She drew on a new page a simple cross with lines from it fanning out. He pitched up his arms and shoulders as if to ask what this means.
She wrote beneath the cross: God will signs down of you when you are mos4 i/1 need.
He thanked her and slipped the pad into his pocket. He sat with a far-off stare and when he finally turned to her, she looked away. She'd been looking at him too long and too intensely and when she realized it, she became self-conscious.
He suddenly had this feeling of boyhood, of who he'd been before ... the fall of angels, so to speak. The feeling was all around him in the scented dark, in the light from the church doorway, on the dry sage breeze. And above all, in the simple portraiture of that young girl with hands folded across her lap.
The pure aesthetic of being truly alive and filled with possibility possessed him. He closed his eyes and tried to completely absorb the feeling and so hold on to it. Then she touched his arm to say she was getting out of the car.
He tried to sleep that night, but he could not. He lay in bed in the tiny room he rented that was his whole world. This day in 1910 had washed upon the opposing shores of his existence, and while he lay there a deal was being exacted that would cast him upon the shores of yet another existence.
In the morning he was awakened by his landlord. There was a call on the hall phone. Justice Knox ordered him to come immediately to the courthouse, and to speak with no one. Rawbone was going to be released.
SEVEN
HE DOWNTOWN COURTHOUSE was an ornate three-story edifice that stood out grimly against the Spartan timelessness of the west.
There was no official federal courthouse; the U.S. court and federal offices were housed on the second floor. The building had a dome, and light from that dome spilled down through a ceiling well.
Justice Knox was in conversation with an attorney when John Lourdes arrived. He waited impatiently, the coming sunlight from the dome hot against his neck until the conversation was done. Knox, alone, approached him.
'Mr. Lourdes. I appreciate your promptness. We have a lot to-'
'Sir. Am I to understand that-'
'Mr. Lourdes, you will understand when I am done explaining. And then you will have no need to jump-start my conversation.'
'My apologies, sir.'
Knox took him by the arm and they paced off a few steps. Knox spoke privately about the previous night. The district judge had given Knox use of his private office so as few people as possible would know about the meeting. Knox had sat behind the judge's desk. He'd removed the one comfortable attorney's chair, leaving only a stiff-backed shaker for Burr when he arrived. Burr, dressed in an elegant evening suit, could well have been going to the opera. He'd sat in that rigid chair with his legs crossed and smoked with one hand while letting the ashes drop into the palm of the other.
'You had an operative in the Mills Building when my client arrived,' he said.
'Yes,' said Knox.
'And unless he was having coffee at the Modern Cafe or shopping at that pedestrian department store, he was on duty.'
Knox did not proffer an answer.
'We both know what profligates that building has started to attract since it became apparent there was going to be an insurrection. As I have indicated, my client possesses information you might find acutely relevant to an ongoing or future investigation.'
'We'll have him deposed and if his information proves to be reliable and valuable, then-'
'I have no intention of allowing my client to rely on the future goodwill of the federal government.'
'I see. That being the case, in what small way can you be of service to us?'
'My client has unique access to certain parties operating in strict violation of American law. My client has a singular curriculum vitae that allows him to come and go freely and without exception amongst the very element that you need to unearth, investigate and ultimately indict. In short ... for my client's services, you guarantee in writing an earned immunity.'
Burr stood. He walked to the window, opened it, then flicked his
