News of the World (7 page)

T
HE CAPTAIN WENT
out and locked the hotel room door behind him. He stood in the hallway. He could hear her begin a Kiowa chant. This could mean anything. It could mean she was resigned, it could mean she was going to hang herself with the curtain cording, or set the place on fire, or go to sleep.

At least she didn't have a weapon.

At the desk he laid down the key and said, She was a Kiowa captive. I am returning her.

But Captain! You'd think she'd be happy! The young man at the desk had protuberant eyes and in his hands was a false mustache. He was shaping it with a pair of nail scissors. You'd think she'd be skipping about and clapping her hands! That sounds like she is about to stab herself! It's operatic!

I know, said the Captain.

Where is she going?

To near San Antonio.

You mean you are putting up with that all the way to San Antonio? Perish and forbid!

Young man, stop speaking in exclamation points. I have no idea what to do about it.

The desk clerk breathed out, long and carefully, with his eyes closed. He often played bit parts at the playhouse, usually a page or a messenger. He said, Go get Mrs. Gannet to stay with her. We can't listen to this all night.

THE CAPTAIN SAW
that Mrs. Gannet had quite a lot of rich brown hair knotted in complex braids coiled all around her head. She had taken off her bonnet to beat it on a stall rail to knock the dust off. She was instructing the stableman in a method of removing Chicago screws from a bridle.

Yes ma'am! he said, and turned and crossed one leg over another and fell down. Well Billy be-goddamn bangtree, he said. Legs, floor, unexpected. His words were slurred.

Peter, she said. You are swearing. Get up.

Things! he said. Under hay. Trip a person.

Well then, pick them up, she said, gently. Yes, Captain? She tried to smile.

The Captain stood formally with his hands crossed in front of him. He asked her to come and stay the night with Johanna but did not, of course, mention the other reason, which was that it would be delightful, yes, enchanting to think of her sleeping in the room next to his. He offered her a dollar to compensate.

Captain,
please,
she said. I am delighted to help.

That evening was the first time in the last week he could, he hoped, rest without cares, without tension and fear. Fear that the girl would run away and be lost and die of hunger, would
try to swim the Red to get back to her Kiowa family. For the first two days he had wondered if she might attempt to kill him. Or herself.

Mrs. Gannet had come prepared to spend the entire night with her nightgown and other articles in a small brass-clasped thing that looked like a green fabric saddlebag. He opened the door to the room where Johanna sat on the floor cross-legged, rocking herself. Mrs. Gannet drew a light and delicate piece of divinity from her jacket pocket and held it out. Johanna fixed her blank stare on it. The Captain saw her make the sign for “poison.”

He said, Eat half of it, Mrs. Gannet.

She understood immediately and bit half of the white candy and said, Mmmmm!

Johanna reached up and took the other half from her in a glacially slow movement and bit down on the taste of vanilla and sugar and egg white, felt the light crinkling of divinity shell in her mouth. She ate it unsmiling. The Captain knew Mrs. Gannet had made it that afternoon, for Johanna. Divinity was very difficult to make. He backed out slowly and heard the lock click to.

The walls of the hotel were made of cheap deal board and he could hear everything from the room next door and wished he could not. He sat down to outline his articles in ink, his pen nib scratching across the rough newsprint with a noise like avaricious mice. He blew on the ink and then laid the newspapers aside and took up the letter paper to write to his daughters in Georgia. The room smelled of new, raw lumber and the harsh soap they had used to wash the quilts and sheets.

My dearest daughters Olympia and Elizabeth,
he wrote.

Kep-dun! Johanna banged on the wall. She was sobbing.

He banged back. Cho-henna, he said.

Olympia's husband, Mason, had been killed at Adairsville, during Johnston's retreat toward Atlanta. The man was too big to be a human being and too small to be a locomotive. He had been shot out of the tower of the Bardsley mansion and when he fell three stories and struck the ground he probably made a hole big enough to bury a hog in. The Captain's younger daughter, Olympia, was in reality a woman who affected helplessness and refinement and had never been able to pull a turnip from the garden without weeping over the poor, dear thing. She fluttered and gasped and incessantly tried to demonstrate how sensitive
she was. Mason was a perfect foil and then the Yankees went and killed him.

Olympia was now living with Elizabeth and Emory in the remains of their farm in New Hope Church, Georgia, and was quite likely a heavy weight. He put one hand to his forehead.
My youngest daughter is in reality a bore.

There was a pounding on the wall: Kep-dun! Kep-dun!

He got up and pounded back. Cho-henna! he said. Go to sleep!

The Captain heard a soothing voice on the other side of the wall. The way one spoke to restless horses: firm, low-voiced. Commands that were somehow gentle. Earlier he had heard Mrs. Gannet and the girl going down the hall to the bathroom. A small shriek of fear as the toilet flushed. You could hear everything in this hotel. He wished he had spent more money and had taken rooms in one of the big stone hotels where one's privacy was assured.

He paused, went back, and blotted it out from “and thus” to “Burning” with a corner of torn paper, then struck through
it, held the paper slantwise to the light, and saw that it was unreadable. Good. No dreadful memories or things that would induce weeping.

He started to write about the Comanche and Kiowa raids across the Red River, but saw that once again his news was falling into the alarming, the frightening, and he wanted his daughters and Emory and the children to come back to Texas. They had lived through enough. Their journey to Texas would be difficult as most bridges in the South had been blown up or burned during the war and the railroads and rolling stock shelled to pieces. There was no public money to rebuild. It was not only Sherman. It had been General Forrest who had blown up most of the railroads between Tennessee and Mississippi to keep the Yankees from using them. At any rate, they were all in tatters. Food and clothing were still scarce. They would have to apply for passes from the Union Army to travel the rutted and cratered roads, probably in two wagons with only one man for two women and two children and that man with only one arm. They would have to cross the Mississippi at Vicksburg if there was a ferry. They would have to carry money to buy food and forage while the roads were crawling with highwaymen.

Kep-dun!

He heard a low sobbing. He bent his head to the paper. He thought Indians never cried. It pulled him away from these legal land questions. It tore his heart.

He closed his eyes and laid down his pen and tried to calm himself. So much had fallen to the old since seven hundred thousand young Southern men were casualties of war. Out of a population of a few million. He must arrange for his family to be together again, he must enter into litigation, he must make a living with his readings, he must deliver this child to her
relatives who would no doubt be utterly appalled by what she had become. For a moment he was completely at a loss as to why he had agreed to take her to Castroville.

For Britt. A freed black man. That's why.

In the next room, something broke. More quiet tones from Mrs. Gannet, the unflappable.

No use trying to write anymore.

Your affectionate father, Jefferson Kyle Kidd.

He heard the loud objections in Kiowa as the girl was dragged down the hall to the bathing facilities. One cannot think with a ten-year-old Kiowa-German captive throwing soap and ceramics. After a while they came back and there was more sobbing. Then Mrs. Gannet began to sing.

He bent his head and listened. She had a good voice, a clear light soprano. She sang “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross” and then “It Is Well with My Soul.” He slowly shifted the letter paper and began to fold it.
When peace like a river attendeth my way
. . . very good. At age seventy-one he deserved peace like a river but apparently he wasn't going to get it at present. The town of Dallas beyond the window raised up its new raw-lumber buildings and the air was woven with crashing wheel noises and shouts of the men at the ferry landing. What must the girl think of these man-made bluffs and rigidly straight byways? The sobbing died down. Mrs. Gannet sang “Black Is the Color.” Not an easy song to sing unaccompanied. An old folk song in the Dorian mode. The girl was listening. It was much closer to the Indian way of singing. The unexpected turns and strange Celtic intervals. He wondered why he had not in the past year offered his attentions to Mrs. Gannet and then he
knew why. Because his daughters felt he should remain forever loyal to the memory of their mother and if they found out about it Olympia and Elizabeth would have had a galvanized tin hissy, one apiece.

At last it was quiet on the other side of the deal board wall. He turned down the kerosene lamp. Nearly eight. Showtime.

A
LOW TRAVELING TIDE
of gleaming white clouds told of more rain to come. There was good seating at the Broadway. That meant people were more comfortable and would therefore be patient and listen longer. The Captain brought his own bull's-eye lantern as always. He set it on a plant stand to his left, opposite to that of right-handed readers, and trained the light on the dense gray print. He laid down his small gold hunting watch at the top of the podium. At the front double doors two U.S. Army men were stationed, as there were whenever there was a public meeting at any time. Texas was still under military rule.

This might end in a few months if Washington would seat the Texas delegation. The recent election for Texas governor had not been between the old Southern Democrats and the Union-loyal Republicans. No indeed. The old Southern Democratic party was finished in Texas. The fighting was between two factions within the Republicans. The one led by Davis was extreme in its demand for dictatorial powers. The one led by Hamilton, not so much. Both were robbing the state blind.
There was no point in appealing to one's congressman to help clear up land titles in the state. They were too busy lining their pockets. Clearing the Betancort land title would take up Elizabeth's time for years. She would enjoy it very much.

There was a good crowd and he heard the coins ringing into his paint can at the entrance. He greeted the crowd as always, with a statement of thanks to the proprietor of the Broadway, a comment on the state of the roads from Wichita Falls to Spanish Fort and then here. Then he shook out the
London Times.
It was in this way he asked people to enter another realm of the mind. Places far away and mysterious, brought to them by details which they did not understand but which entranced them.

He read of the attempt by the British Colonial government to enumerate the peoples under their rule, a census, in short, and the rebellion of the Hindu tribes against the census takers because married women were not permitted to say aloud the names of their husbands. (Nods;
they are all beyond rational thought in those far countries
.) He read about a great windstorm in London that toppled chimney pots (
What is a chimney pot?
He could see it on their faces.) and then of the new packing plants in Chicago which would take any amount of cattle if they could only get them. In the crowd were men who were contemplating driving cattle all the way to Missouri if they could evade the savage tribes and they listened with deep interest. The Captain read of the Irish pouring into New York City, ragged crowds unloaded from the passenger steamer
Aurora
, of the railroad driving into the plains of the new state of Nebraska, of another eruption of Popocatépetl near Mexico City. Anything but Texas politics.

Someone called, Why are you not reading from Governor Davis's state journal?

The Captain folded his newspapers. He said, Sir, you know very well why. He leaned forward over the podium. His white hair shone, his gold-rim glasses winked in the bull's-eye lantern beam. He was the image of elderly wisdom and reason. Because there would be a fistfight here within moments, if not shooting. Men have lost the ability to discuss any political event in Texas in a reasonable manner. There is no debate, only force. In point of fact, regard the soldiers beyond the door.

He slapped his newspapers into the portfolio. He said, I am an aggregator of news from distant places, and as for the Austin paper and the
Herald,
you can read them for yourselves. The Captain shut the flap on his portfolio and buckled it tight. And fight among yourselves on your own time and not during my reading.

He heard
hear, hear!
from among the wet and shining heads of the men who held their hats in their hands and from some of the women in their pancake hats and their bonnets.

He blew out the bull's-eye lantern and took it and the portfolio and stepped down from the stage. Among the crowd filtering out he saw, with a dropping feeling, the pale-haired man and the two Caddos he had last seen in Wichita Falls and perhaps Spanish Fort. He knew the Indians were Caddos because of their blunt-cut hair, sliced off just at the jawline, their shirts of a dark blue with a tiny print of yellow flowers. The Caddos liked printed calico. The blond man sat relaxed in a theater chair with an ankle cocked up on the other leg and his hat on the point of his knee. He was watching the Captain.

As the Captain stepped down from the lectern people came to their feet; some followed him. He shook the hands that were held out to him and accepted thanks and compliments. Everybody smelled like wet wool and camphor and a sneezing small woman said, Thank you, Captain, and shaking her hand gave him a moment's pleasure, to see her bright cheeks. Perhaps he had taken her away from worry and preoccupation for a short while, what the Captain called the “hard thoughts.” And a man with a grave look and a silver lapel badge in the shape of a shamrock from Hancock's Second Artillery Corps, Union. The Captain shook his hand firmly. No matter what side you were on, if you had survived Gettysburg you were to be congratulated. Perhaps he had briefly escorted the man's mind into the lands of the imagination—far places, crisp ice mountains, falling chimney pots, tropical volcanoes.

The manager of the Broadway came to him with the Captain's share of the money. He had made nearly twenty dollars in good U.S. silver. He wadded the sack of coins into his coat pocket. A man went around putting out the candles in the chandeliers with a long-handled snuffer. Inside the Broadway Playhouse it grew darker and darker.

Captain, said the blond man. He stood up. My name is Almay.

And these are your friends, said Captain Kidd.

They are. The blond man put on his hat.

You followed me from Wichita Falls. I think I saw you at Spanish Fort.

I have business here and there, said Almay. How much do you want for the girl?

Captain Kidd stopped stone cold. For a moment, a long moment, he stood expressionless and utterly still.
I was wrong. Somebody does want her.
He put on his own hat. He settled it carefully on his white hair. He looked down at Almay, several inches shorter. He blinked once, slowly, as he buttoned up his black overcoat. He noted the two Caddos directly behind him.

Almay said, You know the Army don't patrol the roads here like they do up on the Red. I could catch you on the road and just take her, you know. But I am being a fair and straightforward man with you. How much?

The Captain said, I hadn't settled on a price.

Or found a buyer.

No. Nor found a buyer.

Well, let's consider it. I'm not close-fisted. I pay for what I want.

Do you, now?

Captain Kidd had left the .38 back in the hotel room. It was too big to pack around under the three-button frock coat he wore for readings and it was heavy. Perhaps it was best. The feeling that was at present almost overwhelming him would have led him to draw and shoot the man on the spot. And then where would Johanna be when he was in jail?

Yes. Tell me the name of anybody who says otherwise.

I couldn't be bothered, said Captain Kidd. Of course, I want assurances that the girl will be well treated.

A bit better than what the Indians did to them, said Almay. His lips flattened out into a strange, stiff smile. At least she'll get paid for it. Blond girls are premium, premium.

Do tell. The Captain nodded amiably. His mind was tearing
ahead like a steam engine into the next hour, the next day. How much ammunition he had, if they knew where he was going, and if they did, if they knew what road he would take.

He said, I tell you what, Almay. Meet me tomorrow morning at the Tyler Stage Roadhouse at about seven. We'll work out a price. I did not take in much tonight and I am in need of funds.

Good. Almay's eyelids seemed heavy. He had gray eyes and the thick and colorless skin of people from Scandinavia or Russia. He seemed half asleep or he was dreaming of some other world that was not this world, a place fragmented and without illumination.

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.