“Like I said, no harm done. We’ll leave ‘er be.”
“Good enough.” Burdick motioned for Longarm to turn to his left. “Lean down a minute and let me look at that. Jean has some salve if … no, I don’t think you need medication. I can barely see where it hit you. Lucky it was just a splinter in that spot, though. If it had been the bullet, I suspect you would be a dead man now.”
“Yeah. Lucky,” Longarm agreed. “An’ now I reckon I’d best go see what your good wife put on the table.” He grinned. “Can’t let those other rannies get too far ahead of me, you know. Besides, I got to keep my strength up. The way things are going it could be quickest t’ walk the rest of the way down t’ Bitter Creek instead o’ waiting for this mud to dry or freeze over.”
“I recommend the ham pot pie, Marshal. Jean outdid herself with that today.”
“Thanks for the tip, Howard. An’ for the doctoring.”
“Any time, Marshal.” Burdick paused and frowned. “Not that I mean you should need more doctoring. I just meant …”
Longarm chuckled. “I know what you meant, Howard. An’ I thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve developed a fine hunger all of a sudden, an’ it’s gonna take some ham pot pie t’ satisfy my needs.”
Burdick, he discovered, was right. The pot pie was exceptional.
As for the accidental shooting, he let the matter drop without looking to embarrass anyone.
Chapter 25
The day had been such a bitch for everyone concerned that there was no thought of the visitors sitting up late talking or reading or playing cards. The unspoken consensus seemed to be that the best thing was for everyone to go to bed early and hope tomorrow would be an improvement upon today.
Burdick’s was set up as a relay station and eating establishment, but no one had made any real provision for the housing of guests. Rather the visitors were expected to eat while the mule team was being changed and then get back on the road. They were expected to be passers-through, not overnighters.
Consequently there were neither beds nor bedding to accommodate all the guests, and Howard and Jean Burdick had to scramble to try and make everyone more or less comfortable.
They resolved the issue by giving the station building over to the women, the two southbound whores and the one lady who was traveling north. Along, of course, with the Burdicks themselves in their own private quarters.
The menfolk were told they could bed down in the hay sheds adjacent to the low-roofed barn and corral complex where all the mules were housed. The Burdicks had a few spare blankets over and above those deemed necessary for the comfort of the women. These they laid out for the men to use, although there were only four blankets and, including the stagecoach crews, fifteen men to share them.
Longarm liked these other fellows well enough, he supposed. But he dam sure didn’t like them that well that he intended crawling under a blanket with one or more of them, not even the cleanest of them. The hell with that.
And it wasn’t like there was any biting cold to have to overcome anyhow.
Hell, if it were cold enough that a man couldn’t sleep in a hay pile, it would have been cold enough for the ground to freeze and they wouldn’t have had this problem to begin with.
Longarm wished it would up and get bitter, nasty, miserable cold.
Then they could hitch up the coach and make it on down the road to Bitter Creek, where the steel rails would make chinook winds and a whole damned sea of mud irrelevant.
As it was, well, he would settle for a hayrick to crawl into. He’d slept under worse conditions than that before, and almost certainly would have to again.
Howard Burdick handed out a couple of jugs of Indian whiskey for the men to share for nightcap purposes.
“No need to be shy about the stuff,” Burdick told them. “I mixed it up myself, and all the ingredients are fit for the human stomach. No t’baccy juice or gunpowder in this, just good stuff.” He grinned. “Oh, and maybe some floor sweepings too. But only tasty floor sweepings, I assure you.” Most of the fellows responded with chuckles.
Tyler Overton reached into his pocket for a coin, but Burdick waved the offer away.
“No charge for this whiskey, gents. The line regrets your inconvenience and will stand treat for whatever you eat and drink while you’re here. Get a good rest, all of you, and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.”
Longarm, and he was sure everyone else too, could damn sure second that sentiment.
He accepted a pull at the jug when one came around to him. The raw grain alcohol base was solid, and whatever Howard had added to it—plenty of water and some caramel coloring, no doubt, plus whatever other odds and ends might have been handy—resulted in a mixture that was palatable if not exactly outstanding. As Indian whiskeys went it was better than many, perhaps even most. It wasn’t going to give any competition to any bonded rye Longarm had ever tasted, not even the poorer grades of rye whiskey.
But hell, the price was right and the attitude generous. Longarm wasn’t going to bitch about it. He took a healthy slug and then another, the heat of the liquor spreading pleasantly through his belly, and then passed the jug along to the fellow beside him, the undersized dandy with the fancy cane. “Thankew,” the little fellow said as if it were one word.
“You’re welcome.”
Longarm’s temporary neighbor took a wee sip of the harsh whiskey—obviously doing his best to fit into a circumstance that was not what he was really accustomed to—and handed the jug on to someone else.
“if you’d follow me now, gents,” Burdick said. “Weonly have a few lanterns, so I’ll lead you out and leave you there for the night. Careful where you walk now. And those of you without rubber boots, you can decide for yourselves if you want to go barefoot in the mud and try to clean up a little when you get to the barn or wear your shoes and get them fouled all over again. Those of you with boots will please take them off once we reach the barn. You can leave all the boots by the door if you’de please. That way they can be used by anyone who needs to step
