Telegraph Days Read Online Free PDF Page B

said.
    Jackson was trying to be serious about his job—he didn’t particularly appreciate my small attempts at wit.
    But the Virginia question was a big question and we both needed some time to think it over. Should we just go home?
    â€œTell Teddy I hope he enjoyed sweet dreams,” I said. “Right now I guess I’ll take your advice and head on up to the boardinghouse.”
    â€œIt’s the one with the hedge around it,” Jackson said. “They say the woman who owns it used to be a slave.”
    â€œHow’d you get to be so expert on boardinghouses in Rita Blanca?”
    â€œHungry Billy told me, the know-it-all,” Jackson said.
    â€œYou mean Mrs. Karoo is a darkie—and they let her run a boardinghouse out in this wild man’s country?” I asked. “From what I’ve seen of No Man’s Land so far a darkie would be lucky not to get dropped from those gallows you’re about to paint—maybe with an anvil tied to her ankle.”
    â€œThat’s not all Hungry Billy said,” Jackson confided. “He says some people think Mrs. Karoo is a witch.”
    â€œYes, and some of the people might even think I’m a witch—which I’m not,” I said.
    Then I left Jackson to get on with his new job.

9
    J ACKSON WAS RIGHT about one thing: Mrs. Karoo’s boardinghouse had a hedge all the way around it, with an opening in the front and another opening in the back. It wasn’t a tall hedge yet—it came about to my waist—but Mrs. Karoo was out watering it when I walked up. If she kept at it the hedge would be a fine windbreak in another few years. Just seeing it made me feel better, because it meant that at least one other person in Rita Blanca had forethought enough to plant a windbreak. Civilization had made a start in No Man’s Land, with the help of a tiny darkie woman barely five feet in height. She was the color of coffee that had a splash or two of milk in it, and she was expecting me, not because of any witchery but because Beau Wheless had rushed up to tell her to hold the newly vacated room—a neighborly act but also one that meant Beau was hopeful of tempting me to make a few more sales. He had also taken the liberty of telling Mrs. Karoo that Father had suicided himself—this I didn’t appreciate.
    Mrs. Karoo had deep gentle eyes; a smile was usually lurking around the corners of her mouth.
    â€œWhy don’t you settle down here and be the mayor?” she suggested, two minutes after we had met. “A smart mayor is just what Rita Blanca needs.”
    I hardly knew what to say because the same thought had occurred to me.
    â€œI doubt these ruffians would ever have me,” I told her. Mrs. Karoo just smiled.
    The room was a little bleak, but at least it was clean and airy. There was an overabundance of sunlight, but some good heavy curtains would solve that problem. Mrs. Karoo had had the forethought to puta few sprigs of sage in a little vase, to brighten things up. Out my window I could see over Aurel Imlah’s hide yard, and on across many thousand acres of prairie. The rent was fifteen dollars a month, the same as Jackson’s salary. Breakfast and three meals a day came with it.
    A shaggy old hunter was snoring loudly on the back porch.
    â€œThat’s Josh,” Mrs. Karoo whispered. “He’s an early riser and likes his naps.”
    I knew Josh, a little. He was the mail runner for No Man’s Land. Once every two weeks he’d hitch up his wagon and go north to Rabbit Gulch, where he met the trail. Then he’d come by the Black Mesa Ranch, drop off the mail and magazines—I could not do without my magazines, and neither could Father. Sometimes Josh would consent to spend the night.
    â€œA hanged man doesn’t lie easy,” Mrs. Karoo remarked to me in passing. “You’re not through with your father yet.”
    â€œDo you know that because