Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“I told him I was an FBI agent.”

“The only subject I’m interested in discussing is Rosita. If you could help her, you would have already told me. That means I’m going to let you go. I’m asking that you not call me again.”

“Give me a chance, pal. We’re more alike than you think.”

“No, we’re not. Stay the hell away from me.”

I hung up. It wasn’t smart.

I HAD TO GET a car, and I had to get Rosita out of the sanitarium and into the car. Then I would have viable choices, a chance to run for it, to force the other side to come after us if they wanted to try, a chance to make others pay a price for what they had done to us. As long as we had choices, we had opportunities. If you get your ticket ripped in half, you do it in hot blood, and you do not go gently into that good night. Bonnie and Clyde were murderers, but no one can say they didn’t have courage when they shot their way into a Texas prison to rescue a friend.

If we had choices, I could drive us across the Red River into Oklahoma and head for the Winding Stair Mountains and on into Arkansas and disappear inside the misty blue vastness of the Ozarks. Or we could go south and catch the Sunset Limited to Los Angeles and buy another car and rent a cottage in the vineyard country and live among Mexicans and southern Europeans who had known Jack London. Or we could drive to a café at a dirt crossroads that served as a bus stop and catch a Greyhound to Nevada and that night find ourselves milling among the crowds on the neon-striped sidewalks of Las Vegas, in high desert country surrounded by purple mountains, under a sky that turned turquoise at sunset and sparkled with stars by eight P.M. Then time would take care of our problems. Others would learn what had been done to my wife, and a degree of sanity would be restored in our lives. That’s what I believed. All I needed was a car and a way out of the sanitarium.

My thoughts had run away with me. What would I do about Grandfather and my mother? I had replaced my fear with poetic fantasies. The reality was I felt like a man who had been sucked into a whirlpool and was drowning a few feet away from dry land, while the rest of the world sat by and watched and did nothing.

I WALKED DOWN THE street, past the diner and the drugstore and the mechanic’s garage, to an automobile dealership on the corner. Pennants attached to wires flapped in the wind above the rows of new and used cars. Then I saw a vehicle that made my scalp shrink against the bone. It had four doors and a black roof and black fenders and a maroon body and whitewalled wire-spoked wheels. The red leather upholstery was sun-faded but looked like it had been rubbed with mink oil to prevent it from cracking. On the edge of my vision, I saw a man walking toward me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the 1932 Confederate.

“See something you like?” the man said. He had a long pointed beard like a mountain man’s and wore an incongruous suit coat and corduroy trousers hitched up on his hips with firehouse suspenders. If he had an expression, I couldn’t see it inside his beard.

“Where’d you get that ’32 Confederate over there?” I said.

“That belonged to Dr. Jones. He works at the sanitarium. He decided to trade it in on something more sporty. The engine is rebuilt, and the tires are good. Want to take it for a spin?”

“Do you know where Dr. Jones got it?” I asked.

“I think he said he bought it from a banker in San Angelo.”

A sunbaked gas ration sticker was still attached to the bottom of the windshield. On the right was a numbered sticker with the name of the sanitarium, the kind issued to employees. I opened the driver’s door and ran my hand across the dashboard, then across the edge of the headliner. I touched a spot in the metal molding that had been soldered and sanded smooth and repainted, and I knew this was the spot where the .44-caliber bullet from Grandfather’s revolver had lodged.

“Looking for something?” the salesman said.

“I just noticed there was a scratch here. It’s not important.”

The keys were hanging from the ignition. “Go ahead,” the salesman said. “I’ll ride with you and have a smoke.”

I started the engine, and we bounced out into the street.

“Hums like a sewing machine and turns on a dime,” the salesman said. “It’ll do sixty on the highway without breaking a sweat. If you happen to be a traveling man, I think this baby has your name on it.”

I looked at him, wondering if there was a second meaning in his words. He shook a Lucky Strike out of his pack and lit it. He gazed idly out the window as we drove up the main street and back to the lot.

“I’d like to pay cash. What do you want for it?” I asked.

“You said cash?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re asking nine hundred because it’s a collectible. I can give it to you for eight.”

“Sold American,” I said.

“Let’s get the paperwork done. I think it’s fixing to cut loose out there. You ever seen such weather? Puts me in mind of the Dust Bowl years. We sure don’t need any more of that.”

Chapter

30

I CALLED THE HOUSE to check on Grandfather, then drove to a secondhand clothing store and bought a man’s overcoat and an old cowboy hat. At three-fifteen P.M. I pulled up to the entrance of the secured parking lot behind the sanitarium. My suitcase and a paper bag from the store were on the floor in back, the Luger under the seat. The security guard wasn’t much more than a boy and reading a copy of Saga magazine in the booth by a sliding gate. A military-style cap with a lacquered brim was sitting crown-down by his elbow. He had the lean physique and profile I had always associated with the West Texas boys I had known in the army. They were great pals to have, but almost every one of them was an unchurched Calvinist and not given to latitude. He closed his magazine and came outside as I rolled down the window. My heart was thudding so hard in my chest that I had to press my hand against my side. “Good afternoon,” I said. “I’m picking up somebody for Dr. Jones.”