The Big Gundown (17 page)

Taylor said to Lon, “Look it how purty the sky's becoming.”

Lon looked up and so did Harvey.

“This is real sky country, ain't it?” Lon said.

Harvey dropped his head back down; the wind hurt his face.

J
AKE WAS STILL AT
C
LARA'S
when the evening came. Willy Silk's fever had finally broken and he had sunk into a deep sleep. Jake said, “I ought to stay close, in case the fever comes back.”

Clara fixed them supper and the girls set the table.

“Why not light some candles,” she said to the girls. “Instead of lamps, let's eat by candlelight.”

Of course it thrilled them to do so and they took turns lighting the candles with Jake's help. And when he finished helping them, he went into the kitchen and said, “Is there anything I can help you with out here?”

She was standing at the stove, cooking something in one of the pots, stirring it with a wooden spoon, when he came up behind her and asked her the question.

“You could put your arms around me,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Yes, like that,” she said when he gently put his arms around her waist. She leaned her head back slightly to rest on his shoulder.

“What will we do about our troubles?” she said.

“Let's not talk about it tonight. Besides, it isn't our troubles, but mine.”

“No, you're wrong, Jake.”

“Clara. I want you to do me a favor.”

“Yes, of course, anything.”

“If things go bad for me, I want you to send this to my mother.” He handed her an envelope already addressed.

“Yes,” she said, her voice reluctant to accept that things might well go bad for him. “Is there anything else you'd want me to do?”

“I've saved a little money,” he said. “It's back in my hotel room with the rest of my things. Use it to pay John with and a burial plot. Whatever is left over, give to the girls.”

“Oh, Jake…please don't…”

“It's necessary. You're the only one I can count on, Clara.”

Clara felt her eyes fill up with tears.

“Would you slice the bread?”

“Sure,” he said and got the cutting board down and the bread knife and began slicing the freshly baked loaf of bread she'd recently pulled out of the oven and set to cool by the frosty window.

At the table Jake sat across from Clara, April sat to her left, and May chose to sit next to Jake. The girls swung their legs as they ate and for dessert Clara served raisin pudding still warm with a nice covering of maple syrup she'd bought at Otis Dollar's mercantile earlier that week.

They ate mostly in silence, neither Clara nor Jake having much of an appetite. And later the girls helped Clara clear the table and wash the dishes while Jake sat alone in a highback rocker upholstered in red damask where he could watch the flames in the fireplace.

He looked around at the large rooms, the nice furniture—all left over from the estate of the late Doc Willis and sold with the house. There were large oil
paintings on the walls in gilt frames: a young boy in a blue shirt and trousers and white stockings, a scene of a sweeping canyon with a crashing waterfall, a hunting dog set on point.
This is more house than your average person needs
, he thought.
The houses of the rich almost always are
.

He grew drowsy waiting there by the fire, waiting for Clara and the girls to finish in the kitchen. He could hear them back there, the girls chattering away, Clara patiently answering whatever questions they had to ask.

His eyes closed and he allowed himself to relax. It felt like every muscle in his body was knotted up, the cold weather had troubled the old bullet wounds he suffered, had caused some of them to throb and ache, especially down low on the right side, where one of the bullets had shattered a rib.

It seemed like another lifetime ago that the men had shot him and left him for dead. It was like Sam Toe, the liveryman, said, “It's following you, ain't it?”, meaning death. It did seem to hunt him like some old bird hound hunting game in the brush.

He must have slept, but only for a minute, it felt like. When he opened his eyes, the girls were quietly reading books there on the floor and Clara was sitting opposite him in one of the French provincial chairs with its white arms and legs and blue tapestry seat, watching him. She held a small glass of sherry.

“Oh,” he said. “I must have dozed off.”

“You need to rest, Jake.”

“Yes, probably so.” He smiled knowingly and she smiled, too, for last night they hadn't done very much actual sleeping and he'd arisen early.

He waited until she put the girls to bed.

“You are planning to stay the night, aren't you?” she said. “I'd really like it if you were.”

“Nothing would please me more, Clara, but I think I should probably go.”

He saw the look of disappointment on her face.

“It's just that I think I need to prepare myself for what's coming and I can't do that here. When I'm here, I can only think of you and the girls.” He didn't want to tell her that the real reason was that he didn't want to draw trouble to her door. He wanted to draw it as far away from her as possible.

When she didn't come and put her arms around him, he went to the entryway where he'd hung his hat and coat and took them down and put them on. She followed him at a distance and said, “I really wish you'd stay with me, Jake. I like having you in my bed.”

“I like it, too, Clara. But not this time, okay?”

He stepped toward her and she stood stiffly as he kissed her lightly. He could tell that she was reluctantly accepting his feelings.

“Okay then,” he said and opened the door and stepped out and closed it behind him quickly and quietly.

It had quit snowing, but now with night and the greater cold, the snow had a crust to it and it broke and crunched under his boots as he walked off toward town. A full moon stood in the black sky almost as white as the snow. The entire grasslands seemed to glow and when his gaze swept across them it seemed that the world was empty, a place where if you walked out far enough you'd simply fall off the edge and disappear. If only it were that simple.

He thought he could stand a drink, but then reason told him the last thing he needed was to have a head full
of whiskey if those cowboys came. So instead he went straight way to his hotel room and shucked off his coat and took his Scofield pistols and laid them on the bed next to him as he lie there waiting for them to come. It was about all he could think to do: Wait for them to come.

T
IG WAS STANDING AT THE BAR,
down at the end by himself. He didn't want any company and nobody seemed to want his company, either. Word spread fast in this place when there was trouble, when someone was having trouble with someone else. And by now most everybody knew the troubles Tig had with the other cowboys out to the Double Bar and it was the sort of trouble none of them wanted any part in. Dallas Fry was a fellow you didn't want to get on your bad side.

The kid stood sipping the whiskey and beer back alternately through his still sore mouth. The bartender had served him, taken his two bits, and moved back down to the other end, where most of the rest of them stood, those who weren't sitting at tables gambling or in the back with whores.

He could hear men conversing about the cold weather and cattle and how rank horses would get over the winter if you didn't ride them regular. He could hear their jokes and comments about women.

Him and Nat used to come in and drink and laugh and tell jokes and talk about women, too, until Nat took up with that Marybeth Joseph. That's when it all started—
the trouble. Up till then, things were good. He sipped his beer and felt the bitterness rising in him again. As hard as he tried to fight it down, it kept coming back on him. Seemed like it had crawled down in him and burrowed somewhere and he couldn't get it to leave.

The bartender came over and said, “You want something?”

Tig looked up and said, “No, why?”

“You was talking, saying something, I couldn't understand from down there. I thought maybe you was wanting another beer or something.”

Tig looked at his beer glass. It was half-empty, the shot glass still had some in it, too.

“No, I don't need no more—not yet anyways.”

The bartender nodded and slapped the bar rag over his shoulder, moved back down to the other end, and started talking with the men down there. Tig could see some of them looking his way.

Then one of the whores came up next to him on the opposite side and it startled him a bit to realize she was standing there. She was the one he knew they called the China Doll, small and dark with those mysterious eyes, and she said, “You buy me drink?”

Tig looked at her a long time, then said in a slurred way because of his missing teeth, “You want me to buy you a drink?”

She nodded her head.

“Yes. You buy me drink, okay. Maybe we have a good time you like.”

He pointed toward the bartender, who seemed to know already what was needed, and poured out a shot glass from one of the bottles lining the backbar and brought it down and set it in front of them.

“That's four bits,” he said.

“Four bits? Hell, that's what I paid for a whiskey and a beer.”

“The company's not exactly free, cowboy.”

Tig looked at the China Girl, then dug a silver dollar out of his jeans and dropped it on the oak.

The girl took the glass and held it up for him to touch with his beer glass and he did and she sipped some of the whiskey and said, “You want to have good time with me?”

“I don't think so,” he said. Normally he would have been all over the idea, but with his mouth sore and his feelings way down low, he didn't think he wanted to socialize with the whore.

Her face changed to a pout he couldn't be sure was sincere or not. He didn't know all that much about women, what they were really like. His experience had been limited to a few prostitutes and so he couldn't read them like he could horses. He felt foolish and uncertain with the way she was acting.

“Please,” she said.

He looked at her again.

“I got to get on,” he said.

“Where you go?”

“About as far away from this place as I can find.”

He saw her looking at his face, the hole in his mouth where his teeth had been. He held his hand up to his face in an attempt to hide it from her. She swallowed the last of the whiskey.

“You buy me another drink?”

“Ma'am, I got about enough money to get me maybe as far as Bismarck and after that I'll have to pick up some work till I can make it down to Texas or somewheres.”

“I have idea,” she said.

“Oh, and what would that be?”

“You come.” She took hold of his sleeve and tugged at
him and he reluctantly set his beer glass down and followed her toward the back and he could see some of the other men watching them, but he didn't care nothing about it.

They went down the hall he knew from before, when him and Nat would come in town together. He knew it was where the whores did their business because he and Nat had come back there with them when they had money in their pockets to buy a whore.

She led him into one of the rooms and closed the door behind her.

“Like I said, I ain't gone spend what little I have for a woman,” he said. He was trying his best to be courteous about it.

“I give it to you free,” she said.

“Free? Why would you do that?”

“I don't speak English so well,” she said.

“Hell, that's okay. You speak it well enough.”

“I have friend in jail. I need get her out.”

Tig shook his head.

“I don't see what that's got to do with me.”

“You help me get her out, I give it to you free.”

“Get her out. You mean, go her bail?”

“Help me get her out,” she repeated. “We trade.”

“You mean, bust her out of jail?”

The China Doll nodded and pointed at the revolver resting on Tig's hip in the leather holster.

“Well, shit, I ain't no lawbreaker,” he said. “I can't afford no more trouble than I got already. Can you understand that?”

She took his hand and placed it down the top of her dress and her breasts were warm and soft and, to tell the truth, he couldn't hardly stand touching her like that without wanting to keep on touching her. In spite of how
he'd been feeling, he was feeling a little something other than pain and misery, now that he was touching her. He'd felt so alone since Nat's death and since the torture Dallas and them laid on him, felt so alone he wanted mostly just to die. The warmth of her flesh against his hand nearly brought him to tears.

“You like me?” she said

“Yes,” he said, swallowing hard. “I like you.”

“You help me?”

“She over there alone in the jail, do you think?”

The China Girl shrugged.

“Maybe she alone.”

“This first, then that?”

“Yes. I give it to you, then you help me.”

She seemed to yield under his touch and slid the top of her dress completely down so that he could see her, so that his hands could touch her where they wanted to. His heart raced rapidly. She was beautiful and small and delicate as a prairie flower.

“I won't kill nobody for this,” he said as she pulled him over to the bed.

“No. You just help me get her free, okay.”

“Okay,” he said.

Then he waited while she undressed herself, then began to undress him.

“I do everything for you,” she said.

“Yes. You do everything for me,” he said.

And for a time nothing seemed to matter anymore.

Tig lay there feeling the ministrations of her body, her hands, her mouth. Even when she kissed him, her kiss was so tender that it felt more like a butterfly's wings touching his bruised mouth than a kiss. Her sex seemed to heal all the broken places inside him and it made him start to feel human and normal again.

He didn't know how long it went on. But finally they were finished with the first half of their bargain and she rose and dressed again and he watched her bone-smooth body disappearing into the dress and stockings. Tig watched as she pinned her thick long black hair up atop her head and took a rough old hat hanging on a peg and settled it down on her hair, tucking it up under.

“You help me now,” the China Doll said, and he rose and dressed without taking his eyes from her.

“I'd never disappoint you,” Tig said, feeling like maybe he could even be a little in love with her, knowing he'd do anything for her, even kill somebody if it came down to that. What did anything matter if you didn't feel right?

He put on his own hat and coat and she put on her coat, an overly large wool mackinaw and she looked nearly like a boy under that rough hat, except for the most delicate bones in her face.

“Can I kiss you again before we go out in that cold, ma'am?”

“Yes, you kiss me if you like.”

And she stood on tip toes for him to kiss her and when he had she said, “We go now, okay.”

She led him out the back way, instead of them going out through the bar again. He figured he knew why: They were gone bust somebody from jail and it wouldn't be wise to have half the men in town see them going to do it together.

They stepped out into the night and the cold air nearly took their breath away, even while their bodies were still warm and damp from their spent passion. The cold especially hurt his mouth and he flinched until he got used to it and they crossed over the street, trudging through the crusted snow, and went down toward the jail.

It was a lonely sound, them walking through the
crusty snow, and when they arrived at the jail they saw it was dark inside. Tig tried the door, found it to be locked.

“I'm gone have to bust a window to unlock it,” he said.

The China Doll didn't say anything. He could see she was shivering.

“Well, here goes.” He took the butt of his revolver and tapped it against the pane of glass in the door, then reached in and slid back the bolt from the inside and swung the door open. They stepped in.

There was enough moonlight to barely see by and Tig banged his knee on the edge of a desk and it hurt almost as bad as his mouth.

“Who's there?” a woman's voice said.

“Sue, Sue!” the China Doll said.

“That you, Narcissa?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, honey,” she said. “Come here.”

“Where they keep the keys?” Tig asked.

“Who's that with you, Narcissa?”

“He help get you out,” the China Doll said. “He very nice.”

“Keeps 'em in the desk drawer—top-right-hand side,” Sue said.

Tig pulled open the door and found a key and went to the cell and unlocked it and the other woman rushed out and threw her arms around the China Doll and Tig didn't know quite what to do at the sight of it because it looked like they were more than just good friends when the woman kissed the China Doll on the mouth for what seemed like a long time. He stood there somewhat dumbly, waiting for somebody to suggest something, and when they went on kissing and hugging, he said, “Might be best if we was to just go on and get out of here.”

The woman turned to him and said, “So you're Narcissa's friend.”

“Yes ma'am, I reckon I am.”

“How nice,” she said, moving against him.

“Lord,” he said when she put her arms around him and drew him close and began nibbling on his ear. “Lord.”

Then he felt it—the hardness of something pressing into his belly—and looked down and saw she had his pistol pulled out of its holster and shoved up against him and heard her cock it back and it sounded like metal levers being shifted.

“Get on in there, sweet thing,” she said.

He stepped back and she prodded him inside the jail cell like you might nudge a cow to go into a holding pen, then she closed the door and the China Doll locked it with the key.

“Sorry,” the China Doll said. Her apology seemed sincere.

“Hell, not as sorry as me,” Tig said.

He watched them go out together and close the door with the busted window pane behind them, then they were gone and he was alone.

He stood there feeling helpless, but worse than that, feeling foolish for having allowed himself to believe even for a minute that he and the China Doll had something going together—that she liked him somehow, when all she really wanted was to use him to bust her girlfriend out of the jail. He wondered if it had all been worth it.

He went and sat on the cot and drew the blanket that was there up around his shoulders. It had the woman's perfumed scent on it. It was the same scent as was on the China Doll and it caused him to feel even sorrier still.

“Hell,” he said. “Hell…”

Later Gus came in rubbing his hands and not bothering to light a lamp, drunk and singing something low under his breath.

Then Gus said, “Sue, I decided to take you up on that offer.” Tig replied, “Let me out of this damn cage.”

Gus went back there, peered in, and said, “You ain't Sue.”

Tig said, “You're damn right I ain't.”

Gus was confused.

“How the hell!”

“Let me out,” Tig demanded.

Gus found the key tossed in the corner and unlocked the door and Tig went out in a hurry and Gus stood there, still trying to figure out how things got so switched around. Nothing made sense anymore.
I better just stop drinking and get right and go on home to my old woman and see will she take me in or will she won't
. Then he lay down on the bunk and fell asleep.