Miss Shumway Waves a Wand

I caught her band and pulled her close to me. She didn’t resist, but let me pull her across the small space that divided us. “I think so,” I said, sliding my arm under her shoulders. “An awful lot better.”

We lay like that, close to each other, and I could see the overhead clouds reflected in her eyes.

“Will you like that?” she asked, her lips close to mine.

“Maybe—I don’t know.” Then I kissed her, pressing my mouth hard on hers.

She lay still. I wished she would close her eyes and relax, but she didn’t. I could feel the hard muscles in her back resisting me. Her lips felt hard, tight and child-like against mine.

She made no effort to push me away. Kissing her like that was as good as kissing the back of my hand. I dropped onto my elbow again, releasing her. “All right,” I said. “Forget it.”

She shifted away from me. Her fingers touched her lips carefully, “You meant that to be something, didn’t you?” she asked, curling her legs under her and adjusting her skirt.

“Sure,” I said. “But what of it? Sometimes it’s all right, but not this time. The trick is not to rush this kind of thing.”

“No,” she said, looking at me seriously. “The trick is not to do it at all.”

Then I thought what’s wrong with me? What am I trying to do? I’d got a job on my hands. I’d got 25,000 dollars just around the corner with my name on it, and here I am gumming up my chance trying to neck a kid that meant as much to me as last year’s income tax return. I guess it was her hair. I was always a sucker for blondes.

“Changed your mind about knowing me awfully well?” she said, watching me intently.

“I guess not,” I said. “I’ll keep trying. Did I tell you about the red head I met in New Orleans?”

“You don’t have to,” she said, scrambling to her feet, “I can imagine it,”

“Not this red head,” I returned, looking up at her. “She had a figure like an hour glass. Boy! Did she make every minute count!”

She began moving slowly towards the Cadillac. “So you’re not going to help me?” she said.

“Not after I’ve been nice to you?”

“What’s wrong?” I got to my feet and we both walked towards the Cadillac. “You were feeling fine about it this morning.”

“I’ve thought about it,” she said, getting into the car. “I don’t like the idea any more.”

“Give it a chance,” I urged, feeling the heat coming at me from off the dusty road. “Be big minded about it.”

“What are you getting out of it?” she said, starting the engine “You’re selling it too hard to be disinterested.”

“A story,” I said. “And, Pie-crust, if you were a newspaper man you’d know just what that meant. It’s going to be a beautiful story, with lots of publicity, and they’ll even print my picture.”

“You never give a thought to those folk who have their meat wrapped in your newspaper, do you?” Myra returned, driving slowly back the way we came.

I winced. “I wish you wouldn’t,” I said. “Wisecracks spoil your romantic appeal.”

She slightly increased the speed of the car as we began to descend the steep winding rood. Just ahead of us was the little mountain town we had already passed on our way up.

“Let’s stop and buy some beer,” I said. “My tonsils are dusty.”

We entered the town, drove along the cobbled main mad, ignored the group of Indians, lounging behind heaps of van-coloured flowers which they stretched towards us, and pulled up outside a little beershop. There was a long wrought-iron table and bench outside the shop, shaded by a gaily covered awning. A smell of beer and stale bodies came through the doorway.

“We won’t go in,” I said, sitting at the table. “That smell reminds me of a newspaper office.”

She came and sat by my side and pulled off her wide straw hat, which she laid carefully on the table.

A thin, elderly Mexican came out of the shop and bowed to us. There was an odd, worried look in his eyes that made me wonder if he was in trouble.

I ordered beer and he went away without saying anything. “Now, there’s a guy who looks like he’s got more than his hat on his mind,” I said, opening my coat and picking the front of my shirt carefully off my chest.

“These greasers are all alike,” Myra returned, indifferently. “They worry over which way a flea will jump. At one time I was sorry for them, but now, I don’t worry—” She broke off and looked pest me, her eyes widening.

I glanced over my shoulder.

Standing in the doorway of the shop was the fattest man I’d ever seen. He was not only fat, but he was big with it. I guess he must have been seven inches over six foot. He was wearing the usual straw sombrero, a sarape hung over his great shoulders, but I could see his neat black suit and his soft Mexican riding boots ornamented with silver inlay.

He leaned against the doorway, a cigarette banging from his thick lips and his black eyes on Myra.

I particularly noticed his eyes. They were flat like the eyes of a snake. I didn’t like the look of this party. He didn’t belong to the town. I was sure of that. There was too much class about him. I didn’t like the leer he as telegraphing to Myra.

“Isn’t he cute?” Myra said to me. “I bet he was twins before his mother cooked him in a too hot bath.”

“Listen, Apple blossom,” I said, keeping my voice low, “keep your funny stuff for me, will you? That hombre won’t like it.”

The fat man picked his cigarette out of his mouth and flicked it across at me. It landed on the table between us.

If any other greaser had done that, I’d have pinned his c ears back, but I’ve got a superstition about hitting a guy twice my size. I’ve been over that with you before. But when that guy gets so that he’s three times my size, I’ll take an awful lot from him before I go into action.

Myra didn’t mind pushing me into a fight. That’s like a woman. They think uneven odds is a sign of chivalry.

“Why don’t you poke that fat boy in his pantry?” she asked.

Maybe the guy couldn’t speak anything but his own language, but how was I to know? The most unlikely people get educated these days.

“What do you want me to do?” I whispered. “Commit suicide?”

“You’re not going to let a pail of lard insult me?” Myra said, her eyes suddenly flashing.

“Didn’t you see what he did?” She pointed to the cigarette end that smouldered near her hand.

“That little thing?” I said, hastily. “Why, that was an accident. He didn’t mean anything. You pipe down. It’s dames like you who cause revolutions.”

Just then the thin Mexican came out of the shop. He edged round the fat party as if he were passing close to a black widow. Then he set two beers in front of us and faded back to the shop fast.

The fat party was smoking again and he took his cigarette out and flipped it once more. I had my hand over my glass as the smoking cigarette curled through the air, but it dropped into Myra’s glass.

I took her glass before she could say anything and gave her mine. “There you are, sweetheart, and for the love of Mike don’t make anything of it.”

Myra’s face scared me. She’d gone a little white and her eyes looked like those of a cat in the dark.

The fat party suddenly laughed. It was a high tinny sound that went with his sideboards and pencilled moustache. “The senor has milk in his veins,” he said, slapping his thick thigh and looking as if he was having the time of his life.

I considered getting up and giving him one, but something warned me off. I’ve knocked around this country for some time and I’ve seen plenty of tough greasers, but this party was something special. If I was going to do anything, I’d have to do it with a gun. That was the kind of guy he was and I didn’t have a gun with me

That didn’t put Myra off. She gave him a look that would have stopped a runaway horse and said, “Go jump into a lake, you fat sissy; if one won’t hold you, jump into two.”

You could have heard a feather settle on the ground.

The fat party stopped laughing. “You’ve got a very big mouth, little rabbit,” he said. “You should be careful how you use it.”

Boy! Could that guy look mean?