seemed at peace for once in his life, but what she
didn’t know was that his visits to the local opium den
had altered his thinking.
Then he got into a knife fight with a man and the
man stabbed him and the wound was nearly fatal. Fal-
lon wasn’t able to get out of bed for a time and Clara
had taken work as a schoolteacher. It was through ru-
mor that she learned Fallon had been seeing a local
prostitute and that the stabbing had been over this
woman. She went to find out the truth and soon
learned it.
When Fallon was nearly healed she confronted
him. He didn’t deny it. It was then she decided she
would leave him.
And the first time he went to town again and came
home drunk and she found him snoring in their bed,
she packed the children and took the stage north to a
settlement called Sweet Sorrow. Weeks before, she’d
seen an advertisement in the
schoolteacher and had written a letter of interest and
received one back offering her the job. Fallon had
made it easy for her.
He awoke that night to find her gone along with
her clothes and his children. He wondered how much
he cared, went to town and found his prostitute.
“I am a free man,” he declared to the cyprian.
“Free of what?” she said.
They were already through half a bottle of Black
Mustang.
“I left Clara.”
“What will you do now?”
“Be with you,” he said.
She laughed.
“I’m a working gal, Fallon. But I work for me and
I work for Harry. You can’t stay with me. Harry
would castrate you, or worse.”
“I never liked that son of a bitch,” he declared.
“He wouldn’t like you, either, if he thought you
wanted me to give it to you free.”
Fallon was struck by the coldness in her voice.
“I thought . . .”
She laughed.
“Don’t be a fool,” she said. “I got a man and he
sees I’m taken care of and I don’t need two. Now you
want a turn, Fallon? I mean do you have the money
for a turn? If not, I’m going to have to ask you to
leave.”
“Toss me out? Like that?”
She nodded.
He drew back his fist.
“Don’t,” she said. “I’d hate to tell Harry you
roughed me up. Harry doesn’t let any man fool with
his property. He’d kill you and have the butcher grind
you up into sausage.”
He smashed his fist into her face and she went
down. Then, taking what was left of the bottle, he
stepped over her and reached for the door.
“Get out you damn drunkard! I’ll have Harry on
you! You wait and see!”
Later he heard the pimp, Harry Turtle, was look-
ing for him, Harry and some of his gang. And Fallon
found himself hiding in a dark alley and stayed in it
till the first gray dawn came again. Somewhere he had
lost his nerve, or it had been stolen by the whiskey
and dope. His hands trembled as he rose shakily. He
stumbled down the alley. The town was quiet. The
quiet spooked him almost as much as the thought of
Harry Turtle and his boys catching up to him.
He knew he must try and find Clara, that she
would save him. She’d always been there for him—
until this last time. His anger welled inside him at the
thought that she wasn’t there now. Because of you my
life has turned to hell, he thought.
He went to the stage lines, found the ticket master
there alone, smoking his pipe, enjoying a cup of cof-
fee. The man looked up beneath bushy eyebrows, his
forehead wrinkling, the dome of his bald head a splat-
ter of brown spots.
“A woman and two kids buy a ticket here the other
day, day before that?”
The ticket master ran it through his mind, said,
“No.”
“She had to,” Fallon said in a plaintive voice.
“Was no other way she could have got out of here!”
Ticket master said, “Woman come in about two
weeks ago and purchased three tickets, but not the
other day. She
and two little girls, like you said.”
“Where to?” Fallon said.
Ticket master scratched behind his ear.
“Can’t remember where exactly she was bound
for.”
“Give me a list of stops along the way.”
“You want a ticket?”
“Far as this damn mud wagon goes,” Fallon said.
Ticket master said, “It’ll cost you thirty dollars all
the way.”
Fallon realized he was flat broke.
“Just write ’em down for me, the stops, then.”
