Everything was green and fresh from the spring rains. The trees looked well pruned, and urns with fancy flowers dotted the porch. Smaller urns lined the steps that led up to the double front doors. There was no way of knowing what kind of flowers were in the urns, but they were fragrant. Bees buzzed about, all the way out into the street, intoxicated like they had just left a saloon after a long binge. The air smelled like it was perfumed with the most expensive toilet water in the world.
Josiah sat comfortably on Clipper, off to the side of the street, trying not to draw any attention to himself. There was still a lot of traffic making its way over to Congress Avenue.
He had hoped to catch a glimpse of Pearl, but all he saw was a big sign on the gate: “NO VISITORS AFTER 5 P.M.”
A quick check of his pocket watch told him he was too late by about twenty minutes. Pedro had implied that the rules at Miss Amelia Angle’s Home for Girls were strict, so there was no thought of trudging up to the front door and possibly making trouble for Pearl. He didn’t know her circumstances, other than they couldn’t have been comfortable.
As nice as the house looked, surely adjusting to life in a boardinghouse was difficult for Pearl. She was accustomed to servants and cooks and having the run of the big house. It was hard for Josiah to imagine the changes Pearl must have faced, but he certainly understood the curves life could throw at a person. If Lily and the girls would have lived their full lives, Josiah knew he’d still be at home in the piney woods of Seerville, living, in his own mind at least, happily ever after, trying to eke out a living as a farmer and maybe a lawman of some kind. Maybe a Texas Ranger. Maybe not. It was impossible to say and really didn’t matter anyway.
Josiah knew that Pearl Fikes was resilient, a strong woman—though he didn’t know the extent of her strength and will. Losing her way of life, her place in society, would surely be a test of all her attributes.
A soft tinkle of piano music began to emanate from the house. It sounded like the music was coming from the turret, and it was well played, classical; a waltz of some kind.
Josiah eased Clipper’s reins and kneed the horse gently, moving him forward so he could get a better look. He wanted to see if he could peek into the window from atop his horse in the street, without alerting whoever was playing the piano of his presence.
It was difficult, but there were heavy curtains pulled to each corner of the window, allowing a slight view in the form of a V. Josiah craned his neck and, to his disappointment, saw that the piano player was not Pearl. It was a young woman with flowing auburn hair.
There was nothing he could do now but wait and hopefully see Pearl coming or going, or bide his time until dark came. If it came to that, then he’d try and rouse her by tossing a small pebble at the window that Pedro had said was hers.
Another piano competed with the one in the turret, only this one wasn’t playing a waltz, it was playing a familiar saloon song, “Camptown Races.” The music drew Josiah’s attention away from Amelia Angle’s house. He let Clipper know he wanted to go, but it was like the horse already knew it was time to move on before Josiah tapped him with his heels. The Appaloosa bounced his head and began a slow trot forward.
There was a time in Josiah’s life when he would have never considered spending idle time in a saloon, but sitting on his horse outside a house, pining like a lovesick boy, hoping to catch a glimpse of a girl, was something he’d never considered he’d be doing either, not at his age.
The trip to Corpus Christi had changed a lot of things in his life, and his return to Austin, now that Lyle seemed to be on the mend, was an announcement of that fact. The city was different, too. More hectic, more vibrant. It was like there was a current of energy running under the dirt streets, pulsing like some unseen force, urging movement to continue on indefinitely.
The ride was short, and the saloon was easy to find. It stood about two and a half blocks from the boardinghouse, just at the edge of the residential section of Cypress Street. It was an odd place for a saloon. Josiah couldn’t remember ever seeing the saloon since he’d moved to Austin—but he had been away a lot of the last year.
The saloon was tucked in between a mercantile and a haberdashery, with a small sign over the door, “EASY NICKEL SALOON,” and no batwings. The solid door was standing wide open, and the music flowed out into the street.
Josiah tied Clipper to a hitching post. There were plenty to choose from; the nearest mount, a black gelding, was three doors down in front of a doctor’s office, waiting patiently.
He looked up to the sky, checking the position of the sun. It was out of sight, and the grayness of twilight was a promise on the eastern horizon. Then Josiah checked his Peacemaker, made sure it was tight in the holster. He didn’t expect trouble, but walking into a saloon brought a fiftyfifty chance of finding it.
The inside of the saloon was dark. Only a few sconces flickered on the walls, and a few hurricane lamps burned at the bar. The overhead collection of lamps, set on an old wagon wheel, had not been lit yet.
Only the piano player, a scruffy, bespectacled man with a bald head, and a barkeep were present in the saloon. The barkeep was tall, thick-armed, and barely glanced up when Josiah walked inside. Without saying a word, he made his way to the bar.
“What can I get ya?” the big barkeep said.
“Whiskey,” Josiah replied.
“One?”
“That’ll be enough.”
The music played on, slightly picking up pace, starting all over at the beginning of the song. It was like the piano player was trying to get something started but didn’t have the will, or power, to fully see it through.
Not far from where Josiah stood, a newspaper lay open on the bar. The headline, McNELLY RUNS CORTINA BACK TO MEXICO, caught his attention. He was tempted to read the article, but he could just about recount the episode from his own experience in Corpus—and he knew Scrap Elliot would be right in the thick of things. For some reason, that thought gave Josiah a bit of comfort. There had been no need for Scrap to accompany him back to Austin, though there did seem to be something missing since the boy’s departure.
“Kind of lonely in here,” Josiah said.
The barkeep slid the whiskey onto the counter. Josiah plopped two coins on the bar, picked up the glass, and swigged down the whiskey in one long gulp. No matter how much he tried, he still did not like the taste or burn of whiskey. But he was after neither effect, just the immediate result. He was after the slow calm, not the rowdy burst of energy that came from the drink. For him, how liquor affected him depended on the mood and the environment of the moment.
“Night falls, it’ll bring in the coin,” the barkeep said. He had a slight German accent, but it wasn’t real strong. Josiah wondered why the man didn’t work at one of the German beer gardens around town, but he failed to ask. The barkeep didn’t appear to be in the mood for conversation, and truth be told, neither was Josiah. He was just building his nerve to see Pearl.
Not knowing what to expect when he found her made him nervous. Assuming that she would even want to see him was pure presumption on his part, and that was an odd feeling. Especially since he had pushed a willing Billie Webb out of his life—at least for the moment. Something told him that he hadn’t seen the last of Billie, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“You want another?” the barkeep asked.
Josiah shook his head no. “Just going to stand here for a bit if that’s all right with you?”
“Suit yourself. Joe there only knows two or three songs.”
“Thanks.”
Joe the piano player nodded, smiled, then went back to banging the keys.
It didn’t take long before Josiah became annoyed at the music and the loneliness of the saloon. He was looking for a distraction, something to take his mind off Pearl. Instead, he had an empty feeling in his stomach, and a growing sense of dread.
Without thanking the barkeep, who was busy shining glasses with a white towel, Josiah walked o
ut of the saloon.
Night had fallen, but the darkness was not pure yet, not thick—the world was covered in shadows, not the blanket of pitch-black night. Still, he had waited long enough. He was going to find Pearl, or he was going home.
He unhitched Clipper, settled into the saddle, and turned to head back the way he’d come.
But a feeling came over him that slowed him down, like a pair of eyes was burning a hard hole into the back of his neck. Josiah looked over his shoulder quickly, reacting to his instinct.
He was certain he saw a man slip into the shadows of a thin alleyway between the doctor’s office and the mercantile. With a swift jerk, Josiah turned Clipper back around and stopped at the mouth of the alley to get a better look. He eased his hand back and gripped the Peacemaker, ready to pull it if he had to.
There was nothing there. No sign of man or beast—a cat or a dog, maybe—intent on doing him harm.
Josiah exhaled lightly then, knowing his senses had been dulled a bit by the shot of whiskey and heightened at the same time by the experience of the night before, encountering Paul Hoagland in the street. The reporter’s threat, that they were not through with each other, still weighed heavily on his mind.
It wouldn’t have surprised Josiah to catch the reporter trailing after him, hoping for more of a story.
Unsure whether or not that was the case, Josiah spun Clipper back around and headed straight to Miss Amelia Angle’s Home for Girls. He wasn’t going to start living his life in fear that he was being spied upon by a worthless newspaper reporter.
He needed to see Pearl Fikes. Plain and simple: He wanted to get on with his life, and nothing was going to stop him. Not now.
CHAPTER 43
A light burned in the window at the back of Miss Amelia Angle’s Home for Girls. The light was not smoky and muted, but steady and bright. It appeared Miss Angle’s house had been outfitted with gas lamps. Obviously, gas, used as an everyday fuel, was spreading to the farthest reaches of Austin; an occurrence that Josiah found interesting, but less notable than the presence of the moving shadows in the room of his focus. If Pedro had been correct, then it looked like Pearl Fikes was where she was supposed to be.
Josiah scrounged up a few suitable pebbles and tossed them up at the window. The house was three storeys, and the first couple of throws missed the window entirely, bouncing off the wood siding with a shallow, almost inaudible, thump. After a couple of more tries, he pinged a small rock off the window, light enough so the fragile glass didn’t shatter.
Instead of tossing up another rock, Josiah waited. He could feel his heart beating in his chest even faster now. There was still a slight taste of whiskey in his mouth, as foreign as it was welcome. Wasting time in a saloon had become a necessary evil in Corpus Christi; now it seemed he had no aversion to the act like he’d had in the past. Not that he thought about the aversion a lot, but the change in his own attitude was a surprise to him.
A shadow moved forward in the room. Josiah palmed a rock and readied his next throw, determined to get Pearl’s attention. He worried less about drawing anyone else’s attention, and he was sure he wasn’t the first man to toss pebbles at the boardinghouse windows.
Pearl appeared at the window, the steady gas light behind her. Her long blond hair glowed like golden straw. She wore a curious look on her face, but it didn’t take a sighting scope to see recognition burst across it and curiosity change to unbridled happiness once she laid eyes on Josiah.
In response, Josiah waved, urging her to come down, and Pearl disappeared abruptly from the window.
The last time he had seen her was in the coach outside of the capitol building. Pearl had whispered to him, I need you, after which he had disappeared for the next four months and offered nothing in the form of communication. No letters, no telegraphs, nothing. He was fully undercover, taking his spy assignment from McNelly as seriously as he could. Ultimately, he didn’t know what kind of reception to expect from Pearl, especially considering the changes that had occurred in her life while he had been away.
Josiah paced then, walking in and out of the shadows in the alleyway that edged the back of the boardinghouse.
Lights from the windows of the house shone down on the gravel, and the moon peeked in and out of the clouds overhead, providing a reasonably clear view of everything around him.
There was still noise about, even louder piano music from the saloon and a moderate amount of traffic pacing by on the main streets that intersected at the corner lot the boardinghouse sat on. Josiah could barely hear anything, his mind full of jumbled words as he searched for the right thing to say to Pearl.
I’m sorry.
Maybe, he wasn’t sure. Duty had called, and it had seemed the best thing to do, getting out of Austin, letting the hubbub die down.
I love you.
He wasn’t sure. It was a hard thing to say, even though Billie Webb was pushing him to say it aloud one way or another. He knew Billie had her needs for him to say so, but it just wasn’t that easy. He loved Lily. Always had, always would. How could he love, Pearl, too?
I missed you.
That was the truth. He had barely given Billie a thought when he was in Corpus Christi, while Pearl had been on his mind almost every day. Pearl, Lyle, and Ofelia. That counted for something, he thought. I missed you would be the truth; easier to say.
Emotions were not a foreign territory to Josiah, but he preferred simpler terrain than he was standing on now. As it was, he knew he had to see Pearl, and that was that. Maybe he would know what he felt as soon as she appeared.
As it turned out, Josiah didn’t have to say anything. Not at first.
Pearl rounded the corner, her hair flowing behind her unbound as she ran to him. She was dressed to be alone in her room, ready for the night, her bedclothes on, a fine robe, too, open and unbuttoned, fine red satin fluttering about like a flag on a windy day.
Josiah stopped pacing and grabbed at a breath, because the sight of Pearl immediately took it away from him.
Not only did he feel alive, but he saw the desire for him in her eyes even in the grayness of the night. He had not felt wanted in a long, long time, at least that he recognized. Not since he was with her last, on the night before leaving Austin. There was no comparison of how he felt with Pearl to his feeling in the company of Billie Webb. Billie made him nervous, and with Pearl, Josiah was beginning to feel like himself.
Pearl ran straight to Josiah, uncaring about where they were, or if anyone saw them—wordless, her eyes glistening. The force of her body against his knocked Josiah back two steps, off balance. He had to reach for Pearl and pull her close to him to regain steady footing.
Josiah buried his face in her neck. She smelled like a field full of Texas wildflowers: bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, daisies, and indigo. And her skin felt like velvet. He had longed for her touch without fully realizing it.
The world around them disappeared, and for a brief moment, it was as if they were the only two people who walked on the earth. Josiah was transported to the last moment they had truly touched, back to the barn on the estate, when they had made love for the one and only time.
Pearl was breathing heavily, and though he couldn’t see her face, he could feel the wetness of her tears against his skin.
“I missed you,” he whispered.
Pearl pulled back and looked Josiah in the eye, their noses an inch apart. He didn’t wait for her to respond. He could not restrain himself any longer. He kissed her as passionately and as deeply as he knew how. Happily, Pearl responded in kind.
Time stood still, and it was only when they both heard the clopping of a coming horse that they broke apart and scurried, holding hands, into the shadows of a carriage house.
A buggy passed by, heading out to the main street, its sole occupant a man dressed in dark clothes and a high hat, who paid them no attention at all.
Once the buggy was past, Pearl broke into a laugh. “I feel like a schoolgirl.”
&nbs
p; Josiah smiled. Even in the darkness her eyes were alive and happy. “You look like one, too.”
“I am improper, Josiah Wolfe. And you should be ashamed of yourself for not calling on me at the appropriate hour.”
He was certain—almost certain—that she was playing with him, and he was very happy to find her in good humor, instead of scolding him or holding him in contempt for his absence.
“You look just fine to me, Miss Fikes.”
“You are a scoundrel. With whiskey on your breath, no less. How am I to be sure that this is the Josiah Wolfe I know?”
Josiah looked away, then, breaking her gaze. “I had to go away.”
“I know that. I understand. I also know you were on an assignment.”
“How did you know that, Pearl?”
“I still know people, Josiah, no matter that my circumstances have changed.”
“I’m sorry about that. I know it must be hard.”
“Hard?” Pearl asked, tilting her head curiously. “Hard was not knowing if you were dead or alive, or if you would ever come back to Austin for longer than a minute to retrieve your son and then disappear again.”
“I could never be in this town without seeing you. Unless you would no longer want to see me.”
“You’ve changed.” Pearl ran the palm of her hand across his cheek, letting it linger before pulling away.
“I’m sure we both have.”
The sound of a window being pushed open caught Pearl’s attention. She put her index finger to her lips and moved in closer to Josiah, pressing against him, like she was trying to disappear into his body.
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