That morning Marshal Jacob Yoes and Deputy Marshal Chris Madsen were sent telegrams about us from City Marshal Charles T. Connelly. And the five of us slept on the autumn-cold earth beside the Caney River. I woke up with a backache and I did nothing all day but watch a woman and two small children dressed in brown walk slowly through the afternoon, shucking corn from the husks. The woman had water in a goatskin. She shaded her eyes once and she must’ve seen us, but she just picked up her bushel basket and lugged it toward the barn.

I danced around in the muck of a smarting-cold river, washing with laundry soap; then shaved and dressed in a black wool suit and practiced my speech with Bob. Then he and I stood on the porch of the Texas Johnson farmhouse with the sun going down red in his cherry trees. I had rose oil in my hair and a borrowed white hat in my hand and my brother had brushed down my clothes with a straw broom. Julia pushed open the screen and she flustered with the surprise of our visit and poured tea and sugar into two glasses. Bob carried his out to the backyard garden where he sat with a frightened Mrs. Johnson on a peach tree seat and was as pleasant as a seminarian.

Julia and I sat across from each other in the front room, drinking tea and eating gingersnaps. She’d changed into a blue gingham dress with puffs and bows and her long black hair was coiled and twisted with ribbons. She’d rouged her cheeks with the stain of artificial geraniums and she’d powdered her dark skin with cornstarch.

I stared at the labels of canned goods and coffee packages they’d tacked up on the walls as decorative art—the practice in those days. On the front of a package of clothing starch was a pinafored girl on a swing. I told Julia she looked pretty as that.

She blushed at her shoes, then put her glass down on a doily and asked, “Would you like me to play some music?”

I said I would and she moved to the piano bench and I listened with my finger at my temple as she played “Amazing Grace,” “Washed in the Blood of the Lamb,” and “Jesus, Help Me to Remember.”

I said, “What’s that one they call ‘Here Comes the Bride’?”

She kept her back to me and turned the page of a music sheet. “That’s not the name of it.”

I said, “Why don’t you play that?”

She got up from the bench, smiling ever so gaily at her guest. “My fingers are getting tired.”