“Yes, Ma.” The boy gave Longarm a hangdog look. It was plain the kid felt he was being treated like a kid here and didn’t like it. Not in front of a grown-up male guest in particular he didn’t like it.
Longarm gave the boy a shrug and a quick roll of the eyes that Mrs. Fulton couldn’t see. Aloud he told the kid, “You an me both gotta do what your mama says, Buddy. But I got an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“That bed o’ yours is back there close to your mama’s room. It wouldn’t be right was I to bunk down over there. That’s the sort of thing could set folks to talking an’ we wouldn’t want that. Whyn’t you go on an’ sleep in your own bed tonight like always. I’ll stretch out on the pallet you’ve made by the stove here.”
“But that wasn’t the deal. I promised you a bed.”
“An’ a bed I’ll have,” Longarm said agreeably. He grinned and added, “Besides, my ol’ feet won’t hang over the end of a pallet. With a regular-size cot I’m like to start fallin’ off here an’ there. Next thing you know it’ll come morning an’ I’ll be all twisted up like one of them salty German baked dough things. What is it they call them doodads?”
“Pretzels,” Buddy said.
“Yeah, pretzels, that’s what I’d be come morning. We can’t have that, can we?”
“You’re sure about this, mister? Honest?”
“Honest,” Longarm assured him.
Buddy glanced at his mother for her approval of the change in plan, and when she nodded he said his good nights.
“Don’t let me sleep past breakfast, hear?” Longarm said.
“I won’t,” the kid promised. Never mind that anyone wanting to build a fire in the stove would have to step over whoever slept on the pallet on the floor. And that was ignoring too the fact that Longarm was a mighty light sleeper, as anyone in his particular line of work pretty much had to be.
Buddy stepped out of his britches and crawled into his cot. His mother gave Longarm a quizzical look—the gent had paid for her services several times over already and yet this was not going at all the way she’d expected —and went to tuck her son into bed. She pulled the covers high under his chin and gave him a kiss on the forehead, then unfolded a quilt and used it as a makeshift drape to separate Buddy’s cot from the main room of the shanty. Her own “bedroom” was walled off, sort of, by muslin sheeting that had been tacked into place. The shack really was a one-room affair, but the makeshift dividers turned it into a tiny two-bedroom house.
Angela Fulton carefully arranged the quilt so Buddy could not see out, then gave Longarm a worried look and came slowly, almost shyly toward him.
Longarm faked a huge yawn and a stretch and said, plenty loud enough that he was sure Buddy could hear, “Reckon I’m gettin’ a mite sleepy too, ma’am. If you don’t mind, I’ll step outside an’ smoke one more cigar before I turn in. No need for you to wait up an’ see me back inside, though. I’ll bar the door when I come to bed.”
“But Mr. Long … I … don’t know what to say.”
“G’night is the custom, ma’am.” Longarm grinned. “But you say whatever it is you have in mind.”
“I … good night, Mr. Long.”
“Good night, Mrs. Fulton.” He turned and went outside, a slim cheroot already in hand.
Longarm’s eyes snapped open. He was instantly awake, not yet sure of what he’d heard or sensed to bring him out of his sleep, but certain there had been something, some noise or movement or inexplicable mental alarm, that roused him.
The shanty was dark as a tax collector’s intentions save for a faint, scarcely discernible red glow from embers dying in the stove. The fact that a few coals were still pulsing heat and light meant he hadn’t been sleeping for very long. Call it two hours tops and probably less, Longarm judged. His right hand slid surreptitiously toward the butt of the double-action Colt revolver he’d laid beside his head before sinking into sleep. If it was danger that was approaching …
The faint sounds of cloth rustling softly in the night drew his attention away from the door, the area most likely to present danger, and toward the back of the small house.
Longarm could hear Buddy’s slow, monotonous breathing as the boy slept. Which pretty much narrowed the possibilities. He let go of his hold on the revolver and pushed gun and holster away.
Angela Fulton reached his side and dropped to her knees. There was enough light given off through the stove damper that he could make out the pale form that was her nightgown and the dim shape of her face and limbs.
Thinking only to let her know that he was already awake he touched her wrist. The unexpected contact startled her and she jumped in sudden alarm, a strangled squeak escaping from her throat but quickly brought in check. A dozen feet away Buddy continued his slumber undisturbed.
She bent close so she could whisper into his ear softly enough that there would be no likelihood of waking her son. “You’re a nice man, Mr. Long.”
“Miz Fulton, if you’ve woke me up just so you could tell me that …”
“Please, Mr. Long.”
“Sorry.” He decided maybe it wasn’t teasing she was needing here in the middle of the night.
“It has been … I can’t tell you how terribly, terribly long it has been since anyone has been … nice to me. I mean, genuinely nice, really and truly nice, just to be nice. I mean, not because they’re wanting anything out of it but just to be really, really nice. And to Eric too. That means so much to me, Mr. Long, I just can’t tell you.”
“There’s nothing you got to tell, Miz Fulton, nor nothing you got to do.”
