Turnback Creek (Widowmaker) (10 page)

L
ocke and Cooper left the train station after checking with the clerk to see if he had any further news on the train.

“Last I heard, they thought they were gonna be able to fix the engine,” said Fred Dooley, the clerk. “She should be here late tomorrow.”

“Late?”

“That’s right.”

“Two more nights in the hotel,” Locke said to Cooper as they walked away from the station.

“Goddamnit!” Cooper said. “We’re gonna be sittin’ targets if we can’t leave as soon as the gold gets here.”

“We’ll have to stay up with it all night,” Locke said. “Sleep in the buckboard, and take turns standing watch. We’ll need an enclosed space.”

“The livery.”

“Right,” Locke said. “Let’s go over there. Maybe we can rent a space and find a messenger at the same time.”

When they reached the livery, they found a man mucking out the stalls by himself.

“Help ya?” He was a large man, heavy through the shoulders and chest, about forty or so. He put the harmless end of his pitchfork on the ground and faced them.

“My name is Dale Cooper, and this is John Locke,” Cooper started. “We’re here from—”

“The Shillstone mine,” the man said. “You’re here to pick up the payroll from the train, right?”

“Does everyone know about the payroll?” Locke asked.

“Just about,” the man said. “My name’s Ed Milty. What can I do for you fellas?”

“We need two things,” Locke said, and went on to explain just what they were.

“Well, you can rent the whole place overnight if you want,” Milty said. “I’d be closed anyway. As for the messenger, my boy can do it.”

“How old is he?”

“Sixteen.”

“You trust him to ride to Turnback Creek?” Locke asked.

“He’s done it before,” Milty said. “He’s a good kid, responsible. You can trust him to deliver your message.”

“What’s his name?” Cooper asked.

“Frank.”

“We’re at the Gold Nugget Hotel,” Locke said. “Have him come over there. We’ll be sitting out front.”

“You got it,” Milty said. “He’ll be over in about ten minutes.”

“Now,” Locke said, “about the cost of renting this place for the night …”

Frank Milty turned out to be a big sixteen-year-old who, when he filled out, would obviously be built like his father. By the time he got to the hotel, where Locke and Cooper were sitting out front, they had written out a note for him to deliver.

“Do you know where the Shillstone mine office is?” Locke asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Deliver this to a man named George Crowell, and wait for an answer,” Cooper said, handing the boy the note.

“Don’t fool around over there, boy,” Locke said. “Come right back, and there’s another two dollars in it for you.” Locke handed the boy two dollars.

“Yes, sir!”

The boy went running off to get his horse.

“Two dollars?” Cooper asked. “I was gonna give him two bits.”

“I’m a bigger spender than you are.”

“Obviously.”

Locke took his hat, smoothed his hair back, and replaced the hat. He sat back in his chair so that the back was against the wall and the front legs were just up off the boardwalk.

“So, what do we do now?” Cooper asked.

“We wait.”

“Be easier to wait with a drink.”

“Just one?”

Cooper rubbed his face vigorously. “No,” he said. “One wouldn’t do it.”

“There must be some other way to occupy your time in this town,” Locke said.

“Like what?”

“Is whiskey the only thing you like?” Locke asked. “What about women?”

“At my age?”

“Jesus,” Locke said. “You’re not dead, Coop. Go over to the local cathouse, pick out a young pretty whore, and see what you can do.”

Cooper sat there for a few moments, thinking it over, then said, “Goddamnit, you’re right. Why not? I’ll do it.” He stood up. “You comin’ along?”

“I’m happy just sitting right here and relaxing,” Locke said. “This might be the last chance I get.”

“I’ll be back,” Cooper said, “hopefully later than sooner.”

Locke hoped it would be later, too.

P
retty Polly’s was the local whorehouse. Polly Kennelly ran it, and she was anything but. In her younger days, she had been very pretty, but those days were gone. She was thirty years and sixty pounds from ever being Pretty Polly again.

She had some pretty girls in her house, though, all shapes and sizes and colors.

“What’s your pleasure?” she asked Bob Bailey. He’d decided to while away some time with a whore, since the train wasn’t going to be coming in for a day or so. Playing poker for matchsticks wasn’t his idea of a good time.

“Black?” Polly asked. “Yellow? Skinny, fat? I got ’em all. You won’t find a better selection of girls at the best whorehouse in San Francisco.”

Bailey didn’t know about that. He’d never been to San Francisco, but he hoped to get there after they grabbed this second payroll.

The girls were lined up in front of him, and he spotted one he liked. He’d never been with a Chinese gal before. This one was petite, but he could see the dark circles of her nipples through the filmy nightie she was wearing.

“The Chinee,” he said.

“Ah, good choice,” Polly said. “That’s Lotus. She knows things none of the other girls know. Brought them over with her from the Orient.”

Bailey didn’t care where she came from.

“Lotus, would you take the nice gentleman up to your room, and please show him a good time?”

The girl approached him and took his hand in her tiny one. She barely came to his shoulder, and when she smiled up at him, he felt it in his loins.

“You come,” she said, tugging his hand. “I make you vellee hoppy.”

Polly watched them go up the stairs. She knew that the phony accent Lotus used got to a lot of men, and this one seemed no different.

Twenty minutes later, Dale Cooper walked in, and Polly greeted him with the same patter.

Black?

Yellow?

Fat?

Skinny?

Blond?

Brunet?

Young?

Old?

She got through the entire list before Cooper pointed to a girl.

“That one.”

She was blond, in her thirties, older than the others. Cooper decided he would have felt silly picking one of the young ones.

“Ah,” Polly said. “The one thing I didn’t ask about—experience. Yes, Jill is one of our most experienced girls. She knows things none of the others know. Jill, would you take the gentleman up to your room and show him a good time, please?”

“Of course,” Jill said, coming forward and taking Cooper’s hand. She had large, round breasts, and Cooper could plainly see them through her gauzy top. She was not as slender as most of the other girls, but that worked in her favor, as far as Cooper was concerned. He liked women with some extra flesh on them.

As she led the way up the stairs, he smelled her perfume and watched her fleshy buttocks twitch in front of him and was happy to feel something stirring. Apparently, his friend John Locke was right. He wasn’t dead.

Lotus took Bob Bailey to room number three. After they entered, she said, “Put money on the dresser, prease?”

Bailey dug the bills out of his pocket and put them on the table, all crumpled.

“Now you sit,” she said. “I wash.”

He thought she meant she was going to wash herself, but she took off his shoes and his trousers and his underwear wear and proceeded to use a wash cloth and basin to wash him. By the time she was done, he was erect and almost ready to pop.

“You very big,” she said, stroking him.

“Jesus,” he said, and closed his eyes …

Jill took Dale Cooper to room number four.

“Could you please put the money on the table?” she asked. “I like to get that out of the way first.”

“Sure,” he said.

He took the bills from his pocket, smoothed them out, and put them on the dresser.

“Now, if you’ll remove your clothes, I can wash you,” she said. “We like to make sure our customers are clean.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, “I understand.”

He pulled off his boots, then stood up to remove his trousers and long underwear, almost tripping in the process.

“Hey,” she said, bringing a basin of water and a cloth over to the bed. “Are you nervous, handsome?”

“A little,” he admitted, sitting on the bed.

“Don’t be,” she said, getting on her knees in front of him. “Everything will be fine.”

She used the cloth to wash him, and by the time she was done, he was happy to see that he was still capable.

“Now,” she said, sitting back on her heels and letting her nightie fall from her shoulders. Her breasts were big and firm, with pale, smooth skin and pink nipples. “What would you like? Do you like French, or would you prefer straight fucking?”

“Uh, I’m not sure what that means, French,” he admitted.

“Well,” she said, leaning forward and sliding her hands up his thighs, “let me show you …”

“Is okay,” Lotus said to an embarrassed Bob Bailey. “It happens to many men.”

Bailey was getting dressed and was inconsolable. He hadn’t even gotten the Chinese girl on the bed. He was convinced that she’d teased him with the washing and had gotten him to the point where he couldn’t stop himself. His embarrassment was quickly turning to anger.

“Just forget it,” he snapped.

“Come, you stay,” she said, reaching for him. “Next time, you last longer, I promise.”

“Ain’t gonna be a next time,” he said. “Not with you.” He walked to the dresser and grabbed his money.

“Hey,” she said, dropping her accent. “My money!”

He glared at her and said, “You talk real English!”

“You can’t take my money!”

“I oughta take some of your hide, girl,” he said. “Yer nothin’ but a damn tease.”

“Hey,” she said. “You got your nut—don’t you hit me!”

She shrank back from him.

“I ain’t gonna waste no time hittin’ you,” he said, stuffing his money back into his pocket.

But as he turned to head for the door, she overcame her fear and gave in to her own anger at losing her money and jumped on his back.

“Bitch!” he shouted. He tried to get her off, and when he couldn’t, he rushed backward until he slammed her into the wall between rooms three and four.

Cooper was right in the middle of learning what French meant when there was a loud thud on the wall, and then a woman began screaming for help.

“What the—” he said.

Jill released him and said, “That’s Lotus’s room.”

The screaming and banging were becoming more and more intense, until it sounded as if they were going to crash through the wall.

“Somebody’s gotta help her!” Jill said, jumping to her feet and running for the door.

“Damn!” Cooper said. The place must have had a bouncer, but it might take him time to get up the stairs. His long johns were pooled at his feet, so he pulled them on, grabbed his gun, and ran out the door after Jill.

L
ocke saw the lawman walking purposefully toward the hotel and wondered if he was once again coming to see him.

“You wanna come with me?” Sheriff Maddox asked.

“Why?”

“When I told you boys to stay out of trouble, I thought it would be you I’d have to deal with.”

Locke stood up. “What are you talking about?”

“Your partner got himself into trouble over at Pretty Polly’s,” Maddox said. “Our local cathouse.”

“Where is he now?”

“In a cell. You comin’?”

Locke stepped down off the boardwalk and followed the sheriff to his office.

“You ever heard of French?” Cooper asked.

“What?”

“You know,” Cooper said. “French.”

“You mean, like … the language?”

“No,” Cooper said. “I mean what a whore does to you. They call it French, or Frenchin’.”

“No, Coop,” Locke said. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“You should try it,” Cooper said. “It’s really nice.”

“Is that what this is about?” Locke asked him through the bars. “Some whore Frenching you?”

“No,” Cooper said. “It’s about what happened that interrupted her while she was … doin’ it to me.”

“I guess you’re gonna have to explain this to me.”

At that moment, though, Sheriff Maddox came walking into the cell block with his keys.

“You’re free to go, Cooper.”

“What?” Locke asked.

He stepped back from the cell so Maddox could unlock the door. They both followed him into his office, where he laid Cooper’s hat and gun and gun belt on his desk.

“Polly ain’t pressin’ charges, and neither is the man you cold-cocked. In fact, Polly says to tell you that you got a freebie comin’.”

“Damn right, I should have,” Cooper said, collecting his belongings, “since I didn’t even get what I paid for.”

“Who did he cold-cock?”

“Some cowboy who was havin’ a dispute with his whore.”

“Don’t they have bouncers for that?” Locke asked, looking at Cooper.

“Sure they do, but my whore went runnin’ out the door,” he said. “I didn’t want nothin’ to happen to her.”

“So, what did happen?”

“I followed her into the next room and found her and the other whore both strugglin’ with this cowboy.”

“So?”

“So, I clubbed him with the butt of my gun. He went down, and somebody called the sheriff.”

“That sounds about right,” Maddox said.

“Then what was he doing in a locked cell in the first place?” Locke demanded.

“I had to get the story straight,” Maddox argued. “It didn’t do him no harm to spend an hour in a cell.”

“And where’s the other fella?” Locke asked.

“He was at the doc’s. Cooper here opened up his skull some.”

“He was tryin’ to get out of the whorehouse without payin’,” Cooper said. “He was gonna hurt that girl.”

“That wasn’t your affair, Cooper,” Maddox said. “You ain’t a lawman anymore.”

Cooper grumbled and strapped on his gun.

“Come on, Coop,” Locke said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Down the street, Hoke Benson was leaving the doctor’s office with Bob Bailey.

“I can’t let you go anywhere without getting into trouble, can I?” he demanded.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Bailey whined. “That marshal clubbed me when I wasn’t lookin’. Why are you makin’ me drop the charges?”

“Because, moron,” Hoke said, “we need that marshal to be out of jail to collect the gold.”

“Well, with him in jail, Locke would have to get it himself, wouldn’t he?” Bailey asked.

“No,” Hoke said. “He’d get some help, somebody younger and in better shape than that old man. Jesus, it’s a good thing we don’t depend on you for any thinkin’!”

Hoke tapped Bailey’s head, and the man cried out. His hat was sitting funny on top of the bandage the doctor had applied after stitching him up.

“Jesus,” Hoke said. “You’re too stupid for words, Bob. Come on.”

“Where?”

“Back to the saloon, where at least I can keep an eye on you.”

On their way to the saloon, they saw Locke and Cooper coming out of the sheriff’s office.

“Don’t even look across the street,” Hoke warned Bailey. “I don’t want them getting a good look at us.”

Despite the warning, Bailey tossed a glare across at Dale Cooper, who returned it in kind.

“Aren’t those two of the men who were playing poker for matchsticks in Lucky Lil’s?” Locke asked.

“Huh?”

“Coop!”

Cooper pulled his gaze away from the man across the street and looked at Locke.

“The matchstick poker game,” Locke said again. “Is that them?”

“I think so,” Cooper said. “What if it is?”

“I don’t know,” Locke said. “They just seem to be sitting around killing time.”

“Like we are?” Cooper asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Locke said. “Just like we are.”