Whippoorwill (25 page)

“By God, Parson. We did it. Before you know it, there’ll be a real preacher-man sayin’ sweet words over your stinkin’ hide.”

He could almost hear Parson saying,
Cursing is the handiwork of the devil.

He sighed and kicked his horse forward, confident that Parson wasn’t far behind.

***

Letty was out on the balcony, enjoying her evening ritual when she saw the rider on the hill, but thought nothing of it. Once word had gotten around that a preacher was coming to Lizard Flats, it had brought all kind of newcomers into town for the event.

Even though the sun was almost gone, the heat of the day still lingered. She lifted the weight of her hair from her neck while wishing for a breeze or maybe a good rain. But it was August, and rain came rarely to the territory this time of year. A loud shout sounded from the hilltop where the brush arbor was going up. She turned and frowned, wishing she could tell them to be quiet. How was she to ever hear her whippoorwill call with all that noise?

Then Will the Bartender walked off the sidewalk in front of the White Dove and turned around and looked up at the balcony.

“Letty! Are you comin down?”

She rolled her eyes and then leaned over the railing.

“Don’t I always?”

Will smoothed his hands down the front of his apron and hurried back into the bar. Ever since Letty had heard about the wedding, she’d been acting like a bear. He didn’t know whether to scold her or ignore her. Instinct warned him to give her some space. Still, his clientele demanded more than a fair game of cards and some drinks. He just hoped she hurried on down before someone got antsy and started a fight in lieu of a good bedding. He couldn’t afford any more broken chairs and glasses.

While Will was worrying about the cost of running his business, Letty was staring at the rider who’d been on the hill. He was a wooly-looking old man and looked familiar, but then all men looked familiar to her and with reason. She leaned over the railing, watching as he passed by, wrinkling her nose as she smelled something foul. People began calling out to the man as he passed, yelling at him to get rid of the stink, but he kept on riding and didn’t stop until he reached the livery.

When he got off his horse, she saw he walked with a limp. He untied the horse he’d been leading then spoke briefly with the man at the stable, then left his own horse and led the other one with the travois away.

It wasn’t until later that night when he came into the White Dove that she learned who he was and why he’d come. After he’d walked out she’d excused herself on the pretext of using the chamber pot when in reality she’d wanted to cry, but not because an old man was dead. Life was hard out here. People died every day. There would be another grave for Eulis to dig and another body for someone to pray over. What had undone her was the affection in the old trapper’s voice as he’d spoken of his promise to find a preacher to bury his friend. Unless something changed in her life, there wasn’t a person on this earth who would care if she was dead.

As she was passing an open window next to the stairs, she felt a shift in the air. She paused to enjoy the brief breeze, and as she did, heard the whippoorwill call that she’d waited all day to hear. Her voice was low as she stood in a posture of abject misery.

“Yes, Mama, I hear it, but it doesn’t call for me.”

***

Dust boiled beneath Eulis’s feet as he trudged up the hill at the south edge of town. Makeshift crosses lined the horizon, markers for the dozens of people who’d gone before him. He shifted the shovel he was carrying from his right shoulder to his left and pulled his hat down a little farther over his forehead. The sun was hot, the wind brisk. When he breathed, he got dust up his nose for the trouble. He thought about that watering trough down at the livery. The dunking when he’d been anted by them kids hadn’t been all that bad. In fact, he could do with another one right about now, but baths weren’t on his social calendar. He didn’t know why he was thinking so hard on them now. Maybe it was because he’d rather do anything than dig another grave.

Word had gotten around that the preacher was due any day and Eulis was stuck with the job of gravedigger, just like that molasses had been stuck in his hair. Added to that, the trapper who had brought his dead partner into town was now in need of a hole in which to plant him. As he topped the hill, he paused at the first set of markers.

FRANK SMITH

DOLLY SMITH

Husband and wife, as he remembered. He frowned at the place where Dolly Smith lay. He’d passed out in that hole right after it was dug and dang near drowned before he came to. It wasn’t often that thunderstorms came to Lizard Flats. But when they did, they caused a good deal of trouble. Eulis was real careful now about getting drunk when it stormed. If he was going to die, he wanted to drown in his sorrows, not the rain.

He moved to the next marker, squinting to read the inscription, although he knew it by heart.

Yankee Dan.

He frowned. It was a shame they hadn’t known the name he’d been given at birth.

He moved on past the fresh mound of dirt and the scrawny gambler that they’d buried yesterday. No one had known his name. They’d put a cross at his grave and someone had dropped a deck of cards in the grave before he’d covered him up. It was the best they could do.

He didn’t dwell on the fact that the man now lay in an unmarked grave. The way he figured, he’d brought his demise upon himself. For now, Eulis had a job to do and he needed new ground.

He paused at the marker bearing the name of James Dupree and noticed a small bunch of withered wildflowers had been laid near the cross. He knew where they’d come from. Poor Letty. She was taking his dying real hard. As he passed, he gave the unsettled mound of dirt a quick tap with his shovel.

A few minutes later, he’d located an empty spot and began scooping out the dirt and piling it off to the side. Eulis was worthless when it came to most things, but he did dig a good hole.

Neat.

Deep.

Like the farmer his father had been, he was preparing the soil for planting. And like the fields they’d once planted, this ground, too, would be barren. Nothing to raise here but the occasional ghost.

He dug and he dug while the whiskey-stained sweat soaked his body and clothes. The sun was near setting by the time he had finished. He stabbed the shovel into the ground and started back down the hill toward Lizard Flats. Will the Bartender would likely have some stew done by now. Eulis’s belly growled. He stuck his finger in his pocket—still sticky from that dose of molasses. He licked it a bit, just to test. The sweetness that came was faint, but it was enough to remember, one more time, those cookies his momma used to make.

***

Will was sweeping the floor. Letty Murphy had gone upstairs with a man who only had one eye. But Eulis figured it didn’t matter how many eyes a man had, as long as his pecker stayed hard. As for Eulis, his pecker was too whiskey-soaked to do him much good any more. He didn’t really mind all that much. The glow he got from a good bottle of booze lasted a hell of a lot longer than a dollar a poke on a whore.

“Hey, Eulis,” Will the Bartender yelled. “If you think you’re gonna still get your drinks, you’re gonna have to help me clean up.”

Eulis groaned. It wasn’t that he objected to the work. But his legs were of one mind, his convictions of another.

“I’d be glad to,” he said. “Only I ain’t so sure I can stand.”

Will the Bartender slid his broom across the floor. It came to a halt a couple of inches from Eulis’s face.

“You’ll figure somethin’ out,” Will said.

So Eulis did.

Upstairs, the one-eyed man suddenly let out a whoop.

Eulis paused in mid-sweep.

Will the Bartender nodded his head and reached for another glass to dry, thankful that while Letty now refused to sing, she was still willing to give the men a poke.

“That Letty… she sure knows her business.”

Eulis thought about it some. “Yeah, I reckon she does,” he agreed and stirred up a little more dust.

A short while later the one-eyed man came downstairs. He was grinning from ear to ear and there was a swagger to his step that hadn’t been there before.

“Drinks all around,” the man said.

Will the Bartender glared. “Ain’t no one here but me and Eulis,” he muttered.

But Eulis was already bellied up to the bar and waiting for his drink to be poured. His hands were shaking as he reached for the glass. He toasted the one-eyed man and then downed it neat. It burned all the way and brought tears to his eyes. At that point, he remembered he’d been meaning to talk to old Will about the quality of his drink.

“Have another!” the one-eyed man said.

Eulis shoved his glass forward. And he would talk to old Will for sure. As soon as he finished this one last swig.

“Right kind of you, mister,” Eulis said.

The one-eyed man nodded magnanimously, finished off his own drink then sauntered out of the saloon. Eulis’s gaze was locked on the bottle in the bartender’s hands.

“Gonna cork ’er up?” he asked.

Will frowned and poured Eulis one last drink. “This is all for tonight, you hear me?”

Eulis nodded and drained the shot glass in one gulp.

“I better not come back here tomorrow and find out you been into my stuff,” Will warned.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Eulis said. “I ain’t no thief.”

Before Will could respond, footsteps sounded on the stairs behind them. Both men looked up. It was Letty, coming back to join the ranks.

She’d overheard the last bit of Eulis’s remark and was wearing a smirk on her face. She was pissed because the one-eyed man had insisted on having his poke with his boots still on. Letty accepted her lot in life, but she had her rules. To her, there was something crude about a man who got his pleasures without taking off his shoes. And because she was pissed, she took her anger out on Eulis, instead of herself.

“That’s right, Eulis Potter. You’re no thief. But you’re damn sure the biggest drunk I ever seen.”

Owl-eyed by the liquor fogging his brain, Eulis managed to frown.

“I ain’t never denied my lot in life, Miss Letty. It might behoove you to do the same.”

Both Will the Bartender and Letty stared at Eulis as if he’d just grown horns.

Will whooped. “Behoove? Where did you come up with a big word like that?”

Eulis swayed, then gripped the broom handle harder to steady himself. The room was beginning to tilt. Letty’s face was starting to melt in the middle, like it did about this time every night.

“There’s things about me you don’t know,” he muttered. “Now if you will ’scuse me. I think I am goin’ to sleep.”

The broom clattered to the floor. Eulis staggered toward the back room, leaving the pair alone.

“You hurt his feelings,” Will said.

Letty shrugged. “He ain’t got any feelings, and if he does, I warrant they’re as numb as his lips.”

And then, because she felt guilty for taking her frustrations out on an innocent man, she poured herself a drink and downed it like medicine.

“I’m goin’ to bed,” she said. “I heard tell that preacher man is due in tomorrow. I want to be lookin’ my best when he comes.”

Will snorted. “That preacher ain’t goin’ to be messin’ with the likes of you.” Then he added. “No offense, Letty. Just facts.”

She shrugged. “None taken. But you still never know.”

She sauntered back up the stairs, her skirt tail swishing and her bosom bouncing with every step that she took.

Will tossed his towel aside and hung his apron on a nail. At the door, he stopped and turned, giving the room one last look. Eulis still hadn’t finished sweeping and there was a table in the back that had yet to be wiped down. But tomorrow was another day. And like Eulis, he was ready for sleep.

He closed the doors behind him and walked across the street to the livery. A few minutes later, the steady clop, clop sound of a shod horse could be heard as he rode toward his house at the north end of town.

Upstairs, Letty stood at the window, watching as the lights came on in the scattering of houses. Down on the flats at the south edge of town, a single candle burned. She frowned.

That would be Matt Goslin’s place. He was as stingy with himself as he was everyone else, choosing to eat by the light of one candle, rather than a lamplight like everyone else. She folded her arms across her breasts and leaned against the sill. The only thing Matt didn’t short himself on was his manly pleasures. Truly Fine had serviced him on a regular basis until she’d left town. After that, Letty had been stuck with him. It was enough to make her consider upping her rates. Except for Eulis, Matt Goslin needed a bath worse than any other man in Lizard Flats.

Her gaze slid from Matt’s candle-lit window to the small one-room shanty at the other end of town. For its size, it was lit up like a church. Letty grinned, thinking of the Dumas family and their three little boys. They were devils for sure, but they did make her laugh. Their latest stunt was still the talk of the town. Anting Eulis while he was passed out drunk had been a good one. It was something she might have done when she was a kid.

At the thought, her smile froze and then died. When she was a kid, if she’d had a jug of molasses, it wouldn’t have been wasted on a passed-out drunk. There’d been too many nights in her life when she had gone to bed too hungry to waste food on a prank.

Angry with herself for letting go of such feelings, she thrust her hands into her hair and started taking out the pins, yanking and pulling until they were gone and her hair was a jumble around her face. She didn’t want to think about her childhood. She couldn’t bear to remember how her mother had looked all laid out in that box, or how the Indians had peeled her father’s scalp from his head. She reached for the brush and started dragging it through her hair. As she did, she closed her eyes, remembering, when she was small, how her daddy used to love to do this for her. When the Indians took Daddy’s hair, they had taken the rest of her childhood, as well.

She sighed and took off her dress. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Not anymore. She’d gotten where she was by her wits, her willingness to let men think they were perfect, and would not offer an apology for either. She thought of Jim and a pain twisted in her chest. At least she was alive, which was more than she could say for some.