Читать книгу House of Purple Cedar - Tim Tingle - Страница 21

Stationmaster John

The Monday following, Pokoni and Amafo woke up long before sunrise. Pokoni filled a small pan with water while Amafo stoked the fire in the woodstove. When the water was bubbling near to overflowing, Pokoni spread two tablespoons of coffee over the boiling liquid.

The smell of strong coffee soon filled the house. Amafo leaned over the cookstove, tilted his head back, and drew in a deep breath. When the grounds settled to the bottom of the pan, Pokoni carefully poured two cups and placed them on a wooden table between them. As Amafo took a slow sip, she spoke the first words of the morning.

“Where will you go?”

“Maybe buy you something, Hester.”

“Nothing I really need. Maybe some thread. Blue, dark green. Don’t spend too much.”

“Mostly I’ll be spending time.”

“William, please stay away from the marshal,” said Pokoni.

“I can’t do that, Hester. I can’t show fear. You know that.”

“Then be careful. You can do that.”

“I’ll be careful. I have some new friends picked out. Hope they have time for an old Choctaw.”

“I ’spec they will. You purty good at picking your friends.”

“You know Maggie Johnston?” Amafo asked.

“One-legged Maggie?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I hear she knows how to handle Hiram Blackstone,” said Pokoni. “I am thinking she’s a good one to have on your side.”

“That’s what I’m thinking too,” said Amafo. Ten minutes later, while Pokoni gathered breakfast eggs, Amafo saddled and readied Whiteface for the three-mile trip to Spiro.

Awakened by the sounds in the henhouse, the yard rooster stretched his neck and turned his eye to the colors of the coming dawn. He scratched the ground, flapped his wings a dozen times, threw out his chest, and commenced his crowing.

“Guess you and me both got something to say,” said Amafo, nodding to the rooster.

“Just be careful how you say it,” said Pokoni. “Maybe don’t be so bold as that rooster.” With the coming daylight, she could see that Amafo’s cuts and bruises had turned the right side of his face into a swollen mass of blue and black flesh. His nose was purple and a dark spot of blood covered one eyeball.

“Let me make you some eggs. Just take a minute.”

“No,” said Amafo. “No need to put off going. I better get on with it.” He mounted Whiteface and patted her on the rear.

Pokoni walked beside him for the first quarter mile, then squeezed his arm to say good-bye. She stood in the road and watched till Whiteface disappeared in a wispy cloud of fog. The last thing she saw was Amafo reaching into his pocket and slipping on his eyeglasses.

“He didn’t want me to see his broken glasses,” she said aloud. “He thinks he looks fine except for his glasses. Please Lord, don’t let him know what he looks like. Don’t let him see himself in a shop window. He would die on the spot. Let me do the seeing for both of us, please Lord.”

On the walk home, Pokoni carried on a running conversation with herself, Amafo, and Please Lord.

“I hope you know what you are doing, you shy little man, you,” she said to Amafo. “You gonna be the talk of Spiro tonight.”

“Don’t let him go and get himself killed,” she said to Please Lord.

“Yessir, they will talk about my sweet William at the supper table tonight. Wonder how the talk will go at the Hardwicke household?” she said to herself.

“You go doing something foolish and I’ll bruise you on the other end,” she said to Amafo.

As Pokoni approached the house, she turned and faced the pink clouds to the east and offered her morning prayer. “Please Lord, if it be Thy will, get him home to me tonight. I’ll do anything you say. Bring him home safe.”

The sun had barely yellowed the tops of the pine trees when Amafo dismounted on a hillside overlooking the town. Still hidden from view, he stood in the shadows of a thicket. Spiro greeted him with a cool blue aura, somewhere between foreboding and friendly.

“This day can go either way,” he said aloud. “I ’spec I better keep a sharp eye out for flying boards. Not like last time.” Amafo laughed to himself.

Daylight soon replaced the long shadows of buildings. Sharp sunlight flashed upon brass doorknobs, glass windowpanes, weathervanes, silver hair combs, golden watch chains, knife blades, and gun barrels. Hypnotized by the symphony of light playing out in the valley before him, he leaned against the bark of the oldest elm in the grove. He was more exhausted than he knew. His knees gave way and he slid down the tree till his bottom settled in the leafy mulch of the forest floor.

Amafo welcomed the sleep that fell over him, a brief quieting of the mind in preparation for his return to Spiro.

Monday morning was in full swing when Amafo mounted Whiteface, patted her rump, and descended the gentle slope. He gave a soft tug to the reins and steered Whiteface in the direction of the train station.

“Might as well start at the beginning,” he said aloud. He lightly touched his cheek and laughed a nervous laugh. As he neared Spiro he heard the morning sounds, the cranking and rising of a store-front awning, the whish and whomp of a silver-haired woman beating dust from a floor rug.

Nahullos, thought Amafo. Some good, some bad, like Choctaws.

At the train station, Amafo tied Whiteface to the hitching post and stepped onto the platform. He walked past the tables and chairs lined up against the wall. When he came to the second table nearest the door, he stopped.

Two feet from the floor he saw traces of his own blood. Someone had scrubbed the wall where he had brushed up against it, but streaks of blood still shone from grooves in the wood.

He peered through the window and saw the clerk and a waiter sitting at a table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. Amafo sat in the same chair he had occupied only two days earlier, with his back turned to the stationhouse. Ten minutes later the clerk glanced up and spotted him. He spoke to the waiter and the younger man strode through the door.

“Excuse me, I didn’t see you. What can I get for you?”

When Amafo turned and the waiter saw his face, he stepped back. “Oh. I’m sorry. I mean…I didn’t see you were hurt. May I help you?”

He stared at Amafo till a look of recognition crossed his face. “You were here Saturday with those children. That was you, wasn’t it?”

Amafo nodded.

“I’ll get you coffee.” The waiter touched his own face without realizing it, then retreated inside. A large bearded man soon appeared, holding two cups of coffee.

“I am John Burleson. I’m the stationmaster. May I sit with you?”

Amafo gestured to the empty seat in front of him. Burleson set the cups down and settled his bulky frame into the chair facing Amafo. Everything about him was massive, his hands, his prominent forehead, his large ears.

“We are sorry about what happened Saturday.”