Kathleen Kent - The Outcasts

As soon as she could, she walked along the path to her hiding place, welcoming the warmer air of the greenhouse pressing against her skin. The weather had begun to hold the biting tang of coming winter, and the low, heavy clouds were returning.

She seated herself and began writing a letter, but soon she heard a rustling sound, as though an animal was rooting around behind the greenhouse. She picked up a loose board as a club and opened the door, then cautiously walked behind the building.

Seated with his back pressed against the wall was the black man Lucinda had seen crossing the field. He was smoking, and he gave her a heavy look.

They regarded each other for a moment. He said, “This is my place.”

“Oh?” Lucinda crossed her arms. The odor of tobacco made her want to smoke as well. “I thought this belonged to Euphrastus Waller.”

He snorted through his nose and continued looking at her. “Do they know you’re a sportin’ woman?”

She thought perhaps she had misheard him, but the throbbing band of the morning’s headache tightened and turned sharp, stabbing her behind her eyes.

“I’m not passin’ judgment. I’m just askin’.” He flicked ash away with his fingers, watching her closely.

She stood transfixed by the expanding glow of the lit end of the cigarette, her mind frantically searching for the ways in which she could have revealed her true profession in Middle Bayou. The blood pounded in her face and she raised her voice in outrage. “How do you dare to insinuate—”

He shrugged. “Myself, I could give a goddamn. It’s not my business.” He stared off across the fields, dismissing her as though she’d become invisible.

The smell of the tobacco had turned acrid, making her nauseated, and using the walls for support, she turned and walked back into the greenhouse. She bent down to pick up her things and leave, but she felt light-headed, and empty spaces began seeping into her field of vision. As she reached her arms out for balance, her legs weakened, and she fell hard onto her backside, breathing raggedly. The familiar heaviness at the back of her tongue was followed by spasmodic shakes in her legs and arms, the small muscles at the base of her neck.

Her head jerked back, the rest of her body following the momentum, and she was vaguely aware of her head grazing the sharp corner of a packing crate. She lay faceup, twitching, looking at the glass ceiling, at the images of the dead soldiers floating disconnected above her, the blank spaces where their eyes would have been pale and ill-defined.

Nate rode next to Deerling, worrying the edges of Dr. Tom’s letter in his pocket with his fingers. The talk with the German woman had spooked him badly. He’d begun to imagine disasters in many forms visiting his own family. That he hadn’t yet received a letter from his wife served only to strengthen his growing disquiet.

Deerling had decided to travel directly to Harrisburg without stopping in Houston. Nate suspected it was his way of putting off hearing possible bad news about his partner, and Deerling remained quiet for a good while, his mouth downturned in thought.

Riding singly with the older ranger, without Dr. Tom’s affable, relaxed commentary on the weather, the terrain, or past events, with his head swiveling from side to side in constant movement, Nate observed how differently Deerling sat a horse when Dr. Tom wasn’t there: his face fixed in forward alignment with that of his mount, both hands on the reins, leaning into the rapid gait. Part of his alertness, Nate suspected, had to do with the horse itself, the stallion being young and more content to run than walk. But Deerling’s eyes swept the landscape in ceaseless fashion, as though he expected disaster at any turn.

Spending the few hours in Deerling’s company without the buffering presence of Dr. Tom had begun to make Nate’s nerves feel thin and spidery. He tried composing a letter to his wife in his head and was caught off guard when Deerling finally spoke to him. They had been riding for hours in silence and Nate twisted in his saddle to face him. “What?”

“I said, I should have let you talk to that woman. I’m too practiced in questioning violent men.”

Nate nodded, remembering the woman’s self-protective gestures. “She was scared.”

“With good reason. I’ve known McGill to backtrack and shoot a survivor. In Houston, McGill shot a man in a card dispute. The man survived and was taken to the same doctor’s clinic where Tom is now. McGill walked through the doctor’s front door, went up the stairs, and shot the man in the heart while he lay in bed recovering.”

Nate took note of the satisfaction in Deerling’s retelling of the story, his grim enthusiasm for the efficiency of the perpetrator, and he said, “I guess it was a good idea, then, your not telling Mrs. Shenck that, or Tom.”

Deerling cut his eyes to Nate but he finally pointed to Nate’s new Winchester and asked, “You fired it yet?”

“Not yet.”

Deerling legged himself off his horse and motioned Nate down as well. “Let’s see what distance we get out of it.”

Deerling paced off a hundred yards and Nate fired a few rounds into the trunk of a tree. He was pleased with the compactness of design, the ease of the lever action, and the accuracy. Deerling then walked out another fifty yards and Nate toppled a chokeberry tree, splitting the narrow trunk in half.

The ranger returned, held out a hand for the rifle, and fired twice into the nearer tree, splintering bark both times. “You may squeeze out a few more yards,” he said, handing the rifle back to Nate, “but you’re not likely to be doing any great distance shooting with it anyway.” He pointed with two fingers to his eyes. “You’ll want to be close up when you engage.”

Nate held the rifle upright at his side, resting the half-moon curve of the stock on his thigh. “Thank you for this.”

Deerling nodded, shifting self-consciously, and looked away. “Many a time the thing that saved me was not my accuracy but the sheer number of weapons I had to hand, the number of rounds I could fire off. We’ll make sure, Tom and me, that you’re outfitted properly.”

They watched the clouds approaching from the Gulf, mountainous, gray, and featureless on the underside, but white and rounded high up, covering over the morning sun and diffusing the light. And yet the grass and a few large cedar trees on the eastern horizon showed in sharp relief.

“Tom looked bad when we left,” Deerling said. “I think he’s appreciated all your consideration. I know I do.”

He put his back to Nate for a moment and then walked to his horse and pulled the Whitworth from its saddle case. He pointed to one of the bare trees in the distance and asked, “Would you say that’s a good quarter mile away?”

Nate considered the distance and said, “About.”

Deerling then handed him the rifle. “Here, why don’t you take a shot. You’ll be one of the few men who can say he’s fired a Whitworth.”

Nate, awkward with this unexpected gesture, managed to smile, and said, “Thanks, Captain.”

Deerling showed Nate how to sight down the brass side scope and explained how to load the powder and wadding and how to ramrod the hexagonal bullet down the barrel.

“You’ll be able to take one shot, and one shot only. I have just five bullets left,” Deerling said.

He let Nate take his time centering the target within the reticles of the scope. Nate pulled back the hammer, but before he could squeeze off the shot, Deerling placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I just need to know one thing, Nate,” Deerling said. “I need to know that whatever order I give you from now on, you’re going to follow it, or it will not go well for one of us.”