Texas Born (8 page)

At first Miss Welcker wondered why this
ominous, pregnant silence hung heavy in the air. Usually the
children were agitated and noisy after recess, and she had to
silence them. But not today.

Frowning, she eyed the classroom, trying to
determine why they were behaving so peculiarly out of character.
Then it struck her.

'Where is Elizabeth-Anne?' she asked
quietly.

Everyone stared at her. The silence was
deadly.

'Well?'

Still no one spoke up, but furtive eyes
darted about.

Miss Welcker picked up her yardstick and
brought it crashing down on the top of her desk with a sharp
ca-
rack!

Everyone jumped.

She pointed the yardstick threateningly at
the class. 'I do not want to hear as much as a peep out of any of
you!' she snapped grimly. 'Is that understood?'

No one dared speak.

'I said, is . . . that . . . under . . .
stood?'

The chorus came. 'Yes, Miss Welcker.'

'Then don't forget it,' Miss Welcker warned,
and marched briskly from the room. When she got outside, she looked
around, then walked quickly to the back of the building. She saw
Elizabeth-Anne lying on the ground near the donkey. Hurrying toward
her, she cringed at the sight that greeted her. The girl's knees
were scraped and bleeding, the blindfold was still tied around her
eyes, and vomit stained her mouth and the front of her dress. The
child was heaving soundlessly.

'There, there. It's all right,
Elizabeth-Anne. Everything's all right.' Gently Miss Welcker bent
down, untied the blindfold, and helped her to her feet. Together
they slowly headed back to the schoolhouse. Once there, the teacher
stood in the doorway and cleared her throat.

The class turned and stared at her.

'Some of you may think this is very funny,'
Miss Welcker said with quiet anger, 'but I do not. I am going to
leave now. You will all remain here until I return. During that
time, I will let you discuss this incident among yourselves and you
can decide whether it was worth it: starting today, and continuing
every day for the next four weeks, none of you will have recess
privileges. Furthermore, you shall
all
have to clean the
schoolroom and the yard every day after school for one hour. Do I
make myself clear?'

A pin could have been heard dropping.

Miss Welcker took a deep breath to calm
herself. When she spoke again, her voice cut the air like a knife.
'Jennifer!'

Jenny jerked guiltily, her face ashen.

Miss Welcker's voice softened. 'Come with me.
We'll take Elizabeth-Anne home.'

Jenny fought to keep the relief off her face.
Careful not to meet any of her friends' accusing eyes, she hurried
to the back of the classroom, eager to escape. She was only too
well aware that the incident had been her brainstorm. Now, with
everyone being punished, it was quite likely that they would turn
on her.

On the way to the rooming house, Jenny looked
Miss Welcker in the eye and asked innocently, 'What happened, Miss
Welcker?'

Melissa Welcker looked at her. 'The others
played a despicable, cruel trick on Elizabeth-Anne.'

'Did they hurt her?'

'Harm,' Miss Welcker said, 'can be achieved
any number of ways. I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell your aunt
that I think it's best that Elizabeth-Anne doesn't attend school
just yet.' Miss Welcker paused. 'I'm glad that you weren't
involved, Jennifer.'

Jenny made an effort to keep from smiling.
'Still, I feel so guilty,' she said softly. 'I'll have to be
punished too.'

Miss Welcker looked at her strangely. 'And
why is that?'

Jenny lowered her eyes. 'I should have looked
out for 'Lizbeth-Anne, you see, but I was only concerned with my
arithmetic problems.'

Miss Welcker favored Jenny with one of her
rare smiles. 'You're a fine young lady, Jennifer Sue Clowney. I'm
very proud of you. Your aunt should be too.'

Jenny beamed. 'Thank you, Miss Welcker.'

Elizabeth-Anne tore her hand out of Miss
Welcker's and ran on ahead of them.

For all her good intentions, Melissa Welcker
had no idea why.

It was the sixteenth of December.

Amanda Grubb sat primly erect beside her
husband as the train sped into the night through the dark, snow-
covered hills of western Pennsylvania. Silently she watched the
showers of glowing red sparks shooting past her pale reflection in
the window. From under the carriage came the steady, monotonous
clickety-clack, clickety-clack of the iron wheels on the spliced
rails, and the coach rattled and swayed back and forth.

After a while she tired of staring at her
reflection. She relaxed in her seat, tucking her fleshy chin
forward into her neck as she untied the string of her cloth purse.
She tugged it open and took the letter out again and unfolded it.
The paper was thin, creased from folding and unfolding, reading and
rereading, but the penmanship was neat and concise, almost brisk in
its efficiency. It was distinguished by its lack of flourishes.
Clearly the writer was not one given to wasting time
unnecessarily.

She reread the letter for what must surely
have been the hundredth time:

Quebeck, Texas

Thursday, September 12, 1901

Dear Miss Elspeth Gross,

If perhaps this letter should reach you, Mr.
Szabo Gross, the circus proprietor, and his wife died in a tragic
accident. They are survived by their six-year-old daughter,
Elizabeth-Anne, who is in my care. I heard you are her next of kin.
Could you, agreeable to convenience, of course, send for her or
come to Quebeck, as she has no other kin I know of. Or, if that
should prove impossible and she has closer kin, please contact them
or myself.

Respectfully,

Miss Elender Hannah Clowney

'You rereadin' that letter agin?' her
husband, Bazzel, asked.

Amanda nodded soberly and folded it.
Carefully she slid it back into the envelope, then slipped that in
her purse. She tugged on the string. 'Bazzel . . .' she said
slowly.

'What's the matter?' His voice was dry and
clipped.

She stared down at the purse on her lap. Then
she turned to him. He looked stern and thin and forbidding. Corded
neck, protruding Adam's apple, round rimmed glasses. 'Maybe . . .
maybe it ain't such a good idea?' she suggested meekly.

His pale eyes narrowed. 'We're goin' through
with it, and that's the end of it. We come this far. This ain't no
time to weasel out.'

She could feel a familiar ache knotting up
her in- sides. She bit down on her fleshy lip and closed her eyes.
She had grown weary of the constant shams. Of bilking people out of
their life savings and then skipping out of town at night. Of
constantly staying one jump ahead of their victims and the law. It
wouldn't have been so bad if things had turned out the way they'd
intended—pulling a fast one just once or twice, and getting enough
out of it to be able to buy a farm and settle down. Unfortunately,
the victims usually weren't much better off than Bazzel and her.
More often than not, they were even worse off.

Amanda Grubb was afraid that any day now the
trail of fraud they had left behind would finally catch up with
them.

It was high time to stop, she thought. She
was tired of running, always running. And she was frightened too.
But worse, she was starting to have severe pangs of sincere
guilt.

Especially this time.

This time their victim would be an orphaned
child.

She didn't know how Bazzel had managed to get
hold of Elender Hannah Clowney's letter to Elspeth Gross, but
somehow it had landed in his hands. When he had brought it to her,
his eyes had glinted greedily.

Amanda knew that look only too well. Quickly
she came up beside him and glanced at the letter, but it was
impossible to read it, he was waving it around so excitedly.

'A circus!' he whispered, and smiled coldly
at her. 'How many times did I tell you that sooner or later we'd
make a killing?'

'What are you talking about?' she'd asked in
a puzzled voice.

'Here. See for yerself. Whoever this here
Elizabeth-Anne is, she owns a circus now!'

Amanda snatched the letter out of his hand,
quickly scanned it, then handed it back to him. Her initial
excitement faded. 'That's not what it says,' she corrected him in a
dull voice. 'It only says that there's a child. That her pappy was
the proprietor of the circus.'

'That means there's a circus!' he growled.
'And she's the heiress. You got any idea what P.T. Barnum brings in
in a week? Tell you what. We're goin' to git one last bundle of
money out of that Crowder woman you been cottonin' up to. Then it's
off to Texas!'

'No, Bazzel! Mrs. Crowder's such a nice
woman! We
can't!
'

His eyes narrowed. 'You ain't never said that
before.'

She wrung her hands in anguish. 'I didn't
know
her before. Now I like her. And . . . and she likes
me.'

'And once she finds out about the worthless
silver stock we sold her? How's she going to like you then?'

Amanda was silent.

'We'll sell her another five hundred shares,'
Bazzel said with finality. 'That'll give us the money to git to
Texas. Plus it'll leave some left over.'

Amanda's stomach churned. They were
counterfeit shares; the mining company didn't exist. The mine did,
although it had long since been shut down. There wasn't an ounce of
silver in it. Bazzel had simply had the stockholders' certificates
printed, and over the past year had sold a few shares here and
there. But never five hundred at a time. A block that large brought
too much attention to the defunct mine. It was begging for an
investigation.

An investigation. Just the thought was enough
to make Amanda Grubb shudder.

In the beginning, she hadn't minded. Somehow,
it had been different back then. It had seemed more harmless, like
a game, almost. But back then she hadn't been as afraid of Bazzel
as she'd learned to be over the years.

She sneaked a glance over at her husband and
shuddered. Bazzel looked so gaunt and righteous and tight-

lipped—which was why, she supposed, she, like
so many other people since then, had let themselves be taken in by
him. He just didn't look like a swindler. He never dressed in fancy
city togs. Never talked smoothly. In fact, he looked more like a
hellfire-and- brimstone preacher, as honest and homespun as they
came, as trustworthy as the flag or mom's apple pie. And since he
looked
so fiercely honest, people they met invariably
thought he must surely
be
fiercely honest too. They trusted
him immediately, just as she once had.

When they realized their mistake, it was
always too late.

It just went to prove how looks could
deceive.

Amanda Grubb was a fleshy, red-faced, and
withdrawn woman. She looked simple and prim and proper. Her dark
eyes moved nervously.

There was something no-nonsense about her.
Skin scrubbed shiny, features on the coarse side, everything clad
in a homespun disguise. Starched white bonnet. Pilgrim-gray dress.
But her hands were too soft for the sincere, hardworking look she
strove for.

She saw her husband look toward her, and
swiftly averted her gaze. He had that ability to make her feel he
could read her mind.

She hoped he couldn't. The last thing she
wanted or needed was to invite his ire. She had been pummeled black
and blue once too often.

Amanda wondered where her life had gone
wrong. Ever since she had met Bazzel, eight long years ago, they
had been on the road pulling off scams and then making tracks.

They had left York, Pennsylvania, as they had
left everywhere else: in a hurry. That had posed no problem. They
had been prepared to flee at a moment's notice. Their suitcases had
been half-packed, a lesson they had learned in Baltimore once when
they'd had to leave all their belongings behind. Now they never
bought anything they couldn't carry.

And in York it had been a close call too.

Just thinking about it was enough to make her
in-sides turn cold.

Oh, God
, she thought
, I never
thought it would turn out like this. People hurt. A child taken
advantage of. To have to pretend to be Elspeth Gross, whoever she
is, just to become an orphan's guardian and steal a circus out from
under her.

How in the world had things come to turn out
this way?

She thought she would go mad from the crazily
sped- up music of the puffing calliope.

As she fought her way up from the depths of
the nightmare, the dream stayed with her. Always it was that same
ghastly nightmare. The one she couldn't shake. The one about the
fire. . . .

Once again she was on the trapeze and her
father was chasing her through the burnt-out circus. He, too, was
on a trapeze, and his skin was charred and blistered, and parts of
his flesh were burned away, showing blackened bone underneath. The
charred tent poles plunged down to dark infinity, to burning hell
itself. Occasionally one-dimensional cutouts of Hazy, Goliath, or
the other performers glided silently by below her, under their own
mysterious power. Overhead, from horizon to horizon, the sky was
oppressively low and red. Ablaze.

It was a hellish landscape untouched by
humans as she knew them.

From the charred tent poles hung the rickety
trapezes, all that stood between her and the fires of hell. It was
a delicate balance. Each time she or Szabo swung from one trapeze
to the next, the poles quivered and creaked under the strain like
fragile spun glass . . . always threatening to break.

For what seemed an eternity, she had been
swinging from one trapeze to the next. She was terrified that her
weary, blistered hands would miss one of the bars. That she would
lose her balance and fall into that bottomless inferno.