She looked off in to space for a moment. “That’s funny, I never thought of Virgil. Now, come to think of it, I’ve got every reason to think of Virgil. That silly sonofabitch damned near killed one of my girls about two years ago.”
He said, “What? Almost killed one of your girls?”
“Yeah. His brothers brought him up here, my God. He’s almost twenty-six or twenty-seven years old and had never had a woman before, so a couple of years back, they got him all washed and cleaned up. I won’t let anybody in with any of my girls that hasn’t had a bath that very day or shaved. They’ve got to be decent. I mean, my girls have feelings too. But you don’t want to hear about that. Anyway, they brought him up here. I wasn’t none too happy about it. He’s not the most appealing person in the world because you never know what he is going to do. He ain’t all that bad-looking, tall and skinny, but there is a certain look in his eyes like nobody’s there, if you know what I mean.”
Longarm said, “Yeah.”
“So anyway, I turned him over to one of my more experienced girls, a little girl from Kansas City named Kathy. They went on back to the room and it wasn’t fifteen minutes when we started hearing screaming. Now, you’ll hear screaming around this place—some of it’s real and some of it’s not—I don’t have to tell you how it is around a place like this.”
Longarm smiled. “Yeah, I know.”
She said, “Only this screaming was different. This screaming would have curdled your blood. Well, me and a couple of men that I keep around here to handle some situations went dashing back there and knocked the door down. That crazy sonofabitch had Kathy backed up in a corner, both of them naked as hell. He had a pair of wire cutters in his hand. Turns out the simple sonofabitch wanted to cut her nipples off. He claimed that he was an Indian of some kind. He said that was some kind of a rite, something that an Indian man did to his wife if she had been unfaithful to him, and he said that Kathy had been unfaithful.”
Longarm looked puzzled. “He said all that? Why … how did he possibly think that Kathy had been … didn’t he know where he was?”
Mabelle said, “Listen, don’t ever try to figure out whatever goes on in that man’s mind, if there is a mind in there. But he was going to punish her because he had seen another man come out of there before he had gone in and that’s what Indians do. He really and truly thinks that he is an Indian. I don’t know where he got onto this nonsense, but he had a pair of wire cutters.”
“Where did he get the wire cutters?”
“Damned if I know. I guess he brought them with him. All I know is that he was planning on nipping off Kathy’s nipples. Some sort of ancient rite, he said.”
Longarm shook his head wonderingly. “Do you know of any other incidents with Virgil?”
Mabelle thought for a moment. “There’s been a lot of little things. Of course, the old man always buys his way out. I charged the old man two thousand dollars for that little stunt. Gave it to Kathy, of course. It liked to scared the hell out of that little girl. Oh! And then there was the time when he stole a man’s horse and led him out of town, cut the horse’s throat, and was skinning the horse out. He was about to eat it raw when some riders came along and stopped him.”
Longarm shook his head slowly. “That’s Comanche. That’s what the Comanches did. When they were in a hurry, when they were on the run, they would stop and cut steaks off a live horse and eat them. He must have heard about it from somewhere. I guess his daddy bought his way out of that one?”
“Of course. The sheriff even went along with it, though it was horse-thieving. I mean, you steal a horse to ride or you steal a horse to eat, it’s still horse-thieving, ain’t it?”
Longarm laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve ever come across someone stealing a horse to eat him.”
She said, “I don’t know of any other big incidents. They keep him pretty close to home but he gets out and wanders around. I’m sure that you know about last night when he was found wandering alone with his rifle naked. He wasn’t exactly naked, he was wearing one of those things that the Indians wear. Do you know what I mean?”
“It’s a breech cloth.”
“Yes, one of those.”
Longarm thought for a minute. “Well, he’s the best I’ve got, Mabelle. What do you think?”
She said, “I wouldn’t put it past him. He wouldn’t even need a reason. Maybe he thinks he is a Comanche Indian killing soldiers.”
“I hadn’t thought about that before, but then I didn’t know that he thought he was a Comanche Indian.”
She laughed. “No one knows where he got the idea. Of course, in his younger days there was still plenty of Comanche Indians around here. Maybe somebody scared him about the Comanches gonna get him when he was young or something. No, that couldn’t be right. The Castles haven’t been around this area that long. They came from somewhere in the Midwest. Hell, Longarm. He’s just simpleminded. God only knows how his mind works.”
Longarm left her not too long after that. Before he did, he kissed Mabelle tenderly and thanked her for one of the best evenings he could remember. He said, “You’re a hell of a woman, Mabelle. Too bad you don’t want a man full time.”
She said, “Oh, men are like whiskey. A little goes a long way. Don’t think that I don’t like my fair share of it, though. The problem with a husband is that he begins to tell you what he wants you to do and how to act and think and talk. I’m not much of one to have someone tell me anything. I like being the boss, Longarm, or haven’t you noticed?”
He laughed. “Oh, yes. I noticed.”
Before he got out the door she said, putting her hand on his arm, “Listen, honey. You be careful with those Castles. They are dangerous, everyone of them, and they have a lot of hired hands out there. Don’t expect any help from the sheriff.”
He said dryly, “I hadn’t counted on it. In fact, I figured that he would be on the other side. Before I go out
