Summary

Leaving Johanna feeding sticks into the stove, Captain Kidd heads into Spanish Town to rent the Masonic Lodge for a reading that night. As he wanders the town, he meets Simon Boudlin, a fiddler he knows. Simon is sitting in the widow of a storefront, “watching the world go by” (50). The Captain invites Simon to his reading that night, and asks Simon and his “particular friend” (53) Miss Dillon to watch Johanna while he reads so that she does not “go bolting off” (53). Simon realizes that this means Johanna wants to return to the Kiowa, and tells Captain Kidd about a “Kiowa Dutch” boy he once knew who could not remember the place and people from whom he was captured. As Captain Kidd is about to leave Simon tells him that, “for an old man” he has “taken on a heavy load here” (54).

That night...