Young Jimmy Rainey turned out to have no stomach for liquor at all. He started vomiting almost as soon as he started drinking. Pete Spettle drank freely, but only looked darker and more depressed, whereas Ben Rainey enjoyed the liquor hugely and guzzled considerably more than his share.
In no time, it seemed, they had finished off the beer. Somehow the sun had slipped on down while no one was looking, and the afterglow was dying. Stars were already out, and the four of them were just sitting behind a livery stable, drunk, and no closer to the whores than they had been when they first came to town.
Newt decided it wouldn't do. He stood up and found that he didn't float off — though when he tried to walk he found it no simple matter to put his feet down one after the other. It irritated him a bit, for he had never experienced any trouble in walking before and felt a resentment against his feet for behaving so peculiarly.
Still, he could make progress, in some fashion, and he started boldly for the back stairs of the saloon.
"I'm gonna meet one, at least," he said. He kept walking, fearing that if he stopped the whole project might slide to a halt. The others picked themselves up and began to follow, Ben Rainey bringing the whiskey bottle. This was unnecessary, because it was empty.
Newt made the stairs with no trouble and clomped right on up them. He had not really meant to seize the lead, and his heart was in his throat. He felt delicately balanced, as if his stomach might be in his throat too, if he didn't proceed carefully.
The stairs had seemed long and steep from the bottom, but in a second he found himself standing at the top. The door was slightly ajar and he saw that someone was there. All he could see was a large shape.
Then, before he could speak, he saw a woman with almost no clothes on come out of a room behind the shape. The woman's legs were naked, a sight so startling that Newt couldn't believe he was seeing it.
"Who is it, Buf?" the girl with the naked legs asked.
"I guess the cat's got his tongue," the shape said in a husky voice. "He ain't introduced himself."
"I'm Newt," he said, feeling uncertain suddenly about the whole enterprise.
The other boys were just making their way up the stairs.
The shape — it was a woman, too — stepped half out the door and surveyed the group on the stairs. She was a large woman and she smelled rather like Pea Eye had after he came out of the barbershop. Newt saw to his astonishment that her legs were naked too.
"It's a troop of little fellers," she said to her companion in the hall. "They must have just let out school."
"They better get on in here while we ain't busy, then," her friend said. "That is, if they can afford it."
"Oh, we got money," Newt volunteered. "We come up with a herd and we just got paid."
"I didn't know cowboys come this young," the big woman said. "Show me the money."
Newt pulled out his gold piece and the woman leaned in the hall to look at it under the light.
"I take it all back," she said to her friend. "It's a bunch of rich cattlemen."
Newt noticed that she didn't give him back his gold piece, but he didn't feel he ought to say anything. Maybe it cost ten dollars just to get in the door of a place where women went naked.
The large woman held the door open and he went past her, taking care not to stumble, for his feet were feeling more and more untrustworthy. The other boys sidled in after him. They found themselves standing in a bare hall, being stared at by the two women.
"This is Mary and I'm Buf," the large woman said. Her ample bosom seemed to Newt to be about to burst out of the gown she wore. In the light it was clear that she was not very old herself — but she was large. The other girl, by comparison, seemed thin as a rail.
"This one's paid," Buf said, putting a hand casually on Newt's shoulder. "I hope you other fellows are as rich as he is, otherwise you're welcome to pile back down those stairs."
The Rainey boys immediately produced their money, but Pete Spettle held back. He put his hand in his pocket, but instead of bringing out his money he brought his hand out empty, and turned for the door without a word. They heard him clump back down the stairs.
"These two look like brothers," Buf said, quickly sizing up the Rainey boys.
"You take 'em, Buf," Mary said. "I'll take the one that come in first."
"Well, maybe you will and maybe you won't," Buf said. "I seen him first, I oughta have dibs."
Newt almost began to wish he had followed the example of Pete Spettle. It was a hot night, and close in the hall. He felt he might be sick. Also, from listening to the conversation he realized they were the two whores Dish had described. The big one was the Buffalo Heifer, and the other one was the one Dish said treated him nice. The Buffalo Heifer still had her large hand on his shoulder as she looked the group over. She had a black tooth right in front of her mouth. Her large body seemed to give off waves of heat, like a stove, and the toilet water she wore was so strong it made him queasy.
"We got the whole night to get through," Mary said. "We can't waste too much of it on these tadpoles." She took Ben Rainey's hand and quickly led him into a little room off the hall.
"Mary gets the fidgets if something ain't happening every minute," Buf said. "Come on, Newt."
Jimmy Rainey didn't like being left in the hall all by himself.
"Who do I do?" he asked plaintively.
"Just stand there like a post," Buf said. "Mary's quick, especially with tadpoles. She'll get you in a minute." Jimmy stood where he was, looking forlorn.
She led Newt into a small room with nothing much in it but an iron bedstead and a small washbasin on a tiny stand. A small unlit coal-oil lamp with no shade over the wick sat on a windowsill. The window was open and the rim of the prairie still red, as if a line of coals had been spread along it.
"Come far?" Buf asked in a husky voice.
"Yes, ma'am, from Texas," Newt said.
"Well, skin them pants off, Texas," she said, and to his astonishment, unbuttoned three buttons on the front of her gown and pitched it on the bed. She stood before him naked and, since he was too startled to move, reached down and unbuckled his pants.
"The problem with cowboys is all the time it takes to get their boots off," she confided, as she was unbuttoning his pants. "I don't get paid for watching cowboys wrestle with their dern boots, so I just leave the sheets off the bed. If they can't shuck 'em quick, they have to do it with them on."
Meanwhile she had unbuttoned his pants and reached for his peter, which, once it was freed, met her halfway at least. Newt couldn't get over how large she was — she would easily make two of him.
"I doubt you've had a chance to get much, but it won't hurt to check," she said.
She led him to the window and lit the coal-oil lamp. The movement of her large breasts threw strange shadows on the wall. To Newt's surprise she poured a little water on his peter. Then she lathered her hands with a bar of coarse soap and soaped him so vigorously that before he could stop himself he squirted right at her.
He was horrified, sure that what he had done was a dreadful breach of decorum, far worse than not being able to get his boots off quickly. Of course he had seen boys jerk at themselves, and he had done it plenty, but having a woman use soap and warm water on it brought matters to a head much quicker than was usual.
Buf merely chuckled, exposing her black tooth.
"I forgot you tadpoles are so randy you can't tolerate a soaping," she said, wiping him off on a piece of sacking.
She walked over to the bed and lay back on the cornshuck mattress, which crackled in protest. "Come on, try it," she said. "You might have another load yet."
"Should I take my boots off first?" Newt said, feeling hopelessly inexperienced and afraid of making another mistake.
"Naw, quick as you are, it ain't worth the effort," Buf said, scratching herself indelicately. "You got a pretty good one on, still."
He knelt between her thighs and she grasped him and tried to pull him in,
but he was too far away.
"Flop over here, you ain't gonna do no good down there at the foot of the bed," she said. "You spent ten dollars, you oughta at least try. Some girls would charge you ten just to soap you up, but Mary and me, we're fair."
Newt allowed himself to be directed and made entrance, but then to his embarrassment he slipped out. He tried to reinsert himself but couldn't find the spot. Buf's belly was huge and slippery. Newt got dizzy again and felt himself sliding off it. Again he had the sensation that he might fall off the earth, and he grasped her arms to stop himself.
The Buffalo Heifer was unperturbed by his wigglings.
"You'll have to come back next time you draw your wages," she said. "Pull up your pants and send in that other tadpole."
As Newt got off the bed, he remembered Lorena suddenly. This was what she had done during all those months at the Dry Bean, with any man who had drawn his wages. He felt a terrible regret that he hadn't had the ten dollars then. Though the Buffalo Heifer had not been unfriendly, he would far rather have had Lorena soap him up — though he knew he probably wouldn't have had the nerve to go in, if it had been Lorena.
"Is it just the two of you?" he asked, buttoning his pants. He had built up a certain curiosity about Mary, and despite all his embarrassments decided he might try to visit her if he ever got another ten.
"Me and Mary," Buf said. "I get the ones that like 'em fat, and she gets the one's that like 'em skinny. And if it's a feller who likes 'em either way it's just a matter of who ain't busy at the time."
She was still lying naked on the bed.
"I'll go get Jimmy," he said. When he opened the door, Jimmy was not more than a foot away. Probably he had been listening, which Newt resented, but in the dim hall Jimmy looked too sick to be mad at.
"Your turn," Newt said. Jimmy went in, and Newt clumped down the stairs and found Pete Spettle waiting at the bottom.
"Why'd you leave?" Newt asked.
"Told Ma I'd save my money," Pete said.
"I wish we had some more beer," Newt said. Though his experience with the Buffalo Heifer had been mostly embarrassing as it was happening, he did not feel disappointed. Only the fact that he was down to a quarter in cash kept him from going back in and trying his luck with Mary. For all the peculiarity of what was happening, it was powerfully interesting. The fact that it cost ten dollars hardly mattered to him, but it turned out that he was the only one who took that attitude. Ben Rainey came down the stairs just behind him, complaining about how overpriced the experience was.
"I doubt it took a minute, once she got me washed," he said.
Jimmy Rainey soon followed, and was totally silent about his own experience. He was not over his upset stomach and kept falling behind to vomit as they walked around town looking for Lippy.
"Hell, whores make a sight more than cowboys," Ben kept saying — it seemed to trouble him a good deal. "We don't make but thirty dollars a month and them two made thirty dollars off us in about three minutes. It would have been forty if Pete hadn't backed out."
To Newt such an argument seemed wide of the point. What the whores sold was unique. The fact that it exceeded top-hand wages didn't matter. He decided he would probably be as big a whore as Jake and Mr. Gus when he grew up and had money to spend.
They found Lippy by the sound of the accordion, which he had managed to purchase but had not exactly learned to play. He was sitting on the steps of the saloon with the big rack of elkhorns over it, trying to squeeze out "Buffalo Gal" to an audience of one mule skinner and Allen O'Brien. The Irishman was wincing at Lippy's fumbling efforts.
"He'll never get the hang of it," the mule skinner said. "It sounds like a dern mule whinnying."
"I just bought this accordion," Lippy said. "I'll learn to play it by the time we hit Montany."
"Yeah, and if them Sioux catch you you'll be squealing worse than that music box," the mule skinner said.
Allen O'Brien kindly bought the boys each a beer. Though it was well after dark, people were still milling in the streets of Ogallala. At one point they heard gunshots, but no one cared to go investigate.
One beer was sufficient to make Jimmy Rainey start vomiting all over again. As they were riding back to the herd, Newt felt a little sad — there was no telling when he would get the chance to visit another whorehouse.
He was riding along wishing he had another ten dollars when something spooked their horses — they never knew what, although Pete Spettle thought he might have glimpsed a panther. At any rate, Newt and Ben were thrown before they knew what was happening, and Pete and Jimmy were carried off into the darkness by their frightened mounts.
"What if it was Indians?" Ben suggested, when they picked themselves up.
It was bright moonlight and they could see no Indians, but both drew their pistols anyway, just in case, and crouched down together as they listened to the depressing sound of their horses running away.
There was nothing for it but for them to walk to camp on foot, their pistols ready — too ready, really, for Ben almost shot his brother when Jimmy finally came back to see about them.
"Where's Pete?" Newt asked, but Jimmy didn't know.
Jimmy's horse would ride double, but not triple, so Newt had to walk the last two miles, annoyed with himself for not having kept a grip on the reins. It was the second time he had been put afoot on the drive, and he was sure everyone would comment on it the next day.
But when he arrived, his horse was grazing with the rest of the remuda, and only Po Campo was awake to take notice. Po seemed to sleep little. Whenever anyone came in from a watch he was usually up, slicing beef or freshening his coffee. "Have you had a good walk?" he asked, offering Newt a piece of cold meat. Newt took it but discovered once he sat down that he was too tired to eat. He went to sleep with a hunk of beef still in his hand.
87
CLARA WAS UPSTAIRS when she saw the four riders. She had just cleaned her husband — the baby was downstairs with the girls. She happened to glance out a window and see them, but they were still far away, on the north side of the Platte. Any approaching rider was something to pay attention to in that country. In the first years the sight of any rider scared her and made her look to see where Bob was, or be sure a rifle was handy. Indians had been known to dress in white men's clothes to disarm unwary settlers, and there were plenty of white men in the Territory who were just as dangerous as Indians. If she was alone, the sight of any rider caused her a moment of terror.
But through the years they had been so lucky with visitors that Clara had gradually ceased to jump and take fright at the sight of a rider on the horizon. Their tragedies had come from weather and sickness, not attackers. But the habit of looking close had not left her, and she turned with a clean sheet in one hand and watched out her window as the horsemen dipped off the far slopes and disappeared behind the brush along the river.
Something about the riders struck her. Over the years she had acquired a good eye for horses, and also for horsemen. Something about the men coming from the north struck a key in her memory, but struck it so weakly that she only paused for a moment to wonder who it could be. She finished her task and then washed her face, for the dust was blowing and she had gotten gritty coming back from the lots. It was the kind of dust that seemed to sift through your clothes. She contemplated changing blouses, but if she did that, the next thing she knew she would be taking baths in the morning and changing clothes three times a day like a fine lady, and she didn't have that many clothes, or consider herself that fine. So she made do with a face wash and forgot about the riders. July and Cholo were both working the lots and would no doubt notice them too. Probably it was just a few Army men wanting to buy horses. Red Cloud was harrying them hard, and every week two or three Army men would show up wanting horses.
It was one of those who had brought July the news about his wife, although of course the soldier didn't know it was July's wife when he talked about finding the corpses of the woman and the buffalo h
unter. Clara had been washing clothes and hadn't heard the story, but when she went down to the lots a little later she knew something was wrong. July stood by the fence, white as a sheet.
"Are you sick?" she asked. Cholo had ridden off with the soldier to look at some stock.
"No, ma'am," he said, in a voice she could barely hear. At times, to her intense irritation, he called her "ma'am," usually when he was too upset to think.
"It's Ellie," he added. "That soldier said the Indians killed a woman and a buffalo hunter about sixty miles east of town. I have no doubt it was her. They were traveling that way."
"Come on up to the house," she said. He was almost too weak to walk and was worthless for several days, faint with grief over a woman who had done nothing but run away from him or abuse him almost from the day they married.
The girls were devoted to July by this time, and they nursed him constantly, bringing him bowls of soup and arguing with one another over the privilege of serving him. Clara let them, though she herself felt more irritated than not by the man's foolishness. The girls couldn't understand her attitude and said so.
"His wife got butchered up, Ma!" Betsey protested.
"I know that," Clara said.
"You look so stern," Sally said. "Don't you like July?"
"I like July a lot," Clara said.
"He thinks you're mad at him," Betsey said.
"Why would he care?" Clara said, with a little smile. "He's got the two of you to pamper him. You're both nicer than I've ever been."
"We want you to like him," Betsey said. She was the more direct of the two.
"I told you I like him," Clara said. "I know people ain't smart and often love those who don't care for them. Up to a point, I'm tolerant of that. Then past a point, I'm not tolerant of it. I think it's a sickness to grieve too much for those who never cared a fig for you."
Both of the girls were silent for a time.
"You remember that," Clara said. "Do your best, if you happen to love a fool. You'll have my sympathy. Some folks will preach that it's a woman's duty never to quit, once you make a bond with a man. I say that's folly. A bond has to work two ways. If a man don't hold up his end, there comes a time to quit."
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