The Last Kind Words Saloon: A Novel (10 page)

“Oh it came from Scotland,” Red said. “It belonged to one of them bagpipers.”

“If Scotland’s that smelly I believe I’ll give it a pass. I will take a shave and try not to cut my throat.”

“Shouldn’t tempt me,” Red said. “Only I can’t afford to cut nobody’s throat. There’s few enough customers in this town anyway.”

Later in the day Doc heard the same sentiment from an aging whore named Edna, his favorite local whore. She still worked out of the Orchid Hotel, which had grown shabby since San Saba left. The famous Twelve Inches Free sign had been dusted over. Edna’s breasts had fallen and she smoked cheroots but she was tolerant of Doc’s coughing and she had a fine sense of humor—often she giggled a girlish giggle, which Doc liked to hear. He liked her so much that he asked her about that famous local sign—the man with a twelve-inch member gets to visit free. Doc had always figured the twelve inches was just a joke, but when he brought it up with Edna she giggled and looked coy.

“I doubt there’s a man alive with a dick that long,” he said.

“You ain’t a whore, Doc,” Edna said. “It ain’t common but it ain’t unheard of, either. Now and then a cowpoke will walk in with a thing on him you wouldn’t believe.”

“What do you do when that happens?”

Edna shrugged. “Same as we do for anybody, only it’s free.”

Doc looked around the shabby room—there was dust on the pillows.

“What’ll you do when this place shuts down?”

Edna shrugged. “Go back to some place where they don’t know me. Pennsylvania, maybe.”

Doc felt it unlikely, but Edna looked hopeful. Why shatter a dream?

-
37
-

It was two weeks
after the big stampede, and Charlie Goodnight had been home only twice—if it
was
his home—and Mary Goodnight had stopped being worried and began to be annoyed.

“I guess Charlie would rather work than be married,” Mary said. “The way I see it he’d rather work than do anything.”

“Many men would rather work than be married,” San Saba said. “Your husband is not abnormal in that respect.”

“That’s true of my husband,” Nellie put in. “Zenas would throw any ball that’s handed to him.”

Then they saw a rider coming from the north, though not coming very rapidly.

“Is that fellow riding a mule?” Mary asked.

“He is,” San Saba said. “In fact I know him: it’s Russell of the
Times
.”

“That’s right,” Nellie said. “I remember him now. I wonder where he found the mule, and why he’d want it, anyway. He’s the most famous journalist in the world. It’s rumored that the Queen intends to knight him someday.”

“That’s very unlikely,” Russell said. “Queen Victoria has a lot to do—she needn’t start giving knighthood to hacks like yours truly.”

He dismounted and Mary Goodnight gave him a forthright handshake, which he took.

“I apologize for my husband,” Mary said. “I suppose he’s off sorting cattle.”

“He is,” Russell said. “Yesterday I met a Mr. Pierce, who’s at the same task. And I understand there’s a Mr. Wagoner, whom I have not met.”

“I hope to see your husband tomorrow,” he said.

“Why?” Mary said. “If he’s in a bad mood, as I suspect he is, then he’ll hardly be worth seeing.”

“I was hoping he’d show me the place where Lord Ernle died,” Russell said. “I’ve been asked by the family to do a short book about him.”

“Goodness, do you write books too?”

“Trifles, yes,” Russell said. “I’m quick though. I should be able to do the career of Lord Benny Ernle in about two weeks.”

“Who would want to read it?” Nellie asked. “The man was a fool, else he’d be alive.”

Howard Russell was amused. The unschooled American lady had posed a good question. Who would want to read about the late Lord Ernle, clearly a very rich but very foolish man.

“I’m surprised to find you here, Madame Saba,” he said. “I had supposed you’d want to go home.”

San Saba nodded her head.

“It’s a fine question, where my home is, Mr. Russell,” she said. “I was raised in Turkey but I’m sure not going back there, after what happened to my mother.”

“I recall some irregularities about your mother—the Rose Concubine. I met Sultan Hamid once. Nothing nice about him that I recall,” he said.

“I wonder where the eunuchs went?” he asked.

“To hell, I hope,” San Saba said.

A great red sun was just then setting to the west. In the sky the planet Venus shone brightly.

“I customarily enjoy a brandy at this hour,” he said. “I’ve a bottle in my saddlebags. Would you ladies care to imbibe?”

San Saba declined. She had never cared for brandy, or, indeed, for anything stronger than beer.

But Mary and Nellie
did
care to imbibe. After all they were married, and yet where were their husbands?

“If there was a band we could dance,” Mary said. She went to every dance she could find, though getting Charlie Goodnight on a dance floor was seldom worth the effort. But, somewhere in the crowd, there was usually a cowboy who wasn’t afraid to dance with his boss’s wife.

Nellie danced a few steps by herself. The prairie winds sighed through what was left of Lord Ernle’s great house.

Russell of the
Times
found Mary Goodnight very appealing. He offered her his arm and she took it.

“We could hum, Mr. Russell,” Mary said; and so they did, while Nellie Courtright danced alone.

-
38
-

Goodnight was impatient when
the English-man on the mule showed up, wanting to see where Lord Ernle had gone off the cut bank. The sorting of the three herds had not gone well, which was only to be expected since there was some eight thousand cattle. Goodnight’s brand book was some help, but the other two cattlemen had lost theirs; besides which many of the original brands had been grown over or blurred.

The sorting took more than ten days, and left none of the original owners fully satisfied.

“Hazards of the business, I guess,” Russell said. “Force majeure, I suppose.”

“No sir, it was bad planning on my part,” Goodnight said. “Next time I start I’ll be sure to have these damn plains to myself.”

“I wonder what the longitude is,” Russell said, startling Goodnight.

“Why would you care about the longitude?” Goodnight wondered. “Lord Ernle is dead, whatever the longitude.”

Russell ignored the rebuke.

“I want to compliment you on your excellent wife,” he added. “You don’t often see a woman that spirited this far out on the veldt.”

“I heard you danced with her—what did you do for music?”

“I whistled some and we hummed. A swallow or two of brandy was enough to limber us up,” Russell said.

Goodnight looked at the man closely, trying to see them in his mind’s eye. He had only meant to be gone a week, but the sorting dragged on and was imperfect anyway.

I better get home, he thought. Mary sounds mad.

The Englishman pulled a large album out of his saddlebag and began to sketch.

Why does the fellow bother, Goodnight thought. There’s nothing to see but a bleak bend of the Canadian River. But when he showed the sketch to Goodnight the cattleman was impressed.

“Dern, you’ve got the gift, sir—you even got in that little hawk up there soaring.”

“I like to have a record, even if I have to do the drawing myself,” Russell said.

-
39
-

Mary was a little
huffy next time Charlie got home, but she cooked him a beefsteak anyway. Nellie Courtright had just gone home.

“She made friends with Shanghai Pierce—Nellie could make friends with anybody,” Mary added.

It was Charlie’s turn to get huffy.

“Well, I don’t approve,” he said.

“Don’t approve of what? Nellie needed to get home and Shanghai was going that way.”

“I have a low opinion of Shanghai Pierce,” he said. For some reason it rankled him that Nellie had gone off with the man—a loudmouth and a braggart, in his opinion.

“You have a low opinion of everybody, Charlie,” Mary said. “Except Bose: he’s the only one that qualifies.”

“No, you qualify,” he said. “Would I have married someone I didn’t approve of?”

“It’s not a question I can answer,” Mary said. “I’ve often wondered why you married me—and I wonder even more why I married you.”

He looked across the table and saw San Saba smiling. She said little, but Mary had already told him that she had been a big help with school, and several cowboys mentioned that she had also improved the mustangs. It seemed to him that he and Mary were accumulating a pretty unusual household, but so far it wasn’t a bad thing.

At the moment he couldn’t get his mind off Nellie Courtright, whose husband Zenas was somewhere in the South Seas. There was no knowing if Zenas was even alive, or if he would come back—meanwhile there was Nellie, a comely woman if there ever was one.

Goodnight considered Nellie to be both impudent and rash, like all women, and yet he thought of her often: more often, probably, than he spent thinking about his own admirable wife, who certainly paid close attention to his behavior. He considered himself a man of certainties. He meant to speak to Mary about her constant scrutiny but every time he got ready to say something Mary got some comment in first. It made him wonder why he talked to Mary at all, since in most conversations he came away feeling like a fool.

Later, while they were eating cobbler San Saba made with some peaches she found somewhere, Mary suddenly guffawed.

“Why, I’ve got it: this big oaf has got the sweets for Nellie. Think he’ll run off with her, folks?”

The table consisted of herself, Charlie, San Saba, Flo, and Caddo Jake, who came by to give Mary some fossils he had found. His was a fragrant presence thanks to the skunks, but Mary liked the old man and never sent him away.

“Company’s too scarce out here on the baldies,” Mary said. “I can’t afford to be picky.”

Caddo Jake took no interest in the Goodnights’ domestic life, and neither did San Saba and Flo.

“You couldn’t talk such bosh in front of the company,” Charlie told Mary. “I have known Nellie Courtright a damn long time and I take some interest in her welfare, that’s all, and traveling with Shanghai Pierce is risky at best.”

Mary was smiling to herself, a habit he deplored. If something was funny why not speak out? And if it wasn’t funny, why not keep quiet?

Caddo Jake soon nodded off; Mary passed the cobbler to Charlie, who always liked peaches. He awarded himself a goodly serving.

The west wind blew through the ruin of Lord Ernle’s great house. It was picking up force and Mary felt it and felt a moment’s alarm. A huge red sun was sinking in the west: then the sun vanished and darkness came.

Goodnight had been on the plains in all weathers but had never seen the sun go so quickly.

Caddo Jake snapped awake and looked to the west.

“Sand,” he said, and that was all he said.

-
40
-

The sand came like
a wall—a moving wall one hundred feet high. Seeing it come, Jessie felt an overpowering fear. They were in a train just west of Deming, New Mexico, which was not much of a town. Wyatt and Doc had spent most of the night in saloons there and she had stayed with them out of fear. There was a parrot and the parrot kept saying Joe. Wyatt didn’t like her staying in bars unless she was working and she wasn’t working. They were on their way to Arizona, where he promised her she could get a job tending bar.

Now Wyatt and Doc were looking at the wall of sand with amazement: so were the few passengers on the train.

“My lord, what’s that?” Doc said: he was startled but not particularly alarmed. Neither was Wyatt alarmed, though the wall of sand dwarfed the train.

“What do you think, Doc? Can a wall of sand push over a train?”

“Hope not,” Doc said, and then pitch darkness came.

“Hope not too,” Wyatt said. Jessie buried her face in Wyatt’s chest. Suddenly it was pitch dark. Sand began to seep into the car through the doors and windows. Jessie began to feel grit on her teeth. The door to the car they were in didn’t fit quite snug. Big tumbleweeds blowing from the north began to smack into the wall, which annoyed Doc.

“Jessie’s upset,” Wyatt said. “She’s shaking like a leaf, and she ain’t a leaf.”

He was just remembering how aggravating it was to travel with a woman, particularly Jessie.

And when Jessie wasn’t scared she was mad.

“We’re in a pickle, we’re in a pickle,” he said, three or four times. Only a minute before the moon had been shining brightly. He stood at the back of the train, smoking a cheroot. For some reason Jessie didn’t like the smell of tobacco—even fine tobacco—so when it wasn’t chilly he went outside to smoke. Now it was blowing so hard he didn’t dare step out. He might blow right off the train and be lost in New Mexico—if they were still even in New Mexico.

One windowpane was broken in their car and the sand poured in as if it were being pumped.

“Hush, goddamnit,” Wyatt said.

“It won’t kill us. It’ll blow over directly.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Jessie said. “What if God sent it to punish us for our sins.”

The comment struck Doc as funny. He slapped his leg and laughed, which brought him a glare from Wyatt, although he didn’t see it. Wyatt’s sense of humor was limited at times.

Then the car began to rock from the force of the wind. It would rock and settle back, rock and settle back.

In Doc’s memory no railroad car had ever rocked that way.

They had brought no horses. If the train blew over they would have to make it about thirty miles back to Deming, New Mexico. It would be a hard straggle.

Then a whole window blew in and sand followed until they were up to their knees in it. Jessie sobbed hopelessly.

“I would never have considered Arizona if I had known it was going to be so goddamn dusty,” Wyatt said.

Jessie began to pray to the saints. “Oh, Saint Michael,” she praised. “Oh, Saint George.”

“A woman who just keeps talking when the menfolks would rather have quiet is a woman who’s asking for trouble,” Wyatt said.