'I ain't lying to you, boy!'
'I didn't say you're lying, but people sometimes think they're awake when they ain't.
'I was awake! Don't you contradict-I heard you come into the kitchen, pussyfooting it. Then you stood at the door, looking around the barroom.'
'But… how could you see me? You had your back to me.'
'I can feel when people are looking at me. It's a gift been bestowed on me as a sign of favor. A kind of armor to protect me against my enemies so's I can fulfil my mission. Shoot, I can even see through closed eyes! You don't believe me, but it's true! Sometimes when I'm reading late at night, I get so sleepy that I can't keep my eyes open, but I can still read. Right through my closed eyelids! I spend a lot of time on one page, that's true, but I'm reading! I'm reading!' His eyes softened, and his tone shifted to one of gentle wonder. 'Did you ever notice how a mess of bacon frying sounds like rain on a tin roof?'
'No, sir,' Matthew said, his mouth suddenly dry, because if this man could see through closed eyes, it was a good thing Coots hadn't been standing there with him in the doorway of the barroom.
'Me, I notice things. Like how bacon frying sounds like rain on a tin roof. Poetic things like that. It don't hurt a man to be sensitive to the beauties around him.'
'Have you thought about what you're going to do, sir?'
'What do you mean, do?'
'When the train comes and you find yourself facing all those miners.'
Lieder leaned back on his elbows and blew out a long jet of breath. 'Yeah, I been giving it some thought. And I've decided that maybe those miners ain't a threat. Maybe they're an opportunity.'
'Opportunity?'
'I'll talk to them. Tell them about what's happening to this country of ours. Chances are they'll want to join my cause! Something brought me to Twenty-Mile. Maybe it was the opportunity to enlist those miners into my militia. Hey, wait a minute. Those miners are of Aryan blood, ain't they?'
'What's that?'
'People who come from healthy northern European stock. You can tell just by looking. Those Mediterraneans, they're mostly small and dark and shifty-eyed. And those slavs, they're mostly flat-faced, and their nostrils point right at you, like a shotgun.'
'I don't know what kind of people the miners are. Just people.'
'There ain't any Chinee among 'em, is there?'
'Not as I've seen.'
'That's good, 'cause The Warrior has prophesied that the Chinaman is this nation's final enemy. The Yellow Peril. There's millions of them over there, all waiting to come swarming over in search of white women, 'cause they've killed so many of their own girl babies to keep from having to feed them that they're running out of women. Did you know that Chinamen cripple their girls by binding up their feet, so's they can't run away when they're raping them? It's true! And rich old Chinamen pay big money to have rhinoceros and tigers killed so's they can eat the horns and balls to make their withered old peckers strong enough to screw a few more times before they die. And if there's anything this poor old world doesn't need, it's more goddamned Chinamen! Well! Let's get to that breakfast!' Lieder turned back into the barroom and shouted, 'Everyone up! Breakfast!' He pounded on the bar with the flat of his hand. 'Everyone awake! Reveille! Reveille! Up and out!'
Mr. Delanny's neck muscles twitched with each shout, but he did not turn toward Lieder. Frenchy shuddered and lifted her head from her arms, blinking as though uncertain of where she was. Then she saw Mr. Delanny tied to his chair, and she knew that her bad dreams had not been dreams.
Lieder went to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up in the taunting, brassy tones of a sergeant who enjoys tearing men from the temporary haven of sleep. 'All right, men, get down here! Breakfast! Breakfast! The last one down gets nothing to eat!'
Jeff Calder crawled stiffly out from behind the bar, where he had bedded down on the floor, dead drunk. He was suffering from a hangover so bad that the roots of his hair hurt.
When Matthew came in from the kitchen carrying the coffee pot, its hot handle swathed in a rag, and a bouquet of tin cups threaded through the fingers of his other hand, Tiny and Bobby-My-Boy were coming down the stairs, their eyelids raw and sticky and their slept-in clothes smelling of sweat, whiskey, and sex. Tiny drew Chinky behind him by her wrist, like a pull toy. She followed numbly, barefooted and shivering in her chemisette and pantaloons. Her face was ashen and her mouth puffy and bruised. They had used her often and roughly during the night.
'Well, looky there!' Lieder said. 'The blushing bride and her two tuckered-out bridegrooms. Now, ain't that a picture?'
After refilling Lieder's cup, Matthew served the table where Chinky sat between Tiny and Bobby-My-Boy. She didn't lift her eyes when he set her cup before her, so he pushed it toward her and said, 'Here you go, Miss Chinky. It'll do you good.' She didn't respond. Dropping Jeff Calder's cup off on the counter, he served Frenchy, who drew a long, thirsty sip off the surface of the coffee, despite its heat. It was not until he turned to serve Mr. Delanny that he saw what a terrible state he was in. Because his arms were tied to the arms of his chair he had been unable to use his handkerchief throughout the night, and there were crusts of blood on his chin and down his usually snow- white frilled shirtfront. His fingers were fat and purple because, in his eagerness to show himself obedient and willing, Jeff Calder had cinched the rope up as tightly as he could. Matthew could feel how those blood-bloated fingers must have throbbed with pain before they became numb, and he empathetically splayed his own fingers wide apart as he said, 'I could hold the cup for you, Mr. Delanny. Or maybe you'd like a glass of water?'
'No, Mr. Pimp here won't be having any coffee this morning,' Lieder said from his chair tipped back against the wall. 'He's doing penance for having overindulged himself last night. Not with whiskey like my choir members did. Drunk as pigs, they were! A disgrace to the good name of Twenty-Mile! No, Mr. Delanny overindulged himself in sassy uppityness and snotty-nosed finer-than-thou-ness. But I'll grant him one thing. He sure can hold his piss. Lord-love-us, his bladder must be stretched tighter'n a virgin's hole! I am impressed. Mr. Delanny. Truly impressed.'
Matthew couldn't help glancing down. In fact, Mr. Delanny had not been able to hold his piss. When he looked up, Mr. Delanny's eyes caught his and held them in an intense glare that dared him to say a word.
Matthew gave Mr. Delanny a little helpless shrug and went back into the kitchen. After he had distributed plates of bacon and biscuits, he returned to Mr. Delanny's chair and used a wet cloth from his tray to wipe away the scabs of blood on his mouth and chin. The muscles of Mr. Delanny's chin worked, and his mouth tightened to a thin line. He stared at Matthew, his eyes almost spitting hate at this witness to his helplessness and humiliation. He started to say something, but he coughed and began to raise blood, so Matthew held the rag to his lips, looking away so as not to embarrass him. His glance intersected Frenchy's. Her yellow eyes were brittle, and her jaw was set tight. Matthew wondered if she had seen the dark stain of piss. He hoped not.
'Hey! Hey! What do you think you're doing there, boy?' Lieder asked.
'I'm tending to Mr. Delanny,' Matthew said quietly.
'Did I say you could do that?'
'No, sir, you didn't.' He continued wiping away the water-softened scabs of blood.
Lieder scowled at Matthew. Tiny nudged Bobby-My-Boy in anticipation. After a silence charged with menace, Lieder said, 'Well… you just get on with it, boy. You have my permission to follow your Christian impulses. Caring about other people is one of the differences between natural-born Americans and these immigrants that don't give a frog's fart about nobody but themselves and their own spawn. But be careful, boy, less'n they take advantage of your kindness.'
Bobby-My-Boy and Tiny were disappointed… and jealous.
Lieder turned to them and spoke with mock gruffness. 'Now I hope you two treated your bride with the same Christian charity that this boy is showing toward our sassy-mouthed pimp.'
They blinked in confusion.
'What I mean is, I hope you gave her plenty of opportunities to turn her other cheek.'
After a moment of baffled incomprehension, they both spluttered with biscuit-clogged laughter. Turn her other cheek!
His eyes glittering with pleasure at the effect of his wit, Lieder dipped a biscuit into the bowl of corn syrup and turned it back and forth adroitly until the syrup had coated most of the surface before putting it whole into his
