“The compartments could do with a thorough scrubbing,” said the Methodist, stepping over a pile of steaming shit. “A few repairs seem in order, as well.” He lifted a muck fork and put it aside to allow the tenderfoot to pass. “Alas, Mr. Lundy is a man who understands how to turn a dollar. There’s little return in putting money into the stable, I think.”
A roan mare stood champing grass, its hind quarters to the little man. The stall was cramped, and the mare’s ears brushed against the plank ceiling. Ott edged his way around the animal, mindful of its kick. The preacher returned to the saloon.
Sir Lucien was the only other occupant in the make-do stable. Ott found the mule lying indolent and quiet.
“There you are, you obstinate—”
He halted. The ripple of the animal’s ribs showed through its hide. Thin gashes from coarse shrubbery or branches had marred its withers. Sir Lucien was awake but powerless. Spotting a pan, Ott brought water from a barrel and set it before the mule’s mouth.
“Here, boy. Here’s water for ye.”
He knelt beside its head and began to stroke the neck. In the mule’s big eyes, he searched for a modicum of Sir Lucien’s stubborn self.
“Reckon you got more’n you wanted o’ water last night, though, didn’t ye?” Ott’s head bowed. “We damned near drownded in it.”
When the mule twitched a leg, Ott discovered how badly its hooves had deteriorated. The hooves were deeply split and bending in on themselves. A painful thing to behold. One of the hooves was torn beyond that of the others and seeping fluid. How the animal had pushed on since the river Ott could not fathom. He cursed himself for riding the mule so hard.
A grooming brush missing half its bristles lay among the straw. Ott employed it on the mule’s injured body with deliberate strokes. He whispered soft words. The smell of the rain was still on the animal.
“Rest yerself now. We ain’t in no hurry. You won’t need to bother ‘bout that broken ol’ wagon no more, neither. Y’can ferget ‘bout that. You done yer time.”
Ott’s nostrils became wet and he sniffed. It was pleasing to think that Sir Lucien would no longer need to pull the weight. What need did they have of a wagon anymore?
“It’s only the two of us now. Pappy, he’s gone. Gone and won’t never be comin’ back.” Ott saw his grandfather wrapped in the tattered blanket, lying sickly inside the cabin. A shell of his former self. Cold and grey and sightless.
“That’s the truth. You just rest yerself here. I’ll beg that boardin’ house child fer a apple core or a cabbage. You got to eat to get yer strength back.”
He brushed the animal through the duration of the morning. He told the mule of strange dreams he had had, in his weakened state. Next, he marvelled at how a young girl could be operating a saloon, as he had seen it done. Serving whiskies. She wasn’t more than a child. No, he’d no idea what part of the country they were in, nor what town they had stumbled on. And how they had removed themselves from the storm, precisely, was a mystery. He assured the mule that its hooves would be seen to. Sir Lucien shut his weary eyes then and slept beneath Ott’s brushstrokes.
“They’s a woman in there. A perty woman what wears rouge.” Ott spoke wistfully. “She come up ‘n spoke to me like it weren’t nothin’. Just like we’d known each other forever and ever. She smelled of perfume. Like a bed o’ dandelions. I never knowed a person could smell so sweet.”
* * *
The one they called Miss Clara gave Ott the jumps. Broad and stern-faced, she was made of hard bark. Miss Clara shouted orders at all those around her: at the child they called Nell, at the preacher, at the cook. The pianist had received a relentless tongue-lashing over the nuisance his dog was. Miss Clara made him see to the dog’s remains. Ott was shocked to see the man, Rollins, weeping at his piano for the better part of the day.
A piping cup of coffee before him, Ott observed how Miss Clara governed the place. It was not the young girl who ran the establishment at all: it was the periwigged madam, whose nose was in everyone’s business. Even the customers’ business. Ott had never before seen a female in a position of authority, nor a woman adorned in enormous earrings and necklaces. He shied from her as he could and gravitated to the genial minister.
“You’ll wish to speak to Mr. Lundy about that. Uh, the proprietor. You’ll find him near abouts by and by. He takes his dinners here at The Belle.”
The Methodist, clad in his daily suit of black, was eager to assist his new friend. The cripple, truth be told, was not skilled in the nuances of conversation and often left the preacher unstimulated, mentally speaking.
“Sit, sit.”
Ott, massaging the bandage around his forearm, occupied a chair.
“Itchy? May be that’s a sign it’s healing,” said the Methodist sagely. “Care for a—what is it they say now—an aperitif?”
A handful of tables were filled. All by men. The men were bearded and hatted, tossing back glasses of common stump juice. It bewildered the preacher how others consumed the swill of burnt sugar and tobacco juice stirred into neutral grain spirits. He had always preferred gin.
It was important not to over-imbibe. At his pulpit, the preacher had railed against drinking to excess and the ill effects of liquor. Abuse of liquor was a precursor to agitation of the stomach, to bile secretions, to sloth, to uncontrolled mood shifts. It was a path to moral depravity, and a dependence for the bottle was unbecoming of a true Christian man. Drunkenness was weakness. He ordered another round.
“We got us a tolerable farrier if you’re in need. I expect he could shoe a mule quick as a horse. Won’t overcharge you, neither.”
Ott had explained his need—rather, Sir Lucien’s desperate need for hoof care. The mule was in a bad way. Ott was gladdened to know there was a horseman in the town. Encouraged by drink, he began to tell the preacher of his campaign to bury Granpappy.
“…’n it was then that I knowed we was on the right course. We followed that river like it was the star o’ baby Jesus. Fer a long time, it seemed it weren’t nothin’ but a lazy crick but we followed. And the nights—they was bitter cold. Ooh, I most froze aside the fire ev’ry night. Mm. Then there was a night when that hollow-headed mule o’ mine he wandered off ‘n deserted me in my sleep. When I woke, I tell ya my heart was fit to burst…”
The Methodist was amused by the storyteller’s enthusiasm for his own tale. There was an eccentricity about his mannerisms, his speech. At unpredictable moments, this Ott—this solitary wagoner—would gesture awkwardly or leak tears that left the preacher sympathetic. Ott paused to sip his gin.
“You didn’t come from out east.”
Ott shook his head. His words were tinged with sadness. “From Granpappy’s ol’ cabin. We had us a few acres there, him ‘n me. I guess I still do. Up near a post o’ the Mounties called Wood Mountain. Though there ain’t no mountain thereabouts.”
“Up meaning north of the border?”
“Yes, sir. Pappy growed up in America here but moved hisself up ‘cross the border after losin’ his bride.”
“I see. The Mounties, you say. If I’m not mistaken, that would be the uniformed company assigned to dissuade whiskey traders from penetrating the queen’s territories. Yes? I have read of the northern Mounties and their successes.”
Granpappy had told Ott the particulars of illegal traders. They cared not who their buyers were. Old or young, sodbuster or drifter. Specifically, it was the wild injun they sought for patronage. Granpappy said there were Blackfoot braves and Arapaho who turned deranged, once they consumed red-eye. They quarrelled amongst themselves and made foolish trades. Fine pelts of red fox for rifles with faulty hammers. Ponies for a month’s rations of cheap whoop-up juice. Pappy said the whiskey trader was a disgrace and not to be trusted.
Ott said nothing. He craned to find the young gal who had nursed his arm and who wore rouge like a bona fide lady.
The Methodist urged his friend to continue with his narrative. Fresh drinks were brought, which was timely for the cripple, who’d come to the party late. He hung his crooked cane on the back of his chair and listened politely.
Gradually, The Belle grew busy. Emmett left the bar to the auspices of Clara and the orphan girl so that he might prepare hot plates. Maisie, sluggish yet, was ordered to assist Emmett and serve meals. Susanna wore a plush violet number which fetched the attention of several men. Mary-Lou was upstairs with an early and eager client, and Miss Clara expected to see her return at any minute.
When Mr. Lundy arrived, he was arrayed in a crisp bowler and pressed suit. His handsome attire was matched by straight-backed posture and the self-assurance of one who possesses the keys to the building. Ott made for the gentleman.
Lundy sized up the approaching fellow like one would a groundhog in human clothing—soiled, threadbare clothing. His mouth hung loose.
“Mr. Lundy. I’s hopin’ to git a word with ye.”
Ott extended a pudgy hand, which was received with some hesitation.
“I’s the one who come in last night. On the mule. In the pitiless rain. First ‘n foremost, I wanted to thank ye fer the accommodations ‘n all. That room there, I ain’t never bin in a room choice as that’n. I’m right grateful.”
For reasons unknown, the little man insisted on shaking hands a second time. He went on speaking nervously. Lundy’s brows came together as he listened.
“…The thing is, Mr. Lundy, my mule, he’s in desperate need o’ shoein’. His hooves, they’s cracked ‘n worn to the quick. It’s my own fault, see, fer havin’ him tug the coffin across hell ‘n tarnation. My brother warned it’d be too much fer him ‘n I didn’t listen. Now, he can’t barely stand. The minister there, me ‘n him looked in on ‘em earlier. He ain’t fit to haul a fly across the street, so—”
Lundy held up a hand.
“Whoa, now. Hold off a minute. You say you was haulin’ a coffin. Whose coffin was that?”
Ott nibbled his lip with uneven teeth.
“Pappy’s coffin. He got the bilious fever.”
He stood gazing down at nothing. Lundy could see that the peculiar man was overcome with painful memories.
“Come. Let us sit.” Lundy escorted Ott back to his table.
The Methodist and his counterpart nodded good evening. Lundy ordered food and drink for all. Showing patience, Lundy lit a cigar and began inhaling through it. He considered the pockmarked newcomer. Once Nell brought the beverages, he spoke.
“Please. You were sayin’.”
Ott relayed his ordeal. He included the carnage of the pheasant flock and the business of the fair-haired men digging the well. When he told of the dead fawn, hung up on the high limb, the preacher appeared not to believe him, and Ott became agitated. When he recalled the stealth of the coyotes in the night, who sought to infiltrate Granpappy’s coffin, a fierceness filled his eyes and his fists trembled.
Music came from the piano. Rollins’s usual buoyancy was absent from the ragtime jingles, and in its place was a bluesy tenor. An almost melancholy strain. Lundy, hearing, knew that Clara would have Rollins by the ear right quick.
Ott detailed their search for the cross of red stones and how he feared they would no longer be there. He doubted himself at every turn and felt sorely for Sir Lucien, who made slower progress as the days wore on. They had run short of food and there was a real chance of the wagon collapsing into a fan of splinters. Somehow, against the odds, they found the very spot Granpappy had revered and longed for. Gran’s grave. And though it took every speck of strength Ott had remaining, he dug a hole for his grandfather, and he put him to rest.
“I don’t hardly recall what happened after that. The whole world had suddenly become…dim. I don’t know, I didn’t hardly know what it was that I’s meant to do.”
Ott, who to that point had been sipping his drams, tossed back a serving and sat mute. The preacher held his fork and knife suspended over his food, never having heard such a mournful history. Lundy took his first bite of meat and chewed in the calm manner of one who eats regular meals.
“Got yerself any kin in the area here?”
Ott shook his head no.
“A wife back home perhaps?”
“No, sir.”
“What of yer folks?”
“Never had me no Pa. I had me a mother. Pender told me of her. Said I’s too much fer her to handle.” He felt the burn of the liquor in his belly. “She lit out, I guess.”
Lundy was inclined to ask if Pender was the brother that he’d heard mention of, but he did not press the issue. Hard luck stories were commonplace in his line; there was no benefit to investing oneself in them. It was a cruel, stingy country. No dispute. Reality wasn’t about to change over the lamentable circumstances of one homely man renting a room at The Belle. He regarded the little fellow with a wry smile.
“So yer mule’s been left lame. That is the long and the short of it, yes? You would ask if the payment I got from your trouser pocket is sufficient to cover the cost of shoeing yer animal. Am I correct in this assumption?”
“Well, uh, yes. That is what I’s hoping, Mr. Lundy. Sir.”
The proprietor slowly cut his meat and chewed. He was a thoughtful man, the Methodist knew, and would not enter into a money arrangement without contemplation. The sound of the blues piano ceased. The room remained clamorous nonetheless, for spring was the season of migration. People of every caste were boarding trains and joining caravans. The West was the land of opportunity and was advertised as such. From Europe, from California, from the New England states and Mexico they came. Seeking a better life. An independent life. A life of promise and destiny.
Lundy watched as the room played host to farmers and ranchers, bushwhackers and gold panners. The lean evenings of winter were gone and done; the boarding house and saloon were flourishing again. Lundy knew that he could easily afford to shoe a single mule. Shoot, he could permit this lowly renter a lifetime’s room and board then purchase him a solid mahogany casket with silk lining and bronze handles, upon his death.
Lundy dabbed the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief, his little finger extended. Ott waited for the gentleman to give his answer.
“Young man,” Lundy paused, “I confess: yer tale intrigues me. Sounds as though you done right by yer relation. Preacher man, his pappy’s everlastin’ soul will be at ease as a result of his efforts, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes. Yes, I certainly feel it’s true.”
“I’ll strike a bargain with you. I will arrange for a trim and shoein’ for yer mule. Break of day tomorrow. In return, you and me will reconvene at this selfsame table for tomorrow’s luncheon and you will provide me with more details of yer journey.” Grinning and lifting his brows, Lundy collected his plate and rose. “Yer pappy, as you call ‘em, must’ve been a hell of a man. Enjoy yerselves, gentlemen.”
The Methodist whispered. “Well now. Ask and ye shall receive.”
Ott heard but did not appear to comprehend.
“Uh, what, if I may, what psalm did you select for your grandfather’s burial?”
Again, the preacher was confronted by the face of bewilderment.
“What prayer? Was there a prayer that you recited at the graveside? I’ve always been partial to Psalm 82, although I am aware that some find it unfit for a funeral service…”
The pockmarked fellow fondled his cup. He had not thought to read from the book. He knew no prayers nor poems by rote. The Methodist, seeing his error, slapped his companion good-naturedly on the shoulder and told him it was no matter. Refills needed ordering. The cripple lifted his utensils and tucked into his meal.
A new melody hit the crowd’s ears. A lively, danceable ditty. Ott was revived somewhat from his bout of despondency. The buzz from the gin also served to abate his melancholy. This was a new sensation for him: an airy, carefree feeling. Sir Lucien would have his hooves mended and ironed. There was yet good in the world.
The boogie woogie was infectious. Strangers danced with strangers. They danced with abandon. Heat from the hearth fire permeated the room. Salty language and boorish behaviour ensued. A bald bloke who’d passed out in a corner was getting his hands sewn into the pockets of his breeches. A crowd of onlookers cheered on the woman who wielded the needles and thread.
Ott ate and drank like a man reborn. His toes began to bounce to the beats of the songs. For a while, he did not feel he would weep. He did not think of Granpappy or what the future would be without him.
* * *
Maisie of the painted lips was the most comely girl in the world.
“What do you say, little man? Don’t ya think it’s time?”
Ott had jigged with Maisie through the wild, wanton evening. He devoured gins with chums he didn’t realize he had—with folks he had just met. There were periods during the festivities when he was aware he was slurring his words. Giggling at his own folly, he would attempt to restate his thoughts, only to hear them jumble worse. By accident, he shattered a shot glass aside the bar, dancing away from the tiny shards. Gradually, Ott found the saloon floor to be unsteady. It was as though he was walking on waves rather than on solid wood. Keeping upright became more and more challenging.
At times throughout the evening, Maisie would disappear. Ott would stumble among the throng, inquiring after her. Meeting new people. Stepping out of doors to piss. Then, as if by magic, Maisie would reappear. Twice, Ott spotted her on the staircase, arm in arm with men he did not know. The men grinned and conversed as they ascended with the beauty, but they seemed disinterested and drowsy when they descended. Maisie, who bore lashes that curled in a way Ott delighted in, would promptly leave the men to hook arms again with Ott. Together, they would resume their dance and Maisie would giggle at his every deed.
“Come.”
Now, he had the sense that he was being led away from the din. It was a wobbly departure and Maisie steadied him when he lost balance. What a wonderful girl, he thought. Nurse, companion, dance partner. What a doll she is. He clenched a handful of her hair and stroked it, unable to resist. Together, they mounted the steps.
A ringing was borne in Ott’s ears as they distanced themselves from the soiree. He cocked his head this way and that, seeking to identify the source. When he discovered that it came from within his head, he began banging on his temple.
Maisie guided him along the landing to a chamber door.
“No more dancing…that’s enough o’ that…let’s just have us ‘nother wee gin why don’t we…” he garbled his words.
The chamber was lit dimly by a lantern. Maisie set her bracelets and necklace on a bureau. She moved about the room easily, knowing where chairs and bed corners began and ended. Ott leaned against the wall, chuckling and repeating himself until Maisie drifted past him.
“Won’t be but a minute, Sugar. Make yerself comfortable.”
She went out into the corridor.
This room was spinning more than the saloon had been. Ott’s eyes rolled from one piece of furniture to the next. Nothing seemed to be in focus. There were two vertical armoires, two low bureaus, two chairs. There was but one standing mirror—a shortfall which rankled Maisie and her roommate daily, when they needed to ready themselves for their shifts. The mirror led to terrible rows. Ott got himself to the bed and fell into it. When the sound of his own nattering ceased, he saw that he was not alone. Across from him was a second bed on which a stout man was in the act of diddling a woman.
It took the intoxicated wagoner a minute to process what he was witnessing. The burly man was grunting like an animal. His wore his shirt, vest and hat but was naked from the waist down. The man’s hairy buttocks lifted and fell in rhythm with his grunting, and the woman beneath him, still in her dress, looked in danger of being crushed under the gorilla’s weight. Ott had seen the woman now and then throughout the day. She was a friend of Maisie’s. Susan or Suzanne. Ott gaped at the act being performed not eight feet from him. He became convinced that the man was hurting the dainty Susan until she turned to face Ott. She was chewing a wad of gum—or perhaps tobacco—and appeared to be profoundly disinterested in what was taking place on her body. Ott realized that she was breathing with ease and under no visible distress. She winked at her audience of one, then turned back to the gorilla.
Maisie returned.
“Sugar? Oh, there y’are. Thought I mightta lost ye.”
She glanced at the demonstration winding down in Susanna’s bed.
“Y’bout done there?”
Susanna nodded. One of her breasts had spilled out of her top. It was smooth and round with a nipple of dark complexion at its centre. Ott could not remove his gaze from it.
Maisie, grinning as one might grin at a child with its pet bunny, began to remove her clothing. Susanna frowned at her co-worker.
“That’n ain’t got no coin. Clara won’t like you givin’ him no free poke.”
Maisie was about to tell Susanna to mind her own affairs when the gorilla lifted Susanna’s leg. The whore was not expecting this innovation, and her reflexes caused her foot to jerk. Her heel clipped the big john flush on the nose. Blood gushed out and into the man’s beard.
“Oh, fer Christ sakes! Maisie!”
“Fuck, Susanna. No need to break the bastard’s nose.”
Rummaging about for a rag large enough to be of any use, the partially clad Maisie grumbled how Susanna would be doing her own laundry, come morning. Susanna called out for Maisie to make haste while the gorilla carried on humping and bleeding. The man was worked up to the point where he would finish his business, fractured nose or not. For Otto, the room was teetering badly. He would have sworn the mattress he occupied was levitating and undulating, attempting to throw him off as a wild bronc would a rider. Intense nausea was building in his guts. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Maisie scrambling about the room.
“Here. Best I can find.”
She tossed stockings to Susanna, who thrust them into the gorilla’s meaty hand.
“Hold this tight to yer nose, big fella, ‘n let loose yer load. Yer leakin’ like a stuck pig.”
Ott did not see the burly man complete his transaction. He did not see Susanna pushing the gorilla from the room or throwing his boots and hat into the corridor. Susanna began an outburst about the bloodstains on her corset and stormed out for a bucket of soap and water. The room was spinning for Ott. There was no steadying it. Feeling a sick rebellion within, he crawled in desperation for the chamber pot. Dunking his head into it, he retched and retched. Behind him, Maisie of the painted lips had grown weary. She turned and quit the room, hoping that Mary-Lou had given her last hump for the night and that maybe she would share her bed.
* * *
Morning birdsong filled the air across the sprawling land. Finches and redpolls. Nuisance sparrows and bright-breasted robins. Blackbirds, waxwings and wrens awoke to forage and hunt, to fortify their nests and to prepare for the arrival of newborns. The mourning doves cooed to one another, telling of their wants and needs and sorrows.
Lundy was good to his word. He instructed Jeb to walk the mule to the farrier’s, where the animal would have its hooves seen to. Jeb reported that the decrepit animal had since improved in health. It was standing when he’d arrived to fetch it.
Miss Clara was itemizing the day’s take at the end of the long bar. It had been another lucrative night. Lundy listened quietly as each column in the ledger was explained to him. It was a common understanding between the two that saloon and chamber revenues belonged exclusively to Mr. Lundy. The building, after all, had been his germination. From these profits, Miss Clara was given a stipend for her accounting efforts. She dotted every i and crossed every t in the money ledgers of The Western Belle, and she never skimmed a penny. But the accounting work was a mere sideline for Miss Clara. Her real occupation was the management and solicitation of her girls. The two entrepreneurs had agreed early on about the mutually beneficial arrangement: Lundy’s food and drink would bring in studs for Clara’s girls, and Clara’s girls would attract thirsty customers for the saloon.
“Emmett says he’s shy on flour. He won’t refuse a mess o’ jackfish, neither. I think we could do with a few plump ducks, bein’ as they’s flappin’ over our heads ev’ry day. Quail makes a good broth if they’s any to be got.”
Lundy nodded as she recited her list. He refilled his coffee mug and stirred in a spoonful of molasses.
“If’n that piano man is puss-faced agin tonight, I’m a-goin’ to squeeze his balls till they burst.” This was Miss Clara’s way of adjourning the meeting. She retreated to the kitchen, scratching her armpit.
Up in Maisie’s chamber, the wagonless wagoner smelled of alcohol and vomit. His head was throbbing and he did not recognize his surroundings. Ladies’ undergarments. Pantaloons. A dirty mob cap, lace gloves, mismatched sleevelets. Ott groaned in the throes of dehydration and head pain. Like a wounded walrus, the little man wriggled off the mattress.
The sight of Susanna sprawled and sleeping brought back scraps of memory. Ott recalled the hefty gorilla man and Susanna’s exposed breast. Maisie. Dancing. Gin. Congealed puke made the room rank. Droplets of dried blood formed an arc from the bed to the door. Ott followed the trail, was pleased to find the corridor empty, and made for his own room where he might rinse clean his fetid mouth. Later, perhaps, he could locate the minister with whom he struck a passable friendship.
It was the Sabbath. The preacher of Ott’s thoughts was then hanging up his soutane inside of the chancel. After that, he removed the hymn page numbers from the slots of the signboard. Certain Sundays, the cripple would wander over to observe his pious friend’s routine. He found the solemnity of the church and its contents intriguing. The reverence with which the preacher handled his leather-bound book. The dusting of the depictions of Christ Jesus which hung on the walls. But not today. Today, the cripple awaited his chum in the saloon of The Western Belle. Mr. Lundy joined him now, bearing a gift in a shot glass.
“That’s the only one ye get today, ye crooked beggar,” he said amiably but truthfully. Without hesitation, the cripple drank down the whiskey, saving the glass to dip his finger into.
When Ott arrived, Lundy thought him a frightful sight. More haggard even than he had looked the day before. Lundy craned to find a jug of water for the afflicted fellow.
“Hell’s highroad, man. What was it, the lovin’ or the fightin’?”
Ott eased himself into a chair. Hot belches escaped his throat.
“Yer infection appears to be healin’. That Maisie, she knows how to take care of a man, no?”
The cloth wrap around Ott’s arm was not there. He hadn’t noticed. The cripple, catching Mr. Lundy’s innuendo, waited for the ugly stranger to provide salacious details.
“Yes. She was mighty decent to me. Though, I fear I did leave a unfriendly mess in ‘er room, I’m ‘shamed to say.”
The cripple giggled at that. Lundy waved off any offense. Untidy chamber rooms were the reason he hired a staff.
“Put it out o’ yer head. Come. See if you can’t git some egg into you. My friend and me, we long to hear more of yer journey from the queen’s country. Say, Miss Clara. Are you not descended from the icy north, like our intrepid guest here? Mr. Ott.”
Clara was holding a stack of plates. It was not her purview to oversee preparations of the saloon, yet here she was, arranging and controlling. It had become habit. She cut her movements abruptly when Lundy spoke the name of the ugly newcomer.
“No,” she got out. “I am Yankee born ‘n bred. You know it.”
The rejoinder was prickly. Lundy narrowed his eyes at his accountant, wondering what it was that got stuck in her craw. By and large, he respected Miss Clara’s backbone and grit. Gumption had never been lacking in the bawd. He trusted Clara as much as he had any partner prior. But cordiality had never been her domain.
Ott told his hearers of the Hollanders and their fourteen-foot auger. Ineffectively, he tried to relay the bitter cold that comes in the dead of night when spring is not yet full on. He exaggerated his abilities as pertaining the repairs to the wagon. The first nibble of scrambled egg stayed down in his stomach; nonetheless, Ott stuck mostly to coffee.
When Lundy asked for clarifications or locations, Ott did his best to provide them. When the cripple rotated his dry shot glass, like a child’s top, he was ignored. The hungover wagoner (who no longer possessed a wagon) was explaining how his brother was overburdened by chores and unable to accompany him on the mission to lay Granpappy to rest when Miss Clara situated herself nearby.
“…he give me rations o’ venison ‘n other provisions to set me by…”
Miss Clara held a dust rag she was not employing. Barely breathing, she stared at the back of the storyteller’s head. She had glimpsed the young wagoner among the crowd last evening. He was one of numerous louts in the crowd. Drunk but harmless. This one was the dark-haired midget who’d been dancing clumsily with Maisie. He had no intentions of paying for her time and Clara had to remind Maisie of her function. But Clara hadn’t really seen him.
“…’n I’ll tell ‘em how we done it. How we found that stone marker, Sir Lucien ‘n me together…”
Clara’s gaze fell to the man’s sloped shoulders. She listened intently now—not only to his words but to the inflections in his voice.
The cripple fancied the eccentric talker. It was refreshing to hear of exploits out on the prairie. Of immigrants gambling on new lives. While it was true that the Methodist’s prophecies of the red man obliterating societies and spreading terror had their entertainment value, the little man’s yarns were different. Less dour. There was wonder in his narrative. His trek was one of pride and accomplishment, though it was clear that his errand had left him saddened. Here was a man who did not fear the savage frontier. Rather, he saw splendor in it. Adventure. The cripple patted his cane, which lay across his lap, and listened.
“…he said I’s only doin’ it on account o’ me needin’ Pappy’s good opinion o’ me. He said Pappy’s opinion didn’t hold no more, seein’ as he was dead. Maybe now, Pender’ll understand…”
The wagoner carried on, happy for the company but discontented with the stabbing pain in the front of his head. There were moments he seemed on the verge of crying. Overnight, a film seemed to have grown on his tongue. He drank water along with his coffee.
Lundy spoke. “Your grandfather. Your, uh, pappy. Did you have the impression he had made his peace with God? If that’s not too personal a thing to ask.”
Ott considered the question. Melancholy was written in his whole aspect. “I don’t reckon God ‘n Pappy ever had a singular quarrel.”
Lundy chuckled at the simple comment. He turned to see if Miss Clara had also found amusement in the fellow’s reply. Clara’s feet were stomping heavily up the boarding house stairs.
* * *
Ott didn’t see it coming.
Closing the door to his room, a blur brushed past him and slammed into the wall. Miss Clara was there, her sagging face flushed and wild. Her bosomy girth pinned him against the jamb.
“Out! You! Out of this place now!”
Pulling the knife from the wall, she thrust it in again and again, punishing the wood. The blade whipped past Ott’s ear, almost lopping it clear off.
“You are NOT welcome here! Get out, out, out…!”
The woman’s eyes bulged, showing all their whiteness. Ott, terrified and confused, tried to grope for an escape. His heart beat hard as he saw the woman’s expression: pure hatred.
Clara’s breath was on him. In the excitement, her wig had gone askew. Ott, fearful that he’d be slain then and there, shut his eyelids tight and waited. When the knifework ended, he heard nothing for a matter of seconds. Only panting. Then, the lunatic woman went around him and pulled the door into his backside. She was gone.
His few belongings had been packed for him, on the bed mattress. The pain of his headache doubled. The episode had happened so fast that he stood dumbfounded. He’d offended the woman. He knew not how. He was being banished. And so, slinking like a guilty child, he left The Western Belle by way of the rear door, wretched and dejected. The same as how he had arrived.
Sir Lucien’s shoes made him taller. Ott could feel the increased height as they made their way down the street. He was uncharacteristically gentle with the animal and stroked its tawny mane. Not a word was spoken. The day was fair and sparsely clouded. A pair of boys in torn denim overalls played a game of jousting with willow sticks.
The mule was a hundred yards out of town when the cripple and Miss Maisie caught up. It was Maisie who was in the saddle of the handsome pony; the cripple seemed afflicted by the bumpy ride.
Reaching with an arm as best his crooked body would allow, the cripple gave over a small burlap sack. The bundle contained dried potatoes and sausage. A canteen of water. Ott had not known the man to speak in their brief time together, and the cripple uttered no words now. Miss Maisie, glowing lovely in the light of day, wanted to offer some explanation for Miss Clara’s actions but she was unable. She had never known Miss Clara to oust a customer without cause.
“Yer oozin’ blood.” She pointed at her own neck.
Ott palmed his neck, then his ear. It had been nicked by the knife. As he accepted the bundle, Maisie pulled the pony sharply away and the two of them left the wagoner to his lonely departure.