the street. Each was shaded by a dark blue curtain. All the windows were open and the curtains billowed in the light morning breeze.
Already the breeze was turning warm. It was August in East Texas, and save for the wee-morning hours, and an occasional night breeze, it was hot as a bitch dog in heat, sticky as molasses.
The Reverend took a dusty handkerchief out of his inside coat pocket and wiped his face.
He removed his hat and wiped his thick, black, oily hair with it. He put the handkerchief away, his hat on, stretched his saddle-worn back, and went inside the hotel.
A man with a belly like that of a foundered horse, snoozed behind the register desk.
Sweat balled on his face and streamed down it in dusty rivulets. A fly buzzed and tried to land on the snoozing man's nose, but could get no braking. It tried again—circled and found a perch on the fat man's forehead.
The Reverend bounced his palm on the desk bell.
The man popped out of his slumber with a start, sent the fly buzzing away with a wave of his hand. He licked his sweaty lips with his tongue.
'Jack Montclaire, at your service,' he said.
'I would like a room.'
'Rooms are our business.' He turned the register book around. 'If you'll just sign in.'
As the Reverend signed. 'You caught me sleeping. It's the heat.... Uh, six bits a night, clean sheets every three days.... If you stay three days.'
'I'll stay at least three days. Meals extra?'
'Would be if I served them. You'll have to eat over to the cafe.' Hoping against it,
'Bags?'
The Reverend patted his saddlebags, then counted out six bits into Montclaire's hand.
'Much obliged,' Montclaire said. 'Room thirteen, top of the stairs to the left. Enjoy your stay.'
Montclaire turned the register book around, moved his lips over the Reverend's name.
'Reverend Jebidiah Mercer?'
The Reverend turned around. 'Yes?'
'You're a preacher?'
'That is correct.'
'Ain't never seen no preacher that carries a gun before.'
'Now you have.'
'I mean, a man of the Holy Word and peace and all....'
'Who ever said keeping the law of the Lord is peaceable work? The devil brings a sword, and I bring a sword back to him. It is the will of the Lord and I am his servant.'
'I suppose.'
'No supposing about it.'
Montclaire looked into the red-rimmed, killer-blue eyes of the Reverend and trembled.
'Yes sir. I wasn't trying to tell you your business.'
'You could not.'
The Reverend went upstairs to leave Montclaire staring at his back.
'Sanctimonious sonofabitch,' Montclaire said under his breath.
IV
Up in room thirteen, the Reverend sat on the sagging bed to test it. It would not be comfortable. He got up and went over to the washbasin, removed his hat, washed his face and then his hands. He was tedious with his hands, as if there were stains on them visible only to him. He dried meticulously, went over to the window to look out.
Pushing a curtain aside, he examined the street and the buildings across the way. He could hear hammering coming from Rhine's blacksmith shop, and below a wagon creaked by with squeaky wheels. Out in the distance, just at the edge of town, he could hear faintly the noises of chickens and cows. Just a pleasant little farming community.
Voices began to buzz in the street as more and more people moved about.
A team of mules in harness was being giddyupped down the street—their owner walking behind them— directing them out of town toward a field.
Seeing the mules sent the Reverend's thoughts back twenty years, back to when he was a ragtail kid, not too unlike David at Rhine's livery. A kid dressed in overalls, walking behind his minister father as he plowed a big team of mules, cutting tiny grooves into a great big world.
The Reverend tossed his saddlebags on the bed. He took off his coat, slapped dust from it, and draped it over a chair. He sat down on the edge of the bed, opened one of the bags, and removed a cloth-wrapped package.
He unwrapped the whisky bottle, bit the cork out, and put it and the cloth on the chair.
Next he stretched out on the bed, his head cushioned by a pillow. He began slowly tilting the whisky, and as he did, he saw a spider on the ceiling. It was tracing its way across the room, supported on a snow-white strand that connected with other strands in a corner of the room, twisted and interlocked like the tedious weaving of the mythical fates.
A muscle in his right cheek jumped.
He switched the bottle to his left hand, and his right-hardly aware of the desire of his brain—quick-drew his revolver and calmly shot the spider into oblivion.
V
Montclaire was beating on the door.
Plaster rained down from the ceiling and fell on the Reverend's impassive face.
The Reverend got up, opened the door as he stuck the Navy back in his sash. 'You okay, Reverend?' Montclaire said.
The Reverend leaned against the doorjamb. 'A spider. The devil's own creatures. I cannot abide them.'
'A spider? You shot a spider?'
The Reverend nodded.
Montclaire moved closer to the doorway for a look inside. The sun was lancing through a slit in the curtains, catching the drifting plaster in its rays. It looked like a fine snow. He looked at the hole in the ceiling. There were legs around the hole. The bullet had punched the big spider dead center and the legs had stuck to the ceiling, glued there by spider juice.
Before pulling his head out, Montclaire saw the whisky bottle setting beside the bed.
'You got him, I hope,' Montclaire said sarcastically.
'Right between the eyes.'
'Now look here. Preacher or not, I can't have people shooting up my hotel. I run a nice respectable place here....'
'It's an outhouse and you know it. You should pay me to stay here.'
Montclaire opened his mouth, but something on the Reverend's face held him.
The Reverend reached into his pocket and took out a fist full of bills. 'Here's a dollar for the spider. Five for the hole.'
'Well sir, I don't know...'
'That's respectable spider bounty, Montclaire, and it's my head beneath the hole if it rains.'
'That's true,' Montclaire said. 'But I run a respectable hotel here, and I should be compensated for....'
'Take it or leave it, windbag.'
Looking indignant about it, but not too indignant, Montclaire held out his hand. The Reverend put the promised bills there.
'I suppose that is fair enough, Reverend. But remember my customers pay for peace and quiet as well as lodging and....'
The Reverend stepped back into the room and took hold of the door.
'Then give us some peace and quiet.' He slammed the door in Montclaire's face.
Montclaire took his money and went downstairs, thinking of better things to do with it than repair a hole in the ceiling of room thirteen.
