Tinker insisted on it “The biggest cow ranches are south,” he said, “down along
the Gulf coast, and some of them are fixing to trail cattle west to fresh grass,
or north to the Kansas towns.”
Now we’d come south and here the Kurbishaws were, almost as if they known where
we were coming. “No use asking for it,” I said, “we’d better dust off down the
pike.”
“Didn’t figure you would run from trouble,” the old man said. “Best way is to
hunt it down and have it out.”
“They’re still my uncles, and I never set eye on them. If they’re fixing for
trouble they’ll have to bring it on themselves.”
The old man bit off a chew of tobacco, regarded the plug from which he had
bitten, and said, “You ain’t goin’ to dodge it. Those fellers want you bad. They
offered a hundred dollars cash money for you. And they want you dead.”
That was more actual money than a man might see in a year’s time, and enough to
set half the no-goods in Texas on my trail. Those Kurbishaws were sure lacking
in family feeling. Well, if they wanted me they’d have to burn the stump and
sift the ashes before they found me.
San Augustine was a pleasant place, but I wasn’t about to get rich there. The
mare was far along, but it would be a few weeks before she dropped her colt.
The Tinker started putting that pistol together and I went to rolling up my bed,
such as it was. The Tinker said to the old man, “Isn’t far to the Gulf, is it?”
“South, down the river.”
The Tinker put the pistol away and started putting gear in the cart while I went
for the mare. It was just as I was starting back that I heard him say, “This is
the sort of place a man could retire … say a seafaring man.”
The old man spat, squinting his eyes at the Tinker. “You thinkin’ or askin’?”
“Why”—the Tinker smiled at him—”when it comes to that, I’m asking.”
The old man indicated a road with a gesture of his head. “That road … maybe
thirteen, fourteen mile. The Deckrow place.”
We taken out with our fat little mare, and the cart painted with signs to advise
that we sharpened knives, saws, and whatever. We walked alongside, the Tinker
with his gold earrings, black hat, and black homespun clothes, and me with a
black hat, red shirt, buckskin coat, and black pants rucked into boots. Him with
his knives and me with my pistol. We made us a sight to see.
Ten miles lay behind us when we came up to this girl on horseback, or rather,
she came up to us. She was fourteen, I’d say, and pert. Her auburn hair hung
around her shoulders and she had freckles scattered over her nose and
cheekbones. She was a pretty youngster, but like I say, pert.
She looked at the Tinker and then at the sign on the wagon, and last she looked
to me, her eyes taking their time with me and seeming to find nothing of much
account. “We have a clock that needs fixing,” she said. “I am Marsha Deckrow.”
The way she said it, you expected no less than a flourish of trumpets or a roll
of drums, but until the old man mentioned them that morning I’d never heard tell
of any Deckrows and wouldn’t have paid it much mind if I had. But when we came
to the house I figured that if means gave importance to a man, this one must cut
some figure.
That was the biggest house I ever did see, setting back from the road with great
old oaks and elms all about, and a plot of grass out front that must have been
five or six acres. There was a winding drive up to the door, and there were
orchards and fields, and stock grazing. The coachhouse was twice the size of the
schoolhouse back at Clinch’s.
“Are you a tinker?” she asked me.
“No, Ma’am. I am Orlando Sackett, bound for the western lands.”
“Oh?” Her nose tilted. “You’re a mover!”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said. “Most folks move at one time or another.”
“A rolling stone gathers no moss,” she said, nose in the air.
“Moss grows thickest on dead wood,” I said, “and if you’re repeating the
thoughts of others, you might remember that ‘a wandering bee gets the honey.’ ”
“Movers!” she sniffed.
“Looks like an old house,” I said. “Must be the finest around here.”
“It is,” she said proudly. “It is the oldest place anywhere around. The
Deckrows,” she added, “came from Virginia!”
“Movers?” I asked.
She flashed an angry look at me and then paid me no mind. “The servants’
entrance,” she said to the Tinker, “is around to the side.”
“You’re talking to the wrong folks,” I said, speaking before the Tinker could.
“We aren’t servants, and we don’t figure to go in by the side door. We go in by
the front door, or your clock won’t be fixed.” The Tinker gave me an odd look,
but he made no objection to my speaking up thataway. He said nothing at all,
just waiting.
“I was addressing the Tinker,” she replied coolly. “Just what is it that you do?
Or do you do anything at all?”
One of the servants had come up to hold her stirrup and she got down from the
saddle. “Mr. Tinker,” she said sweetly, “will you come with me?” Then, without
so much as glancing my way, she said, “You can wait … if you like.”
When I looked up at that house I sobered down some. Here I was in a wornout
buckskin coat and homespun, dusty from too many roads, and my boots down at
heel. I’d no business even talking to such a girl.
So I sat down on a rock beside the gravel drive and looked at my mare. “You
hurry up,” I said, “and have that colt. We’ll show them.”
Hearing footsteps on the travel, I looked up to see a tall man coming toward me.
His hair and mustaches were white, his skin dark as that of a Spanish man, his
eyes the blackest I’d ever seen.
He was thin, but he looked wiry and strong, and whatever his age might be it
hadn’t reached to his eyes… or his mind. He paused when he saw me, frowning a
little as if something about me disturbed him. “Are you waiting for someone?”
His voice had a ring to it, a sound like I’d heard in the voices of army
officers.
“I travel with the Tinker,” I said, “who’s come to fix a clock, and that Miss
Deckrow who lives here, she wanted me to come in by the servants entrance, I’ll
be damned if I will.”
There was a shadow of a smile around his lips, though he had a hard mouth. He
taken out a long black cigar and clipped the end, then he put it between his
teeth. “I am Jonas Locklear, and Marsha’s uncle. I can understand your
feelings.”
So I told him my name, and then for no reason I could think of, I told him about
the mare and the colt she would have and some of my plans.
“Orlando Sackett … the name has a familiar sound.” He looked at me
thoughtfully. “There was a Sackett who married a Kurbishaw girl from Carolina.”
“My father,” I said.
“Oh? And where is he now?”
So I told him how Ma died and Pa taken off, leaving me with the Caffreys, and
how I hadn’t heard from Pa since. “I don’t believe he’s dead,” I explained, “nor
that those Kurbishaws killed him. He seemed to me a hard man to kill.”
Jonas Locklear’s mouth showed a wry smile. “I would say you judge well,” he
said. “Falcon Sackett was indeed a hard man to kill.”
“You knew him?” I was surprised—and then right away I was no longer surprised.
This was the Deckrow plantation, the place the Tinker had inquired about. At
least, he had inquired about a seafaring man.
“I knew him well.” He took the cigar from his mouth. “We were associated once,
in a manner of speaking.” He turned toward the door. “Come in, Mr. Sackett.
Please come in.”
“I am not welcome here,” I said stiffly.
The way his face tightened showed him a man of quick temper. “You are my guest,”
he replied sharply. “And I say you are welcome. Come in, please.”
Almost the first person I laid eyes on when we stepped through the door was
Marsha Deckrow. “Uncle Jonas,” she said quickly, “that boy is with the Tinker.”
“Marsha, Mr. Sackett is my guest. Will you please tell Peter that he will be
staying for dinner? And the Tinker also.”
She started to say something, but whatever it was, Jonas Locklear gave her no