Major Jones headed toward the empty seat next to Pearl, and Josiah held his breath.
Jones still seemed more interested in a young brunette girl who sat two seats down from Pearl. The brunette must have caught Jones’s eye, an inviting look maybe drawing him away from Pearl. He immediately sat down next to the girl, after she was properly seated, and resumed his conversation with her, almost ignoring Pearl. He did offer a quick nod to her, which Pearl ignored, then turned away.
Josiah was still unsure where to sit, next to Pearl or somewhere else? When he looked to Pearl for guidance, she looked away. It almost looked like she had tears welling in her eyes.
Before Josiah could move his feet in a step toward Pearl, he felt a hand softly touch his shoulder.
“Here is your seat, sir,” Juan Carlos said, urging Josiah to a chair about midway in the table.
Josiah turned and started to protest, but the look on Juan Carlos’s face warned him off. He did as he was instructed, taking the chair, sitting immediately. The only way he could see Pearl was if he leaned forward and looked down past the plates of the guests in between them. Even he knew that would be rude, so he just sat, hands in his lap, staring straight across the table at one of the most beautiful roast turkeys he had ever seen. His stomach growled, reminding him he was hungry.
To Josiah’s relief, Rory Farnsworth sat down next to him.
Farnsworth was a sprightly man of medium height, who always wore a finely waxed mustache. He was younger than Josiah, making the sheriff not quite thirty years old. He had attended some fancy college out east, and he was always happy to spout on about the lessons he learned about the law there, and how he put his knowledge to practice on a daily basis.
Truth be told, the Farnsworth family was heavily connected in the political arena. His father, Myron, was a banker and was seated, along with Farnsworth’s mother, to the left of the sheriff. Rory was unmarried, a bachelor in the social circle, always on the lookout for a girl with wifely aspirations. Surely he’d tried to woo Pearl . . . maybe been rebuffed, maybe not, Josiah did not know, and didn’t care to presume, or know, such a thing.
“Good to see you, Wolfe,” Farnsworth said, offering Josiah a firm handshake.
Josiah shook the man’s hand. “Good to see you, too, Sheriff.”
The two men had worked together before Josiah’s venture into Lost Valley over the previous summer, when Suzanne del Toro had been murdered by her own brother, who had wanted nothing more than the business that Suzanne ran—a sad story of greed. After the brother was killed, Blanche Dumont filled the vacuum.
“You can call me Rory here.” Farnsworth smiled and set about making himself comfortable, unfolding a cloth napkin and placing it in his lap.
Like a child, Josiah watched Farnsworth’s every move and aped him as closely as possible.
“Thanks, Rory,” Josiah said.
“Kind of surprised to see you here, Wolfe.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re . . . um, not usually at these kind of things.”
“I’m a friend of the family.”
“I know you rode with the captain, but that’s a different thing.”
“I suppose it is.”
More chairs scooted out and in, the noise of the settling guests still a bit loud. The piano player was still at work, too. The tune he played was softer, background music, a song Josiah did not recognize but could still hear. He pulled himself forward and mustered a quick look down the table. The seat next to Pearl was still empty . . . and she looked just as distraught as she had previously.
“That was quite the spectacle today your Rangers put on, wasn’t it?” Farnsworth said.
“Um, what? Oh, you mean the Comanche Donley escorted into town?”
“Yes. Darn near scared the daylights out of the entire city. Most of our fine citizens have never seen an Indian close up.”
“I’m not sure that was Donley’s intent. Scaring them, I mean.” Josiah was still not sure what Donley’s true intent was, other than to make a spectacle of himself—a matter at which the Ranger excelled.
“It most certainly was his intent to scare everyone. Didn’t you follow him down to the square?”
“Where?”
“The Capitol. He walked that savage right up to the governor’s office.” Farnsworth lowered his voice at that point, realizing that Governor Coke was clearly in earshot of their conversation. “The governor relieved the Ranger and his two partners of duty right then and there.”
“What happened to the Indian?” Josiah asked.
“You haven’t heard?”
“No. Tell me he hasn’t escaped.”
“Hardly,” Farnsworth said. “The Rangers—or ex-Rangers—still have custody of him, claiming ownership. They are putting him on display at the Opera House tomorrow at noon. Two bits a person. Can you imagine paying good money to see a Comanche shackled and snarling?”
“No,” Josiah said, looking away from Farnsworth. “I can’t.” He was not surprised in the end at Donley’s ploy. Making money off an Indian was a distasteful thought, but Donley had always seemed to be involved in money transactions in one form or another. When Scrap raced Missy, Donley was the first one to collect the bets, and the winnings and losses.
Josiah chewed on the information he’d just learned from Rory Farnsworth and started to wonder about the broader consequences of Donley’s action. But in reality all he cared about was the fact that he had persuaded Scrap not to have anything to do with Donley’s charade. Scrap would surely be on the bad end of the stick if he’d joined up with the other Rangers as they presented Big Shirt to the governor.
The crowd grew silent as one more person made their way into the dining hall, drawing Josiah’s attention away from his thoughts and hunger.
Captain Pete Feders walked into the room, head up, a stoic look on his scarred face, dressed in a semblance of clothes that looked like a uniform but bore no epaulets, tassels, or medals. There was not one speck of dirt to be seen on the man’s clothes. Even his boots shined like a mirror.
Feders walked right behind Josiah, and made no acknowledgment of his presence.
The captain had his eyes on one thing: Pearl. He sat down immediately next to her, said something into her ear that only she could hear, then took her hand softly into his.
Pearl quickly yanked her hand away from Feders’s grasp, and glared across the table at her mother, whose demeanor had changed from bored ambivalence to bemused contentment, once Pete Feders strutted into the dining hall and took his place next to Pearl.
The mystery of the empty chair was solved, and Josiah was not the least bit surprised to learn whom it had been saved for.
CHAPTER 30
Josiah stared at the plate full of food. He had lost his appetite even though it was the prettiest plate of food he had ever seen. His senses were overwhelmed. The smells wafting up from the table were like nothing he had ever experienced before—vegetables lathered in butter and unknown spices, more kinds of breads than Josiah knew existed, deep red wine in crystal glasses instead of beer or coffee in tin mugs, and beefsteak cooked to perfection, emitting a familiar but refined aroma, one that would never be found at a campsite. Still, he could not bring himself to eat.
“What’s the matter, Wolfe?” Rory Farnsworth said.
“Nothing.”
“Sure, and President Grant is your long lost uncle.”
“Might be.”
“You’d be sittin’ up at the head of the table if that was the case.”