A Place Called Harmony (3 page)

H
UNTSVILLE
, T
EXAS

Clint Truman finally sobered up enough to realize just how crazy the sheriff’s plan was. He didn’t mind traveling across the state to look for work, but picking a wife from the women being released from prison tonight was loco.

Yet somehow, here he was standing next to a mountain of a lawman waiting for the prison gates to open.

Sheriff Lightstone stood close, probably making sure he didn’t run. The night seemed smoky with low clouds, and so much moisture lingered in the air Clint could feel it on his face.

“Now it’s not that hard, Clint. I’ve seen fellows do this before. Last month a man I’ve known for years met a little pickpocket outside these gates. He never had much luck with women, but they talked all night, then at dawn woke up a preacher. She had to pay, of course. Somehow my old friend couldn’t find his money.”

Clint didn’t laugh. He had no idea if the sheriff was telling the truth or making a joke.

“Way I see it,” Lightstone continued, “marrying you will look better to a woman on her own than her taking the only other choice.” He pointed with his head at a wagon pulling up twenty yards away. “If no one picks them up, that guy, who goes by Harden, offers them employment at a whorehouse down near Houston. He makes regular runs picking up women leaving prison. Once they step in that wagon there’s no going back to a regular kind of life.”

Clint looked at the two women waiting in the back of the wagon as the sheriff continued, “He bailed them two soiled doves out an hour ago from county jail. One knifed a guy. They kept her in jail until they were sure her customer wasn’t going to die. The other lady of the evening stole money from a patron at Harden’s place. She looked fine when Harden picked her up, but judging from the bruises on her face he made her sorry she caused him trouble. Women leaving prison and climbing in that wagon know exactly where they’re going.”

As Clint stared, the one with a black eye lowered her head. Neither woman looked to be eighteen, but both were worn down by life. He doubted either would make it to thirty.

Several other people waited around the gate, looking more like mourners than greeters. One man sat on a bench playing with his knife, striking it again and again into the corner of the bench. Clint noticed an old couple and a kid of about sixteen close to the locked door.

The gate rattled and a guard stepped out.

“Might not be many tonight,” Lightstone whispered. “Sometimes there is trouble in the prison and they don’t let out many. Used to let them out in the morning, but too many people complained about them walking the streets. County gives each enough money to take the stage out of town, but some spend it on drinks the first few hours they’re out.” He frowned. “I was kind of expecting one woman to be released tonight. She’d be worth considering even if we have to come back next week.”

Clint had already decided that he wouldn’t be coming again. This idea was far too crazy to repeat. Once the sheriff saw there was no wife material here, he’d drop the plan.

“This is a bad idea. Getting married because the job description says to bring a wife just doesn’t seem right,” Clint mumbled to himself, guessing the sheriff wouldn’t be listening. “How do I know one of these women hasn’t killed someone, like maybe her first husband?”

“I doubt any have done more than they had to, or more than any one of us did during the war. Toward the end we all stole to eat and killed to stay alive. I’m guessing they did the same.”

Clint didn’t argue, but picking a wife this way seemed like scraping the bottom of the barrel. He looked down at his worn boots and decided he was already at the bottom. Half the townspeople thought of him as a drunk, and the other half felt sorry for him and offered to buy him a drink. If he married an ex-con, some would say he was marrying up.

The first woman out of the gate ran toward an old couple standing as close as the guard would allow. All three hugged and cried. No matter what she’d done, she obviously was still their baby.

The next two walked out together, yelling for Harden to pull the wagon closer and take them home. One of the women winked at Clint as she walked by. “Come on by tonight, honey. I’m offering rides for half price to celebrate.”

Clint stared at their flimsy clothes. They were dressed for work already in ragged lace and see-through silk.

Lightstone filled him in on facts. “The women can wear what they were arrested in home, or the prison gives them one of the dresses they wore in prison. Most have worn that outfit for far too long already, so if they have anything else they change out of prison clothes.”

A middle-aged woman came out in what had to be the uniform she’d worn in prison: a tattered apron over a gray dress with a plain collar. A shawl made with little skill was tied around her shoulders but looked like it would offer no shelter from the rain.

The man with the knife stood and waited as she walked to him. “’Bout time,” was all he said as they turned and walked into the night.

Clint thought if he ever wanted a lower level of melancholy than he had every day, he’d come back and watch this scene again.

The last woman out was tall and dressed in a gray traveling suit that appeared finely tailored, but it was wrinkled. She looked almost a proper lady, but her clothes seemed a few sizes too big and her shoes were dilapidated and scuffed beyond repair. She held a bundle in her arms and another slung over her shoulder.

Clint glanced at a kid by the gate, thinking maybe he was meeting her, but he just shrugged and walked away. She obviously wasn’t someone he was looking for.

The woman raised her head to glance around, but her eyes were dull as if she had little hope. Her hair was too short to pull back and hung down, dark and lifeless, across part of her face. Anyone seeing her would guess she’d been ill. Prison thin. Moonlight pale.

Harden whistled and signaled that she could join him in the wagon, but the thin woman shook her head.

The guard shooed her along. “There’s a hotel down the road that’ll let you sleep there if you give them a day’s work come morning. They don’t take in most of the women who get out of here, but I’m guessing they’ll take you, Miss Karrisa. You tell them Sam said you paid your dues.”

“Thank you,” the woman in gray said, pulling the bundle she carried in her arms closer as if sheltering it from the rain.

Clint found himself staring and wondering what she’d done to end up in prison. She couldn’t be more than twenty-two or twenty-three. Her movements were slow, as if she were testing every step like an old woman on uneven ground. Maybe she’d been hurt or sick, or beaten.

Surely no one beat her on her last day of prison.

The thought turned his stomach.

Lightstone took one step in her direction and she moved away. “Miss,” he said too loud, then lowered his voice. “I’m the sheriff over in Huntsville and will be happy to give you a ride to the little hotel the guard mentioned. You’ll be safe with me, and I promise you’ll be safe there for the night.”

She looked up and Clint saw that she didn’t believe Lightstone. How many people must have lied to her, Clint wondered. Frightened round eyes set into dark circles looked his direction for only a moment.

“I might have a job for you if you’re interested,” the sheriff rushed on. “I could tell you about it and then you could pick which one you wanted: hotel work or my choice.”

Clint saw it then, pure fear so deep she couldn’t speak. He thought he was beyond feeling sorry for anyone but himself, only right now in the moon’s watery glow, he felt sorry for her. She had no one and nowhere to go. If one person had cared whether she lived or died, he would have met her here tonight.

Harden’s wagon rolled past. “You can have her, Sheriff; she’s too thin to satisfy a man. I’d lose money on her keep and that baby will be yelling, waking folks up.”

Clint saw the bundle move and realized what she carried out of the prison: a baby so small it had to be a newborn.

The guard closed the gate but turned to stare through the bars. “If the sheriff says he has a job, he probably does. I’ve never known the man to lie.”

The woman he’d called Karrisa took a step toward Lightstone. “I’d appreciate the ride, Sheriff, but I don’t know about the job.”

“Fair enough.”

Lightstone walked around the wagon while Clint followed the woman. When they reached the side of the wagon he offered to help her up, but she stepped back, out of reach.

As she climbed onto the bench, he again noticed her slow measured movements as if she were in pain.

Without asking, he tugged the bag from her back and tossed it in the wagon.

She raised her thin fingers from the bundle she carried in a slight wave of thanks to the guard. If she’d been mistreated in prison, it hadn’t been by him. The guard looked hard as stone, but he’d shown her a bit of respect.

Clint also nodded at the guard and climbed in the back of the wagon. She stared at him as if she feared he might be a wild animal, then slowly settled on the bench. Without a word, he draped his duster over her shoulders, shielding both her and the baby from the rain.

The ride into town was silent. The hotel would have been a long walk on this dark, rainy night. Clint tried not to stare at her sitting as still as stone next to the sheriff. For the first time since his family died, he thought of someone else. Karrisa.

Maybe she was a murderer, or a bank robber. Women were usually given far more leniency than men, so whatever she did, she must not have served long. Their prison was small and crowded. Some said it was more like a workhouse with guards. Like the men in prisons, the women grew their own food, made their clothes, and took care of stock. If the crop was poor, they ate little. If the crops were good, some was sold off to offset expenses. Life was hard everywhere in Texas, but it must have been near hell in prison.

The hotel, at the edge of town, wasn’t much. It looked like it had been an old stagecoach station and catered to mostly prison visitors or lawmen delivering new inmates or maybe travelers looking for a cheap place to stay. Clint would have passed it by and slept out under a tree, even on a night like this. Putting up with damp ground would be better than fighting bedbugs.

Sheriff Lightstone yelled, “Hello the inn,” as they neared.

An old man stepped to the doorway but didn’t call back a greeting. He had an apron tied around his waist and a shotgun lowered to the side of his leg.

“You got a meal for travelers, innkeeper?”

“We got stew, Sheriff. What you doing this far from your office?”

“Just came to eat your cooking. Hope that wife of yours made pie. Her buttermilk pie is worth the stop even on a night like this. I’ll buy three bowls of soup if you still got it warming.”

The old man moved inside with a nod. Like most folks since the war, they’d learned not to be too friendly.

Clint jumped out of the wagon and offered Miss Karrisa help down, but she didn’t take it.

When she turned to reach for her bundle, he grabbed it first. “I’ll carry it in for you, miss.”

She turned away without arguing, as if the bag were of little value to her.

They moved into a dark cavern of a dining area. Long, poorly made tables ran the center of the room. Clint removed his wet coat from her shoulders, and without a word she sat down close to the fire.

Again Clint couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. How long had it been since she’d stood close to a warm fire or had enough energy to care about anything?

The baby made a little sound and Clint remembered when he’d held his own daughters just after they’d been born. Probably as close to heaven as he’d ever get, he thought. That one moment, that first moment.

No one spoke until the innkeeper rattled into the room with a tray. “This is the last of the stew, Sheriff, so I won’t charge you for it, but the pie will be two bits a slice.”

Clint noticed neither the sheriff nor the lady asked if she could work for her board. Maybe the sheriff wanted to toss out his great idea first or maybe she didn’t want the job. She probably wanted to wait until she heard the sheriff’s offer before deciding.

When the food was spread out, they sat at a little table by the fireplace. Clint wasn’t hungry, but he ate, taking a bite every time she did. Her manners were polished.