Simon the Fiddler

by Paulette Jiles

The handbill advertised passenger train fares for Buffalo Bayou and Houston.

Colonel Webb has gone on ahead to San Antonio, to rent a house. May a cat eat him and may the devil eat the cat.

She must take great care. Trust in God, her mother said, but never dance in a small boat.

And himself yet young and inexperienced in many ways. But that’s why God made people young at first, to get the doing done.

Letters seemed to walk of their own accord down the road from San Antonio, to get lost, wander, camp out for a while beside some pleasant river, finally to amble unconcernedly into Galveston.

It was like a gift dropped into his hand by a stranger. He followed the eccentric journey of the melody, its difficult changes, the flats and sharps, how the singer returned to the beginning note, and Simon knew he would have never found his way back there. It was a riddle as well as a deep mourning, and Simon was acquainted with both of these things, and so in the chill night, winter on the bayou, it was as if only he and the unknown singer lived in the same universe for the brief time that the song was sent out into the dark.

The group straggled toward Fannin Street and the provost marshal’s office,

Hay came in stacked high as cumulus clouds,

And so, Captain, you are on your way north.” Simon lowered his drink. “North?” “I have taken up giving news readings,” said Captain Kidd. “Recently lost my wife. I am at loose ends.

“In here are Captain Jefferson Kidd and Maria Luisa Real, the oldest son of the Mavericks and his intended, the Huths of Castroville, Shanghai Pierce and Fanny Lacey.” Simon wondered if he said this to every couple that came to be married.

The judge nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Only a small town on the edge of the world here in Texas, but still terrible things and wonderful stories happen, just like in the books. This is a book.” He turned the pages, looking for the last entry. “This is a book,” he repeated. “Great tragedies, gripping love stories, tales of uncommon heroism. Very profound, very thought-provoking. Enter your names here.”