were several Denver papers available too, but every one of them was old enough that he’d already read them before he ever left on this trip south.
The barber was as good as his word, and in less than twenty minutes Longarm’s face was layered in hot towels while the barber went to work stropping his razor and whipping up a renewed froth in his soap mug.
There is, Longarm reflected, damn little that can put a man so much at ease as a good, old-fashioned barbershop shave. It’s one of the few opportunities a man has in this life to let himself be pampered and fussed over and yet not be mistaken for some sort of priss-ass dandy. He closed his eyes and let the homey sounds of the shop surround him.
He was about half asleep when harsh noise intruded on his reverie.
“Mr. Sam, come quick, will ya, please, will ya, my ma’s been hurt awful bad and I don’t know what to do for her, please, Mr. Sam, you got to come help her, she’s bleeding something terrible and I can’t get it to stop and …”
Longarm opened his eyes and sat upright in the barber chair.
That was Buddy Fulton talking, he saw. And that meant … shit!
The barber had already set the soap mug aside and was headed out the door with a small black case tucked under one arm. Longarm yanked the apron off his lap and stood, damp towels spilling unnoticed onto the floor from the loose wrap around his jowls.
Buddy was leading the way at a run and the barber scurried to keep up. Longarm’s long legs brought him quickly to the barber’s side.
“Mister, you don’t have …”
“I know the woman, friend. In fact I’m boarding at her house, with her and Buddy.”
“Oh. All right then.”
“Come on, dammit,” Longarm urged. “The boy said she’s bleeding.” And he broke into a run.
Chapter 19
Angela Fulton looked like she’d stepped in front of a runaway beer wagon. Her nose was broken and her left eye was puffed completely shut. Her right eye had been reduced to little more than a blue and purple slit in the side of her face. Or what remained of her face. At the moment it was hardly recognizable as one.
Most of the teeth on the left side of her mouth were so loose Longarm would have considered them gone, but the barber—the closest thing Cargyle had to a doctor, and fortunately a real barber with proper barber/surgeon schooling—claimed they would all tighten up and be saved if she wasn’t beaten on anymore for the next month or so.
“Oh, she won’t be beaten up no more, friend. I can promise you that,” Longarm said with heat in his voice.
The barber grunted, but didn’t otherwise comment on the rashness of Longarm’s statement. He just went on with his work, which at the moment was mostly concerned with stanching the flow of blood from Angela’s nose and left ear.
The heavy bleeding from the nose he stopped by taking a scrap of cloth little bigger than a good-sized postage stamp and rolling it into a tiny, sausage-shaped bundle. He pulled on Angela’s upper lip the way you will lift a mare’s lip to check her teeth, and tucked the cloth wadding tight against her gum just as high as he could force it.
“Keep that there, Mrs. Fulton. It will feel strange, but the veins going into your nose pass over the bone at that spot. If you can keep the pressure on right there for just five or ten minutes, the blood on the surface will clot and the bleeding will stop.”
Longarm wasn’t at all sure Angela was conscious enough for the barber’s instructions to register. But she didn’t spit out the cloth wadding, so maybe she was aware of her surroundings after all.
The man examined her ear, and cleaned it out as best he could with some bits of cotton speared on the end of a smooth stick. He didn’t look particularly happy when he was done there even though the bleeding had stopped, pretty much on its own.
“Too soon to say if she’ll lose the hearing in that ear or not. Could go either way.”
Longarm scowled but didn’t say anything.
“Buddy, was your mama hit in the stomach or the chest area?”
“I dunno, Mr. Sam. I wasn’t here. I’d gone out to the Parker farm to get the day’s milk and bring it in, me and Peppy.”
Peppy, or had he said Pepe? Not that it mattered. After a moment Longarm remembered that was Buddy’s pony.
“I took it to the store the same as usual and came back here just a coupla minutes ago. I found her just like you see now, Mr. Sam. Is she gonna be all right, Mr. Sam?”
“She’s going to be just fine, Buddy. But I need for you and the gentleman here to step outside now. I have to look your mama over to see if she’s hurt anyplace we can’t see. I’m thinking she probably has some busted ribs, so I’ll have to wrap her tight to take away some of the hurting. But I won’t know that for sure until I examine her. Now you scoot outside, Buddy. And you too, Mister … ?”
It was a poor time for introductions, but Longarm gave his name and took Buddy outside. They stood close to the door. Longarm had a cigar to fiddle with to occupy his hands if not his thoughts. Poor little Buddy didn’t have that much of a distraction. Twice they heard Angela cry out in pain, quickly followed by Sam the Barber’s soothing comments to her.
“Buddy?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You got any idea who might’ve done this to your mama or why?”
