“How’d you know?”
I smiled to myself. “A little thing called deductive reasoning. It’s Tuesday. People work on Tuesdays. Even lazy cowpokes like you. The only reason you’re not out poking cows or whatever it is you do is if you got let go.”
Pete harrumphed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I got pride.”
“Too much if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
“Too much pride can hurt a man.”
“When’d you take up preaching?”
“Just stating a fact. Look what happened to Othello.”
“Never heard of the guy.” Pete rose to his feet and paced aimlessly. “I punched ol’ McFadden in the nose.” He swung a loose fist in a roundhouse punch and assumed a boxing pose. He bounced on his toes and dipped his head, first one way then the other.
I ceased cleaning. “You hit McFadden?”
“McFadden…McBastard is more like it.” Pete blew a snort of air out his nose like a sore bull and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. “I’d had enough of his cursed jokes. Calling me Shorty. Shorty this and Shorty that.” He stuck out his chest, imitating a gruff Irish voice, “Hey, me laddies, give Shorty a hand up on his bonny horse.”
I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see my amusement.
“So I took a poke at him. I weren’t so short I couldn’t knock him on his butt.”
“You shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
“I didn’t bite him, dammit, I coldcocked him. He never even saw it coming.”
“And you got terminated for your trouble.”
He threw a right jab at an invisible opponent. “I don’t know how you can stand it, being so dern short.”
“There’s plenty worse things to be,” I said with a cutting edge to my words.
Pete pulled in his horns and eyed me. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
I shrugged. “Been this way my whole life. I’m not sorry, so you shouldn’t be either.”
“I might still grow,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince me or himself. He went back to punching the air in front of him.
“A man’s worth is not measured in inches.” I had read that sentiment somewhere before, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where.
Pete looked at me and considered that thought. He took another drink. He sat down and threw his boots back on top of the table. I walked over to him and snapped the wet towel at his legs. “Keep them on the floor,” I said. He scowled but did as I asked. I wiped at the scuff marks on the table. “You got any prospects for employment?”
“I can get another job stringing bob wire. There’s more work than hands to do it.”
“That’s what they say.”
He downed the rest of his drink in one swallow and belched. “I might try my hand at something else, though. The idea of bob wire was starting to gnaw at me.” He thumped the glass down on the table. “There’s just something wrong about fencing off land like that. Land should be wide-open like how the Good Lord intended.”
I stopped in midswipe with a look of surprise upon my face. “That’s the first intelligent thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”
Pete looked pleased. He swiped the foam off his upper lip with the back of his hand. “It’s enough to make a man think the Injuns know what they’re talking about. They ain’t never understood laying claim to a parcel of land. Of course it ain’t the owning of it that rankles me, but the fencing of it. How’re you supposed to get a herd of cows from one place to the other if there’s bob wire strung across it?”
I walked back to the bar and climbed up on a stool. “A man named Karl Marx wrote about that very idea. He ascribed to the theory that the division of property is what will cause the eventual downfall of modern man.”
“He’s onto something all right. Fences are the reason all the cow trails are growing over. Cowboys like me are running outta time. Who’s this Karl work for? Ollie Pendergrast?”
I laughed before I could catch myself. “No. Karl Marx lives over in Europe.” I took off my spectacles and cleaned them on my shirt.
“One of them Mama’s boys, huh? Wrote a whole book about it you say?”
“ The Communist Manifesto.”
“Never heard of it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me any.” I put my spectacles back on and tucked my shirt back into my pants.
“You ever notice that men who read too much got to wear spectacles?”
“I can’t see without them. I couldn’t see without them before I could read.”
Pete shook his head. “Nah, I bet it’s from staring at that tiny print all the time. A man’s eyes weren’t made to track little words from one side of a page to the other like that. A man’s eyes were made to see long distances. Spot a cow straggling from the herd. Or rattlers curled up under brush. Or for hunting. Things like that.”
“You think so, do you?”
“Your friend Karl ain’t the only one who can scribe theories.”
“I guess not.”
“Take me for instance,” he said, jabbing himself in the chest with his thumb. “I never read less’n I can help it. And I got great eyes.”
“Is that so?”
“You ought to give your eyes a rest, Charlie. Take it from me.”
The upstairs door squeaked open. I jumped off the stool and Pete rose to his feet. Standing side by side, we tilted our faces upward. We were rewarded with the sight of Belle emerging from her room. We inhaled sharply.
Belle was the type of woman who could suck the air from the lungs of any man who laid eyes on her. She was to the male of the species what a rainstorm was to a drought, what a banquet was to a famine, what medicine was to the afflicted. Her grace, femininity and beauty were a salve to many a man’s wounded heart.
She was wearing a simple green calico print dress over two petticoats that ended at the ankles of her black kid boots. The only indicator that she was a working girl was that the yoke of her dress was unbuttoned just low enough to showcase ample décolletage. If I were still a betting man, I would bet that those top three opened buttons had provoked more men into action than the recent war between the states.
Belle rested her elbows on the railing and smiled down at us. I readily admit that I basked in the sunlight of her smile like a fat cat on a window ledge. At the sight of her powdered bosoms Pete and I each let out a collective sigh of appreciation.
“Morning, boys,” Belle said. “I do hope you’re not taking this opportunity to look up my dress.” She picked up her skirt and swished the hem up to her knee and back down in one quick teasing movement.
Pete squeaked, then cleared his throat. I felt the blood rushing to my head, pinking the tips of my ears.
Belle laughed at our embarrassment. “I thought not. You’re each too much of a gentleman to do such a crass thing.” She sallied down the stairs with a flounce of skirts and perfume, creating a heady aroma that preceded her into the room.
Belle was not a vain woman, no more than most, but she was acutely aware of what her presence did to men. She took great pains to be different from the other women who made the untamed West their home. Those other women had skin leathered from toiling in the blistering sun; Belle’s was porcelain white. They had lean, scrawny muscles from hardscrabble farming; Belle’s bosoms were plumped up like feather pillows. They had drawn, lined faces; Belle had rouged cheeks and soft lips.
Pete closed his mouth, removed his hat and held it over his chest as if he were in a church. “Speaking of easy on the eyes,” he said reverently.
Belle flashed Pete a coy smile full of white teeth and promises.
My hackles raised. I knew full well that men regularly paid to enjoy her company, but I didn’t cotton to her giving away attention for free. I masked my true feelings by grabbing the dishcloth and resuming my polishing of the bar. I knew I must have looked like a six-year-old pouting over a dropped lollipop, but I couldn’t help
myself when it came to Belle.
She sat on a stool at the bar with her back to Pete and eyed me. “Good morning to you too, Charlie,” she said.
“It’s afternoon.”
“To you maybe, not to me.” Bell twirled around to face Pete. “What’re you doing in here on a work day?”
Pete smooshed his hat back onto his head. “Why’s everybody so nosy all the time?”
“Well, it looks like I’m the only one in a good mood. You know what you need, li’l man?”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said. “On the hopes that you were open for business.”
I interrupted. “Pete doesn’t have a job. He can’t afford the price of a kiss.”
Pete puffed up like a banty rooster strutting around a henhouse. “Mind your own business, old man. This here’s between me and Belle.”
Belle said, “Oh, don’t pay no nevermind to him, Pete. Charlie’s just sore ’cause he likes to pretend I’m one of those fancy ladies in his books and he’s my only suitor.” She patted my hand while she said this, soothing my scorched feelings.
“That is an absolute untruth,” I said. It was true that I sometimes shared one of my books with her on the hopes that she would be swept away by romantic notions, but I had no delusions that it would be me she would fancy with her favors. No matter how nice she was to me, I was still a dwarf.
“He imagines himself as Heathcliff and I his Catherine.”
I ceased polishing and climbed up on the stool next to her. “You read Wuthering Heights?”
Pete stomped his foot like a spoiled child. “He’s giving you books to read?”
I pulled my Bull Durham out of my pocket and filled my pipe, preparing to settle into a conversation. “So tell me. What did you think of it?”
Pete all but stomped his foot again. “He’s giving you gifts?”
Belle turned coy on me, answering my question with one of her own. “What else is there to do on a Monday night?”
I lighted my pipe and inquired between puffs, “It was romantic, don’t you agree?”
Pete would not let it go. “He’s giving you romantic gifts?” We ignored him. He stalked away all huffy puffy and sat at the table.
Belle shined all her attention on me. “Romantic? That’s what you saw? I’ll tell you what I saw in the words. A story about a man whose life was destroyed by a woman who he had the misfortune of falling in love with. Then he came back to seek his revenge. It was clearly a story of revenge, not of love.”
“I never thought about it that way.” I suddenly realized that a person could read into a story whatever he or she wanted. The writer might intend one thing, but readers could interpret it according to their own life’s experiences. I wanted the book to be a romance, Belle wanted revenge. I pondered on this dichotomy while my pipe made lonely smoke signals.
My thoughts were interrupted by Pete calling out, “Pull me another beer, Charlie.”
“I’m thirsty too,” Belle said.
“Give Belle a brew on me. I’ll pay,” he said.
I don’t know whether it was Belle’s lack of the romantic sense or my general dislike of Pete, but I felt grumpy all of a sudden. “You already drank up your money,” I said.
Pete rose to his feet. “I only had one beer.”
I stayed put on the stool. That way I could look him directly in the face. “You owed from last Saturday. That coin just cleared your tab.” I pulled out the sheet of paper that I had been using as a bookmark and held it in the air for him to see. After a couple of numbers all added up there was his name scrawled next to I.O.U. “That’s your signature right there,” I said, pointing with the stem of my pipe. He squinted at it like he was the one needing spectacles. He creased his smile into a frown. It was obvious he had forgotten about that last round he ordered.
Pete tried to save face by saying, “Let me owe again. I always make good on it. All’s you got to do is start another row of numbers.”
I jumped off the stool and went behind the bar. “You don’t have a job any more. No job, no money. No money, no beer. That’s called a syllogism of reasoning.”
“No, that there’s called stingy. McFadden owes me for two days’ work. I’ll go out and get it from him tomorrow. Soon as he’s had a chance to cool his heels and get his nose straightened.”
“Knowing McFadden you won’t be getting it.” I blew a cloud of pipe smoke in his direction. It dissipated before it reached him, but he still waved his hand in front of his face.
Belle looked at him in that way women did when they saw an ugly baby and felt a pang of pity. “Aw, draw him a beer, Charlie. You can put it on my tab.”
I grumbled a bit but did as she asked. I made sure to put a good head on it, too.
Pete grabbed the beer out of my hand, sloshing some on the bar. “So her word’s better’n mine, is that it?”
“She has other ways of paying besides money. You don’t,” I said, wiping up the spilled beer.
“Where’s my drink?” Belle asked.
I shook the stem of my pipe at her like it was a stern finger and I her mother. “You promised, Belle.”
“I promised to stay here and work for you another week. I didn’t promise I’d do it sober.”
“I won’t be party to a woman’s drink habit.”
Pete handed her his beer. “We can share. I ain’t stingy like some other people.” Belle gratefully accepted. Pete continued, “All that reading’s got Charlie addlepated. He can’t think about nothing but money.”
Belle walked over to the table with his beer in her hand and Pete followed. They sat with their backs to me. That’s a fine howdy-do, I thought. Here I supply them with beer and they turn their backs on me once they have what they want. I polished the bar, pretending not to listen to their conversation.
“You lose your job?” Belle asked.
“It ain’t lost, I know right where it is. I just don’t want it no more. What do I need with money anyways? I got everything I need right here in front of me. A glass of beer and the prettiest woman in the country.”
I couldn’t help myself, I just had to throw in there, “You don’t have her, Pete. Just because you let her sip off your drink don’t go getting any fool notions in your head.”
Pete gave me a dirty look. “Well, it don’t look like you got her either, old man.”
“I’m no man’s property,” Belle said.
“Yeah, but ain’t I your number one customer?” Pete asked. He actually had the gall to wink at her.
Belle drained half his glass. “The only reason you’re number one in line on Saturday nights is ’cause you’re little and quick. Get it over with fast.”
I laughed out loud.
“Now, sugar, that ain’t no way to be talking to the man who’s sweet on you,” he said.
“Sweet costs extra.”
“I done give you all I ever earned.”
“And I got it all squirreled away. Every last pinch of it.”
Pete said, “You must have a dozen bags of gold dust and coins heaped under your mattress by now. Must make for some mighty uncomfortable sleeping.”
“I use the gold dust to powder my fanny. The coins I save for my future.” Belle stood and walked aimlessly about the room. She spun and twirled in slow motion like a little girl practicing her dance moves. There was something oddly enticing and at the same time childlike about her movements.
Pete leaned on the back two legs of his chair. “What kind of future? Money’s no good less’n you spend it.”
“I’m going to bankroll my way out of Deadwood.”
“Where to?”
Belle leaned against the center pole with her hands behind her hips. She lifted her chin and gazed off into the distance like she could see some far away city on the horizon. “Farther west. Frisco maybe.”
“Why you want to leave?” Pete asked.
“I can’t be a working girl forever, you know. Age will catch up with me someday.”
“Aw, hell, you c
ould age fifty years and you’d still be the prettiest gal around these parts.”
Belle shook her head. “I’m going to open up my own place right on Front Street in Frisco.”
I piped up, “Isn’t that where Madame Mustachio moved her brothel to?”
Belle looked at me and nodded. “I intend to purchase it from her. She’s wanting to retire and I aim to take her business over.” She continued her slow waltz around the room. “I’ll be right there next to the ocean and spend my days splashing in the waves with sand squishing up between my toes. I’ll get me some young girls to do all the work. A whole stable of them. Fat ones, skinny ones, smart ones, dumb ones, sassy ones, sad ones. Anything a man could desire.”
This was the first I had heard of these plans. She was always talking about moving on, but I thought it was all hot air. I had no idea she was working on such details. I panicked a bit at the thought of losing Belle. After all, she was about the only reason I had for staying in this godforsaken town. I tried to coax the fear out of my words as I offered, “You don’t have to go clear to Frisco to open a business. Do it right here. The gold rush may be over, but the town is growing. You and I could be…partners.”
Belle comically fluttered her eyelids my way. “Why, Mr. Engleman, is that a proposal of marriage?”
“It is whatever you make of it. If that’s what it takes to get you to stay.” I could feel even my toes turning pink from the embarrassment.
“Oh, don’t do me any favors. I’ve done made up my mind to leave.” Belle continued waltzing slow loop-de-doodles around the floor. “Can’t get far enough away for me. The ocean’s the only thing that’ll stop me from running as far west as I can and that’s only ’cause I can’t swim so good.”
Pete banged the front two legs of his chair back down onto the floor. “What’re you running from?”
“My own shadow, Pete. It follows me everywhere.”
“I didn’t know you was so sad, Belle. I always thought of you as downright perky.”
“Don’t judge a book by the cover. Isn’t that what they say, Charlie?”
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