Salem said, 'Little strong for your taste?'
Longarm said, choking, 'I would reckon that stuff would fetch up a wildcat. My Lord! I think my tongue has gone to sleep.'
One of the younger men spoke for the first time. 'I reckon that would be some pretty high-proof stuff.'
Longarm said, 'That makes me come to a funny question that's in my mind. I'm new in this whiskey business--been in the cattle and land business out in Arizona--but I never had much to do with whiskey except to drink it. How do y'all come to this proof business? I've seen it printed on labels on bottles, but that there jug ain't got no label on it. How do you know what proof it is? I know the higher the proof, the stronger the kick is, and that particular mule that you've got in that bottle could kick a barn down.'
Salem said with a straight face, 'Have you ever heard of a lap dog?'
Longarm looked around at the three or four hounds lying around the room, their chins on their front paws. 'Yeah, but I don't see any one here that would fit in anybody's lap, unless they had a mighty big lap.'
'Well,' said Salem. 'It's a bit different kind of lap dog. We've got a little drip that we run out of each still with a little tin pan there, and this here one dog we have goes over and laps up some from time to time. As soon as he keels over, we know it's strong enough.'
Everyone laughed at the table except Longarm. 'Ain't that a bit hard on the dog?'
Salem shook his head. He said, 'Nah, we've got a pillow stuffed with goose feathers laying right there beside the pan, so when he falls over, he don't hurt himself.'
Longarm nodded. 'I see. That's damned thoughtful of YOU.'
About then, the woman came in from the kitchen and set a plate of food in front of Longarm and Frank Carson. There was what appeared to be smoked ham and gravy and some mashed potatoes and some kind of garden peas. There was a big hunk of corn bread on each plate.
Frank Carson said, 'Bathsheba, you didn't have to go to this much trouble.'
Longarm said, 'Mrs. Colton, I am much obliged. I was as hungry as a hog. Mr. Carson can give me his part if he don't want it.'
Carson said, 'I never said that! I was just being polite.'
Longarm nodded at the woman. 'I am much obliged, Mrs. Colton. This here ham looks mighty good.'
Salem Colton said, 'Y'all go on and eat and then we'll talk after a minute. I'll be right interested to hear how come Mr. Long wants to go into the whiskey business.'
Longarm said, 'Well, for the simple reason that the timber business has about played out.'
Salem Colton narrowed his eyes. 'Timber? Ain't no timber in Arizona from what I've heard. It's mostly desert.'
Longarm began cutting his ham. He said, 'Yeah, it's desert now, but it didn't use to be before I started into the timber business.'
That brought a pretty good laugh and seemed to settle the mood in the room. Even the two young men had stopped giving him hard looks.
The three men were rough but cleanly dressed. Only the man in the middle, the older one, was bearded. The other two supported drooping mustaches. They didn't look especially mean, or inbred, or especially suspicious. Longarm reckoned that they led a lonely, hard life making whiskey and selling it. He doubted that they or their womenfolk got into town much. Even though the three men, whom Longarm guessed ranged in age from mid- twenties to late forties, didn't appear all that rough or tough, he expected that neither they nor any of their clan would be people to get careless with. When they had finished their meal, he and Carson, almost together, pushed their plates away. In an instant, Bathsheba appeared from nowhere to collect their knives and forks and plates. She headed for the kitchen, leaving the table and the conversation to the men.
Salem Colton hunched forward a little, putting his big hands and forearms on the table. He said to Longarm, 'Now, what's this about you wanting to buy whiskey? How much whiskey are you wanting to buy?'
'Neighbor, I ain't been in this part of the country more than two or three days, and I'm just kind of getting my feet wet right now. I figure if you're willing to sell it and I can get it to a railroad someplace without either drowning or falling off one of these damned mountains here, that I'd maybe like to take about two thousand gallons, depending on the price.'
Salem gave him a long look and then turned his head to spit tobacco. He said, turning back to Longarm, 'Well, that's about the least we'll sell. Gonna cost you about a dollar and a quarter a gallon, but the selling of it ain't up to me.'
Longarm glanced around at Frank Carson. The price that Salem Colton had just quoted was almost double the amount Carson had said he had been paying. Longarm made no sign. He had no intentions of buying any whiskey, but he felt to be taken seriously, he ought to put up a show of bargaining. He shook his head and said, 'That sounds mighty dear to me. That sounds like about twenty-five hundred dollars' worth of green whiskey to me. I'll have to do all sorts of doctoring up and getting it in bottles before I could ever make a profit. Gonna be quite a few costs to a middleman on this project.'
Salem shook his head. 'Well, to begin with, we've got plenty of buyers for our whiskey, and then secondly, it ain't up to me. It's up to Asa. He might not be willing to sell you a drop, much less two thousand gallons.'
Longarm said, 'Who's Asa?'
Salem shrugged. 'Well, I reckon you might have to call him the boss. He's my uncle, but since Joshua died, who was my daddy and several other boys' daddy, Asa kind of runs the show. He's the main man, you might say.'
Longarm said, 'And where is he?'
Salem nodded his head at Frank Carson. He said, 'He knows. If he wants to see you buying any whiskey, he'll take you there or he'll point you there. I wouldn't recommend, however, you go by yourself. There's some pretty ticklish country between here and there, and I don't mean that you might fall off into a valley somewhere.'
Longarm gave him a thin smile. 'You mean I might fall off with a bullet through my chest?'
