Oatha sidled back up to the bar.
“Why you so knotted up? You her fuckin madam?”
Joss smiled and made a move so deft and graceful, the next thing Oatha knew, the right side of his face had slammed against the bar, Joss cradling his head, a cold knife point digging into his left ear.
“Swear to God,” Joss whispered, wisps of her black hair tickling his mustache, “I’ll jam it straight through whatever brains you got left in there. Go on playin now, Lana. It’s all right. You won’t be bothered no more.” Oatha chuckled, though he didn’t dare move. From his tilted vantage point, he could see Al, a half grin on the lawman’s face as he shaded in oblivious repose beside the stove.
“Joss, would you accuse me of exaggeration if I said that is the most useless cocksucker I ever laid eyes on?”
“Al?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I wouldn’t contradict that statement. Now I’m gonna let you up, and you and me is gonna come off the rimrock. Behave yourself.”
Joss released him, shoved the bowie back into its leather sheath under the bar. She set up two tumblers while Oatha retrieved his hat. They raised their glasses.
“To your impending release,” Oatha whispered.
They clinked and drank. Joss glanced at the sleeping deputy, then whispered, “How’d it go last night with ol’ Bartholomew?”
“It went.”
“Smoothly? Without incident?”
“Well, by the end of the proceedings, Bart sure as shootin wished he’d never yapped to you about them bars.”
“What I mean is, you did it quick, right? There weren’t no need to drag it out, make things any harder on the man than necessary.”
“Billy fucked it up.”
“How?”
“Particulars ain’t important. It got done what needed to get done.”
“You sayin the boy was rough on him?”
“Well, Billy hadn’t never done nothin like it before. He got carried away, but—”
“That little shit.” Oatha withdrew a scrap of paper from his flap pocket, slid it across the bar. Joss unfolded it, saw where Oatha had scribbled something on a torn-out Montgomery Ward page advertising hobnailed miners’ boots. “Fuck is this?”
“Wrote it last night. Notes for what you need to do tomorrow when I come back for you.”
She lifted her suspenders and slipped the paper into the patch pocket of her plaid dress shirt. “What of the boy? You trust him?”
“Shit no, but what other choice I got? Can’t play a lone hand, haul it all up there myself, can I?”
“Oath—”
“It’ll get taken care of. You just worry about them notes I made for you. We do this right, everthing’ll work out. Now this child’s gotta haul out. This ain’t gonna be easy in a blizzard.”
“Know this. When the time comes, I’ll be the one to take care a that hobble-tongue chore boy.”
“Joss—”
“Ain’t arguin with you about it. He gave Bart a rough shake, boy gonna by God learn somethin about pain on his way to hell.”
Oatha headed for the coatrack. He’d just done the last button on his slicker and reached for the door when Joss called his name. He turned back. She held up the piece of paper he’d given her.
“Before I say this,” she said, “let me warn you. If I see a grin, a smirk, a eye roll, one fuckin hint a condescension—”
“Jesus Christ, chew it finer. I gotta go get Billy.”
She shook the paper. “Can’t use this.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t
“Oh.” He started back toward the bar.
“I said, not a fuckin word.”
“I just said ‘Oh.’ It ain’t a judgment. Why didn’t you tell me this when I give it to you in the first place? Think I give two shits whether you can read or not?”
2009
