The dawn light shone on four biscuits on a dish in the center of the table. Beside them was a scrawled note:
To Johnny — From Hattie
Stone stuffed the biscuits into his saddlebags and went outside. The horse was tied to the hitching post as Beau had said. It was a sorrel, and pawed the earth as if it were raring to go. The sun lay beneath the mountaintop on the east side of the valley, radiating light into the sky.
Stone walked toward the sorrel and saw a bag of provisions hanging from the pommel of the saddle. A blanket roll was behind the saddle.
Stone placed his foot in the stirrup and raised himself up, swinging his leg over the saddle and settling in. A light was on in the bunkhouse, and smoke trailed from the chimney. Stone urged the horse toward the tunnel, and cattle grazing nearby munched grass as they watched him pass.
Stone rolled a cigarette as he rocked back and forth in the saddle. He lit it, inhaled some smoke, and turned around, looking back to the part of the main building where Beau lived.
Stone thought he saw a face in the window, but then it disappeared and Stone wondered if he’d imagined it. It had looked like Beau’s face, but at that distance it was difficult to be sure.
At one o’clock in the afternoon, Ewell rode into Clarksdale. The big wide street was crowded with horses and wagons, and the sidewalks were full of people.
Ewell looked around him and smiled. Nobody knew him, and he could start a new life. A woman was bent over on the sidewalk, looking at merchandise in a store window, and Ewell admired her hindquarters. He had a hundred dollars with him, and thought he’d go immediately to the Crystal Palace.
He saw the sign: CLARKSDALE STABLES, and rode his horse toward the doorway. A poster was nailed to the wall, but he didn’t pay any attention to it.
A man with a white mustache walked up to him. “Third stall on the left,” he said. “The boy’ll bring some hay.”
Ewell dismounted and walked the horse into the stall, removing the saddle and blanket. He patted the horse on his rear haunch and walked outside.
He came to the poster again, and this time looked at it.
$1000 REWARD
Ewell couldn’t read well, but squinted his eyes and tried to understand what the reward was for. He formed the letters slowly with his lips, and his eyes widened like saucers when he realized that the reward would be paid for information leading to the rescue of Captain John Stone, formerly of the Confederate Cavalry Corps!
Ewell took a step backward, amazed by what he’d read. One thousand dollars!
That was a tremendous amount of money. It could take him all the way to San Francisco, and he could live like a king. But then he realized what he’d have to do to get the money. He’d have to tell where the hideout was.
He stared at the sign as people walked by. It’d be so easy to get the money, but he couldn’t betray Beau. He didn’t like Beau anymore, but they were still brothers, still family. You didn’t betray family.
Ewell shrugged, hitched his thumbs in his gunbelt, and walked toward the Crystal Palace. He wore a brown leather vest and a wide-brimmed hat with a low flat crown. Nobody paid any attention to him on the sidewalk, and that was just the way he wanted it. It was almost as if he were invisible.
He came to the Crystal Palace, a two-story building near the saloon district. The red lamps on either side of the door were on, and he climbed the stairs.
The door was opened by two cowboys with puffy faces and bleary eyes. They stumbled outside, and Ewell walked into the parlor. It had red wallpaper and a crystal chandelier overhead. He dropped onto a chair and rolled a cigarette, running his wet tongue along the gummed seam.
He was still thinking about the one thousand dollars. It was a tremendous amount of money, a small fortune. He’d always wondered what San Francisco was like. Lots of rich people to rob.
“You here again?” asked a female voice.
He looked up and saw Rebecca, his favorite whore. She was sixteen, with pale blond hair and blue eyes, wearing a pink gown with a red ribbon around her waist.
She plopped herself down on his lap, wiggled a few times, and draped her arms around his neck. “Bet I know what you want,” she said with a laugh. Bringing her lips close to his ear, she whispered, “Wanna wear my pantaloons?”
His face turned red. “Shut up.”
“Well, do you?”
“Let’s go upstairs.”
“You’re gonna haveta take a bath afore we do anythin’. Hate to tell you what you smell like.”
He pinched her bottom. “Will you come into the tub with me?”
She tweaked his nose. “You’re a naughty little boy.”
“I’m not a little boy. I’m a man.”
They went to her room, and the curtains were imprinted with a pretty floral pattern. He opened the closet and looked at her clothes.
“Git out of there,” she said. “You got to take a bath first. I’ll tell the maid to bring the water.”
She left the room, and he sat on a chair. The room smelled like perfume, and was so much nicer than his little cabin in Rattlesnake Canyon. He wasn’t worried that somebody would laugh at him, and Beau would never humiliate him again.
After a while Rebecca returned to the room. “Water’ll be right up,” she said. “You kin start takin’ yer clothes off, or would you rather I did it for you?”
“You do it,” he said.
She walked toward him with a saucy smile on her lips and unbuttoned his shirt. “Haven’t seen you for a while,” she said. “Miss me?”
“All the time.”
“You’re lucky I’m workin’ this afternoon. Usually I work nights. What brings you to town today?”
“I come to say good-bye to you,” he told her. “I’m a-goin’ to San Francisco.”
“Where’d you get the money to go to San Francisco?” she asked skeptically.
“Never you mind.”
She nuzzled his ear, and he felt thrills up his back. “I’ve always wanted to go to San Francisco,” she said. “Can I come with you?”
No horses were tied to the hitching rail in front of the shack in Deadman’s Flats. No stagecoach was parked in the yard, and no cowboys were passing through.
Stone climbed down from his saddle and tied the sorrel to the rail. Pushing his hat to the back of his head, he pulled off his black gloves as he walked to the door.
He’d been on the trail since he left Rattlesnake Canyon, and he was hungry. He had some hardtack in the saddlebags, but didn’t want to eat it if he didn’t have to.
Stone walked inside the ramshackle structure. Backus sat alone in a chair fast asleep. Stone approached the table, and Backus looked up.
“Got anything to eat?”
“How’s about some stew?”
“Sounds fine to me.”
Backus arose and walked slowly, with his back bent, to the stove. Stone sat at a table, took off his hat, and reached for his pouch of tobacco. He’d watered and fed the sorrel in the barn before coming inside. Now he could have a leisurely meal and be on his way again.
‘He lit the cigarette and blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth. Looking around, he noticed a poster on the far wall:
$1000 REWARD.
Backus brought a big wooden bowl of beef stew, setting it before Stone. The aroma was delicious, and it was filled with big chunks of meat, potatoes, and carrots. Stone reached for the spoon as Backus walked to the cupboard. He took down a jug and a glass and brought them to Stone.
“No thanks,” Stone said. “I don’t drink.”
Backus ignored him, placing the jug and glass on the table. Then he walked away and sat at the table where he’d been before, and fell asleep again.
Stone spooned up some stew. He expected to return to Clarksdale late that night, and intended to turn his horse over to the sheriff with the hope that somebody would offer a reward for it, since it was stolen. Then he’d see if he could get a refund on his stage fare to Santa Fe, since he had only completed a small leg of the trip.
If he didn’t get the reward or a refund, he’d have to find a job until he could earn enough money to buy a horse and travel to Santa Fe on his own. He definitely didn’t feel like traveling by stagecoach anymore. Two or three frontier-hardened men on horseback would have the best chance of getting through, but one man could do it too if he was alert and sober.
The main thing is I’ve got to stay sober, Stone said, chewing beef stew and gazing at the jug of whiskey in front of him. It’s too easy to die out here.
He finished the meal and pushed the plate away. “How much I owe you?” he asked Backus.
The old man raised himself slowly from his torpor, and told Stone the amount. Stone paid him, wheeled, and walked to the door. The reward poster caught his eye, and he stopped to read it. He took off his hat and scratched his head. “I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said, and read the poster again.
“That feller the owlhoots kidnapped was here just t’other night,” Backus told him. “I don’t remember him exactly, but he was on that stagecoach what got robbed. Sure wish I knew where he was now. Could use me that one thousand smackeroonies.”
Stone could use them too. He walked out to the sorrel, tightened the cinch strap, climbed into the saddle, and rode off.
He rolled a cigarette and was pleased with himself for refusing the whiskey inside the hut. I can beat liquor. He lit the cigarette, and the saddle creaked underneath him as the sorrel walked toward Clarksdale.
It was night, and Ewell sat at a table in the corner of The Blind Pig in Clarksdale, so-called because it was small, dark, and grungy, full of the scummiest whores on the frontier.
They were mostly old, half-undressed, drunk, and nasty. One of them approached Ewell, her face covered with a thick layer of makeup. She sat beside him and reached between his legs.
“How’re you doin\ cowboy!” she roared.
He grabbed her wrist. “Leave me alone.”
She looked into his eyes and moved away. He took another sip of whiskey, oblivious to the men and women squirming against each other all around him in the tiny room.
If he wanted to go to San Francisco with Rebecca, all he had to do was walk into Sheriff Butler’s office and spill his guts out.
But he couldn’t betray Beau, his own brother. Frowning, he drained his glass of whiskey. The room was full of tobacco smoke, and he coughed. Shit, thought Ewell, why does life have to tempt a man?
He thought of Rebecca, and the things they’d done together in the bathtub, and then on the floor like wild animals. He could have her as his very own, if he had that thousand dollars.
But he couldn’t betray Beau. Ewell felt as if his brain were being pulled apart. A waitress in a short skirt filled his whiskey glass, and he paid her. He drank the glass, remembering Rebecca.
The pleasure was far more intense with her than any other whore. Somehow they were made for each other. Maybe it was because they were the same age.
She’d been expensive, for the whole afternoon. Now he only had fifty dollars left. He’d been drinking for a while and was drunk.
He looked around and it was as though he and the others were boiling in a cauldron. A woman laughed, and a man sat down at the piano and sang a song.
Ewell wished he could betray Beau. Then everything would be easy. He certainly was mad at Beau. Lately, Beau had never been nice to him, or spent much time with him. Beau always treated him like something contagious that had crawled out from underneath a rock.
Beau always had been too busy for him, running with Ashley and John Stone to parties, hunting deer. Beau never had realized how much Ewell idolized his big brother.
It was terrible to love your brother, and have him show contempt for you. Sometimes when Ewell thought about it, it made him crazy. He touched his hand to his face, and it still hurt from where Beau had slapped him.
His face turned red and he ground his teeth as he recalled Beau slapping him in front of the others. It had hurt his face and head, but more than that it damaged something deep inside him.
It had been humiliating. The men picked on him enough as it was. Beau never had shown Ewell much warmth, even when Ewell had been a little boy.
Well, maybe there’d been a few times Beau had been nice. Ewell remembered being little, and Beau swinging him up onto his shoulders and taking him for a ride, Beau pretending he was the horse. He saw Beau’s smiling face in the sunlight of the South, of their childhood together, Beau teaching him to shoot and ride. Ewell heard his father’s voice: Your family comes before anything else in this world—always remember that, Ewell. The bond of a brother to a brother is something no one can break.
Ewell remembered the time he stole his mother’s brooch, and Beau found out about it, but Beau covered for him. No, Beau hadn’t always been mean, but he’d been mean most of the time.
Ewell felt like an ugly loathsome beast, because that’s the way Beau and everybody else in his family usually had treated him, except for his mother. She protected and loved him, and sometimes let him sleep with her in her bedroom when he was frightened.
Ewell looked around, and nobody was paying any attention to him. That’s the way he wanted to be, just another face in the crowd.
There was only one thing Beau respected, and that was courage. Ewell wished he could stand up to Beau, but he couldn’t. Ewell wasn’t fast with a gun or skillful at fist fighting. He hated pain and avoided it whenever he could. Beau didn’t respect a man who wouldn’t fight back.
Ewell knew he’d never be a man until he stood up to Beau and made Beau respect him.
The figures whirled around in his brain: Beau, Rebecca, his father and mother, John Stone, Ashley Tredegar, round and round like a roulette wheel in San Francisco, with the little black ball spinning over its circular path, round and round, looking for its place on the wheel of chance.
He wished Beau would walk in the door, sit down with him, and place his arm around his shoulders, but Beau would never do that. Beau considered him a weasel. Beau probably was glad he was gone.
Ewell drank another whiskey. His head was spinning and he felt nauseous. Getting to his feet, he lurched toward the door, pushing his way through sweaty, smelly bodies.
He ran into the nearest alley and vomited. Then he walked a few feet away and sat down, lighting a cigarette.
Beau’s ruined my life, Ewell thought, puffing the cigarette. He oughtta pay for what he done to me.
Sheriff Butler walked down the main street of Clarksdale, puffing a thin cheroot. He wore his wide-brimmed hat and long riding coat, and the silver bristles of his mustache gleamed in the light emanating from saloons.
Saloons, thought Sheriff Butler, are more goddamn trouble than they’re worth. Still, a man’s got to drink. These cowboys come in here lookin’ for somethin’—what else they gonna do? They sure as hell give me a pain in the ass.
Sheriff Butler was known to knock back a few when the occasion allowed. A quiet room, a nice little whore on his lap, yes, Sheriff Butler could appreciate the finer things of life as much as the next man. But there are all those little problems to spoil a man’s afternoon and foul up his evening, like somebody shooting somebody else between the eyes, or somebody shoving a knife into somebody’s ribs, or a couple of drunken cowboys stringing up a Chinaman to a tree.
It was messy and time-consuming. Many times Sheriff Butler thought about going back to being just a cowboy.
Men nodded to him, and some touched their forefingers to the brims of their hats as he passed. Nobody wanted to tangle with Sheriff Butler. He had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later.
He came to his office and stepped inside. Deputy Dorsey sat behind his desk, and a young man with curly black hair smoked a cigarette on a bench underneath a print of the flag of Texas.
“This feller wants to talk with you,” Deputy Dorsey said to Sheriff Butler.
Sheriff Butler turned to the young man, who appeared to be around sixteen or seventeen. “What’s on yer mind?”
“Want to talk with you alone.”
“Like to step outside?”
“Rather stay here.”
Sheriff Butler scratched his mustache. Many a tough case had been broken by someone stepping forward with special information.
“Deputy Dorsey—check the saloons.”
Deputy Dorsey put on his hat and went outside, closing the door behind him. Sheriff Butler pulled his hat lower over his eyes and drew up a chair near the young man.
“What’s yer name?” Sheriff Butler asked.
“You ain’t gotta know my name,” the youth replied. “I’m apply in’ for that thousand-dollar reward. I know where John Stone is.”
In the lee of a hogback, Stone made his second camp for the night.
His first camp had been a few miles away, but as soon as it got dark he broke camp and slipped away, to make it hard for Indians to locate him.
He spread out his bedroll beneath a rocky ledge and lay down, using his saddle for a pillow. His horse was picketed nearby, and Stone had built no fire.
He’d fallen behind schedule by staying off trails. His main objective was to arrive in Clarksdale alive.
Rattlesnake Canyon seemed far away, like a bad dream. Now he was back to his normal life. He was on his way to Texas again, and nothing would stop him now.
Sheriff Butler crossed the lobby of the Carrington Hotel, his spurs jangling with every step. He climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked down the hall, knocking on a door.
There was no answer. He knocked again, and heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door.
“Who’s there?” asked Edward McManus cautiously.
“Sheriff Butler. I’ve got news.”
The door opened and Edward McManus stood there wearing a green silk robe, a small silver-plated derringer in his hand.
Sheriff Butler entered the room, and it was dark. McManus lit a lamp, and Sheriff Butler saw the large suite with a bed, some chairs, and a table.
A tousled blond head arose from underneath the covers and looked at Sheriff Butler, Maureen McManus, gazing boldly at the law officer. He averted his eyes and sat down. McManus poured him a drink.
Sheriff Butler looked at the spacious and luxurious hotel suite, and compared it with his room at the edge of town. Rich fellers like McManus get the rooms like this, and blondes like that one makin’ eyes at me from under the covers. By Christ, I’d like to tackle her in a jail cell some night. Show her what this tin star is made of.
The look Maureen McManus beamed back said she was ready for a little night of solitary confinement, if he could find a way. Then Sheriff Butler turned to McManus, and McManus’s expression said: Try it, you son of a bitch, and Clarksdale will have a new sheriff, because bankers pull more weight in small frontier towns than sheriffs with tin badges, and don’t you forget it. I’ll buy your job any day of the week.
Sheriff Butler cleared his throat and returned to the business at hand. “Git out yer moneybags, McManus,” he said. “We just located John Stone.”
Ewell entered the parlor of the Crystal Palace, and Eulalie Parker, the madam, walked up to him. “What can I do fer you, cowboy?”
“Wanna see Rebecca.”
“She’s busy right now, singin’ in the choir. Have a seat— she’ll be down in a little while. Care for somethin’ to drink?”
“Whiskey.”
Ewell sat on a chair and rolled a cigarette with trembling hands. He didn’t feel so good, and nobody had given him any money yet. The sheriff told him he’d get it once they had John Stone in custody.
He looked around the parlor, and it was full of men drinking and talking with whores. Some couples walked up the staircase and other couples came down. Ewell lit the cigarette. A black maid brought him a glass of whiskey on a tray.
Ewell felt frightened, and wished he hadn’t gone to the sheriff. Something terrible was going to happen and there was no way to stop it. He’d thought he’d be able to get the money and leave right away for San Francisco, but the sheriff told him he’d have to hang around for a while and he only had forty dollars left.
Clarksdale didn’t feel safe. Beau’s men often came to town. Ewell had to find someplace to hide until the money was paid.
He thought he should ride back to Rattlesnake Canyon and warn Beau, but Beau would kill him, or damn near. Ewell felt a deep, frightening emptiness inside him. He hadn’t slept the previous night and had a terrible headache.
All the bad things happen to me, he thought. I’m the one whose life’s a mess. There’s other people like John Stone, who ride tall in the saddle, or like Beau, who lead men. How come I’m not one of them? How is it I’m the one who turns them in? A muffled cry came into Ewell’s throat, and he thought: Just put the thirty pieces of silver in my hand.
“Wanna come upstairs?” Rebecca asked.
He looked at her, and she stood in front of him with her hands on her hips and the tops of her breasts bursting out the tight bodice of her dress.
“Sit down,” he said, motioning to the chair beside him. “I want to tell you something.”
“I don’t have much time for talk, Ewell,” she drawled. “This is the busiest time of my night. I’m here to make money, y’know.”
“I’m gittin’ the thousand dollars.”
The haughty expression on her face changed into that of a greedy little girl. She sat beside him on the sofa. “You really are?”
“Tomorrow or the next day.”
“You’re sure, or you’re just say in’ it?”
“Pretty sure.”
“You get that one thousand dollars, Ewell, and I’ll go to San Francisco with you or anywhere else you want. I’ll be yer woman in every way, you hear?”
He nodded.
“I gotta git back to work now. Don’t forget to tell me just as soon as you git the money, all right?”
“You can’t talk with me a little while longer?”
“I got to work, honey. I ain’t doin’ this for fun, you know. You’re the only person who can save me, Ewell. You just get that money, and we’re gonna be long gone from here.”
She patted him on the head as if he were a little dog, kissed his cheek, and a whole new feeling broke over him. That’s right, he thought, a woman says yes, everything’s fine, you did good, even when you did something the men don ‘t like. Yes, the world of women—that’s the world for me, women and whiskey and good times. It’s the only world I want to live in.
“Got to get back to work,” she said, and arose, sashaying across the room, sitting next to a man in a long frock coat, putting her arms around his shoulders.
Ewell didn’t want to watch. He stood and walked toward the door, passing a whore sitting on a cowboy’s lap, and the cowboy was planting a big wet kiss on her cheek.
Ewell stepped outside, and the cool evening air hit him. He thought of Beau and Rebecca, and felt confused again; he wanted to escape from his mind and there was only one way to do it. He looked for the nearest saloon, and one was across the street. He dragged his feet toward it and tried to forget, while the big cowboy moon shone down on him and said: All is forgotten, I’ve seen this a thousand times before. But somehow that big moon seemed red with blood, to Ewell Talbott.
The Earl of Dunwich and Lady Diane Farlington sat at a table in the Emerald City Saloon and looked at the map spread out before them.
“I think we should go to gold-mining country,” she said. “I’d like to see the pure naked greed on men’s faces as they claw at the ground with their bare hands.”
“I’d prefer Indian country myself,” Lord Dunwich replied. “I want to sit down and have a reasonable discussion with a savage, and find out how he thinks and what his life is like.
You can do that in some towns, I’m told.”
They drank whiskey and examined the map. Dunwich smoked a stogie that burned his throat, and Diane was attired in a cowboy outfit, her wide-brimmed hat on the back of her head.
“May we join you?”
They looked up and saw Sheriff Butler and Edward Mc-Manus.
“By all means sit down,” Dunwich said, “Any news?”
Sheriff Butler and McManus sat opposite them on the round table.
“We know where John Stone is, or at least we think we do,” Sheriff Butler said.
Diane’s heart leapt. “Where?”
“A canyon about ten hours hard ride from here. Stone was taken by the outlaws because one of them evidently knew him during the war. The galoot who told me is a member of the gang. He wants that one thousand dollars real bad.”
“He’ll get it,” McManus said, “if his information is correct.”
“It’ll take,” the Sheriff said, “a posse of about a hundred men to capture those outlaws. I think I can have everybody rounded up by morning.”
“May I come?” asked Dunwich.
Sheriff Butler smiled indulgently. “There’ll probably be shootin’, your worship.”
Dunwich pulled out his gun. “I’m armed—it’s all right.”
“People sure to get killed.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“It’s up to you.” Sheriff Butler nodded to Diane, then got to his feet. “I’ve got a lot of ridin’ to do between now and tomorrow mornin’.”
He walked toward the door, past tables crowded with raucous cowboys.
Dunwich pulled out his watch. “Won’t get much sleep tonight, I guess. Might as well stay up till that posse rides off in the morning.”
“We’ve been lucky so far,” Diane said. “Don’t press your luck. You don’t want to wake up after ten hours of hard riding to a bullet in the brain.”
“It’ll make a better story that way.” Dunwich turned to McManus. “Do you think you’ll be coming along with the posse?”
“I leave that kind of activity to younger men.”
“Strange,” mused Lady Diane, “I wonder why John Stone’s old war friend would’ve abducted him?”
“Who knows what grudges they might be hanging on to?” McManus replied. “The frontier is full of ex-soldiers. Most of the men you meet of Stone’s age have been in the war.”
“Wish I could’ve been here for that show,” Dunwich said. “What side were you on, Mr. McManus?”
McManus fingered his cigar and smiled. “My own side.”
In a seedy unpainted hotel near the saloon district, Ewell Talbott lay on his narrow cot, trying to fall asleep.
He hadn’t slept the night before, had been drinking all day, and was sick to his stomach. He’d tried to get drunk, to obliterate the confusion and pain he felt, but the drunker he got, the worse the pain became.
It was like a drill boring through his brain, and he couldn’t stop it. If he fell asleep, it’d go away, but he couldn’t fall asleep. He chewed his lower lip until it bled.
He’d betrayed Beau, his big brother, the idol of his life. Beau had been everything Ewell wanted to be, and Ewell had sold him down the river.
The posse would shoot to kill, and those they didn’t kill, they’d hang.
Ewell thought of Beau swinging from the end of a noose, and bit his lower lip. He wondered what’d happen to poor Veronica. The others could be strung up by their toes, for all Ewell cared, but not Beau, and not Veronica.
It had been so wonderful long ago before the war. Ewell often liked to conjure up the old days, but Beau always was there, and now whenever he thought of Beau he felt crazy.
He tried to think about San Francisco, the tall-masted ships in the harbor and the big wild gambling saloons where fortunes were made and lost every hour.
His back itched; he’d been bitten by a bedbug. He scratched and rolled over, and his thoughts turned to Rebecca, so beautiful, soft, so wild in bed. Everything about her exhilarated him. He’d do anything for her.
He imagined her lying beside him, reaching out for him, but then her face slowly transmogrified, the lines deepened around her mouth, and she became his own mother gazing at him with utter contempt.
Ewell screamed in horror and buried his face in his pillow.
Edward McManus walked down the hotel corridor to his room, his big stomach like a fort in front of him. He inserted the key into the lock, and opened the door.
It was silent in his suite, and a shaft of moonlight landed on the closet door. He looked toward the bed and saw the sleeping form of his wife.
Removing his frock coat, he walked toward the closet. He opened the door and was hanging his coat up when he saw something peculiar in back of the closet. He reached into his pants pocket and whipped out his derringer.
“Come out of there,” he said.
The man came out of the closet. He was naked, about McManus’s height but much slimmer and younger. McManus recognized him in the moonlight. It was Curly, one of the cowboys who’d rescued them after the stagecoach holdup.
“Light the lamp, would you, Maureen?”
She got out of bed, and she was naked too. She put on her robe, then lit the lamp. The room became suffused with a golden glow.
She looked at him defiantly. Curly appeared sheepish, embarrassed and frightened. The derringer was pointed directly at his groin.
“Put on your clothes and get out,” McManus said calmly.
Curly dragged his clothes from underneath the bed and dressed himself as McManus glanced at Maureen’s sullen features. Finally Curly was dressed, holding his cowboy hat in his hand. He and Maureen exchanged a quick nervous look.
“Start walking,” McManus said, aiming his derringer at Curly, “and if I ever see you again, I’ll have your nuts for a saddlehorn.”
Curly loped toward the door, opened it, and was gone. McManus locked the door, pushed his derringer into his belt, and turned to Maureen. “Let’s have a drink, shall we?”
He poured two whiskeys at the bar and gave her one of the glasses. Then he sat on a chair and lit a cigar.
“Let’s understand each other,” he said, looking at her calmly. “You satisfy certain of my bodily needs, and I find you entertaining, but there are thousands like you and I can have a replacement in a day. All I’ve ever asked from you is loyalty, which you may not be able to provide, but anyway, I’m willing to overlook this little episode, because everybody makes mistakes. If it happens again, however, I’ll throw you out on your ass.”
She stood next to the bed and crossed her arms. “Let me tell you something,” she replied. “Maybe I satisfy some of yer body needs, and maybe I might be entertaining to you, but you don’t satisfy none of my body needs, and you shore as hell don’t entertain me. You kin start a-lookin’ for my replacement right now, because, honey, I’m headin’ for the rodeo.”
He watched as she walked to the closet, pulled down a suitcase, lay it on the bed, and commenced packing.
“Maureen, you’ll wind up in a whorehouse.”
She ignored him as she stuffed in the clothes, then carried another suitcase from the closet.
“Let’s talk this over,” he said. “We’ve been together for a long time.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to talk about.”
She walked to the closet, picked out a dress, and took off her robe. She put on clean underclothes, then dropped the dress over her head.
“It’s a cruel world out there,” he said softly. “Maybe you’ve forgotten.”
“It’s cruel wherever you go,” she said, sitting in front of the mirror, brushing her luxuriant golden hair. “All I know is I ain’t gittin’ somethin’ I need, and I’m a-gonna git it one way or t’other.”
“Maybe you’d better think it over a little more thoroughly, Maureen. You’re not getting any younger. If you walk out of this room, I guarantee you that the next room you’re in won’t be nearly so nice.”
“It ain’t the room, but who’s in the room, Edward.”
He blew cigar smoke out of his mouth. It wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. She wanted a young stud, not an old burping bull with a potbelly.
“Maybe you should wait until morning,” he said. “It’s not safe out there for a young woman.”
“Don’t you worry none about me.” She put on her bonnet in front of the mirror, then walked to the door. “I’ll get the desk clerk to carry my things downstairs.”
“I’ll carry them for you.”
“You might strain yourself, Edward. You know them pains you get whenever you lift things.”
She left the room, and he poured himself another drink. A rich man has many things to console him, but still, he’d miss the little bitch.
She returned with the desk clerk, who lifted the suitcases, carrying them out the door. Maureen turned to her husband. “Well,” she said, “I guess this is it, Edward. Thanks for everythin’. It was fun for a while.”
“Let me give you some money.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a handful of gold coins, dropping them into her palm. “I hope you’ll be all right, Maureen.”
She poured the coins into her purse. “Find somebody yer own age, Edward. You’ll be better off.”
She winked, turned around, and walked out of the door. McManus stared at the corridor for a few moments, then returned to his chair and sipped his whiskey thoughtfully.