Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“That’s it?” I said.

“No, that is not it,” she said. “You have a court appearance in three weeks. One other development you might note: The Immigration and Naturalization Service has taken an interest in your whereabouts and your behavior, Mrs. Holland. Our office is at their disposal. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“Yes, I think I do,” Rosita replied.

“You’re certain of that, are you?” Miss Lemunyon said.

“I won’t knowingly cause you any more difficulty,” Rosita said.

“I believe we’re done here,” Tom said, rising from his chair. “Thank you for seeing us.”

Miss Lemunyon didn’t reply. Her face contained a dry, colorless

heat of a kind you associate with people for whom personal humiliation has been a way of life. These are the worst people imaginable to have as enemies. As we left the building, I felt something else needed to be said. It has always been my conviction that nothing is ever lost by appealing to reason in others. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. You tried. I knew that’s what Grandfather would say, at least when he wasn’t loading a gun in preparation to shoot someone. I put Rosita in the automobile and went back inside the building. I tapped on the frosted glass inset in Miss Lemunyon’s door. “Come in,” she said.

“I’ll make this brief,” I said. “I think you’re probably a good judge of character. Officer Slakely molested my wife. He’s poor white trash and a liar and a coward. What he did to my wife, he’s done to other women. Don’t let him use you.”

She looked at me for a long moment. I noticed for the first time there were no cuticles on her nails and that the sides of her fingers on her right hand were yellowed by nicotine. Her mouth worked without sound; then there was a dry click in her throat and the words finally came out, thick and ropy and barely audible. “How dare you speak to me like that,” she said.

MY MOTHER WAS no longer able to adequately care for Grandfather, so Rosita and I brought him to Houston and put him in a back bedroom where he could see the esplanade and the baseball diamond and the trees and picnic shelters in the park. Grandfather didn’t do well in the city. To him, sirens, traffic noises, the drone of airplanes, the quarreling of neighbors, and solicitors knocking on the door were acts of theft. I thought that, like many elderly people, he might retaliate by making life hard for others, but that proved not to be the case. Grandfather was a study in contradiction and unpredictability. He had killed a number of men, but he was not a killer. He could be visceral and coarse, but under it all he was a kind man. Rather than publicly rinse his sins, as many others were fond of doing, he wrote off his early years as “lively times.” I loved Grandfather; it was a pleasure to have him in our home.

I didn’t want to burden him with our troubles. He was a good reader of people, though, and I didn’t fool him long. “I heard y’all talking. Those same oil people are out to get you, are they?” he said when I spread a quilt over him and turned on the electric fan.

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s a long and dreary business, Grandfather. We’ll just have to see it through.”

“Tell me anyway. It’s not like my schedule is overly crowded.”

So I did.

“Suffering God, Satch, it sounds like they’ve tried everything except give you anthrax.”

“They can do whatever they want. We’ll do it right back.”

“It’s not always that easy. You trust Roy Wiseheart?”

“He’s got sand, I’ll say that.”

“So did John Wesley Hardin. He was also a bucket of shit.”

“Roy’s not like his father. I think there’s more than one person living inside him.”

“I bet one of them is a coral snake.”

I didn’t reply. The sky was dark, and the bedroom was brightly lit by an overhead light. Grandfather’s face looked soft and pink against the pillow, his thick hair a tangle of gray and white. Even in his nineties, he was a big and powerful man and not to be taken for granted. “Don’t get slickered,” he said.

“By whom?”

“I know your thoughts before you have them, Weldon. You’re fond of Wiseheart. You both went to war. Like you, he was brave. But when push comes to shove, he’ll stick with his own kind. It won’t be because of love, either. It’ll be about money.”

“Your revolver is sticking out from under your pillow,” I said.

“I saw some of Pancho Villa’s boys outside the window last night. I’d hate for one of them to get the drop on me.”

I looked over my shoulder and back at him.