CHAPTER EIGHT

   Betty decided to check on June who had been sick for the last week. It was a shame losing out on seven days of income. That girl brought in a lot of money. Plenty of cowhands who passed through Screwhorse loved taking a poke at a girl with four feet. Of course two of those feet were tiny and grew out of June’s ankles but the men still found it irresistible.

   She knocked on the door. “June, honey? You alright? Can I come in?”

   A childlike voice said, “Yes.”

   When Betty walked in, she saw June on the floor, naked and shivering. Her bedpan was next to her and it was filled with dark blue vomit.

   “Oh my god! June!” She rushed over, grabbed a blanket from the bed, and covered the girl. “Why didn’t you yell for one of us? Look at you!”

   June said, “I don’t feel all that bad.”

   “What about this?” Betty pointed to the bedpan. “You must’ve got rid of your dinner for the last week. Let’s get you into bed and then I’ll fetch Doctor West.”

   “No,” June said. “I’m fine. Don’t call the doctor. I just need some sleep is all. I’m just really tired.” She let Betty help her into bed. “Thank you.”

   “Now you get some shuteye, sweetie.”

    “I will. But not until you tell me about the stranger downstairs.”

   “How’d you hear about him?”

   June smirked. “Oh, I might’ve been spying.”

   “And you wonder why you’re not getting better, moving around when you know damn well you’re supposed to be in bed.”

   “You’re not my momma, Betty, even though you’re old enough to be.” She giggled and then coughed, clearing her throat of thick phlegm. “So, tell me about the stranger.”

   Betty smiled. “What? There’s nothing to tell. He came in and got mixed up with Nix and his boys. They were bothering Stacklee.”

   “That stranger better watch out. William Lyons won’t be happy,” June said.

   “I know, I know. But you should’ve seen him, the stranger. He threw a glass right at Nix’s eye. It was beautiful as much as it was funny.”

   “So what’s his name?”

   “Calamaro.”

   “Where’s he from?”

   “I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.” Betty got up from the bed. “You need your sleep.

   Stop worrying about handsome strangers and worry about getting well.”

   June giggled. “So you think he’s handsome?”

   “Oh, don’t be silly. I’m old enough to be his mother, too. Go to sleep,” Betty said, walking out of the room while trying to hide her smile. She didn’t mean to let it slip, her thinking the stranger was handsome. It was a long time since she had been attracted to a man in that way. After seeing all the dirty bastards coming in and out of the brothel, it was hard seeing a man as anything more than a customer.

   Still, was there anything wrong with her thinking the stranger was good-looking? After all, she was still a woman. It wasn’t like she was going to pursue him. That would just be damned silly. Betty walked slowly down the stairs, fixing her hair on the way down.

* * *

   As soon as Betty left, June jumped out of bed. She walked to the door and opened it an inch. When the hallway was clear, she opened the door wider and tip-toed to the next room.

   She opened the door and walked in.

   On the wall was a starfish the size of a dinner plate. It was dark green with small yellow dots. Against the floral wallpaper, it created focal point that was both disturbing and fascinating. At least this was the case for June who had taken every opportunity to sneak into the room to stare at the thing.

   June didn’t know how it got there and was more than a little afraid that it had something to do with her sickness. She didn’t care, though. She was starting to love the creature.

   “Hey you,” she said to the starfish as it slowly slid down the wallpaper. June knew it wouldn’t talk back but she hoped that it understood her just like horses understood. But was this thing as smart as a horse? June thought that maybe the thing was even smarter. After all, it found its way into this room. An animal must be pretty clever to do such a thing.

   As soon as she spoke, the starfish stopped moving.

   June smiled. “You didn’t have to stop,” she told it.

   The starfish started sliding down the wall again but this time it moved slower than before.

   “You want me to bring you to my room?”

   It stopped again. June took that to mean that the creature didn’t want to leave. But maybe it was telling her to take it back to her room, back to her warm bed so they could snuggle together as woman and starfish. Just to be on the safe side, June decided not to move it.

   She said, “Don’t you worry, I’m not bringing you anywhere.”

   The starfish continued sliding down the wall. As it did so, it left a trail of translucent slime.

   “You’re cute, you know that?” She wanted to touch it. She wanted to pick it up like a baby and hug it, kiss it, tell it that she would be there for it no matter what.

   June wanted to be a mother. She wanted to be the mother that she herself never knew. When she was born, her parents took one look at her two extra feet and left her for dead in a field outside of Newark, New Jersey.

   So as June stared at the starfish on the wall, she felt a longing to breastfeed it. Of course she knew she wasn’t nursing and that the very act of it was impossible but that still didn’t deter the desire to nourish the creature with her mammary glands.

   She also wanted to wrap it in a blanket and take it for a walk. If anyone asks to see the “baby”, she could just say that it was sick and couldn’t be near anyone but its mother. Yes, that’s what she could do.

   June stepped closer to the creature. Her hand slowly moved towards it and that’s when she was hit with a stab of nausea. It brought her down to her knees. June was now sure that her current illness had something to do with the creature.

   Drowsiness set in quickly. As she stared at the wallpaper directly below the starfish, red and blue starbursts bombarded her until the whole room exploded in liquid color. The starfish was at the center and now it had a face. June turned away from it as if it was the very face of God and to simply catch a glimpse of it would mean damnation or insanity.

   She looked down at her body and saw that she only had two feet. The two extra that had grown out of her ankles were gone. A feeling of relief shuddered through her. Maybe the first twenty-three years of her life were really just one long dream. Maybe she was just a normal two-footed girl with loving parents who would laugh when she told them her terribly absurd dream about having four feet. They’d say, “That’s just ridiculous, sweetie. No one has four feet.”

   June started to walk but stumbled onto the floor and landed on her back, making a splash into an iridescent pile of gooey light. She looked down and saw that she still had four feet. The starfish was now above her and was lowering itself with what looked like a pink spider web. It dropped onto her chest and lifted itself up on two legs. She covered her eyes and said, “Don’t scare your mother.”

   She felt it latch onto her left breast.

   It started to suckle.

   June felt a strange sensation, the sensation of milk being drawn from her breast by the mouth of a starfish. It wasn’t unpleasant.

   “You must be hungry,” she said, uncovering her eyes and looking down at the creature. It had grown to twice its original size. June surrendered to the strange, wet creature suckling at her tit. She surrendered to the swirling colors that enveloped the room. But most of all she surrendered to the feeling that she finally was able to be involved in a nurturing mother-child relationship. It was a strange one, yes, but it was at least something that she had never experienced before and that made her feel good.

   June still could not look directly at the starfish because she didn’t want to see its face. If she did, she worried that it would destroy the good feelings she was experiencing. Instead she looked at the wall behind it and tried thinking of Calamaro.

   Something about the stranger intrigued her and so she imagined him being her husband while her child, the starfish, was being nourished by her breast milk. Maybe when the baby got older, Calamaro would teach it to ride a horse and shoot a gun. Father and son would go hunting for coyote or pronghorn while mother stayed at home and did housework, eagerly waiting for her men to get back. It was all just so splendid. She couldn’t stand it any longer.

   June grabbed the starfish in her hands and hugged it tightly. She didn’t feel sick anymore.

   “Mother loves you.”