Chương 7
“Everything.”
“And he married you anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Who performed it?”
“Reverend Holt.”
“Did he ask for proof I was dead?”
“He asked whether I believed you were.”
Silas looked back.
Nora’s eyes met his.
“I did,” she said.
The words were quiet. They did not ask forgiveness.
A knock came at the door. Before either answered, Deputy Eli Mercer entered with his hat in his hands. He was younger than Silas had thought the previous day, perhaps twenty-seven, with red skin above his collar and the uneasy shoulders of a man recently promoted beyond his courage.
“Mrs. Kincaid,” he said. “Mr. Rourke.”
“Deputy,” Nora replied.
Mercer shifted his hat. “Mr. Voss has filed a complaint regarding thirty-eight dollars and certain business records.”
Nora’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
“Are you arresting her?” Silas asked.
“Doctor says she cannot be moved.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To advise her that the judge will hear the complaint Friday. And to search her possessions.”
“You have a warrant?”
Mercer produced a folded paper.
Silas read it. The warrant permitted a search of property in Nora’s possession at Mrs. Pike’s house and the livery barn. It bore the signature of Justice Alden Shaw, who owned the feed store with Voss.
“This is not the circuit judge,” Silas said.
“No.”
“It is Voss’s partner.”
Mercer’s ears reddened. “It is lawful.”
“Lawful things can still stink.”
Nora said, “Silas.”
He gave the paper back.
Mercer searched the room while Mrs. Pike watched from the doorway and complained whenever he touched clean linen. He examined Nora’s dress, shoes, a small cloth purse containing six cents, two hairpins, and a button. He searched the children’s bundle, unfolding each item as if treason might be sewn into Jonah’s underclothes.
Mae stood in the hall with her arms crossed.
“Those are ours,” she said when Mercer opened a wooden box.
“I will put them back.”
“You put Mama’s comb in the wrong place.”
Mercer moved it.
Jonah began to cry when the deputy picked up a rag doll with one black-button eye. Mae took it from him.
“You cannot search that,” she said.
Mercer looked helplessly at Silas.
Silas said, “You can search it. Do it gently.”
Mae’s eyes struck him like thrown stones.
The deputy squeezed the doll, felt along the seams, and handed it back. No papers appeared.
They went to the barn next.
Silas followed. The search produced Nora’s old blanket, an empty medicine bottle, two tin plates, and a damp matchbook from a saloon in Dodge City. Mercer wrapped the bottle in cloth.
“Why take that?” Silas asked.
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
“Mr. Voss says she stole it, too.”
“Medicine he gave her?”
Mercer looked miserable. “You should speak to Sheriff Dugan.”
“Where is he?”
“Double V ranch.”
“Of course.”
When they returned to the house, Mae sat on the porch step with the doll in her lap. She had used a piece of string to retie its dress.
Silas sat beside her.
She moved away.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“You helped him.”
“He had a warrant.”
“You could have stopped him.”
“Then he would have arrested me and searched anyway.”
“You are bigger.”
“That matters less than it should.”
Mae picked dust from the doll’s yarn hair. “Papa Caleb would have stopped him.”
Silas looked at the yard.
“Maybe,” he said.
“He was brave.”
“I expect he was.”
“He was not afraid of Mr. Voss.”
“Nora says he owed Voss money.”
“That does not mean afraid.”
“No.”
She glanced at him, suspicious of his agreement.
Silas rested his forearms on his knees. “What was he like?”
Mae’s fingers slowed.
“He sang badly. He could fix clocks, but only if they were already almost working. He put sugar on beans when Mama was not looking.”
“That sounds criminal.”
A tiny movement touched her mouth before she stopped it.
“He said horses know when you are lying.”
“They do not.”
“He said they do.”
“Horses believe everyone is hiding food. That is different.”
Mae considered this. “He smelled like wood smoke.”
Silas nodded as though it were useful information.
After a while, she said, “He knew you were my other father.”
Silas turned.
“He called you that once. Mama got mad.”
“What did he say?”
“That if you came back, I could decide what to call you.”
The yard seemed suddenly too bright.
“When was that?”
“Before he died.”
“Did he think I would come?”
Mae shrugged. “He said men come back when they get tired of being wrong.”
Silas almost laughed, but the sound would not form.
“Your papa Caleb may have been wiser than me.”
“He was.”
“I believe that, too.”
Mae looked down at the doll.
Silas noticed a line of fresh stitches along its back. Nora’s sewing had always been small and even. These were large, crooked, made by a child.
“Did you repair her?” he asked.
Mae pulled the doll closer. “The seam broke.”
“When?”
“On the wagon.”
He did not press.
That afternoon Silas rode to the Double V.
The ranch spread across a low valley north of town, its fences running farther than the eye could easily follow. Cattle crowded the watering pens. A windmill turned above a deep well, squealing once each revolution. Voss’s brand marked the barn, the wagons, the tool chests, and the hides of six horses tied near the bunkhouse.
Silas asked for Sheriff Dugan and was directed to a shaded porch behind the ranch office.
Dugan sat with his boots on a rail and a wet cloth over his eyes. He was in his fifties, thick through the chest, with a badge pinned to his vest and a revolver laid on the chair beside him.
“Headache,” he said when Silas approached. “If you plan to shout, do it from town.”
“I want to discuss Nora Kincaid.”
“Everybody does.”
“Voss says she stole payroll.”
“She admits it?”
“Yes.”
“Then we have saved time.”
“He also says she took records.”
May you like
“Did she?”
“She says she burned them.”
