They went in while a bent-over old man filled their tank, Joe Young bringing his whiskey bottle with him, almost drained, and put it on the counter. The woman behind it was skin and bones, worn out, brushing strands of hair from her face. She placed cups in front of them and Joe Young poured what was left in the bottle into his.
Louly did not want to rob this woman.
The woman saying, "I think she's dry."
Joe Young was concentrating on dripping the last drops from his bottle. He said, "Can you help me out?"
Now the woman was pouring their coffee. "You want shine? Or I can give you Kentucky for three dollars."
"Gimme a couple," Joe Young said, drawing his Colt, laying it on the counter, "and what's in the till."
Louly did not want to rob this woman. She was thinking you didn't have to rob a person just 'cause the person had money, did you?
The woman said, "Goddamn you, mister."
Joe Young picked up his gun and went around to open the cash register at the end of the counter. Taking out bills he said to the woman, "Where you keep the whiskey money?"
She said, "In there," despair in her voice.
He said, "Fourteen dollars?" holding it up, and turned to Louly. "Put your gun on her so she don't move. The geezer come in, put it on him, too." Joe Young went through a doorway to what looked like an office.
The woman said to Louly, pointing the gun from the crocheted bag at her now, "How come you're with that trash? You seem like a girl from a nice family, have a pretty bag... There something wrong with you? My Lord, you can't do better'n him?"
Louly said, "You know who's a good friend of mine? Charley Floyd, if you know who I mean. He married my cousin Ruby." The woman shook her head and Louly said, "Pretty Boy Floyd," and wanted to bite her tongue.
Now the woman seemed to smile, showing black lines between the teeth she had. "He come in here one time. I fixed him breakfast and he paid me two dollars for it. You ever hear of that? I charge twenty-five cents for two eggs, four strips of bacon, toast and all you want of coffee, and he give me two dollars."
"When was this?" Louly said.
The woman looked past Louly trying to see when it was and said, "Twenty-nine, after his daddy was killed that time."
They got the fourteen from the till and fifty-seven dollars in whiskey money from the back, Joe Young talking again about heading for Muskogee, telling Louly it was his instinct told him to go in there. How was this place doing business, two big service stations only a few blocks away? So he'd brought the bottle in, see what it would get him. "You hear what she said? 'Goddamn you,' but called me 'Mister.'"
"Charley had breakfast in there one time," Louly said, "and paid her two dollars for it."
"Showing off," Joe Young said.
He decided they'd stay in Muskogee instead of going down to Braggs and rest up here.
Louly said, "Yeah, we must've come a good fifty miles today."
Joe Young told her not to get smart with him. "I'm gonna put you in a tourist cabin and see some boys I know. Find out where Choc's at."
She didn't believe him, but what was the sense of arguing?
* * * *
It was early evening now, the sun going down.
The man who knocked on the door-she could see him through the glass part-was tall and slim in a dark suit, a young guy dressed up, holding his hat at his leg. She believed he was the police, but had no reason, standing here looking at him, not to open the door.
He said, "Miss," and showed her his I.D. and a star in a circle in a wallet he held open, "I'm Deputy U.S. Marshal Carl Webster. Who am I speaking to?"
She said, "I'm Louly Ring?"
He smiled straight teeth at her and said, "You're a cousin of Pretty Boy Floyd's wife, Ruby, aren't you?"
Like getting ice-cold water thrown in her face she was so surprised. "How'd you know that?"
"We been making a book on Pretty Boy, noting down connections, everybody he knows. You recall the last time you saw him?"
"At their wedding, eight years ago."
"No time since? How about the other day in Sallisaw?"
"I never saw him. But listen, him and Ruby are divorced."
The marshal, Carl Webster, shook his head. "He went up to Coffeyville and got her back. But aren't you missing a automobile, a Model A Ford?"
She had not heard a word about Charley and Ruby being back together. None of the papers ever mentioned her, just the woman named Juanita. Louly said, "The car isn't missing, a friend of mine's using it."
He said, "The car's in your name?" and recited the Oklahoma license number.
"I paid for it out of my wages. It just happens to be in my stepfather's name, Otis Bender."
"I guess there's some kind of misunderstanding," Carl Webster said. "Otis claims it was stolen off his property in Sequoyah County. Who's your friend borrowed it?"
She did hesitate before saying his name.
"When's Joe coming back?"
"Later on. 'Cept he'll stay with his friends he gets too drunk."
Carl Webster said, "I wouldn't mind talking to him," and gave Louly a business card from his pocket with a star on it and letters she could feel. "Ask Joe to give me a call later on, or sometime tomorrow if he don't come home. Y'all just driving around?"
"Seeing the sights."
Every time she kept looking at him he'd start to smile. Carl Webster. She could feel his name under her thumb. She said, "You're writing a book on Charley Floyd?"
"Not a real one. We're collecting the names of anybody he ever knew that might want to put him up."
"You gonna ask me if I would?"
There was the smile.
"I already know."
She liked the way he shook her hand and thanked her, and the way he put on his hat, nothing to it, knowing how to cock it just right.
* * * *
Joe Young returned about 9:00 a.m. making awful faces working his mouth, trying to get a taste out of it. He came in the room and took a good pull on the whiskey bottle, then another, sucked in his breath and let it out and seemed better. He said, "I don't believe what we got into with those chickens last night."
"Wait," Louly said. She told him about the marshal stopping by, and Joe Young became jittery and couldn't stand still, saying, "I ain't going back. I done ten years and swore to Jesus I ain't ever going back." Now he was looking out the window.
Louly wanted to know what Joe and his buddies did to the chickens, but knew they had to get out of here. She tried to tell him they had to leave, right now.
He was still drunk or starting over, saying now, "They come after me they's gonna be a shoot-out. I'm taking some of the scudders with me." Maybe not even knowing he was playing Jimmy Cagney now.
Louly said, "You only stole seventy-one dollars."
"I done other things in the State of Oklahoma," Joe Young said. "They take me alive I'm facing fifteen years to life. I swear I ain't going back."
What was going on here? They're driving around looking for Charley Floyd-the next thing this dumbbell wants to shoot it out with the law and here she was in this room with him. "They don't want me" Louly said. Knowing she couldn't talk to him, the state he was in. She had to get out of here, open the door and run. She got her crocheted bag from the dresser, started for the door and was stopped by the bullhorn.
The electrified voice loud, saying, "JOE YOUNG, COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR."
What Joe Young did-he held his Colt straight out in front of him and started firing through the glass pane in the door. People outside returned fire, blew out the window, gouged the door with gunfire, Louly dropping to the floor with her bag, until she heard a voice on the bullhorn call out, "HOLD YOUR FIRE."
Louly looked up to see Joe Young standing by the bed with a gun in each hand now, the Colt and a .38. She said, "Joe, you have to give yourself up. They're gonna kill both of us you keep shooting."
He didn't even look at her. He yelled out, "Come and get me!" and started shooting again, both gu
ns at the same time.
Louly's hand went in the crocheted bag and came out with the .38 he'd given her to help him rob places. From the floor, up on her elbows, she aimed the revolver at Joe Young, cocked it and bam, shot him through the chest.
* * * *
Louly stepped away from the door and the marshal, Carl Webster, came in holding a revolver. She saw men standing out in the road, some with rifles. Carl Webster was looking at Joe Young curled up on the floor. He holstered his revolver, took the .38 from Louly and sniffed the end of the barrel and stared at her without saying anything before going to one knee to see if Joe Young had a pulse. He got up saying, "The Oklahoma Bankers Association wants people like Joe dead, and that's what he is. They're gonna give you a five-hundred-dollar reward for killing your friend."
"He wasn't a friend."
"He was yesterday. Make up your mind."
"He stole the car and made me go with him."
"Against your will," Carl Webster said. "Stay with that you won't go to jail."
"It's true, Carl," Louly said, showing him her big brown eyes. "Really."
* * * *
The headline in the Muskogee paper, over a small photo of Louise Ring, said sallisaw girl shoots abductor.
According to Louise, she had to stop Joe Young or be killed in the exchange of gunfire. She also said her name was Louly, not Louise. The marshal on the scene said it was a courageous act, the girl shooting her abductor. "We considered Joe Young a mad-dog felon with nothing to lose." The marshal said that Joe Young was suspected of being a member of Pretty Boy Floyd's gang. He also mentioned that Louly Ring was related to Floyd's wife and acquainted with the desperado.
The headline in the Tulsa paper, over a larger photo of Louly, said girl shoots member of pretty boy Floyd gang. The story told that Louly Ring was a friend of Pretty Boy's and had been abducted by the former gang member, who, according to Louly, "was jealous of Pretty Boy and kidnapped me to get back at him."
By the time the story had appeared everywhere from Ft. Smith, Arkansas, to Toledo, Ohio, the favorite headline was
GIRLFRIEND OF PRETTY BOY FLOYD GUNS DOWN MAD-DOG FELON.
The marshal, Carl Webster, came to Sallisaw on business and stopped in Harkrider's for a sack of Beechnut scrap. He was surprised to see Louly.
"You're still working here?"
"I'm shopping for my mom. No, Carl, I got my reward money and I'll be leaving here pretty soon. Otis hasn't said a word to me since I got home. He's afraid I might shoot him."
"Where you going?"
"This writer for True Detective wants me to come to Tulsa. They'll put me up at the Mayo Hotel and pay a hundred dollars for my story. Reporters from Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, have already been to the house."
"You're sure getting a lot of mileage out of knowing Pretty Boy, aren't you?"
"They start out asking about my shooting that dumbbell Joe Young, but what they want to know, if I'm Charley Floyd's girlfriend. I say, 'Where'd you get that idea?'"
"But you don't deny it."
"I say, 'Believe what you want, since I can't change your mind.' What I wonder, you think Charley's read about it and seen my picture?"
"Sure he has," Carl said. "I imagine he'd even like to see you again, in person."
Louly said, "Wow," like she hadn't thought of that before this moment. "You're kidding. Really?"
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