I managed to get Pearl back home before dark.
She lived in the better part of Blackwater, which only surprised me a little. I expected her to have money, but I thought mostly politicians, federal agents, and other sorts like that lived over there.
When I told her so, she laughed at me. "My father is an attorney. He knows many of those men. He's even friends with a few, though most don't like him. He's a defense attorney at the moment, which means keeping men out of jail and away from the noose."
"I can't imagine that earns him much respect with the police."
"It doesn't." She agreed. "But it puts money in his pocket and food on the table, although not as much in a town like this."
"Where are you from, anyway?" I dismounted the horse and helped her down as well. "You don't sound like a Texan, and I've never seen you around before."
"Louisiana, the city of New Orleans." She brushed some horse hair from her skirt. "I was born there, and raised there. My father's accent is more interesting than mine, if you get to hear it. He's a special kind of French, the kind you only find in New Orleans. My mother isn't from New Orleans originally. She and my aunt were born on the boat over from... Well, it doesn't matter." She waved her hand dismissively.
"So you came here recently?" I looked back at her house. "It doesn't look like you just moved."
"We moved here a few years ago."
"Why?" I pulled a cigarette from my pocket, and offered her one too. "From what I understand, New Orleans is a big city. Your father would get more business in a place like that."
"He would, and he did." She blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth. "But like you said before, that sort of business doesn't make you friends with the law. The law in New Orleans isn't like the law here, either. You think this is corruption? These fat, puffed up, polished hillbillies strutting around with their shiny badges pinned to their chest? Arrogance, yes. It shouldn't be the way it is here, but New Orleans... It's rotten there. Rotten to the core."
"So you got run out of town?" Her eyes flicked up to me, grey like steel and cutting deep.
"Yeah... we got run out." She turned away and took another drag from her cigarette.
"Pearl?" A woman's voice called, and I turned to see the both of them standing there.
Her mother and aunt, eerily similar in every way. They had thick hair, the color of fresh hay, pulled neatly at the top of their heads. They were tall for women, near as tall as me. They weren't as ugly as I expected, and I wouldn't even call them plain-faced. Perhaps in their youth, they had been beautiful like their daughter, but I didn't see much of her in them. The only thing she got from them was those eyes of hers.
I tipped my hat out of politeness, but then their eyes went to me and I realized that drawing attention to myself was a mistake.
"I should've guessed that you were out with some strange man." One of them said. "Do you not realize how dangerous that is? West Elizabeth is different, Pearl. A man like this." A finger was pointed in my direction. "He could throw you over his shoulder, and carry you off, and we would never see you again."
"That doesn't sound too awful." I heard her say under her breathe.
"Get inside. We need to talk about this."
"Can I at least finish?" She wiggled her cigarette between her fingers. One of them plucked it out of her hand, threw it in the grass, and stepped on it.
"Inside." Pearl's mother said.
Pearl turned to me. "You'll come and visit me, right?" And suddenly there were three pairs of those same eyes on me at once.
"I don't know." I told her. "I don't think I'm welcome."
"You aren't." The aunt snapped.
Pearl ignored her. "You are welcome, because I've invited you, and you accepted. So you must come have dinner with us sometime." Her eyes went to the two women standing beside her. "I'm sure my father would allow it."
"Maybe." I told her. "We'll see."
She was obviously unhappy with that answer, but she didn't say so. Instead she offered me a curt goodbye, and extended her hand. I didn't know what to do with it, and I didn't think you were supposed to shake a woman's hand, so I pretended I didn't see it. She snorted at my ignorance and went inside.
That night, I thought long and hard about what to do. I didn't quite know what to think of Pearl. She was beautiful and interesting, and she made her interest in me very obvious, but I couldn't tell if it was a game. Everything seemed like a game to her. Was I just around to piss off her mother and feed her rebellion? Did she even truly want me around at all?
I honestly didn't know.