time. “Peter must know at once, Marsha.”
Nobody who ever heard that voice would doubt that it was accustomed to
command—and to be obeyed.
“Yes, Uncle.” Her backbone was ramrod stiff when she walked away, anger showing
in every line of her slim figure. I wanted to smile, but I didn’t. I kept my
face straight.
Locklear beckoned me to follow and led the way into a wing of the house. The
moment we passed through the tall doors I knew I had entered the rooms of a man
of a very different kind from any I had known.
We went into a small hallway where, just inside the door, there hung on the wall
a strange shield made of some kind of thick hide, and behind it two crossed
spears. “Zulu—from South Africa,” he said.
The large square, high-ceilinged room beyond was lined with books. On a table
was a stone head, beautifully carved and polished. He noticed my attention and
said, “It is very ancient—from Libya. Beautiful, is it not?”
“It is. I wish the Tinker could see it.”
“He is a lover of beautiful things?”
“I was thinking more of the craft that went into it. The Tinker can do anything
with his hands, and you should see his knives. We both shave with them.”
“Fine steel.” He rubbed out his cigar on a stone of the fireplace. “This tinker
of yours—where is he from?”
“We came together from the mountains. He was a tinker and a pack peddler there.”
When I had washed up in the bathroom I borrowed a whisk broom to brush some of
the dust from my clothing, and when I got back to the library he was sitting
there with a chart in his hands. When he put it down it rolled up so that I had
no more chance to look at it.
He crossed to a sideboard and filled two wine glasses from a bottle. One of them
he handed to me. “Madeira,” he said, “the wine upon which this country was
built. Washington drank it, so did Jefferson. Every slave ship from Africa
brought casks of it ordered by the planters.”
When we were seated and had tasted our wine, he said, “What are your plans, Mr.
Sackett? You are going west, you said?”
“California, or somewhere west.”
“It is a lovely land, this California. Once I thought to spend my days there,
but strange things happen to a man, Mr. Sackett, strange things, indeed.”
He looked at me sharply. “So you are the son of Falcon Sackett. You’re not so
tall as he was, but you have the shoulders.” He tasted his wine again. “Did he
ever speak to you of me?”
“No, sir. My father rarely talked of himself or his doings. Not even to my
mother, I think.”
“A wise man … a very wise man. Those who have not lived such a life could not
be expected to understand it. He was not a tame man, your father. He was no
sit-by-the-fire man, no molly-coddle. His name was Falcon, and he was well
named.”
He lighted another cigar. “He never talked to you of the Mexican War, then? Or
of the man he helped to bury in the dunes of Padre Island?”
“No.”
“And when he went away … did he leave anything with you? I mean, with you
personally?”
“Nothing. A grip on the shoulder and some advice. I am afraid the grip lasted
longer than the advice.”
Locklear smiled, and then from somewhere in the house a bell sounded faintly.
“Come, we will go in to dinner now, Mr. Sackett.” He got to his feet. “I am
afraid I must ask you to ignore any fancied slights—or intentional ones, Mr.
Sackett.
“You see”—he paused—”This is my house. This is my plantation. Everything here is
mine, but I was long away and when I returned my health was bad. My
brother-in-law, Franklyn Deckrow, seems to have made an attempt to take command
during my absence. He is not altogether pleased that I have returned.”
He finished his wine and put down his glass. “Mr. Sackett, face a man with a gun
or a sword, but beware of bookkeepers. They will destroy you, Sackett. They will
destroy you.”
At the door of the dining room we paused, and there for a minute I was ready to
high-tail it out of there, for I’d eaten in no such room before. True, I’d heard
Ma speak of them, but I’d never imagined such a fine long table or such silver
or glassware. Right then I blessed Ma for teaching me to eat properly.
“Will the Tinker be here, sir?”
“It has been arranged.”
Marsha swept into the library in a white gown, looking like a young princess.
Her hair was all combed out and had a ribbon in it, and I declare, I never saw
anything so pretty, or so mean.
She turned sharply away from me, her chin up, but that was nothing to the
expression of distaste on her father’s face when he looked up and down my
shabby, trail-worn clothes.
He was short of medium height, with square shoulders and a thin nose. No man I
had seen dressed more carefully than he, but there were lines of temper around
his eyes and mouth, and a hollow look to his temples that I had learned to
distrust.
“Really, Jonas,” he said, “we are familiar with your habits and ways of life,
but I scarcely think you should bring them here, in your own home, with your
sisters and my niece present.”
Jonas ignored him, just turning slightly to say, “Orlando Sackett, my
brother-in-law, Franklyn Deckrow. When he would destroy a man he does it with
red ink, not red blood, with a bookkeeper’s pen, not a sword.”
Before Deckrow could reply, two women came into the room. They were beautifully
gowned, and lovely. “Mr. Sackett, my sister … Lily Anne Deckrow.”
“My pleasure,” I said, bowing a little.
She looked her surprise, but offered her hand. She was a slender, graceful young
woman of not more than thirty, with a pleasant but rather drawn face.
“And my other sister… Virginia Locklear.”
She was dark, and a beauty. She might have been twenty-four, and had the kind of
a figure that no dress can conceal, and well she knew it. Her lips were full,
but not too full. Her eyes were dark and warm; there was some of the tempered
steel in her that I had recognized in Jonas.
“Mr. Sackett,” she asked, “would you take me in to dinner?”
Gin Locklear—for that was how she was known—had a gift for making a man feel
important. Whether it was an art she had acquired, or something natural to her,
I did not know, nor did it matter. She rested her hand upon my arm and no king
could have felt better.
Then a Negro servant stepped to the door. “Mr. Cosmo Lengro!” he said, and I’ll
be damned if it wasn’t the Tinker. It was he, but a far different Tinker than
any I had seen before this, for he wore a black tailored suit that was neatly
pressed (he’d bribed a servant to attend to that for him) and a white ruffled
shirt with a black string tie. His hair was combed carefully, his mustache
trimmed. All in all, he was a dashing and romantic-looking man.
Jonas Locklear was within my range of vision when he turned and saw the Tinker.
I swear he looked as if he’d been pin-stuck. He stiffened and his lips went
tight, and for a moment I thought he was about to swear. And the Tinker wasn’t
looking at anybody but Jonas Locklear. I knew that stance … in an instant he
could pick a steel blade to kill whatever stood before him.
The Tinker bowed from the hips. “After all these years, Captain!”
Virginia Locklear threw a quick, startled look at her brother, and Franklyn
Deckrow’s expression was tight, expectant. They were surprised, but no more than
I was. It was the first time I’d heard the Tinker’s name, if that was indeed it,
nor had I any idea he had that black suit in his pack, or that he could get
himself up like that.
Jonas spoke to me without turning his head. “Were you a party to this? Did you
know he knew me?” His tone was unfriendly, to say the least.
“I never even heard his right name before, nor have I known of anybody who knew
him outside the mountains.”
Not until we were seated did I again become conscious of my appearance. This
table was no place for a buckskin hunting shirt, and Deckrow was probably right.
I vowed then that this should not happen to me again.
That snip of a Marsha did not so much as glance my way, but Virginia Locklear
made up for it. “Virginia does not suit me,” she said, in reply to a question