Leather Man Says Stay

A Fragment from the World of The Language of Alden Mire

“Shoes.”

Leather Man was already below the sandstone ledge, his coat hanging open and his boots half sunk in pale sand.

“What about them?”

“Off.”

I looked down at my feet. “Why?”

He turned far enough to give me the look he reserved for questions he thought should have embarrassed me before I asked them. “Because you’re wearing them.”

Then he kept walking.

I took off my shoes.

“Socks.”

“You’re wearing boots.”

“Very observant.”

By the time I stuffed my socks inside my shoes, he was far enough ahead that I had to hurry after him. The first step slowed me. The surface of the sand had cooled with the evening, but the day still lived underneath it. Heat pressed between my toes when I sank my feet deeper.

Leather Man glanced back. “Better.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Keep practicing.”

There was no trail I could find. Sandstone folded around us in shelves and crooked walls, with pale drifts gathered wherever the wind had found a hollow. Plants grew from seams in the rock that looked incapable of holding dirt, much less roots. Leather Man never hesitated.

I followed until I started wondering how far we had gone.

He stopped so quickly I nearly walked into him.

“What?”

He tapped the side of his head.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything.”

He waited.

“Fine. I was wondering how far we’d walked.”

He pointed toward my feet. Wind had pushed a thin ribbon of sand across my toes, one grain trembling against the nail of my smallest toe.

By the time I looked up, he was moving again.

The cliffs had changed. Rust-colored stone had darkened until thin silver veins showed through it, and I couldn’t remember when that had happened.

Leather Man vanished around a bend.

“Hey.”

His head appeared again. “What?”

For a second I had no idea why I’d called him.

“Nothing.”

He disappeared.

Later, the canyon widened around a low shelf of red stone. Leather Man sat with one leg stretched in front of him, and I settled beside him because sitting seemed to be the assignment.

The rocks clicked as they cooled. A dry stalk scraped another in the breeze. Farther out, a low call moved through the valley. I felt it beneath my bare feet before I heard the end of it.

“What makes—”

Leather Man raised one finger.

I shut my mouth.

The call came again.

I listened for the vibration and found myself in a kitchen instead. A cabinet slammed. Someone had turned their back to me. My own voice followed them across the room, saying the sentence I had spent years trying to unsay.

Leather Man snapped his fingers beside my ear.

I jerked toward him. “That was rude.”

“Gone again.”

“I was sitting right here.”

His eyes moved toward the space beside me as though checking.

Something scratched beneath the rock, and the kitchen loosened its hold.

Leather Man reached into his coat and held out something small and dark.

“What is it?”

He started to put it away.

“Fine.”

I took it and put it in my mouth.

Bitterness spread across my tongue first, then sweetness, then smoke. Something sharp woke the sides of my mouth. I started to ask what it was.

Leather Man raised his eyebrows.

I kept quiet.

The sweetness disappeared. The smoke stayed a little longer.

When that was gone too, he held out his hand. I spit the little thing into his palm.

“What was it?”

He tossed it over the ledge.

“Gone.”

I laughed.

He didn’t, which made it worse.

“Do you ever answer anything?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

He looked over his shoulder. “When it’s still here.”

I turned that over in my head until a pebble struck my shin.

I left the sentence alone.

The canyon narrowed enough that cool air gathered between the walls and slid along my arms. Near shoulder height, something green pushed from a crack in the stone.

Leather Man brushed one leaf with his fingers.

It folded around his thumb.

I stopped.

He rubbed it once and released it. A sharp green scent opened in the air, clean and wet against all that stone. The leaf slowly unfurled.

“What is that?”

Leather Man kept walking.

I leaned closer for another breath, and his hand appeared between my face and the plant.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“A little.”

I smiled. “That might be the first honest thing you’ve said to me.”

His hand dropped.

At the top of the rise, the world opened.

Red shelves dropped into a valley already filling with shadow. Beyond them, the land rose again in long dark folds. No roads. No roofs. Nothing straight. Nothing that seemed particularly concerned whether anyone was there to see it.

For several breaths, I forgot to ask anything.

Then I looked behind us and couldn’t find the canyon.

I searched the rock for the break we had come through, then for a familiar ledge, then for anything that might become a path if I stared long enough.

There was only stone.

“Leather Man.”

He had already gone farther along the ridge.

I almost called again. Then I saw the tracks. Four small prints crossed the sand ahead of us and disappeared around a slab of rock.

“What’s that?”

Leather Man looked down.

His face barely changed, but he stopped moving.

He nudged the nearest print with the edge of his boot until sand slid into it.

“Whose are those?”

He walked on.

“Leather Man.”

He stopped and pointed behind me.

My own footprints ran along the sand. Beside them were the smaller tracks. They had been traveling with us for several yards before curving away toward the rocks.

I had never noticed them. When I looked at Leather Man again, he was watching me.

He turned toward the ridge.

I followed.

By the time I caught up, a pale curve had risen above the far stone. I took it for the moon until enough of it appeared for me to realize how large it was.

“Leather Man.”

He kept walking.

Another pale edge lifted beside the first. I stopped. Farther across the sky, a third appeared, smaller and brighter. For a few seconds, every question I had been carrying disappeared.

Three moons climbed above the desert.

I stared at them, waiting for the sight to arrange itself into something I understood. I knew what the sky was supposed to contain.

It kept doing this anyway.

“Leather Man.”

He turned.

“What are those?”

He followed my gaze upward. “You see them.”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“That doesn’t answer me.”

“No.”

He sat on a broad stone and patted the space beside him.

I stayed standing because the questions had all come back at once. Where were we? When had we gotten here? Had those moons been above us the whole time? What made the tracks? What had he fed me? Why did the plant close around his hand? How had I lost the trail without realizing it?

And where had I left my shoes?

Leather Man patted the stone again.

I sat.

He took my hand and pressed my palm against the boulder between us.

I waited.

The rock was warm, warmth still stored from a sun that had already dropped behind the ridge. The faint taste of smoke remained at the back of my mouth. Air moved over my arms. Somewhere below us, the same low call rose from the valley.

This time I felt it enter through my hand.

The vibration traveled from stone into palm and up my wrist. I stayed there until the last trace of it was gone.

Above us, the moons climbed higher.

I don’t know how long we sat before I spoke again.

“You always do this to people?”

“Only the noisy ones.”

“I’m not noisy.”

He looked at me.

“Alden asks better questions.”

My hand came off the rock. “Alden?”

Leather Man stood.

“Oh, no. You don’t get to mention Alden and then walk away.”

He started down the opposite side of the ridge.

“Was that a question?”

“You know it was.”

“Then it wasn’t one of the better ones.”

I followed him beneath three moons, trying to think of one he would consider worthy.

A few steps later, Leather Man stopped.

One small pawprint marked the sand near his boot. This one he didn’t erase. He stared at it, then toward the rocks where the earlier trail had disappeared. His attention had gone somewhere I couldn’t follow.

“Gone again,” I said.

His head turned slowly. I smiled before I could decide whether that was wise. For a moment his face stayed unreadable. Then the corner of his mouth moved.

“Keep practicing.”

He stepped over the pawprint and continued down the ridge.

I went with him, close enough now that I didn’t have to hurry to catch up.