'Tell Mr. Kane that we'll keep his girl here out of sight until after dark. He's not going to like hearing that she didn't manage to get out of town, so you'll have to try to… you know… reassure him.'
'Yes, sir. Shall I come back here after I talk to Mr. Kane?'
'No, don't draw their attention to this place any more than you have to. You just hang around the marshal's office.'
'Yes sir. Maybe first I'd better go up and see if there's anything Ruth Lillian wants me to tell her pa.'
'If you want.'
When Matthew lifted the trapdoor to the loft, he found Ruth Lillian and Frenchy staring down at him, each holding her side of a back issue of Harper's Illustrated. They had been paging through it to pass the time, carefully peeling apart pages that had been stuck together by the damp, when the sound of Matthew climbing the steep loft ladder made them catch their breaths and freeze.
'I'm just… going down to the Mercantile,' he said half-apologetically. He felt he ought to have something to tell Ruth Lillian to justify startling them, but the only thing he could think of was, 'Is there anything you want me to tell your pa?'
'Just tell him I'll be back after nightfall. And not to worry. Coots is going to take care of everything.'
'All right.' He felt stupid, standing there on the ladder, with half of his body sticking up into the loft, and them sitting side by side on the iron cot that occupied most of the space, looking down at him. 'Anything else you want me to tell him?'
'Just that I'm fine.'
'All right.' He started to descend. Then he pushed the trapdoor back up. 'Looks like we're in for one of your rip-snorters.'
'Yes.'
Matthew nodded. 'Well, then… I guess I'll be getting.'
'All right.'
He started to descend, then: 'You okay, Frenchy?'
'Yeah, I'm all right.'
'Anything I can do for you?'
'No, I don't think-Well, you could tell them downstairs that I could use something to eat… and some shoes.'
'Shoes?'
'Yeah. Any kind of shoes. I don't care.'
'Oh. Well then… I'll tell them about the shoes and… well, I guess I better be going.'
'All right,' both women said at once, and before he had closed the loft trapdoor over his head, they were paging through the magazine again, their hair touching.
He stood for a moment at the bottom of the ladder, feeling swamped by reality vertigo. It seemed so strange, those two sitting together up in that close space smelling of dust and old things. Small white girl, tall black woman. Virgin and whore, smooth cheek next to scarred cheek, both looking at pictures of smiling, urbane young men and women parading their fashionable clothes in last year's Easter Parade down New York's Fifth Avenue. Just a short time ago, one had been prepared to risk her life in a storm; and less than an hour ago, the other had slipped a knife between a man's ribs.
MATTHEW FOUND MR. KANE sitting at his table, where he had been the night before, and he had the odd feeling that he hadn't moved since then. But that couldn't be, because he had seen Mrs. Bjorkvist leaving as he arrived, and she was carrying some purchase.
'Ruth Lillian must be almost up to the Lode by now,' Mr. Kane said before the spring bell over the door had stopped jangling. 'I hope she doesn't get caught in the rain.'
'Well, no, sir. You see, she-'
'What's wrong? What happened?'
'Now don't worry, sir! She's fine. Fine. She met up with Coots and warned him, but there's a terrible storm on its way in, and Coots thought it would be too dangerous for her to try to make it up the trail. So he brought her back with him-But don't worry. She's hidden away up in B. J. 's loft. She said you're not to worry one bit, and she'll be here as soon as it gets dark. B. J., he said her going up there to warn Coots was just about the bravest thing he'd seen in all his born days, and that she was safe and… everything. So you're not to worry.'
'Do you know how many times you've said 'Don't worry'? When you're told that often not to worry… there's reason to worry.' Mr. Kane lowered his eyes to his ledger book and blinked. 'So… she's back. Back, with those men in town.' He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head slowly.
Matthew noticed that Mr. Kane hadn't shaved. He always shaved, even when his heart was playing him up. 'What did Mrs. Bjorkvist want? She hardly ever buys anything.'
'… Hm-m? What?' It was almost as though Mr. Kane had dropped off for a second. 'Oh… bicarbonate of soda and headache powders. Her men drank too much last night, and they have to go again tonight.'
'Oh. Well, I guess I better close up for dinner, huh?'
'What? Oh… yes, I suppose so. But I… I haven't… ' He didn't finish. He closed his account book and lightly rubbed his palm over the cover, frowning as though he were puzzled by something. Then he looked up at Matthew, blinking. '… ah… I haven't made anything for dinner.'
'I'll do it, sir!' Matthew locked the front door and turned the Open at One sign so it could be seen from outside. 'I'll just open us a can of tomatoes and fry up some… whatever there is. Don't worry, we'll make do.' Mr. Kane dully followed him upstairs to the living quarters, where Matthew started putting a scratch meal together, like he used to when he got home from school and found his mother too beaten up to cook… or just too down in the dumps to care. As he bustled around the kitchen, he ransacked his imagination for something to talk about so he could avoid mentioning Mr. Delanny's death. And he certainly wasn't going to tell Mr. Kane that Lieder was looking for a virgin beauty to carry his seed! 'Boy-o-boy, the weather sure feels eerie.'
'What do you mean, eerie?'
'Well, it's sort of like holding its breath. There's no breeze at all. One minute the air feels warm, and the next it's sort of clammy. And you can taste it… the air, I mean. I guess one of your rip-snorters is coming in. Ruth Lillian told me about the time the Pair o' Dice Social Club got hit by lightning, and how you wrapped her in a blanket and brought her out on the porch to watch it burn down, and how the rain was pelting down so hard that you couldn't hear the flames roaring and crackling. Boy, that must of been one heck of a-'
'What is it, Matthew?' Mr. Kane said irritably.
'Sir?'
'Why are you babbling on like this? You're trying to avoid telling me-Something's wrong with Ruth Lillian! I know it!'
'No, sir! No, she's fine. She's sitting up there, reading a magazine, just as pert as can be. No, it's just…' He spooned their dinner from the frying pan into two plates.
'It's just what?'
Matthew carried to the table the 'stew' he had made from canned beans mixed with canned tomatoes into which he had chopped an onion, to give it 'crunch.'
'There you go, sir! It's not much but, like my pa used to say, it's better'n a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!'
'Tell me what's happening!'
'All right, sir, I'll tell you. B. J. and Coots wanted me to explain our plan to you, so you'd know how we're going to protect Ruth Lillian. What we're going to do is this. When it gets good'n dark, and the storm's ripping and snorting, Coots is going to sneak across to the hotel and slip into the kitchen. And while they're all singing and drinking, he's going to keep back in the shadows and take careful aim and drop that boss. Then he'll have to do the best he can with the other two, what with all the confusion and scrambling around. B. J. wanted to back him up, but we decided he wasn't cut out for gunplay. And anyways, they don't have but one gun. There was some talk about using my pa's gun, but I don't believe a big old double-load shotgun like that is the right thing for close-in work. Especially in the dark. What I've got to do is figure out how to tote that old cannon across the street in broad daylight without them starting to blaze away at me. I haven't thought up a way yet, but I'm working on it.'
Mr. Kane took up his spoon and dully pushed the beans and tomatoes around in his plate, then he put his spoon down. 'I suppose there's no other way? No other way than killing?'
