if lead started flying. But the seven-day clock in there just kept ticking away, minute by minute.
“You think they’ll try midnight or later?” Rusty asked.
“I’m thinking maybe dawn, when they figure we’ve drifted off.”
“Go to sleep, Cotton, and I’ll watch.”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to.”
It sure was a long dark night, and I was askin’ myself what I was sheriff for. It wasn’t any job I wanted, but I got stuck with it when the city of Doubtful had a hankering for my services, seeing as how most everyone else was dead that wore their star. But there wasn’t any point in grousing about it. Sheriff is what I was and would be.
The night was real quiet, and we saw no one hunkered down out there. With dawn, Burtell and DeGraff showed up, and I was glad to see them. We filled them in and left them in charge, while I headed back to Belle’s boardinghouse where I had me a little room. I didn’t need much from life. There was an iron bedstead in there, a blanket and pillow, a place for a trunk, and a place to hang up a few clothes. Maybe someday I’d have a woman to care for, and I’d want a little cottage somewheres, with some rambling roses around, but there weren’t no prospects. I thought some about Queen, but she wasn’t thinking about me, and I didn’t like her anyway, except when she smiled a little, which wasn’t very often.
So I walked home through empty streets, since the merchants weren’t up and around yet. Belle’s boardinghouse sure was quiet. I was ready for a good sleep, having spent the night awake, waiting for trouble at the jail. My room was up on the second floor, at the rear, where the sole window looked out on the alley and the outhouses. It was fine in the winter, but a feller didn’t want to sleep with an open window in the summer. I went down that hall, feeling them planks creak under me, and then I noticed the door was ajar a little. I whipped out the .44 without thinking twice. My ma used to tell me I was a little slow, but made up for it by being quick. I never quite figured that one out, but it didn’t matter none. That door was not tight, and I thought I might meet a hail of lead if I opened it more. In fact, there wasn’t nothing but a skinny layer of veneer between the killer in there and me, and that creaking hallway gave me away. So I just paused, wondering what to do, thinking maybe I should get flat on my belly.
“Do come in, Mr. Pickens. I’ve been waiting most of the night for you.”
I fear I recognized that voice straight off.
“You alone in there, Mrs. Gladstone?”
“Certainly. Three’s a crowd at a rendezvous.”
“A who?”
“A lover’s meeting, my dear.”
This was getting worse than being shot.
I edged the door open, ready to shoot, and saw she was alone, sitting in the one chair I possessed. I slid my revolver back in its holster and eyed the lady. She sure was nice-lookin’ wearing a white wrapper, with her hair down and falling over her shoulders. The dawn light from the window seemed to flow like gold over her. She had some slippers on too, with a hole in the side of one for her bunion. Them bunions are awful. My ma and pa both had bunions, mostly from buying bad shoes.
“Come in, dear boy,” she said. “We’ll have a little tete-a-tete.”
This was making me plain itchy. I didn’t dare ask what them words meant.
She motioned me toward the bed, where I sat down real gingerly. She sure was pretty, all soft and gentle, with a brightness in her eyes. I’d never seen a lady in a white wrapper before. My ma, she pined for a white wrapper all her life. Pa got her a gray flannel one with purple petunias on it, and I never knew that wrappers came in other colors until I was off on my own. This white wrapper flowed over the Widow Gladstone in a way that didn’t quite hide much.
But I couldn’t think of a blasted thing to say, and if I tried I’d just babble out a mess of words, so I swallowed real hard and settled on the bed and tried to make sense of this.
“Now then, we’ll just talk a little. I might have some information for you. I know you’re looking into that whole tragedy. You’ve been asking questions. I’m hoping you’ll save the dear boy. I’m very fond of him.”
The way she said that sure stirred up stuff in my head.
She waited a moment, while I studied her white wrapper. I couldn’t keep my eyes off that white wrapper. That wasn’t much under there. Her dress and all that other stuff, all them thingamabobs women wear, she had folded them all into a stack sitting on my dresser. So I was stuck with staring at her wrapper, because I didn’t know what else to do.
“My information might lead you to the truth about King, and might free him from the awful fate that awaits him,” she said.
“Well, what is it, ma’am?”
“Oh, I’m not going to tell you. Not unless I have my way with you.”
This sure was getting peculiar. I tried to run that through my head, and it kept bucking like Critter in a bad mood.
“Mind you, what I know might not change anything. I know nothing about what happened next door, after King left along with Mr. Parsons.”
“Well, seems to me if you’re keepin’ stuff from me, then you’re going against the laws,” I said. “Someone told me that once. You’ve got to fess up all you know.”
“Well, that’s for you to decide,” she said. “I have a price.”
She had a price, all right. That there white wrapper was just the butcher paper on the package.
“We would have a lovely time,” she said softly. “I am an experienced woman.”
Well, I sure didn’t have a clue about what to do.
