Chapter 13
Shea walked down the boardwalk in Fox Hollow with his father's list folded once in his coat pocket and his face fixed into the sober expression of a son on an errand.
The list had eleven names. He had crossed off two.
Drew needed no convincing, and Inglis had already said he would come.
That left nine. The morning was a cool, clear blue, and the gravel on the boardwalk made the scraping sound under his boots that he had heard under his own boots every morning of his life. None of it steadied him.
He knocked at the Lacey brothers' door. He spoke at the gate to Mr. McAfee. He sat down on a bench beside Mr. Calder and used the word neighbor four times in a few short minutes. By noon he had eight names of the nine. His chest went light. He was on the right side of a hill and going down.
He stopped a man called Vale outside the saddlery.
Anthony Vale was a thin man with a long face and slow, deep-set eyes.
Shea had known him in passing his whole life and had never had a conversation with him longer than a half minute.
He explained the ride. He explained the names.
He explained that they would go in the morning and would speak to Mr. Barclay together.
Vale heard him out. Then Vale said, with no heat at all in his voice:
"Shea. I’m not coming."
"Mr. Vale?—"
"I am not coming. The sheriff is on it. The sheriff will sort it. I do not ride out to a man's home over a thing the sheriff is working on, son. I'm sorry your father has lost money. I'll be at the store on Monday morning and I'll give a hand with the books, if Sippy will have me. I will not ride."
Shea reached for the lever that had moved every other man that morning.
"My father has given his blessing."
“That's between you and your father."
Shea didn't, at first, know how to take it. He hadn't had a man tell him no all morning. He stood on the boardwalk with the list growing damp in his pocket and tried, in his head, the next sentence.
"Mr. Vale. The sheriff is a friend of Mr. Barclay's."
"That is also true."
“He's too kind to push a friend."
“He's pushed a friend before."
That stopped him half a second. He hadn't heard that story, and Vale's face said he wasn't going to give it to him.
"Not lately."
Vale looked at him then. The words went into the slow eyes and stayed. Shea did not like it.
"Shea." Vale did not raise his voice. "Your father is responsible for the box. If a ride is to go to the Barclay place, the man on the front horse ought to be your father. Not his son. I don’t know what you think you’re helping here, but you’re stoking a fire that’s as likely to burn you and your family as anybody else. ”
"My father is a gentle man."
"Yes."
The yes gave him nothing to grip. Shea changed his footing.
"He doesn't have the toughness for this kind of work."
"Mm."
"He has asked me to do it for him."
Vale did not say anything for a few seconds. The morning went on around them. A wagon creaked down the street.
"All right, Shea."
“You'll come?”
"I will not come. I'm telling you all right because I'm not going to argue with you on a boardwalk. Take your list to the next door. I wish you well. I'll tell the sheriff, when I see him, what you're doing. That is also a courtesy you should be prepared for."
Shea did not say anything.
Vale walked away. He went down the boardwalk with his hands in his pockets and did not turn around.
Shea watched him to the corner. For the first time that morning, a dry pull came at the back of his throat.
He turned the list in his pocket. Eight names.
Vale's wouldn't be on it. Vale was going to the sheriff.
He set the dry pull aside. He had been setting dry pulls aside all week. He would set this one aside too.
He kept walking.
He was halfway down the next block when he saw the Fairchild girl and her father at the corner of the dry-goods store.
The girl was tugging at Foster Fairchild's coat sleeve, cautious little pulls. Her bonnet was pushed back at the shoulders and her face had gone white as her sleeve, and Foster was bent down to her and did not look kind.
Shea stopped at a polite distance. He did not pretend not to hear. There was no traffic on the boardwalk and a person could hardly help it.
"Pa. Please."
"Gillie. Hush."
"Pa, don't go on this ride. I heard you say you would, this morning. Please. I don't want you to go."
"Why?"
Shea, at his polite distance, kept his eyes on a harness in the saddlery window and his ears where they wanted to be. He hadn’t spoken to Fairchild yet, but somebody had. Word was getting around, which meant his list could be growing and he didn’t even know it.
"I can't say why."
Her fingers were still on his sleeve. Foster looked down at them until she took them away.
"Then you will not have an opinion, daughter. You will go home and set the table for supper. You will not stand at the corner of the dry-goods store with my sleeve in your hand and ask me to refuse a thing our neighbor has asked me to do without telling me why."
"Pa."
"Home."
Gillie let go of his sleeve. She did not look up. She turned and walked back along the boardwalk toward the house at the far end of Main, her bonnet brim down, and she did not look back once.
Foster Fairchild watched her go for one heartbeat. Then he turned and saw Shea and saw that Shea had heard. He did not soften.
"Wardell."
"Mr. Fairchild."
"You will not repeat that to anybody."
"No, sir."
Shea kept his face respectful and his thoughts to himself, where they were moving fast.
"My daughter has a head full of ideas this morning. She will set them down by supper."
"Yes, sir."
"I will be on the ride."
"Yes, sir."
Shea folded the list and put it back in his pocket, then kept walking. He had a ride to put together.
At the corner he had to stop to take a breath. It came hard. He went on.