Travis smelled the faint embers still burning. Shuffling heaps of charred wood with his boot, he estimated by the heat and lack of ash he must be no more than a couple of hours behind his quarry. A few yards beyond the small clearing, he found hoofprints leading northward into the swamplands, deep and fresh in the black gumbo clay.
“I reckon he’s bound for Velasco to charter a boat,” he muttered to himself. Then he shook his head. “Naw. He ain’t got money for a boat, and if they knew him between here and Waco, they would sure as hell know enough to collar him in Freeport.” He stood and dusted off his trousers with his hat. “I reckon he’s spooked enough to blaze a trail up to Jacksonville or Tyler. Shoot, he may even meander his way into Sodom, and wouldn’t that be just the haystack to hide that little needle? God Almighty!” he swore, spitting into the campfire. Then he jogged back to his horse, unhitched it from the tree and heaved himself into the saddle. There wasn’t anything for it but to cut west around Houston and try to head him off at Huntsville.
Before long, Travis tore through the woods like a man possessed. His instinct guided him mechanically, but his mind wandered elsewhere. Memories of little Carter played at the back of his mind, goading him on. He still remembered the chubby little face that smiled and giggled up at him when he made faces at him or chased him around the cabin back home. He had to remember it that way.
His appaloosa neither snorted nor whinnied even as it swatted away clouds of mosquitoes with its tail. With one hand, he guided the reins while the other rested firmly on the butt of his revolver, his nerves coiled for deadly retort to any of the serpents or red wolves that might cross his path.
In time, the setting sun at his back cast a crimson chiaroscuro through the cypress and pecan branches stretching with gnarled fingers across the woodland until the heavy darkness engulfed it entirely.
Travis listened to the sounds of the restless night, filled with the hooting of owls and the chirping of crickets. Somewhere (he hoped far) ahead, he heard the cacophonous yapping and howling of coyotes, but he feared them less than the territorial hogs that prowled those woodlands. He remembered Carter waking up to the sounds of the prairie night, how he jolted and shuddered at the screeching owls and bobcats that sounded so terribly like the screams of women and the groans of dying men. Travis had told his brother he had too active an imagination; he thought it was a nightmare that woke Carter up, that set his nerves on edge and got him wandering. He remembered the night he saw him—saw the look in his eyes behind those lank strands of dark hair. They were usually so full, wide and clear with wonder, his round face and pug nose dirty and flushed with color. He used to hate how the eyes followed his every move, how the shoulders slumped to mock his posture, and steps would stretch to match his stride.
A feeling of nausea suddenly crept from the back of his throat. Travis needed to find a place to camp. Already, he was feeling his body slump in the saddle and his eyes water and his body chafe from too many hours on the road.
He stopped to take a swig from his canteen, and then he heard it—a faint staccato beneath the whispering wind. It drew nearer, and he squinted ahead into the leaning nest of mossy pecan trees and palmettos. Instinctively, his hand pawed the butt of his revolver. Then he lifted his eyes to the road ahead, and there was another horse bearing a rider concealed in the darkness. He lifted his hand to hail him but recalled the darkness around them and merely called out, “Evening! I’m bound for Houston. My name’s Travis—Travis Baer.”
The figure reigned to an abrupt halt beneath the trees some twenty feet away, and Travis found himself following suit. The rider made no movement, and the only sign of life was the swish of his black steed’s tail and the mist from its nostrils as it snorted.
Travis felt a bit uneasy. Squinting into the darkness, he traced his finger along the butt of his revolver and leaned forward. “I say,” he called out, “How far to Angleton?”
The figure remained silent a while and rigid as stone atop his steed. Travis got the feeling the figure was matching his stare, trying to get a glimpse of his face by the shafts of moonlight. “You say your name was Baer?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“And you said you was bound for Angleton?”
“I am.” Travis was beginning to grow impatient, and his body was aching and cramping. He gripped the saddle horn and rubbed his eyes with one hand.
A crack like thunder split the night, and Travis jerked aside with a hand to his ear. He felt warm blood from his grazed ear. “God,” he breathed in shock. He stared ahead incredulously into the empty night before half laughing in delirium, “God!” Two more cracks preceded the flash of unmistakable muzzle fire, and he heard two shots ring past his shoulder and his other ear. He jerked abruptly sidelong, skinned his smoke wagon, and the barking report of pistol fire scorched the air between them with the stench of gunpowder.
The attack came like a cloudburst and just as suddenly passed as the rider whirled on his mount and galloped through the trees, prompting Travis to give chase. The pair weaved haphazardly through the trees, exchanging withering reports of errant gunfire.
Travis felt his saddle slip backwards and wrapped his hands in the reins but felt himself carried sidelong all the same as his horse’s back legs buckled. In a moment, his flailing mount bore him to the ground, felled by a shot to the chest. Struggling beneath the flailing, snorting beast, he glanced ahead to see the rider’s silhouette in the moonlight turning back and pacing about a mile down the path.
Bracing a boot against his saddle, he pressed back, writhing and jerking until he at last dislodged himself. Scrambling through the mud, he staggered to his feet and rapid-fired from the hip as he stumbled sidelong through the trees. Biting back the burning pain throbbing in his freed leg, he slipped through the heavy mud, and finally turned away and lurched into a hobbling run. He didn’t know where he was going, what he was doing, if he was even being chased, but only that he must keep moving. Moving left no time for thinking. The air was heavy and oppressive. It stuck to his throat and coated his lungs; it stuck his clothes to his skin as he barreled heedlessly through the woods and burned his leg like a hot iron. Mad thoughts flitted errantly through his mind, ‘Carter, did you feel this when you ran—the heat like the devil was chasing you? Did the shadows snarl and claw at you with sylvan nails? Carter, did you do it? Carter, did you? Carter, why? Why? Why?’
He must have groped his way a mile through the sea of palmettos, sycamores, sedges, and rushes before he finally had to stop to quell the throbbing in his leg. While doing so, he took a moment to check the cylinder of his revolver. Emptying the spent shells, he reloaded and even filled in the last chamber, commonly left empty to prevent misfires while riding. He cast frenetic glances around the wood, struggling to regain his bearings, estimate his position, and ensure his attacker hadn’t caught up in the interim.
Lights glared murkily through the trees, and suddenly he noticed a vague shape looming ahead. A cabin! People! Shelter! He ran so quickly and staggeringly he practically fell through the forest. A log cabin sat hunched and looming amidst the trees and brush, like a crouching gargoyle lit dimly from within by the red glow of candles.
Staggering to its threshold, he beat his fists against the door, screaming hoarsely. His brain was feverish from the pain, and he felt himself swooning. “Please…for the love of God…” he gasped. “For the love…of God.” The door swung inward, his vision darkened, a black pool opened up at his feet, and he tumbled in.
When Travis woke, he thought he was dead. A faint trace of morning light beamed upon him, and a strange euphoria filled his whole body. “God,” he croaked, “am I dead?”
A musical laugh answered his inquiry. “No, hon, that’ll just be the laudanum. You was roughed up something awful, and that fever! Well, it’s all right now.”
He turned his head to look up at the speaker beside him. He saw a beautiful face with large, green eyes framed in a shower of golden curls beaming down at him. “You sure I ain’t dead, ma’am?”
The girl tittered and shook her head, stroking his forehead with a wet rag. “Well, I ain’t in the habit of addressing the dead.” She held a cup of cold water to his lips. “The good news is your fever’s gone down, but I had to splint your leg. I’m afraid you may have a slight fracture in your right thigh.” She dipped her rag in a bucket, wrung it out, and dabbed his cheeks. “Since you’re well enough to talk, maybe you can tell me what possessed you to go wandering around the swamp at night.”
Travis bit his lip and sat up. A glance around showed he was in a small feather bed in a narrow room with one window at the foot of the bed. He threw back the covers and saw the splint on his thigh. “How long have I been out?” he whispered. “I can’t waste time! The trail goes colder yet!” He swung the leg out of bed, snatched his newly cleaned trousers from the back of a chair, and dragged them on.
“Oh, come on now, hon. It ain’t good for you to be walking around on that leg!” insisted the girl, trying to push him back down. “
He rose to his feet despite her best efforts, looked around for his gun belt, and plucked it from the bedpost before hobbling to the door. His vision suddenly swam, and he swooned against the door for a moment. When he regained his composure, he buckled the gun belt around his waist again and checked the cylinder of his revolver before holstering it.
“Well,” sighed his hostess with some exasperation as she pressed around him through the door, “if you’ve really got that big a burr in your britches, you can at least get some food in ya and shake your cobwebs loose aforehand.” She led the way through the door into the parlor, where she motioned him to the table. “You sit here, and you can tell me what put you all broken and bedraggled at my doorstep day afore last.”
“I was looking for someone,” he replied somewhat guardedly.
“Who could you be looking for out here?” she chortled, scooping bacon and eggs onto a platter for him. “The nearest settlement from here is another twenty miles. That is assuming you are heading toward Houston or West Columbia?”
“My brother,” he said through a mouthful of eggs. He watched her move like a bee around the cabin, flitting hurriedly from corner to corner. Sometimes, she would reach out with her fingers as if to straighten or smooth something out, but would always sort of hover over the object, pantomiming the action. Without a reply, she abruptly dipped from the room, leaving Travis somewhat perplexed. He wondered if she’d even heard his answer. Clearing his throat, he leaned to look through the parlor door into the living room and asked, “Pardon me, ma’am, but ain’t it dangerous for you? Being out here alone, I mean?”
“Oh, I ain’t alone,” she replied with a giggle. She was draping quilts over the furniture and moving pots of magnolias to different corners of the room. “No, sir. I’m spoken for, but he’s out on a job right now.”
“Really? What does your husband do?”
“Oh, he ain’t my husband, not yet anyway. He’s a sort of jack of all trades, I suppose you could say.” She fluttered back into the parlor, opened the cupboard, and withdrew three sets of colorful embroideries. She then proceeded to place them on different dressers and shelves throughout the house.
“What about any other family? Parents? Grandparents?”
“Oh, they all passed on recently. Pox took them.” She glided back into the parlor again, took strips of flypaper from the cupboard and hung it from nails in the wall or ceiling. Finally, she returned to her seat at the table, compulsively brushing her hair with her fingers and smoothing out the creases in her dress.
Travis looked at her sympathetically and swallowed a bite of his food. “My condolences, ma’am. May I have your name, please?”
“Lenore,” she replied cheerily, “Lenore Mahan. You got anyone back home?” She stared, mesmerized, at him across the table. Her palms were crossed in front of her on the table, her fingers dancing and flexing like she was trying to get the feeling back into them. The way she sat unblinking with the golden curls spilling about her cheeks, she reminded Travis of a China doll.
“No, ma’am…family business denies me the finer pleasures in life for the moment.” He tugged at his shirt, feeling the sweat coming again. He cast his eyes around the room to pass off his discomfort, and he wondered about the flies hovering around. “Summer season brings all sorts of critters, don’t it?” he remarked.
“You said you were looking for your brother,” Lenore continued, not taking her eyes off him. “Did you lose him?”
“He ran off, but I suppose you could say it was me that lost him,” he murmured back.
“How so?”
“I done him wrong,” he replied ruefully. “I done others wrong in the process. Now I gotta find him to make it right.”
“What did you do wrong?” she was leaning over the table at him, and Travis got the unsettling feeling she was trying to read him.
“I needed to tell him things, like how to live. Our daddy died when he was a baby. I couldn’t do anything to help him. So, I said I’d do right by my little brother. I told him about the good things, the beautiful things, the things to set his eyes on. He seen the good, and he wanted it, like any man.” He felt his throat tighten, let the fork fall from his fingers and ran them through his hair to hide their trembling. “I didn’t…I didn’t teach him to go about it right. I taught him to want it, but I didn’t teach him how to love it.”
“What happened?” Lenore asked him steadily, not thinking or judging, but just taking everything in with those terrible green eyes.
“He broke something,” said Travis through clenched teeth. “He broke something you can’t fix.”
“What will you do when you find him?”
Travis reached for a mug of water. He stared at his plate like maggots were crawling all over it. “I’m gonna bring him home. That’s where he belongs. Everything will be alright once he’s back home.”
“I think the same thing.” She beamed. “I think the same thing about my man. It was my family that caused him trouble, but they passed now. Now he can come back, and all’s right as rain.”
“I hope so, ma’am.” He lifted the mug to his lips. A scent hit his nostrils like bitter almonds. He flung the mug against a wall, jerked to his feet, and whipped out his revolver.
Lenore gazed placidly up at him, her lovely smile still etched into her features. “Something wrong with the water?”
“Where is he?” demanded Travis with a snarl.
“Men have such a temper. Y’all can’t ask anything without throwing things around?”
Travis cocked the hammer back with a click and glared coldly. “Where. Is. He? I know the smell of cyanide. Where are you hiding him?”
“I had to be sure, you understand,” she chided sadly. “I was so excited! He could’ve come home and broke the news.”
“I said, where is he?”
“A family get-together. I knew that’s what brought him home.”
Travis leveled the barrel an inch from her nose and leaned in. “I ain’t asking again.”
“He don’t break things. He didn’t break me, he fixed me—fixed the whole family.” Her lips abruptly tightened, and her eyes flashed. The look was quick, but Travis caught it barely. He was half turned when he glimpsed two wide, rabbit-like eyes that held his gaze for a microsecond. “Carter!” he screamed. The eyes were already gone, and he caught only the back of a wiry figure ducking around the parlor door.
At that moment, the air was filled with the crackling thunder of rapid fire. Travis and Lenore fell to the floor, covering their heads as a volley of bullets perforated the woodwork of the cabin, crisscrossing above them.
Travis crawled across the floor until he came to the parlor door and then sprang up in a run out into the forest. His adrenaline got him just within the trees when the agony in his thigh toppled him over. Dragging himself up by a low branch of a leaning elm tree, he glanced back at the tumult of voices shouting behind him, gritted his teeth, and barreled headlong through the trees.
“Carter!” he screamed until his voice was hoarse, following the trail of trampled brush. His unholstered revolver dangled leaden at his side. He slipped in the mud that clung to his boots, trying to root him in place, and winced at the keen palmetto leaves that cut his cheeks and eyelids as he fell. He writhed and jerked forward until he broke free of the entanglement of thorny vines and weeds and staggered into another run.
Soon, the ground became muddier and more flooded until he was trudging knee deep through the swamp. His feet stumbled through rank pools and snake-haunted bogs, and decayed stumps arose in his path like stony, oceanic outcrops.
He didn’t hear it until he felt the blow behind his ear. As he fell sidelong against a bunch of palmettos, he only heard the noise echo sharply like an aftershock—that of a maniacal howl, “You thought you could hole-up in the sticks?” snarled a voice above him. “I’ll give you credit, the place suits you well, you damn hayseed!”
A boot came down to stomp his stomach, but Travis managed to jerk aside and hook his arm into the crook of the man’s leg. With a cry of rage, Travis lunged forward, flinging the assailant onto his back. He wasted no time, but rolled away and scrambled to his feet. He glanced just in time to dodge back from the overhead swing of his attacker’s rifle butt. He reacted quickly the moment the rifle smote the ground, kicking at his attacker’s hands and knocking the weapon away.
They met in a clench, wrestling each other to-and-fro, trying to trip each other up. Travis dealt blows to the man’s liver, doubling him sideways with pained yelps. The assailant retorted by hooking an arm in the crook of Travis’ leg and tripping him backwards. In a second, he straddled across Travis’ chest and gripped his throat with both hands.
“One thousand dollars!” sneered the assailant, spittle flecking his yellow teeth bared in a crooked grin. “For a sick freak like you! You know, I thought I was aiming at you until that horse went under ya. I figured, hell, that’s almost as good, until you weaseled your way into these trees. Did you think I’d give up, Carter? One thousand dollars buys a lot of grief!”
Travis strained through visions of red and black, swinging punches at his assailant’s ribs and reaching up to claw at his eyes. The world melted like wax, and he felt a fire sputtering in his brain. His eyes bulged and his mouth gaped like a fish as his limbs weakened, and the useless hands pawed impotently at the bounty hunter’s face.
Then, with a familiar crack, the bounty hunter’s body flew sideways as if propelled, and Travis lurched upright, gasping and retching for air. Scrambling across the ground, his fingers found the handle of his revolver. When he turned back over, swinging the barrel wide, he saw Carter about ten paces away in the brush, looking cleaner and healthier than Travis did after his long trek through the swamps.
Carter was taller than when he left, but somehow even scrawnier, like a scarecrow. His big, blue eyes were wide and restless, like a startled deer. His dark hair was streaked gray, and the puny derringer dangled from his finger at his side. He was barefoot, and his dirty trousers and linen nightshirt were too small for him. When he spoke, his voice, once high and cracking with puberty, was now low and gravelly. “I came to talk to you when you were laid-up. When you were well enough to hear me, well…I guess I didn’t wanna talk no more. I should’ve cleared the mix-up all the same. They just heard the name Baer, and that you were bound for Angleton. Naturally, they had you figured for me.”
Travis dragged himself to his feet, keeping the revolver trained on his brother. “I ain’t here to talk, Carter. I’m here to take you home.”
Carter shook his head slightly. A boyish smile played on his lips. “I won’t let mamma see me hung.”
“Dammit, Carter! This ain’t a negotiation!” snapped Travis. “I’ll tie your feet to my horse and drag you back to Waco if I have to.”
Carter shook his head again. “Not breathing, you won’t.”
“They was good to you, Carter!”
“I know they were good to me. That’s why I done it.”
“What do you mean? That don’t make any sense! You killed them because they was good to you?”
“It don’t feel right. It ain’t natural. What I feel—what I done—that came natural, almost like breathing. What they gave me—home, bread, water, bed—it burned like coals on my brain. It hurt to look at them smiling. It made me sick every time I looked into a mirror. They done wrong, doing right by me.”
“And the girl?” snapped Travis, the gun quivering in his hand. “It wasn’t enough they gave you a home, made you an apprentice, but for God’s sake! Why?”
Carter met his eyes steadily. There was sadness in them, but no shame. “You don’t know what it is—reading and dreaming about beauty like that—the sort of thing that only exists in storybooks. I offered everything. After so long just seeing it, imagining the purity, the virtue…She laughed at me, Travis.” He stared down at the grass like a bashful child. “She laughed, and I…I wanted to break something beautiful.”
Travis tried to swallow back the lump in his throat. “And Lenore? Her family?”
Carter was silent for a moment, and then his shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “I don’t know. I think it was just all that ‘right’. It made me sick again. I can’t be near it, Travis. I can’t. All I ever do is want, but the having doesn’t help. I don’t know why.” He bowed his head. “Having all the good just makes me see all the ugly inside. It’s better to just look from afar. I ain’t no good with it.” His body wavered like the last words deflated him, he staggered a bit and dropped to his knees, and then, like a child, whimpered, “Don’t tell momma.”
Travis felt the ice in his veins quell the burning in his brain. He stood and staggered over behind his brother. The heat like hell around him was suddenly nothing. He didn’t feel it. Looking down at Carter, he struggled to hate, to revile, but he couldn’t. He whispered gently, “I won’t tell momma.”
“Promise?”
“Promise,” he replied gently. “Let’s go home, Carter.” He pulled the trigger one last time.