dismissively, then he returned to his son, whom he slapped on the back of the head for being so goddamned stupid! Making a mess of slaughtering the beef, like dat! Can't you do nottin'?
Matthew followed Coots and B. J. back to the livery stable, anger and disgust sour in his stomach.
EVERY SATURDAY, TWENTY-MILE PERFORMED the rituals of preparing itself for the arrival of the miners. Jeff Calder and Mr. Delanny would take their breakfast at the usual time, but the girls would sleep late in preparation for a long night's work that would extend well into the next morning. It was eleven o'clock before they descended, puffy-eyed, loose-robed, tangle-haired, and spiky-tempered. While Jeff Calder stumped around behind the bar, making sure everything would be swift to hand when the thirsty horde came crashing in, the girls grimly downed what Frenchy had come to call their '4-Bs,' beans, bacon, biscuits, and black coffee, responding to Matthew's buoyant greetings with only grunts or nods or, in the case of Chinky, a quick, fugitive smile.
One Saturday, while he was clearing the tables, Matthew saw Frenchy get a bottle of whiskey from the bar to bring up to her room. She intercepted his glance and explained with a shopworn laugh, 'Just something to oil up my tired old ass.' He nodded and smiled thinly, and for the first time in weeks he noticed the jagged, pouting scar that drew the corner of her eye down toward the corner of her mouth. But he supposed her clients wouldn't remember her face any more than she'd remember theirs.
The late breakfasts put him so far behind schedule that he had to rush through the dish-washing to get to the Kanes' in time for dinner, which was a heavier meal than usual because, as Ruth Lillian explained, she and her father would only be having cold corned beef and canned tomatoes for supper, and they would eat separately, during lulls in the trade, because one of them had to be in the shop at all times. Matthew would have to fend for himself.
In all the town's bustle of preparation there was nothing for him to do-evidence that he was still an outsider. So he returned to the marshal's office to take a nap because his sleep had been harried by recurring nightmares for several nights running, nightmares in which images wove bizarre yet dreadfully logical patterns, like Reverend Hibbard's red-rimmed eyes laced with angry veins when he reached out for Ruth Lillian, so Matthew pulled the trigger and Pa's old shotgun kicked him hard in the shoulder as it roared like a bony old cow snorting wetly through its frothy blood, but you don't sell the meat, you sell the sizzle, so Coots swore he'd never ever play cards with B. J. again, while Oskar Bjorkvist smiled and dragged the knife across the cow's throat, and the skin split open like the slit in a ripe watermelon running ahead of the knife, so of course Pa's old shotgun roared out again, and this time it was answered by the roar of another gun, and another, then three or four firing at the same time- Matthew sat up, gasping for air, his heart thudding in his chest! There was gunfire out in the street, the newly arrived miners shooting pistols into the air as they whooped their way from the train down to Bjorkvist's boardinghouse.
He put his head under the blankets and watched his door through a peek-hole, until he fell into a troubled sleep populated by slimy things, and ropy things, and Pa's old shotgun, and cows with slits throats, and…
One Saturday evening after the slopes of the distant wooded foothills had begun to tint with autumn, Matthew stood in the doorway of the marshal's office watching the tangled mob of hooting, laughing miners pass by, all bent on quenching the week's fatigue, danger, and boredom with great draughts of fun and hell-raising. He smiled on the invading horde with comradely affection. They were like the cowboys who come ripping into cattle towns in Anthony Bradford Chumms's books: a little wild sometimes, but good-hearted deep down. If a gambler cheated one of them, or if a professional gun tried to tempt a youngster into a face-off just to add another notch to his gun butt, then the Ringo Kid would intervene, speaking to the bully in his soft but strangely ominous voice, all the while smiling- except for his eyes-and the bad'un would back off, saying he wasn't up to anything and what's wrong? Can't anybody take a joke? On impulse, Matthew stepped out into the human flow and let it carry him up to the Bjorkvists'. There was a contagious energy in the crowd and a diffuse fellow-feeling, even in the shoving and lighthearted tussling in the ragged line that developed at the Bjorkvists' door, everyone eager to get at those 'steaks' and peaches. But Mrs. Bjorkvist stood at the entrance, allowing each to pass only after he had handed over his silver dollar. When Matthew worked his way up to her, he tipped his hat and said, 'Evenin', ma'am. I thought I might eat with you this evening. 'Course I don't need a bed, nor breakfast tomorrow, so what'll it cost for just supper?' Mrs. Bjorkvist told him that the price was one dollar for bed and board. And if he didn't want to use his bed or eat his breakfast, that was his concern. Matthew might have tried to argue that this was a little hard on a fellow townsman, but the man behind him was pressing against his back, and several people farther back in the line were complaining about the slowdown, so with a sense of injustice, he paid his dollar and took his place at a table that soon filled up elbow to elbow with loud-voiced miners sawing away at slabs of rare, stringy meat, downing astonishing quantities of boiled cabbage, and quickly emptying each high-piled plate of biscuits that Kersti Bjorkvist dropped off at their table as she rushed to and from the kitchen. Her mother didn't give her a hand until the last of the miners had paid his dollar and she had stepped out and looked down the street to make sure there wasn't another dollar lingering out there. In the belief that table service was beneath menfolk, the Bjorkvist father and son took their dinner in the kitchen, but one or the other would occasionally come to the doorway to look over the crowd, just to make sure everything was going all right.
Matthew made the acquaintance of the miner to his right, a man in his late forties with creased, kindly eyes, when they both reached for the last biscuit, then both pulled back to let the other have it, then both reached again. The man laughed and broke it, giving half to Matthew. 'That ought to hold us until the next batch comes along. Say, I don't think I've seen you around. My name's Doc.'
'I'm called the Ringo Kid.'
'Pleased to meet you, Ringo. You just sign on?'
'No, I'm not with the mine. I live here in Twenty-Mile.'
'You don't say.'
'Yeah, I'm the… Well, you'd find me at the marshal's office up the street.'
'You don't say! Shoot, I didn't know Twenty-Mile even had a marshal.'
'Oh, I'm not exactly the marshal. I just sort of…' He made a vague gesture.
'You just sort of look after things, is that it?'
'There you go.'
'Hey, ain't you going to eat your steak?'
'… ah, ho. No, I don't think so. You want it?'
'Do people in hell want ice water! Pass her over here! What's wrong with you, Ringo? Feeling bad?'
'No, no. I seem to have lost my taste for meat lately.' In fact, ever since he'd seen the cow butchered by the Bjorkvists.
'Lost your taste for meat! Whoa, that sounds serious!'
A harassed Kersti Bjorkvist reached their table with the big two-handed kettle from which she was slopping coffee into the men's tin cups. After filling Matthew's mug, she leaned over him to fill two cups on the other side of the table, pressing her sweat-damp body against his back.
'Hey, how about some biscuits here, girl!' Doc said.
'Just hold your water! I ain't got but two hands and two legs!'
'There's something else you got two of,' a wrinkled old miner across the table put in. 'And they're mighty fine ones, too!' His pals hooted with laughter, because this fellow was the mine's self-appointed comedian. 'Say, why don't you just bring them things over here so I can give them a little squeeze, see if they're up to snuff!'
'That'll be the day!' Kersti said, and with a toss of her thick blond hair she passed on to the next table, where she collected more of the suggestive remarks that were the only attention she ever got from men. It was true, Matthew noticed, that her breasts were big. But then, so were her ankles and her hips and her neck and her arms and her waist. But her hair was nice, you had to give her that. Not delicate and fine like Ruth Lillian's, but it was lush and golden, and it- 'Say, you're looking pretty hard at that girl, Ringo,' Doc said. 'And you said you didn't have any taste for meat! Get out of here!'
Matthew laughed to cover his blush. 'I guess you'll be going down to the hotel after you've ate,' Doc said. 'Which one's your favorite? I tried them all, and I guess for me it's a toss-up between Queeny and Chinky. Frenchy's a good old gal, but that scar of hers puts the heebie-jeebies up me. Maybe I don't drink enough first, eh?'
'Yeah, maybe that's it,' Matthew said, immediately feeling disloyal to Frenchy, who had become his favorite of the girls.
'So, which one you got your mouth set for?' Doc pursued.
'Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'll just get on back to the office. There's work needs being done.'
'Hey, that's right! You're here the whole week through! With all three to pick from! Some men's got all the
