Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“Why would you go to a roller rink?”

“I felt like it.”

“Is there anything in the papers about Rosita and me or the Wisehearts?”

“Yes, there is. That’s not all. That fellow Slakely burned up in his trailer. The paper said an electrical fire.”

“Hubert Slakely the cop?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. You pulled the tiger’s tail. The Wise­hearts won’t quit. If they let you get away with it, any little pissant in Houston can climb out from under a rock and do it.”

“No one knows how to deliver an insult like you, Grandfather.” But I wasn’t thinking about his ongoing denigration of every

thing that breathed. I was trying to think through the implications of Slakely’s death.

“We need you,” Grandfather said.

“Linda Gail and Hershel haven’t looked in on you?”

“I didn’t rear you up to lose you to a wolf pack, son. Your mother needs you, and so do I. You come back home, you hear me? Just like I told you when you went overseas.”

He had never called me “son” before.

Chapter

31

I WOKE AT DAWN. The sky was clear and the moon still up, the grass on the foothills of Raton Pass stiff with frost. I placed my hand on the windowpane. It was ice-cold. I let Rosita sleep while I brushed my teeth and shaved and put on a clean corduroy shirt. I had a good feeling about the day. We had managed to get from Wichita Falls to within twenty miles of the Colorado state line without being apprehended or stopped. I told myself that in the greater scheme of things, we were not that important. Also, we had harmed no one and hence were not a threat to others. Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, and the Barker-Karpis gang had waged war against the banking system of the United States, and it had taken years for our best law enforcement agencies to kill or drive them to ground. We were hardly worth anyone’s notice.

I have always believed that the American West, like Hollywood, is a magical place and the biggest stage set on earth. I also believe it’s haunted by the spirits of Indians, outlaws, Jesuit missionaries, drovers, gunmen, conquistadores, bindle stiffs, Chinese and Irish gandy dancers, whiskey traders, temperance leaguers, gold panners, buffalo hunters, fur trappers, prostitutes, and insane people of every stripe, maybe all of them living out their lives simultaneously in our midst. The Homeric epic doesn’t have to be discovered inside a book; it begins just west of Fort Worth and extends all the way to Santa Monica.

It was out there waiting for us, the Grand Adventure unscrolling beneath our feet. That’s what I felt as Rosita and I ate breakfast in a café not far from the train depot built in what was called Mission Revival mode, where we would board the Super Chief that evening.

“What are we going to do with the car?” she asked.

“Rent a garage. We’ll return for it later or hire someone to deliver it to Houston.”

“Sounds easy.”

“Hubert Slakely burned to death in his trailer. Grandfather told me last night.”

She was chewing a tiny piece of toast in her cheek, her eyes focused on the red Spanish-tile roof of the depot. She waited until the piece of toast seemed to dissolve in her mouth, her gaze never leaving the train station. “How did the fire start?”

“The paper said an electrical short.”

She let her eyes drift onto mine.

“You don’t believe that?” I said.

“I think bad people earn their fate. The form it comes in doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t believe it was an accident?” I said.

“Was Lloyd Fincher’s death a suicide?” she said. “Was that private detective’s death a hit-and-run? I don’t care how any of them died. I’m glad they’re dead.”

“Tomorrow we’ll be in Union Station in Los Angeles,” I said. “Wait till you see it. It’s beautiful. It looks like a Roman villa.”

She was smiling.