Even from a distance Charles saw the scabbed-over cuts and the bruise around Gus's eye. The boy's feet were so filthy Charles almost thought he was wearing gray stockings. Gus sat in the dirt near the front door of the whiskey ranch. The door was closed.
Charles saw a handsome chestnut horse and two mules in the corral at the end of the building. He saw the outbuilding where the squaw had gotten the eggs, and he heard a hen flutter and cluck. The loudest sound was the gurgling of Vermilion Creek.
He almost couldn't move because of his worry that he'd make a mistake. He tried to forget the size of the stakes and look at the situation as some kind of abstract problem. It helped, a little. He counted five, and on the last count stepped from behind the post oaks into the open, where his son could see him.
Gus noticed him. His mouth flew open. Fearing he'd cry out, Charles put a hand to his lips to signal silence.
He could tell the boy didn't recognize him, a stranger popping up in the wilderness, beard and hair matted, eyes sunken. He held perfectly still.
Gus dribbled the remaining kernels on the ground but he made no sound.
The raccoon loped forward and began to feast. Charles kept every sense tuned for other noises — a voice, a door's creak. He heard nothing but the water. He took three long strides toward his son, raised his hand, and motioned, a great hooking sweep toward his chest. Come here.
Gus stared, clearly anxious about the stranger now. Charles wanted to shout, tell him who he was. He didn't dare. He gestured again. And a third time.
Gus stood up.
Charles was jubilant. Then the boy began to back toward the building, keeping his eyes on the stranger.
Oh God, he's scared. He still doesn't know me.
Gus sidestepped toward the closed door, ready to dart inside. Desperate, Charles crouched and laid his Spencer on the ground. He extended and spread his arms. The muscles were so tight he shook from shoulder to wrist.
Somehow the inviting outstretched arms reassured the boy. His face changed, showed a hesitant smile. He cocked his head slightly.
Charles said in a loud whisper, "Gus, it's Pa."
Wonder spread over the boy's face. He started to walk toward Charles.
The front door of the whiskey ranch banged open.
Bent was yawning as he stepped out. He wore an old plug hat and Constance Hazard's teardrop earring on his left ear. His claw-hammer coat shone as though grease had been spread on it with a knife. He was older, paunchier, with seams in his face, and scraggly eyebrows, and thick uncombed hair hiding the back of his neck. His left shoulder was lower than his right.
Bent saw Charles and didn't know him. Charles snatched the Spencer and leveled it at Bent's grimy waistcoat, which was secured by one button. "Hands in the open," he said loudly, standing.
Bent lifted his hands away from his sides, peering and blinking at the wild man with the rifle. Charles started forward — slow, careful steps. Bent's brambly eyebrows shot upward.
"Charles Main?"
"That's right, you bastard."
"Charles Main. I never thought you'd follow me into the Territory."
"Your mistake." Charles halved the distance between the post oaks and the house, then halted. "I know what you did to George Hazard's wife." Bent reacted, stepping backward, startled. "I can see that you hurt Gus. I don't need much of an excuse to splatter your head all over that house. So don't even breathe hard. Gus, come over to Pa. Now!"
He watched Bent rather than his son. The boy couldn't grasp his sudden release. As if to test it, he looked at Bent and took a step toward his father. Two steps. Three.
An Indian woman in a dirty buckskin shift came out the door carrying a bucket of night slops. She had a sleepy, sullen look. Charles thought she resembled someone he'd met when he rode with Jackson. Then, stunned, he realized it was Green Grass Woman.
She saw him, recognized him, dropped the slops, and screamed. Gus spun around, alarmed. Bent jumped, and in an instant he had the boy.
Charles's head filled with denials of what he saw. Bent was smiling, the old sly smile Charles remembered with such loathing. Bent's begrimed hand clamped on Gus's throat. His other hand came out of his coat pocket with a razor. He shook it open and laid the shimmering flat of it against Gus's cheek.
"Put your guns down, Main." Charles stared, his forehead pounding with pain. Bent turned the blade. The edge indented Gus's cheek. The boy cried out.
Bent held him fast. "Put them down or I'll cut him."
Charles laid the Spencer in the shale in front of him, and his Army Colt beside it. "Now the knife." He added his Bowie to the pile. The sight of Charles unarmed pleased Bent. His smarmy smile broadened, became almost cordial. Failure pressed on Charles like an invisible block of granite.
"Pick up those things, you bitch. Main, step to the side. More — more —"
Green Grass Woman ran toward the weapons in a kind of crablike crouch. As she took them up, she gave Charles a pleading look and spoke in English. "He said it was a trader's boy, a bad trader."
Charles shrugged in a bleak way. "What are you doing here?"
"She used to belong to the owner of this place," Bent said. "I sell her. She'll hump man or beast for gin, but you won't have the pleasure. I have other things in mind." His face wrenched. Charles remembered how crazy he was. "You bitch, hurry up!" The cry echoed away. The wind blew.
Bent eyed Charles and giggled. "Now, Main. Now we're going to enjoy this unexpected reunion. I'm going to give the orders. You'll obey them to the letter unless you want this child to bleed to death before your eyes. When I say forward march, you come this way and take two steps through the door. Not one or three, two, keeping your hands raised at all times. Any mistake, any disobedience, I'll slit him."
Bent could barely contain his good humor. "All right. Forward — march." .
Hands above his head, Charles walked to the house.
Magee strode away from the pecan trees carrying his rifle in the crook of his arm. The wind fluttered the wild turkey feather in the band of his derby.
Gray Owl called out, "He said wait."
"He's been gone too long." Magee kept walking.
"Wait. That was his order."
Magee broke stride. Stopped, stared across the bright water at a pair of redbirds swooping in the sunshine. With a fretful look down Vermilion Creek, he turned and slowly walked back to the tracker wrapped in his blanket.
62
The room reminded Charles of a sutler's. The dirt floor bore the imprints of boots, moccasins, bare feet. Dark lumps of cold food scummed the tops of two tables. The chair where Bent ordered him to sit creaked and swayed when he put his weight on it.
Then he saw the crookedly hung portrait. He stared at the woman for about ten seconds before recognition went off in his head like a shell.
"That picture —" He had trouble enunciating clearly. Fear for Gus dulled his mind, slowed his reactions. And coming on the portrait here, he felt propelled into some unreal place, some world where anything was possible, and nothing was sane.
With effort he finished the thought. "Where did you get it?"
"Recognize the subject, do you?" Bent laid the knife, the Spencer, and the Army Colt on the plank bar, then carefully positioned the open razor within easy reach.
"My cousin Orry's wife. It's a bad likeness."