by Les Weil
He went to the window and parted the curtains and made as if to look out, seeing only blackness and lamp shine reflected on the pane. Behind him clothing whispered. He caught the little intake of her breath. He turned around.
She stood there naked with her yellow hair let down, stood delicate and high-breasted as a bird. Her face expected something of him.
That much he took in before his eyes went down and saw fallen about her feet the dress that was the single piece she wore.
He felt blood in his neck and the hammer of his heart, and the rest of him was dead. He started around her, and she held out her arms, and he went past, catching from the corner of his eye her quick change of face. He put his hand behind the chimney and blew out the light.
He stood then with his back to her. Far off, it seemed, new voices sounded in the parlor and someone tried the keys of the piano. "You'll get cold." The words came strange, came hollow in this pen of darkness where no words had been said.
There was no answer, none but the riistle of her movements -the turning down perhaps of bedclothes, the slipping into bed and then the waiting for him to undress and join her.
He felt her brush him, heard the long scratch of a match and saw it sputter into life and give life to the lamp.
She had her dress back on and on her face, framed by the fallen, yellow hair, a look he couldn't read. She waited, her gaze open, mixed with his, raised because she was so small.
"It's not that it's you," he said.
Still she didn't speak.
He couldn't face her any longer. "You know, that -that ride took the starch out of me."
"Yes." The one word wasn't yes or no. "But some other time-"
"If you want to."
She was too delicate, too small and fair for men to take to bed. "Honest, it wasn't that it's you, miss."
She only shook her head and motioned toward the door.
He reached back and pulled the latch, and the parlor sounds pushed in, the piano banging and a man's voice singing the last lines of "Shoo, Fly, Don't Bother Me" above a clack of tongues.
He looked in that direction and the other and at the rear end of the darkened hallway saw the gleam of glass. "Could I -the back?" he asked.
She stepped in front of him at once and led him down the hall, away from the parlor and the people there. From some room at the side came Tom's wordless tones and then Jen's wordless answer and then the giggles of them both.
She opened the door and stood aside, her face in shadow, her hair touched by the light. The voice of Carmichael carried to him from the parlor, and a laugh rang out, the rich, warm laugh that would be Ram's.
"Good night." His hand jerked out and offered itself. She took it tardily. "Good night," he said again, but she stood still and didn't speak.
He hadn't paid her! He pulled his hand away and dived it in his pocket. The pocket was the wrong one. It held the letters got from home. He reached again and with his fingers sorted coins inside the right one. Twenty? Too much. Twenty? He put the twenty in her hand.
He repeated, "Good night," and now she said, "Thanks and good night." He turned away and heard the door close after him.
The Indian woman was still crying and the dogs and coyotes joining in. He was almost back at the tent when he remembered that he had left his hat.
7
RAM MOPPED his forehead, where Lat could see the sweat kept beading. "It ain't the heat," he said. "It's woe."
"Bronco whiskey or them home-trained cards?" Carmichael asked.
"They double-teamed on me."
They were seated, just the three of them, on the porch of the Choteau House, which was in shade now that the sun had passed its peak. From a double-handled pump at the side a man was watering a couple of spindly trees that tried to grow just off the platform. They were about the only trees in town. Fuel shortage, someone said.
Ram turned his head to Lat. "So it's wolfin'?"
"Seems so, when the season comes. There's Tom and me and Moo Cow."
"And just maybe me," Carmichael said. "I ain't thought it out, but it would be a change." His lean face grinned as if in preparation for the answer Ram would make.
"Like a baby's pants, always wantin' change, Mike. Change to guts and stink! Moo Cow, now, his head is shrunk fo' it, and, not to mention it, but Tom he had a little trouble down in Texas, and them tin-star heel flies might get worrisome. But you two-"
"Trouble?" Lat asked.
"What's past don't signify," Ram said and waved the question down. "But you two pistols, hell! Lat, you ought to try them longhorns and the trail from Texas once."
"Montana for me."
"If you asked real nice, we'd maybe let you join the brotherhood," Carmichael said to Ram.
"To freeze! To go broke, meantime, playin' with these Yankee tinho'ns!"
"You'll go broke anyway."
"Wheah a man can get a sweat up at his luck."
Lat looked out to the river and the levee and the cargoes piled there. Except for them, this Front Street hardly had another side, the town was hunched so near the bank. A crew was working around a steamboat, shuttling back and forth with packs of hides and robes and sacks of ore or wool and barrels of some kinds of raw stuff for the east. Beyond the boat, in the bottom on the farther shore, a few tepees nippled up, and squaws moved in and out. Still farther, the river hills climbed high.
Ram rolled a cigarette and took a puff and spat. "A cob would be mo' fittin' to my mouth today."
Three men strolled up and looked at them and nodded and passed into the bar. Down the street a little piece a freighter cursed a mule train pulled up before a store. From underneath his wagon. a dog ran out and sailed into a smaller one, and their racket snarled the air until the smaller one tore loose and raced away, yelp dying into whimper.
Watching, Carmichael spoke to Ram. "What you need is some hair of the dog."
"Nope. For now I've done my howlin'."
A smile seamed Carmichael's face. "No fools, no fun."
"Late as it is, I'm takin' off this ve'y day." Ram stirred but didn't rise. "Goose me, Mike, and get me goin'." He flipped his cigarette away. "Time and past that them southbound boys was showin' up."
"Can't count on Sally. Last night he was so drunk he asked me would I close his eyes for him so's he could sleep."
Ram barely smiled. "But Stevens, Oscar, Mexico and them?" He sighed. "Maybe waitin' at the ba'n."
Behind them a door creaked. From under the LADIES ENTRANCE sign a lady without paint gave them one cool and glancing look and turned and started down the street. She wore a decent dress. Her hips she carried straight.
Ram gazed after her while he fiddled with his fingers. "Didn't see you around last night, Lat."
"I was, though." The answer might have come too fast. He slowed it down. "For a while."
"Uh-huh. A young lady was askin' 'bout you. A sma't towhead." Ram's eyes seemed sharp, his grin inquiring.
"I just stayed long enough."
"Long enough? Boy, she was one plumb daisy-do!"
"Glad you liked her."
"Now why you humpin' up?"
"I'm not. Why should I? Over her?"
Ram's eyes were like eyes on a page instead of on a face. His mouth went straight before he looked away, but when he spoke it was only to say, "Time to traipse. I'll look in at the ba'n." He got up then and put his hand out. "Mike?"
"So long, Ramrod."
"Meet you again in Texas or somewhere."
"Hope so."
"Lat?"
"I'll see you off."
"Good," Ram answered, but before he led away he said with just a touch of smile, "I don't guess the bed is to be trusted as a judge of all a woman is, Lat."
Lat watched them go, watched Ram head out, trailed by his pack horse, and the rest fall in, some red-eyed from last night and stinking with today's eye-openers. They had straggled up by ones and twos, and Mexico and Oscar had argued for another night in town and had been silenced by Ram's saying
he was pulling stakes regardless.
The little train began ankling down the street, weaving by a wagon, silent but for the complainings of the gear and now and then a word spoken to a horse. These sounds faded with each step. They got lost in other sounds, in boatmen's voices and the thumps of loads let down, in the knocks of carpentry, in the how-de-dos and how-are-yous that people passed, in music from some hangout down the line, in the creaking of a wagon and the rustle of a breeze and the steady little murmur of the river. At the corner Ram would turn and lead the train from sight.
The hostler came out of the barn and said, "Long trip, and looked up and down the street and over to the river as if he ought to keep an eye on everything but didn't want to much. He went back in, leaving behind the not-bad smell of horses.
There were things to tend to -his bed and warbag to get out of the barn, his horses to make sure were cared for right, a room in some hotel to rent- but still he stood and watched. Ram had reached the corner. He and the others started round it without waving. The last of the string rode out of sight. In some Texas bunkhouse maybe they'd remember and describe this clutch of log and 'dobe houses and rare new brick and false fronts and Indians, muleskinners, bullwhackers, soldiers, what-not, whores that were a daisy-do. Just in time, they'd say, they got out, before the town froze up, before it was deserted by the last steamboat and by the Indian traders who looked south to the Musselshell and Judith because the buffalo had left the country north. Wonder what has happened to that crazy Lat? Evans was his last name.
The stable man spoke from behind him. "Bunch quit you, huh, or other way round?"
"Some of them." Moo Cow somewhere. Sally drunk. Carmichael. Tom, who was at home in houses. All four busy in their ways.
The man moved closer, so close as to give off along with the smell of the stable the smell of stale whiskey. He was a man of middle age with a stomach that rode low. He worked his jaw, tonguing home a chew. "Always, when the bunch quit me, I felt like a drink."
"Did you?" By and by if he watched close he'd catch a last glimpse of the train as it wound up the hill high above the town.
"A swipin' job don't pay enough to keep a man in whiskey."
"I guess not."
"I was a top hand once, and when I hit town I smoked 'er up and spent my money free. No poor bugger thirsted while I had a piece of change, you bet."
"Did you?"
"If you was to ask me, now, I'd say you need a drink, too. Ain't no medicine like a drink, whatever ails you." The voice stopped and went on with a kind of weary grievance. "But you ain't listenin'."
"I'm listening." Lat stepped out from the stable so as to have a wider view. There they were, halfway up and more, already shadowed by the evening shadow of the hill. Up on the flat the sun would still be bright, and they'd push on a while and build a fire against the dark and gather round and talk.
The hostler's voice was close. "Can't see things like I used to. Nothin's like it used to be with me." He went silent and stood watching, too.
The string trailed toward the top. It buckled into the last pitch, seeming small and slow with distance. It reached the brow and started over, the skyline climbing on the horses, on the riders, making half horses, half men, hats, and then nothing at all. There was just the trail there and the barren climb of hill and the deep sky arching over.
"Now, like I was about to say," the stablekeeper said, "I got a prime idea. Why don't you go and get a bottle?" He hurried on. "It ain't all one way. I'm invitin' you to sleep here in the barn. There's good hay for a bed. We'll be favorin' each other. Them hotels bite pretty deep, and your stuff's inside already?"
The voice ended with a shake. The man was trembling, sick, his sick eyes springing tears that wouldn't wipe away. "You'll be real cozy," he said. He waited for an answer and, getting none, abruptly stiffened. "Damn you to hell, then, and all your get! I don't want your idjit whiskey. I've drunk with men." He couldn't hold it. The shakes returned, the eyes leaked more, and it was as if he stood naked with his weakness, asking only what he would have given in his time. "I ain't myself. It's awful to be nothin' but a thirst."
"I'll get the bottle."
The promise acted like a drink itself. "I figured you for all right. Can't fool me on men. Fetch, and we'll have a jolt, and I'll get steadied up and give your nags an extra dose of oats."
Now, near late suppertime, the half-faced street was busy. It moved with people of all sorts -a Chinese with a basket, three laughing Negroes, straight-faced Indians, outdoor men and indoor, a big man with a star fixed to his vest, a priest in dusty black. By ones and groups they streamed on by. They entered doors and came out, their faces catching light from the lamps just being lit. And all were strangers. None knew. And nothing but the bottle would be expected at the barn, and nothing would be known. About last night or anything.
It was then that he spied Tom. He held up even before he saw that here, in public, out in open sight, Tom had Jen beside him. Tom acted proud. His forelock bobbed as if he bubbled. Jen's hand clutched his arm. They were laughing in each other's faces. They went into a restaurant, on the heels of a family man who had his wife and child along.
Lat bought a quart of whiskey at a store and, along with it, some cheese and crackers, which would save going out for supper.
The hostler waited at the stable door. "Come in! Come in! You'n me, we mix like mud." He led the way into an office and struck a match and held it, shaking, to the wick. "Now, boy."
The office was a pigeonhole. It had two stools in it, a coal stove, a narrow bunk, a table with the lamp and a tablet and a stub of pencil on it. On the dirty window ledge a big jar sat, holding something pickled.
"Set," the man said, eyeing the whiskey. "You can call me Whitey. I didn't get your name?" Lat held out the bottle. "Lat."
"Lat, we'll take her easy." The trembling hands worked at the stopper. "I watered all the horses. Ain't nothin' left now but to feed 'em. Here!"
"You first."
Whitey kept both hands on the bottle and fixed his mouth to it and swallowed deep. "Ah-h-h." A splash trickled down his chin. "Drink hearty!"
Lat tried the whiskey on his tongue.
"Drink up! You ain't a bird, Lat."
The whiskey burned its way down and settled, burning, in the stomach.
"Yes, siree," Whitey said, reaching for the bottle. "This cures the miseries. What's yours?"
"My what?"
"Misery. Miseries. Hope you don't mind my askin'."
"Nothing."
"Huh, and ain't that dandy?" Whitey gulped another heavy shot. "When I was your age it was mostly girls, and now it's mostly that it mostly ain't." He smiled as if he spoke a grain of truth. "A misery is like an achin' tooth. Pull it out, and then the hole hurts." Still smiling, he shook his head. "Wisht I was young again, or more knowin' when I was. It ain't what you done that spoils your sleep but what you missed. But here, Lat! Have another." He passed the whiskey with a steadied hand. "That's right. Take a man-size snort."
"It's like doors closin' all around," Whitey went on, his face turned sober. "That's my misery. I drunk myself too fat and soft to ride much any more and, besides, the years done caught me, and so I dwindled off to jugglin' horse turds. But with a drink or two or three, all them closed doors open. Take a swig, please, and leave me have another go. I'm feelin' up to anything almost."
The whiskey came and went, and Whitey kept on talking. He held the bottle up and measured what was left. "Not bad for two greenhorns," he said. His face in the lamplight wouldn't stay quite fixed. It moved as if not tied tight to his neck. It was a good face, though, whiskey-loose but good. Couldn't trust booze, either, as a judge of all a man was.
A gleam of light kept dancing on the big jar on the window ledge. Whitey's face swayed toward it. "That's my prize," he said. "Can't tell from here, but there's a baby in that jar. Yes, sir, a slunk baby someone ditched here in the barn. Awful small and born too soon, I guess, but perfect just the same. So, to make a showp
iece, I bought some alcohol. Seems like a waste of drink sometimes, but mostly not."
"A baby?"
"Sure. Perfect. Dainty. Want to see her?"
Out of the shadows, out of Whitey's "Suit yourself," out of a pickled, perfect baby girl, the bright head had to come now, the bright head and the breasts proud as a grouse's hreast and the soft, suggested folds of groin. She stood and let him look, and her mouth smiled sweet and her teeth showed white and her eyes were kind and happy that she fired him.
Whitey got up and crossed over to the bunk, but still she had to stand there. "Now my nerves is settled, I just think I'll catch a nap," he said.
Lat left the stool. It clattered over. Whitey, swimming on the bunk, asked, "What?" and he answered, "Feed the horses." The door frame bumped his hip bone going out.
A loft window let in a little light, enough to feel around and find the feed by. He spilled oats in the boxes and forked hay in the manger, falling to one knee once when the earth tipped.
He went out the stable door and started off. He had plenty of money, right here in the right-hand pocket, not in the left one. He turned around and went back in the barn and found his saddle and opened up a saddle pocket and put his letters in it and pulled the tie strap tight. Then he started off again.
The mind knew the way if the feet didn't. The mind could make the feet track. The mind had a mind of its own. The mind could do anything except, now, change its mind.
The red light shone out of the house. The door knocked to his hand. Happy swung it open. Inside, Miss Fran rode the sofa. Two men with hats on bobbed around. The piano beat a tune. The pictures on the wall kept time. A set of teeth was laughing.
And then he saw her, saw her sharp and steady, and she was there alone, she and his arching need of her, and he bumped someone and faced her. His head jerked toward the hallway door.
She got up from her chair. A slow, inquiring smile came to her eyes and mouth, beneath the shining hair. She turned and led the way. In the dark hall her hand, child-small and warm, took hold of his. "I hoped you'd come," she said.