man.”
“I’m going to hate to leave you. If it weren’t that this is Belle Starr’s place now that Sam’s dead, I’d stay and keep you company for a while. If you’d want me to, that is.”
“Oh, I’d want you to, Jessibee. You’ve got whatever it is that grabs a man and makes him want to stay with you. I don’t guess it’d work out, though, the way things are.
“No. It’s too bad you’re tied up with Belle.”
“I ain’t tied up with Belle Starr, not in any way, shape, or form. My business brought me here, and when it’s finished, I’ll go on my way and forget I ever seen her.”
“I wish I could believe that, Custis. But from what the family tells me, Belle’s got a way of holding men to her. Look at poor Sam. And everybody knows what her business is.” Jessibee paused and then added reflectively, “Not that our people have much respect for white man’s law. We’ve seen it change too many times, in ways that always seem to hurt us.”
“Well, Belle’s got no strings on me, Jessibee. And she never will have.”
“You say that like you really mean it.”
“I do.”
“Where will you go when your business with Belle is finished?”
“That’s something I can’t rightly say, but only because I don’t know myself right now.”
“If you travel north, I live up by Talequah. That’s just a little way from Fort Gibson.”
“Are you inviting me?”
“If you’re close by, it’d be unfriendly if you didn’t stop in.”
Jessibee stirred. “I guess I’ve got enough strength left to walk back up to the house. They’ll be waking up before too long. The first rooster that crows will bring Robert and Aunt Sarah out. It’ll save talk if I’m back before then.”
Jessibee stood up and found her dress, where she’d draped it over the back of a chair. She drew it on over her head and came back to the bedroll. Longarm had risen to his feet. She kissed him quickly on the lips, then bent to give him still another fleeting kiss.
“Goodbye for now, Custis. I still wish I could stay.”
Longarm watched her shadowy form as Jessibee went to the door, then outside into the gray false sunrise. He walked to the table and took a swallow of rye from the bottle, then he went back to the bedroll and stretched out and slept.
Whatever noise the visitors made when they left didn’t disturb Longarm. He blinked awake in the sunrise and rolled to his feet. The woman-scent of Jessibee still clung to him. The smile brought on by the memory of the night stayed on Longarm’s face while he took a whore’s bath, moistening his palms with whiskey and rubbing them over his face and body.
Fully dressed, his weapons checked, another wake-up drink glowing in his stomach like the coal of the morning’s first cheroot that he held clamped between his teeth, Longarm walked up to the house.
All the others were sitting at the table. Used plates in front of them showed that they were just finishing breakfast. The room was cool, and Longarm glanced at the stove. It had not been lighted. Judging from the food left on the plates, and that remaining on the platters that were in the center of the table, breakfast had consisted of leftovers from the funeral meats brought by Sam’s relatives the day before. The platters held a few pieces of fried squirrel and the drumstick of a chicken, two small venison chops, and a little heap of drying biscuits.
Only Yazoo spoke. The old man said, “Morning, Windy. You look like you didn’t get much sleep last night.” Then he cackled in a brief burst of laughter.
“I had all the sleep I wanted,” Longarm said.
Belle smirked. “I told them not to rouse you, Windy. I saw that draggletail Cherokee chippy sneaking back up to the house from your place this morning before daylight. I thought you’d need all the rest you could get.”
Longarm needed no interpreter to translate the jealousy in Belle’s words; he’d seen enough jealous women. He said, “What I do is my own affair, Belle.” He picked up one of the venison chops and a biscuit and began to eat, still standing.
“How was she?” Floyd asked. “Hot, like I hear these redskin wenches all are?”
“That’s my affair too, Floyd,” Longarm said levelly. He finished the little chop and reached for the other one.
“Don’t get riled, damn it,” Floyd said. “Hell, we’re all friends together. You might’ve called us, though. She could’ve took on me and Steed and then give Bobby a turn, after you got through with her.”
“Find your own women,” Longarm told Floyd curtly. He faced Belle. “I guess Floyd and Steed said something to you about the talk we had yesterday?”
“About your expecting me to take Sam’s place, and ride with you on the bank job?” she asked. Longarm’s mouth was full, so he merely nodded.
Belle said, “They mentioned it to me.”
“She ain’t said she’d do it, though,” Steed told Longarm.
Longarm asked Belle, “Well? What’d you decide to do?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I’m still thinking it over.”
“Looks to me like you better make your mind up in a hurry, Belle,” he said. “This is the day we’re supposed to leave, if we still figure on pulling the job tomorrow.” He bit into a squirrel-leg without waiting for Belle’s reply.
