A plan came to mind. He would’ve liked to do it himself, but that might be too dangerous. Thomson might recognize him. No point in taking a chance. Not with a man who was as good with guns as the doc. So he came up with another idea. Mundo was dumber than dirt, but he was good with a gun and he generally did all right when he was told exactly what to do. From a distance he might even be mistaken for Rufus.
“Hey, Mundo, I got a job for you.”
#
Sarah had bidden a final farewell to the Graysons and wiped her eyes as the coach pulled away. Miriam and Ruth waved small white kerchiefs as they disappeared from view.
She sat back against the hard wooden seat and let out a rueful sigh. No use fooling herself. She was disappointed that Buck wouldn’t be riding with her. She’d been looking forward to his company. For no reason she smiled at Tracker sitting across from her. His return smile seemed almost an invasion of her inmost thoughts.
The flat-roofed carriage swayed on its leather strap suspension as they advanced down the road at a leisurely pace to spare the horses as well as the passengers over the rutted road.
For the first mile Janey practically hung out the window. This was an adventure for her, a new, exciting experience. Sarah studied the girl. Under the best of circumstances her life would be difficult. Not as difficult as Emma’s had been, she hoped, but not likely to be as comfortable or at ease as a white woman’s. The girl was intelligent and curious, a combination that could make her life rich but could also bring unbearable frustration, for her opportunities to use her intelligence and explore her curiosities would be not just limited but activity obstructed by those less blessed.
Another mile or two went by. The passing countryside offered no new vistas.
“Would you like me to read to you from my book?” Janey asked, proudly opening the small volume. For generations before her, slaves had been forbidden the right to literacy. Janey clearly didn’t take it for granted.
“That would be very nice. Do you have a favorite?”
Janey smiled. “Yes’m. Number twenty-nine.”
“Say yes, ma’am, Janey. Not yes’m. It sounds better.”
“Yes, um, ma’am.”
Tracker appeared preoccupied but also mildly amused. He was an interesting man, partly Sarah suspected, because there was an air of mystery about him, a secretiveness she was utterly confident she was unlikely to penetrate.
“I’d like very much to hear you read,” she told Janey.
The young girl flipped a page, found what she was looking for and began to read:
“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate . . .”
It was an appropriate sonnet for a former slave, Sarah realized. She listened to the rest of it, then complimented Janey on her reading of it. Her inflection was in the correct places. Obviously it was a poem she’d read many times before, enough that the words were no longer Shakespeare’s but hers as well.
“Will you read me another?” Sarah asked.
The request obviously pleased her. She paged through the small volume, uncertain which one to choose.
“How about number thirty-four?” Tracker suggested.
Startled, Sarah cocked her head to the side as she gazed at him. He’d been so quiet she’d almost forgotten he was there.
Janey too seemed disoriented by the request, but she recovered quickly. “Oh, all right.” She flipped a few more pages until she found it.
“Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way
Hiding their bravery in their rotten smoke?”
This time Sarah stared at him with stunned amusement. This man in denim was no ordinary working man or body guard, but someone well educated. Self educated? Most likely. She couldn’t imagine him sitting in a classroom listening to someone talk down to him.
And what of the sonnet he’d selected. Despite her efforts to be discreet, he’d noticed her attraction to the doctor. If she was interpreting his message correctly, the man across from her was saying he’d noticed her disappointment in not sharing Buck’s company.
Her body guard’s eyes remained averted, but a smile played on his lips, as if he were reading her thoughts and concurring. When the girl reached the last two lines, the resolution of the sonnet, he joined her in reciting them.
“Ah! But these tears are pearls which thy love sheds,
And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.”
In other words, the disappointment she feels now will be rewarded later.
Janey slipped her finger in between the pages. “That’s pretty.”
She hadn’t read it with the fluidity she had the first piece.
“And appropriate, I think,” Tracker added. Before Sarah could ask the question he must have seen on her lips, he continued, “The key to poetry is often not what’s written, but what’s implied between the lines.”
Sarah didn’t hold back her smile this time. To her puzzlement, however, he ignored it and gazed out the window. What thoughts had these measured lines evoked? Maybe they weren’t about her at all. Nevertheless if they’d been alone she might have said Thank you.
#
The women fell silent, then began nodding as the rig rocked and swayed through the sandy ruts as it headed toward its first destination. Tracker remained on full alert.
They were several miles from St Matthews when the rhythmic, insistent squeal of the coach’s left rear wheel became strident. He was the first to detect the faint smell of burning wood. He stuck his head out the window and informed the driver they had an overheated hub. With a muttered curse the knight of the ribbons began reining in the horses.
“Ladies,” Tracker said firmly, “please stay inside while we attend to this problem.”
Before the wheels had stopped turning Freddie Swift leapt from the roof and positioned himself in front of the coach, sweeping his rifle through a hip-high arc in protective custody. Almost as quickly, Tracker sprang from inside the rig and took a mirror position guarding the rear.
#
A hundred yards back, Buck rode atop Gypsy, scanning the land as far as he could see. Uncertain what the immediate problem was, he remained a discreet distance behind the coach, spurred Gypsy to a gentle knoll for better vantage, slipped his binoculars from the saddle bag and monitored the activities below. Scanning the horizon, he spied a small mounted figure wearing a straw hat on the road ahead. Was it the red-headed man? Or a local plowboy?
Almost frantically he scoured the countryside. No sign of anyone in the trees. No horses unattended. No sign of anyone or anything out of the ordinary. Just a farmhand moseying along a country road on his horse. Buck removed the Henry from its scabbard and kept the stock tucked under his arm as he continued to survey the bucolic scene below. The rider was still a hundred yards from the stalled coach when he removed his hat and wiped his brow. Black hair, not red. Short, not long. Not Rufus Snead. Yet something about him didn’t feel right.
Meanwhile, Wes had removed a beam with a notch in one end from a toolbox beneath the coach’s chassis. He wedged it under the rear axle and urged the horses forward enough to lever the damaged wheel out of its sandy rut. After chocking the others, he unscrewed the hub nut with a wrench, greased the axle and proceeded with reassembly.