News of the World: A Novel by Paulette Jiles Page A

man to return to the cookshop.
    He said, I am going to get Mrs. Gannet. We will settle up in half an hour.
    Hour, said the stableman. He sat up in his blankets where he had been sleeping in an empty stall with his handkerchief, for some reason, tied around his head and an empty bottle clinked on the nailheads in the floor. Half. Damned hurry. People running around middle of night. Then he fell back in the straw.
    The Captain trotted down the dark streets of Dallas and then turned on Stemmons Ferry to the hotel. A few dim-lit windows here and there and they seemed sinister and spying. He ran upstairs and went to his room and packed the carpetbag. He hefted it and went next door. He rapped hard and fast.
    Mrs. Gannet opened it in a nightgown that must have had eleven yards in the hem, her dark brown hair undone. He could smell the sulphur of a match; she had quickly lit their lamp. She wore a forest-green wrapper over the nightgown and her hair hung down her back and shoulders in shining planes. Her mouth was open. Behind her Johanna sat up out of her bed, fully awake, and planted both her square feet on the floor.
    Mrs. Gannet was both calm and alert. Captain? she said.
    Quick, he said. We have to leave tonight.
    BEFORE HE STEPPED up on the foot plate he removed his hat to Mrs. Gannet and expressed his thanks. She was outraged and shocked at what Almay had said. She did not know Almay but she would know him now. Her eyes sparked in the light of the lantern she carried in one hand. She was furious. It gave her a bright and animated look and he was felled on the instant. Hetook her hand; it was short and strong and on her wrist was a bangle of silver and some sparkling red gems.
    I hope I may do myself the honor of calling on you on my return? said the Captain. He smiled. I was thinking of picnics on the banks of the Trinity.
    First, return, she said. And take care, my dear man.
    He hesitated and then bent and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
    When they pulled out into the nighttime streets she stood holding the lantern, and in its light motes of hay sifted around her like fireflies.
    THEY SET OUT down the Waxahachie Road to the south because Almay and his friends would expect them to take the Meridian Road southwest. Then later in the night they could cut west and get back on the Meridian Road. He hoped that when Almay and Company saw no fresh tracks or sight of them on the Meridian Road they would turn back and look for them elsewhere. Maybe he and Johanna could gain three or four hours on them.
    They trotted into the chain of hills that lay southeast of Dallas. They were called the Brownwood Hills. Before daylight they should come to a country cut up by the Brazos River into ravines and sliding red-rock cliffs, covered by live oak which had never been logged out. Some of them were as big around as millstones. He wanted to reach the river by daylight and pull off the road, up high, and watch for their pursuers. It would not take them long to bribe the stable hand for information. The man was a drinker. Drinkers were easy.
    The rain had cleared and so they went at a good round trot. The sky was washed with clouds in one rainy line after another and the moon at three-quarters full seemed to be rolling backward. The road before them was indistinct and without perspective. It was difficult to estimate distances in moonlight. The Captain intended to put as many miles as possible between them and Almay and the Caddos before daylight.
    The Captain was not averse to a fight but he was poorly armed. He took out the revolver and stuck it in his waistband on the right side, butt forward. He needed a holster. The shotgun was a twenty-gauge bolt action, a single shot at a time, and all he had was bird shot. He had only one box of cartridges for the revolver. He thought there might be close to twenty rounds. There had been no money to buy another box or a holster when first they came into Dallas and now late at night the town was shuttered