W alter never danced. He knew how and he even enjoyed it, but as he had never convinced more than one woman to dance with him in all his years, he refused to keep trying. Not that Walter was all that old, yet he wasn’t all that young either. What’s more, no one ever called him Walter; not since his father died. Yet, he still thought of himself as Walter, though he never introduced himself as such.
In his younger days, when he first began to care little about the rumpled and wretched state of his clothing, a group of boys changed his name. How it stuck, Walter didn’t know, but it progressed so that anyone in Arizona who had even transient knowledge of him, really didn’t remember or even know his real name anymore. As a result, he grew to wear his rumpled and somewhat overlarge clothing as a strange statement of pride and to carry around his pseudonym with much the same attitude.
Walter didn’t live in town. He despised town. He did, however, enjoy wandering around town every now and then, and he often haunted smaller or odd places, such as the Dance Pavilion in Apache Junction. He liked to watch the people who really cared very little about his presence or even his existence. He knew that he looked odd with his longer hair and oversized clothes, but he also knew that few people really paid anything beyond a passing notice of him. Unless he spoke to them first.
George Curtis always waved a hello if he saw him, but Walter imagined that George Curtis, as owner of most of Apache Junction, probably did that to everyone. Friendliness came with the job of running the motel, gas station, the zoo, the Pavilion dances, and anything else that the man had going on.
The band had started up their music and Walter watched from the sidelines as the dancers began to whirl and twirl about, the girl’s skirts swishing and flying like a colorful garden in a windstorm. Most of the dancers seemed young, but a few had gray hairs. Walter studiously avoided the trio of old prospectors at the far end of the Pavilion. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to them.
“Joe… It has been weeks. Months. It is time to pay up.”
“I reckon that I can’t pay what I don’t have.”
Walter looked around for the voices near him, the first of whose he recognized as belonging to Charles Sinclair. He squinted, trying to place the second man, who had a girl standing quite near to him. Walter squinted some more.
Joseph Hodges, that is. I haven’t seen him near Apache Junction in a long stretch. His daughter too, if I correctly make my guess.
Charles Sinclair sighed and shook his head. “I have been patient, Joe. I cannot, however, wait around forever to get my money.”
You could wait around. It wouldn’t hurt you. You won’t do it though.
“I don’t have it.” Joseph stood impassive, no emotion crossing his face.
“Then it’s time that I get something of similar value. Your home isn’t worth much, but it is a start.”
The girl gasped, and Joseph Hodges shook his head. “I can’t give you that.”
“I’m not asking, Joe. We’ll start with the shack and then we’ll move onto the next valuable in your possession.” He eyed the girl, and she took a step backward.
Walter could see that Joseph finally began to realize the trouble brooding. He raised his hands depreciatingly. “Just give me some more time—”
“You’ve had time, Joe.”
“Dorothy! She can get you the money.”
Walter guessed that the girl must be Dorothy, based on her ashen features following this remark.
Charles looked doubtfully from one to the other and back. “Dorothy can get me my money?”
Joseph Hodges nodded. “She just needs a little more time, but she’ll bring the money to you. In gold, even!”
Dorothy’s eyes widened.
Charles still looked doubtful, but a gleam of greed lit his eyes that Walter could clearly see. “In gold?”
“In gold. Just give her time!”
Dorothy said nothing, she only stared beneath her outdated hat. Waiting, likely, for whatever the answer would be.
Charles Sinclair finally nodded in a slow, methodical manner. “Very well. I will give her a week. One week.” He looked at the girl, who didn’t respond in any way. “Bring the gold here. I or my son will receive it.” He checked his pocket watch and glanced around. “You better not be playing around, Joe. Saturday. One week. Just one week.”
If he said anything else, the band drown him out as he turned his head. A moment later, the two men separated, Dorothy remaining with her father. Walter glanced between the split group and decided to follow Joseph Hodges at a distance.
The man and girl walked together at a rapid speed. Walter kept silent and far enough behind that neither seemed to notice him. At last, he heard the girl’s voice rise in pleading remonstrance.
“Father, we don’t have any gold and I certainly don’t know where to get any.”
“You’ll work it out.”
Shock outlined the delicate features of the girl’s face and widened what Walter could see of her eyes. She stopped and stared at her father. “I’ll work it out?”
“You will.” Joseph Hodges nodded and kept walking.
“How?” Dorothy still hadn’t moved.
“I reckon that’s for you to decide.”
He watched the girl stare in shock, before she finally began to take slow steps after her father.
Walter grinned to himself and fell back. He knew where they lived and had listened to quite enough. As the distance between them grew, Walter’s grin widened.
Maybe, at last, my time has come…