and plenty of that awful pemmican I was foolish enough to buy off a passing Shoshone a while back. Oh, yes. I still have near a whole crock of sauerkraut. I keep forgetting about that. But then it smells so bad that I keep it in the storeroom and never think to mention it.”
“How much cornmeal did you say you have, Mr. Parminter?”
“About ten pounds or a little better, Mrs. Corbett.”
“I will take it all off your hands, sir. And raisins and some of that rice and-“
“Leandra!” the other lady gasped.
“Something wrong, dear?”
“You could share that cornmeal with me, you know.”
“How much do you want, dear?”
“Half.”
“I would give up two pounds. No more.”
“Half,” the other woman insisted. “And the rest of those raisins, Mr. Parminter. And …”
The list was impressive. Parminter jotted it all down, added up the ladies’ bills, and informed them of the totals. The Corbett woman sniffed and made an imperious little waggle of her finger advising Parminter to put the amount on her account. The other lady pulled out a coin purse and counted out the exact amount for her purchases.
“I’ll see your orders are delivered no later than noon tomorrow,” the mayor told them.
“Very well. Good day, sir.”
“Good-bye.”
Longarm touched the front of his hat and hurried to hold the door open for them. When he got back to the counter he had to wait in line while a couple of gents made minor purchases of woolen stockings and the like. When the store finally cleared, Longarm observed, “Funny thing about those women that were in here.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s the one that asked for credit that I would’ve taken for the better off of the two, seeing how they were dressed and everything.”
Parminter grunted. “You weren’t wrong. Ben Corbett is one of the wealthiest men in this county. Likely in this end of Wyoming, for that matter.”
Longarm shook his head. “Then why’d his missus want credit while the poorer one paid cash?”
“Didn’t you know? The rich don’t need cash. Handling it is a nuisance. It’s only us poor folks that have to worry about paying up on time.”
Longarm chuckled a bit, and would have said something more, but the street door pushed open and four snow-covered figures came tumbling in, bringing a flurry of laughter along with them. Longarm recognized the friendly young cowboys he’d played poker with earlier. “Hello, Billy. Jason. Carl.” It took him a moment to remember the fourth one’s name. “Ronnie.”
“Hello, Marshal. Mr. Mayor.” The young men stamped snow off their boots and whipped it from their clothes using the brims of their hats, and in general filled the store with their clatter. “We’re needing tobacco, Mr. Parminter.”
“Matches too,” one of them put in. “And some groceries. We need bacon, lard, flour, coffee.”
“And salt. Don’t forget we’re about out of salt.”
“Sorry, boys, but I’m almost cleaned out.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything.”
“But you have to have some of the stuff we need. Surely you can’t be out of it all.”
“Sorry. No, wait. I have salt. And let me see what else you might be able to use.” Parminter went through his list, and the boys decided on an order that was fairly extensive considering that they likely wouldn’t know what to do with most of it.
“We’ll take the stuff with us, Mr. Parminter. On tick like usual.”
“You’re running up a pretty good-sized bill, fellows. Especially for so early in the season. I don’t think …”
“You know we’re good for it, Mr. Parminter.”
“Soon as the spring gather starts we’ll be drawing pay again.”
“We never let you down before.”
“I know that, but you’ve never spent this heavy before either.”
“We had a run of bad luck, that’s all.”
“Some damn sharpies like to cleaned us out a couple weeks ago. A pair of them acting like they didn’t know each other.”
“They seen us coming and they whipsawed us before we knew what they was up to.”
“They left us short for the year.”
“But smarter. We won’t be taken like that again, Mr. Parminter.”
