The next morning, Caleb took the buckboard into town for supplies and to reshoe one of the horses, the big black gelding they called Handsome. Pim had also written a letter to Kate and asked him to post it. Besides these errands, he wanted to establish contact with more people from the area. He could ask the men he met about their wives, with the hope of expanding Pim’s circle, so that she would not feel lonely.
The town was not encouraging. Just a few weeks had passed since he and Pim had passed through on their way to the farmstead; at the time there had been people about, but now the place seemed lifeless. The town office was closed, as was the farrier. But he had better luck at the mercantile. The owner was a widower named George Pettibrew. Like many men on the frontier, he had a taciturn manner, slow to warm up, and Caleb had never managed to learn much about him. George followed him as he moved through the cluttered space, placing his order—a sack of flour, beet sugar, a length of heavy chain, sewing thread, thirty yards of chicken wire, a sack of nails, lard, cornmeal, salt, oil for the lanterns, and fifty pounds of feed.
“I’d also like to buy some ammo,” Caleb said, as George was tallying the bill at the counter. “Thirty-aught-six.”
The man made a certain expression: You and everybody else. He continued jotting figures with a stub of pencil. “I can give you six.”
“How many in a box?”
“Not boxes. Rounds.”
It seemed like a joke. “That’s all? Since when?”
George poked his thumb over his shoulder. Tacked to the wall behind the counter was a sign.
$100 BOUNTY
Mountain Lion
Present carcass at Hunt Township Office to collect.
“Folks cleaned me out, not that I had much to begin with. Ammo’s scarce these days. I’ll give ’em to you for a buck apiece.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
George shrugged. Business was business; it was all the same to him. Caleb wanted to tell him to stick it, but on the other hand, a mountain lion was nothing to mess with. He rolled off the bills.
“Think of it as an investment,” George said, depositing the money in his lockbox. “You bag that cat, this won’t seem so much, will it?”
Everything went into the wagon. Caleb surveyed the empty street. It really was awfully damn quiet for the middle of the day. He found it a little unnerving, though mostly he felt disappointed that he would return with so little to show for his visit.
He was about to drive out of town when he remembered the doctor Tatum had told him about. It would be good to introduce himself. The doctor’s name was Elacqua. According to Tatum, he had once worked at the hospital in Kerrville and retired to the townships. There weren’t many houses, and the doctor’s was easy to find: a small frame structure, painted a cheerful yellow, with a sign that read, BRIAN ELACQUA, M.D. hanging off the porch. A pickup tuck with rusted fenders was parked in the yard. Caleb tied up the horses and knocked. A single eye peeked through the curtain on the door’s window.
“What do you want?” The voice was loud, almost hostile.
“Are you Dr. Elacqua?”
“Who’s asking?”
Caleb regretted coming; there was obviously something wrong with the man. He thought he might be drunk. “My name is Caleb Jaxon. Phil Tatum is my neighbor, he said you were the doctor in town.”
“Are you sick?”
“I just wanted to say hello. We’re new out here. My wife is expecting. It’s all right—I can come back later.”
But as Caleb stepped off the porch, the door opened. “Jaxon?”
“That’s right.”
The doctor had the look of a derelict, thick at the waist, with a wild mane of snow-white hair and a beard to match. “You might as well come in.”
His wife, a nervous woman in a shapeless housedress, served them some kind of bad-tasting tea in the parlor. No explanation was offered for Elacqua’s curt behavior at the door. Maybe that was just how things were done out here, Caleb thought.
“How far along is your wife?” Elacqua asked, after they’d gotten past the formalities. He had, Caleb noted, put a little something in his tea from a pocket flask.
“About four months.” Caleb saw an opening. “My mother-in-law is Sara Wilson. Maybe you know her.”
“Know her? I trained her. I thought her daughter worked at the hospital, though.”
“That’s Kate. My wife is Pim.”
He thought for a moment. “I don’t remember a Pim. Oh, the mute.” He shook his head sadly. “The poor thing. Nice of you, to marry her.”
Caleb had heard statements like this before. “I’m sure she thinks it’s the other way around.”
“On the other hand, who wouldn’t want a wife who couldn’t talk? I can barely put two thoughts together around here.”
Caleb just looked at him.
“Well,” Elacqua said, and cleared his throat, “I can pay a call if she’d like, just to see how things are going.”
At the door, Caleb remembered Pim’s letter. He asked Elacqua if he would mind posting it for him when the office opened.
“I can try. Those people are never there.”
“I was wondering about that,” Caleb said. “The town seems kind of empty.”
“I didn’t notice.” He frowned doubtfully. “Could be the mountain lion, I guess. That happens out here.”