Doorlight made a yellow fire in her hair and she couldn’t keep the shock from her face.
Her aunt stood beside her. Charlotte Bayard was a perfumed, bustled, crinolined creature, somewhere far outside Gordon’s world. She kept making squeaky sounds, and her soft hands fluttered like birds around her mouth.
“He’s bleeding on the porch,” she said. “Can’t you take him somewhere?”
“Aunt Charlotte,” Opal said sharply. It stopped the older woman, and Opal turned to Chaney. “Get him inside. I’ll put some water on to boil—there’s some arnica—”
She hurried back into the house. Chaney was still crouched beside Gordon, looking up at Bayard. Bayard frowned. Muscle made a spastic little tic in his florid jowl. Then he shook his head and bent to help Chaney lift Gordon onto his feet.
The parlor was all Charlotte Bayard. Its scent of perfume and flowers and incense was so heavy it almost made Gordon sick. The furniture made him think of the stuffed, padded, draped, silken fancy women he had seen promenading down Main. There were lambrequins all over every mantel and lampshade and windowseat. Gordon didn’t see how any woman could knot together that much ecru twine in her whole life. Charlotte must have had some time left over, though, because there were about a hundred samplers. WELCOME. GOD BLESS THIS HAPPY HOME. The embroidered mottoes hung on every wall.
Chaney guided Gordon to a chair and Charlotte made a whimpering sound. “Adam—my good chair—”
Adam Chaney gave his sister a look. Gordon didn’t know if it was indulgence or disgust. The man took off his red fustian and spread it over the plush chair. He told Gordon to sit down.
Gordon put his head in his hands. He remembered how he’d been unable to feel anything at the dugout. He had thought something was wrong with him. The shock was wearing off now. There was feeling, a sickness, filling his whole body, worse than any ague he had ever known. He wondered how much of it was grief—how much was shame.
“They’re dead,” he said. “I run out on them. They’re both dead. I run out on them . . .”
“You couldn’t do anything else,” Chaney said. “What good to stay and fight? Getting killed wouldn’t bring them back.”
Opal came from the kitchen with a bottle of arnica and clean towels. Gordon had ripped his clothes on the bottomland brush and his body was covered with scratches and bruises. Opal began cleaning his wounds and the sting of arnica made him wince. Charlotte had taken a seat on a haircloth settee, as far across the room as she could get. She had a lace handkerchief to her face and was sniffling.
“Roland . . . my camomile pills—this has brought back my vapors.”
Her husband didn’t seem to hear her. He was pacing back and forth. The room was littered with fat pillows and he had to keep kicking them out of the way. He wheezed faintly as he moved. Roland Bayard must have been a powerful man once, but luxury had turned him heavy and soft. His handsome head was bowed, a mass of ink-black hair fading into distinguished gray sideburns.
“We need protection,” Charlotte said, trying again. “Sheriff Simms. Can’t you send for Sheriff Simms?”
“Charlotte, Charlotte,” Bayard said. He sounded as though he were speaking to a child. “If Simms couldn’t stop them in town he certainly couldn’t do anything now.”
“I can’t leave them,” Gordon said. “My folks—I got to go back. I got to bury them . . . do something.”
“Too dangerous,” Chaney said. “The good neighbors of mine—the cattlemen—have had their taste of blood now.” He sounded bitter. “A shooting—one of them killed. Your father was a rustler in their eyes, Gordon. Now he’s a killer . . . and you’re tarred with the same brush. To let one of the big ranchers see you in this basin—it would be worth your life.”
“We’ll hide him,” Bayard said.
“No, no,” Charlotte wailed. She half-rose from the settee, her face strained.
“Charlotte’s right,” Chaney said. “You can’t expose her and Opal to the same thing that happened to Conners. If the cattlemen connect you with Conners, find out you’re shielding a rustler—”
“That’s absurd,” Bayard said. “Gordon’s got to stay here.”
“Got to?” Chaney asked.
Bayard gaped at him. “Well, I— Bob Conners was my friend, I can’t let his son—”
“You’d be doing his son a favor to get him out of the country,” Chaney said. “I won’t let you put my sister in such danger, Roland.”
Bayard’s face flushed darkly. Gordon couldn’t tell whether Chaney was staring at the man, or at some point in the distance. It had a disconcerting effect. Bayard finally shook his head. It made a faint quiver run through his jowls.
“Of course . . . I wasn’t thinking. Why don’t you go down to the barn and saddle a horse for him, Adam? We’ll get some things together here, some decent clothes for him.” Chaney nodded and went out. Bayard turned to Opal. “See what food there is. Anything cold—biscuits, some of that roast. There are saddlebags on the back porch.”
Opal left immediately and Bayard looked at his wife. “My sack coat and brown pants, upstairs.”
Charlotte’s stays creaked faintly. “Roland, —
“Dear,” he said. “Please.”
She made a helpless little sound and went upstairs, dabbing at her eyes. Bayard frowned thoughtfully. He and Gordon were alone in the room.
“Gordon,” Bayard said, “did your father give you anything?”
Gordon looked up numbly. “What?”
“I mean—there must have been a few minutes—when you saw them coming, when Bob knew what might happen. Did he tell you anything?”
“He told me to come to you.”
“I don’t mean that. Wasn’t there something else? Didn’t he give you anything?”
Gordon remembered the wallet. “He gave me his money.’
“Money?” Bayard’s voice was sharp. “I didn’t know he had any.”
“He must’ve had something. Maybe, like you say, he figured what was going to happen—”
“And nothing else. He gave you nothing else.”
Gordon shook his head. “Mr. Bayard . . . no—nothing else.”
Bayard put his hands on the arms of the chair, leaning close to Gordon. He smelled of pomade and tobacco and fine Cordovan leather. His eyes were brilliant and black.
“Gordon, he must have given you—”
Opal came into the room, stuffing a package into a pair of saddlebags. “There wasn’t much,” she said anxiously. “It might last him a couple of days, if he’s careful.”
Bayard straightened
