Dr. Tom turned his head to better see. “You wearin’ that coat as some kind of penance?”
Nate looked away, his eyes seeking a blank wall but finding Deerling’s Whitworth propped in the corner. Dr. Tom coughed once and a grimace passed over his face. Nate started to stand to help him, but the ranger waved him down. The spasm passed, and, after the chest rattling had calmed, Dr. Tom rasped, “You’re not to blame.”
Nate did stand up then and fled the room. He walked down the street and paced in front of the dry-goods store and the post office, wiping at his eyes with his sleeves when he thought no one was looking. He considered writing his wife. He would pour out his pain to her in the hopes of gaining some relief from the guilt over Deerling’s death.
But he started walking north instead and kept going until he had come to the cemetery where they had buried the ranger. He stopped for a brief while at the grave, the clods and raw earth already settling into the spaces that the shovels had made. They hadn’t readied the headstone yet, but he knew what it would say: George A. Deerling, born 1813, died 1870, Comrade in Arms, Father, Friend.
He found his way back to the road again and continued walking.
Wagons headed for Houston passed him, the travelers inside giving him cautious looks. He was a horseless man walking on narrow, round-heeled boots and wearing a coat stained like an old butcher’s apron. His stride was still uneven from the bruising his hip had taken from the fall, but the jagged sensations somehow helped to quiet his mind.
After a few more miles, he came to a farmhouse with a rail fence, and he sat on it, facing away from the road. The fields were flat prairie land, like his farm in Oklahoma.
He thought of his wife and daughter and a feeling like a blow to the chest closed up his throat. Deerling had been right: Nate wasn’t much of a farmer. Still, the land was biddable enough, and he was young enough to learn. He could, over time, make a better farm. His true desire, though, was to begin his own herd of horses, to breed the best working animals, combining Texas cow ponies with the Oklahoma-reservation stock. But it would take more money than he could make farming, and his decision to join the Texas police had been a way to earn the seed money to begin the herd.
His mind turned round and round on these topics, like the blind pony he had bought for Mattie who knew only one route: down the path, around the field, and back to the barn. The little horse never stumbled, but he never found new ground either.
The sun had angled steeply to the west before he climbed off the fence and walked the miles back to Houston. When he entered the sickroom, he pulled off his coat and wadded it into a corner. Dr. Tom looked at him through pooled, glassy eyes, but his color was better.
Dr. Tom nodded for him to sit in the chair. When Nate had settled, he said, “You should take George’s horse. No, now, listen. That horse is too big for me, and mine is already set to my ways. I wouldn’t entrust him to anyone else.” Dr. Tom faltered and looked at the ceiling, struggling to quiet a sudden wash of grief.
He cleared his throat, wiped his face with the bedsheet. “I’m going to be in this bed for a while yet, and you need to go on to Lynchburg alone. You can’t be walkin’ the distance, and that big bay would take you to Canada if you asked him to. I want you to listen good, ’cause I’m too winded to repeat myself. You’re going only to see if McGill and his men are encamped there.” He pointed a finger at Nate. “You don’t engage. Hide your badge, keep your head down, and get back here to me.” He paused, his breathing labored. “There’s one last thing. A woman’s been traveling with McGill, and I want to know if she’s there in Lynchburg.”
“A woman?”
Dr. Tom palmed the sweat off his face. “She’s George’s daughter.”
Nate sat back in the chair and stared at Dr. Tom. “I thought his daughter was dead.”
Dr. Tom shook his head. “She turned bad and ran away. George tried bringing her home, but she always left again. A while back, she took up with McGill. George’s mission in life was to redeem her or see her in prison.”
“He would have sent her to prison?”
“She’s a grown woman involved with a man that’s killed eleven people along with two children. You saw that widow in Frost Town. What makes you think that a woman with any decency left would cleave to an evil man like McGill?” Dr. Tom paused, his hand clutching his chest as if to will himself into a calmer state.
Nate recalled that Deerling’s exact words were “I had a daughter”; he didn’t say that she had died, and Nate saw in ways that he wished he didn’t how the world could swallow a child just by spinning from one day to the next. Deerling’s single-minded mission to find McGill suddenly made sense.
Nate asked, “What about Taggert? I still don’t know why you didn’t want me to tell him about McGill in Lynchburg.”
“Nate, we’ve come too far to let a county man have McGill. That’s why I asked you to keep quiet about the telegram.”
“And Prudone?”
“First things first. We put an end to McGill, and then I’ll settle with Prudone in my own way. That son of a bitch will be going to hell already torched.”
Nate sat quiet for a moment. “I don’t know about this, Tom. It all feels too…”
“Personal?” Dr. Tom asked. He struggled to sit up in the bed. “Isn’t that what you told me that first day out of Franklin? You said, ‘Hell, it’s all personal.’ Getting to McGill was not personal just to George; it’s personal to me too. More than you could possibly know. And with you or without you, I’m settling on McGill and then Prudone.” He let Nate think on that a bit and then asked, “Why did you go after those horse thieves in Arkansas, Nate? They only took a few horses. They shot a kid, but you were just a kid yourself. Why didn’t you just let it go?” He closed his eyes for a moment, his chest moving erratically. “You didn’t let it go, because it would have eaten at you the rest of your natural life. This I know about you. You have a fire in you to make things right. Don’t you think going after George’s murderer is as right as reclaiming a few horses?”
Nate sat with Dr. Tom until he had drifted off to sleep and then spent the rest of the night sprawled in the chair.
The next morning early, he walked to the livery and took some time letting Deerling’s horse settle to his touch and smell; although his own saddle had been retrieved from the Harrisburg-to-Houston road, he steadied the bay with Deerling’s familiar tack.
He mounted and touched his heels to the horse’s flanks, and the bay crouched and bolted, ears flattened, nose forward, and Nate reined him to a stop, saying, “Let’s try that again.”
He tapped him once more, and the bay started an easy trot, the muscles in the shoulders and rump bunching and releasing under the rippling hide, like a steam engine under velvet.
Following the roads and cow paths by Buffalo Bayou and skirting the swampier tracts, he reached the old San Jacinto battlefield in a few hours. The ferryman who took him across the confluence of the San Jacinto and Buffalo Rivers was a survivor of Shiloh. He had two wooden legs, and he told Nate cheerfully that he’d quickly drown in the river if he ever fell in, so heavy were his replacement appendages. “But,” he said, “it would take another cannonball to sweep me off the deck.”
Nate rode into Lynchburg at midday and, after tying his horse to a post, walked slowly up and down the main street, looking into storefronts. His story, if asked, was that he was just another cowboy from West Texas looking for work on one of the big cattle farms south of Houston.
He’d been given a description of two of McGill’s men, Purdy and Crenshaw—stunted and weasel-mouthed in the first case; Gallic-nosed and Cajun in the second—as well as of McGill himself. He was a man of average height, slender, dark-haired, with no identifying scars or marks on the face or hands—a description that could have applied to half the men in Texas. Both Deerling and Dr. Tom had seen McGill’s image on Wanted posters but had never looked him in the face.
Of the daughter, Dr. Tom told Nate that she wa
s twenty-three years old, fair-skinned and dark-haired, with a small mole under her right eye.
The only other bit of information Nate possessed was that Crenshaw had a rare grulla mare, a horse he had most likely stolen from one of his victims. As Nate walked the main street, he saw no gray horses and very few people. He ordered a beer, which was warm and flat, at the one saloon in town. The barkeep, a top-heavy man with a dirty towel draped over one shoulder, offered the news of the day, all of it unremarkable.
Nate thanked him, and after walking around some more and drifting through the small hotel, he mounted his horse and rode back to the ferry. To his thinking, the whole town seemed too open, too transparent, for McGill and his men to hide in.
Nate was surprised to see another man waiting at the ferry ahead of him. Once afloat, they dismounted from their horses, both looking at the murky water rushing by.
The man finally said, “Makes me a little dizzy watching these currents.” He turned to Nate and smiled amiably. “You don’t want to get too close to the edge. The currents here at this spot are so powerful that even a strong swimmer would fail to gain either shore.”
“That so,” Nate responded, taking a step back from the shoddy railing.
The man stuck out his hand. “The name is Estes.”
Nate clasped the man’s hand. “Nate. Nate Cannon.”
“You here looking for work?”
Nate nodded. “You?”
“Always.” Estes smiled again, and he and Nate chatted comfortably for a while about their recent journeys.
When the ferry docked on the western side, Estes waved and said, “Good luck. Keep a close eye on those deep waters.”
He rode away to the south and Nate felt an immediate downward turn of emotions that he recognized as simple loneliness, the want of cheerful company.
When Nate returned to Houston, he found Dr. Tom sleeping. He sat quietly by the bed until the ranger opened his eyes and then he recounted the events of his trip to Lynchburg. Nate could see the disappointment in Dr. Tom’s face as he rubbed his hand over his mouth in frustration.
Nate began telling him about the return trip on the ferry, but he stopped when he saw his partner’s face.
Dr. Tom hiked himself up to a sitting position. “What did you say?”
Nate repeated his last bit of information. “The traveler’s name was Estes.”
“What did he look like?”
“Bearded, spectacles, my height. Said he was a surveyor.”
Dr. Tom reached out and grabbed Nate painfully around the wrist. “Do you know what McGill’s full name is? It’s William Estes McGill. The only reason you’re still sitting here and not floating in the Gulf somewhere is that you didn’t make him. But I’ll bet he made you. Christ Almighty, Nate.”
The face of the surveyor on the river had seemed to Nate placid, the eyes behind the spectacles keen but friendly, and he had felt an immediate liking for the man and a desire, once he arrived at the other side of the river, for continued conversation. The sense of isolation and apartness he had experienced during the past few months seemed to sharpen after his fellow passenger had ridden away.
Even Prudone as he rode towards Deerling had given telltale signs indicating impending violence. But Nate had been completely at his ease during the crossing, the memory of Deerling’s death dropping away for the briefest while.
He sat quietly, looking at his hands, thinking of the two rivers that joined at the ferry crossing, waters so opaque and muddy that his falling body would have cast little reflection and left only the parting of eddies to signify he had ever been there.
Chapter 15
Lucinda’s eyes were closed, but she was acutely aware that Bedford Grant was staring at her. She sat on a worn chaise, her head tilted back to expose the full length of her neck, her legs stretched out before her, ankles neatly crossed. The hem of her skirt had been carelessly raised, revealing the curves of her insteps in her heeled, kid-leather boots. She arched her foot more appealingly and felt the laces tighten against her skin.
May reclined next to her, her head in Lucinda’s lap. Occasionally, Lucinda would let her fingers find their way to May’s hair, and she would stroke it as she would have a cat.
Jane was also in the sitting room, opposite her, quietly sewing. Lucinda suspected that Jane was staring at her as well, but with a different intensity and purpose.
Lucinda had begun spending quite a few evenings with the Grants, eating supper with them and taking long walks with Bedford afterwards. The evenings spent at the Wallers’, when Bedford came to call on her, were an exercise in monumental restraint—restraining herself from giving exasperated replies in response to both Euphrastus’s puffed-up jealousy and his wife’s and daughter’s ridiculous swooning over Bedford’s courtship.
She was frustrated by the continued reluctance of Bedford to give her any more accounting of the gold coins other than to promise her that he would eventually reveal where they were hidden. She had given faithful reports of her progress in her letters to her supposed brother, Bill, but it had been a while since she had received a response, and the silence was filling her with anxiety, keeping her awake at nights.
May stirred and sat up. “Miss Carter, come for a walk with me.”
Lucinda opened her eyes and stretched. “Only if your sister comes with us.”
Jane looked up from her work, her expression wary. The shooting of the German had at first left her terrified and clinging, needing reassurance from Lucinda almost hourly that they had made the right decision in hiding his body, but then she’d become silent. Jane had made herself ill with worry, and now it was Lucinda’s turn to be Jane’s nursemaid. She encouraged the girl to eat and take walks after she had confined herself to her bedroom for days. After a full week of fearfulness, Jane embraced despondency; she was indifferent towards her family, and increasingly cold and guarded with Lucinda, avoiding her whenever possible.
May, however, seemed unaffected by the incident, or at least undisturbed by it; she used every opportunity to revisit the events with Lucinda, talking about it in hushed and eager tones, as though she were discussing a bolt of fabric she’d been forbidden to buy. The constant talk of the shooting was fraying Lucinda’s nerves, and she hoped May’s troublesome excitement would soon diminish.
Lucinda smiled at Jane, who ducked her head closer to her sewing. “Jane,” she prodded, “you look pale. Come with us.”
Bedford asked Jane, “Have you not been feeling well?” He sounded surprised; his daughter’s anguish had gone completely unnoticed.
“I’m well,” Jane murmured. She frowned, but she put her sewing aside and stood.
After gathering up her hat and shawl, Lucinda took Jane’s hand and led the sisters out onto the porch. The late-afternoon air was chilled, and Lucinda pulled her shawl higher around her shoulders.
They walked for a while in silence, moving towards Red Bluff Road and away from the bayou. It was an unspoken agreement among them that they would not return to the clearing by the water.
They crossed the road and walked onto the adjoining stretch of prairie grasses, the remaining shafts yellowed and fragile under their shoes. The feeble smell of marsh water threaded the breeze. They slowed their steps only when a snake crossed their path. Its tail thrashed against the dry vegetation, making a vibrating sound, and Lucinda thought it a rattlesnake. But Jane shook her head and declared it a king snake, harmful only to the rodents that burrowed in the fields. She turned and leveled her eyes at Lucinda. “Don’t worry, Miss Carter. It’s just a pretender.”
Three herons lifted their heads in unison to watch the women approaching, their feathers blue-gray under the slanting sun, and May exclaimed, “That will be us in thirty years: skinny-legged and stoop-shouldered.” Raising her shawl like a flag, she shrieked and ran, chasing the birds into flight.
Lucinda smiled and turned her face to catch more of the sun. “Such a pleasant day. I almost hate to begin the week at the school tomorrow.
”
Jane hugged herself tighter with her crossed arms. “I don’t suppose you’ll have to be teaching much longer.”
“Jane, look at me. Look at me.” When Jane raised her chin to return the gaze, Lucinda asked, “Haven’t I always been kind to you, and to your family?”
Jane hesitated but answered, “Yes.”
“Then why have you become so sour towards me?”
Jane exhaled sharply but said nothing and turned to stare across the field.
Lucinda placed her hand on Jane’s arm. “That man would have killed me.” When there was no response, she dropped her hand, and they watched May chasing grasshoppers from their hiding places.
Jane took a few breaths and turned to Lucinda. “When that man attacked you, he said, ‘Where is it?’ What did he mean? What was he talking about?”
Lucinda looked at her blankly; her main recollection of him was of his hands closing around her throat.
Jane impatiently drew a strand of hair from her face. “He wanted something back that you had taken from him, didn’t he?”
Lucinda felt her face redden and she turned away, trying to veil a sudden burst of anger.
Jane clutched at her hand. “You’re only after the gold, aren’t you?”
Lucinda looked at the work-worn girl in surprise, realizing she should have known all along that Bedford would have told Jane, his closest ally and confidante, about the treasure, although he never would have revealed his discovery to his unpredictable younger daughter.
She gathered her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “I don’t know what you’re speaking of. And the only thing I took from my attacker was myself. That you should question me in this way distresses me no end. It will distress your father as well.”
There was an edge of a threat at the last, and Jane flinched, but her eyes narrowed.
May approached them, flushed and breathless, her eyes alert to the tension between the two women. She looked at her sister calculatingly and then linked her arm through Lucinda’s. Pulling her back towards the house, May said, “Don’t mind Jane, Miss Carter. She’s just jealous that you’re getting Father now. She’ll have to find her own man soon.”
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