The Outcasts by Kathleen Kent Read Free Book Online

dance?”
    Deerling took his hat, which had been balanced on one crossed knee, and set it on the table. “Never much cared for it. You?”
    “No.”
    “Your wife don’t miss it?”
    “She didn’t marry me for my dancin’.”
    “What did she marry you for?”
    Nate saw it was a friendly-enough question. “She told me I was constant.”
    Deerling considered that for a moment. “Constancy in men is like fidelity in women. Much to be desired, but seldom found.” He stared at Nate for a brief moment before shifting restlessly in his seat.
    “That’s a hard line to take,” Nate said.
    “No. It’s not.” Deerling stood up and faced him. “Oklahoma, I’m sure your wife is as faithful as the North Star. From what I’ve been told, you’re not much for farming, but you know horses better than most, and we fight for the same side. But I didn’t spend the past twenty years of my life learning to appreciate the merits of mankind. You’re young. You’ll learn.” He fit his hat carefully back on his head and said, “Church is at nine.”
    With a nod to the barkeep, Deerling walked out of the hall just as Dr. Tom finished his first dance and returned to the table. Clapping Nate on the shoulder, he moved his chair around to better see the floor, now crowded with a dozen or more couples wheeling about the room.
    Dr. Tom leaned close to Nate and said, “I didn’t understand a word that girl said, but she could sure wing a lively one.” He smiled and looked around. “Where’s George?”
    “He left. I think I put him awry.”
    Dr. Tom crossed his arms. “Oh?”
    “He holds a darkened view of humanity.”
    “One thing you’ll discover about George is that he takes his time with people. When I first rode with him, it was near a year before we had more than a passing of words. Just keep a steady path and he’ll soften up.”
    Dr. Tom took a sip of whiskey, then thoughtfully sucked the remainder from the bottom of his mustache. “Listen,” he said. “More than any other man I know, George would give his life for a friend. We were forty miles into Mexico—oh, this was in ’fifty-five—chasing some Lipan that had been raiding in Uvalde County. There were about a hundred of us, but we got pinned down at a stream called Rio Escondido by about five hundred Mexicans. George waded into that stream four times to pull out wounded men. Got shot in both arms. We thought he was going to have to pull the last fellow out with his teeth.”
    Nate smiled. Ranger lore, more than any other kind, valued the power of understatement.
    Dr. Tom danced one more time with a different girl, and then he and Nate walked in amiable silence towards the boardinghouse.
    The sky was dark and filled with stars, and Dr. Tom stopped once and rocked back on his heels to look up. He said to Nate, “Makes you feel small, doesn’t it.”
    “Yes, it does.” Nate watched Dr. Tom watching the stars. The ranger’s mouth was open in awe, like a kid’s, which made Nate smile.
    Dr. Tom traced the arc of a shooting star with his finger. “Celestial wanderers,” he said. “Sort of like me and George.” He looked at Nate. “It’s hard to imagine, seeing how crowded the sky looks tonight, how far away one star is from another. Like people, really. We can appear to be standing right next to each other, and yet in our minds, we can be thousands of miles away, lost to the outer reaches. But we’re all together in the same black soup, which makes us all related somehow.” Dr. Tom shook his head. “George rags on me about my pondering such things. It’s good to have a sympathetic ear, though.”
    They walked up onto the porch and Dr. Tom placed a hand on Nate’s arm. “Tomorrow, after George gets his church, we pick up the pace. We didn’t want to run breakneck through the desert, but now there’s more water and graze for the horses, we’ll be riding fast.”
    They entered their room quietly as Deerling seemed to be sleeping, though the lamp