Eutopia (31 page)

“We are being watched.”

Jason started to pull away, but stopped when she made a shushing noise.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “This is what he’ll be expecting us to be doing. There won’t be more questions if we’re simply found doing it.” And then she pulled back and said at volume:

“Boy! Come out and stop spying on us!”

Now Jason did turn away, and look up the slope where Ruth was looking. Sure enough, at the crest of the rise, someone was moving. But it did not take long to tell that Ruth had guessed wrong. This was no boy.

This fellow had dark hair, and a wide face, and he was huge. As he climbed up over the rise, Jason saw that he was wearing a white robe that came down to his ankles. He was carrying a thick branch in two hands. Jason thought he might recognize the fellow, and as he started down the hill, Jason figured he knew from where.

“Nowak.”

The last time Jason had seen Nowak had been four days ago, outside the sawmill just before he met up with Sam Green. Nowak was changed from that afternoon. Watching as he moved stiffly down the hillside toward them, Jason was put to mind of something his mama had taught him early: the way she put it, men-folk could change from one fellow to a completely different one, in as much time as it took to drink a jug of whiskey. And when they did, you had to watch them. You could not let them get too close.

“Do you know him?” whispered Ruth.

“I met him. It ain’t right.”

“It’s not—” Ruth took a sharp breath. “He’s wearing a
Klan
robe. Oh
damn
. Let me—”

She reached around beside her. Jason could hear the box with the Colt inside opening. He didn’t look at what she was doing. He stood up, and kept his eye on Nowak. He was grinning widely. As he started to close the gap, there was enough of a shift in the breeze, and Jason caught a whiff of something rotten. He was carrying the branch across his middle, bouncing it in one hand while the other gripped it hard, like he was getting ready to swing.

Jason kept his eye on the man. That was the trick, his mama said. Don’t let them see you back down or look like you might take what they’re planning on giving out. Because they’ll see that as an invitation. Show them you’ll look them in the eye. Show them you’ll fight.

“You want something?” said Jason.

Beside him, Ruth whispered: “Damn. Damn damn
damn
it all!”

Jason heard the metallic click and spin sound that told him she had opened the magazine. He cursed too, but to himself. It would have been better if she’d just handed him the gun empty. Jason thought he might have bluffed. He stepped in front of Ruth, so at least when Nowak rushed them, he’d hit Jason first.

But Nowak stopped about a dozen feet from them. He didn’t say anything and didn’t move—just stared at Jason. It was mesmerizing.

“What do you want?” said Jason.

“God,” said Nowak. “I want to show you God.”

“I seen God already,” said Jason. “Why don’t you run off?”

But as Jason spoke, he saw that wasn’t going to happen. It was as though a cloud moved across Nowak’s face—and as it passed a whistling came up—and Nowak said: “God wants to see you some more.” And then he stopped bouncing the stick, and lifted it, and started again toward the two of them.

And at that, Jason lost the contest. He flinched, expecting an arm-smashing blow, or something that would end up on his skull, and finish him.

But before that could come, he felt a hand around his right wrist, and the cool walnut grip of the Colt.

He didn’t even think past that. He brought the gun up and held it two-handed—waited the instant that it would take to know whether the gun would cause Nowak to stop—with a thumb drew the hammer back, with a forefinger squeezed the trigger—screwing his eyes shut and bracing against the kick—

—then finally, when it was all over, thinking to himself:

You were right, Ruth. It’s a thunderclap
.

They had only a moment to themselves after that. Nowak was on his back, bleeding into the sheet from his shoulder where Jason had clipped him. He was not in such terrible shape that he could not get up again, but the one shot had taught him respect for the gun, which Jason kept trained on his head—so he stayed down.

Which was a good thing, because Ruth had only managed to load one more bullet before she’d handed the Colt over. Jason did not wish to shoot a fellow just for trying to stand up, though he knew he would have to.

During the moment before the riders crested the hill, Jason only asked him one question. Later, he would come to regret that he had not followed that with more questions, because when the two Pinkerton men ordered him to surrender the gun and pulled him away from Nowak, they made sure Jason did not have another chance to speak with him alone again.

For the next few hours, Jason didn’t have a chance to speak with anyone alone. Sam Green showed up and hauled Jason and Ruth back to the house, and then Jason found himself in a big sitting room, face to face with Mr. Harper and Mrs. Harper and Aunt Germaine. That was when he found out how lucky he was not to have been shot by the first fellows to arrive at the scene.

“They found you standing over a bleeding man with a gun in your hand, son,” said Mr. Harper. “I would not have blamed either of them if they’d put a bullet in you as a matter of precaution. Now tell me, son—why did you bring a firearm to this home? What possessed you?”

“I’m sorry,” said Jason, and saying that, he realized that he was willing to lie to protect Ruth Harper. He was willing to because he had—same as he’d shot that fellow without thinking.

“I did it,” Ruth blurted. Jason looked at her in amazement.

She confessed to everything—even going so far as having the certificate brought downstairs from her room. She explained that she had brought the weapon out because she wanted to see how Jack Thistledown’s son could shoot.

“And as it turned out, he is a remarkable shot,” she said.

“Jack Thistledown.” Mr. Harper shook his head.

Then Ruth went at her father on another tack. “That man was deranged, father. He was a Klansman! If Jason—Mr. Thistledown had not fired upon him, Heaven knows what he might have done to us both!”

Mr. Harper went quiet and thoughtful at that, and although Jason did not know him well he could see the arguments turning in his head. He wondered when it would come to the point where he asked to know what the two of them had been doing back in the orchards.

Jason regarded Aunt Germaine. She was seated away from them on a high-backed stuffed chair, hands folded in her lap. Light from the tall windows reflected in her glasses, making it difficult to tell where she was looking.

“Jason,” said Mr. Harper finally, “look at me.”

Jason looked at him.

“Dr. Bergstrom thinks that Piotr Nowak will live. So you have not killed a man today, although you might well have. For that, you can be grateful.”

“I am grateful for that.”

“And I must tell you that I am grateful you had the presence of mind to use my daughter’s ill-gotten
toy
to protect her life and honour.”

Jason nodded.

“Now I am going to send you home. You and Mrs. Frost both.”

“Father,” said Ruth, standing up, “Mr. Thistledown should not go back to the same hospital as that brute!”

“I am not speaking of the hospital,” said Mr. Harper. “I mean to say, it is time that both you and your aunt left Eliada. The steamboat is downriver just now. It returns late tomorrow. On Tuesday, you shall both be on it.”

Aunt Germaine leaned forward. “I beg your pardon,” she said in a tone that suggested anything but begging.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Frost. You may convey my apologies to New York, if indeed that is your next stop.”

“You are suggesting that we leave,” she said. “Now.”

“I am insisting.”

Aunt Germaine stood, and walked over to Jason. She put a hand on his arm.

“He rescued your daughter, sir. From, if I may say, a difficulty that is of your making—not his.”

“Is that so?”

“The Klan. They were here before us, sir. They injured your Negro days before we arrived.”

“My
Negro
.”

Mr. Harper drew a breath and paused, as if collecting himself.

“Madame,” he finally continued, “I will not be swayed. Do you not see what danger you are in now? Both of you? Are you not afraid that this fellow’s friends will try to take vengeance?”

Aunt Germaine took Jason’s arm. “We shall see,” she said. “Come Jason—we are returning to the hospital.”

Jason stood up, but Mr. Harper shook his head. “I would not recommend that. Ruth is right—the hospital is not safe.”

“Then what would you recommend?”

Mr. Harper sighed. “Mrs. Frost, I don’t bear you ill will. You or young Mr. Thistledown. I’d ask that the two of you remain here as our guests for the next two nights. We have spare rooms aplenty, and I think you will find that Harper hospitality exceeds that at the hospital. I do not think that anyone would dare strike
here
.”

“We shall send for your things,” said Mrs. Harper in a kindly tone.

Aunt Germaine was having none of it. “Do not think this makes things right!” she said, so fiercely that Mrs. Harper gasped, Mr. Harper looked away, and Jason felt the blood in his face as he briefly met eyes with Ruth. He recalled as they arrived that Aunt Germaine had not wished to be embarrassed. He wondered now, somewhat nastily, if she even had the wit to be.

The picnic carried on long into the evening but Jason stayed clear of it. He had a good view from the bedroom the servants had put him up in. It was an attic room, but pretty fine for that: the bed was wider than the hospital bed that Jason slept in, and softer too. And there was a little window that cut out from the eaves, and a place where a fellow could sit and look out. It was also advantageous, in that the room was a floor up and a wing away from the quarters where they’d placed Aunt Germaine.

He had only two visitors during the day.

Sam Green stopped in about four in the afternoon. Outside, some fellows had gotten with their instruments—one with a guitar, another with a fiddle, and another fellow with a harmonica—and started to play a tune together. Sam Green knocked twice on the door before letting himself in. Jason nodded welcome.

“You ever learn to dance, Mr. Thistledown?” said Sam, bending his head to look out the window over Jason’s shoulder.

“Not much call for it,” said Jason.

“Are you sure about that? Nothing a young lady likes better’n a fellow who’s quick on a two-step.”

“Mayhap I should learn that then.”

Sam tilted his head. “Mayhap,” he said.

Jason slid out of the window. “How is he?” he asked.

“He?”

“Fellow I shot,” said Jason.

“Oh,” said Sam, “you’re interested. That’s something. Wouldn’t have thought that of a Thistledown boy. Particularly one as you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Sam smiled and set down in the window where Jason had been. “You shot a man today. You shot him right, just where you needed, to take him down but not kill him. And then you held him—kept that gun on him steady until my men could show up.”

“Wasn’t much else to do.”

“Well you did the right thing—exactly the right thing—and that is something most fellows would not have been able to. I know because I’ve seen how most fellows get when they start to shooting. Some of them keep shooting, doing all sorts of harm and you got to calm them down or shoot ’em to make ’em stop. Others—well, they shoot the once and miss, and then start shaking so bad they can’t do it again and they get themselves shot often as not as well.

“And then there’s another sort. Like you.”

“Like me.”

“Ice in your veins, boy. I could tell the minute I showed up, and looked you in the eye.”

“What did you see?”

“What I’ve seen in your pa’s eyes.” Sam was nodding slowly as he looked at Jason, and things got quiet. Jason did not take the bait.

“You going to tell me how that fellow’s doing?” he said. “The one I shot so well?”

Sam smiled and chuckled deep in his chest. “He’ll be fine soon as the doctor sobers up enough to work on him. Then I will talk to him. We found some other sheets in the orchard—dropped, like their owners heard the gunshots, dropped the costumes and bolted—not far off. Did you happen to hear or see anyone else?”

“No. Just him.”

Sam nodded. “Figured you’d say if you had. That wasn’t what I came here for, though.”

“What did you come for?”

“Tell you thanks,” said Sam. “Thanks for keeping that matter between us. And thanks for taking care of Ruth. That was a near thing.”

“Well, you are welcome sir,” said Jason.

“And son,” he said as he pushed himself off the windowsill and headed for the door, “you might want to take my advice and learn that two-step. More reliable way to impress a young lady than shooting folks with a borrowed six-gun, you want my opinion.”