For an instant Kennedy look’d cow’d; then he broke into a grin. “There’s this,” he said, opening his hand over the table. A dozen glinting kernels — like gilded pepper-corns — fell softly to the cloth. I stood up to see them better.
“I thought as much,” the Child said, bringing one of them to the candle. In the weak light, even the enamel shone like gold — the Child made appreciative little coos as he turned it this way & that, chipping at the dried blood with his nails.
“I knew his family had money back in Baltimore,” he murmur’d. “You could tell it by the way he lisp’d.” He glanced sideways at me. “No o fense, Harvey.”
“None taken, sir!” I said brightly. “My own family, back in Nauvoo, Illinois—”
“Shut your gob, Joseph,” said Kennedy. I shut it.
Parson reach’d across the table, took the tooth out of the Child’s hand & sniff’d at it.
“What the hell are you about?” Kennedy snarl’d, snatching it back from him. “It’s your regular flavor, aren’t it?”
“He was a chewer of plug tobacco,” Parson said smugly, retiring to his corner.
The Child turn’d back to Kennedy and granted him a smile. “You managedit very neatly, Stuts.”
Kennedy cough’d into his sleeve. “Joseph were a help to me, of sorts.”
For the second time that night the Child looked at me with genuine surprise. “Perhaps you’re right, Mr. Harvey,” he said, taking my hand in his. “Perhaps you are our Mormon.”
An hour later we were well out of town on a cart liberated from Costello’s rooming-house, making for Wallace’s depot with all practicable speed. The expedition was in the highest of spirits — Parson was whistling under his breath, Kennedy was muttering to himself, & I was standing straight up in the cart, reveling in as perfect a feeling of freedom as I have ever known. The moon was up now, just a sliver short of full, & its light threw quicksilver shadows across the plains. I felt both luminous & invisible. If the image of the man in the Palace Hotel alley return’d now & again, so too did a rush of disbelief that we’d escaped Onadee unpunish’d. With every mile my sense of deliverance grew.
It was getting on light when we came to Wallace’s crossroads. Kennedy stopped the horses & we sat silently for a time. I began to grow restless, & not a little confused, but I managed to keep reasonably still.
“Your team’s in the barn?” the Child said finally, keeping his eyes on the depot.
“Beg pardon, sir; not a team. One stippled mare.”
Now he look’d at me. “I thought you had a team, Harvey.”
“No, sir.”
“He said just the mare,” Parson put in, gazing indifferently eastwards.
“Huh!” said the Child. “We’ll need Wallace’s two old bleaters, then.”
Kennedy spat. “Might as well ride on the Mormon’s buh! buh! back.”
“True,” the Child admitted, laying a grass-blade between his lips. “But Wallace’s pair would give us two teams, with that stipple of Harvey’s. Two teams is preferable to one.”
“Damned if I think so,” Kennedy said, scratching his nose.
“Mind your parlance, Stuts,” the Child caution’d.
“Is Wallace not coming?” I said, feeling foolish without rightly knowingwhy.
The Child beckon’d me to him, took the grass-blade from his mouth & brought it reverently down to touch my shoulders — first the left, then the right — as though he were knighting me. “Up & after those horses, Goodie,” he said, slipping a hand inside Kennedy’s top-coat. Still looking at me fondly, he pulled out a little bosom-pistol — an ancient, graceless thing, such as you might find on a doxie’s night-table—& toss’d it into my lap.
“Just a tap on the head & a thank-ye, Joseph!” Kennedy said as I climb’d down. “Just a regular puh! puh! poke in the eye!”
So wholly was my lot cast in with them now — so little was left of the self-servingmisanthrope I’d been — that I never once question’d the wisdom of entering that depot with nothing but a single-shot pistol from the preceding century. The others hung back in the shadow of the cart, comfortably out of harm’s way, while I put one foot ahead of the other down the muddy slope. Twice I lost a shoe & had to hop back on one foot to collect it. A last vain hope — that Wallace’s horses would be out in the open, hobbled between the depot & the barn — expired as I came up to the house. The horses & wagons were responsibly lock’d away. I stood on the porch for a time, harkening. There was nothing but the buzzing of flatbugs in the weeds. I coax’d the door open, press’d the pistol to my cheek — for courage, I suppose — and eased myself inside.
The first thing I saw was Tempie lying on a heap of broad-sheets, his sack-clothover-alls loose around his hips. He snored so emphatically that I could have ridden a mule through the house unnoticed. I stepped over his legs & look’d hurriedly about the parlor for the keys to the stable, but I knew better than to expect to find them there. Wallace was the kind of man who took his keys to bed. I went to his bedroom door & push’d it open.
The bedroom was airless as a tomb & very near as dark. I stood on the threshold for as long as I dared, giving my eyes time to acquaint themselves, keeping my brain & body still. There was a pallet not three feet from where I stood, and a tin night-pot beside it. I’d just noticed a loose heap of clothes on the floor when I heard a soft, melodious sigh & saw a body on the pallet stretch & roll onto its back. The body was long & dark & its skin had the buttery gloss of fresh-tanned leather. It was a woman’s body, or a girl’s. She open’d her eyes as I watch’d her, saw me above her in the doorway, & sat up without so much as taking in a breath.
If she’d had any feeling for Wallace at all, she’d have lain back down, or made a rush at me, or scream’d; instead she took a deliberate breath, gather’d up her clothes & slipped past me as stealthily as she could. I waited for the sound of the house-door, then bent down & drew the bed-sheet off the pallet. I wasn’t thinking about the keys to the stable any longer. The feeling I’d had at the Child’s bedside had return’d, & I stood over Wallace’s bare, unwitting body in a rapture. Here was freedom of another kind, a kind I’d not yet savored — the freedom to do whatever I liked to the man lying at my feet.
Wallace’s eye-lids twitch’d, then flutter’d open. “Goodman Harvey,” he said serenely. Then he turn’d and blew his nose into the bed-sheet.
My name had an ugly sound to me now, particularly on Wallace’s tongue. I went to cock the hammer of my pistol & found to my surprise that it was cock’d already.
Had I done that?
“About your horses,” I said. “Your two mares.”
He sat up carefully. “I know how many mares I’ve got, Harvey.” He craned his neck to look past me. “Are the others with you? Parson? Kennedy?”