“There’s a lady here,” said Lieutenant Jacob Whittaker.

The sheriff lifted his hat, murmured a few words about ladies not coming to jails. Simon remembered that the blond man had said We hang them. He, Simon, had killed a man. He felt that he was going to pass out. His head dropped forward and then he found he was able to lift it again. She managed a smile and pressed the backs of her hands against her cheeks.

“You must have water,” said Doris. She stepped toward the water bucket, but the sheriff stood in her path. She said, “Get out of my way or I will have the eyes out of your head, do you hear me?” She stared him down and he started to object, to mutter, then he backed off. She brought the dipper to Simon.

Simon took it in both hands, turned it up, and drank all that was in it.

Whittaker said, “The tribunal will be at the Vance House and so I need a written confirmation from you that you are transferring the prisoner to my custody and authority.”

Simon saw the sheriff writing and as he wrote he said, “Then where’s the provost marshal? How come I’m sheriff then?”

“I have no idea why you’re the sheriff.” Whittaker reached out to take the paper. “Where are his possessions?”

“He didn’t have nothing but a fiddle.”

“Where is it?”

There was a long silence, shuffling boots. Then the sheriff said, “Well, there was a fight here and it got broke up.” His voice had changed and now he sounded unsure. Coward. He turned and retrieved the remains of Simon’s Markneukirche from a large basket that apparently served for trash. Somebody had thrown it all in there. Probably the deputy.

“Ah. I see,” said Whittaker.

Doris didn’t move for a moment and then she said, “Give it to me.” She held out a hand. “You black villain. How could you?”

“No,” said Whittaker. “Wait.” From the floor beside him he picked up a large canvas bag marked u.s. mail. “Hand it over.” The sheriff handed over piece after piece as if counting them.

“There was a fight here.”

“You said that.”

“I went home for the night, couldn’t find a night watchman. They got into it.”

“You’ll testify about that later,” said the lieutenant. “Under oath. That is a separate issue.” He touched Simon’s arm. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?” Simon didn’t move.

“We have several places to go. It’s going to be all right. Come, Simon.”

Doris took up the front of her skirts in one hand and marched out the door to a light small surrey. It was their own, with little Tupelo brightly tossing his head and surveying with one eye his happy future. When they were seated, the lieutenant tossed the mail sack into the footwell, stepped aboard, and took up the reins. Before he urged the horse onward he said,

“Simon, now listen to me.”

“Very well,” said Simon. He closed his eyes, sat back with his wrists in irons and his slashed shirt, his vest missing buttons, his black coat littered with bits of hay and blood. He couldn’t see out of one eye. His mouth was thick.

Doris pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and poured water from a canteen over it. He heard the rattle of the stopper chain, a familiar sound. She began the attempt to clean his face, one careful stroke after another. She made several choked noises.

“Don’t cry,” said Simon. “I’m all right.”

Whittaker pressed back his eyeglasses and said, “We must appear before a tribunal today.”

“All right.”

“They are wanting to call Miss Dillon to testify and they will try to prove it was premeditated murder.”

“No,” said Simon. “She cannot. She’s a girl from Ireland and doesn’t know anything of this situation. No.”

“Simon, be quiet and listen,” Doris said. She wrung out the handkerchief, leaning over the side. The water she twisted out was bloody.

“Yes. Because she heard you say you would like to strangle Pruitt at the colonel’s reception. They will question her about your relationship. Colonel Webb is pressing for this. He is not seated on the tribunal. The judge advocate, a Dutchman named Frelich, is a fair man. He is no friend of Webb’s. No, be quiet, listen. So you will be married within the hour, as a wife cannot testify against her husband even under military rule.”

Simon turned to the girl beside him to look at her carefully; her nervous brightness and her hair so untidy beneath the hat as if she had done it up in the dark. He needed some clue as to what was real and what might only appear real to somebody who had been hit in the head several times with great force. The activity of Military Plaza swirled about them, the bargaining and woodsmoke and rumbling of wheels.

She said, “Is that all right, Simon?”

Simon sat without speaking. He revolved the thoughts around in his head. He said, “Yes, darling. Yes.” He paused. “I don’t have the ring. It’s in my stuff at the Plaza House.”

“The ring, yes, all right.” In this blinding sunlight of a February day she appeared anxious, confused, but then in the last two days everything had collapsed and fallen out of true; a hive overturned and events darting about like winter bees.

“Yes. Since Houston. It’s in my ruck at the Plaza House.” He moved slightly with the waves of pain in his shoulder, his ribs, his face. He leaned his bruised head against her forehead and then kissed her carefully on the lips. The lieutenant looked elsewhere. “Doris, I have long admired you from afar. Would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

“Since you ask,” she said. And then, with a shaky smile, for she was looking into his battered face, “Yes.”

“So is it settled, then?” The lieutenant shifted the reins and gazed, with iron resolve, across the plaza. He seemed to be studying the facade of the Horde Hotel with great interest.

“It is,” said Simon and clasped her small hand in his two, despite the clanking manacles. “Doris, where are you staying?”

“With Mercedes. It is all right. I got out with a carpetbag, out a window, over the roof. Mercedes started laughing, it was a scene.” She held his hand gently. It was swollen and several of his fingers were blue. “We are off on an adventure, are we not then?”

“Yes.”

“To the Red River Valley.”

“I hope. God, I hope so.”

The Justice of the Peace had a small office at the rear of the French building. He stood at his desk when he saw them come in and stared hard at Simon. He had a big nose and hollow cheeks and thick brown-and-gray hair. He leaned on his knuckles.

“Fiddler, I am sorry to see you like this.”

“I clean up pretty good,” said Simon. He made a vague, clanking gesture with his hand. “We want you to marry us.”

“I saw you play at the Horde Hotel. ‘The Highland Waltz.’ Very moving, very polished.”

“Thank you. Much appreciated. I was wondering if you could marry us. It seems kind of urgent.”

“I know. The lieutenant has related to me the entire story. Very remarkable, very striking.” The justice dredged up the thick marriage registry and placed it carefully on a high desk. He laid out steel pens and an ink bottle and pen wipers. “In this book are one thousand four hundred and seventy-one stories of human beings joining themselves in Holy Matrimony for better or for worse and done often in a heedless haste and others after years of senseless dithering. Often it does not work out and misery and parting are their lot; at other times mistakes are rectified and another attempt is made but human beings never stop trying their hand at matrimony, it seems to be a universal law. In this book you two are one thousand four hundred and seventy-two.”

Doris and Simon stood before him like penitent schoolchildren, with Simon in his handcuffs and beat-up face having perhaps done something more felonious than was common.

“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.

Lieutenant Whittaker listened carefully, his cap in his hand.

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.”