

There’s no point in running; there isn’t anywhere to go. Elias Poers slides trackers underneath their skin, penning them in like the gates around the district and each kiss he gives Tallow feels like another shackle slipping over her throat. It’s why she won’t warn the thief away- won’t yell at him to get out while he still can because there’s nothing else; every road will somehow lead back to Elias Poers. This way; turning her body into his, letting him kiss her forehead is better than the alternative. Better to be with Elias than against him, as the thief in front of her is sure to find out.

He runs through what he expects of the thief if he’s to come work for him and Tallow realises that the terms of being an employee of Elias Poers aren’t a million miles away from the terms and demands of being his lover. You got to be willing to work though… earn your keep... and she’s there night after night isn’t she? Tallow brushes her hair one hundred times and styles it; soft curls loose around her face the way she’d worn it at the pageant, swept to the side or pulled up meticulously- pointless really when the bed will rumple it and Elias’ rough hands will muss it, and tug and twist at her. Waiting, lips red rimed as she clutches at a cigarette and a glass of crystal clear gin- still carrying the scent of juniper berries and as cold and clear as a perfect winter morning Naif Malloc will come and she’ll go to him.

Slide off her dress because he tells her to, spun fine like spiderwebs as it drips off her like water, and she pours onto the floor with it- forgetting that she had bones and a spine at all. Once. Open her mouth and she’s oh so willing to work, to earn her keep and be kept in pretty dresses that are always easy to slip off, pearls and silk stockings that clasp at a lace garter belt on the thigh, beautiful but incredibly fragile, ripping and laddering at his touch. You gonna do what I say, when I say it? On the floor, against the wall, standing up or lying down or any way at all- if he’d pressed coins into her hand at the end of it there might have been a little more dignity. You gonna not question me, not make yourself more than a shadow when I say amscray? There was more liberty in whoring; easier to see where the client ended and the girl started- not like this. Standing behind him, dress his to mould her the way that he wanted, in his own image she was the shadow he spoke of. She could try to escape, but he’d stitched her to him like the shadow in a story her father had told her once.

And Tallow was grateful to him for it; for swallowing her up like an abyss so she didn’t know what was Tallow Tansy and what was Elias Poers no more. She’d always said that she and Scutcher were one person split right down the middle- and now he was gone Tallow wouldn’t ever be whole again. I work you hard, but I give you what you deserve…Elias Poers made her his shadow and his little toy, and it was better being the fragments of the girl she’d been. It was at least, for all its deformity, something whole. I can promise… I’ll be good to you…

So good, she mouths wordlessly- remembering that she’d told him that on the night he’d taken Naif Malloc. And he was good to her. She got all this, she got the dresses and the respect when people like Noreen Lexington fell in love with broke down ranch hands and got knocked up and married if they could, or stuck with babies they couldn’t afford that their baby daddies wanted nothing to do with. And to think that Tallow had been so very nearly one of them. That was over now though. He’d saved her. Her man, her bad man- like the monster that lives in your closet coming out to feed you treats and hold you close at night. There could be spiders in the sweets, he holds too tight and digs in with his claws, drawing blood but at least he’s holding you and it least you aren’t alone when it gets dark. District ten is the darkness, heavy like thick cigarette smoke and Elias Poers is just a part of it.

He is her hero; saving her from love. Elias reaches out his hand towards the thief, a look in his eye as he surveys the other man, a look that makes Tallow step in close and place the flat of her palm against his chest- she’s always so surprised that he has a heart and that she can feel it’s beating through her skin, because it’s too human for Elias, and too strange to think that his could ever break. “Mr Poers rewards those who are loyal to him,” Tallow says with a nod, leans up to press a kiss against the corner of his mouth, neatly sidestepping the cigarette, figuring he’ll like the way she calls him Mr Poers like that, respectful and almost reverential in the way her robin egg’s blue eyes flicker on him, a slight nod of her head. “Like me,” she whispers so only he can hear her. “And you need to let me reward you…later.” Biting her lip she draws away, bouncing on her heels a little the way that Swallow Anne still does without thinking, though of course Tallow’s innocence is little more than a desiccated corpse now.

“You should come back to the ranch for a drink…ah…I’m afraid I still don’t know your name, If that’s okay with you,” she makes sure to look back and defer to Elias, “You can talk business and I can show you how well I mix a drink.” Her smile is effervescent, illuminated and utterly false, “don’t say no.”

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