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over. She was about to try again when she glanced out of the window to see a slender woman emerge from the clump of chaste trees at the back of the house and open the low iron gate. She was wearing a gray shirtwaist blouse with a black ribbon and a darker gray ankle-length skirt, smoothly gored in the late Victorian style. Her dark hair was piled on her head, and over her arm she carried a woven basket filled with white roses. Her figure had the weight and dimension of reality, but there was a certain insubstantiality to it, a wavering quality, as though she were seen through a veil of falling water.
    And then, as Ruby watched, the woman turned, lifted her hand to shade her eyes, and looked up the hill toward the car. Then waved as if in greeting, as if she had recognized Ruby, as if she had been waiting for her and was glad she had come at last.
    Ruby swallowed. The perspiration broke out on her forehead and she shivered, squeezing her eyes shut. She had seen the woman before, during that first visit with Claire. The woman had turned and waved to her then, too. That was the moment that Ruby had realized that she had Gram’s gift, that she—
    â€œHey!”
    Ruby gasped and jumped, startled half out of her skin. A man was leaning over to peer in the car window. He was tall, square jawed, with gingery hair and hard gray-green eyes and he smelled of tobacco. It was difficult to tell his age. From the lines on his face, he might have been anywhere between forty and sixty, and he had clearly spent most of those years working outdoors in the wind and sun. He wore an oil-spotted denim shirt, open at the throat to reveal a frayed and dirty T-shirt, and a sweat-stained Dallas Cowboys gimme cap. The phrase
There was a crooked man
elbowed itself into Ruby’s mind.
    â€œWho’re you?” the man demanded roughly. “This is private property, y’know. It’s not a public road. If you’re lookin’ to buy an oil lease, you can just turn right around. The owner doesn’t want drilling on this land.”
    â€œI’m not here about oil leases,” Ruby said. “My name is Ruby Wilcox. Claire Conway invited me to spend a few days with her. You are…?” She knew who he was, though. He was the caretaker the waitress had mentioned. Sam Rawlings.
    and he walked a crooked mile
    â€œRawlings.” The man straightened. “Miz Conway shoulda told me you were comin’. You got a problem with the car?”
    â€œI…I just stalled it,” Ruby said, feeling that she had been reprimanded for bad driving. “I’m sure it’s okay.” She turned the ignition key and, to her relief, the motor sparked into life.
    He found a crooked sixpence
    â€œWell, at least you didn’t flood the damn thing.” Rawlings slapped the roof of the car with the flat of his hand and stepped back. “I’ll let Miz Conway know you’re here. Drive on around the back of the house and park beside the garage, then go on to the kitchen door. Leave your bags by the car and I’ll bring ’em in for you.” He paused, adding pointedly, “When I get around to it.”
    â€œI can manage,” Ruby said distinctly. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”
    â€œSuit yourself.” The man turned abruptly and headed toward a faint path, like a narrow game trail, that led downhill in the direction of the house.
    As Ruby put the car in gear and started off, she looked back over her shoulder. To her relief, the woman in the gray dress was gone. But the windows of the crooked house, like sad and empty eyes, seemed to follow her as she drove cautiously down the hill and across the low concrete bridge over the gravel bed of the creek.

Chapter Three
    Galveston
Midday, September 8, 1900
    Many persons now took receivers off the hooks of the wall telephones, rang the operator, and asked for 214 —the number of the Weather Bureau office. The weatherman had only a