In the Rogue Blood (20 page)

He entered the venerable town of Nacogdoches on a graying afternoon turning chill. Through this Texas gateway passed all manner of desperate men. Here had conspiracies and filibustering expeditions and rebellions been formed. Here had the Republic of Fredonia blazed brief and bright.

He came a shambling specter of ill fortune, his clothes ragged and foul, his boots red with dried mud and coming undone at the soles. He was footsore. His hair hung in tangles under his tattered hat. He carried his blanket rolled under his arm and the skinning knife in his boot top. Yet his spirits were high in anticipation of finding John and his ample poke at Flora Bannion’s house and soon enough being clean and newly clothed and washing down a beefsteak with a mug of beer.

He passed by an neat oak-shaded cemetery where a gravedigger left off his labor to regard him. Only his upper torso was visible aboveground and his eyes were hidden in the shadow of his hat. Edward tried to stare him down but the digger leaned on his spade and showed yellow teeth and continued to look after him till he was well down the road.

La Calle del Norte was chock-a-block with wagon traffic and horsemen and people afoot. He was obliged to step nimbly. A dogfight broke out in the middle of the street and a frighted mule kicked at the combatants and sent one yowling away on three legs. A banjo twanged in the darkness of a saloon and a fiddle followed its lead. He stared longingly at the dark door and yearned for a drink. He spied a man reading a newspaper in a chair tilted back against the front of a dry goods store and went over and peered at the front page. The headline was of Mexico and President Polk, the date the seventeenth of January, 1846. He’d been afoot more than a month.

Something about the date nagged at him a moment and then he recalled it as his birthday. He was seventeen years old this day.

He inquired of a clerk sweeping the sidewalk the location of Flora Bannion’s house and was directed to turn right at the next street and look for the pink two-story building with a flower garden in front of the porch. “But that old cat can be awful damned particular who she lets in,” the
clerk said, scanning Edward’s tattered aspect. “You’d be better welcome at Sally Longacre’s the next block over.”

The western sky was afire now and gleamed redly along the rippled clouds. An orange lantern by Flora Bannion’s front door was already lighted when Edward arrived at the gate. A pair of laughing men in suits were being admitted and then the door closed behind them. He went up the walkway and onto the wide porch and worked the knocker, an iron cast of a cat in repose. A neatly aproned young Negress opened the door but slightly and looked him over and wrinkled her nose against the smell of him. She said if he was wanting something to eat he could go around to the kitchen door. He said he wanted to speak with John Little if he was on the premises. The black girl said the only man on the premises was Bruno the caretaker who could sure take care of any smelly tramp troublemaker. Edward wanted to slap the cheeky bitch. Well then, he said, he’d like to talk to Flora Bannion. The girl said Miss Flora didn’t talk to strangers, least of all tramps and she started to close the door on him and he quickly said he had a message for Flora from her sister Molly in Biloxi. The Negress looked at him suspiciously and then told him to go wait at the kitchen door.

The woman who appeared there was fleshy and pouch-eyed and wore a shiny green dress. Her mouth turned down at the sight of him. She asked what message he’d brought from Molly and he said just that she hoped Flora was doing well and to let her know she was thinking of her. The woman’s lips tightened in irritation and she said, “Molly never said no such thing in her life. You’re just another damned liar looking to be given more than you deserve.” She made to shut the door and he hastened to say that he truly had been to Mrs. Clark’s house within sight of the beach at Biloxi. He quickly described it and said Mrs. Clark had recommended that he and his brother pay a visit to her sister Flora Bannion’s place in Nacogdoches and he had lied about the message because he thought she’d be pleased to hear it and be more likely to talk to him and answer him a question.

She stayed the door and eyed him closely and her expression softened somewhat. “All right, sonny,” she said. “Ask.”

“I just want to know if my brother’s here or been here, is all.” He explained that they had got separated in New Orleans but were agreed to meet here and he wondered if John had already showed up in search of him. He described him in detail but the woman shook her head and said no, he hadn’t been there, she would have remembered if he had, she
had an excellent memory for faces. “But now listen, honey,” she said, “you get yourself washed up and burn them awful clothes and dress up clean and come on back, you here?”

He went across the street and ducked his head in a water trough and scratched his festering scalp through his sopping hair and ducked his head again and scrubbed his face with his hands and shook the water off them and put his hat back on. He sat on the edge of the trough and regarded the pink house. If John had been there he would have asked after him and Miss Flora would have remembered. Maybe the stable boy in Dixie City didn’t give him the message. Maybe the boy or somebody else stole his possibles and the note secreted among them. Why else wouldn’t he be here? Maybe he had some kind of trouble back in New Orleans. Or maybe he ran into trouble after leaving town. There was no way to know. But if he wasn’t in trouble and even if he hadn’t gotten the message, wouldn’t he come looking for him in Nacogdoches? John had been standing right there beside him when Mrs. Clark told about this place.

There was nothing to do but to stay put till John showed up or he didn’t.

And if he don’t show?

He’ll show
.

Sure he will. But what if he don’t?

Then he guessed he’s have to go back and try to find him.

Back was a long way in the other direction.

He envisioned DeQuince lying in his own guts in the sickly yellow light of the streetlamp.

He’d find a rope round his neck back there is what he’d find.

And now he thought that Johnny might likely have found himself a generous girl back in Dixie City or somewhere along the way and was getting topped three times a day and twice that much at night and who could blame him if he wasnt in a hurry to leave off the pleasure? Hell, he likely hadnt had a full sober minute since they last saw each other. There Johhny was, having himself a time and here
he
was, looking like rotten possum on a stick and with no gun nor horse to call his own. He was a damn fool to be worrying about John when he had plenty enough to do just tending to himself.

But there was no denying that not even at any time in the past weeks of wandering alone in the woodlands had he felt as alone as he did at the moment.

After a while he went walking the streets and peered over fences and
kept a sharp eye for unlighted open windows but this was not a town to be careless about invitations to theft. He wandered about and studied the houses and slowed his pace as he went by a prosperous-looking whitewashed home with huge brick chimneys at either end and fronted by a deep verandah. A pair of mastiffs on long leather leashes fastened to the step railing showed their teeth in the twilight and growled lowly as he passed.

He took a turn by the old stone fort where a man in manacles was being led inside by two men in uniform. Other heavily armed men stood smoking on the lower gallery and ceased their conversation to watch him go by. He felt their eyes on him until he was to the corner of the street and around it.

At the second livery where he made inquiry he struck a bargain and spent the next two hours shoveling out the stalls and forking fresh hay, freshening water troughs, straightening tack on the walls. He was paid a silver half-dollar for his labor and then made his way to a brightly lighted tavern at the end of the street where the stablebuck had told him he could get a good meal for two bits and a fairsized glass of whiskey could be had for the same price.

A half-dozen horses stood at the hitching rails in front of the tavern and as he approached the doors he glanced at the animals and stopped short. Then stepped down off the sidewalk to more closely examine the sorrel mare and saw in the cast of light from within the room that it was the Janey horse all right, though she now carried a good saddle furnished with bedroll and wallets and hung with a canteen and lariat. She twitched her ears and he patted her and said, “Hey girl.”

He quickly scanned the other mounts at the rails but none was a black stallion. He eased up to the doors and peeked over them and saw in the well-lighted interior a pair of men conversing with the barkeep at the counter and another man drinking by himself at the far end of the bar. Five men played cards at a table toward the rear of the room. Just inside the door sat a solitary drinker with his head on the table and a glass and half-full bottle in front of him. He did not see the giant blackbeard anywhere in the room.

One of the card players stood up and bid the table goodnight. Edward stepped down beside the mare and when the man came out and mounted a tall blaze he said, “Pardon me, mister, I wonder can you tell me whose horse this is?”

The man settled into the saddle and looked down at him.

“Like to make the owner a offer on her,” Edward said.

The man wore a saddlecoat of good cut and a spotless white hat. His horse tossed its head and he settled it with a pat on the neck. “No offense, boy,” he said, “but you don’t look like you could make the price of a day-old glass of beer. I think you ought know that around here they will hang a horsethief quicker than you can say Sweet Jesus.”

“I aint no damn horsethief.”

“Course not. But now we’re on the subject, there’s nobody I’d rather see get his horse stolen than Marcus Loom. If I had an hour to spare I could begin to tell you my low opinion of the son of a bitch.”

“Is Marcus Loom whose horse this is? Is he inside there?”

“He is. The rascal with the red necktie and the long mustaches on his liar’s face. Luck to ye, lad.” He reined the blaze around and hupped it down the street.

Edward took another look into the room and picked out Marcus Loom easily. He wore a thin red necktie and a dark suit and a widebrimmed gambler’s hat. He sat with his back to the rear wall and laughed as he dealt out a hand.

Edward looked about and spied a crate leaned against the corner of the building. He stove it with his foot and wrenched free a pine scantling three feet long and over two inches square. He propped it against the wall just outside the entrance and lay his blanket roll beside it and then pushed through the doors. The men at the bar watched him advance directly on the back table and then stand there looking at Marcus Loom while the gambler considered his cards. The other three players looked up at Edward and appeared more curious than disturbed by his looming presence. Only one of them wore a pistol on his hip that he could see.

Marcus Loom tossed out a discard and said, “Dealer takes one,” and dealt himself a card. He picked it up and looked at it and carefully fit it into his hand. Then he gently lay the cards face down on the felt and leaned back with one hand under the table and looked up at Edward.

“Sorry to bother you at your game,” Edward said, “but I been told it’s you been ridin my horse.”

Marcus Loom stared at him for a moment as though he’d been addressed in a foreign tongue. Then smiled and said, “Beg pardon, sonny?” He looked at the others and winked. One of them chuckled.

“That sorrel mare out there’s mine. She was stole off me back at the Sabine ferry. I been huntin her all over and now I found her and just
want you to know I’m takin her back. I reckon the saddle’s yours so I’ll leave it on the porch.”

He turned and headed for the doors and was halfway to them when Marcus Loom said, “Lay hand to that horse, boy, and I’ll have you for breakfast.” As he went past the drunk asleep at the table he snatched up the whiskey bottle and slipped it into his coat pocket.

He stepped outside and glanced back and saw Marcus Loom coming for the doors with his face clenched tight and a pepperbox pistol in his hand. He picked up the scantling and gripped it tightly in both hands and set himself beside the doors. They flew open and Marcus Loom stepped out with the pistol before him and his eyes on the mare and Edward swung and hit him in the face and the
thonk!
likely carried to the next street. The gambler fell against the door jamb as the pepperbox discharged with a flaring yellow blast and the horses shied against their reins looped on the hitch rail. Marcus Loom sat down hard with his hat askew and his nose pouring blood and Edward brought the scantling down on the crown of his head like he was malleting a stake and the gambler folded over on his side and lay still.

Edward scooped up the heavy-barreled pepperbox and his rolled blanket and took up the mare’s reins and quickly stood up into the saddle as the others came spilling through the doors. One of them knelt to see about Marcus Loom and the rest stood looking at Edward sitting the mare with the reins in one hand and the pistol in the other. None brandished a weapon but the barkeep who was holding a short musket and Edward pointed the pepperbox at him and told him to let it fall and he did.

“Damn, Jeff, look there at your horse it’s been shot!”

The horse at the mare’s right side stood with its head lowered and snuffled wetly and a lanky man who’d been at the card table cursed and glanced up at Edward and then glared down at the unconscious form of Marcus Loom.

The man checking the gambler said, “He’ll live. Nose is broke and he’s got a knot the size of a apple on his head but he’ll live a while yet.” He stood and looked at Edward. “Boy, you give him a
thumpin
.”

“He damn well had it comin,” Edward said. “You all know he meant to shoot me without another word on the matter.”

“You say that there’s
your
horse?” someone said.

“Sumbitch who stole her took my whole outfit, down to my bootknife. Big rascal with a beard. Rode a black. Had him a pair of Texas revolvers.”