All Bedlam Courses Past (part sixteen)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter One

The Peculiar Nature of Logical Science

(part sixteen)

“Truth to tell, sir, I can get a lot from Rowan himself. Just let on I’m a little sorry over my pay at the Vanguard. Ball rolling, touch of oil…”

Rowan was known to like that oil.

His Hand of Rome, reach of an Inscrutable Ambition, that might extend even to an Unwary Indiana, paired with a sidepiece on the British king who had hidden his faith to gain a throne—

This rankled, for a political churchgoer, seen among Methodists when need be. Gremot’s cousin’s wife was an ardent Catholic, her innocent French ways muddying waters. Even Ebrach, who had a Sunday priest at Crownhaven, was suspected of it.

Howbeit, Gremot scorned the journalistic hint. He wanted Rowan drowned and disgraced before witnesses.

“I understand you, sir, but a friendly sit-down in the back parlor. Easier on soft ground, digging deep.”

“Plain terms, Thacker. I don’t want anything run, except there’s one way to read it. Everyone says to themselves, wait and see if he sues. And they never will, and they’ll know he can’t.”

And the boots had marched, Gremot taking the path along the orchard. Alone, Richard made free with the water pump, eyed the coming walnut crop. The parent tree stood on, locomotive to a train of offspring, staked timber that Richard doubted would dare grow crooked.

Gremot’s bottomland fields, since the railroad scheme, were planted in hay. The cattails in the ditch, the goldenrod and teasel, the last of their winter’s remains, rose either side of the wagonway. Making for town, Richard rarely passed a farmhand.

He enjoyed this stealth, this slipping among trees, walking like an Indian along the nameless runlet that separated Gremot’s oak from his apples. He visited Zeigler’s horses in their pasture. And the dogs, never barking, roamed up to his heels.

At Tranquility Creek he heard a buggy spring with rectitude, a cared-for horse at a trot. Miss Towson’s commands arrived within earshot. The pace of Dick Turpin grew syncopated; he had smelled a presence. Richard wondered what a horse felt in its bones, to be jarring from dirt that powdered and gave…maybe, to a big animal, pleasurably…

To macadam, to hard brick. He fought brush to the roadside, loosed the bandana from his neck and waved it.

“Oh, Richard. You can ride the running board.”

Miss Towson had a passenger, Shad’s woman…who looked Richard over, eyes frankly knowing him, the thought of him seeming to bring another. He rubbed his old friend’s nose before mounting, got a lump in his throat when the horse touched lips to his fingers.

“Ready, ma’am.”

Miss Towson jogged the reins. Her passenger said: “Gremots tight with money.”

“Shall we say, discriminating? At least, of Fern and Walter. Élucide, I don’t think, will bat an eyelash. She buys what she likes…” Dropping this, with I’ll-say-no-more decision, Miss Towson raised her voice, “We are going to Mr. Ebrach’s house, Richard.”

18

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part seventeen)

(2023, Stephanie Foster)