recalled that Madame Scull was said to go after the Captain with a bullwhip, when in a temper. Now here was another wife who whipped her husband--it struck him as strange. Though he and Maggie were not married, he could not imagine her behaving so.
'Well, at least it's just a buggy whip,' he said.
None of the black men said anything.
'Get up, Monsieur. Make the liquors. The customer is here!' Th@er@ese Wanz said, flinging each ^w at her husband as if it were a small stone. Xavier Wanz, her husband, seemed to be thinking thoughts of his own; he continued to sit at the table with the white tablecloth, staring at his glass.
Th@er@ese, in only a few moments in her tent, had managed to sweep her abundant brown hair up on her head in an appealing mound; the gown she wore did not quite conceal her plump shoulders. Augustus McCrae, who had not expected to see a woman, much less an attractive woman, for several years, if ever, found that the sight of Th@er@ese brought an immediate improvement in his mood.
She stood in the middle of the barroom floor, hands on her hips, looking at the rangers cheerfully.
'See, already the customers,' she said to Xavier. 'Vite! Vite! Make the liquors.' Xavier Wanz compressed his lips, and then, as if propelled by a spasm of fury, jumped from his chair and strode over to the tent, beside which a sizable mound of goods was covered by a large wagon sheet.
Xavier dove under the sheet like a rat seeking cover; for a moment, only his rump was visible, but, in the space of a minute, he emerged with two bottles of whiskey and several glasses. He hurried to the bar, set the bottles and glasses on it, and paused to straighten his cuffso.
'Messieurs,' he said, bowing slightly, 'the pleasures are mine.' 'If the bar's open I expect a few of those pleasures might be ours, too,' Gus said.
Pea Eye declined the liquor and Deets wasn't offered any, but in a few minutes the other rangers, including young Jake Spoon, were all seated around the table where Xavier had sat.
At Th@er@ese's strident urging Xavier had applied himself again to the mound under the wagon seat and come out with several chairs.
'These glasses are clean,' Gus said, in astonishment. 'You could spend a week in the saloons of Austin and never encounter a clean glass.' As soon as each glass was emptied, a process that didn't take long, Xavier appeared with a bottle, poured, and bowed.
'Monsieur,' he said, invariably.
Ikey Ripple, who had passed easily and quickly into a state of profound inebriation, found himself a little put off by the bowing.
'Why's he bowing to us?' Ikey asked.
'To be polite--why shouldn't he bow?' Augustus asked.
'That's right, a bartender ought to bow,' Lee Hitch said--alth, so far as he could remember, none of the bartenders of his acquaintance had ever bothered to bow to him before.
'I say it's a goddamn trick,' Ikey declared. 'I think he means to get us drunk and steal all our money.' 'Ikey, if you've got cash money on you, you don't need to wait for a Frenchman to steal it,' Gus said. 'Loan it to me and I'll invest it for you.' 'Invest it in whores--t's all you know about, Gus,' Ikey said.
'Well, that way you wouldn't have to be anxious about it,' Gus told him.
Th@er@ese Wanz, a smile on her lips, seemed to be studying the rangers closely. Pea Eye had elected to help Deets with the horses, but Jake Spoon had boldly taken his place at the table and was drinking whiskey as if he had a right to, a fact that annoyed Gus McCrae a good deal. Even more annoying was the fact that the Frenchwoman was looking at Jake with interest.
'Jake, you ought to be helping with the horses,' Gus said, in an irritable tone.
Jake knew well that when Gus was out of temper it was better to walk small. He saw the Frenchwoman watching him, but didn't connect it with Gus's angry tone. After all, the woman's husband was standing right behind her.
Th@er@ese decided right away that she liked Monsieur McCrae, but she saw nothing wrong with flirting a little with the curly-headed boy.
Opportunities to flirt were limited in Lonesome Dove.
Opportunities to make money were no less rare, and Th@er@ese liked money. Captain and Th@er@ese liked money. Captain King assured her there would soon be a brisk trade in the town--he seemed to think that merchants would rush to Lonesome Dove in order to take advantage of the fine river crossing, but, so far, very few merchants had appeared, a fact which frustrated Th@er@ese's commercial instincts severely.
Now, at the sight of the tired, dusty, unshaven men, Th@er@ese began to think in terms of money.
She quickly decided that the first task would be to barber them--they could all use shaves and two or three of them needed haircuts as well.
'Xavier! The woods, monsieur!' she said crisply, with a glance at her husband. 'I want to shave these men and give them the hair-offs.' Xavier Wanz, severely depressed as he was by the many differences between Texas and France, walked over to a campfire that smouldered in front of the tent. He would have preferred, himself, to sit at the table all day, enjoying the seemliness of his clean tablecloth, and perhaps drinking just enough liquor to blind himself to the ugliness of the mesquite trees that surrounded the clearing where, if Captain King was to be believed, a town would one day exist.
Th@er@ese, of course, had her own ideas; every day Lonesome Dove presented some new challenge to her energies, and her energies were not small. Every day, in this new land, Th@er@ese arose, impatient; every day Xavier was the man who bore the brunt of her impatience. Yesterday, Th@er@ese's impatience had overflowed and scared away the carpenters; today, at least, there were these men to occupy her, these rangers. If she wanted to barber them it was fine with him.
With his foot he nudged a few more sticks of firewood into the fire, before returning to his bar.
