“Such as what?”
Susanna didn’t reply any more quickly this time than she had to his earlier suggestion. She went to the bunk and sat down, crossing her ankles in front of her on the mattress, Indian-style. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Her throat was a clean column from chin to shoulders, her long hair a stream of white framing her face. Her low-cut dress exposed the slope of her shoulders, and Longarm could see, in the hollows of her collarbones, the pulsation of her heartbeat.
Longarm didn’t try a second time to encourage her to begin talking. He waited patiently until at last she said, “Most of what bothers me is about me and Lonnie. I keep wondering if he might still be alive if he hadn’t taken me along with him. You see, if I hadn’t been with him, he wouldn’t have had to buy me a horse and clothes, and he’d have had enough money to get him to Younger’s Bend without his having to stop and steal some. Then the posse wouldn’t have been after him, and he’d have gotten here safe and sound.”
“You figure you’re to blame, some way or other?”
“Well, don’t you think I am?”
“Not for a minute, Susanna. It-“
“Windy,” she interrupted. “Do me a favor. Please don’t call me Susanna anymore. I left that name behind me too long ago. Anyhow, that’s what Lonnie called me. Susanna or Susie or Sue.”
“Whatever you want. Only I wouldn’t know what else to call you.”
“I told you last night. Maybe you weren’t listening. Dolly. That’s the name I’ve been going by almost from the time I left home.”
“Sure, I recall what you said now. Belle laughed you down, told you it was a made-up name out of a book. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll call you Dolly from here on out.”
“Thanks.” After a few seconds of thoughtful silence, she asked, “Why don’t you think I’m to blame for what happened to Lonnie?”
“Because a man’s going to live out his appointed time. It don’t matter if it’s two years or two hundred, he ain’t going to go a day sooner or a day later.”
“Do you really believe that, Windy?”
“I sure do. You’re too young to remember the War. But I saw men hit on one side of me and on the other, in front of me and in back of me. And there’s only one way I can see that explains why one of the bullets that took their lives didn’t hit me. It just plain wasn’t my time to go.”
“I never did think of it that way,” she said softly.
“You think about it, then. It’s a mighty comforting way to look at things. If it hadn’t been you that your old sweetheart ran into, he’d have come across somebody else.”
“Lonnie and I weren’t really sweethearts, you know,” she said. “Why, we weren’t more than about twelve or thirteen when we thought we’d just been made for one another. And then…”
Longarm waited until he saw that Susanna—Dolly, rather—wasn’t going to go on without encouragement. He said, “Go on, Dolly. Talk it all out of your system.”
“We grew up in the same little town, you know, Lonnie and me. But all we ever did was kiss a few times. Not even real kisses, either. I guess you know what I mean?” Longarm nodded and she went on, “Oh, I liked Lonnie all right, I guess, but it was somebody else that I fell for. Fell real hard. And I thought he fell as hard for me. I guess he did, but not the way I was thinking. He just had a hard-on for me. And all of a sudden I was pregnant. Fifteen years old, Windy. And Phil was already married.”
“So you had to run away.”
“Just about. I was lucky, even if I didn’t understand it at the time. He was well-to-do. When my family turned me away after they found out I was pregnant, he gave me enough money so I didn’t have a bad time while I waited for the baby. And then the baby didn’t live but a week. The thing was, I couldn’t go back home.”
“You said last night that you were working in a saloon when Lonnie bumped into you,” Longarm said.
“Yes. Phil’s money ran out, of course. I found a job, but I found that keeping the job depended on taking care of the boss. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I’d be better off just taking care of men, instead of working behind the counter ten hours and then taking care of one boss who was only paying me for my ten hours behind the counter. So that’s how Lonnie came to find me in a saloon in Texarkana.”
“Somewhere along the way, you’d picked up Dolly Varden for your name,” Longarm said.
“Yes. Damn Belle Starr and her education! She almost ruined that nice name for me. It’s not important, though, Windy. You know, for a while, up until last night, I almost went back to being Susanna Mudgett. That was because of Lonnie. But I intend to go on being Dolly Varden. Do you blame me?”
“Not if it’s what you want to do. I’d say Belle’s a mite jealous of you. You’re a lot younger and prettier than she is. It’s up to you whether you want to be Dolly or Susanna.”
“Right now, I feel like Dolly. I’ll tell you something I didn’t intend to. I don’t think I’d have stayed with Lonnie, even if nothing had happened to him. He made me remember how I was when I was Susanna, and I think I like Dolly better.”
“I’d say you’ve made up your mind, then. As long as you’re sure you won’t regret it.”
“I won’t. And now that I’ve decided to be Dolly, pour me a drink out of that bottle of rye, if you will, Windy. Dolly enjoys a drink. Susanna was always just a little bit of a namby-pamby.”
Longarm handed Dolly the bottle and she tipped it to her mouth. He said, “I don’t suppose you’ll be staying here at Younger’s Bend any longer than you can help.”
“No. For one thing, I don’t like Belle Starr. She’s a nasty old woman who’s pretending to be something she’s not.”
Longarm chuckled, and his respect for Dolly’s good sense rose several notches. Then he grew serious.
