Conversations with Dead People

[ikissdhimbck]

She's been putting extra hours in at the stables. She finds herself crying during her morning chores, a sad surprise each time she reaches up to touch her numb cheeks. She's been staying up late, nursing coffee into the wee hours of morning. She's spent a night outside, fallen asleep in an armchair in the libraries — she's even considered saddling up Beaut and riding out, hoping to stay gone until the calendar flips a page. Anything to fend off the nightmares, and the soul-shivering refrain that hasn't let her go.


"Katie."


She's exhausted, and pushing herself to an inevitable breaking point. Last year it was the sheriff. The year before, Sam. But after each dream it was his voice she heard, a dreadful looming specter in the corner of her mind.

She doesn't want to do this.

But eventually, something's got to give.


She falls asleep on the floor, back pressed up into a corner, limp feet on cold hardwood.




"Katie? Katherine."

She's lost all sense of time. It's late, she knows that much. It was well past midnight when she finally lost the battle with sleep. There's a hand on her shoulder.

Someone's shaking her.

Her eyes fly open, and she's greeted by the sight of her dead father.

"No!"

She starts thrashing, desperate to get away. He's hushing her, his voice deep and pitted like overripe fruit — sweet on the outside, but sunken and hollow underneath. He gives her space, and she scrambles from the corner, screaming, bursting into the center of the room. She doesn't turn until there's the length of two grown men between them.

"Shh, shh. Calm down, it's only your dad."

She keens, burying her hands in her hair. She half-expected he'd be ghoulish, rotting away in places, but he's not. It isn't even a comfort. His apparent wholeness is what chills her the most. He's pale, but not strikingly so. Tall, as she remembers him. Lean, and weathered by hard labor, as she remembers him. His eyes blue-grey like an angry thundercloud, as she remembers them. She thought she'd forgotten, details worn away by absence and time, but now that he's here it's like it was only yesterday she said goodbye and he held her, reminding her to study hard and come home for Christmas.

He stands at the far side of the room, dressed in the fine suit she buried him in. He's clenching his jaw and smiling weakly, reaching up to rub his brow with his thumb.

"Mercy, you're all grown up. Look'it you."

His voice trembles. She feels it in her bones, like the ground beneath her is quaking.

She doesn't want to do this.

It's not real.

He hesitates. She can see he wants her to say something, but she's too busy choking back tears. She covers her mouth. He holds out his hands and looks at them as if they're foreign. Like they're not real.

"You're not real."

There's no power in her voice. No strength.


He looks at her.


"Did I miss your graduation?"

"I don’t want to do this," she hisses, squeezing her eyes shut. She wraps an arm around her middle. "I'm not ready."

"Katie — "

"No. You're not real. This isn't real."

"Katherine."

She quiets, gasping and choking to fill her lungs. She fights back the tightness in her throat, and opens her eyes. He's standing there in the suit she buried him in.

"Can I touch you?" she whispers, shivering from head to toe. "Or will y'jus' disappear if I try?"

She knows it's not a question he can answer for her. It's this place, this horrible universe, fooling with her memories and playing with her heart. His brow creases, and he reaches for her. "C'mere."

She falls into her father's arms. He doesn't smell of soil, or decay, but of himself. Leather, and barley, and lime shaving soap. He wraps her up tight, and it's warm and comforting, just as it always used to be. It's solid and sure. The strongest wind could blow and she'd never waver, she'd never even feel it, because he's there. She clings to him, the dam that kept her tears at bay crumbling around them.

"M'sorry."

He holds on too tight, as if the fierceness of their embrace will keep them together. Like they can somehow absorb each other, and not have to wonder what's going to happen when they let go.

"M'so sorry, Katie. You never think you're goin' to die."

She's been thinking about this moment for years, wondering what she'd say to him if she had one more chance. They've had whole conversations in her head, dialogs that stretched on for hours and spanned everything from apologies to literature, tears to laughter. But now that he's here she has no idea what to say. The only thing she wants to do is hold onto him and pretend this is real.


(It's not real, it's not real, it's not real, it's not real.)


He pulls back and cups her face, brushing away tears with his calloused thumbs.

"I'm not sure how much time I have. Tell me you're okay; tell me everythin' about you."

"Joe Crocker shot you. I should've been there. I should've been home, I wasn't — I didn't get t'say — "

Everything starts spilling out hard and fast, mixed with tears so hot they set her skin on fire. He's shaking his head, keeping his hands firm on her face. No, no, no he says, and he kisses her forehead. Fierce. Full of regret.

"It's not your fault. Katherine, if I'd known what would've happened I would have sent you t'the other side of the world to keep y'from it. My little girl. You stop cryin' for me."

She can't.

"Yes, y'can."

Nodding numbly, she sucks in desperate gulps of air. He holds her close until she gathers herself together, murmuring against her hair. "Y'stop cryin' for me."

"I wanted so bad t'have more t'tell you. T'make you proud."

In her dreams she would tell him about his grandchildren, about the little farmhouse with crawling violets and morning glories climbing around the front door, about her wedding day and the husband who makes her happy. He lets her teach, and doesn't resent her for her ambition.

"I will always be proud of you, sweetheart. Look'it you."

There's a pang in her heart when he pulls back, and sets his hands on her shoulders. He's smiling through the tears in his eyes.

"Have y'found yourself a husband?"

"No, daddy."

"Then you're teachin'?"

"...No, daddy."

She's so, so quiet. Samuel looks confused.

"I loved a man, but he didn't take my hand. An' I had a school, but they burned it t'the ground."

"What're you sayin'?"

She sits him down. She tells him about Sam, her beloved handyman. About that summer and fall, and her first year at Milliways. She tells him about the night they expressed their affection for each other with a kiss, and the next morning when Trout Walker came and burned the school. He gets up and paces the room, shouts angrily, makes empty threats against the Walker family. Them both knowing it's too long gone, in a world neither of them can touch anymore.

"Daddy."

She knows how to get his attention without raising her voice. His back goes straight; it's so subtle no one but she would see it.

"They killed him. Sam. An' three days later I locked my door, I rode t'the sheriff's office, an' I put a bullet in him."

"No. No."

"An' I left Green Lake, an' haven't been back since."

"Katherine." He pulls a hand over his face and turns those eyes on her, disappointed and pleading. "That's not true."

"Yes, it is. An' I've killed two men more since then."

"No."

He paces her room again, knuckles the color of bone china. She marches on, because there's nothing else to be done. She tells him about Goliad, about Refugio. About the price on her head. About the robberies, and the nickname.


Kissin' Kate Barlow.


"This isn't one of your nickel books," he cries. "Not my little girl. You had dreams. An education. You were gonna teach. Make the world better."

"I am makin' the world better! I'm standin' up for somethin'."

"This isn't how it's done!"

"I thought you'd understand," she crows, rising to her feet. "Nobody's stoppin' 'em! Not the Walkers, not the Crockers  —  nobody's standin' up for the people they plow down!"

"Get yer head out of the clouds, Katherine! You're a criminal, not Robin Hood or Jesse James! You were s'posed to be ... better."

She jerks back, unsure how she's supposed to take that.

"I thought you'd always be proud of me?"

He draws himself back. It's almost as if he's actually getting smaller, like the fear and anger welling in him made him larger, more intimidating, and it's all ebbing away to reveal the gentle rancher one more time. He doesn't say anything, and she knows it's because he doesn't have an answer. Not this time.

It's so quiet you can hear every breath she takes, small and trembling.





"Daddy?"



"Katie, it's dawn."

"What?"

She glances at the window, a sunburst of grey light spreading through the tears in her eyes.

"No — "

"You have t'wake up."

"No. I'm not ready yet!"

She crosses the distance between them in four quick steps. He holds out his arms, but she can still reach him. If she tries, she can hold him here. She can keep him from going.

"Daddy."

"I can't help it."

His expression is pained. And cold.

"Please. Please, I don't want you t'go. Daddy, I don't want you to go. Please. Please stay."

Her fists curl in his fine suit jacket, trembling and small. He reaches for them, his large hands completely dwarfing hers, and pulls them from his breast.

"Katie — "

"I love you."

" — wake up."









Her eyes open. The world is washed out and dull, painted in predawn colors. For a moment, this feels like the dream.