Longarm said, “Damn!” He thought a minute. “Mr. Higgins, I’ve got important business to the north that just won’t wait three days. Ain’t you got some kind of wagon or buggy I could hitch a couple of those mules to?” He reached into his pocket and partially exposed his roll of bills. “If it is a matter of money …
Higgins looked sad. “Mr. Long, I’d mighty like to accommodate you and without a dollar bein’ spent. But the fact is these here mules an’ all the property, fer that matter, is company property an’ ain’t mine to do with as I sees fit. So money don’t come into it at all. I taken a likin’ to you right from the start. Man gone through what you’d done an’ still had him a sense of humor. So I’d he’p you if I could. But they ain’t a conveyance or a buggy or even a sled that will get you a mile from this place. Now, I don’t know if that thinkin’ is directed at the stationkeeper or not, but they won’t let me nor none of the rest keep a horse or anything else a body can use for travel. The stationkeeper arrives here on the stage, an’ when he is ready to quit the place he’s got to leave on the stage.” Higgins snorted. “Make a man think them folks didn’t trust us to stay on the job.”
Longarm suppressed a smile. “Well, it would seem that way,” he said. He slowly stood, his feet still in the lye water, and looked down at himself. “Lord, I’m a mess. I’d give a pretty penny to get washed off.”
Higgins said, “You got clean clothes?”
Longarm nodded toward his saddlebags. “Oh, yes. But I ain’t putting them on as filthy as I am.”
Higgins began bobbing his head. “You just never mind that. You soak yore feet a little time more, an’ I’ll go out back and run my ol’ woman in the house, and you can take this bucket out by the well and just douse yourself down. How’s that sound?”
Longarm said, “Sounds mighty good to me. What about the grub department? I ain’t had much in that line the last three or four days.”
Higgins’s head bobbed again. “You never mind that. We’ll get that tended to in time. Now, whyn’t you go ahead and set down and finish yore rum, an’ I’ll go out an’ tell the old woman to get set to move her matters into the house.” He gestured at Longarm’s clothes. “An’ she can give them a washing whilst she is about it.”
Longarm sat back down on the bench and watched as Higgins hurried out the back. He was the busiest person Longarm thought he’d ever seen.
When the stationkeeper was out of sight, Longarm thoughtfully poured the rest of his glass of rum down in the lye water. He figured it would do his feet a hell of a lot more good than it would his stomach.
But Higgins was also wrong about the mules and the other company property. They weren’t his to lend or give, but they were Longarm’s to requisition. The stage line was a public conveyance running over a public road with the government’s permission. Longarm, as a federal officer, could make use of anything he chose, from a mule to a coach and driver if it came down to it. But right then, he didn’t want Higgins to know he was a federal marshal. The old man was already falling all over himself with hospitality. Longarm couldn’t imagine what he’d be like if he caught sight of the badge. Just then Higgins came in from the back. “Mr. Long, we be gettin’ all set up for you out back. My ol’ woman is gatherin’ up her doin’s and the back will be yor’n. ‘Less you be over-modest, you ought to be able to get yoreself a good cleanin’ up. I reckon I can maybe even find you somethin’ to dry off with.”
Longarm said, “I doubt that will be necessary, Mr. Higgins. I reckon the hard part will be to get any water to stay on without drying up in that sun before a man can do any washing.”
He stepped carefully out of the bucket of lye water. He’d expected his feet to be very tender on the rough wood floor, but they felt surprisingly normal. He looked down. They were as white as ever, but a good deal of the redness had gone. He said, surprised, “Hell, Mr. Higgins, I think this lye water might have been just the ticket.” The old man nodded vigorously. “Do it ever’ time. That there stuff will cure ever’thang from a hernia to a broken heart. You get yore gear and I’ll fetch that bucket. You can use it to douse down with.”
Longarm gathered up his saddlebags and limped across the floor. But he was limping more in fear of pain than actual pain.
Higgins said, “Soon’s we get you stripped, I’ll give yore dirty duds to the ol’ woman an’ she’ll get ‘em slicked up nice an’ clean for you.”
It was coming on to late afternoon. Longarm and Higgins were sitting where they had previously. Longarm was wearing a pair of clean, heavy wool socks. He was not about to try his boots yet, and in fact, Higgins had discouraged the idea vigorously until Longarm’s feet had had two or three more treatments of the lye water. Longarm was feeling almost human. He was clean and wearing clean clothes and had managed to shave, though working up a lather with lye soap produced about the same results as if he had been using a rock. The only thing missing for his return to normal was food. He spoke to Higgins about it, making sure Higgins understood he could pay.
Higgins said, “Now, we do be a vittles station fer the passengers. They lays over here right at a half to three quarters of an hour, depending on what a rush the driver is in. They gets the company fare of pinto beans and grits and cornmeal and either canned tomatoes or canned peaches. We give ‘em coffee too. Course we ain’t got no beef. But ever’ damn fool comes through here expects a steak and will even demand it.” He shook his head and snorted. “A few months in the winter and we can nurse a side of beef along, but right now? Hell.” He pointed toward the front of the building. “Was I to hang a side of beef out there at sundown, it’d be froze nearly by dawn. Then, by mid-mornin’ it’d be plumb thawed. By noon you’d be walkin’ upwind of it, and by three in the afternoon a fly wouldn’t light on it.” He gave a disgusted sound. “An’ there is them as comes in here wantin’ beef! My stars and garters.”
Longarm said, “Some of them beans and grits and cornbread sound pretty good to me.”
Higgins threw up his head. “Why, nosir! Not on yore tintype! Why, I feel like I brung you back from the dead. Me and my ol’ woman keep ham and bacon fer ourselves, and she’s got her a run full of chickens out there. Fries one up on occasion or makes dumplin’s with it. My ol’ woman kin cook, I’m a-tellin’ you.”
Longarm had met Higgins’s “ol’ woman.” She had proved to be a pleasant-faced woman in her late thirties or early forties. What flesh Higgins was missing she had taken for herself. Not that she was fat, Longarm thought, just pleasantly plump. He wondered how she stayed so good-natured out in the middle of the desert.
Longarm said, “I wouldn’t want to put her to no trouble. Sylvia.” That was her first name, and she had insisted that Longarm call her that.
“Pshaw!” Higgins exclaimed. “She’d get her feelin’s hurt she would if you didn’t let her cook fer you. I’ll get her to whomp you up a big bait of eggs and biscuits, and would you druther ham or bacon?”
“Ham’s fine with me. And I would sure drink a cup of coffee. Still got a little of my whiskey left to sweeten it with.”
