The first few months had been hell. Then the warden’s wife, Mrs. Peters, noticed him and demanded he be assigned to help her. She was six feet tall and as hard as nails, but she was a Quaker on a mission. She ran a school that forced education on every child she managed to catch and draw into her one-room school.
Michael cleaned the schoolroom, built the fires, and stayed with her all day doing whatever chore she yelled for him to do. At night he helped the cook wash up after supper before a guard came to put his chains back on and take him to the huge bay where prisoners slept. When it got warm enough that first spring, he took off his ragged coat to chop wood. Mrs. Peters noticed bruises on his arms and knew he’d been mistreated at night in the cell block. She demanded he be allowed to sleep in the school, and she wasn’t a woman even the warden would cross.
With regular meals and a place where he could sleep without fear, Michael began to grow. The animal he’d almost become calmed. In three years he’d read all the books she had and practiced math until he was faster than her with figures. Mrs. Peters never told him so, but he guessed she was proud of what she’d done. Every month she managed to find more books for him to read and she always insisted on calling him Michael, never Mickey or Mike, like his uncles had.
When he was released at eighteen, she gave him the only clothes he’d ever had that weren’t hand-me-downs and said she saw great things in his future.
Mrs. Peters told him many times that he was a child never to be loved, but he could manage to be useful if he worked hard. Only, in the two years since he’d seen her, he hadn’t managed to be that to anyone. If this crazy bride needed him, he’d do what he could, if for no other reason than to prove Mrs. Peters right.
The Quaker had been wrong about the great things in his future. With men drifting into Texas looking for work by the hundreds, there were no jobs, and even if there had been, no one wanted to hire an ex-con. Michael’s years in prison left him unskilled for most manual jobs and the few he got drove him insane with boredom. Finally, he drifted back to the only family he’d ever known. His three uncles.
The three hadn’t changed much, but Michael had. He saw them for what they were, bumbling idiots who loved him simply because he was kin to them.
Uncle Abe couldn’t count past seven but liked to cook any meat the others shot or stole.
Uncle Moses followed what he called his laws and believed everything bad that happened in his life was somehow caused by him not adhering to his rules. Of course, the laws included reversing his socks every morning so they’d never wear out and eating all his meals with the same spoon.
Uncle Joseph was the true thief in the family. He stole everything he found not tied down. He even stole from his brothers. They’d long ago given up on trying to talk him out of his habit and now just looked for whatever was missing among his things.
Michael thought he could keep them out of trouble. In the months he’d been back he’d made them clean their shack and clear the plot behind the house for a garden. Then, they convinced him to come along on this one robbery. The people were so rich, they wouldn’t notice a few things missing.
Michael’s plan was to ride along in case they got in over their heads. He’d thought to hide away in the church for an hour while they wandered around the sleeping ranch collecting all they could carry. Once they made it off the ranch, the uncles would fall asleep and he’d take back their loot.
Even his robbery of the bride had been only a trick. He knew he wouldn’t leave with the jewelry. He’d thought she heard him enter and was about to scream when she leaned against the window.
Great job he’d done, Michael thought. Unless he could think of something before the crazy bride got back, he’d be swinging with them from the nearest tree come dawn. She was probably running for help now and laughing that he’d agreed to wait.