Friends

by Charles Hackenberry

  Clete shook his head. "I don't know what to say, Willie. One day I'm going to marry her and the next day I just want to take off. Hell, it'd be hot in Texas right now."

  "Yeah, and it would be pretty hot in Two Scalp, too, if you was to tell Mary you wasn't marrying her."

  Clete shook his head some more.

  After a while Bullock come over to us. "Some people can't take a shit without asking me how to," he said. "Are we ready to go, gentlemen?"

  "You two go on. I'm going in this here cafe and eat," I said. "And then rn go talk to that woman at that Red Bird place. After that, I'm turnin' in. Not much sleep last night and I'm about wore down to the nubs."

  They went on down the street and I stepped inside and then sat at a little table by myself. I ask the gal for the biggest beefsteak they had and it wasn't long 'til she brought it, overlapping the plate all around, a big mountain of mashed potatoes piled on top of it and everything covered over with gravy.

  DuShane stood at the bar in a noisy crowd of miners and whores, sipping his founh whiskey. He didn't usually like feeling drunk, but tonight he was letting himself go a little. For weeks that goddamn sheriff had been after him, but now DuShane knew he had slipped him. No matter how good a tracker he was, and he was back-home good, DuShane was certain no one could follow him all the way up the Deadwood road. True, he hadn't shot the man who'd killed Whitey, but he was out of danger now, at least. Maybe later he could figure a way to take care of that bastard Shannon.

  Towns always sickened him after a while, but tonight it felt good to be where men were getting falling-down, vomiting drunk and women were plying their trade, though none had come up to him as yet. He had been trying to catch the eye of the youngest, smallest whore in the place, but the perky little brunette was already getting more attention than she knew what to do with. She reminded him of his cousin Rachel, and he had always wanted a go-around with her back when he was a sapling.

  He had lifted his glass high to drain it when he looked across the room and froze.

  He recognized Seth Bullock right away and almost as quickly saw that the tall man with him was Clete Shannon. DuShane stood rigid as a corpse as the two lawmen approached the bar and then spoke to the man behind it. Slowly, he put his glass down and lowered his head, pulling his hat down further over his face. He glanced up and saw that Shannon was looking over everyone in the place, and DuShane knew who he was looking for. Bullock told the barman to go get Al.

  DuShane thought about drawing his gun and killing them both where they stood. He might get Shannon, but then there'd be Bullock. Instead, he turned slow and walked toward the back door. The fear grew big as a mountain as soon as he turned his back. Every second he expected to hear the blast of a heavy handgun and feel the lead ball tear into his spine. But he fought himself to keep from running 'til he was through the door, and then he gimped up the alley as fast as his long, lean legs would carry him, his gun slapping against his thigh.

  When he got to a narrow cross street, he turned and looked back, his big Army Colt shaking in his left hand. Nobody had come after him. If AI was going to tell on him, they'd be on him by now. Slowly he went back down the alley and when he got to the Gem, opened the back door just a crack so he could look in. AI was still talking with Bullock and Shannon and it sounded like an argument. Du-Shane drew his gun and had the barrel through the crack before he changed his mind. He holstered it and went around the side of the building to the front and then walked quickly across the street. He sat on a bench outside the undertakers, beside two loafers, and waited for Shannon to come out of the Gem.

  He'd follow his man, get him alone, and take him when he didn't expect it.

  That beefsteak was all I had room for, but I eat a big wedge of apple pie anyway.

  When I stepped back outside, everything seemed a lot friendlier than when I had went in. The Red Bird wasn't but a block on down the street. Still a big crowd in there, but I didn't see Bessie nowheres. The barman come and poured me a rye and I ask him if he'd seen the lady I was looking for. He told me she'd gone out with a customer a little while ago and would probly be back soon. He kept pointing out other gals I might like and couldn't get it through his head that none but Bessie would do. Ten minutes later she come struttin' in, looked around and saw me, and after poking her head toward the door, stepped back outside. I killed the rest of my rye and followed her.

  She was off down the sidewalk a piece, standing in the shadows and looking nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

  "You coulda got me killed, you sonofabitch," she said, first words out of her mouth when I come up. "Seeing as who he is and what he's done, I figure you owe me five dollars more for what I found out."

  "The way I see it, I already paid," I told her.

  "Goddamn you," she said, real pissed off, but after a minute and me not saying anything she calmed down. "All right, he's in Deadwood. Got back yesterday, he was here before. You stay away from this bastard if you know what's good for you, though I doubt you do. He'd sooner slit somebody's throat than fuck, and I'm not messin' in this anymore, I mean it. I don't know where he is right now and I ain't askin' around no more, either, not for all the gold in these Hills."

  "Did you get his name, his first name?" I ask.

  She looked kinda sideways at me. "I sure did, Sugar, but it'll cost you that other five to find that out." She cocked her big hip out to the side, waiting on me to come across.

  I fished in my pocket and pulled out my pouch. "This better be right," I told her, handing her the coin.

  "Oh, it's right, all right," she said, popping my half eagle into her bag like she done with the one that afternoon. "His name's Jezrael. Jezrael DuShane, and he's one of the meanest sonsabitches you're likely to run into. And don't go calling him Jez or Jess when you catch up to him, either. A friend of mine made that mistake last year, and he cut her face up so bad she hadda get out of the trade and get married. Now I want nothing more to do with either him or you," she said. "Unless, of course, you'd like a quick-" She stopped and looked up and down the street.

  After a bit she shook her head. "No, I better not," she said. "You're likely to get shot and if I'm with you, I might too. No, I'm going back inside the Bird. And don't you follow me, neither. Nothin' personal, but I don't want to see your face again. And don't go saying who told you about him." She turned on her pretty heel and went back inside.

  I just stood there a minute and collected my thoughts. I considered finding that Gem place that Clete and Bullock had went to, but figured they'd probly left there by then. After a time I walked on down the street, just taking in the sights and listening to all the music spilling out of the different saloons. Most of it piano music, but I could hear a banjo twanging away and somewheres else a guitar and a gal singing along with it in a high, sweet voice. It struck me I remembered that song from somewheres. I walked across the street to see where that singing was coming from and right then, even before I stepped inside and saw her up on a little stage they had there, I knowed who it was.

  Mandy was all slicked out in a shiny-bright yeller dress with black lace on it, a little yeller hat to match, playing that beat-up old guitar of hers and singing one of them songs she had sung me as we rode double along the Bad.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Mandy didn't see me, of course. There was fifty or sixty people, men mostly, listening to her, but some was laughing and talking to women. Lots was listening, though, for her voice was sweet as an angel's, and her face, even if some might of thought it too dark, was still the closest I seen to an angel's since I saw her last. You couldn't tell how tall a woman she was, either, for she was sitting on a stool so she could get at her guitar good. Beside her, on a gangly three-legged affair, was a sign with her name painted on it, only they'd spelled it wrong. Her last name they spelled B-o-u-d-o-i-r. I wasn't exactly sure of what the right spelling was, but at least I knowed there wasn't no R at the end of it. It surprised me she didn't get it fixed. />
  I sat down in the back and wondered what'd happened to her that night in them Badlands, when it'd started to pour and her just gone and me not able to find her for anything. I listened and thought on that and watched, such a sight she was.

  She was looking at the crowd there, singing right to the folks who was paying the most attention to her and after awhile her big dark eyes come on to me. She didn't seem to see who I was at first, though she was looking right at me. The smile on her face slipped a little then and after a few seconds it got even prettier than it was before. She stumbled over the smallest part in her song and for a time she sang without thinking the words, you could tell-just beaming at me from up there on that little stage. My, she was a picture.

  She finished her music on a long high note, clear as a hermit thrush, and then the crowd clapped and hollered and stamped their feet, but all the while she looked just at me.

  After a minute she raised her hand and they quieted down. "This next song I sing for a good friend of mine who has just come in, Mr. William Goodwin." She nodded at me and everyone turned to gawk. Most was surprised at what they saw when they seen me, from the looks on their kissers.

  Mandy began on that rooster song she taught me while we rode double along the river. The first verse she done in American, but for the rest, the parts that was a little bawdy, she sung it in French. Made me remember real clear how nice it was sittin' at the table eating supper with her back at her folks' soddy out on the prairie. And then I remembered the night we had later on down the trail, under all them stars. I guess my face reddened at that and I wondered if she could tell what I was thinking. From time to time some of the men there turned in their seats in order to take me in-most just curious, I guess, but many looked madder than hornets at me, so it seemed like. Damned if I knowed why. I paid 'em little mind and just enjoyed my song and my remembering. When Mandy finished, the clapping wasn't so loud as before, but it was still pretty strong. She put aside her guitar and come down theiteps to where the tables was and then straight back towards me.

  "Willie!" she called out when she got near. "I have been so worried over you."

  "You? Why I was-"

  I had stood up and she flung her arms about me and give me a big kiss-right there with everyone watchin'. That whole crowd laughed and cheered and hollered and whistled and made such a ruckus! Mandy turned me loose and hauled me toward the doorway to the bar, where it was a lot quieter and not nearly so full.

  "I am so glad to see you, Willie," she said, standing close. "So many times I wondered what had become of you."

  "you wondered? Why, I searched way into the night to find you. I come back, like I said I would, but you was gone."

  She dropped her eyes and looked real mournful, her dark lashes fluttering. "I am sorry, Willie. Truly I am. When you did not come back for so long and the shooting stopped, I thought the killer–" She left off talking of a sudden and looked at me square. "He is here! Here in Deadwood, the man we chased for so far. He was here at the Green Front only last night!"

  "Yeah, I already heard he made it to Deadwood. Did he reconize you, do you figger? When he was here last night?"

  Mandy shook her head and all that ringy hair of hers jumped around on her shoulders. "No, I don't think so. I was singing, and he looked at my body, like all the men do, but I do not think he remembered me. And he left before I finished. I believe he was looking for someone, because he paid more attention to the men who were here than he did to me."

  "Well that's good. He don't reconize you then." Still, I looked around the bar some, feeling pretty rattlebrained for not doing so before. Then I took Mandy's arm and we stepped back into the room where she'd done her singing. I checked over everone pretty good, and even though I didn't know his face, I doubted that anyone I seen in there was him.

  While I was looking that crowd over, a fellow in a checkered suit come out from behind the curtain, spotted Mandy, and charged down the steps and through the crowd. He was mostly bald, but what hair he had, a fringe around his ears and in back, was the same reddish brown color as his thin little moustache. And mad? That fellow was mad from the top of his bald head to the tips of his fingers, huffing and puffing his way toward us.

  Mandy leaned close and whispered. "Jacobson, the owner here. I should go back now because-"

  By that time he was up to us. "What the hell are you doing out here socializing with the customers?" he asked Mandy in a loud, sharp voice, his hands on his hips. Then he barged right ahead before she could answer. "I pay you to sing. Not to try and fuck every goddamn sonabitch with a cock between his legs and a dollar in his pocket. Now get-"

  "Just you hold on there," I told him. "You might own this here bar but you can't talk to this lady like that and not get your nose busted."

  He looked at me like I just stepped off the moon. "What did you say tome?"

  "You heard me right. You clean up your mouth, talking to her, or Ill clean it up for you".

  He inspected me good, his hands coming off his hips and making fists at his sides. "Maybe you don't know who I am, you God-damn idiot, but I'm gonna have my man beat the shit out of you. And then maybe you'll remember me the next time you think about sticking your nose in my business." He looked toward the door, for his bouncer I reckoned, but the big fellow there was jawing with a miner and didn't see Jacobson waving his arm.

  "Whyn't you have a try at doin' it yourself?" I ask him.

  "Willie, leave now!" Mandy said. "I will finish singing and everything will be all right. Go on!" She give me a little push and looked awful worried, but I was not going to back away from this Jacobson fellow, or his hired tough, who seen his boss by then and was headed our way in a hurry. A big, bearded, beefy pile of stones he was. Arms like hairy hams and legs the girth of tree trunks.

  Jacobson turned and squinted. "We'll see whose nose gets busted now, you sonabitch."

  A fellow I didn't notice before, wearing a low-crowned black hat and a black striped coat, took a quick step up close to Jacobson and pushed a snake-eyes derringer into the bar owner's paunch. "Can't this be settled more peaceably, Jacobson?" he asked real low.

  Jacobson looked at the stranger's round, smooth face and then down at the weapon shoved into his belly and then back into the man's dark eyes. I looked too, and the derringer fellow had no look on his face at all. He was watching real close to see what would happen next, but there was neither fear nor anger writ on his smooth, even features.

  Jacobson got even madder. "Why-why-" He kept sputtering like that, his eyes near to popping out, 'til the bouncer got over near us.

  "Bettah tell your man to leave us alone or your funeral will be tomorrah," the fellow said, slow and even as anything.

  Jacobson didn't say nothing, so flustered and mad he was, but he waved the bouncer away and stared at the man holding the snake-eyes to his gut.

  "That's bettah," the stranger said after a minute. "Now let's just forget about this, shall we? Mandy will go change her dress for her next songs and we'll pretend you're a gentleman."

  The even-featured man took a step back from Jacobson and put his little gun back in his vest pocket.

  "She's fired!" Jacobson said. "And you get the hell out of my place and don't come back, you bottom-dealing bastard!"

  The stranger smiled at Jacobson, but it wasn't what you'd call friendly. "Very well. Several others have already approached us about Mandy singing in their saloons." He turned toward her and his smile changed into a real one. "Come on, Mandy honey, you're about to step up some in the world. I'll send someone back heah later to get your things." He winked at her and she smiled back. Right away I saw there was something between them and I begun to feel tired and heavy in my arms and legs.

  "That's a goddamn lie!" Jacobson snarled. "Who'd want her pissy-assed singing in their place? Hell, that nigger bitch doesn't even know any good songs, no dirty ones at all."

  I felt bad for Mandy that he would say that with her standing there, about her color, but she didn
't seem bothered by it. I guess it wasn't the first time she'd heard that word flung at her. She held her head high and looked like she was enjoying seeing that saloon man brought down a few pegs.

  The stranger turned slow back toward Jacobson and eyed him flat. When he spoke his voice was calm and smooth. "If you were even half a man, I'd shoot you for that, but you're not worth the trouble-to her or to me."

  That saloonkeeper must of seen then how close he come to dying, for fear flickered bright in his eyes. And being afraid for his life like that galled him worse than before.

  "You get out of my place, all three of you!" Jacobson yelled, and the whole room got quiet. I don't think many people'd saw Mandy's friend pull his little snake-eyed pea shooter, or they'd of cleared out already. Jacobson turned and stomped off. Mandy and me and her new fellow headed toward the door. Going out I tipped my hat to the big man, but he just followed us with his eyes.

  Outside, I drew a deep breath and tasted the sweet spring air. Mandy put her arms through each of ours and we walked up the street three wide. "This is Justin Thebideaux, Willie," she said real sugary.

  "Pleased to meet you," I said to him.

  "And this is Willie Goodwin, Justin. The man I told you about who helped me."

  He looked over my way and smiled one of his good ones. "I am honored, Mr. Goodwin," he said. "I wish to thank you for the assistance you gave Mandy in crossing the flatlands."

  I tipped my hat to him, just like I done to the bouncer-though Thebideaux didn't seem to take notice, and I wondered then if he knowed all the different kinds of assistance I give her traveling across that prairie.

  "I saw that you came to Mandy's defense this evening, before I had the opportunity to do so. For which I am also grateful." He was a fancy-talking fellow like that, and he said his words deep and slow-even when he wasn't threatening a man's life-in a way that sounded a little like how Mandy spoke hers.