Longarm’s head was swimming. He said, “Then, am I to understand that this evangelist business had nothing to do with you? That you didn’t have a falling-out with Mr. Stafford because he was tricking people with his liniment?”
She gave him an airy wave of her hand. “Oh, my falling-out with Mr. Stafford was over the terrible way he worked the crowd. He wouldn’t let me work it the way I wanted to work it. He could work a crowd up, I’ll give him that. He could bring them right on up to a fever pitch, but he never did any business after that. Why, we could have done five times the money we were doing, me and the other girls. But him and that damned liniment of his, it kept getting in the way. And that old rip would drink off about half the stuff while he was making it. It was for the most part alcohol, and he couldn’t fill up a bottle without drinking off a bottle.” She waved her hand again. “No, it was time to get out of there. I figured I’d do better out on my own. A couple of other girls left him about the same time, too.”
Longarm sat there staring at her with his mouth open. He said, “Miss Shaw, I beg your pardon, but it sounds like your tent evangelist had a traveling whorehouse.”
She shrugged. “Well, for the most part, I guess you could say that, although we did sell that liniment. Mr. Stafford claimed it had all kinds of curative powers, and I guess it did. It cured him of hangover every day I knew him.”
But Longarm was still fascinated by her past performance of the evening. He said, “And all that you did, that innocent little girl business, that was just for me?”
She laughed slyly. She said, “No, not altogether just for you. I like to do it, too. It makes me feel good, you know what I mean? Gets me all kind of excited again, you know, like it was the first time. You reckon that was real wicked?”
Longarm reached into his pocket for a cigarillo as he gave the matter a moment’s thought. Finally, he said, “Well, I don’t know if it’s wicked or not …” He smiled. “… but it sure as hell was a lot of fun.” He was in no way regretting having passed up his lady dressmaker for this unknown quantity. He said, knowing he only had one more night before he had to go to Texas, “Reckon what we can do tomorrow night after supper?”
She gave him a sly smile again. She said, “Would you rather me tell you now or would you like for me to surprise you?”
Longarm lit a match with the thick nail of his thumb and put it to his cigarillo. When it was drawing good, he shook the match out and said through the cloud of smoke, “Why don’t you just surprise me? A man can’t have too much fun in his life.”
He was already beginning to curse Billy Vail anew for what he thought he would miss on this ridiculous trip to Texas, that as far as he was concerned, was no part of his business or any part of the marshal’s business. But that was Billy Vail for you. Pick the best time for the worst job.
As he rattled along on the train, he couldn’t get the lovely Miss Shaw out of his mind. Again and again, her diminutive, perfect figure flashed in full form before his very eyes. He could almost see the tiny blue veins beneath the golden skin of her breasts where the skin was stretched taut by the firmness of her bosom. Nor could he forget the energy she could expend in the small space of a bed, even when he was taking up most of it. His last night had been one to remember.
Unfortunately, he didn’t want to remember it, not sitting in a day coach, staring out at the Oklahoma countryside as it rushed past the window of his car. He wanted to be back in Denver, enjoying that vision in physical person, not looking at poor land and poor cattle and poor homesteads with a poor prospect ahead of possibly days and days of wheedling and cajoling and trying to make peace among a bunch of knot-heads that probably didn’t have a brain between them nor the conscience of a sparrow.
His last night with the lovely Miss Shaw had been one that he was never going to forget, not only for its pleasure but for its uniqueness. She had somehow contrived to have a restaurant deliver them a full meal which she had served to him while he was in bed naked. They had alternated eating with making love. He would have never imagined that the combination would work, but it had had some unique moments.
But then, he had to leave the next day without seeing her. She asked when he would be returning, but he didn’t know nor could she assure him that she would be there upon his return. She shrugged and said, “Well, I’ll be here until something better comes along. I may go back to whoring, though I would rather not. I liked it better pulling a medicine show as Mr. Stafford called it. That’s kind of fun, hustling them rubes.”
Longarm had given her fifty dollars, not, he had assured her, in payment for her services, but just in case it might allow her to stay over a few extra days so that she would be there when he returned.
He had spent the night before in the train station in Oklahoma City, waiting to get out on an early-morning passenger train. He had brought his own horse along, a good roan gelding that had plenty of staying power and some fair speed. He figured he’d be doing a good deal of riding back and forth between the warring parties, and he wanted to be able to do it in the comfort of his own saddle and on his own horse. That had caused him to pass up one connection in order to get a passenger train that was also hauling some stock and freight cars so he could bring his horse along. It was making the trip that much longer, but he figured it was worth it.
He was already bored and he was not yet twenty-four hours into the job. They would arrive in Austin, Texas, later that night and then he’d get a southbound train from Austin, getting off in Brady, and from there he would ride east toward the town of Grit.
The name of the town alone was enough to irritate him. What kind of name was that for a town? Grit? He doubted seriously it had anything to do with courage or guts or gumption. Most likely, it meant an irritant, like a grain of sand in a man’s eye. Grit. What a name. He was already pretty sure he knew the people that would be there. He was pretty certain that he had met their kind in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Arizona: thick-headed, mule-mouthed, stubborn, narrow-eyed, stingy sons of bitches who thought there wasn’t but one fair way, and that was their way. He thought they’d be the very kind of people he hated to deal with. They tired him out with their stubbornness. Then of course, among them, there would be several who thought they were skillful with a gun because they had once shot a jackrabbit or maybe even a broken-legged horse. Those were the kind that were the most fun. The only problem with them was how to keep from having to kill them without getting hurt yourself. Just to kill them was no trouble at all. The problem was how not to kill them.
Meanwhile, the flat, scrub-covered, brownish gray landscape unrolled outside of his coach window, while the train swayed back and forth and clicked and clanged over the rail joints. He had a bottle of his good Maryland whiskey sitting on the seat next to him, and he pulled the cork and took a hard drink. He hoped he had brought enough. He had four more bottles in his valise and a good supply of his own particular brand of cigarillos. What he was going to miss, he imagined, was some peace and quiet and some good food and some good female company. If this bunch in Grit ran true to form, not only would the men be ignorant and stubborn, but the women would be as ugly and tight as a virgin soaked in alum.
