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  Laurel’s stomach had been growling for the past several hours, but to be polite, she said, “I hate that you’ve gone to so much trouble.”

  “No trouble. Coffee’s—”

  The door burst open, and Derby came in with their suitcases. He dropped them at his sides and pushed the door closed with his heel.

  Irv said to him, “Move over there closer to the stove. I’ll pour y’all some coffee.”

  “Got any hooch? Or are you abiding by the new law of the land, even though it’s horseshit?”

  Looking displeased by his son’s crudity, Irv glanced at Laurel, then walked over to a small chest that had only three legs. In place of the missing one was a stack of catalogues with faded, curled, dusty covers. He grunted as he went down on his right knee. He opened the bottom drawer, reached far back into it, and came out with a mason jar that was two-thirds full of clear liquid.

  As he heaved himself up, he said, “Sometimes my hip gets to bothering me so’s I can’t sleep. A nip of ’shine helps.”

  Derby reached for the jar without so much as a thank you. He uncapped it and took a swig. The corn liquor must’ve seared his gullet. When he lowered the jar, his eyes were watering.

  Laurel was already furious at him. Weren’t their present circumstances dreadful enough without his getting drunk? She didn’t conceal the resentment in her voice when she told him she needed the necessary.

  Irv said, “Around back, twenty paces or so. You can lay the baby down over there.” He nodded toward a mattress on the floor in the corner. “Take a lantern, Derby.”

  Laurel didn’t want to leave Pearl, but not having any choice, she laid her on the mattress. The ticking looked reasonably clean compared to the hard-packed dirt floor. She wrapped the baby tightly in her blankets, hoping that a varmint wouldn’t crawl into them before she returned.

  Between taking sips of moonshine, Derby had lit a lantern. Bracing herself for the brutal cold, Laurel followed him out. It had started to snow, and it was sticking.

  She was glad Derby was with her to help her find her way, but she was too angry to speak to him. She went into the foul-smelling outhouse and relieved herself as quickly as she could.

  When she emerged, Derby passed the lantern to her. “Get back inside. I’m gonna have a smoke.”

  “It’s freezing out here.”

  “I’m gonna have a smoke.”

  “And finish that?” she said, glaring at the fruit jar.

  “I’m sick of you nagging me about every goddamn thing.”

  “As if things aren’t bad enough, you’re going to get skunk drunk?”

  He smirked. “Thought I would.” He raised the jar to his mouth, but she slapped it aside, almost knocking it out of his hand.

  “Do as I tell you, Laurel. Go inside.”

  “Your daddy didn’t know about Pearl and me, did he?” When he just stared back at her, she shouted, “Did he?”

  “No.”

  Even though she wasn’t surprised, hearing him admit it caused her to see red. “How could you do this to me, Derby? To Pearl? To all of us? Why in the world did you bring us here?”

  “I had to do something with you first.”

  “First?”

  “You’ll thank me later.”

  He produced a pistol from the pocket of his coat, put it beneath his chin, and pulled the trigger.

  Two

  Laurel’s father-in-law waited until daylight and the worst of the storm had blown itself out to notify the authorities. Before leaving for town, he made her swear that she would stay inside the shack while he was gone. Listlessly, she agreed to remain inside, having no desire to subject herself to see in the dreary, gray daylight what she had beheld in darkness.

  She hadn’t even known that Derby owned a pistol.

  In Irv’s absence, she sat on the mattress near the potbellied stove, where she had endured the long night, benumbed by what Derby had done. She’d held Pearl to her the entire time, her infant being the only thing that seemed real, the one thing she could cling to in this ongoing nightmare.

  She couldn’t even take comfort in fond memories of Derby. Those she’d cherished had died with him. They’d been obliterated by what would be her final memory of him.

  She resented him for that.

  Irv returned, followed by the sheriff and the justice of the peace. They came into the shack and spoke to her briefly, but there was little she could say that would make the circumstances any clearer than the gore they’d seen splashed onto the door of the outhouse.

  After Derby’s body had been removed and taken to the funeral parlor, Irv dismantled the outhouse and burned it. By the early dusk, he had built another enclosure. He probably wouldn’t have been so industrious on the day after his son’s suicide if it hadn’t been for the privacy Laurel required.

  Now, less than twenty-four hours after meeting her father-in-law, they were alone in the shack, except for Pearl. He was at the cookstove, preparing food she didn’t think she could eat, but knew she must in order to sustain Pearl.

  “Thank you for replacing the outhouse.”

  “Easier to start over than try to clean the old one. He’d made a goddamn mess.”

  Softly she said, “He wasn’t right in his mind.”

  He turned away from the stove and looked over at her. “Shell shock?”

  “I suppose. A light had gone out inside him, and it never came back on. I thought he would get better as time passed. I tried to help him, but he wouldn’t even talk about it.”

  Irv dragged one hand down his creased face. “He was like that after his mama died. Shut down, like. He ever tell you about that?”

  “No.”

  “TB got her. Derby was seven, eight. Had to watch her decline, then die. That’s tough on a kid.” He paused, lost in thought, then cleared his throat. “After she passed, I couldn’t earn a living and look after him at the same time. I had no choice but to put him in a home. For what it was, it was a nice place. Subsidized by the railroad. I’d go see him whenever I could, but…”

  He raised his shoulders. “He never forgave me for leaving him. Soon as he was old enough, he went his own way. I’d hear from him off and on. Mostly off. But it seemed to me like he’d found himself again and was doing all right. Then the war came along. If it was as bad as they say, it’s a wonder any one of them who survived it haven’t done what he did.”

  He heaved a sigh that invoked Laurel’s pity. The wretched memory of Derby’s death would stay with Irv until his own final breath.

  “Can I help you there?” she asked.

  “No thanks. I’m just making some gravy for that rabbit we didn’t eat last night. It’s almost ready.”

  Pearl was sleeping peacefully on the mattress. She probably needed to be changed, but in the process, she would wake up. Right now, it was better for Laurel, as well as for the baby, that she remain asleep. Because Laurel needed time to think.

  She was viewing her life as a spool of ribbon that had gotten away from her, rolling out of her reach, unwinding rapidly and haphazardly, and she was powerless to stop it.

  She shivered, as much from despair as from the cold air that seeped through the cracks in the walls of the shack. She hadn’t removed her coat since she arrived. Shoving her hands deep into its pockets, she said, “Right before he…did it…Derby admitted that he hadn’t told you about me and Pearl.”

  Irv set down the long spoon he was using and turned toward her. “He didn’t even tell me he’d survived the war.”

  Derby and she had still been in a honeymoon haze when he had left for overseas. She would have gone crazy if she hadn’t received periodic letters from him. Usually they were filled with cryptic references to his misery, but at least she’d known that he was alive. Learning that Derby hadn’t extended his father that courtesy made her heartsick for the old man.

  “That was terribly thoughtless of him.”

  “I got one letter telling me he’d been drafted and was going to Europe to kill
Huns. I moved around a lot for work, so he’d been long gone by the time that letter caught up with me.

  “Armistice came and went without a word from him. I took that as a bad sign, but the military is supposed to let folks back home know when their loved one has fallen or is missing, right?

  “So I went up to Camp Bowie, where he’d been stationed before shipping out. After a lot of rigamarole and sorting through red tape, I was told he’d made it back stateside. His last paycheck from the army had been mailed to a post office box in Sherman. I wrote to him there just to tell him where I’d lit in case he ever wanted to find me.”

  He took in the rustic interior of the shack, as though seeing it from her perspective for the first time. She followed the track of his eyes. Cobwebs laced the rafters that were blackened from age and smoke. A cowhide that looked like it had mange was nailed to the north wall. She supposed that it wasn’t so much for decoration as to keep out the elements. The flue of the potbellied stove was piecemeal, forming a leaky and crooked outlet to the hole in the ceiling.

  “Ain’t much,” he said.

  Laurel didn’t detect any degree of humility or apology in that statement, and she couldn’t help but admire him for that.

  He gave the simmering gravy a stir. “I didn’t hear anything from Derby until the telegram office sent a boy out here day before yesterday. All it said was that he was coming. Nothing more.”

  Laurel dug at a crack in the dirt floor with the toe of her shoe. “There was no job, no work waiting for him, was there?”

  He shifted his weight, redistributing it unevenly, placing more on the right side of his body. “There’s work around.”

  “Of what kind?”

  “Same as me.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Plummer, but—”

  “Irv.”

  “Irv. What kind of work do you do?”

  “I was a railroad man. Over thirty years at it. Went all over, repairing tracks. That’s how I got the bum hip.” He patted his left leg joint. “Coupler backed into it. Didn’t stop me from working, though. Just made it harder.

  “But I got old and tired, so I stopped railroading several years ago and settled into this place. Now I do odd jobs in and around town.” He looked over at her with something of a grin. “I guess you could say I’m a fix-it man.”

  “Are there enough things around here that need fixing to keep you busy?” And solvent? She wanted to ask that, but didn’t.

  “I’m stretched pretty thin, all right.” He set tin plates and cutlery on the small table, which was not much larger than a checkerboard. “How much had Derby told you about me? Not much good, I reckon.”

  “He hadn’t told me anything except that you were still living, as far as he knew. He said the two of you weren’t close.”

  He gave a sad nod. “Well, then at least that didn’t come as a shock to you.”

  “What caused the rift?”

  He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then said, “His mama died young.” He gave the gravy another stir. “What about you? Is your family up in North Texas?”

  “Yes. My daddy and uncle grow cotton. Or did. The last three crops got ruined by the boll weevil.”

  “You’ll want to notify your folks of this.”

  She took a breath, wishing she could postpone this, but reasoned that he needed to know sooner rather than later. “We don’t speak.”

  He came around and studied her for a moment, then asked, “Was it Derby that split y’all up?” He must’ve seen the answer in her expression, because he said, “Figured.”

  “The blame wasn’t all his. The split was my daddy’s doing. He’s a hard man. He disapproved of Derby’s sinful ways.”

  “Drinking and dancing?”

  She huffed a laugh. “To my daddy’s mind, even a game of dominoes will send you to hell. Derby enjoyed egging him on. One day Daddy had enough and put his foot down. He told me that Derby’s sinfulness was rubbing off on me, and that if I married him, no one in my family would be allowed to utter my name again. Not ever. It would be as though I’d never been born.”

  She gazed down at her sleeping daughter, relieved that her stern, intolerant father would never exercise any influence over her. “Fine, I told him. I didn’t want to be a member of a family so wrathful and unloving. Both of us meant what we said. Mama, of course, had to go along with Daddy.”

  Her mother’s plight made Laurel sad. She’d been cowed into letting Laurel go without a quibble. But there was no help for that. Her mother, taking seriously her submissive role, had made her bed, and she would die in it.

  Suddenly it occurred to Laurel that she unwittingly had been taking that same path. If she hadn’t yielded to Derby’s irrational decision, hadn’t gone dumbly along for harmony’s sake, she wouldn’t be in this predicament.

  Her father-in-law was saying, “Maybe after what’s happened, your folks will take you back. I’m happy to drive you up there—”

  “No,” she said swiftly and firmly. “Thank you for offering, but I won’t go back.”

  Irv rubbed his bristly chin, looked down at Pearl, then at Laurel. “Well then, looks like you’re stayin’.”

  Three

  May 1920

  Thatcher had worn out his welcome.

  He knew it, although he tried not to act like he did. He lay on his back, using his duffel bag as a pillow, fingers linked over his stomach, fedora covering his face.

  He pretended to be asleep. He was far from it. He was acutely aware of everything going on inside the boxcar, the atmosphere of which had turned ripe to the stinking point with hostility.

  Beneath him, the wheels of the train rhythmically clickety-clacked over the rails, but their noisy cadence didn’t drown out the snores of the three men sharing the freight car with him. Thatcher didn’t trust their snorts and snuffles. They were too irregular and loud. Like him, they were playing possum, waiting for an opportunity to spring.

  The door to the car had been left partially open to provide them fresh air. The gap was no wider than a few feet. Three, four at best. Once he made his move, he couldn’t hesitate. He would get only one chance, so, within a second or two of moving, he’d have to make a clean jump through that slim gap.

  If he didn’t make it out, a fight was inevitable. Three against one. Bad odds in any contest. Until fate had put them together on this train, they’d been strangers to him and to one another. But last night, somewhere between coastal Louisiana and wherever they were now, the other three had become unified against him.

  The last thing he wanted was a damned fight. He’d fought in one. A bloody one. He’d been on the winning side of it, but victory hadn’t felt as glorious as people had let on. To his mind, the loss of so many men and women wasn’t a fit reason to hold parades.

  No, he wouldn’t welcome a fight, but if he had to defend himself, he would, and he wouldn’t fight fair. He hadn’t cheated death in France to die in this railroad car that reeked of its cargo of yellow onions and unwashed men.

  One advantage the other three had over him was that they weren’t new to riding freights. He was the amateur. But he’d listened to their idle conversation, had paid attention, had sifted the facts out of the bullshit.

  They’d jawed about the stationmasters who were charitable and looked the other way when they spotted a hobo, and others who were die-hard company men, “by-the-rules sons o’ bitches” who were well known up and down the line for showing no mercy to men they caught hitching a ride.

  Thatcher’s plan had been to wait until the train began to slow on the outskirts of the next town and to get off before it reached the depot, in case the stationmaster there happened to be one of the less tenderhearted.

  But these men, who were seasoned in the art, were probably expecting him to do just that. No doubt their plan was to jump him before he could jump from the train.

  They were on a track that cut across the broad breast of Texas where towns were few and far between. But within the last few minutes, Thatcher had
decided that no matter how desolate the landscape was where he landed, it would be safer than staying in this boxcar and at the mercy of men who didn’t have anything left to lose.

  Jumping from a moving train couldn’t be much worse than being thrown from a horse, could it? He’d been pitched off too many times to count. But he’d never been thrown when it was full dark, when he didn’t know his exact location or where his next drink of water would come from.

  How long till daylight? He didn’t dare check his wristwatch. The army invention was still a novelty to folks who hadn’t been issued one during the war. He didn’t want to draw attention by consulting the time, which would be a giveaway that he was awake and planning a departure.

  As unobtrusively as possible, he used his index finger to raise his hat just far enough to gauge the degree of darkness beyond the opening. Since the last time he’d sneaked a look, the rectangular gap had turned from solid black to dull gray.

  Moving only his gaze, he looked toward the men who were a short distance away, lying at various angles to each other. Two were snoring loudly, feigning sleep. One, Thatcher could tell, was watching him through slitted eyelids. Thatcher lowered his finger from the underside of the brim. His hat resettled over his face.

  He forced himself to breathe evenly while he counted to sixty. Then in one motion, he lurched to his feet as he popped his hat onto his head and grabbed his duffel bag by the strap. He made it to the opening and hurled his bag out.

  Just as he was about to spring, one of the men grabbed his sleeve from behind.

  Shit!

  Thatcher came around and swung his fist toward the guy’s head, but he saw it coming, ducked, and held on to Thatcher’s sleeve like a bulldog. Out the corner of his eye, he saw another approaching in a crouch, making wide swipes with a knife.

  The man holding on to him threw a punch that caught Thatcher in the ribs. He retaliated by chopping the guy across the throat with the side of his hand. His attacker let go of his sleeve and staggered backward, holding his throat with both hands and wheezing.