Tilly the Tenderhearted

The reek of gun oil hits my nose before I open my eyes. Fitch is cleaning his revolver at the foot of my bunk again. 

“Can’t you do that outside?” I say.

“No.” Fitch looks up and brushes back strands of ruddy hair. He’s got nice eyes. Green and intense when they look at you, like he’s hanging on to your every word. But there ain’t nothing going on behind Fitch’s eyes that don’t have to do with Fitch. 

“You don’t need it here,” I say. 

“The hell I don’t.” Fitch blows away dust from the cylinder. “You want another spooked kitchen maid to carve you up?” 

I rub a scar on my arm. “The maids aren’t the ones I’m afraid’ll get spooked.”

Fitch’s lips curl up like he ate a lemon. “Go on, get up and get friendly with the bumpkins like you do,” he says. 

He’s angry. Good. I won’t let him forget Ressville. The look on that young girl’s face - I see her eyes every time I close mine. He might not feel sorry, but at least I can make him angry.

I push past Fitch and get at the basin. My braid from the night before still looks nice. I do up my face and throw a yellow silk scarf over my halter top. It smells like lavender and rose. I grab my knives and head out, to get friendly with the bumpkins, like I do.

A thick fog blankets Harveyridge and I can only see the outlines of our trailers. Six carts in total: two for the stage equipment, and four more for the stars of the show in Boss Tremblay’s Travelling Troupe of Mummers and Tumblers. 

Frying Pan is on his porch, fussing with his costume. He’s called that cause he’s got a big head and small body, like a kid’s, cept he’s forty-three. He bunks with the twins, Frolick and Grin - the two tumblers in the troupe. Being mid-winter, they’ll be setting up for the Tilly Tenderhearted show. Though, as you might’ve guessed, it’s not our only act in town. Boss Tremblay is in the fanciest trailer. It’s finished with mahogany and treated to a shine. The rest of our wagon-shacks look good enough for cattle, but not much else.  

I follow the only light I see - a little yellow smudge in the white haze - and make my way into town. The light’s from a bakery, and I feel the heat from the ovens and smell bread. There’s a pile of crates outside the doors and I stack three high and climb up. I toss three knives and start juggling. It’s not long before two baker-boys are outside, wiping their caked hands free of dough and gawking at me. 

“I hope you fellas don’t mind me borrowing these.” I use my cheery townie voice. You’d swear I’m a miller’s daughter nursed on cow’s milk and not the sludge in the city gutters. I like using the voice. Makes me feel different, like I’m more like them and less like Fitch.

“You’re with the Mummers then?” The older baker says. He’s got a thick gray mustache and his leathery face is powdered with flour. The painted sign above his head reads “Gord and Sons Bakery.” The baker beside him is obviously sonny. Handsome guy, with sandy brown hair and those thick forearms that the country-folk get. Round my age too.  

“I am.” I wink at Pa. “All my stuff‘s packed, and I wanted a little practice.”

“You hungry?” Sonny says. “We got a fresh batch of sweet-topped Tilly buns coming out in a few.”

I send another knife in the air. I can flip three in my sleep. Four takes some focus. “Sounds mighty nice, but I left my purse in the trailer.”

“No charge,” Sonny says. “Tis the season.”

“Well, if the buns are as sweet as you, I’ll take two.”

Pa chuckles and heads inside. Sonny blushes. He lingers, red-faced, for a bit, before Pa shouts for him. “As many as you want,” Sonny says under his breath.

“What are you doing?” A child’s voice says behind me.

Damnit. I drop a knife and it sticks into the crate an inch away from my toe. 

A girl, bout the age of thirteen, stands in the fog. She looks like Tilly Tenderheart, green fleece and shiny silver cap and all. Course, lots of littles dress up like Tilly for the feast day, but this tyke even dyed her hair bright red like in the paintings.

“Aren’t you adorable,” I say. I plop down on the crate and stretch my arms.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I’m practicing for the show today. Are you coming? We’ll have lots of sweets and—”

“Why?” 

I think this girl’s slow. She has no expression. Not angry, not happy - only a blank stare on her porcelain-white face. “Well, while you're drinking hot cider and munching on Tilly buns, I’ll be doing magic.” I toss a knife up and take off my scarf. In one quick motion I stretch out the silk and tuck the knife into a scabbard behind my back. To an onlooker, it looks like the knife disappeared. The girl isn't impressed.  

“Like in Ressville?”

I shiver and rub my arms, they’re covered in goose pimples. I force a smile. “Is that where you’re from darling?”

The girl says nothing.

“Fresh out the oven.” Sonny comes out with two glistening rolls slathered with raspberry preserve. 

“Where you from then?” I turn back to the girl. She’s gone.

***

“We got a problem.” I say, storming into Boss Tremblay’s trailer. Him and Frying Pan are at the table, eating a big helping of potatoes and sausage.

“This about Fitch again?” Boss says. He doesn’t look up from his plate. 

“No, well yes, sorta. There’s a girl out there asking me about Ressville.”

Frying Pan drops his fork and looks like a kitten about to get a swat. “Does she know?”

“No. I dunno, but I’m getting real tired of looking behind my back. I say we get outta here and turn Fitch in to the next lawman we see.”

Boss turns to me and puts his thick fingers on his chin. In his heyday he was a strongman. These days everything’s sagging, but he still has a powerful look to him. “If we turn Fitch in, he might talk. And then we have a problem.” He stabs a hunk of sausage and waves it at me. “Did this girl say anything about it?”

“No.”

“Fine,” Boss shoves the chunk of pork in his mouth. “And what about you? Is your conscience free enough to perform?”

He scans me and I feel naked. What he’s really asking is if I’m planning to turn them all in. That would be catastrophic. Boss’s guild would come after me first, then my mother and my kid. 

“Have I ever let you down?” I say.

Boss laughs. “No, my dear. Good then! The show goes on.”

***

The heist is simple. We put on a spectacle for the town and the houses empty out. Boss gets up on stage and narrates the story of Tilly Tenderheart, while the rest of us play the parts. 

“So great was King Gunnar’s hatred of the south,” Boss booms. “That he trudged forward, through a vicious blizzard, until he could see his men no more.” He waves his top hat toward Manny the mummer. He’s draped in wolf’s hide and got on a replica of Gunnar’s horned helm. The twins flip by him with anguished faces and howls, meant to be Gunnar’s men caught in the wind. It gets a chuckle.

While they’re entertaining, I scan the crowd. I find the best dressed townie - a man in a black doublet with a gold wristwatch. I catch his eyes and hold up a ten piece. 

“Which hand, handsome?” I say. I close my fists and hold them out. “Guess it and it’s yours.”

Wristwatch grins. “And if I’m wrong?

“We can discuss the punishment later.”

“Right,” he says.

I open my hands and show them both empty. 

He laughs. “My son can do that trick.”

“Can you?” I say.

“If I had the time to practice.”

“It takes no time to learn. Here…” I clutch his hands and squeeze them shut. “You feel that?”

“Indeed I do.” 

He’ll swear to the almighty he feels a coin in his palm, but it ain’t there. I knock his wrists together twice and tell him to open his hand. It’s empty. What he doesn’t know is that on the second knock I got his watch off. It’s easy to steal a man’s watch while you got his head spinning. It’s even easier to get into his pockets when you show him the watch. 

“Missing something, Ron?” I say, holding up his wristwatch. His name - Ron Haverstaff - is engraved on the backside. The crowd around us laughs. He beams and lunges for it. I hold it back, long enough to get into his pocket and get his keys. His face is close to mine, and I put a hand on his hip. “You live near Gord and Sons, right?” I whisper. 

He quivers. “No, I’m in the Barrows.” 

First mark a success. I let him get his watch. He regains his composure. “Excuse me, I need to find my wife and child,” he says, in a forceful way that lets me know he’s a decent man. It’s adorable.

My job is done, now it’s time for Fitch to do his. 

“In his frostbitten delirium, King Gunnar sees a foe on horseback.” Boss says.

Queue Frying Pan, dressed up like Tilly, coming on to the stage on top of a wood donkey.  

“Except it was no foe,” Boss continues. “It was Ottilie Lyne, Tilly the Tenderhearted, and she carried no sword or bow, but steaming hot cider and porridge packed with nuts and sweets.” 

Frying Pan reaches into the donkey’s head and tosses out handfuls of wax-wrapped honeyed-dates to the crowd. 

“The barrows,” I say to Fitch. I hand him the keys. “The Haverstaffs.”

“You’re coming on this one.” Fitch says.  

Ugh. “Fine,” I say. He needs a lookout, and I need that haul. A few more and I’m all square with Boss and I can go home and see my kid. 

Fitch leads the way to the Barrows. It’s where the rich people live in Harveyridge - in villas tucked in stout hills overlooking the town. We don’t take the main road. We follow a wooded path where it’s easier to hide. The fog in the morning was gone from the town by midday, but it’s thick here in the woods. 

Fitch stops and looks at me. He’s smiling. “It’s a shame it didn’t work out tween us. Things coulda been different. We had some fun though, eh?”

My hands sweat. I didn’t bring my knives. “Yeah.” I watch his fingers go for his gun. He points behind me, and I hear the shouting.

“Hey, get back here!” 

Shit. It’s Haverstaff. “Put that away!” I say to Fitch. “I can handle this.”

“Handle it then.” 

“You horrible wench!” Haverstaff says. “Give me back my keys.” 

I run to Haverstaff and put on the cheeriest smile I can muster. “Oh, my dear. Look, it’s all part of the show.”

“Bullshit! Give them back.”

“No, no. I was going to grab a memento from your house and surprise you with—”

Tilly Tenderheart appears behind Haverstaff. She’s got that same blank stare. She points to Fitch. “He’s coming,” she says.

I turn. Fitch has his revolver up. “Run!” I yell. 

Boom. The bullet hits my left arm. Haverstaff screams and bolts away. Fitch sprints forward and shoves me. This is the first time I’ve been shot. It doesn’t hurt till I hit the ground, then it’s like someone stuffed a burning coal in me. 

Fitch fires again. The bullet hits a branch right at Haverstaff’s head. “Shit, shit, shit,” he says. He runs after him. 

Tilly’s standing over me. She has my yellow scarf. She bends down and ties it above my leaking wound.  

“Who are you?” I say. 

Tilly hands me my knives and runs away. It sounds crazy, but I swear, she disappeared, like poof, vanished outta thin air. Like real magic.

I can see Fitch a little ways down the hill. Haverstaff is behind a big trunk. Fitch can’t see him but he’s getting close. 

I could kill them both. I could run screaming into town and tell everyone that Haverstaff tried to get at me, and shot Fitch when he intervened. It would be easy to play the hysterical victim. But I’m done playing, and I’m done hiding. I run. Fitch sees me coming, but he’s too late. I hurl my knife and it sinks into his hand. He wails and drops the gun. Haverstaff gets away. It won’t be long till the lawmen are coming for us. 

I pick up Fitch’s gun. Now I got a real decision. One bullet for him, one for me, and my family stays safe. 

“Come on now honey,” Fitch says. “You ain’t like that.” He tries to pull the knife out of his hand. It’s sticking straight through his palm.

I rip the knife out. He wails. “You were trying to kill me.” I say.

“No, no, no. I was trying to get him, he was gonna hurt you, just like that maid in Ressville. I saved you, I saved you!”

“Boss put you up to it?”

“No,” Fitch says. He clutches his palm and looks down. He looks down when he lies. 

I cock the revolver. “Lie to me again,” I say.

He looks at me with his nice green eyes. For once in his life, I think he’s actually listening. “Yeah, okay yeah” he says. “You were gonna snitch.”

I want him gone but I’m no killer. And god damn if I want Tilly’s ghost haunting me for the rest of my days. I give him everything I got in me and thump his face with the grip of the gun. He goes down and I run. 

There’s commotion from the town square. I hear Boss yelling from the stage. Ron’s got a posse now. The handsome baker boy’s with him, and a dozen others, and they’re all coming my way. It’s a shame. In another life, me and the baker boy settled down and made some kids, and I got fat on sweet-topped Tilly buns. But not in this one. I got people to protect. 

The fog hides me and the posse doesn't see me. I get to the stables. The law’ll be after me now. Boss will come after me, and the guild will go for my family. But I’ll get to them first and we’ll get away. Cause I got Tilly the Tenderhearted on my side.