Patrick and Little Eugena were hollering at the back door when Keech and Pa stepped inside. The orphans clutched the man’s legs.
“Pa, you broke that man’s nose!” Patrick yelled.
“I don’t suspect it broke,” Little Eugena said.
“He fell right to the ground. That means Pa broke it.”
“Nuh-uh. He tripped on his coat. That’s why he fell.”
“Granny,” Pa Abner said, working to pry the kids off his legs. “A little help.”
“Sam, Robby, you heard your pa,” Granny Nell told the older boys. “Let’s go.” Working together, they herded Patrick and Little Eugena to the other side of the house. Along the way, Sam glanced back with a wounded face, a look intended to make Keech feel guilty for excluding him. Keech only shrugged.
Pa Abner led him to the study, the small room next to the kitchen where Pa enjoyed his private readings and painting sessions. It was the room where the orphans received their weekly lessons on the Native peoples, particularly the Osage, who had once inhabited the river lands south of the county. Having been close friends with important Osage leaders, Pa kept the study festooned with a veritable treasure trove of gifts and traded objects—a beaded vest of red, yellow, and blue; a pair of dress moccasins; a hand-carved box full of sumac leaves and dried tobacco for smoking. It was here, in this room, that Keech and Sam had first learned how to make Osage parfleches from rawhide and how to speak the names of all the sacred animals of the forest.
“Shut the door,” Pa said, as he sat behind his red cedar desk, one of the many pieces of furniture he had built for the Home.
Keech bolted the door and took a seat. His eyes drifted to one of Pa’s paintings, a colorful but dreary portrait of a tall, lonesome mountain of red stone, painted over an old, yellowed page of the Daily Missouri Republican newspaper. A few ominous numbers were scrawled in black across the bottom. The image of the red mountain always gave Keech the willies and made him wonder what bitter secrets Pa could have possibly dreamed to conjure such an eerie landscape.
Pa folded his hands on the desktop. “Son, do you remember the new telegraph office in town?”
Keech knew the office in Big Timber well. The telegraph was five months old there and only ran across the state to the towns that could afford it. In a couple of years, word had it, every message in the States would be dispatched by telegraph and a person would be able to send a letter all the way to New York City in a matter of minutes. The owner of the Big Timber office—a lively, white-haired gent named Frosty Potter—had promised Keech a part-time job as a telegraph clerk once the company expanded.
Pa Abner said, “I want you and Sam to ride to Frosty’s office and deliver a telegram. This task is of utmost import, so you and Sam must act like serious men. No shenanigans, understand?”
Keech nodded.
Pa Abner drew the silver pendant from his shirt. A solemn look fell over his face. “Remember what I’ve always told you and Sam? If you look hard enough—”
Keech finished the old proverb for him: “You might find two ways to look at a thing.”
Pa smiled. “Just so.” He lifted a wooden chest from the floor, a strongbox of stained oak secured by a lock with a narrow, strange-looking slot for a keyhole.
He then turned, bent, and slid the pendant into the warded lock on the oak chest. The fit was perfect in the narrow slot, a keyhole that Keech realized Pa had fashioned specifically for the silver charm.
Pa Abner turned the pendant clockwise. The opening hinges made a loud popping noise—the sound of old secrets coming to life.
He opened the chest and reached inside.
What came out was a folded piece of paper, a document sealed with a fat dollop of stamped scarlet wax. The wax made the paper look threatening, as though blood itself had done the sealing. Pa handed the paper to Keech. When Keech turned it over, he could see the faintest impression of Pa’s handwriting visible through the paper.
“This here is a letter that needs to be telegraphed to a man who lives in Sainte Genevieve,” Pa said. “Do you know where that is?”
Keech shook his head.
“It’s a good ways down the state. On the west bank of the Mississippi. Tell Frosty this message must go to an old friend named Noah Embry. Do you have that? Noah Embry. Memorize the name.”
“Noah Embry,” Keech repeated.
“That’s right. In Sainte Genevieve. And make sure Frosty puts in all the stops. It’s important this letter reads exactly as written. Say all that back.”
“Mr. Potter is to wire the letter to Noah Embry of Sainte Genevieve.”
“And what else?”
“He’s to put in all the stops. Make the letter exact.”
“Very good.”
Keech examined the sealed paper. This note had something to do with Bad Whiskey’s arrival; he was sure of it. Maybe something to do with Pa’s old life as a man named Isaiah Raines.
“After the telegram is sent, I want you to stand and watch Frosty burn it.” Pa leaned forward. “He is not to throw it away, but to burn it to ash. It’s very important this letter be destroyed after it’s sent. This world has many crows, Keech, and those crows can see far, and take what they see to dangerous places.”
“Crows?”
“I don’t want to say too much. But when you were hiding in the woodshed, I’m sure you heard Bad Whiskey speak of the Reverend, did you not? Tell the truth.”
“Yessir,” Keech said.
“This Reverend is a terrible man, Keech, and not what folks think. Neither are the crows that follow his men.”
“Pa, does this all have to do with the…” Keech rooted through his memory for the proper name. “The Char Stone?”
Pa’s face darkened. “Never mention the Stone again. Forget you ever heard of it.”
“But what is it?”
“A cursed thing. But it’s gone, never to be touched by another man.”
“Gone where?”
Pa gritted his teeth. “Beyond reach. I have taken precautions. I’ll say no more.”
“What about Whiskey?” Keech was so full of questions he was almost bursting. “Why’d he call you Isaiah Raines? And what’s an Enforcer?”
A small silence. “Someone I used to be, a long time ago. There were many of us, and we followed a man, an explorer. He called himself the Reverend Rose. He was a missionary, of a sort, and we were his disciples. We did everything he ordered.”
“Bad things, Pa?”
Pa Abner’s eyes cast down to his desk. “We had forgotten where we came from. We had forgotten our honor. Then one day things turned worse. Far worse. Six of us abandoned him, and scattered to the wind. The rest of his Enforcers, the ones who stayed loyal, changed their name. They now go by the Gita-Skog.”
“And they’re hunting you,” Keech said.
Pa nodded. He seemed to be holding something back. “Someday, son, I swear to tell you everything. All I’ll say now is, the day your real ma and pa died, Bad Whiskey Nelson was there.”
Keech’s mind churned with memories of screaming. Of dry, burning heat. A whirlwind of dust and terror.
“Did he kill them?” he asked.
Pa Abner heaved a sigh. “Just know Whiskey is only a messenger. Less than pig slop and doesn’t deserve an ounce of the life given to him. He’s not the one to be concerned about.”
“Pa, did he kill my folks?”
Another silence. Then: “He was part of the gang that did, yes.”
Keech didn’t quite know how to feel about this news. All his years of wondering who had killed his parents, and one morning the very rattlesnake responsible comes riding up to his home.
“I wish you had just killed him,” he said.
“Killing is never the answer, boy. Bad Whiskey is lower than dirt, but killing him wouldn’t have solved anything.”
Keech felt his face go red with shame. But it didn’t change the fact that Bad Whiskey was now free to torment his family all over again.
“Keech. Son.” Pa’s solemn voice pulled him back into the moment. “The message on this telegram is of grave importance. Send it, and then have Frosty burn it.”
Keech slid the paper into the chest pocket of his coat.
“Consider it done, Pa. But why does Sam have to go? Shouldn’t one of us stay and help you guard the Home?”
“Remember—work as two, succeed as one. Sam is your left hand, and you are his right. God forbid there’s trouble, but I want you to have backup in case.”
So this excursion to Big Timber was no mere chore. It was a mission—his and Sam’s very first, outside the forest training Pa had given them—and a mixture of excitement and fear rattled Keech’s stomach at the thought of it.
Pa Abner put a hand on Keech’s shoulder. “You’ve always been strong, son. You will accomplish great things. I can feel it. Now go fetch Sam. You two have a lot to do and little time to get it done.”