Read Lando (1962) for Free Online Page B

grazing. The coachhouse was twice the size of the schoolhouse back at Clinch's.
    "Are you a tinker?" she asked me.
    "No, ma'am. I am Orlando Sackett, bound for the western lands."
    "Oh?" Her nose tilted. "You're a mover!"
    "Yes, ma'am," I said. "Most folks move at one time or another."
    "A rolling stone gathers no moss," she said, nose in the air.
    "Moss grows thickest on dead wood," I said, "and if you're repeating the thoughts of others, you might remember that "a wandering bee gets the honey."'"
    "Movers!" she sniffed.
    "Looks like an old house," I said. "Must be the finest around here."
    "It is," she said proudly. "It is the oldest place anywhere around. The Deckrows," she added, "came from Virginia!"
    "Movers?" I asked.
    She flashed an angry look at me and then paid me no mind. "The servants' entrance," she said to the Tinker, "is around to the side."
    "You're talking to the wrong folks," I said, speaking before the Tinker could. "We aren't servants, and we don't figure to go in by the side door. We go in by the front door, or your clock won't be fixed."
    The Tinker gave me an odd look, but he made no objection to my speaking up thataway.
    He said nothing at all, just waiting.
    "I was addressing the Tinker," she replied coolly. "Just what is it that you do? Or do you do anything at all?"
    One of the servants had come up to hold her stirrup and she got down from the saddle. "Mr.
    Tinker," she said sweetly, "will you come with me?"
    Then, without so much as glancing my way, she said, "You can wait ... if you like."
    When I looked up at that house I sobered down some. Here I was in a worn-out buckskin coat and homespun, dusty from too many roads, and my boots down at heel. I'd no business even talking to such a girl.
    So I sat down on a rock beside the gravel drive and looked at my mare. "You hurry up," I said, "and have that colt. We'll show them."
    Hearing footsteps on the travel, I looked up to see a tall man coming toward me. His hair and mustaches were white, his skin dark as that of a Spanish man, his eyes the blackest I'd ever seen.
    He was thin, but he looked wiry and strong, and whatever his age might be it hadn't reached his eyes ... or his mind.
    He paused when he saw me, frowning a little as if something about me disturbed him. "Are you waiting for someone?" His voice had a ring to it, a sound like I'd heard in the voices of army officers.
    "I travel with the Tinker," I said, "who's come to fix a clock, and that Miss Deckrow who lives here, she wanted me to come in by the servants' entrance, I'll be damned if I will."
    There was a shadow of a smile around his lips, though he had a hard mouth. He taken out a long black cigar and clipped the end, then he put it between his teeth. "I am Jonas Locklear, and Marsha's uncle. I can understand your feelings."
    So I told him my name, and then for no reason I could think of, I told him about the mare and the colt she would have and some of my plans.
    "Orlando Sackett ... the name has a familiar sound." He looked at me thoughtfully.
    "There was a Sackett who married a Kurbishaw girl from Carolina."
    "My father," I said.
    "Oh? And where is he now?"
    So I told him how ma died and pa taken off, leaving me with the Caffreys, and how I hadn't heard from pa since.
    "I don't believe he's dead," I explained, "nor that those Kurbishaws killed him. He seemed to me a hard man to kill."
    Jonas Locklear's mouth showed a wry smile. "I would say you judge well," he said. "Falcon Sackett was indeed a hard man to kill."
    "You knew him?" I was surprised--and then right away I was no longer surprised. This was the Deckrow plantation, the place the Tinker had inquired about. At least, he had inquired about a seafaring man.
    "I knew him well." He took the cigar from his mouth. "We were associated once, in a manner of speaking." He turned toward the door.
    "Come in, Mr. Sackett. Please come in."
    "I am not welcome here," I said stiffly.
    The way his face tightened showed him a man of quick