"Miz Eastland, we got us a new boarder here," Turner said as the woman reached the bottom of the stairs. "This here's Mr. Handley."
"Logan Handley," Logan elaborated as he balanced himself, hooked his cane over his left arm, and reached up with his right hand to take off his hat. "It's a pleasure, Mrs. Eastland. Mr. Turner has been singing your praises ever since we encountered each other outside."
"I appreciate that," Mrs. Eastland said. "But you said Mr. Baldwin wanted to see you, Rusty, so you should go on to his office. You don't want to make him wait."
"No, I reckon not," Turner agreed. He set down Logan's carpetbag and added, "We'll be seein' you," then touched the brim of his hat, said, "Ma'am," and hurried out.
Mrs. Eastland said, "If you're looking for a room, Mr. Handley, I have one available. The cost is two dollars a week and includes breakfast and supper, as well as linens. If that's agreeable . . .?"
Logan calculated quickly in his head. He could afford to stay here for a while, but if he wanted to save up enough money to be able to afford treatments with Dr. Strittmatter, he would have to find a job. That wouldn't be easy in his condition, but he didn't see that he had any choice.
"That'll be fine," he said. He nodded toward the carpetbag. "That's all I have – "
He started to bend and reach for the bag's handle. The woman leaned forward at the same time, and he realized she must have thought he was asking for her help. He said, "I've got it," and the words came out sharper than he intended.
She straightened and said, "All right." Her tone was cool, and Logan remembered what Rusty Turner had said about her being stand-offish if a fellow got the wrong idea about her. Logan didn't have any ideas about her, right or wrong, but it appeared that he rubbed her the wrong way regardless.
That was all right. He hadn't come to Hot Springs looking for friends.
"I'd like a week's rent in advance," she went on.
Logan frowned as he remembered that all the money he had in the world was cached in his boot. He couldn't very well sit down right here on the foyer and take it off, so he said, "If I could pay you later today . . ."
"All right. Before supper."
"Yes, of course," he agreed.
"I'll show you the room," she said as she turned toward the stairs. Then she paused and looked over her shoulder at him. "Are you able to climb stairs, Mr. Handley?"
"Yes, ma'am, as long as I don't have to rush too much."
"Take your time," she told him. "The room isn't going anywhere."
He was almost out of breath by the time he reached the second floor landing, but he made an effort not to let her know that. He didn't ask for sympathy from anyone and preferred not to have it offered.
The room was two doors down from the landing, and not surprisingly, based on what he had seen in the rest of the house, it was very clean and well-kept. A bed, a wardrobe, a dressing table with a basin and chair, a single window with a light blue curtain decorated with yellow flowers . . . All the comforts of home, Logan told himself, and the thought was tinged with bitterness because a home was one thing he hadn't had for many years.
"This will do me just fine," he told her. He set the carpetbag on the bed.
"Supper is at six o'clock. The linens were just changed."
"Thank you." As she started to turn away, Logan added, "Ah, Mrs. Eastland . . . you wouldn't happen to know of anyone around here who's looking to hire some help, do you?"
"What is it you do, Mr. Handley?"
Well, I used to kill other men like me . . .
He couldn't very well say that, so he said, "Whatever I can turn my hand to these days. I need a job, so I can't exactly be choosy."
"Talk to Rusty when he comes back." For the first time, he heard a bit of warmth in the woman's voice as she added, "He knows just about everyone in Hot Springs."
Logan could believe that. Rusty Turner had seemed the sort to make friends immediately.
Mrs. Eastwood left the room. Logan tossed his hat on the bed next to the carpetbag and sat down, relieved to be able to get off his feet. The walk from the train station was the longest he had made in quite a while. Maybe having to get around in this hilly town would help him to build up his strength. Either that, or finish the job of doing him in.
Not for the first time, he thought that he would have been better off if the disease that had stricken him had killed him rather than crippling him. Death might have been easier to accept than living like this, with no real hopes and facing only a struggle for survival until his past caught up to him.
Maybe seeing Dr. Strittmatter would change things. Maybe the doctor could at least offer him the possibility of improvement.
Or if he was able to get a job and earn some money, he might buy a gun to replace the ones he had sold after getting sick.
He was sure he'd be able to find a use for it.
6.
When Logan came down a little early for supper, he found Mrs. Eastland setting a bowl of potatoes on the table in the dining room. None of the other boarders were in the dining room, but he heard what sounded like several people talking in the parlor.
He held out a ten dollar gold piece to her and said, "I wanted to give you this."
She took it, said, "Thank you," and dropped it in the pocket of the apron she was wearing. "Are you just paying for one week? Would you like change back?"
Logan shook his head.
"No, that'll cover my room and board for more than a month. I'm expecting to be here for that long."
"Very well. Supper isn't quite ready, but you can wait in the parlor with the others."
Clearly, she didn't want to chat with him, but he could understand that. She still had work to do. He smiled for a second, nodded, and walked across the foyer to the parlor.
Rusty Turner was sitting in one of the armchairs, smoking a pipe. He took it out of his mouth and poked the stem at another man, evidently to emphasize a point in whatever story he was telling at the moment. The other man laughed.
Logan's gaze flicked around the room. It was his custom to size up the inhabitants any time he entered a room, and he hadn't bothered trying to break that habit. There were seven people in this one, including Rusty. The other half-dozen were equally divided between men and women. Two of the women were white-haired and elderly; the other was in late middle age, not far from there. The man Rusty was talking to was about the same age as him, late forties or early fifties. The other two were somewhat younger and had the look of clerks about them.
They weren't a very impressive bunch, but they appeared to be a lot more stable and law-abiding than the backshooters, tinhorn gamblers, and whores among whom Logan had spent so many years, not particularly enjoying their company but figuring that was where he belonged.
"There he is now," Rusty said as Logan came into the room. He stood up, waved the hand holding the pipe at Logan, and went on, "This is the new boarder I was tellin' you about, Logan Handley. Come on in and meet all the folks, Logan."
Everybody was on an informal basis with Rusty, Logan realized. He nodded pleasantly enough and managed to smile as Rusty led him around the room performing introductions, but the names of the other boarders vanished from Logan's mind almost as soon as he heard them. He wasn't accustomed to having to remember such things. To him, no one except his enemies and his allies had mattered for a long time.
But now, like it or not, he was a common man, so he would have to make an effort to be more civil. None of the other boarders made any comment about his obvious affliction, and Logan appreciated that.
"What's your line of work, Mr. Handley?" one of the clerks asked. His name was Claude Something-or-other, Logan recalled.
"Right now that's a good question," he said. "In fact, I'm looking for a job. Mrs. Eastland suggested that I ask you about that, Mr. Turner."
"Did she now?"
"Yes, she said you know practically everyone in Hot Springs."
Rusty slapped his thigh and laughed. He said, "Vickie's r
ight about that, she is. And I have something in mind that might suit you just fine, Logan. I'll tell you about it later."
Logan wasn't sure why Rusty didn't just go ahead and tell him about it now, but he nodded and said, "All right."
A few minutes later, Mrs. Eastland – Vickie, Rusty had called her – came in and announced that supper was ready. Everyone trooped into the dining room to eat.
Rusty hadn't been exaggerating about the quality of Vickie Eastland's cooking. Logan had eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the country and in the dining room of the best hotels, and the food in this Hot Springs boarding house was easily their equal. The fare was simple enough – roast beef, ham, potatoes, greens, corn on the cob, gravy, and those buttermilk biscuits Rusty had mentioned – but everything tasted delicious. For months now Logan hadn't had much of an appetite and usually found himself picking at his food wherever he ate, but tonight, surrounded by the pleasant conversation at the table, he ate as heartily as he had in a long time.
If nothing else, he thought, Vickie Eastland's cooking might strengthen him up a mite.
One thing he noticed was that Mrs. Eastland's mysterious husband didn't put in an appearance. Rusty had called the man a fool, Logan remembered, and to miss a meal like this he would have to be.
After supper, most of the boarders went back to the parlor, but Rusty caught Logan's eye and said, "There are rockers out on the front porch. Let's sit out there and enjoy the evening air, shall we?"
"All right," Logan said. Maybe Rusty would tell him about that job. Logan intended to find Dr. Strittmatter's place the next day and talk to the physician so he could find out how much money he would need to begin treatment, so it would help if he had an idea of how much he might be able to make.
Logan's cane thumped on the porch boards as they went outside. Rusty waved him into one of the rocking chairs and took the chair next to the one where Logan settled back. He took out his pipe and a tobacco pouch and started packing tobacco into the bowl again.
When he had scraped a match alight and puffed the pipe to life, he said, "Vickie don't really care for smokin' in the house, but she don't fuss about this pipe o' mine too much, bless her heart. It's cigars she won't abide. Carleton smoked cigars."
"Carleton?" Logan repeated.
"Carleton Eastwood. Used to be Vickie's husband."
"He's dead?" That would explain why he hadn't shown up for dinner, Logan thought.
But Rusty made a disgusted sound and said, "Not hardly. He divorced her."
That was surprising. Divorce wasn't unheard of, but it was rare and when it happened, it was usually accompanied by scandal of some sort. Vickie Eastwood struck Logan as being far too cool and stiff-necked for scandal.
He gave in to curiosity and asked, "What happened?"
"I'm a talker, not a gossiper," Rusty replied with a shake of his head. "So I'll leave it at that except to say that Miz Eastwood is a decent woman and I don't believe a word of what was said about her."
Considering all the disreputable things Logan had done in his life, he wasn't just about to look down in judgment on Vickie Eastwood, no matter what she was accused of doing.
"Now you've made me more interested than ever," he said. "I won't press you, though. At least not about that. I am curious about that job you mentioned, though."
"I've got a friend named Doc Reese – "
"A doctor?" Logan leaned forward in the rocking chair. He didn't know what sort of job he could get with a doctor, but the idea intrigued him.
Rusty took care of that thought by saying, "No, he's a barber. Folks just call him Doc because, well, you know, barbers have always done some doctorin', too."
With a grunt, Logan sat back. He was well aware that in many frontier communities, the local barber was the closest thing to a sawbones the settlers had. But that usually meant setting broken bones, dosing ailments with dubious tonics, and maybe patching up bullet holes. The chances of a barber being able to help him with his condition were non-existent, he thought.
Rusty went on, "Doc's lookin' for somebody to help him out at the shop. You know, sweepin' out and such like. I don't reckon the pay would be much, but I thought he might be able to give you a hand with whatever it is that ails you, too."
"Everybody's been so careful not to mention my condition, I was beginning to think you were all blind."
"Not hardly. I reckon you saw I've got a bit of a limp myself." Rusty slapped his right thigh again. "Know how I got it?"
"I don't have any idea," Logan said.
"A Yankee bullet when we were fightin' 'em in the Wilderness. Tore up the muscles so bad one of those field hospital butchers they called a doctor wanted to hack it off. He would have, too, if I hadn't put a gun to his head and told him to sew it up instead. I didn't lose the leg, but by the time I got home it was so weak I could barely use it."
Logan was interested in the story despite his disappointment at Doc Reese turning out to be a barber. He said, "That's a little different. My problems weren't caused by bullet wounds. I had an illness. Something called infantile paralysis, because it usually strikes young children."
Logan wasn't sure why he had told Rusty that much. He hadn't really discussed his condition with anyone other than the doctors he had gone to, let alone spilling the story to an almost stranger. Rusty Turner possessed a quality Logan had seen in other men, however, an ability to put people at ease and get them talking to him. Maybe it was because he was such a big talker himself.
Rusty puffed on the pipe for a moment and then waved the hand holding it as if to dismiss what Logan had just said.
"If muscles are weak and don't work, I don't know that the cause really matters. What you've got to do is get 'em strong again, and that's what Doc helped me do. I don't reckon my leg will ever be completely back to normal, but it almost is and that's good enough for me. You should at least talk to him, Logan."
"About the job, you mean."
Rusty shrugged and said, "Sure, about the job. And anything else you want to."
Logan figured that the wages for sweeping out a barber shop would be pitiful. It might take him years of working there to save up enough for him to afford Dr. Strittmatter's help. Years that he didn't have.
But it was a start, and it might pay enough to keep him in bed and board while he looked for something better. This wasn't like the old days, when men sought him out and offered him large sums of money to work for them.
Of course, if he was working in a barber shop, he probably wouldn't have to shoot anybody, either, he reminded himself.
"Where do I find this Doc Reese's place?" he asked.
"I'll take you there first thing in the morning," Rusty promised. "I've got to make a run, but it'll be later before everything's loaded and ready to go."
"A run?"
"I drive a freight wagon for Mr. Marcus Baldwin," Rusty explained. "Nobody in Arkansas handles a team of jugheaded mules better'n ol' Rusty Turner, let me tell you."
"All right. I appreciate the help."
"Us gimpy-legged fellas got to stick together. If you don't mind me askin', what was it you did before you was afflicted with this . . . infantile paralysis, you said? You strike me as bein' a real gentleman. A gambler, maybe?"
"You could call it that," Logan said, but he didn't offer a more detailed explanation.
In truth, that was a pretty good description, though.
He had gambled with men's lives . . . including his own.
7.
If anything, breakfast the next morning was better than supper the night before. Logan could have lingered over another cup of Vickie Eastland's excellent coffee, but Rusty only had so much time before he had to leave on that freight run and Logan wanted the introduction to Doc Reese. So the two men walked out of the boarding house – both limping, one just more pronounced than the other – and headed for Hot Springs' business district.
Logan spotted the red, white, and blue striped barber pole before they reached the shop,
which sat in a small brick building between a shoemaker's shop and an apothecary. Directly across the street was Dumont's Saloon. That was handy, Logan thought. If he got the job, he might need a drink by the time he had spent all day sweeping up clippings in the barber shop.
Logan wore the trousers from his suit today, but at Rusty's suggestion he had left off the coat, vest, and string tie.
"Go in there dressed like a swell, and Doc might be less likely to offer you the job," Rusty had said. "Not that Doc's stuck-up in any way. But you might have better luck if you look more like a workin' man."
"That's what I am now, I suppose," Logan had said. "At least that's what I'm trying to be."
It was early in the day, but when they went into the shop, Doc Reese already had a customer in hic chair and another man waiting for a haircut. Rusty hailed him cheerfully, saying, "Good mornin', Doc!"
Reese was a short, stocky man with blond hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. He wore gray striped trousers, a darker gray vest, white shirt, and black tie. As he clipped the hair of the man who sat in the chair with a white cloth draped over his chest and lap, Reese said, "Hello, Rusty. Who's your friend?"
"This here is Logan Handley. He's a new boarder at Miz Eastland's house."
"Hello, Mr. Handley," Reese said. He seemed friendly enough, if a little reserved with strangers. "Come to get a haircut?"
"Actually, I could probably use one," Logan said with a smile. "It's been a while, and I'm getting a little shaggy." He crooked his left arm, hung the cane over it, and took off his hat. He hung it on the hat rack just inside the shop's entrance and went on, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Reese."
"Call me Doc. Everybody does."
"All right, Doc."
"Actually," Rusty said, "Logan here is lookin' for a job. You haven't hired anybody yet to help out around here, have you, Doc?"
"As a matter of fact, no." Reese paused in his hair-cutting and frowned slightly. "But I figured I'd probably hire a kid, or maybe an old-timer who's not looking to make a living . . ."
Dancing With Dead Men Page 4