News of the World: A Novel Read Free Page B

the dress hems were carrying several pounds of red sludge, and she bent her head low and when she made a strangled noise he realized she was trying not to cry.
    Captain Kidd bought a spring wagon from the livery stable. He bought it with the Spanish coin and was lucky to get it. It was in fact an excursion wagon painted a dark and glossy green and in gold letters on the sides it said Curative Waters East Mineral Springs Texas and he had no idea how the wagon had come all the way from near Houston to this little town on the Red River. The wagon surely had a story all to itself that would now remain forever unknown, untold. It was a jaunty little vehicle with two rows of seats running the length of the wagon bed so the people going to the curative mineral waters could sit and stare across at one another. There were poles to support acanopy and side curtains. This was but poor protection against hard weather but it was all he had.
    He would sell the wagon in Castroville or San Antonio if he ever got there and in the meantime it would be a luxury to travel in a vehicle with a spring seat to take the ruts and the hammering. His roan mare packhorse could pull it and his bay saddle horse could come behind.
    It would also allow him to keep the girl within sight. He wished he knew her name in Kiowa. He would call her Johanna, as if it mattered. She didn’t know the word “Johanna” from Deuteronomy.
    Captain Kidd changed to his duck coat and trousers of jeans cloth, a double-breasted plains shirt. He put on his old traveling hat with the uneven brim. He laid his black reading suit in careful layers into his carpet bag and his good black hat for readings into a tin hatbox. A hat can, as the cowboys said. Young people could get away with rough clothing but unless the elderly dressed with care they looked like homeless vagabonds and at every reading he must present the appearance of authority and wisdom.
    He packed up his newspapers and his cutthroat razor and its cake of soap, the brush, his shot box with powder and caps and wads and the spring-loaded powder charger. Into the bed of the Curative Waters wagon he threw his shotgun, purchases of tinned butter and dried beef, bacon, two sheepskins, a small box of medical supplies, a keg of flour, water bottles, a candle lantern and candles, a small stove. Then his portfolio with his newspapers and a map of the roads of Texas, which he rarely used. Finally his riding boots and his saddle and blankets. Helifted the girl into the wagon bed and made “stay” motions with his hands. Then he went looking for Britt.
    THEY WERE PARKED in front of a general merchandise store. Dennis and Paint were trying to even out their loads in both wagons. Britt’s boy was there with them; he worked hard and quickly and seemed to look constantly and anxiously at his father. Dennis supervised the loading. They had to cross the upper Little Wichita and they did not want the wagons to go down by the head. Their teams were big strong bays. Admirable horses.
    The Captain said, Britt, which roads are open?
    Britt climbed up to the driver’s seat on one wagon with his boy at his side and Dennis was at the reins in the other. Paint sat beside Dennis smoking a cigar with great enjoyment. A light rain was still drifting down into the colorless late-spring world of North Texas and its low and restless sky.
    Britt said, Take the road alongside the Red east to Spanish Fort, Captain. They say it’s not flooded yet, and then from Spanish Fort the southeast road to Weatherford and Dallas is good. Get to Spanish as quick as you can and away from the Red because it’s still coming up. From Weatherford and Dallas you can get directions for the Meridian Road heading south.
    Very well, said the Captain. I am obliged. He thought about his solitude. About his thin, lean life and the coal gas. He said, The Meridian Road heading south.
    Britt had a military bearing and the attentive gaze of a man who had spent long hard months