THE CAPTAIN TOUCHED his hat to the U.S. Army sergeant in blue at the door, something not many men would have done, and hurried out. The air was damp; condensation sparkled on every surface and lay in a billion dots on the roof shingles. He saw Almay and the Caddos turn north up Trinity and in the opposite direction from his little hotel on Stemmons Ferry Road.
He walked fast through the unpaved streets to Gannet’s Livery and called out to the oafish stableman, harnessed the roan mare and then backed her into the shafts, settled the collar, hooked up the trace chains, turned the wagon facing out. He changed clothes as fast as he had ever changed in his life. Into the wagon he threw his portfolio and the bag of coins, and wrapped up the remains of their supper in the frying pan. He put his formal black reading clothes and coat over his arm. He stroked Pasha’s neck, wiped the flyspecks out of his eyes, and then tied him on behind. He left the tin pail for the man to return to the cookshop.
He said, I am going to get Mrs. Gannet. We will settle up in half an hour.
Hour, said the stableman. He sat up in his blankets where he had been sleeping in an empty stall with his handkerchief, for some reason, tied around his head and an empty bottle clinked on the nailheads in the floor. Half. Damned hurry. People running around middle of night. Then he fell back in the straw.
The Captain trotted down the dark streets of Dallas and then turned on Stemmons Ferry to the hotel. A few dim-lit windows here and there and they seemed sinister and spying. He ran upstairs and went to his room and packed the carpetbag. He hefted it and went next door. He rapped hard and fast.
Mrs. Gannet opened it in a nightgown that must have had eleven yards in the hem, her dark brown hair undone. He could smell the sulphur of a match; she had quickly lit their lamp. She wore a forest-green wrapper over the nightgown and her hair hung down her back and shoulders in shining planes. Her mouth was open. Behind her Johanna sat up out of her bed, fully awake, and planted both her square feet on the floor.
Mrs. Gannet was both calm and alert. Captain? she said.
Quick, he said. We have to leave tonight.
BEFORE HE STEPPED up on the foot plate he removed his hat to Mrs. Gannet and expressed his thanks. She was outraged and shocked at what Almay had said. She did not know Almay but she would know him now. Her eyes sparked in the light of the lantern she carried in one hand. She was furious. It gave her a bright and animated look and he was felled on the instant. He took her hand; it was short and strong and on her wrist was a bangle of silver and some sparkling red gems.
I hope I may do myself the honor of calling on you on my return? said the Captain. He smiled. I was thinking of picnics on the banks of the Trinity.
First, return, she said. And take care, my dear man.
He hesitated and then bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
When they pulled out into the nighttime streets she stood holding the lantern, and in its light motes of hay sifted around her like fireflies.
THEY SET OUT down the Waxahachie Road to the south because Almay and his friends would expect them to take the Meridian Road southwest. Then later in the night they could cut west and get back on the Meridian Road. He hoped that when Almay and Company saw no fresh tracks or sight of them on the Meridian Road they would turn back and look for them elsewhere. Maybe he and Johanna could gain three or four hours on them.
They trotted into the chain of hills that lay southeast of Dallas. They were called the Brownwood Hills. Before daylight they should come to a country cut up by the Brazos River into ravines and sliding red-rock cliffs, covered by live oak which had never been logged out. Some of them were as big around as millstones. He wanted to reach the river by daylight and pull off the road, up high, and watch for their pursuers. It would not take them long to bribe the stable hand for information. The man was a drinker. Drinkers were easy.
The rain had cleared and so they went at a good round trot. The sky was washed with clouds in one rainy line after another and the moon at three-quarters full seemed to be rolling backward. The road before them was indistinct and without perspective. It was difficult to estimate distances in moonlight. The Captain intended to put as many miles as possible between them and Almay and the Caddos before daylight.
The Captain was not averse to a fight but he was poorly armed. He took out the revolver and stuck it in his waistband on the right side, butt forward. He needed a holster. The shotgun was a twenty-gauge bolt action, a single shot at a time, and all he had was bird shot. He had only one box of cartridges for the revolver. He thought there might be close to twenty rounds. There had been no money to buy another box or a holster when first they came into Dallas and now late at night the town was shuttered and closed and those who were about were not people he wanted to meet.
The shotgun lay at the Captain’s feet under the dashboard, longways, loaded, the little lever on safety and he worried about it. The lever was too easy to shift. It was loose. He could grab for it and fire off a shot right into one of the horses before he could bring it to bear if he were not careful.
It was March 5 and cold, his breath fumed and his old muffler was dank with the steam. Above and behind them the Dipper turned on its great handle as if to pour night itself out onto the dreaming continent and each of its seven stars gleamed from between the fitful passing clouds. After several hours he found a track going west and took it and within two hours they were on the Meridian Road. The country here was sparsely settled and only occasionally policed. Indian raids out of the north were a given. They pressed on.
The girl sat in the wagon bed behind wrapped in the thick red and black jorongo. There was no method by which he could explain anything to her but she did not need explanations. Her family and her tribe had fought with the Utes, their ancient enemies, and the Caddos. They had conducted a long guerrilla warfare with Texas settlers and Texas Rangers and then with the U.S. Army. Often enough they had faced the howling, striving demons of the open plains: hunger, tornadoes, scarlet fever. She didn’t need to be told anything except that there were enemies in pursuit and she had already figured that out.
The road was open before them, a two-track stretch in the pale of the moon, rolling over the lifts and falls of the prairie country of central Texas. They passed a farmhouse set back among trees. The farm buildings appeared to be great dozing animals that had gathered near the house in the night. There was a light shining in a window. Somebody was waiting up for somebody. Pasha tested the air for the scent of a mare. Had there been one he would have called out, making promises he would never be able to fulfill, but since all he could smell was a donkey and another gelding he held his peace and trotted on. Here and there were copses of post oak holding up wiry armatures of limb and twig, rattling with old brown leaves, and in the cold night air a hissing swift shape passed in front of them.
The girl cried out. Sau-Podle! She bent herself forward and carried the red wool up around her nose as if she would not breathe the air. Sau-Podle brought news of a death; soon, here. It cut the air like a blade and trailed plump legs like a child’s in fluffy pantaloons.
Great horned, said the Captain. Ignore it, Johanna. Pretend it was a night hawk.
ELEVEN