49

EMMA SCARLET wore a red wig for business, but since we were more friends than anything else, and since this morning we had finished our business already, she left the wig on its holder while we drank coffee in her room.

“So, the girl ran off with the half-breed,” Emma said.

“Laurel,” I said. “With Pony Flores.”

“Love,” Emma said.

“I guess.”

We drank some coffee.

“I think Allie was a little upset,” I said.

“You do,” Emma said.

“Think she was planning on some fine eastern gentleman,” I said.

“For crissake, Everett, Laurel didn’t even talk.”

“’Cept to Virgil,” I said. “And ’fore she left she said Pony’s name out loud.”

“Golly,” Emma said.

“She might have been losing her baby, but she’d only had a baby for a couple years.”

“And maybe she didn’t mind,” Emma said.

“No?” I said.

“Maybe she didn’t like the competition,” Emma said.

“Competition with who?” I said.

“Laurel,” Emma said.

“For?”

“Virgil,” Emma said.

“Virgil wouldn’t lay a hand on Laurel,” I said.

“Don’t matter what Virgil would do,” Emma said. “It’s what Allie fears that matters.”

“You think Allie was afraid Virgil would run off with Laurel?” I said.

“’Course she was,” Emma said.

“I don’t see that,” I said. “I known them since they been together. Virgil never run off on her.”

“She ever run out on him?” Emma said.

“She did,” I said.

Emma was still naked from our time of business, and as she talked she leaned back and looked at her extended leg.

“Where’d she end up?”

“Pig wallow in Placido,” I said. “On the Rio Grande.”

“How’d she get out of there?”

“Me and Virgil found her, took her out,” I said.

“And if you hadn’t?”

“She’d a died,” I said.

“So, he owes her leavin’,” Emma said.

“More than one,” I said.

“And if it weren’t for him she’d be fucking her life away in some dump down by Mexico.”

“So, she’d be worried about anybody,” I said.

“Especially a young girl starting to come of age that speaks only to Virgil?”

I nodded and drank some coffee.

“Hadn’t thought of it that way,” I said.

“’Course you hadn’t,” Emma said. “She’s a woman.” She waved her naked leg around. “You only think of her this way.”

“You don’t seem to mind,” I said.

She shrugged and pointed her toes.

“Not with you,” she said.