Gold Dust

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  With his left hand, Ned curled his arm and rubbed the gelding’s soft nose like he’d done thousands of times to other horses. At the same time, he reached with his right hand and felt for the revolver on the seat beside his leg. The right thing to do was to shoot it right then and there.

  An electrical jolt numbed Ned’s shoulder at the same time the horse’s muscles twitched and hardened. “Damn it!” Ned grabbed his shoulder, his face twisted in shock.

  The animal moaned, groaned and shivered like he was being electrocuted. A heartbeat later, his head snapped up and he stepped back like a young, healthy horse.

  “What happened?” Becky leaned forward to see. “He bite you?”

  “No. I don’t know what happened!”

  The injured horse whirled and charged back down the dirt road toward the wreck on a leg that flopped and slapped the ground.

  “Listen, y’all look out!” Ike Reader warned the men trying to help the woman driver hanging limp halfway out of her Model A. “Here comes that damned horse again!” They scattered as the gelding ran to the woman and stuck his head against her.

  She convulsed and woke up screaming at the same time the other car burst into flames. The gelding dropped as dead as if he’d been shot.

  Ike hollered. “We were wrong! She ain’t dead! Quick, get her out!”

  Ned gave that old Model T the gas and they slid to a stop just feet away. Ike and Frank Flynn threw a chain around the front bumper. The other end was already attached to the revived woman’s axle. Ned mashed down on the reverse pedal, pushed the throttle lever and they shot backward. The chain snapped taut and he jerked the Model A away from the burning wreckage. Ned pulled the car to safety and killed the Flivver’s engine.

  They jumped out and Ned ran to check on the woman who was still alive, despite the frightening wound in her head, and recognized her as a teller at their bank in Chisum. “Don’t worry, Fannie. We’ll get you out.”

  She blinked, revealing only the whites of her eyes. “Ned, I need you to come close.” Shocked, he leaned in and she whispered, her voice sounding dead. “You have to do it for them.”

  “What’s that?” He refused to look at those eyes, and instead found himself staring at the horrible open gash revealing the woman’s brain. “Do what for who? You got somebody else in there?”

  “Ned, I was there, and He said for you to listen.”

  “You were where?”

  “Heaven. He said for you to listen.”

  “Who?”

  “I was there, but your horse pulled me back for a minute to tell you this.”

  “I don’t have a horse…”

  “You have a job to do.”

  “What?”

  Her eyes twitched, as though the very eyeballs were trying to escape their sockets. “Help them release. Sometimes folks need help and it’s all right to open the door for ’em.”

  “Huh?”

  “Open the Gate.”

  Her eyes closed to slits and she fell silent and limp.

  Ned and Becky helped tidy the dead for Sheriff Poole and drove home. The sun was down and they ate supper by kerosene light in the old Apple homestead they rented, talking about what happened at the accident. They went to bed that night and the next morning the entire incident seemed like a dream.

  A week later, a colored family showed up in their bare yard and a shirtless man in overalls and worn-out brogans knocked on the porch post. The mother in a faded flour sack dress looked twenty years older than her age. Her six children wore similarly faded hand-me-downs, but all were clean and patched.

  Becky opened the door and stepped out on the porch to find a stout man holding a profoundly retarded child wrapped in a ragged quilt. She saw the child move a feeble arm. “Help y’all?”

  “Miss Becky. I’m Marcus Roosevelt. Is Mr. Ned in, please, ma’am?”

  “We ain’t hirin’, Marcus. It’s hard times and we’re doing our own harvest.”

  “Not lookin’ for work, ma’am.” Marcus and his wife exchanged looks. “We heard Mr. Ned can help us.” He adjusted the quilt around the little girl. “Last night an angel with glowing wings come to us and said to bring our little girl to your house.”

  Ned came to the door behind her. His face was white as a sheet. “Y’all don’t need to be here. I can’t help you.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled dollar bill. “Here. Hope this helps.” He turned and went into the living room.

  Stunned by his unusual action, Becky watched his retreating back. She couldn’t bear for the family to stand scorching in the sun. She did something she’d never done before. Becky Parker invited a colored family into her house. The nervous couple filed in behind her, through the kitchen, followed by their children. They stood quiet in the living room, watching Ned in his rocking chair.

  He refused to look at them. Marcus cleared his throat. “Mr. Ned. I for shore ain’t used to this, but an angel come to us in the night and said you could help. See, this here baby in my arms is dyin’ hard and we done been to the doctor and he said there ain’t nothin’ nobody can do for her. She’s sufferin’, suh, and that ain’t right for a baby that ain’t done nothin’ to nobody.”

  Ned rocked and refused to meet Marcus’ eyes.

  Marcus moved the quilt and Ned’s dull gaze followed his hands. The blind child who was nothing but a sack of bones with a swollen stomach looked to be about eight to ten years old. She was deformed worse than anyone he’d ever seen, her face misshapen, with jumbled teeth that protruded from her slack mouth. She convulsed in Marcus’ arms.

  “I can’t help you.” Ned’s eyes fell to the rag rug under Albert’s feet. He shook his head and rocked until a precocious five-year-old with dimples and short hair held in abeyance by strips of blue ribbon circled her daddy.

  She stepped between Ned’s legs and climbed into his lap, taking his face between her little hands, forcing his chin up to listen. “M’name’s Pickles and a beautiful angel come to my house said it’s okay for you to help my sister. Her name’s Tom-Tom and she’s a full ten years old today.”

  Ned choked out a reply that sounded as if his heart was breaking. “No.”

  “The Lord told my daddy. It’s all right.”

  Marcus stepped forward without asking and placed Tom-Tom in Ned’s lap. The ragged quilt fell off, revealing her wasted body in a rag diaper.

  Ned held the invalid child like a baby. With her head under his chin, he rocked while tears leaked down his cheeks.

  “You don’t need me to tell you how.” Pickles rubbed his knee and rested one hand on her big sister’s bony leg.

  Ned twitched, gasped, and tightened as if his whole body was cramping.

  “See, you already know.”

  From the corners of his eyes, Ned saw electricity sparkle like fireflies in the air. One of the fireflies became a narrow bolt of lightning that shot upward, disappearing into swirling red storm clouds built near the ceiling. A high-pitched humming filled Ned’s head and he was sure it was swelling like a balloon. He closed his eyes and held Tom-Tom who relaxed in his arms.

  Ned went rigid and the silent clouds above opened at the same time a warm glow ran through his body. A feeling of love and peace replaced the taut vibration of electrical current and he felt Tom-Tom’s thin little soul sweep past his face like a soft, warm baby’s breath.

  A cool, unseen set of tiny hands caressed his cheeks. The clouds broke at the same time a soft yellow ray of light pulled the phantom hands away. Tom-Tom took one last breath and let it out. Ned collapsed inward and closed his eyes.

  The clouds were gone when Ned opened them, feeling completely worn out. The room was silent as Pickles put one knee on the rocker’s seat and pulled herself over Tom-Tom’s still body high enough to reach Ned’s face. She kissed him on the lips. “Thank you, Mr. Ned.”

  Becky took her eyes off t
he animated little girl and realized her parents were weeping. It was then she saw Tom-Tom was gone. She’d died without even a sigh.

  Marcus gently took Tom-Tom from Ned’s arms. “Thank you, sir. That angel was right.”

  The mama handed Becky a bundle wrapped in a clean flour sack. By the feel, she knew it contained something precious to the family, a slab of bacon. “Hon, I cain’t take this.”

  “We need to give y’all something for releasing our baby from this cruel ol’ world.”

  “Feed this to your kids.” Becky handed it back. “Come with me.”

  They went into the kitchen. Becky took a pound of butter wrapped in cheesecloth from their secondhand icebox. “I want you to take this with you, and I won’t ask nothing but your name.”

  The woman accepted the gift. “Wilma.”

  “Well, you take care of these babies, Wilma.”

  In the living room, Pickles grabbed Ned around the neck and gave him another wet kiss. “You take that one to somebody else who’s gonna need it when it happens again.”

  Ned cried for an hour after they left with Tom-Tom’s little body wrapped again in her quilt, barely gathering himself before another wave washed over him. He knew what was going to happen the minute Marcus, Wilma, and their family showed up in the yard. He’d seen it all before in a flash when the gelding put his head against his chest and passed something to him that no one could explain.

  Chapter Forty-four

  I was afraid to say anything when Miss Becky stopped talking and took a deep, shuddering breath. She dabbed her eyes with a towel she’d thrown over her shoulder. “He asked me what would happen if somebody else needed help passing over, because he wasn’t sure he could do it again, and I told him it’d happen when it happened and that’s what he was supposed to do.

  “We wondered for weeks about it and thought the Gift was gone, that maybe it was only supposed to happen that one time, but around Thanksgiving we went to visit some kinfolk who had their grandmother and she was just barely hanging on, praying for death, but Death wouldn’t come.

  “They’d heard about Tom-Tom and asked if Ned would hold her for a minute to see if he could ease her pain and release her. He didn’t want to, but I convinced him to go in there and sit on the edge of the bed. He sat near the head, and put that old woman’s head in his lap. She got easy, went limp, and went home to Jesus.

  “That’s when we knew for sure he had the Gift.”

  “So if it was for good, and y’all knew what was going to happen, why’d he quit?”

  She swallowed. “Some people from town thought he was doing more than holding those poor people. There was a hotshot lawyer here in town at the time and he went after Ned, wanting to convict him of murder. There was a trial, and it was a mess. O.C. took Ned on as his lawyer, and after a long, long trial, he was…what’s the word?…acquitted. But at the same time, some church folks accused him of thinking he was Jesus, and that hurt him worse’n anything.

  “When the smoke finally cleared, he said he’d never help anyone cross again, and didn’t do it until Old Jules needed to pass.”

  “I never heard anything about it.”

  “Most everybody that had anything to do with it is dead and gone, and them who’re still alive put it aside and went on with their lives, just like us.”

  I started to ask another question, but she gave my leg a pat and stood. “Now, I don’t want any more questions, and you just let it be.”

  She walked out as quick as you please, leaving me laying there with about a million questions. I dozed off a little later, trying to make sense of it all.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Anna was right. Cheap Hat and his friends were waiting for Stan the moment he stepped out the Broken Spoke’s front door and into the dark parking lot. She shivered, more from nerves than a chill and found herself in the middle of the events that quickly spun out of control.

  Stan stopped near the cars parked behind the cedar hitching posts and pointed at Cheap Hat. “Tell these other bastards that it’s you and me.”

  “Naw it ain’t!” A short, squatty guy with hair curling over his collar stepped forward and threw a right toward Stan’s jaw.

  His eyes were on Cheap Hat, but Stan saw the blow coming in his peripheral vision. He pulled back just enough for the jawbreaker to miss. He caught the man’s wrist and used his attacker’s momentum to yank him off balance and into a drugstore-cowboy watching the action unfold.

  Taking advantage of his surprise move, Stan spun and threw his shoulder into a left that exploded Cheap Hat’s narrow nose. Blood spurted as he wailed and stumbled back.

  The other four no-accounts closed in. Stan hit another, but the punch left him wide open. A fist hard as cement caught him in the temple and his head snapped sideways. Ears ringing and stunned, Stan juked to his left to gain some room.

  Recovering from the pain and his surprise, Cheap Hat threw himself at Stan as the group closed like wolves. The lanky cowboy went down fighting.

  Her head buzzing with fury, Anna lunged forward and grabbed a collar and jerked the attacker backward. She hit him with a fist at the point where his jaw hinged. The crack was as distinct as a hammer blow and he staggered sideways.

  Knowing she was outweighed and outmatched, she tugged a lead-weighted sap from inside the waistband under her shirt and cracked the nearest skull, knocking the man’s hat spinning. “Back off! Sheriff’s deputy!”

  Anna’s announcement went unnoticed, but her assault gave Stan enough room to regain his feet. He drove a fist into Cheap Hat’s stomach. She drew her arm back for another blow and a guy with curly girl’s hair grabbed her around the waist. He slung her into the side of a car. Her head dented the door and the world spun.

  The point of a boot connected with her side, knocking the air from her lungs in a painful whoosh and Anna curled into a ball to defeat the next kick. The distinct meaty sounds of fists, grunts, and exclamations filled the night air as she struggled for breath.

  She was only out of action for a few seconds, but it was long enough for Stan’s attackers to put the boots to him. Groggy, Anna saw the combatants ringed by patrons of the honky-tonk who’d come outside to watch. Struggling to roll onto her hands and knees that refused to cooperate, she saw two pairs of polished boots push through the crowd.

  Loud, authoritative voices rang overhead. “That’s it, boys! This fight’s over!”

  Anna’s vision cleared enough to see two Austin police officers shove the combatants back. “Deputy sheriff!” Sitting against the car and holding her badge aloft with one hand, she felt blood running from her nose.

  Stan was unconscious when the ambulance unloaded him at the Emergency Room at Austin’s Brackenridge Hospital. Half a dozen listless patients slumped in their chairs, waiting for the doctors to finish with the more urgent injuries involving a car wreck, one knifing, and another fistfight from a different club.

  Sitting on an examination table, Anna identified herself to the doctors on duty as a sheriff’s deputy from Chisum. The Austin police officers stood between her and the nurses’ desk.

  They wore khaki-colored shirts and midnight blue, almost black, caps. The oldest was in his sixties and the lines in his face mapped a hard life on the capital’s streets. He nodded toward the icepack Anna was holding on her eye and cheek. “You’re gonna have a nice shiner, and that nose don’t look none too good.”

  “I’ll live.”

  “Um, hum. M’name’s Earl. So you’re here doing undercover work.”

  His wasn’t a question as such, but it required a response. Her ribs ached, but didn’t feel broken. “Yessir. I used to work for Harris County, but then took a job not long ago with the Sheriff’s Office in Chisum. We’ve had a lot of rustling in our part of the state and Sheriff Parker sent me down to see what I could find out.”

  “You should have told us first.”
/>   Anna had nothing to say about that, knowing she was clearly in the wrong.

  “Your sheriff thinks they’re unloading them here?”

  She turned her attention to the younger officer. “Yep. Well, the truth is that we don’t know where they’re turning them. I’m following up on a lead, and that’s all.”

  Earl thought for a minute. “Jim, have you heard anything about stolen cattle?”

  “Nope.” He tilted his cap back. “But we don’t get around the stockyards much.”

  She didn’t mention the contact she’d made. “That’s all right. I was finished. Stan asked me out tonight and I wanted to go dancing one more time before I go home tomorrow, but then before things got out of hand, I had to tell him.” She glanced at the doors leading to the ER.

  “Oh what a tangled web we weave.” Earl stood with a basset hound look on his face and slid both hands into his pockets.

  “It’s not like I’m down here slutting around.” Anna’s face reddened at the quote. “It’s called undercover work. You guys know that.”

  “What time you leaving tomorrow?”

  “You trying to get me out of town, Earl?”

  The older man nodded. “Yep. Go on back up where you came from. Chisum, wasn’t it?”

  Tim adjusted his cap again, as if it wasn’t tilted enough to suit him. “Hey, where’d you say Chisum is?”

  “I didn’t. It’s about a hundred miles northeast of Dallas.”

  For the first time since they arrived, Jim looked interested. “Earl, wasn’t there some connection there with that dead man from the motel?”

  Anna’s eyes flicked to Earl. “Dead man?”

  “Yep. A maid at a motel in Round Rock called it in a day or so ago. Found a guy dead in his bed and brought him here. They screwed up and should have sent him to the county morgue, but the driver was new. Had a receipt in his pocket from some place in Chisum.”

  She wondered if it was anyone she knew. Her neck prickled, a warning sense she’d come to rely on as a peace officer. “You have a name for him?”