Higgins pulled his head back. “Why, you look long enough in the tooth you’d of run across a few hoors in yore time. I ain’t never had no truck with ‘em myself, me an’ Missus Higgins bein’ married long’s we have. But they do a right good trade amongst the single men and them as ain’t around no girls.” Longarm blinked for a minute. “Are you talking about a whore?”
“Ain’t that what I been sayin’? One of them women the ladies of the church is always tryin’ to get run out of town. One of them you pays.”
“A whore, a prostitute.”
Higgins gave him a matter-of-fact look. “Wa’l, you can dress it up in all kinds of highfalutin words if you be of a mind, but a hoor is a hoor and that is that.” He put up a hand. “Now, don’t get me wrong. I ain’t got nothin’ agin ‘em personal. I be of the live-and-let-live school. Poor girl probably got led astray somehow. This one is a mighty pitiful case. Got throwed out by her own kind. Just this mornin’. She was on the southbound coach. Was a whole gaggle of ‘em goin’ down to Gunsight to work the miners that work in the gold mines down there. I reckon them girls make more money than the miners, you take my meaning. Their lode don’t ever run out.”
“And she’s here?”
Higgins waved vaguely at the door that led off the big room. “She be back there in our private quarters takin’ a rest. Missus Higgins felt right sorry for the little thang. I reckon she got some rough treatment.”
“What happened?”
Higgins shook his head. “Damned if I know. Coach pulled in with that doctor, if he is, which I doubt, and a passel of them hoors. Was five of ‘em. They was all yellin’ and screamin’ at this young woman that be back in the bedroom. Wouldn’t let her go on with them. Seemed they was some kind of company and they fired her right here. Turns out she is in a kind of fix. Ain’t got a nickel to her name and no return ticket back north.” He shook his head. “I reckon we’ll have to try and help her some.”
“What did she do? I mean, to get the other ladies, hoors, mad at her? Was they cussing her?”
Higgins shrugged. “I never took in the whole of it. That doctor come staggerin’ up first and claimed he was sick and needed him a drink of whiskey right pronto or he was gonna cave in. I was behind the bar fixin’ him up when this young woman, Rita her name is, come through kind of lookin’ down in the mouth and tryin’ not to cry. Was Missus Higgins kind of took her in hand. Then the doctor, if he is one, passed out on me, and I couldn’t get the driver and his guard to help me load him back aboard the stage, it just bein’ a quick stop, and they went on. Them other’ns was a bunch of painted women if you ever seen any. Whoooee!”
Longarm was about to ask another question about the doctor and his wherabouts when Mrs. Higgins came in with his meal. She’d fried him half a dozen eggs and given him a good big ham steak, along with grits and ham gravy and biscuits and honey. On her second trip she brought him a pot of coffee and put a cup in front of him and one in front of Mister Higgins. For the next half hour Longarm didn’t do much talking or thinking, just concentrated on reducing the pile of groceries in front of him to a bare plate. But one thought that occurred to him as he ate was the telegraph wire. Most stage lines had one, and he’d seen the line as he’d staggered up to the station. He knew it would be a private line and was only strung from one end of the stage run to the other. But it was a method of communicating. He could have Higgins wire to the operator in Buckeye and have him wire, through the public telegraph, to Yuma to find out who had been caught and who had gotten away. It would mean revealing to Higgins that he was a deputy marshal, but he reckoned the old man would keep it to himself.
Higgins had brought him a bottle of whiskey and he’d sweetened up his coffee with it. It was nowhere near as good as his Maryland whiskey, but then he didn’t have much of that left, and there was no use wishing for steak when all you had to eat was suet.
His mind turned for a second to the “hoor,” Rita, and the doctor. He wondered where the doctor was, and for just a moment his mind played with the idea that the man might be Carl Lowe. But that didn’t make any sense. Still, he wanted a look at him and he wanted a look at the girl. Finally he pushed his plate back, unable to eat another bite. He said, “Whew! Herman, your missus can cook up a storm! Lord, I ain’t tasted anything that good since I don’t know when.” He ran a critical eye over Higgins. “Herman, what I can’t understand is how come you don’t run to more flesh the way Sylvia feeds.”
Higgins shrugged. “Beats me and the missus both. Ain’t got ary a idea. Oh, it ain’t ‘cause I don’t eat. I can pack it away with the best of ‘em. Sylvie says it’s because I never sit still long enough for any of it to stick.”
Longarm smiled. “Yeah, you do kind of remind me of a chapparal the way you dart around, busy as a bee. You are of kind of a nervous nature.”
“Sylvie says I wear my clothes out from the inside the way I fidget around in ‘em.”
Longarm said, “Herman, I reckon you got an instrument where you can tap into that telegraph line running outside.”
“Aw, yeah,” Higgins said. “Got a wire runs right here into the house. Got me a key back yonder in the livin’ quarters.” He gave Longarm a serious eye. “Company won’t hire you till you learn to tap out that code with that key. Took me a spell to get it down, but I’m a pretty fair hand now. Course ain’t much call to ever use it. Ask for supplies to be sent. One thing and another. Notify other stations when a stage is runnin’ way late or when we have a breakdown.”
Longarm said, “Well, that is right handy, Herman, because I’m going to need you to send a message for me.”
Higgins frowned, and then he looked sorrowful. He scratched behind his ear. He said, “Doggone it, Mr. Long, ain’t nothin’ I’d like better’n to accommodate you but, see, this here telegraph line ain’t public. It be a private operation for the company I work for. They don’t allow no private use if you take my meaning.”
Longarm said, “I’m going to need you to make an exception for me, Herman. It’s pretty important.”
Higgins was looking very uncomfortable. “Now, Mr. Long, I done took a likin’ to you an’ I’d shore like to help. But it’d be worth my job I was to get on that instrument and be sendin’ out messages hadn’t got nothin’ to do with company business. I’d give anything if I could, but I can’t.”
Longarm said, “Herman, I’m going to show you something and I’m going to depend on you being able to keep a secret. Can you do that? I got reasons for it.”
Higgins pulled his head back and gave Longarm a look that said the question should never have been asked. “Pshaw!” he said. “Why, Mr. Long, they is secrets been dropped in me six, seven years ago and ain’t hit bottom yet. That is how deep my secret poke is. Why, my stars and bars, if it is a secret you want kept, then I am yore man.”
