The Winter Family (32 page)

Austin jogged toward the other horse, which had wandered off, its neck stretched out, sniffing the ground.

“Go home,” Tom said. He put his spurs to the side of his horse and they galloped south, with only the stars and the moon to watch them. He glanced back to make sure Homer was still on his horse, and he saw that Austin was following him.

“Go home!” Tom shouted.

But the boy was probably right anyway. There was nothing to do but ride as hard as they could.

Inside Homer De Plessey’s general store, Bobby was hitting the furniture with his ax and screaming. He smashed up the glass counter and strewed the candy across the ground and went into Homer’s little kitchen in the back and kicked over the pots. He tromped down into the cellar and then came back up again.

Dick watched from across the street with a crowd of people. Some were in chairs. Every now and then Dick would take his hat off and wipe his forehead.

Eventually Bobby came out holding the ax and Dick approached him. Bobby saw him coming, and his eyes narrowed and he pointed at him with the ax.

“There’s nothing in there! But if you think …”

“Bobby, come on now. You didn’t hardly look, you just broke everything up.”

“There’s nothing in there! I ain’t going to let you let him off!”

“No one’s going to let him off; he’s in the jail, Bobby! And there he’ll stay. All right? I promise you. There he’ll stay. Now, if you’ve calmed down some we’ll go back and take our time and keep looking till we find something. All right?”

“I’m done looking,” Bobby said, his shoulders heaving.

“No, no,” Dick said, taking Bobby’s arm. “Just come with me, all right? He’s not going anywhere.”

Bobby jerked his arm free but he watched Dick step through the broken door, and eventually he followed.

It smelled sweet inside. Dick didn’t pay much attention to the mess of goods thrown everywhere, other than a brief look at the shattered candy counter. Instead he lit the lamp and flipped through the notebooks and papers.

“What do they say?” Bobby asked.

“Not much,” Dick said. “Just appointments and orders.”

Homer De Plessey had neat handwriting. His accounts were concise, without notes or commentary. They gave nothing away. Dick examined them as long as he could before Bobby got impatient, and then he put the books down and searched under the counter. Nothing.

“All right,” Dick said. “We’ll go through those books a little more carefully later.”

The back room smelled overwhelmingly of some chemical that made Dick feel light-headed.

“Do you smell that?” he asked Bobby.

“Smell what?” Bobby said.

A shelf of ingredients for sweets and a stove stood at the other side of the room. The strange chemical odor grew stronger as Dick walked in that direction. Glass jars were smashed all over the floor. Essence of peppermint, aromatic oils, orange and rose water, licorice, sacks of cocoa beans and sugar, condensed milk. All of it splattered and mixed together, but that odor, still, hanging in the air, overpowering it all.

“You don’t smell that?” Dick asked.

“Smell what?” Bobby asked. “I don’t smell so good.”

Dick set the lantern on the counter and crouched down to pick through the broken bottles, sniffing deeply, until he felt so dizzy he had to steady himself and accidentally put his hand in a pool of corn syrup. He wiped it off on his pants and picked up a nearby bottle labeled
PEPPERMINT EXTRACT
. It was larger than the other bottles and had a wide neck and stopper instead of a dropper.

One whiff of it almost knocked him out. When Dick stood he felt like he was on the deck of a ship being tossed in a storm.

“Hold this,” Dick said, passing Bobby the broken bottle, “but don’t smell it.”

“What’s it say?”

“It says peppermint,” Dick said, “but it smells like the Yankee dodge.”

“What’s that?”

“Ether.”

“Why’s he got ether in the peppermint jar?”

“Good question, Bobby,” Dick said.

Dick wiped his sticky hand on the counter and looked at the tools. Spoons, ladles, cookie cutters, bowls, cast-iron pots. And knives. He took one out and pressed his thumb against the blade and it cut his skin like it was moving through air.

Finally he got down on his knees next to the stove and poked through the ashes. He raked his fingers back and forth through the soot and burned wood. It might have been his imagination, but he thought there was some faint heat left in the stones.

What temperature did sugar melt at? It was pretty hot. Dick’s wife had made some candy in her day. Dick himself preferred pies. They were healthier, it seemed to him, and more flavorful. Candy was too hard or sticky. Bad for your teeth. Too sweet too. And it did something to kids, wound them up. But they’d loved it, and when you lost five in the crib before you got your two you weren’t inclined to deny them anything. And so she’d made it, stirring and stirring, saying something about what temperature the sugar was supposed to be before it’d melt. All Dick knew was that it’d been pretty hot.

And then his fingers closed on something cold, and he brought the little piece of metal out and cleaned it off in his hand. It was a locket, warped and twisted by the heat almost out of recognition. Almost.

Matt Shakespeare was sitting comfortably with his feet up on the sheriff’s desk. His tin of hemp cigarettes was open, the air was fragrant with their smoke, and he was making a series of discordant sounds upon the harmonica. Matt’s whole family was or had been musical. His mother had played the piano, and Austin did as well,
besides having the voice of an angel at church. Lukas had been a fair hand at the banjo, before he had lost interest in the instrument, and he had been a fine whistler. Matt had no musical talent, but it did not stop him from occasionally playing the harmonica, badly, with the air of someone enormously enjoying a very private joke.

Because of the noise he was making, he did not hear the crowd approaching until they began to pound on the front door.

Matt jerked his feet off the desk and dropped one hand to his revolver.

“Sheriff?” Dick called from outside. “Sheriff, open up.”

“Dick?” Matt said.

“Sheriff, open up,” Dick repeated.

“Dick, what’s going on out there?”

“Where’s the sheriff?” Dick said.

“Open the goddamn door!” Matt heard Bobby scream, and then a roar from the crowd.

“What’s going on, Dick?” Matt said.

“Where’s the sheriff?” Dick asked.

“Are you deaf or stupid?” Matt shouted. “You tell me what the hell is going on out there, Deputy, and why you’re leading a goddamn lynch mob …”

“We found proof,” Dick said.

“What?” Matt said.

“We found proof,” Dick said. “He had a pint of ether in a bottle marked ‘peppermint extract’ and we found things in his oven. A locket, a bit of cloth, something that might have—”

“Sheriff!” Bobby bawled. “You open this goddamn door! You hear me!”

“All right, Bobby,” Matt said, his brain scrambling. “All right, you found your proof. Just calm down. Now we’ll have a trial and you don’t have to worry—”

“Sheriff!” Bobby screamed so loudly that Matt jerked his head away from the door. “I ain’t talking to no brother-killing son of a whore! I’m talking to you, god damn it! Open this fucking door! We ain’t having no trial.”

“Bobby,” Matt said, “you know how the sheriff feels about lynchings.”

“Sheriff!” Bobby screamed, aggrieved. “Answer me!”

“Oh my god,” Dick said, very softly. Which was about right.

“He ain’t in there!” someone else cried.

“I been watching the whole time!” Kendron Parkins said. “He’s got to be in there!”

And then the ax hit the door with such force the blade went all the way through. Matt thought it might be stuck, but Bobby yanked it back out, tearing away a large chunk of the door with it.

“Do that again and I’ll shoot!” Matt cried.

The ax hit the door.

Matt cocked his pistol but then thought better of it. Instead he holstered his gun and raised his hands as Bobby came crashing inside. Bobby took one glance toward the cells, which confirmed what he surely must have already known: there was no one left but Matt Shakespeare. Then he lifted the ax above his head and lunged forward.

But before the ax fell Kendron tackled Big Bobby from behind and drove him into the side wall.

“Let me go!” Bobby screamed. “Let me go!”

“No, no, wait,” Kendron said.

“I’m a tired of waiting!” Bobby screamed, weeping now. “That’s what you all say! I’m not gonna wait no more! My Jenny! Oh god. Where is he? Where’d you take him?”

“We gotta ask him, Bobby,” Kendron said. “We gotta ask him.”

“Look what you done,” Dick said, stunned.

“You think this was my idea?” Matt said. “That’s what you think?”

The mob kept pouring in. Matt backed up to the far wall, his hands still raised in the air.

“Get off me!” Bobby said. “Get the hell off me!”

Kendron let go of Bobby. They both came over to Matt.

“Where is he?” Bobby said.

“What’ll you do if I tell you, hmm?” Matt said. “Why don’t you just calm down for a second?”

“Matt,” Kendron said, shaking his ancient head. “You better just tell us which way the sheriff went.”

Eventually, Matt shrugged.

“All right,” he said. “He took him up to his sister-in-law’s place in Orangedale. Was going to put him in the cellar till the trial. He’s safe as safe can be, Bobby. Ain’t no one going to turn him loose. Just didn’t want him getting lynched in case you guys busted in here. Which, as it happened, you did.”

“The sheriff’s lost his mind,” Dick said. “Lost his damn mind.”

“Come on now,” Matt said. “I ain’t saying I’d have done the same. But he’s a law-and-order man. You knew that when you voted him in. You all wanted a law-and-order man. Remember? How things were before? He was the man who changed them.”

Bobby didn’t bother to reply, only turned to leave, but Kendron caught his arm and then spoke to Matt.

“Matty,” Kendron said. “We know it was the sheriff that put you up to this. And there’s no one that can say you haven’t done your duty.”

“Why thank you, Kendron,” Matt said. But his heart sank.

“And we’re going off to Orangedale now. But if he ain’t there, if you lied to us, there’ll be hell to pay. And not just for you.”

Matt smiled.

“Was that a threat?” he asked. “Me, I don’t threaten people. But I’ll tell you what. Anyone who hurts my brother is going to die. That’s not a threat.” He flicked his eyes between Kendron and Bobby and waited. Kendron nodded, just a little.

“He’s heading to Tucson,” Matt said finally. “Figures to be there by morning. Going to put De Plessey in the jailhouse down there until the trial.”

“Hell,” Kendron said, wheeling around. Bobby followed. The men started shouting and shoving out the door. Matt made his way back to his desk and sat down and put his feet back up. Then he lifted the harmonica to his lips to play a tune to send the mob on its way.

Tom, Homer, and Austin had begun at a gallop, but after fifteen minutes or so they slowed to a brisk trot. A hundred miles was a long way, and there was no telling when or if they could change horses. Overhead the stars were glittering, hard and distant, in the sky.

Every now and then Tom glanced over his shoulder, to check the road behind them and to ensure that Homer De Plessey was still in place. The confectioner sat easy in the saddle, a comfortable rider, relaxed into the jarring rhythm of the trotting horse. Behind them by about ten paces was Austin, crouched forward, wild-eyed and nervous.

They’d been on the road for less than two hours when Tom saw the dust rising on the road behind them, driven high by the hooves of their pursuers and shimmering in the moonlight.

“Hell,” he said, pulling up on the reins. “Here they come.”

“We should keep going!” Austin said. “We’ve still got a mile on ’em.”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “And we’ve still got eighty miles to go. We needed more of a head start than this. I hope your brother’s okay.”

“What do we do?” Austin said.

What were they going to do? Tom thought. It was the desert. Yellow sand dotted with cacti and scrub. Tumbleweeds dancing in the night wind. The San Tan Mountain a few miles off to the east, rising up abrupt and rocky, silhouetted against the stars. Everything as dark as you’d like.

“Get off your horse,” Tom said, and then dismounted himself.

“What are we doing?” Austin asked.

Tom walked over to De Plessey and helped him get down. He checked to make sure the manacles were tight around De Plessey’s wrists and then he gave him a little push southward down the road.

“You got a gun?” Tom asked Austin.

Austin swallowed a little, and his skinny throat bobbed up and down.

“It’s all right. Take Mister De Plessey here a little ways down the road and get behind some cover. I don’t think he’s going to try anything, but shoot him if he gives you a reason. The Lord knows it’d make my life easier.”

Austin nodded and took his gun out of his holster. It looked too heavy for him.

Tom turned back to the north. He drew his rifle from where it was secured next to his saddle and then slapped his horse, driving it away. For the next few minutes he stood in the middle of the road with the weapon lowered, alone, cold, blinking against the little sandstorms
kicked up by the restless night wind. Somewhere far across the desert a dog howled.

There were only two riders and they were coming hard, real hard. Bobby and Kendron.

Tom raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired. The flash of it was very bright in the darkness and the sound very loud in the silence.

The pursuers pulled their horses to a screeching halt. The horses were foaming and screaming for breath and trembling with exhaustion. Both men drew their pistols.

“Where is he, Sheriff?” Bobby said. “I’m only gonna ask you once.”

“He’s going to the jail in Tucson,” Tom said. “That’s all.”

“Sheriff,” Kendron said. “We found Jenny’s locket in the fireplace of his little candy kitchen.”