"Why, Captain," Dillard said in his hoarse whisper, "did you and the boys finally get back?"
"Not the boys," Call said. "Just me. What happened to the saloon?"
He could see that he had been right — the general store was still there, but the Dry Bean was gone.
"Burnt," Dillard whispered. "Burnt near a year ago."
"What started the fire?" Call asked.
"Wanz started it. Burnt up in it, too. Locked himself in that whore's room and wouldn't come out."
"Well, I swear," Call said.
"The pi-aner burnt up with him," Dillard said. "Made the church folks mad. They thought if he was gonna roast himself he ought to have at least rolled the pi-aner out the door. They've had to sing hymns to a fiddle ever since."
Call walked over and stood where the saloon had been. There was nothing left but pale ashes and a few charred boards.
"When she left, Wanz couldn't stand it," Dillard said. "He sat in her room a month and then he burnt it."
"Who?" Call asked, looking at the ashes.
"The woman," Dillard whispered. "The woman. They say he missed that whore."
About The Author
LARRY McMURTRY, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and many other awards, is the author of more than twenty-four novels, two collections of essays, three memoirs, and more than thirty screenplays, and is the editor of an anthology of modern Western fiction. His reputation as a critically acclaimed and bestselling author is unequaled.
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