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Henry did as he was told. “You’re happy to see me, though, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Ling said with absolute sincerity. “Yes. I am very happy to see you.”
“Well, gee. Now I’m… what is that word you use, Sam? To mean overcome with emotion?”
“Verklempt?”
“I am verklempt,” Henry said.
“Gesundheit,” Evie chimed in. Being reunited with her friends made her giddy. She’d missed them so.
“I might remind you that you’re all wanted by every Pinkerton, every sheriff, every Shadow Man in this country. Might be better if we broke up this li’l reunion,” Bill warned.
But none of them could stand to be separated again. It was true, though, that they needed a safe place to congregate. The local library had a little sitting garden off to the side. They met there to catch up while life in the town went on around them. Men piled out of trucks and ambled into the feed store. A quartet of boys started a stickball game down one of the streets, and Isaiah ached to join it.
“We were with the circus,” Isaiah announced to everyone else.
“My pals from before New York,” Sam said. “They—”
Henry grinned. “Don’t tell me—you were the high-wire act, Sam, and Evie, you were the high wire.”
“Hysterical,” Evie said and rolled her eyes. “Where were you?”
“Stuck on a levee in Greenville, Mississippi,” Memphis said. “We got caught in the flood.”
“I’m glad you’re safe,” Theta said.
“Where were you?” Evie asked Jericho and Ling.
“With the Harlem Haymakers,” Jericho said.
“What is that, some kinda farm league?” Sam asked.
“Harlem’s all-girl orchestra,” Ling said proudly. “Alma helped us get away on the TOBA circuit.”
“An all-girl orchestra?” Evie said. “That must account for it. Jericho, you look pos-i-tutely different—I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“It’s because Jericho has a girlfriend named Lupe now,” Ling said. She was not about to watch the Jericho and Evie sideshow start up again.
“Oh?” Evie said with a smile that Theta and Henry had come to know as her radio smile—bright and fake.
“Well, gee. That’s swell, Freddy. Just swell,” Sam said.
Jericho looked embarrassed. “Thank you, Ling.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jericho stole a glance at Evie, who was doing her level best not to look at him, he knew. He still had some feelings for her. He couldn’t deny it. But his time with her had always been fraught, colored by John Hobbes and Will, Sam and Mabel and Hopeful Harbor. With Lupe, he’d started something fresh. Something that had no past. He liked that. A tiny, petty slice of his heart was glad Ling had blurted out the truth. He wanted Evie to know that he could get along just fine without her.
“So why are we here?” Ling asked.
“Did you dream of Mabel? Was it Mabel who told you to come?” Evie asked.
Everyone nodded.
“But why Gideon, Kansas? Doesn’t seem like anyplace special,” Jericho said.
Down the street, the boys’ stickball game had become contentious. They argued until someone’s mother yelled out the front window at them to stop squabbling.
