The Crack in the Lens

by Steve Hockensmith

  When a cowboy gets a crack at the fun he prefers—the kind mixing liquor, women, and gambling in equal measure—it’s said he’s “cutting his wolf loose.” To hear it, you’d think that’s just what was happening, for punchers get to yipping and howling like a pack of wild dogs. I guarantee you a dozen drunk dentists or lawyers or even sailors don’t put up half the racket of one whiskey-soaked cowhand, and it sounded like there were a hundred in the Phoenix that night.

  “Got a plan for inside?” I asked when Old Red let me catch up.

  He’d stopped at the spot where a little path to the bawdy house veered off from the main trail.

  “Don’t make a fuss. See who we see.”

  “That’s it?”

  My brother nodded. “That’s it.”

  “You know how that seein’s probably gonna go, don’t you?”

  “I know,” Gustav said, and he gave me a “What’s a man to do?” shrug.

  Five years is a long time for either a cowboy or a floozy to stick to one place—excepting, of course, if that place is a grave. Most of the folks Old Red would’ve known thereabouts had most likely drifted on or been plowed under.

  Still, there we were, and as my brother’s shrug had so eloquently put it…well, what’s a man to do?

  We headed up the path to the Phoenix.

  There was only one door in sight. Torches burned on either side of it, and as we approached I could make out a figure standing alone in the flickering light. A dark curve of polished wood glinted dully at his side.

  The grip of a holstered gun.

  This, it seemed, was the maître d’. Even a place as shady as the Phoenix has standards, you know. Low ones, but standards.

  I hailed the gunny with a cheerful wave. “Sounds like the boys have got the place good and warmed up for us!”

  “Take off your guns,” the man snapped.

  Old Red and I stopped.

  “We got some kinda problem here?” I asked.

  “Not if you give up your hardware,” the gunny said.

  He was a hard-eyed customer who looked about as friendly as a bear trap to begin with. But, for me, he seemed to feel a special disgust.

  “Well?” he said. “I’m waitin’, greenhorn.”

  For neither the first nor the last time, I got the feeling I’d switched to dressing city-style a mite early for my own good.

  “Alright. No need to get snippy,” my brother said, and he started unbuckling his holster.

  “Ain’t nothin’ personal,” he whispered to me, and he jerked his head to the gunny’s left.

  Two crates sat in the shadows behind the man. Both were piled high with holsters and hoglegs.

  We weren’t being singled out. Going in unheeled was house policy.

  “Don’t tell me there’s a county ordinance against packin’ in a cathouse,” I said as I took off my gun belt. “I wouldn’t think y’all would give a shit.”

  “We wouldn’t, and the sheriff wouldn’t neither,” the gunman said, and he stepped aside so Gustav and I could add our Colts to his collection. “Last week some asshole shot up the chandelier, that’s all.”

  “Oh? Anybody get hurt?”

  The gunny gave me one of those scowls that told me I had, for the millionth time in my life, asked a stupid question.

  “Yeah,” he said. “The asshole who shot up the chandelier.”

  He waved us past, his squint already sweeping out toward the trail again. We weren’t worth speaking to any further—which was fine by us.

  We walked into the Phoenix.

  Pandemonium in a ten-gallon hat—that’s the only way to describe what awaited us. Or the quickest, at least.

  To take a little more time with it, I’d have to mention the cacophony of shouted conversation; the cackles of chemise-clad good-time gals coaxing customers toward the stairs at the back of the broad, high-ceilinged hall; the hunched, perspiring piano player hammering at the keys to make “Sweet Betsy from Pike” heard above the din; the madly grinning cowboy making the piano man’s job all the harder by clog dancing atop his upright; the impromptu game of Keep Away being played with another drunken puncher’s pants; the overpowering stench of sweat, smoke, liquor, and upchuck.

  Hanging above it all was a glimmering double-tiered chandelier that would have been fit for a grand opera house…if a quarter of the glass hadn’t been busted and one of the arms lashed together with bailing wire and twine.

  “Looks like the move to the country ain’t hurt business,” I said.

  “Feh,” Gustav snorted. “This here’s a Sunday prayer meetin’ compared to the old days.”

  He started to work his way toward the bar. Not a dozen steps into the crowd, though, and he was spinning on his heel to turn his face the other way.

  “Spot someone?” I asked, pivoting around beside him.

  “Get a gander at that big feller with the bartenders.”

  I threw a casual glance over my shoulder.

  The dark mahogany bar ran the length of the room just like the counter in Ragsdale and Bock’s wallpaper store. But the “big feller” standing behind it was a different story altogether from trembly little Coggins the clerk. You’d have to add three Cogginses together just to make one of him, then throw in a bushy black beard so thick yet another Coggins could hide inside it.

  Though he was on the working side of the counter, he wasn’t fetching bottles or pouring drinks. That he left to the lesser men who darted around him like squirrels scampering about at the foot of a giant redwood. He just stood there as still as said tree, keeping silent vigil on the commotion before him.

  “Stonewall,” Gustav said. “Ragsdale and Bock’s top-screw ass-kicker.”

  “Well, I sure didn’t peg him for the maid. The question is, have his bosses warned him to be on the lookout for you—and, if so, would he know you by sight if he did spot you?”

  “That’s two questions,” my brother grumbled. “And the answers are ‘How should I know?’ and—”

  “Well, lookee at Mr. Fancy Pants!”

  A passing puncher came to a tottering stop before me, an empty beer glass clutched in one grimy hand.

  “What are you supposed to be, then?” he said, his words coming out as wobbly as the rest of him. “A lawyer, a storekeeper, or a school-marm?”

  There were laughs all around, and just like that we had an audience.

  Guff awing cowboys put down their drinks and playing cards to leer at us from the nearest tables, their eyes blazing-bright with anticipation. A dustup is, without peer, every drover’s favorite floor show, especially if it leaves some uppity so-and-so mussed and bloody. Tonight I’d been pegged as the so-and-so.

  “Huh, li’l missy?” the swaying cowpoke said, taking a lurching step closer that brought me within range of both his knuckles and his nostril-scorching breath. “You get lost on your way to the sewing bee or what?”

  There were more hoots. Enough, I saw over the drunkard’s shoulder, to turn Stonewall our way.

  Fortunately, I make quite the formidable wall myself. I turned to fully face the braying drover—and position myself between Stonewall and my brother. Old Red’s needled me on occasion about the (supposedly) extra pounds I carry around, but I’m sure he was grateful for every ounce just then.

  “You got me all wrong, pal,” I said.

  “I ain’t your pal, ya damn greener!”

  The waddie looked as gristle-tough as any hand, but he wasn’t a large fellow, and it would take but one swat from my big paw to remove his empty head from atop his shoulders. Who knew how many cowboys would pop up to take his place, though? I didn’t dare spark a fracas with Stonewall eyeing me.

  I pasted on my best shit-eating grin and held out my hands.

  “Just look at them calluses, would you? You think I got those buttonin’ up a business suit? Naw, I earned the things the same way you got yours—throwin’ rope and muggin’ calves. This slicker getup’s just a put-on.”

  “It’s you he’s puttin’ on,
Wishbone!” someone called out.

  “Yeah!” another rough voice added. “You gonna take that from some snotty city pansy?”

  My shit-eating grin was choking down a seven-course banquet, but I managed to keep it in place.

  “Now, now, boys,” I said. “You wanna know why I stand before you as frilly-assed as a lace doily? Well, that’s how you need to do when you’re tryin’ to make time with a preacher’s daughter. And why am I now here dirtyin’ my scrubbed and starched self in a low-down clap factory like this?” I turned back to Wishbone and shot him a wink. “Because I succeeded, of course…and now I’m gonna celebrate!”

  There were jeers and catcalls of the “Oh, go on!” and “Bullshit!” variety, but the scoffing had a jovial feel to it now, like the roughhousing and friendly ball-breaking of hands in the bunkhouse. I’d won the audience over.

  Even Wishbone wasn’t grimacing at me so menacingly anymore, and the fire had faded from his eyes. Either he bought my story or he was about to pass out. Whichever, I knew just how to seal the deal.

  “Tell you what, Wishbone,” I said, “let me buy you a drink and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  Wishbone flashed me a crooked grin.

  The cowboys either cheered or groaned.

  Stonewall pointed his stony stare elsewhere.

  And Old Red?

  He, I discovered when I turned to toss him a triumphant smirk, was long gone.

  6

  Big Bess

  Or, My Brother’s Disappearance Leads to a Real Pain in the Butt

  My first thought was that Stonewall had somehow arranged to have Old Red snatched away and handed a harp.

  My second thought was that my brother had slipped off to rustle us up an arsenal—a couple empty bottles, say, or a derringer pilfered from the gunny’s pile outside—in case I couldn’t talk my way out of a tussle.

  My third thought was that Gustav was a sneaky little son of a bitch.

  This last thought stuck with me a while, for after a frantic survey of the room, I spotted proof of the truth of it.

  There was Old Red laughing it up with some punchers over by the piano, his back to Stonewall at the bar…and his arms wrapped around a giggling floozy. He acknowledged me with a small nod, the jolly expression on his face going as stiff as the mask it truly was. Then he turned his attention back to his new pals.

  While I’d made a spectacle of myself, he’d slipped off to do some detecting.

  It was the smart thing to do, I suppose, and one could infer from it an unshakable faith in my bullshitting abilities. Yet it still rankled that my brother hadn’t stood behind me, literally or figuratively. The hunt for clues had come first.

  “Hey,” Wishbone said, his smile starting to droop, “we gettin’ a drink or ain’t we?”

  “My friend, you’re askin’ the wrong question,” I said. “What you oughta be wonderin’ is what kind and how many.”

  “Well, I say rye…and lots!”

  “Done!”

  I clapped a hand on the boozy cowhand’s back and steered him toward the bar. Seeing as all I was good for, apparently, was providing distractions, I parked us right across from Stonewall.

  “Rye for me and my compadre here!” I crowed, slapping down two bits.

  “S-sorry, S-Stonewall,” Wishbone stammered, sliding my quarter down the counter to one of the men actually tending bar. “I think he’s n-new around here.”

  “Not for long,” I said with cheerful (and feigned, for once) obliviousness. “I expect I’ll be a regular soon enough. You got a real nice place here, Mr. Stonewall. Well, maybe ‘nice’ ain’t the right word—but that’s what I like about it, ho ho!”

  The look Stonewall gave me wasn’t so much staring daggers as dropping an anvil. You felt it squash you flat.

  “Well, uhhhh…where was I?” I said, turning back to Wishbone. “Oh, yeah, the preacher’s daughter! Mary Jane’s her name. Ahhhh, what an angel—and what a saucy little devil!”

  With that, I launched into a long, sordid story about a trip into a church baptistery to wallow in rather than wash away sin. Suffice it to say, it was exactly the sort of thing men like Wishbone (and, I hoped, Stonewall) could not resist. Even surrounded by jiggling, half-naked woman-flesh as we were, real live prostitutes are no match for imaginary preacher’s daughters.

  As I jabbered away, Stonewall went on playing watchdog, though I fancied I spied a faraway look in his eye the dirtier my story got. Wishbone, meanwhile, was soon hunched over the bar with such a slump to his back he looked like a giant question mark. When he was no more than a puddle on the floor—which would be soon, at the rate I was pouring whiskey into him—I’d slip away and rejoin my brother. Assuming I could find him.

  “Wha’ culuh wuh deh?” Wishbone asked as my yarn neared its climax.

  “Her bloomers? White, of course.”

  The cowboy shook his head wistfully. “White bloomuhz,” he sighed. “White bloomuhz…”

  “Erf!” I said. Which is not something I say often, but then again, it’s not often someone smacks me on the ass.

  I peeked over my shoulder to find a woman behind me so broad of beam I had to turn all the way around just to take in her entirety. She was a vista, a whole horizon unto herself. Stonewallina, they could’ve called her. Leviathette. Goliathene. Her sweat-stained chemise might have served as a whaler’s sail, while her round face sported so many chins I hadn’t the time to count them all.

  And it wasn’t just her body that was big. Her personality was oversized, too.

  “If you ain’t Big Red,” she blared at me like a foghorn, “then I just slapped the wrong fanny!”

  “No, you got the right fanny,” I said, rubbing my still-tingling cheek. “Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but would you mind tellin’ me why I’ve been so honored?”

  “Cuz I’ve been sent to fetch you, that’s why! Your little friend’s waitin’ for us upstairs in the Bridal Suite. He’s sprung for a twofer with Big Bess, you lucky dog!”

  The woman grabbed me by the arm and tugged with all her considerable might.

  “Go on!” she boomed as I was swung, stumbling, away from the bar. “Get a move on, boy—I got work to do! What do I look like? A damned drover? I gotta herd you? Alright, then—git!”

  She got her point across with another couple swats to my keister.

  “Yes’m! Yes’m!” I said, and as I scurried up the stairs the room erupted with rafter-shaking howls. I didn’t have a chance to say so long to Wishbone, and it actually makes me feel kind of bad as I think back on the man: It only occurred to me this instant that he never got to hear what happened to Mary Jane.

  Once I was at the top of the steps, I waited for Big Bess to catch up, as it took her considerably longer than me to lumber up to the second floor.

  “That way, sugar,” she wheezed, waving a flabby hand at the end of the hallway. “Last room on the left. You go on ahead.”

  As I set off, I could hear Big Bess’s colleagues hard at work behind the doors lining the hall. Of course, there were no such sounds coming from the room Big Bess directed me to. Though that was only to be expected, something about the silence there froze me in place before I could reach for the doorknob.

  “So,” I said, “by my ‘little friend,’ I assume you mean who I think you mean.”

  Big Bess came waddling down the hall toward me, her bulk filling the narrow corridor so fully I couldn’t have squeezed past her had I tried.

  “Christ, you’re a cagey one,” she said. Her voice was quiet now, weary, with none of the forced merriment of a minute before. “What…you think this is some kind of trick?”

  I shrugged.

  I didn’t think it, exactly, but I was thinking it had been quite a while since I’d laid eyes on Old Red.

  “Me…coaxin’ a man into a trap.” Big Bess shook her head as she stepped up close, walling off any escape as efficiently as brick and mortar. “Now, I ask you—what kinda bait would a fat-ass like me make?” />
  “Very temptin’, ma’am.”

  “Ha,” she said. Not laughed. Said. The sound was just as flat and fleeting and joyless as it looks on paper: ha. “They only keep me around for comedy and novelty, and I know it. Another year or so and they’ll finally decide I’m too—”

  “Ma’am…you haven’t answered my question.”

  Then she didn’t have to. The door swung open, and there was my “little friend” looking like he wanted to cuff me upside the head.

  “For chrissakes, get in here,” my brother hiss-whispered at me. “You think we got all night for this?”

  I stepped past him into the room. The Bridal Suite, Big Bess had called it downstairs. But it wasn’t pure and virginal in any sense but one: Lord knows it had never been touched by either scrub brush or broom. It was probably a good sight larger than the Phoenix’s other “cribs,” though, sporting as it did an actual four-poster bed instead of a mere cot or mat. There were other cozy touches, too—a threadbare rug on the floor, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln (with inked-in eyeglasses and devil horns) on the wall, a nightstand upon which sat a stained chamber pot and a cracked vase holding a single black, shrivel-petaled rose.

  “Very romantic,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, it’s the best we got around here.” Big Bess shuffled straight to the bed and spread herself out upon it. Trollop and bedsprings alike let out a loud sigh. “This is where we take the big spenders. Any other room, and Stonewall’d get suspicious if I wasn’t back in ten minutes.”

  “I don’t aim to be here longer than that anyhow,” Gustav said. “We wasted enough time already haulin’ my brother up here.”

  “Keep your shirt on, Gus,” Big Bess said through a yawn. For a woman who did most of her work on her back, she sure seemed tired. “Like I said before—down there he’d just get himself in another brawl.” She pointed her next yawn at me. “What were you thinkin’, comin’ in a place like this dressed like that?”

  “He’ll tell you,” I sighed, nodding at my brother.