Buckskin

by Robert Knott

  “He brought me some flowers.”

  “And after?”

  “I did not see him after. I had a late dinner with my cast. Why?”

  “I can and will explain at some point. I just needed to know. Nothing personal.”

  “Business?” she said.

  “It is,” I said.

  She walked up to me eye to eye. Then she leaned in and kissed me.

  “Shall we?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “Let’s,” I said.

  And we were out the door. We walked without talking for a few blocks. The night was warm and we moved along at an easy pace, her arm in mine.

  “You know, Everett, as much as I like you—and you know I do—you must know that I do have admirers.”

  “I would be surprised if you didn’t.”

  “But,” she said. “In seriousness considered, I could get used to this, Everett Hitch.”

  “Used to what?”

  “Do I need to spell it out for you?”

  “Are you proposing?” I said.

  She walked for a ways, smiling.

  “But I’m a vagabond,” she said.

  “With admirers,” I said.

  “A few thousand,” she said. “But a vagabond.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, you do have a profession.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “I’m all over.”

  “Everybody has to be someplace,” I said.

  “Are you intentionally making it easy?”

  “Let me think about that,” I said.

  “Are you?”

  “Maybe I am.”

  She smiled and squeezed my arm.

  “We do what we do,” I said.

  “That is true,” she said. “But everything has a beginning and an end.”

  We thought about that as we walked. We both realized that comment could easily fit into a start or a finish.

  43

  Since Appaloosa had been on a constant growing spree, more and more money was being made. It seemed everyone who was doing well and getting ahead had extra help around the house. Virgil and Allie were no exception.

  Effie, Allie’s housemaid, opened the door when Martha Kathryn and I arrived. Her eyes lit up.

  “Come in this house, Mr. Everett.”

  She smiled wide at Martha Kathryn with her fists planted on her round hips.

  “And just lookie here,” she said.

  “This is Martha Kathryn,” I said.

  “Well, of course she is. Come in. Come in.”

  Effie closed the door behind us and circled Martha Kathryn like a buyer studying her confirmation.

  “Just look at you.”

  “Martha Kathryn,” I said. “This is Effie.”

  “How do you do,” Martha Kathryn said.

  “Miss Allie was not making up nothing,” Effie said. “When she go telling me about you. You as perdy as they come.”

  “Thank you, Effie,” Martha Kathryn said. “But I’m afraid you are mistaken.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re the one that is as pretty as they come.”

  Effie grinned wide.

  “Well, listen to you,” Effie said. “You hear that, Mr. Everett. We got three perdy ladies in this here house.”

  “Obvious as the day is long, Effie,” I said.

  Effie, a seasoned housemaid with a personality bigger than a circus, was as round as she was tall. Ever since the demands of Allie’s dress-shop business, Allie had little time to take care of chores around the place, and Effie was now in charge of the house. And she let everybody know about it. Including Virgil.

  “Let me get your hat and shawl,” Effie said as she helped Martha Kathryn with her removal.

  Effie took care of everything from fetching groceries to cleaning, cooking, and laundry. Since she had been working with Virgil and Allie, I don’t think I’d seen Virgil without his suit and shirt cleaned and pressed and his boots polished.

  She had no problem speaking her mind, either, and she did so often. She was originally from the south of Georgia, and though she was a slave in her younger days, she had been a freedwoman most of her life.

  She was always with a smile and spent most of her waking hours talking. And though Virgil didn’t appreciate her constant babbling, he was happy for her cooking, which was far more accomplished than Allie’s.

  But Allie’s cooking was way better than it used to be. Partly because of the Appaloosa ladies’ social, an organization Allie helped found. The social was good at providing recipes, and for the most part Allie had grown accustomed to following them.

  “Well, hello,” Allie said as she came out of the kitchen.

  “Allie,” Martha Kathryn said. “What a lovely home.”

  “Why, thank you,” she said. “So happy you are here.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Allie was wearing an apron. And like normal when she was cooking, she was covered with remnants of what she was working on.

  “Something smells good,” I said.

  “Roast,” Allie said.

  “Yum,” Martha Kathryn said. “I’m famished.”

  “Where’s Virgil?” I said.

  “Out in his shed,” Allie said. “Where else.”

  “What can I do to help you?” Martha Kathryn said.

  “Not a thing,” Allie said.

  “She said the same to me, Martha Kathryn,” Effie said. “Normally I do the cooking, but . . .”

  “I insisted,” Allie said, “and let’s hope we don’t all regret it.”

  “I’ll leave you folks to your carryings-on,” Effie said. “If you need anything, just holler, Miss Allie.” She turned to Martha Kathryn. “A sure enough pleasure.”

  “All mine,” Martha Kathryn said.

  Effie smiled and started away.

  “Everett,” she said, “you might oughta get yourself a ladder and a faster horse to keep up with this one.”

  Effie turned the corner and was gone.

  “How ’bout a drink?” Allie said as she moved to the hutch behind the dining table. “Wine, Kentucky whiskey, brandy.”

  “Whiskey,” Martha Kathryn said with a childish grin.

  “Everett?”

  “I’ll have the same.”

  Allie poured us a drink, and after we toasted I walked out back to find Virgil.

  “What are you doing out here, Virgil?”

  He was sitting on a tall stool at the far end of the shed, smoking a cigar. The smoke was drifting up into the light of a lamp hanging overhead.

  “Thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Doc Burris stopped by earlier.”

  “And?”

  “James McCormick was not shot.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was stabbed,” Virgil said.

  “Stabbed?”

  “Yep.”

  “Goddamn,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Ice pick, he figured, or the end tine of a pitchfork, or some other sharp instrument.”

  “What do you make of that?”

  “Don’t know.”

  I shook my head, thinking about it.

  “That ain’t all,” Virgil said.

  “What?”

  “Doc wasn’t real sure, but he thinks he also might have been poisoned.”

  “Might?”

  Virgil nodded.

  “What would make him sure?”

  “He said he was going to do some testing in the morning and he’d let us know.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “Yep.”

  44

  They drank some beer. That was the first order
of things. Once they got a good bellyful, the kid and the teamster wandered the streets on the north end of town. The kid had never seen so many whores in one place. They went from brothel to brothel. Some had dirt floors and some were fancy, with velvet furniture. A few places, the nicer, more elegant establishments—the ones west of First Street—tossed them out before they could get across the threshold.

  They were not looking for her, though. They were only seeing all there was to see. The teamster wanted the kid to get a good lay of the land.

  The kid did not think about coming face-to-face with her. Not here in this part of town. But it crossed his mind for sure. What if she was a whore? She could be, he thought. She very well could be. He laughed to himself. He figured he would have to be careful what woman he might spend his earnings on. Wouldn’t that be something, he thought, to bed down with his mother?

  But they were looking, not sampling. For the time being, they were on a reconnaissance mission. That is what the teamster called it. He said they were going about things under the looking-around rule and not the whoring rule of business. It was all a carnival to the kid, complete with Indian whores in the dirtier places and fancy painted women in the places with draperies and tablecloths and furniture. The kid was fascinated. He felt as though he’d entered another world. That he’d crossed a line into another place in time and there was no going back.

  * * *

  • • •

  They stopped at an open saloon. There were no walls or tent coverings. It was a board atop two barrels, where two wide-chested men served cheap beer in tin mugs. That was it.

  They got beers and sat on a bench. The kid rolled a cigarette and lit it. They watched and talked about the different characters passing by as they drank beer. The kid was feeling the alcohol. It made him feel warm and he was happy. But he was also edgy, blunt, and direct.

  “Hi,” he said to an older cowhand walking by.

  “Howdy,” the cowhand said as he passed, tipping his hat to the kid.

  The kid was feeling his oats. Even though he’d been in town only a short time. He felt like for some odd reason he was accepted here, and that was something he had not really experienced before.

  The kid shook his head.

  “Hell,” he said. “I might not even ever find her.”

  The teamster wiped the beer froth from his mouth with the back of his hand and eyed the kid.

  “Wasn’t that long ago,” the kid said, “that I never, ever even, thought about her. Never even knew about her.”

  “You might not,” the teamster said.

  “Good chance of it,” the kid said. “That I won’t find her. Not ever.”

  “Lot of goddamn people in this town,” the teamster said.

  The kid nodded.

  “Might not even be here,” the kid said.

  “Might not,” the teamster said.

  The kid smoked his cigarette as he thought.

  “You might not want to find her,” the teamster said. “You ever think about that?”

  “Yeah, I thought of that,” the kid said. “What if she is a goddamn whore?”

  The teamster shrugged.

  “Everybody has to do what they have to do,” he said.

  They drank their beer in silence for a minute. Then the kid belched loud.

  “You ever get to Mexico City?” the kid said.

  “No.”

  “Me neither,” the kid said. “Always wanted to. Been meaning to, but just never did. A long way down.”

  The teamster nodded.

  “This place is big enough for me,” he said.

  “Never seen nothing like it,” the kid said.

  “I’ll give you that,” the teamster said.

  “I like it,” the kid said.

  “This is just the north side,” the teamster said. “We’ll go south later, I’ll show you.”

  “What’s that way?”

  “You didn’t think this place was just this, did you? Whores and beer and whiskey and cards?”

  The kid laughed.

  “No. I reckon not.”

  “This up here on the north side is what I call the doing part of town. The south is the thinking part of town.”

  The teamster nodded, then took a pull of his beer.

  “I have a place there in the south where we can stay, good bedding,” the teamster said as he stood up. “But let’s right now find us a good game of chance. How about it?”

  That is what the teamster was looking for. That is what the rule of the moment called for. The kid stood.

  “How about it?” the kid said with a skip in his step.

  On the far reaches of town, they settled into a lively card parlor that had dice walls, faro tables, and bowling lanes. There were long pits out back where a boisterous crowd of miners, cowboys, and city workers gathered, throwing horseshoes. And everybody was drinking and most were drunk.

  Inside, they found an open game. They played five-card with some easy fellows who thought they were good players. But the teamster and the kid had a system and took them for all that they had.

  They went out and walked the streets some more. A few shadow teams of no-goods were hanging about here and there. The teamster and the kid came across three fellas who appeared rough and unsavory, fellas who might want to jump them, try to rob them.

  But walking with the teamster was like having a canon by his side, the kid thought. On his own, the kid had always needed to be cautious with the shadows and alleys he’d enter. But there were no worries with the teamster. The teamster made most men back up a little, if not a lot.

  The teamster and the kid were drunk. It was getting late by the time they got to the south section of town. They searched for a saloon, but the ones that were open refused to serve him. The kid knocked on the door of one closed saloon, and the man on the inside yelled at him to go away before he called the police and had him locked up.

  Then everything became a blur. The kid realized he was alone, that he’d lost the teamster. The last thing the kid remembered was the gnaw of hunger, and then eating something.

  Things now were spinning. Then he sat up. He was glad to see the teamster sleeping in the bunk next to him. But he was in a place he did not remember getting to. And now he needed to move. Quickly.

  He pushed out through a door and was in the street. He stumbled and fell off the edge of the boardwalk and lost what food and slosh he had in his gut. The food he’d eaten exploded out with a load of rancid beer. He heaved and heaved until there was nothing else to vomit. After some time on all fours, he rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes. Rising above a building across the street was the blurry image of something familiar. He lifted his head, focusing.

  It was the clock tower from his dream.

  He was sure of it.

  And it was midnight.

  45

  Allie’s dinner turned out to be better than good. Her roast was tender and cooked perfectly. After, Virgil, Allie, Martha Kathryn, and I enjoyed a lemon cake that Allie made. It, too, was good, even if it was chewy. We’d spent the evening around the dinner table talking about a little bit of everything. Including Allie’s interrogation into Martha Kathryn’s adventures. Martha Kathryn was happy to expound on her life and times and on her wayfaring. She described what life was like as an actress on the road, the training, the shows she had been in, and the actors she had worked with. It was only when Allie asked what Martha Kathryn’s early family life was like that Martha Kathryn felt the need to change the direction of the conversation. “Enough about me,” she said, and she turned the direction of the talk to Allie and her history. But that line of interrogation was also derailed. Allie insisted her story was boring and lacked the color and adventures of Martha Kathryn’s. That statement prompted Virgil to glance in my direction and smile.

 
For the most part, we had avoided a discussion about the death of James McCormick. Allie brought it up once, saying it was odd that a man of his age just dropped dead in the street. But Virgil shortened the notion of the conversation by suggesting it wasn’t an appropriate discussion to be having over such a delicious dinner.

  Later, the four of us sat in the living room, playing dominoes well past midnight. And after we were close to polishing off the Kentucky whiskey, Allie felt the need to reengage Virgil on the subject of James McCormick’s death. And though it was late, and Allie was feeling the effects of the Kentucky, she did her best to give the topic of James McCormick’s passing a sensitive and delicate approach.

  “It was nice to see Dr. Burris this afternoon,” Allie said.

  Virgil glanced at me.

  “It was,” Virgil said.

  Allie stayed focused on the dominoes.

  “Though brief as it was,” she said.

  Virgil nodded.

  “What was it he wanted?”

  “He didn’t want anything,” Virgil said.

  Allie thought a second, placed a domino, then smiled at Virgil.

  “Well, why was he here?”

  “Just a friendly visit.”

  “Not a business visit?”

  “Friendly with an inch of business, nothing else,” Virgil said.

  “What kind of inch of business?”

  “Legal business.”

  Allie smiled at Martha Kathryn.

  “Virgil’s stonewalling me.”

  Virgil hesitated before he spoke.

  “Not stonewalling you, Allie.”

  “Does Doc’s visit have to do with James McCormick?”

  Virgil studied the dominoes as if he didn’t hear her.

  “Virgil?”

  “I hear you, Allie.”

  “You can’t stonewall me forever, Virgil.”

  “Allie,” he said.

  “I don’t interfere with your business, Virgil,” she said. “You know that.”

  Virgil nodded.

  “That’s true,” he said, “you do not. For the most part.”

  “But this is different.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Oh, but it is.”