Henryson walked toward the tent's exit, Snipes joining him, now wearing the cap and bells.
"I don't see Ross picking up his winnings," Henryson noted as they passed the table where bets were being settled. "That's the first wager I've seen him lose in a coon's age."
Snipes nodded at Mrs. Pemberton, who was taking the eagle back to the stable, Galloway walking behind her with a thick stack of bills in his hand.
"Looks like she done pretty good for herself, though."
"Yes, sir," Henryson agreed. "I'd say she just bankrupted a whole carnival. I wouldn't be surprised to see the lot of them on the commissary steps tomorrow."
They stepped out of the tent and followed other workers up the ridge. Above them, the locust pole foundations made the stringhouses look like shaky dry-docked piers.
"I bet if you tugged good on just one pole every one of them stringhouses would tumble off this ridge," Henryson said. "That would be a wager near certain as betting on that eagle tonight."
Henryson paused and glanced back at the tent.
"I wonder what notion got into Ross's head to make him think her and that eagle could be beat."
"It wasn't in his head," Snipes said.
Twenty-nine
RACHEL DIDN'T SLEEP WELL THE FIRST NIGHTS in Kingsport. Every passing train waked her, and once awake she could think only of Serena and her henchman. She'd removed the pearl-handled bowie knife from the trunk and placed it under her pillow. Each time the house creaked and settled, Rachel grasped the knife's smooth handle. The child slept beside her, closest to the wall.
It wasn't until the fifth day that Rachel took Jacob outside. On an earlier trip to the grocery store, she'd found a rhubarb patch across the tracks from Mrs. Sloan's house. I can at least make her a pie, Rachel figured, a little something to thank the older woman for her kindness. She and Jacob crossed the tracks, the bowie knife and an empty tote sack in her free hand. The rhubarb was near a rusty boxcar so long motionless its wheels had sunk deep in the ground. She moved through a blackberry patch, the briars clutching at her dress. The boxcar cast a square of shade, and Rachel set the child in it. She took the sock from her dress pocket and spilled its contents before him. Now don't be putting them near your mouth, Rachel told him. Jacob placed the marbles in small groups, then pushed them farther apart.
Rachel began cutting the rhubarb, topping the plants the same way she would early-summer tobacco. It wasn't the sort of work she'd ever have thought you could miss, the purplish stalks so twiny it was like cutting rope, but it felt good to be doing something outdoors, something that had a rhythm you could fall into because you'd done it all your life. Next year I'll plant me a garden, she told herself, no matter where we are.
Soon small bouquets of crinkled leaves lay scattered around her. Rachel gathered up a handful of stalks, placed them in a stack like kindling. Jacob played contentedly, appearing glad as Rachel to be outside. A train came up the track, moving slow out of the depot. As it passed, a flagman waved from the caboose's railing. A pair of bright-red cardinals flew low across the tracks, and Jacob pointed at them before turning his gaze back to the marbles.
The sun had narrowed the boxcar's shadow by the time she'd cut the last stalk, stuffed the pile into her tote sack. More than enough rhubarb for five pies, but Rachel figured she and Mrs. Sloan could find a use for the extra. When she and Jacob recrossed the tracks, the sheriff's Model T was parked in front of the house.
"Looks like we got company," she told Jacob.
McDowell sat at the kitchen table with Mrs. Sloan, his right hand gripping a sweating glass of iced tea. An envelope lay on the table before him. Rachel set the rhubarb on the kitchen counter and sat down as well, but Jacob squirmed, began to whine.
"Probably needs changing," Rachel said, but Mrs. Sloan got up before she could and took the child into her arms.
"I'll do it." Mrs. Sloan said. "Then I'll take him out on the porch. You and the sheriff need to talk."
"Here," Rachel said, and gave the older woman the sock filled with marbles. "For if he gets fussy."
Mrs. Sloan jiggled the child in her arms, and Jacob laughed.
"Let's get you changed," she said, and disappeared with the child into the back bedroom.
McDowell took a sip of tea, set the glass before him.
"Likes the marbles, does he?"
"He plays with them every day."
"And doesn't try to eat them?"
"No, leastways not yet."
Mrs. Sloan and Jacob came out of the back bedroom and went out on the porch.
"What is it?" Rachel asked when McDowell didn't speak.
He looked out the front window where Mrs. Sloan held Jacob in her arms, the child reaching for a wind chime that dangled from the porch ceiling.
"I'm not sheriff anymore. They fired me and got them a lawman they can control."
"So there ain't nothing left to do but run and hide from them," Rachel said.
"I'm not running," McDowell said. "There's ways to beat them that don't need a sheriff's badge."
"If you do, we can go back home?"
"Yes."
"How long before you try to do something about them?"
"I have been trying," McDowell said bitterly. "My mistake was believing the law might help me. But I've come to the end of that row. If it's to be done I'll be doing it myself."
The ex-sheriff paused. He still looked out the window, but his gaze seemed upon something farther away than Mrs. Sloan and the child.
"You're going to try and kill them, ain't you?" Rachel asked.
"I'm hoping there'll be another way."
"I'd kill them if I didn't have Jacob to look after," Rachel said. "I would."
"I believe you," McDowell said, meeting Rachel's eyes.
A train hooted as it left the depot, the tea glass trembling as the train passed behind the house. McDowell reached out and held the glass still as the train clattered on south towards Knoxville. He stared at the glass as he spoke.
"If things don't work out the way I hope, you'll need to get you and the boy farther away than here."
"How far?"
"Far as this can get you," McDowell said, pushing the envelope toward her. "There's three hundred dollars in there."