world like it didn’t matter an inch to him, like he owned it, with a scarred face and a mouth that stretched back to his jaw. He looked at her and I saw his face go all hungry and then he looked all scared.”
“Scared of what?”
Connelly thought about it. “Scared of me, I think,” he said.
“Why would he be scared of you?”
“I don’t know. He looked at me and just was.”
“He looked scared of you just the other day, too.”
“I know. Don’t know why, though.”
“What was she like? Your daughter?”
“Like her mother. Which was good. She had blonde hair and she was smart. Smart as hell. When she was five she could name every bird in our garden. Said they danced for her, danced when I wasn’t looking. Maybe they did. I don’t know.”
“Where’s her mother?”
“Back home in Tennessee.”
“She let you go?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t even sure if we were married anymore. Not really. One day it was like two strangers stole our lives and we didn’t do anything more than walk through the house. I said I was going to put things right. I was going to go out and find that man and make things right.”
“Did she understand?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
They sat in silence for a while.
Lottie said, “What time do you think it is?”
Connelly shrugged.
“I think I’ll follow Hammond’s idea. I’m tired. You should think about it, too. You look dog-tired.”
“It’s the dust. That’s all.”
“If you say so.” And she left.
Connelly waited for her to be far away. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He opened it and eased his fingers in and took out a tiny folded-up piece of paper, shiny with age and wear. He unfolded it. In some places it was worn until it was like cloth. On it was a charcoal drawing, done with some skill but not much. A picture of a girl’s face, smiling and laughing.
He had paid a man at the fair to do her portrait. Hung it up in the living room later. Then when that life was over and he left, it had been the only thing he had taken. It was the only valuable possession he owned and the only thing that brought him to his feet in the morning and kept him walking in the day.
He tried to imbue it with color. Tried to use his imagination to project the things the drawing missed. Her crooked smile. Kitten’s teeth. Her hate of the rain and love of the wind. And her eyes were green. He remembered that.
“Your eyes were green,” he told the picture. “Green. They were green.”
He looked at it, letting time pass in silence, then folded it up and put it back in his wallet. Then he just sat.
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning the wind died and though the dust still hung in the air they ventured out. They walked about through the town but they could not see anyone through the clay haze. None of them went to the house the scarred man had stayed in, nor did anyone suggest doing so.
They buried Ernie twenty paces from the dried river beneath the oak. They wrapped him in one of the blankets and covered him with layers of stone and earth and Jake tried to say something but could not. Pike stood at the head of the grave and said, “Lord, we lay this man to rest, fallen in the road that You have set for him that leads to glory. And in his trials and efforts to follow this road surely he has moved on to better worlds than these. His death was cruel but his life was righteous and we shall remember him as one of Your warriors. His memory shall stir us forward on the path and so he shall live forever as we try to achieve Your works. Amen.”
“Amen,” said Roonie.
The others muttered their own thanks. Jake stared at the rocks and did not move for the better part of an hour, even when called.
They walked farther into the hills in the direction the scarred man had gone. They were starving for meat as they had eaten nothing but a shared handful of beans and cornmeal in the past days. Roosevelt took his gun and found a nest of rabbits and tried to shoot some. He missed several times, stirring them up.
Lottie said, “Here. Let me see it.”
He looked at her doubtfully.
“Let me see it. I’ve shot before,” she said.
“So have I.”
“Let me see it, Roosevelt.”
He gave it to her. She took it and they sat for a while, watching, and then she picked up the gun and aimed carefully. They could not see what she was pointing it at. Without warning she fired, surprising everyone but Lottie, and she got to her feet and walked into the brush. There they found a mewling coney, bullet drilled into its side. She approached it, uncertain, and Pike strode forward and took it and broke its neck.
“That was well done,” he said.
“I should have killed it in one shot.”
“It’s killed, either way,” he said.
They cooked it and one other she managed to get and ate them with wild spring onions. They camped underneath the runny red sky and when they woke Pike said, “We have a decision to make. We’ve lost him. We’ve lost the scarred man. But we know the direction he was going and we know he could not be going far. Who knows this area?”
“I know a little,” said Roonie.
“What would you say?”
“About what.”
“About where he’s gone, of course.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Could be a ways, could be a lot of places. Nearest town is some fourteen miles, I’d say.”
“He’d want to move fast,” said Connelly.
“And why’s that?” Pike asked.
“He knows we’re on to him now. He knows how close we are.”
“So?”
“He likes to ride the rails. Where’s the nearest freightyard, Roonie?”
“Ferguson,” he said. “Straight north of here. Lots of cattle cars through there.”
“Then that’s where he’ll be,” said Connelly. “Dollars to pesos.”
They nodded. “I see sense in that,” Hammond said.
“We’re agreed?” said Pike. “We keep together and keep moving, make for Ferguson?”
“It’s our best shot,” said Monk.
Jake frowned and rubbed his hair. “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?” said Lottie.
“Just don’t. I don’t… I don’t…” He sniffed and looked over his shoulder to where his brother’s grave was.
“We have to move,” said Pike.
