“It’s all right, son. You didn’t let me finish. Ingles can’t take you. No one will make you leave here.”
Joe stilled but his sobbing continued.
“The letter said Reuben Ingles has no legal claim to you at all. There’s no reason why the adoption can’t go forward.”
Joe looked up at Nate, hope dawning in his eyes. Nate relaxed his grasp on the boy.
“Was he the man who hurt you?”
Joe shook his head. He pretended to take money from his pocket and hand it over.
“I see. Other men paid him for you.”
Joe nodded and held up three fingers, which Nate took to mean three different men. Joe mimed watching, then running.
“So you ran away.” Nate gave Joe a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “You were very brave to strike out on your own, son. I’m sorry you had to go through all that. You’ve had some rough times, but that’s all past. You’re safe now.”
Joe shook his head. He mimed someone creeping, then grabbing.
“The Kincaids will protect you. They’re your family now.”
Nate hoped he spoke the truth. The letter had painted Ingles as a despicable character who wanted to be reimbursed for the loss of his stepson.
Joe shook his head and looked at the ground. Obviously sad experience had taught him about his stepfather’s lack of redeeming qualities.
Nate exhaled a breath. Some men didn’t deserve to live, to his way of thinking. He took Joe’s hand. “Come on. The others will be worried about you. Let’s go back.”
He figured Joe was still plenty worried about his stepfather. “The Pinkerton man didn’t tell Ingles where you are or who you’re with. He wrote that Ingles asked, but the man wouldn’t tell him. Ingles doesn’t have any idea where you are.”
Joe wiped away his tears, but he didn’t look reassured.
On the way to the house, Nate said, “I’m real sorry your mother is dead, Joe. The Kincaids are good people and, like I said, they’re your family now. They love you.”
Joe tugged at his hand. With his other hand he pointed at Nate. A pain stabbed Nate’s heart. He couldn’t lie to this boy, not about this.
“Yeah, kid. I love you, too, but I’m not part of the deal, see? I don’t belong here, not like you do.”
More conversation was prevented because Luke and Cindy ran down the walk to meet them. Pearl’s family stood on the wide porch awaiting their return.
Sarah hurried forward and hugged Joe. “No one can take you away now, Joe. When the adoption is final, you’ll be my son by law. In my heart, you already are.” She encompassed all three children in her arms. “We’re a family and no one can change that. We’ll stay together.”
Over the heads of the children her eyes met his and he saw the regret there. Damn, he wished things were different. Once more, he wished he were different.
***
Nate went back to the law office, intent on finishing the work assigned him for the day. Gabe had said it wasn’t necessary, but Nate knew they were pressed to get ready for an upcoming trial when Gabe would defend a man with the evidence stacked against him. Besides, Nate didn’t want to get off to a bad start with Gabe or the Judge.
At six, Gabe went upstairs to his apartment. Later his steps sounded down the wooden stairway outside the building, no doubt on the way to the Judge’s house where Nate was scheduled to join them for dinner and discussion of the week’s work schedule. Nate vowed to do such perfect work here that the Judge and Gabe would be dazzled by his brilliance and hard labor.
Would you look at yourself? He almost hooted with derision toward his newfound attitude. Here he was trying to please Mr. Dot-Your-I’s Gabe and Judge Lord-Of-The-Manor Kincaid just as if he planned to stick around for years, as if this were a real job. If it weren’t for making points with the Kincaids, he could be sitting in the saloon or lounging in the hotel right now.
He was just closing his desk to leave when the sound of banging startled him. Two bedraggled looking middle-aged men came in with broom, bucket, and a mop. Polishing rags hung from their pockets.
Damn, it couldn’t be. Nate looked again. Double damn, it was. Incredulous at the sight of ghosts from his past, he reopened one of the files on his desk and ducked his head. He recognized them but hoped these men wouldn’t remember him.
“Howdy, Nate,” Willard Ainsworth said and picked up a wastepaper basket to empty it.
Nate froze. These two old drunks could ruin all his plans. He wondered if they remembered his real last name.
“What are you two doing here?” Nate asked.
“We’s a-working for the Judge, too. He give us a job to keep us out o’ trouble,” Burris volunteered.
Willard nodded. “We clean up here Mondays and Thursdays, do jobs for the Judge whenever he asks.”
“Where you boys live?” Nate asked and prayed it wasn’t on the grounds of the Judge’s home.
Willard pointed West. “We got us a nice little house not fur from here. ‘Course the Judge owns it, but he lets us live there long as we keep it in good shape and don’t drink none.”
Burris nodded. “And we have to do the Judge’s biddin’ when he wants, which is purt' near ever' day.”
“I don’t understand. What brought you to Kincaid Springs?”
The two exchanged looks, then looked at the floor as if embarrassed.
Willard mumbled, “We come to steal away Pearl and Sarah and that boy Storm. We was gonna take ‘em west with us.”
“You what?” Nate figured the two had been drinking and didn't know what they were saying.
“We didn’t mean no harm, unnerstand? We wuz just goin’ to pertect ‘em, like,” Willard said.
Burris scratched his stomach. “Yessir, we didn’t mean to burn down Pearl’s eatin’ place neither. That were purely a accident. So wuz me gettin’ shot when we tried to git the money off’n the train.”
Willard nodded. “Burris is still troubled by that wound in his leg when it gits cold or damp.”
Nate couldn’t make any sense of the two’s ravings, so he waved them away. “I expect we’d better all get to work.”
His thoughts whirled in confusion. What did these men know about him? He barely remembered the time spent in that terrible Tennessee hick town. He had hated it, hated the people, and could hardly wait to leave.
Thinking back, he recalled these two hanging around, trying to get free drinks from Roxie or her customers. Jokes of the town. Maybe they were so drunk back then they hadn’t even known who he was. What if they’d just heard he’d be working here and never made the connection?
He ventured, “Say, how’d you boys know my name?”
“Doncha ‘member us, Nate?” Willard asked. “We wuz allus comin’ in to Roxie’s place back in Pipers Hollow. ‘Member when you ‘n your daddy wuz there?” Willard rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Now, let’s see, musta been jus’ ‘bout the time Pearl and them moved here.”
“Maybe,” Nate said. Damn, they did know him. He might as well come right out with it. “Anybody else around here know I was there?”
The two brothers exchanged puzzled looks.
Burris said, “Reckon Pearl and them do.”
“No, no they don’t, and I don’t want to remind them,” Nate said. “Can we keep it our secret, just between us three?”
“Reckon so, but I don’t see why,” Willard said.
Nate thought furiously. He couldn’t make it sound too important or these two would be sure to wonder about him and ask the wrong questions. Worse, they might report to the Judge.
“Makes me real sad, what with my daddy and Roxie both being dead now. Yes, it all makes me real sad. Like to forget I ever saw that place. Can you understand that?”
“Why sure, Nate.” Burris scratched under his arm. “We gets sad sometimes, specially when we think about our mama dying. She don’t know we done them bad things, though, which is good.”
“She’d be proud of you both now. You got a good place to liv
e and a good job. Me, too. Let’s just forget the past.”
Both men nodded and Willard said, “That’s a good idee.”
Nate closed the file and stacked it with the others on his desk. He felt ten years older and five times a fool. He should never have started this scheme with Roxie’s daughter. Monk tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen.
Nate stood. “Guess I’ll see you around. Good night.”
Nate hurried toward the Judge’s home. He smiled and nodded at the people he passed, but panic rose inside him. What should he do? He felt an overwhelming urge to turn back, go to the livery stable and get a horse. His bag was still packed from this morning. He could take the next train out of town.
Calm down, he thought. You’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this. Hell, you survived being buried alive, surely you can outwit two simpletons.
When he arrived at the Judge’s home, Fiona met him in the foyer. “Himself and Mr. Gabe waited dinner for you. You can be going on in to the dining room.”
The Judge sat at one end of the table like the lord and master he was, and Gabe sat at his right. A place at the Judge’s left had been laid for Nate. Apparently Fiona wasn’t dining with them tonight.
The Judge nodded as he joined them. “Glad to know Pinkerton’s came through. Gabe briefed me on the letter.”
“It’s a relief to Sarah. She doesn’t have to worry about stray relatives showing up to stop the adoption.” Nate traced a circle with his finger on the linen beside his plate. “Joe was alarmed that his stepfather had been contacted. He’s afraid the man will find him somehow and kidnap him. I tried to reassure the boy, but I can’t shake an uneasy feeling about the man.”
Over dinner Nate filled the other two men in on Joe’s experiences at the hand of Ingles. They shared Nate’s outrage.
The Judge said, “I fear you’re right. Can’t see a man like that giving up without making a bid for a pay off.”
“Two odd men were at the office when I left. Hope it was all right to leave them there,” Nate said.
The Judge laughed. “If there were no lighted lanterns on the desk,” he said. “Had to put those two to work to keep them from killing themselves or someone else.”
“Seemed a little simple,” Nate said, hoping to lay groundwork to cover any remarks the two might make about him.
“Oh, they do okay cleaning up, surprising enough,” Gabe said. “I guess you could say they need direction.”
Nate frowned and shook his head. “They said something about setting a fire and getting shot. I didn’t understand.”
“They never make much sense,” the Judge said.
Nate breathed a sigh of relief. If the Ainsworths mentioned him in connection with Tennessee, maybe no one would give any credence to their ravings.
The Judge continued, “When Pearl first came here, a man had in mind to kill her and the two young ‘uns.”
Nate nodded. “Sarah told me about that time. I believe Drake saved the three of them.”
The Judge nodded. “Kincaids take care of their own, and Drake did what he had to. Lordy, it had been a bad time. Before we knew who was involved, Drake took charge of Storm and we had armed guards everywhere Pearl or Sarah went.”
His somber face broke into a grin and he chuckled. “These two clowns came along. Not funny at the time, mind you, but it seems like it now.”
“Why? What did they do?” Nate asked.
“First they failed miserably at robbing the train Pearl’s money was on and Burris was shot. Next they burned down her restaurant trying to get in and kidnap her. They were caught when they tried the kidnapping a second time with two armed guards and Drake present.”
“Not a bright thing to do,” Nate offered. The thought of crossing Drake Kincaid made his hair stand on end. That the two men stayed alive surprised him.
“You said yourself they’re simple,” Gabe said and shrugged.
The Judge said, “There were mitigating factors, though. As long they have clear instructions, they do their job and stay out of trouble. They worked off their sentence and had no place to go and no money. I gave them a job. They haven’t been up to any mischief to speak of since.”
He speared Nate with a piercing look. “Gabe tells me you took to lawyering like a duck to water.”
Nate shot a grateful glance at Gabe, then answered, “It interests me.”
The Judge regarded Nate speculatively and chewed at his mustache. “Might ought to consider staying here and reading for the law. Need a good man since Lex is off in Austin most of the time.”
Not wanting to make a commitment but unable to make himself turn down the offer, Nate smiled and asked, “You making me into a project like the Ainsworths?”
Talk drifted to others the Judge had helped rehabilitate, and then on to the upcoming work scheduled. Nate let the other two men carry the burden of conversation. His mind worried over the Ainsworths recognizing him. He wondered who else from that Tennessee hellhole had migrated to this town.
The thought kept running through his mind that Kincaids take care of their own. Apprehension skittered along Nate’s spine. What would Drake have to say to the man who cheated his sister-in-law, his family, and his town when it all came out? Not only Drake. The whole clan would be after Nate’s blood with a vengeance no sheriff or posse could ever match.
***
Sarah heard Nate walk down the hall to his room after she was already in bed. Wishing she could go to him and talk, she pulled the cover snug against her. She needed to talk to him about the letter, needed to hear his opinion on Joe’s stepfather. Admit it, she thought. You need to hear his voice, feel his embrace, for your own well being and not just for Joe or the other children.
Tomorrow he’d be moving to Grandpa’s and she would seldom see him. Nate working for Grandpa was bound to be a good thing, though. She visualized Nate joining Gabe at Grandpa’s law firm and staying in Kincaid Springs.
She lay thinking for what seemed hours, unable to turn off her thoughts and go to sleep. A soft tap at her door surprised her. The knob turned and she heard Luke’s voice.
“Can you come talk to Joe?” Luke asked. “He’s real scared and hid under the bed.”
Sarah rose and put on her navy wool wrapper as she slid her feet into her felt slippers. She lit a lamp and brought it when she followed Luke back to the room he shared with Joe. At first when she couldn’t see the boy she feared he’d run away again. Luke kneeled beside the bed and looked underneath.
“She’s here. You can come out,” Luke said. He backed away and looked up at Sarah. “He won’t move.”
Sarah set the lamp on the floor, knelt beside the bed and peeked beneath. Joe lay curled in a ball against the wall at the head of the bed. He looked terrified.
She pleaded, “Dear, you’re safe here. Come out and let me tuck you into bed.”
Joe shook his head.
Sarah pleaded, but Joe refused to budge. Short of dragging him out, she hadn’t a clue what to do. On the train when he was scared, Nate had known how to placate Joe. Nate had calmed Joe earlier in the day as well when the letter upset him. Joe responded to Nate more than to anyone else.
“Luke, would you ask Nate to come here?”
Luke disappeared and soon returned with Nate. Nate’s feet were bare and his pants only partially fastened. He rubbed his eyes and his shirt hung loose with the buttons undone. Sarah scrambled to her feet to greet him.
“What’s going on?” he asked and yawned.
“Apparently the letter scared Joe more than we realized. He won’t come out from under the bed.”
Nate asked Luke, “He have a nightmare or something?”
“I reckon he did,” Luke said. “He was kicking and thrashing around so much I couldn’t sleep. Then he moved his legs like he was running and fell plumb out of bed.”
Nate stood still a moment looking perplexed. “Guess I can give it a shot.” He kneeled, then flattened himself and slid underneath beside Joe. His feet stuc
k out from under the bed as he wriggled himself so that his head was near Joe’s.
Sarah lay down on the floor on the opposite side of the bed with her head almost under it and her legs stretched out behind her. Luke joined her and peered at Joe. Nate talked softly to Joe and she strained to hear his words.
“Bad dream?” Nate asked.
Joe nodded.
From behind her, Sarah heard someone enter the room. She bumped her head peeping at the newcomer.
“Some kind of new religion going on here?” Storm stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. “Reckon that bed’s comfortable enough, but hardly worthy of prostrate worship.” He wore his denim work pants but no shirt and his feet were bare.
Sarah rose and went to her brother. His room was next to that of the boys, so he must have heard the disturbance. “The letter from Pinkerton’s upset Joe. He’s had nightmares and now won’t come out from under the bed.”
“Heard the hubbub.” Storm asked, his voice low. “Those Nate’s feet I see sticking from under the other side of the bed?”
She whispered, “Yes, I couldn’t get Joe to come out. He seems to have confidence in Nate, so I asked him to help.”
Storm nodded and gave her shoulders a hug. “Unless you think I can help, you work this out and I’ll get back to sleep.”
Storm left and Sarah returned to her previous station. Nate held Joe’s hand and talked to him. Slowly Joe uncurled his body and followed Nate out from his sanctuary.
Sarah rushed around and hugged Joe. “You know we’ll never let anything bad happen to you if we can prevent it, don’t you?”
Joe wiped tears from his face and nodded. He put his arms around Sarah’s waist and hugged her, burrowing his face against her. Tears sprang to her eyes. It was the first spontaneous display of affection he’d offered.
“Come on, son. Into bed with you,” Nate said and pulled a chair beside the bed. “I’ll sit here until you’re asleep. We’ll leave the lamp burning low so it won’t be dark.”
Luke and Joe climbed into bed and Sarah tucked the covers around them. “Luke, it was good of you to come tell me when Joe was frightened. You’re brothers now, and brothers and sisters look out for one another.” She brushed her hand across the forehead of each boy. She wanted to kiss them, but feared they would rebel at that much mothering.
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