have the job back. I didn't look up at him. He told me he was leaving because Twenty-Mile was a dying town. Then he added-almost incidentally-that he'd be taking my wife with him. Do you remember my wife, Mr. Stone?'
'Yes.'
'A beautiful woman.'
'Yes. Beautiful.'
'Much too young for me, of course, but… beautiful. Ruth Lillian is so much like her. Well, after he left, I sat for hours, here at this table. In my hand was the pistol I kept to scare robbers off. I had always thought I could never actually kill a living human being, but that night… that night I came within minutes of taking a life. If my little girl hadn't cried out in her sleep… if I hadn't considered what might become of her, alone in a place like Twenty-Mile… So I eased the hammer back down, and I got up and walked out into the night. It was almost dawn, still and cold, and I…' He compressed his lips and shook himself. 'I walked across the railroad tracks to the edge of the cliff, and I… I threw that pistol as far as I could! You see, Mr. Stone, getting rid of the gun was the only way I could be sure my daughter wouldn't become an orphan the first night I felt swamped by loneliness and depression.' He looked up and smiled thinly. 'Since that time, the Twenty-Mile Mercantile Emporium has not stocked guns. Not because I have any high-minded objection to violence. But only because, like I said, I'm afraid of them.'
B. J. let the silence soak into the darkness for a time. Then he nodded and stood up to leave.
Mr. Kane stood and shook his hand. 'Good night, Mr. Stone.'
'Good night, Mr. Kane.'
THE LOW-HANGING FULL moon drenched the street with a pale but penetrating light, so to keep out of sight of anyone watching from the hotel, Matthew passed behind the rains of the Pair o' Dice Social Club on his way back to the marshal's office. Through a gap between two abandoned buildings, he glimpsed Queeny sitting on the steps of the hotel, naked in the moonlight, rocking herself in drunken misery.
He slipped in through the back door of the marshal's office, and took a moment to think out how he would deal with Queeny. He decided it would be best to go across the street boldly, so that if one of the men saw him, he could act irritated and say the noise and shouting had awakened him, and he'd come to see what the hell was going on. He lit his lamp and turned it up bright so no one could claim he was sneaking around in the dark, then he took the blanket Ruth Lillian had given him and was about to step out into the street when he remembered to pull his shirt out of his trousers and muss his hair up.
'Queeny?' he whispered hoarsely.
She half-sat, half-sprawled across the hotel steps, her flaccid, fish-belly-white legs splayed wide.
'Here. Put this around you.' He draped the Hudson Bay blanket over her shoulders, looking aside to avoid seeing her glaucous flesh.
She shivered and drew the wool blanket around herself. 'That wasn't no way for a gentleman to do,' she muttered slushily. 'No real gentleman would say those things to a lady!' Her right eye was almost closed with swelling.
'No, he surely wouldn't, Queeny.' He tried to draw her to her feet, but she was too heavy, too limp. 'It was mean and low-down of him to say those things,' he said in the honeyed, agree-with-anything chant that his ma used to affect when his pa was drunk and balky. From somewhere in the lagan of his memory, he recalled a wet spot on the hearthstone where his pa had drooled while lying there in a stupor. 'Come on now, Queeny. You got to help some. I can't heft you.'
She heaved herself up and stood, unsteady. 'Where we going, honeybun?' Her whiskey-sour breath and the smeared hint of coquetry in her voice tightened his throat.
He half-supported, half-herded her through the door of the marshal's office and over to his bed, onto which she collapsed as though her bones had suddenly melted. He cupped his hand over his lamp and blew it out. The sudden plunge into darkness seemed to alert the half-conscious Queeny, who rose up onto one elbow and said, '… I told them I didn't want any more to drink, thank you kindly, but the big one with the kissy lips pushed me back onto the table and poured it down my throat! Down my…!' She began to sob, great slobbery blubs shaking her body. 'Then they made me dance. Tore off my clothes and made me dance! With everyone looking. And laughing! That ain't no right way to do a lady, is it?' '
'No, it surely ain't, Queeny. And I'm sorry.'
'O-o-o-o, are you, honeybun? Are you really and truly sorry?'
'You said everyone was looking at you.'
'And laughing. I used to be a real good dancer when I was on the stage. Light as a feather. Everybody used to clap and whistle and… But as a girl gets older…' Lush, hot tears swamped her voice.
'Who was this everyone that was looking at you, Queeny?'
'… light as a feather, I was. Ask anyone. I used to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils. But, you see, honeybun, when a gal gets older, she gets a little… well, a little hefty. No use denying it.'
'I'll bet you were a real fine dancer, Queeny. Who'd you say was laughing at you?' He imitated his ma's gentle persistence, when she was trying to pry a bit of information out of his drunken pa.
'All of them! They was all laughing! And passing remarks! That barber, old Peg-leg, the preacher, those no-'count Bjorkvists. And drunk? The boss, he made them all down whiskey till they was stumblin' and giggling. But that ain't no excuse for them to… Honeybun? Poor old Queeny's just burning up with thirst. You got some nice cold water for your poor old Queeny?'
Matthew dippered up a mugful from his water pail and brought it to her. She sucked it down greedily, swallowing some air and coughing a spray back at him. 'But that ain't no excuse, is it? Just 'cause they was drunk ain't no excuse for passing remarks about a person being… getting a little hef- hefty.'
He sat on the edge of the bed. 'What were all those men doing in the hotel?'
'I just told you! They were laughing and passing remarks!' And she began to blub again.
'Yes, but why did they come there in the first place?'
'He made them come!'
'Mr. Lieder?'
'Sure!'
'But why did he do that?'
'Don't ask me. I don't… I don't…' She fell silent and her breathing deepened.
'Queeny? Queeny! Tell me about Mr. Delanny.'
'Wha…? Huh?'
'When those strangers came into the hotel, didn't Mr. Delanny do anything?'
'No, of course not! Mr. Delanny ain't the kind to laugh and pass personal remarks about a lady. He's a professional. Like me. Could you give old Queeny another little drink, honeybun? She's just parched.'
Matthew refilled the tin mug, returned to the bed, and held it to her lips as she drank greedily. 'Queeny, you've worked for Mr. Delanny for a long time. Tell me, does he have a gun?'
'He's a real professional,' she said hollowly into the mug. 'Firm but fair… like me.'
'Yes, Queeny, but listen to me. Does… Mr… Delanny… have… a… gun?'
'Of course!' She threw the mug onto the floor. 'I told you he was a professional! Can't you punks understand anything?'
He waited for her muddled fury to subside before asking patiently. 'And what kind of gun does Mr. Delanny have?'
'A little teeny-tiny one. In his boot. A derringer with a little teeny-tiny barrel. No bigger'n a little boy's pecker.' She giggled… and gagged. 'Uh-oh! I'm afraid… the cold water… makes the whiskey come back up. I'm afraid I'm going to…' She dropped back onto the pillow.
'Queeny?'
'I just got to sleep, honeybun,' she slurred. 'I really got to, or I'll be sick.'
'Queeny? Queeny? Do you think Mr. Delanny will use his gun on those men who laughed and passed remarks on you?'
'No, I don't… wha…? Can… get up…'
'What?'
'He's… can't… chair…'
'Queeny?'
'He can't get up, I'm telling ya!'
