Clockwork Cowboy

Chapter 49

"Jese Calhoun, Mama. I said Jese Calhoun."

But neither of them were listening.

"My wife and son passed two years ago," Jese responded to Helaku's question. "My son died of swamp fever, and my wife was killed by a cottonmouth while she collected wood to keep him warm." He paused, struggling. "They died within hours of each other."

Silence. Her mother's paint brush drooped limply in her hand. "That's terrible! You poor man!"

Jese's face crumpled.

Jose Caulder? She grasped the doorknob to keep her upright. That gangly brown eyed lad looked nothing like the man that stood before her now. Jese's shoulders were wide, his eyes the color of coal, and his personality differed completely from the sweet, gentle boy she'd met. But it had been a long time since she'd seen him last, an entire decade in fact. His image kept alive by some badly drawn pictures in the national newspaper.

As a young woman of thirteen, she'd been tongue tied with admiration around Jose. He was - after all - part of Robeson County royalty. Every time she'd seen him in the street Nova's heart had pummeled her insides with such force that it had been safer to cross the road to avoid him than to risk swooning - gracelessly - at his feet.

He'd been part of the Lowry Gang. A group of Indians, freedmen, Mexicans and a few lone white men that waged war on the white supremacists in the area. Redistributing the excessive wealth of those that preyed on the poor throughout their community. 

The gang was led by Henry Berry Lowry. A Tuscarora Native American who the national newspapers dubbed "The Indian Robin Hood". Henry had become so enraged, after witnessing the murder of his father and brother by the Confederate Home Guard, that he'd been inspired into a bloody retribution that had gone on for years.

He and his gang members offered their people the protective cloak that was needed in such troubled times and because of it, the Lowry Gang were well loved by their community. They'd been kept safe for years by calls on the wind of impending danger.

But - while they protected the underprivileged - the gang had their victims. They had caused much pain to the upper class. Around the time that Nova had been moved to Wyoming there had been a reward for twelve thousand dollars on the capture of the Lowry gang. Over the years that reward had raised somewhat.

Nova had followed their exploits through the national newspapers. Even when she should have been putting all of her pennies back into her ranch she had felt an overwhelming desire to know what the Lowry's were doing, and the boy that had helped them - Jose Caulder - in particular. But when she'd read, the year before, that Henry Berry Lowry had gone missing - with many doubtful whether he'd fled to New Mexico or shot himself whilst cleaning the barrel of his gun - Nova had started to avoid the paper stands.

Life had become so difficult out there on The Plains, and they had always been her symbol of hope. The thing that kept her moving onwards. That they could avoid a certain death for so many years, with every bounty hunter in the region after them, gave her the hope that she too could keep surviving. To read about their possible demise would destroy her. So Nova hadn't given the paperboy a single cent more. Humming loudly every time she'd overheard chatter on the street about the Lowry Wars scared to find out that Jose had been shot or captured.

"Don't feel sorry," he said to her mother now. "I was too busy with my own agenda that I didn't protect the two people I loved the most."

Helaku swept the response away with a shake of her head. "Don't."

"I -"

"You're undermining what you did for everyone. What you did for us." Her hand stretched out, gesturing to Nova. "You were creating a better world for your son."