“No,” said I.

  “You want to know about me?” he said.

  “No.”

  “I was born in New York,” said Saint. He reached into his pocket and took out a box of bullets. These he began to load into his pistol. I swallowed.

  “The bastard son of a politician. Got my education and made for the South. I’ve always been the adventurin’ kind.”

  I said nothing.

  “Still, I didn’t know Texas would be such a shithole.”

  “I want to know,” I said, “What the hell I ever did to you.”

  His blue eyes softened. But I’d be a fool to mistake that for pity.

  “Nothing at all,” he said. “I’m just plain sick of lookin’ at you.”

  “The feelin’s mutual,” I said.

  We heard the sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs. Someone banged furiously on the door.

  “Mister Saint! Mister Saint!” shrieked Maureen. “Come quick!”

  “What is it?” he called.

  “It’s Tim!”

  Saint got up like a shot and opened the door. I was right behind him. He tried to stiff-arm me back, but I must have been stronger than he thought, because I got my shoulder through the door frame and pushed so hard he stumbled.

  “Fuck!”

  We fell to the floorboards in a heap. I was quicker than him, scrambling up and dashing down the stairs past the startled Maureen. He took aim at me, but the gun misfired with a hiss.

  “Not in here!” Maureen screeched, grabbing for his arm.

  I jumped down the last three stairs and headed for the door.

  “Hold that woman!” Saint roared, but it was lost among the commotion in the parlor.

  The smell of spilled whiskey burned my nose. All the rusty harmonica music had stopped. Tim Barlow struggled amidst three older men, shouting curses that would have made Cal box his ears.

  “Grab ‘im!” roared one of the men.

  Saint fired his gun in the air. They stopped.

  “What the hell is goin’ on?” he said. “And why are you ugly sons-of-bitches pawin’ at my best cowhand?”

  “He shot our friend,” snarled one. “Right thur in the streets.”

  “He shot at me first!” screamed Tim, who looked more afraid than I’d ever seen him.

  “We’re holdin’ him down for the Sheriff,” said the other man grimly.

  “Aw, fellas,” said Saint. “He’s just a boy. We need ‘im for the drive.”

  A little girl came rushing to the door of the saloon. The front of her dress was a mess of blood and gore. She opened a mouth of gray teeth and said, “Puck is dead!”

  “No!” shouted Tim. “I only got his shoulder!”

  “It was his bad heart, Mammy says,” chirped the girl. She sucked on the end of her braid, looking around curiously at the scene. I’d frozen at the bar, still hoping to sneak out while they argued.

  “The Sheriff is comin’ over,” added the child. And she fled.

  “Son of a bitch,” sighed one man. He looked at Tim regretfully. “We was just gonna lick you. I didn’t come drunk enough for a hangin’.”

  “Now hold on a minute.” Saint strode forward. They turned their guns on him.

  “Hey now,” he said, putting on what I assumed was an impression of a New England gentleman. “He’s just a boy. One of our own.”

  “The law is the law.”

  “What’s your name?” said Saint, jutting his sharp chin at the leader of the gang.

  “Smith.”

  “Mr. Smith, I must ask you to be reasonable.”

  “I’m not listenin’ to you, Yankee,” said Mr. Smith.

  They jerked Tim up by his collar. I saw they’d already taken away his precious guns.

  “He’s got a Mother and three little sisters,” said Saint. “They’re relyin’ on his money. This ain’t justice.”

  “Don’t let ‘em hang me,” begged Tim.

  But they pulled him out into the street anyway. Saint followed closely, speaking very fast.

  “If it’s money y’all want, I’ll pay it.”

  “Puck had a wife,” growled one man. “And two sons. They deserve justice.”

  “This is a lynching!” spat Saint. “This ain’t justice.”

  “You mind your mouth, Sir,” snarled Smith. “Or you could be joinin’ him.”

  Folks crowded out from the little shops to watch. Farmers, miners’ wives, ratty children with no shoes and vacant eyes. The little group made their way to the end of town. They did this automatically. Humans were creatures of habit. This town had probably been using the same wide oak tree for hangings since they laid the first foundation here.

  The tree sat, fat and grotesque, with a strange reddish bark that blistered at the bottom. I imagined they had fed it on blood and bones for decades, and with each hanging it got fatter and uglier, like an engorged snake. One thick arm thrust out from the top. Over this they slung the rope that would hang Tim Barlow.

  I could have chanced my escape right there. I don’t know why I didn’t. But Tim had always been nice to me. I couldn’t just run off while they hung him.

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” he sobbed.

  “Bastard!” someone cried.

  “Son of a whore!”

  I pushed my way forward and grabbed the sleeve of one of the men. “Excuse me sir,” I said politely. “But I know this young man.”

  “Get off, bitch,” he snarled, whipping his arm away.

  Of course.

  They called for a horse, and some more rope. Both were brought very quickly. In a trice they had Tim’s hands bound behind his back and were tossing a rope over the arm of the oak tree. I blinked back tears.

  “It’s the Sheriff!” someone cried.

  Indeed, the Sheriff had arrived. He didn’t look that impressive- a small man with a too-wide chest and a big hat. He did nothing. He just stood on the edge of the crowd, his arms folded, trying to look important. His burly chest puffed under the bright badge. Might as well have pinned that thing on a tavern wall, it was so useless.

  Saint noticed him after I did. He edged towards him. I caught their conversation.

  “His gun misfired. It was an accident.”

  “Not how I heard it.”

  “Please, sir. This boy is important for our drive. The trail boss-”

  “Oh? Then why didn’t you look after him better?” said the Sheriff.

  “He’s just a boy.”

  “Old enough to know the law.”

  I took a last look at poor Tim’s face.

  He was white all over, and gray at the corners. His eyes streamed. That curling upper lip flapped. It would never be allowed to smooth out into handsomeness. He’d never grow any older. He’d never become a famous gunfighter.

  They had him bound up, sitting upright on the horse’s saddle. And suddenly I couldn’t look anymore.

  Saint was still arguing with the Sheriff. The eyes of the little crowd of Branson locals were fixed on Tim Barlow’s spectacle.

  Someone slapped the rump of the horse. It went racing out from under Tim. I imagined he made a last, feeble grab for it with his knees. I imagined he tried to scream something. Beg for mercy. What do people shout out when they’re dying? Anything they can.

  His last words, I think, were “Wait!”

  But the rope snapped taut. The rest was up to time. He jerked at the end of it like a wild thing. Inches from the ground, he was. A little taller and he’d be alright.

  The people of Branson watched Tim Barlow die.

  I slipped away.

  ᢇ

  I don’t know why I expected Cal would be back. I thought he would ride over the horizon and speak in his big voice and make everything alright. Even Joseph, with his calm voice and quick humor. Joseph would have thought of something. But neither of them came back.

  I made my way out to the cattle herd as they were hanging Tim. I figured it was the only sensible place to go. But as soon as I got there I realized I’d been mistaken.

  Butch Allison was there, talking with Stu Little and Jim and Miranda. I looked around for Guts. Nowhere to be seen. Likely with the herd, wondering where Tim had gone.

  I avoided the little threesome at the fire and went around the herd. I had some vague idea of finding Blossom and going after Cal. A lot of things went through my mind then. The smell of the Kiowa camp most of all.

  Boston seemed as far away as Egypt.

  Mary Harmin’s needlework.

  The pond at my father’s house.

  I wandered to the edge of the herd, and kept walking.

  In the distance I saw nothing but miles and miles of nodding grass. It looked like a sea. I wanted to drown in it.

  Cal, please come back.

  In the end do you know what I did? I sat right there in the grass, spread out in the folds of my Spanish skirt and the fringed Indian shirt. I laid my head in the grass and fell asleep. If the herd of cattle came to trample me, let them.

  It was the stupidest thing I’d ever done. Because a few hours later, Butch Allison found me.

  With him was David Harmin.

  7

  A black woman’s word against a white man’s counts for absolutely nothing in Branson, Kansas. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

  All David Harmin had to do was haul me into the town and tell everyone I was his escaped slave. And they believed him right away. In fact, someone even offered to whip me for him.

  The past month had done little to improve David Harmin’s already tragic appearance. His scraggly black hair had become scragglier. His nose took on the drooping red of a drunk’s, though maybe that was just sunburn. I thought he looked a little more stooped, a little angrier. Definitely, his temper was the same.

  “Just as I thought,” he sneered, when he had me back in Maureen’s room.

  “Thought what?” I snapped. “You been thinkin’ about a way to get Mary back?”

  The thing was, I still didn’t have it in me to be afraid of David. He was a sour man, shorter than me, and still cringed when bigger men raised their voices at him.

  I should have been afraid of him.

  “Just as I thought. You gone and found someone to whore after, and left me all alone to look for Mary.”

  “You wasn’t lookin’ for Mary,” I snarled. “I bet you’ve just been drinkin’ your way through the Southwest this whole time.”

  The nail hit close to the mark. He grabbed me by the chin. “You better hold that damn tongue, Ada.”

  “Or what, Mister Harmin?” I fired back. “I’ll scream so loud-”

  “I’ll have that man downstairs tie you up and lay you open with the strap, that’s what,” he said grimly. “Don’t think I won’t.”

  “I’m a free woman. That’s against the law.”

  “No such thing as a free negro in these parts.”

  I had no answer for that. He was right.

  It turned out David had been wandering around Oklahoma for the last month or so, trying to get some men together to go look for his gold. He’d come into the neighboring town, Mill Town, a couple days before we wandered into Branson.

  It was my own bad luck that Saint had been over to Mill Town to look for new recruits. He’d spied David in a saloon and recognized him immediately.

  Getting Cal out of the way had been part of their plan. But in the end Cal had ridden out of Branson on his own will. He’d relieved Butch of the duty of going to meet the contact in Baxter Springs. How convenient.

  David got up from the chair.

  “I’m looking for a way back to Boston,” he said.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “I think not. I need some money, Ada. And the way I see it, you’re the only asset I have.”

  “What?” I shrieked. “You’re going to sell me?”

  “Ah, she catches on.”

  I bolted for the door. He stepped in front of me. “You go down there and I’ll throw you to the men,” he hissed. “And you’re gonna wish all I did was have you whipped.”

  I drew back. No, I had to rethink this. David was a rotten snake. You didn’t fight a snake in its own hole. If I had to get the best of David, I had to hit him where it would hurt the most.

  “Fine then.”

  His wicked gray eyes lit up like lamps. “Take that dress off.”

  “It’s not a dress, it’s a-”

  “Take it off!” he barked.

  “No.”

  He stamped towards me.

  “Please,” I said. Begged. He liked that. It made him stop and consider.

  “You’re right. You’re all dirty from the road.”

  He pointed to the ewer of water on the nightstand. “Use that. And don’t try anything, Ada. I’m goin’ to turn you out tonight.”

  Idle threats, I told myself. But my heart knew otherwise. David slipped through the door and closed it. I waited to hear the lock turn, but it never did. I had no way out in here- the window was too high. Unlike those fairy tale stories, where the heroine saves herself with knots and blankets, I had no other way out.

  I went to the ewer in the nightstand. Splashed a little water on my face.

  Cal will come back.

  But what could Cal do?

  David had left his jacket on the chair. A sudden thought occured to me. I took the gold bar from my pocket and slipped it in his jacket.

  He came stamping up the stairs moments later.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “Come where?”

  “Downstairs.”

  I hadn’t done more than splash my face. He didn’t seem to notice. We tramped down the stairs together. It took everything not to wrench my wrist from his grasp.

  David sat me down next to him in the corner of Maureen’s bar. He ordered himself a pint of ale, and ordered me nothing at all.

  “What are we doing here?” I demanded.

  “Waiting,” he grunted.

  “For what?”

  He glared. I decided to hold my tongue.

  I watched him finish his drink. The tip of his nose glowed redder and redder, like the bottom of a prairie fly. Men began trickling in from outside. They were gray and dusty men. Men who had never seen pleasure. Men who lived their lives off spite and mistrust. Never love. They were not men like Cal Sampson. In my heart a cold stone of misery sat on top of a steadily-mounting dread. Tim Barlow’s frightened face kept flashing through my mind. They’d hung him without a second thought. A young boy like that.

  Tim had been nice to me, in a way. He’d always taken Cal’s side when the men took after me. And he was young. His youngness made the whole thing worse, far more than his kindness to me.

  “You don’t know how to be kind,” I told David.

  “Eh?”

  “You don’t know nothin’ about kindness.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  I shut up.

  David licked his thin lips. He jutted his chin towards one man walking up to the counter. The cut of this man’s clothes was a tick above the other Branson men. When he turned around I saw why. A shiny silver star glowed on his breast. A sheriff. But I didn’t recognize him as the Sheriff from earlier.

  “He’s the law in Mill Town,” explained David. “Look pretty, now.”

  “What?”

  “I’m calling him over. Sit up straight.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re going to make me some money.”

  “How?”

  “Show him a good time. Take him upstairs.”

  A roaring in my ears. I drifted, drifted away. This could not be real. This could not be happening. Something- anything- would walk through the door and take me away from this nightmare. Cal. Joseph. The Virgin Mary. I shrank into the chair; David got up and approached the man.

  They talked quick. The man’s eyes darted to me once or twice, and a little smile unfurled across his face.

  On the next table over someone had left a stack of playing cards. I snatched these up and had them in my hand when the Mill Town Sheriff approached.