We camped among the trees on the outskirts, and the Tinker set to work repairing a broken pistol I had taken in trade. An old man stopped by to watch. "Shy of gunsmiths hereabs," he said. "A man could make a living."
"The Tinker can fix anything. Even clocks and schlike."
"Old clock up at the Blount House--a fine piece. Ain't worked in some time."
The Tinker filled a cup and passed it across the fire to him, and the old man hunkered down to talk.
"Town settled by Spanish men back around 1717. Built themselves a mission, they did, and then fifty, sixty years later when it seemed the Frenchies were going to move in, they built a fort.
"Been a likely place ever since. The Blount and Cartwright homes are every bit of thirty year old, and up until the War Between the States broke out we has us a going university right here in town."
He was sizing us up, making up his mind about us, and after a while he said, "If I was you boys I'd keep myself a fancy lookout. You're being sought after."
"Three tall men who look alike?"
"Uh-huh. Rode through town yestiddy. Right handy men, I'd say, come a difficulty."
"They're his uncles," the Tinker explained, "and they're all laid out to kill him."
"No worse fights than kinfolk's." The old man finished his coffee and stood up.
"Notional man, more'self. Take to folks or I don't. You boys take care of yourselves."
The Tinker glanced over at me. "You wearing that gun?"
Pulling my coat back, I showed it to him, shoved down inside my pants behind my belt.
"I ain't much on the shoot," I said, "but come trouble I'll have at it."
San Augustine was further south in Texas than I'd any notion of coming, but the Tinker insisted on it. "The biggest cow ranches are south," he said, "down along the Gulf coast, and some of them are fixing to trail cattle west to fresh grass, or north to the Kansas towns."
Now we'd come south and here the Kurbishaws were, almost as if they known where we were coming.
"No use asking for it," I said, "we'd better dust off down the pike."
"Didn't figure you would run from trouble," the old man said. "Best way is to hunt it down and have it out."
"They're still my uncles, and I never set eye on them. If they're fixing for trouble they'll have to bring it on themselves."
The old man bit off a chew of tobacco, regarded the plug from which he had bitten, and said, "you ain't goin' to dodge it. Those fellers want you bad. They offered a hundred dollars cash money for you. And they want you dead."
That was more actual money than a man might see in a year's time, and enough to set half the no-gds in Texas on my trail. Those Kurbishaws were sure lacking in family feeling. Well, if they wanted me they'd have to burn the stump and sift the ashes before they found me.
San Augustine was a pleasant place, but I wasn't about to get rich there. The mare was far along, but it would be a few weeks before she dropped her colt.
The Tinker started putting that pistol together and I went to rolling up my bed, such as it was. The Tinker said to the old man, "Isn't far to the Gulf, is it?"
"South, down the river."
The Tinker put the pistol away and started putting gear in the cart while I went for the mare.
It was just as I was starting back that I heard him say, "This is the sort of place a man could retire ... say a seafaring man."
The old man spat, squinting his eyes at the Tinker. "You thinkin' or askin'?"
"Why"--the Tinker smiled at him--
"when it comes to that, I'm asking."
The old man indicated a road with a gesture of his head. "That road ... maybe thirteen, fourteen mile. The Deckrow place."
We taken out with our fat little mare, and the cart painted with signs to advise that we sharpened knives, saws, and whatever.
We walked alongside, the Tinker with his gold earrings, black hat, and black homespun clothes, and me with a black hat, red shirt, buckskin coat, and black pants tucked into boots. Him with his knives and me with my pistol. We made us a sight to see.
Ten miles lay behind us when we came up to this girl on horseback, or rather, she came up to us. She was fourteen, I'd say, and pert. Her auburn hair hung around her shoulders and she had freckles scattered over her nose and cheekbones. She was a pretty youngster, but like I say, pert.
She looked at the Tinker and then at the sign on the wagon, and last she looked to me, her eyes taking their time with me and seeming to find nothing of much account.
"We have a clock that needs fixing," she said.
"I am Marsha Deckrow."
The way she said it, you expected no less than a flourish of trumpets or a roll of drums, but until the old man mentioned them that morning I'd never heard tell of any Deckrows and wouldn't have paid it much mind if I had. But when we came to the house I figured that if means gave importance to a man, this one must cut some figure.
That was the biggest house I ever did see, setting back from the road with great old oaks and elms all about, and a plot of grass out front that must have been five or six acres. There was a winding drive up to the door, and there were orchards and fields, and stock grazing. The coachhouse was twice the size of the schoolhouse back at Clinch's.
"Are you a tinker?" she asked me.
"No, ma'am. I am Orlando Sackett, bound for the western lands."
"Oh?" Her nose tilted. "You're a mover!"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "Most folks move at one time or another."
"A rolling stone gathers no moss," she said, nose in the air.
"Moss grows thickest on dead wood," I said, "and if you're repeating the thoughts of others, you might remember that "a wandering bee gets the honey."'"
"Movers!" she sniffed.
"Looks like an old house," I said. "Must be the finest around here."
"It is," she said proudly. "It is the oldest place anywhere around. The Deckrows," she added, "came from Virginia!"
"Movers?" I asked.
She flashed an angry look at me and then paid me no mind. "The servants' entrance," she said to the Tinker, "is around to the side."
"You're talking to the wrong folks," I said, speaking before the Tinker could. "We aren't servants, and we don't figure to go in by the side door. We go in by the front door, or your clock won't be fixed."
The Tinker gave me an odd look, but he made no objection to my speaking up thataway.
He said nothing at all, just waiting.
"I was addressing the Tinker," she replied coolly. "Just what is it that you do? Or do you do anything at all?"
One of the servants had come up to hold her stirrup and she got down from the saddle. "Mr.
Tinker," she said sweetly, "will you come with me?"
Then, without so much as glancing my way, she said, "You can wait ... if you like."
When I looked up at that house I sobered down some. Here I was in a worn-out buckskin coat and homespun, dusty from too many roads, and my boots down at heel. I'd no business even talking to such a girl.
So I sat down on a rock beside the gravel drive and looked at my mare. "You hurry up," I said, "and have that colt. We'll show them."
Hearing footsteps on the travel, I looked up to see a tall man coming toward me. His hair and mustaches were white, his skin dark as that of a Spanish man, his eyes the blackest I'd ever seen.
He was thin, but he looked wiry and strong, and whatever his age might be it hadn't reached his eyes ... or his mind.
He paused when he saw me, frowning a little as if something about me disturbed him. "Are you waiting for someone?" His voice had a ring to it, a sound like I'd heard in the voices of army officers.
"I travel with the Tinker," I said, "who's come to fix a clock, and that Miss Deckrow who lives here, she wanted me to come in by the servants' entrance, I'll be damned if I will."
There was a shadow of a smile around his lips, though he had a hard mouth. He taken out a long black cigar and clipped the end, then he put it between his teeth. "I am Jonas Locklear, and Marsha's uncle. I can understand your feelings."