Free Texas Born by Judith Gould

stockholders' certificates
printed, and over the past year had sold a few shares here and
there. But never five hundred at a time. A block that large brought
too much attention to the defunct mine. It was begging for an
investigation.
    An investigation. Just the thought was enough
to make Amanda Grubb shudder.
    In the beginning, she hadn't minded. Somehow,
it had been different back then. It had seemed more harmless, like
a game, almost. But back then she hadn't been as afraid of Bazzel
as she'd learned to be over the years.
    She sneaked a glance over at her husband and
shuddered. Bazzel looked so gaunt and righteous and tight-
    lipped—which was why, she supposed, she, like
so many other people since then, had let themselves be taken in by
him. He just didn't look like a swindler. He never dressed in fancy
city togs. Never talked smoothly. In fact, he looked more like a
hellfire-and- brimstone preacher, as honest and homespun as they
came, as trustworthy as the flag or mom's apple pie. And since he looked so fiercely honest, people they met invariably
thought he must surely be fiercely honest too. They trusted
him immediately, just as she once had.
    When they realized their mistake, it was
always too late.
    It just went to prove how looks could
deceive.
    Amanda Grubb was a fleshy, red-faced, and
withdrawn woman. She looked simple and prim and proper. Her dark
eyes moved nervously.
    There was something no-nonsense about her.
Skin scrubbed shiny, features on the coarse side, everything clad
in a homespun disguise. Starched white bonnet. Pilgrim-gray dress.
But her hands were too soft for the sincere, hardworking look she
strove for.
    She saw her husband look toward her, and
swiftly averted her gaze. He had that ability to make her feel he
could read her mind.
    She hoped he couldn't. The last thing she
wanted or needed was to invite his ire. She had been pummeled black
and blue once too often.
    Amanda wondered where her life had gone
wrong. Ever since she had met Bazzel, eight long years ago, they
had been on the road pulling off scams and then making tracks.
    They had left York, Pennsylvania, as they had
left everywhere else: in a hurry. That had posed no problem. They
had been prepared to flee at a moment's notice. Their suitcases had
been half-packed, a lesson they had learned in Baltimore once when
they'd had to leave all their belongings behind. Now they never
bought anything they couldn't carry.
    And in York it had been a close call too.
    Just thinking about it was enough to make her
in-sides turn cold.
    Oh, God , she thought , I never
thought it would turn out like this. People hurt. A child taken
advantage of. To have to pretend to be Elspeth Gross, whoever she
is, just to become an orphan's guardian and steal a circus out from
under her.
    How in the world had things come to turn out
this way?

6
     
     
     
    She thought she would go mad from the crazily
sped- up music of the puffing calliope.
    As she fought her way up from the depths of
the nightmare, the dream stayed with her. Always it was that same
ghastly nightmare. The one she couldn't shake. The one about the
fire. . . .
    Once again she was on the trapeze and her
father was chasing her through the burnt-out circus. He, too, was
on a trapeze, and his skin was charred and blistered, and parts of
his flesh were burned away, showing blackened bone underneath. The
charred tent poles plunged down to dark infinity, to burning hell
itself. Occasionally one-dimensional cutouts of Hazy, Goliath, or
the other performers glided silently by below her, under their own
mysterious power. Overhead, from horizon to horizon, the sky was
oppressively low and red. Ablaze.
    It was a hellish landscape untouched by
humans as she knew them.
    From the charred tent poles hung the rickety
trapezes, all that stood between her and the fires of hell. It was
a delicate balance. Each time she or Szabo swung from one trapeze
to the next, the poles quivered and creaked under the strain