Paulette Jiles - News of the World

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.