All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred ten)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Four

Counterfeits

(part one hundred ten)

On the bottom step sat a boy, that asked, as Richard placed a foot to crowd but not specifically kick the obstacle, “You going out? Where you going?”

The landlord’s precaution.

“Young fellow, when nighttime falls, a man of my calling must be about his business. I cannot reveal its nature to a soul.”

A black-eyed stupor, unbudging, of wishful belief and loathing. Then: “Gimme a penny.”

Richard put a finger to his lips, grasped the door handle and bowed, exiting. Was it better or worse to live in this character for a time? Allen’s wife did most of the passing, in character of enchanting foreign lady, her marks bashful counter girls…

Yeager’s eyes had seen Mrs. Allen; Richard’s at the time hadn’t. Yeager, giving as strong a look as the light allowed, had warned: “Get along with Allen.”

The master histrion was not a man the apprentice could get along with. Achieving the doctor would make the murderer jealous. Vice versa, easily. Allen had to beat down your pride to be at peace with his own—he was that way. Had to make you wrong, to be in charge of setting you right.

“That kind of high-handed dealing has to…”

Yeager tailed off, and Richard felt he’d been heading for, “…get dealt back.” Unsatisfactory.

“But you don’t give horseshit.”

“Not me.”

“But Rowan gets nothing out of it.”

“Wrong.” Twenty or so paces, the hint of a grin in his voice, the reporter added, “You didn’t say nothing good.”

They had walked out Dresden Street to the highway, and Yeager took up whistling, Camp Town Races. A man leading a horse stepped from the cemetery cedars. Another horse followed of its own accord. Yeager unrolled a note and stuffed the wallet in his pocket, flashing a pistol in a holster. He mounted.

Richard flung up on the other, a docile old nag. She was bridled but not saddled.

Think, Yeager invited him, about that nuthouse. First of all, the engineer tells them the road won’t go where they wanted it, there’s that spring runs under the old stead, and Sanderson’s Run in floodtimes spreads all in that crescent, from the stead to Sperling’s fence line…

Richard said: “The railroad company’s engineer. Gremot knows where his land takes water, though.”

Yeager did not rise, even for raising it, to Gremot’s sacrifice of land he knew would not be called for. He seesawed back to the nuthouse. “Woolsaver thought he’d drum up enthusiasm with all that what-the-hell, cure the looneys. You can’t cure em.”

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eleven)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)