The Book of Lost Friends(114)

Like the author of this book (which you made me read to you until I thought I’d go nuts if I had to do it one more time) said before he passed away, “I have nothing now but praise for my life. There are so many beautiful things in this world which I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.”

Find the beautiful things, little brother. Every time you mourn for me, I’ll be far away. But when you celebrate, I’ll be right there with you, dancing.

Take care of Mom, too. She’s quirky, but you know how we artists can be. We march to our own music.

Love you most,

Robin





There’s a key taped inside the back cover of the book. Nathan holds it up and looks at it.

“That’s so much like her. That’s just like her.” His words are thick with tenderness as he drops an arm over one knee and lets the card dangle. A long time passes while he stares out the window, watching the wispy white clouds that have blown off the gulf farther south. Finally, he wipes his eyes, and with a rueful laugh, chokes out, “She said not to cry.”

I sit on the edge of the mattress and wait until he catches his breath and tucks the photos back into the book, then closes it and stands up. “Is there anyplace my sister’s papers could be in that library?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve canvassed that room pretty thoroughly over these past weeks.”

“Then we’re paying a visit to the bank.”

He stops in the doorway as we leave, gives the room one last look. Air whistles between the door and the frame as he pulls it closed. A faint rumbling follows—the unmistakable sound of the cue ball finding its way across the floor again. It taps the other side of the door, and I jump.

“It’s an old house.” A floorboard squeaks when Nathan steps back. The cue ball rattles away from the door.

We start down the stairs, and I catch myself looking back over my shoulder, thinking, Why would Robin put the pool balls in her desk drawer, anyway? Granted, they’re not needed downstairs. The billiard table was covered when I came, and she had it piled with books.

The billiard table…





CHAPTER 27


HANNIE GOSSETT—TEXAS, 1875

I pray that wherever Elam Salter is, he’s as hard to kill as they say. As he says.

He can’t be shot. Not ever.

I gather the soldiers’ stories of him, and build a nest the way a barn cat will in the straw on a cold winter night.

Had the hat shot off his head twice.

Horse shot out from under him three times.

Brung in the outlaw Dange Higgs, single-handed.

Tracked that half-breed Ben John Lester into Indian Territory and clean up through Kansas. Elam Salter can bird-dog a trail like no other.



The stories carry me through watching Old Mister pass from this world, and then the days of grieving and weeping, and seeing that he is laid to rest, and trying to figure how much Missy understands of what’s happened. At the burying, she lays herself down on the grave right beside Juneau Jane and makes a whimpering sound. I watch her dig her fingers in the dirt and hang on.

Those are strange, sad days, and the end of them can’t come quick enough.

When it’s finally over, we set out along the San Saba River Road, me and Missy and Juneau Jane, in a wagon pulled by army mules, with a driver and three soldiers to ride along. They’ll bring a shipment of weapons back from Austin after carrying us there, or that’s the plan we’ve been told.

The three on horseback sit their saddles relaxed, laughing and making chatter together, their rifles and sidearms tied down in the scabbards. No sort of worry or care shows in them. They spit plugs of tobacco, and tease, and bet who can spit the farthest.

The wagon driver rides calm and looks round at the land, not seeming to watch out for anybody coming up on us.

Juneau Jane and I trade our worries in glances to each other. The skin under her eyes is puffy and rubbed red raw. She’s cried by the hour, so hard I’m wondering if she’ll survive through all this. She turns to the back of the wagon over and over again, to catch one last look at the soil where we laid down her papa. He won’t rest easy in that grave, so far from Goswood Grove. Juneau Jane wanted to take him home to bury, but it can’t be helped. Even to get back ourselves, we’re calling on the mercy of strangers. And for Old Mister’s burial, too. Once, the man owned over four thousand acres, and now he rests under a plain wood cross with his name scratched on it. Had to guess, even, at the proper year of his birth. Juneau Jane and I ain’t sure, and Missy can’t say.

A light rain comes, and we draw the wagon curtains, and just sit and let the wheels wobble on, mile after mile. It’s later in the day when I hear the men hail somebody, off distant. The hair on my neck raises, and I climb to my knees and lift the canvas. Juneau Jane moves to follow.

“You stay back and keep Missy there,” I tell her, and she does. These past weeks made us more than part cousins. I’m her sister now, I think.

The man comes again like a spirit, as much a part of the land as the brown and gold grasses and prickly pear cactus. He’s riding a tall red dun horse, and leading another one that’s wearing a Mexican saddle with the rawhide seat stained in dry blood.

My heart quickens up, and I throw back the wagon curtains and look Elam Salter over to make sure that blood ain’t his. He sees the question in my eyes as he comes alongside the wagon. “I fared some better than the other man.”